That sinking feeling: Would we jump ship?
A few weeks ago, I received a photograph as a message from my partner — that of a water bottle filling station at a suburban railway station in Bombay (Mumbai to the uninitiated). ‘UF (ultrafiltration) Chilled Water’ the sign claimed, for as little as Rs. 2 for 300ml up to Rs. 20 for five litres. It seemed to be the simple and frugal solution that we need in our cities right now, in order to fight the single-use plastic menace. (The counter also seemed to sell packaged water though, but that was not the point). A few hours later that same day, a notification from the news app on my phone innocuously informed me: ‘Mumbai’s ecologically important salt pans may soon be opened up for real estate’. Suffice to say, the notification was responded to with sufficient outrage (inside my head, of course, and may be some of it shared via text messages with my partner).
It seemed disheartening and outrageous at the same time. I was silently lauding the city’s baby steps to tackle plastic pollution only to then consider the ecological impact of reclaiming salt pans. It was as if a multitude of parallel ecosystems were at play — some were trying to change things for the better whilst others sought to destroy what was struggling to survive. This probably is the case in most megacities, and the constant sustained actions of these ecosystems are indeed what maintain the status quo. A struggle brewing constantly under the surface that the city’s 20 million residents walk past each day as they hurriedly hope to make it on time to their window seat, meeting, next meal, or indeed their ‘good morning’ message on WhatsApp.
The media loosely refers to this as ‘the spirit of Bombay’; that spirit which expects its people to pack themselves into trains and buses the morning after a terrorist attack; that expects them to spend hours on the roads wading through knee-deep waters to get home safely as the city gives in to floods and yet get themselves to work on time the very next morning, and one that expects them to endure the dismal state of our roads only because there is an air-conditioned metro rail network over it. The spirit of the city is indeed in the smaller joys that it surprises you with each day — but that is a subject for another piece.
The question really was: how long will the city be able to endure it? The answer ominously came in the form of Climate Central’s latest report on the impact of rising sea levels (as a result of climate change) on coastal cities around the world. The impact was thus far grossly underestimated, it warned, and that a lot more damage was likely by 2050, than previously predicted. The feature, of course, was accompanied by graphical illustrations highlighting parts of the megapolis that are likely to be under water by 2050 (as compared to previous estimates). This should have been the canary in the coal mine. On the contrary, barely a few days of being published, the city moved on — gushing over a spanking new air-conditioned suburban train and the release of Housefull 4. In my frustration, I tried to bring this up with nearly every person I conversed with, only to receive the begrudging looks that one gives those wearing a tin-foil hat. The solitary reaction came from an auto-rickshaw driver who seemed to be well-read on the issues of climate change and its looming deadline. “Yeh shehar doob raha hai (this city is sinking)”, he said, adding prophetically that the longer we wait to do something about it, the more arduous it will be to achieve. “Don’t be so woke”, I muttered under my breath, in Barack Obama’s voice.
I couldn’t shake it off though. Could our mega cities actually go under? Could Bombay, in all its glory, actually go under? The thought gave me goosebumps. I felt the need to dig deeper in order to get a more nuanced perspective on the facts. But barely a few strikes later, a headline read: ‘The impossible fight to save Jakarta, the sinking megacity’. As efforts to save the city of nearly 30 million people become increasingly expensive and futile, Indonesia plans to build a new capital city in Borneo, another news story informed. Just this morning The Guardian reported that Fairbourne, a Welsh coastal village threatened by subsidence due to rising sea levels, will likely see itself being dismantled and all of its residents being moved out as flood defences will no longer be funded in 2045. This would, potentially, make them Britain’s first climate refugees. Until a few years ago, such stories could have only been the plot of a Hollywood disaster movie, starring The Rock. But our collective future seems nothing short of a disaster movie of epic proportions. “People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction. And all you can talk about is money and fairytales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!”, fumed Greta Thunberg not too long ago. The threat is very real and we could well be facing these scenarios in a few years’ time — even as our leaders want nothing more than for millennials to go back to consuming conspicuously and for GenZs to ‘not catastrophise’ our future because of their ‘eco-anxiety’.
The reports are clear — the city is very likely to be impacted by rising sea levels — and given its history of being reclaimed from the sea and long-term systematic efforts to compromise its natural habitats and mangroves, suggest that the risks may be closer than we would like them. This begs the uncomfortable yet all-important question: What would the city of Bombay and its nearly 20 million residents do if (when) faced with a similar challenge? Would we jump ship and nonchalantly build ourselves a new megacity? Or would we plan to act swiftly with foresight to save the city and its inimitable spirit? Will the multitude of parallel ecosystems presently pulling the city apart come together to save it or would we rather just maintain the status quo? Our dilly dallying between denial and chest-thumping is unlikely to keep us afloat.
