There is a sense of betrayal and shock among the Global community. President Trump true to expectations has pushed earth to the brink of doom by pulling out from the Paris climate accord.

Frustration and disappointment are understandable. Last time when we faced last big challenge to the environment i.e Ozone layer depletion in the late 80s and early 90s, it was collective action by Governments in banning CFCs, which stopped further damage to the Ozone layer. And good news it did stop damage to the Ozone layer.

So yes Ozone layer was saved, but was that really last big crisis related to the environment? Did we face that just one big black swan event on environment or we are in the state of continuous decline? Has global collective action made any impact on worsening climatic condition?

Whatever one thinks about climate change, the fact is that it is for real and we don’t need complex data/papers in scientific journals to feel the challenge of climate change. All we need to do is look around and see the damage as it happens for real. There is no need to sail and sense silent oceans, just look around the nearest water body and you can see it. Pause for a moment and think about birds, animals, insects that you used to see 15/20 years back and think about now! Birds have disappeared so does many plants and overall healthy ecosystem. The temperature in cities is on the upswing while rainfall has become very sporadic.

Hence the belief that Paris Climate accord will fix all the problems and by 2030 earth will be super fine again is flawed. This hypothesis is wrong at two levels.

One is on an individual basis. Question is “are we more sensitive to our environment as an individual? Are we driving less, consuming less electricity, using fewer electronics, not using plastics or creating less garbage? Forget about using less, the consumption of all these has jumped by 100% to 800% in the last few years. Even a company like Google, which claims to be champion of green actions, has pushed all its users in a habit of saving all junk data in never-ending Gmail storage boxes? Sensible consumption anyone?

For a moment, we assume that consumption as part of progress cant is stopped then what about affirmative actions? How many trees anyone has planted or know anyone in our social list who has planted a tree? Ok, not in the first degree of connecting than a second degree or third degree?

Hence to believe that Govt will save us from impending doom when all of us are busy pushing it to limit is nothing but the stupidity of first order or blindness or probably trait of our species as captured in this Matrix video.

The other problem with Paris climate fallacy is our sudden faith in Govt despite all empirical evidence of the exact opposite.  One need not to be a big historian to see that majority of big disruption / innovation which helped humans to move beyond a serious crisis, did not come from a some paper pusher bureaucrat but from private citizens who innovated and build next level of solutions be it medicine, electricity, transportation. Todays cutting edge innovation be it AI, driver less car, electric vehicles, drones etc – all are coming from private companies who are trying to solve multiple needs. Once everyone is clear that there is no magic bullet in form of Paris accord, which will miraculously save the earth in the year 2030, innovation will start and with adequate effort (capital + intelligence) we shall be able to solve it much better. Probably faster, better and cheaper!

Trump by his actions, has just pushed us closer to that solution!