Call to stop fossil fuel use must come with alternatives: Sadhguru

BAKU: Spiritual leader Sadhguru , who has long been pitching for saving the soil as a solution to deal with climate change, on the sidelines of UN climate talks (CO) here on Monday said just asking countries to turn away from fossil fuels without providing alternatives won’t work and “excessive talks” on not using them may be counter-productive.

Without naming US president-elect Donald Trump who used the phrase “drill, baby drill” during his election campaign in the context of allowing more and more extraction of fossil fuels during his presidentship, Sadhguru said it was a reaction to excessive green talks or carbon talks without actually providing workable alternatives to the world to maintain the standards of living the people have become used to.

“We are continuously talking about fossil fuels. It must happen. The shift is needed. But that’s not going to happen unless there are significant technological innovations . It’s not going to happen just because you wish. The world is not going to give up oil simply because you and I say it is not good. Substantive alternatives have to come. Where are those?” he told TOI in an interview. Sadhguru noted that though the world is talking about solar and wind and has made some progress, their contribution in meeting the global energy demand is still quite low. He also underlined the global pitch towards electric vehicles , but said such vehicles at the most spare the cities from air pollution but it won’t help people beyond urban centres.

“There are only two ways to put organic content back into the soil — animal waste and the green litter from the trees. If these two things are not on the farmland, there is no way to revive soil organic content and save soil,” said Sadhguru.