What do we sacrifice in the service of convenience?
Earlier this year two of us wrote a report for a court appointed committee about the consequences of installing a new high voltage transmission line on the social, environmental and economic life of Goa and Goans.
It was a pretty straightforward report. We looked at a map of the proposed line and everything that was a 150 m distance from it. Also, we examined the areas outside of the protected wildlife reserve — the area that the campaign we were part of was fighting to support. The goal was to get the people making decisions to be fully cognisant of all the consequences of building this line.
We found there were temples, churches, a school, heritage sites and a few residential areas, loads of agricultural land, mangroves and river banks. In some areas the line was going to go alongside a river for a substantial distance. All of these areas would have to first be disrupted by a construction site, render plots of agricultural land unusable and be an eyesore that would likely be noisy source electromagnetic radiation.
The report was part of a large dossier submitted to the committee which contained evidence for how disastrous three proposed infrastructure projects would be for a protected national park. The court appointed committee deliberated in the favour of our campaign recommending that the three projects be scrapped or reconsidered. The transmission line, they recommended, should run through an area where there is an existing but defunct line.
I have no idea how much of a role our report played in the committee’s decision. When compared to how disruptive roads, railway lines and other infrastructure projects can be, the things we highlighted in our report isn’t much. All the same, I was struck by how little we consider the true consequences of the things we make in service of what we think is a more convenient life. (The kicker for the transmission line was that it wasn’t being built to serve more reliable electricity to the people of Goa — that requires the inconvenient work of fixing the faults of the existing network.)
The process of writing this report made me consider what convenience truly means. Two of its dictionary definitions are particularly relevant to modern life: i. something (an appliance or device) conducive to comfort or ease, ii. freedom from discomfort. Humans’ lives are surely easier and more comfortable than they used to be before we built civilisations. I for one live an extremely comfortable life but don’t feel at ease at all. I also find that the promise of comfort in the future makes it easier to bear an inconvenient present. Therein lies the rub.
