Are increased natural calamities due to climate change or bad karma?

Answer Podcast

Is the cause of increased natural calamities in today’s world is it climate change or is it bad karma answer in general whenever tragic things happen in the world it’s also lower simplification to attribute them to one particular cause and to one particular cause alone that’s even worse because life is complex and krishna himself says that the way karma moves he says in 4.17 how one action relates to another action that is complex so therefore to try to attribute anything to one particular cause is not easy it’s not it may well not be accurate also but now we can look at it from the scientific perspective as well as the philosophical perspective from the scientific perspective yes there is definitely some abundance that the climate has been changing that say the earth’s temperature has been increasing because of which the water temperature is increasing because of which cyclones occur more frequently and they get strength faster that’s what the mainstream scientific data says now climate change data is contested by some people they have some good arguments some bad arguments but overall the facts before us are that the earth’s temperature is increasing the facts before us are also that natural calamities such as hurricanes are coming greater and greater frequency for example in hurricane season in north america usually they expect around 12 hurricanes out of which two or three become storms of level five but in this year there already been nine storms out of which almost five to six have been of more than level three some of them in a level four and five also and most of the storms that are formed in the atlantic for example they just die out in the atlantic most don’t do a landfall in the mainstream north american continent but this year most of the storms have been hit by mainstream american continent and have caused considerable damage so we could say that certainly something is changing because of which these storms are coming now so whether the climate is changing or whether climate has been climate change is caused by human beings there may be some debate about that but there is little debate that human intervention has aggravated things when it comes to the balances the delicate balances on which nature operates so rather than getting into the point of specific looking for specific causal connections because the temperature rise is caused by human actions and the temperature rise is causing hurricanes you can look at generic principles when we see that we humans are meant to live in harmony with nature and the source of nature that is god when we don’t do that then that disharmonious conduct has some consequences so now how the specific consequences play out may not know so now that brings us to the point of bad karma generally when suffering sufferings come in people’s life the focus is on what we can do in that situation to rectify ourselves or to assist others rectify ourselves it is we who are suffering because of the result of bad karma and assist others if they are victimized by that by some unfortunate events happening in their lives karma as a principle is philosophically universally accepted in the vedic literature but as a as a practice the the attribution of wrongdoing attribution of bad things happening to wrongdoing in the past past bad karma is not that commonly done so for example in the mahabharata when abhanyu is killed we don’t see anyone attributing that death untimely death to abhanyu’s own past bad karma or to look at specific incidents of natural calamities when during maharaj pruthu’s reign there is acute shortage of food and the citizens are practically dying because of shortage of food they come to maharaj pruthu for help but maharaj pruthu doesn’t say oh you must have done bad karma because of which now you are getting the suffering no as a king he acts to rectify the situation and rectification of the situation can sometimes involve disciplining those disruptive elements who are causing that shortage or it can involve disciplining people themselves so that they do not do the kind of karma that will attract negative reactions in terms of causing shortages of food our focus should be on what is our dharma how can we offer relief to them and sometimes if knowledge of karma if knowledge of say the violent killing of animals the abortion of babies this can help people give up those wrong activities then that can be helpful but if instead that makes it appear makes us appear simply holier than thou makes us appearing uh condemning those who are already hurt that is distasteful it is ungentlemanly to hit somebody who is already on the ground so people who are distressed afflicted by natural calamities they are on the ground and we are not meant to kick them down further if we give even that appearance then we are being insensitive and it is we who need reviled for doing such a thing and so with a balanced attitude we can learn how best to present so the explanation with the primary focus not on explaining but on assisting so the the human cause of say a human induced cause of the stabilization of natural balances and the karmic cause of past bad karma these are not two separate causes they are causes that work in parallel so just like if a has committed a crime because of which that person is to be beaten up in the next life then b beats up a so b is beating up a and then a is past karma these are not two separate causes they are two separate factors within the same causal chain so past bad karma and present climatic upheavals are two distinct causes in the same climatic in the same