Culture and Sustainability | Kailash A D | TEDxKsirs International School

Now before I start, let me tell you guys a story. Now back I used to visit a friend's house. He was like this trendy guy who has recently learned the word sustainability. One day I decided to go to his house for some work. There it was during summer so like the heat was literally irritating me. So I was asking my friend, hey could you please put on some curtains for me? And my friend's like oh the curtains have been already put on. I looked there but I only see some plants nearby. And I was like what do you mean you put some curtains on? All I see is just plants. And my friend is like oh you see those plants are like a shade which will like give some coolingness when like the heat gets too hot. So where did And like he told me that he just basically learns something from some other culture because he wants to be sustainable. And since like I used to learn the culture, that's when I realized oh he has been just using this center for like that sake of trend. So yeah to clarify some things, now let me talk like what sustainability is as to like clarify some things like. Sustainability is such that you can grow, improve and live comfortably while ensuring that you do not compromise the state of nature which you are currently in that. And back in the day some of the cultures are having like these old practices which we are thinking like oh it's too old I don't think like it's gonna applicable here anymore. But like when you observe closer that's when you realize that these practices are actually sustainable in nature. So like let me talk to you about some cultures which I have observed from mostly like five for now. So first let us start with the country we are here right now, India. So in here we have like the practice of like using pots. We have like used to make dams and stuff even though like it depends on like how you make it that is sustainable. We like used to like feed the birds outside which is like unfortunately we are not doing it anymore which I think is like the reason why some of the birds went extinct all of a sudden. And like we have some belief system which is like states that we must reuse like what we have used before aka we should not waste more time. So which is like technically just reduce, reuse, recycle in a nutshell. Those three words we are just learning right now but they have learned like way years ago. Now I want you guys to like take a share remember Columbus you guys all know who's Christopher Columbus is right. So like he went to some random island and thought that they were Indian that is India for some reason. So I am going to like talk about the inhabitants of the island who were accidentally mistaken for Indians, the Native Americans. Like there were a bunch of tribes which were like existing in that country but yet all of them have a common culture. Like if you see they have a contributed to the system we know now referred to as the three sister systems which is like just take three drops then like one would layer and all of them will live in like symbolic relationship. So in their case it's like corn, squash and beans. Like the beans would give nitrogen according to the principles of nitrogen fixation. The squash is like the ground protection of the soil and the maize is like like a steady protection against the wind and factors while also taking the nutrition studies to benefit from. So like they also use like waste minimum as like most in cultures. In their case like whatever they have hunted or used they use like most of the parts of it. They won't like red waste like teeny even tiny bit like how we like if we are eating something we'll just like if there's curry if we are like no we are not eating that thing. No they are not like that. They will like if they're using something let's say like an animal they will like use every part of it including the skins the bones and stuff. Then like if we had to like wonder why their concept is like it's like the principle like whatever we do now will like affect the generations after us which is something I feel like we're just forgetting very often like we do something but we realize like oh no we should have done this later now what happened right now and like now we all remember the Pearl Harbor wars right the war between the US and the Japans. Now we are not here to talk about the war okay guys we are here to talk about Japan's culture now. So like if you see the Japan Japanese guys are like they have like some practices now and some practices before also like if we see in a way their principle lies on the their aversion to waste and sorry for like massacring the thing or whatever so the principle states that there should be a limit to like what you consume and what you what we like produce the waste of which I think like it's a very big problem as you like see capitalism is like nowadays producing the consumerism principle which is like just have it have it have it even if you cannot take it anymore just keep on have it but like I feel like there should be a limit at some point where we should like stop you cannot just keep going on forever others like something bad will happen they they like share food with others like how we also do like whenever there's a festival we also share food like most of the people share food because as a way to like save the food around them like remember the green the plants around the window I talked about earlier that is called the green curtain which is like introduced there around like the year of 2007 which is like just the plants keeping on the window that thing so like now I want you to like imagine you are on a ship a very old ship though now I will tell you guys that you are in the mediterranean sea so the kind the land we are going to see next is Greece it's just like known for like olive trees and like the beer the tourism we have seen earlier I think even some of them will like not to their belief systems to receive books of Percy Jackson which is just released today okay so in Greeks they have like very interesting recently introduced this thing which is like eco-tourism which according is like in the nutshell is just a simple thing you can go explore their beaches and stuff and any monuments you wish as long as like you do not cause like any trouble to the environment like such as we can see like the gardens the beautiful architecture the beaches and stuff and like they have they have this one cuisine like you can have whatever is just available like in their cuisine suppose there's like only tomatoes and cheeses and stuff just eat whatever is like you have like just tomato and cheese just go like make something out of it and they also have like water management which I see is like a common recurring theme amongst every cultures and they are and also they obviously have like the resources of agriculture like as we see olive trees like in Greece are like a representative of a goddess Athena kind of thing so they will like plant olive trees and stuff in the name of like their beliefs and whatever so next we are going to the country which is near us and also it's also famous as equally as Japan in their case of technology China now if we see in case of China they are like these one guys who are like known to do things earlier like they also create the recompense and stuff like they have this practice called Feng Shui which in a nutshell is just like without looking at the map they are like check the wind water currents and stuff while making sure they it won't harm that they will build like structures and things it's like technically just like looking at your topo sheets and then deciding where to building these things and stuff that's Feng Shui in a nutshell they have like this courtyards which are like gardens which is where we actually kind of learn like how to like make your grow plants for the sake of the ornamental purposes like how we grow banyan trees, cherry blossoms and all those big trees just for the sake of ornamental purpose nothing more than this and then like we have like the tea culture which is like they have like bunch of beliefs in the case of how they drink the tea why they drink it and like how we are supposed to extract their plants and stuff which is a technically like they will make their own tea in a sustainable way like I could wish I could tell more of this and that stuff but like if I go telling on more and more then the speech will like take more and more time so like let me tell the common stuff which are there so far for now like for the common things we know that they have like water management and all stuff they have belief towards like how they maintain a sustainable lifestyle all of them try to like do the agriculture in their own way without like hurting the environment and lastly all of them had bunch of technologies a bunch of knowledge and a bunch of scientific stuff but they are trying to do this in their own way without like hurting things and stuff but like it's all sustainable no matter how we see it so here's the thing I want to tell you guys before I go do not ever think that sustainability is just a trending word and it's just a trend now so we'll just do whatever for the sake of trend which is just like in this case it's just you are just doing the snake for the trend and for consumerism which itself is like a contradiction to what sustainability actually means if you guys want to do any sustainable practices from the past I just want you guys to like do to the kind intent and with the entire enthusiasm that you wish thank you