Till recently I used to think that smoking is by far the most irrational of all human habits. Why do millions of otherwise rational and intelligent people ignore overwhelming scientific evidence that smoking is injurious to health (causes lung cancer, makes you impotent, kills you…) keep puffing away nevertheless? My theory is that on the human timescale, the pernicious affects of smoking are far too remote to worry about before you actually get seriously ill, by which time it is too late. In other words, we humans cannot fathom a disaster till it is looming large in front of us. One can also say that smoking is simply a tough habit to kick, once you do get addicted (As Mark Twain claimed, “Giving up smoking is easy... I have done it hundreds of times”). I can say this from personal experience, having smoked off and on for several years before finally going cold turkey a couple of years ago.

Our addiction to fossil fuels is like that too. Massive energy consumption has become the bedrock of modern life, and it is fossilized carbon that supplies most of the energy needed to fuel our lives today. Just like in the case of tobacco, there is overwhelming scientific evidence (and nearly universal scientific consensus) that:

a)     Human activity has increased carbon concentration in the atmosphere to historically unprecedented levels; that

b)     Increased carbon concentration is directly responsible for global warming; and that

c)     Global warming if left unchecked can lead to apocalyptic events and devastate life on our planet, possibly in our own lifetimes

If you do not accept any or all of the above links to be true, we want you to participate in this community so that we can provide more facts to convince you. If you do accept the scientific consensus (and now we are in the realm of the same irrationality that afflicts smokers: we know that we are killing ourselves but we go ahead anyway), then we want you to participate in this community and DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.

Addiction to fossil fuels is hard to kick. Most modern appliances work on energy generated by burning one of the big three – Oil, Gas or Coal. Our lives have been irreversibly impacted by all the energy-guzzling inventions of the industrial revolution. We certainly cannot go back in time and start living like troglodytes. However, we can become smarter about how we source and consume energy, without having to make huge sacrifices. This community will promote the cause of energy conservation, but we will not be killjoys who scoff at every cracker that is burst to celebrate Guy Fawkes, nor will we be purists who fret about every cow that farts in the countryside. This community is for pragmatic, creative ideas to cut down and eventually eliminate fossil fuels from our lives, without becoming too pedantic about the whole thing.

We recognize that mass behavioral change will not occur for moral reasons alone, nor can we scare people into action. People act largely in their “perceived socio-economic self-interest”, which explains both free market economics (maximizing economic gain) & wikinomics (maximizing social gain), and everything else in between. We also recognize the power of social communities – when ordinary citizens act in a concerted fashion, they can move mountains. Building a zero-carbon economy is not just the burden for governments and big corporations to carry; it is also the responsibility of the public at large. Remember that almost two-thirds of global carbon emissions are accounted for by the household and transportation sectors. Intelligent and concerted action by us citizens can make a real difference. Let us not suffer the fate of the armchair intellectuals, who always know the right way but will not take a single step themselves.

This is a good time to act – ironically the global financial mess could well be a blessing in disguise for the planet. Building a Zero-Carbon economy is like killing three birds with one stone – providing a big stimulus to a global economy that is facing a long and painful recession, improving global security by reducing dependence on middle-eastern (and Russian, and Venezuelan…) oil & gas, AND saving the planet from the effects of global warming.

So take your pick for a good reason to act, and let’s get going!

Jitin is Vice President and Head of Infosys Technologies’ Financial Services business unit in Europe, based in London. Prior to this, he was the driving force behind Infosys’ expansion in EMEA as the company’s Head of Sales & Operations for the region. He and his team were responsible for setting up the company’s operations from ground up in several countries across EMEA, setting the stage for Infosys’ growth from zero to more than USD 1bn in the region is over the past 9 years or so. He has been based in the USA, UK, Nordics and Switzerland in the past.

Before joining Infosys, Jitin worked with Citibank in India. He has rich experience across multiple dimensions of the banking industry – FX trading, corporate banking, selling risk management solutions, leading BPR teams that were responsible for re-engineering the bank’s core systems and processes, and running back-office operations. He has a bachelor's degree in engineering and a master's in business administration.

Jitin is a “pragmatic environmentalist” who believes that issues such as climate change and bio-diversity are best tackled through practical, economically feasible measures initiated and managed by the citizenry rather than through large government-sponsored programs.