Environmentalist Bittu Sahgal says that if he had his way, every meeting of every legislative assembly and the large corporation will have the words, ‘Remember Mithi River’ on the top. He was referring to the July 26, 2005 floods in Mumbai. “So that nobody would forget that 1,000 people died. It was an avoidable error. In 2005 it was the earliest warning that something is going wrong which is visible with the climate,” he said.

Speaking on the topic, “Creating a Future Ready Mumbai”, at an event organised by the Indian Merchants Chamber (IMC) here Thursday, Sahgal said, “I am glad I am speaking at the IMC because the work of environmental groups is done. What we were speaking about 30 years ago is reality and nobody needs to be convinced anymore. We know what is happening.

“We have put too much carbon in the air resulting in greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere... more than any of the island nations, Mumbai is at risk … which is happening slowly.” Temperatures are rising and rains are no longer predictable, he said.

“What is future-ready Mumbai?” he asked. It is not glass-lined or 60-storey buildings. America went that way but is now refashioning them. Sahgal, founder of Sanctuary Nature Foundation, said when he attends conferences across the world he is asked is to why we are following the same principles for building only 30% of infrastructure that we actually require and that too we are building in the wrong way.

For future-ready Mumbai, he said, the rainfall has to percolate into the ground; otherwise it will come into your home. Secondly, we have to understand the potential of climate for tomorrow. In Mumbai every tree that is being sacrificed for road widening, so that we can drive cars. These trees are the air conditioner for the city.

Illustrating with an example, he said, “If you touch your car under the hot sun you will have a blister on your hand, whereas the leaf of the tree is cool. That’s transpiration.

“These trees are our infrastructure. We must recognise what is infrastructure. If I want to build a road, I will not rip open the railway line and build a road because that too is infrastructure. But if we don’t save the avenues of trees that we have which are our infrastructure and we want to cut then down to go faster, at the end of the day we will not be able to cope with the damage.”  

Sahgal cited the example of landslides in Wayanad in Kerala this week, devastating 86,000 square metres of land and causing deaths of over 290 people, injuring several hundreds. He also mentioned as the Leh region where temperature touched 37 degree Celsius and flights could not take off or land due to thin air density. “There is no time left for argument... you no longer have luxury of fighting with each other. We are all in the same Titatic… we are all going to down …

“We are not fighting to save tigers, elephants, forests or squirrels. We are fighting for ourselves and our economy.  The pandemic was the direct result of illegal wildlife trade. The difficulty is that we are fighting for long-term economics, whereas the whole world for the last 80-90 years has been working for short-term economics. What we were worried about tomorrow is here today,” said Sahgal.

Quoting University of Cambridge economist Professor Partha Dasgupta and Professor Lord Nicholas Sterns of the London School of Economics, he said the cost of inaction today is going to be infinitely larger than the cost of action that you take today.