Meera Jain Calls for Industry Leaders to Invest in a More Informed Future at ET Awards

Meera Jain, founder of Times Evoke, called on business leaders to allocate their resources toward projects that protect the planet. In her special address at the ET Awards for Corporate Excellence, she emphasized the need to address the growing loss of species caused by human activities.

"Our success depends on how we gather and disseminate information," she said. "Ironically, in the age of science and truth, we are veering towards an information avalanche of untruth, glorifying trivialities and stepping over the salient."

The impactful address, which came after an elaborate dance performance, began with Jain emphasizing the urgency of the challenges humanity is currently facing.
"Since 1750, human activities, from agriculture to industry, have released 1.8 trillion tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The surface temperature has increased by 1.47 degrees Celsius since the late 19th century. The earth is now warming at its fastest pace in 10,000 years," she noted.

We live in an era that should have been defined by reason and truth. This idealism is rooted in the work of pioneers like Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler, who, as Carl Sagan noted, demonstrated that even the vastness of the cosmos could be understood accurately if people were provided with truthful information.
However, that is not the reality we find ourselves in.

"Planetary science, which unites us in a shared consciousness and uplifts our view of life, is under-funded and poorly celebrated," she said. "The industry of destruction, a compendium of catastrophes, an assemblage of agonies, is lavishly supported, down to the last bomb. Instead of widening our worldview and deepening our empathy, most media shrinks these through the pursuit of petty politics and personal power games."

She explained that this issue is further compounded by the rise of technologies such as artificial intelligence.

"AI will further deepen this crisis. The tragedy won't just be of outsourcing human intelligence. It will be of eroding our planet and its rich eloquence of life. Intelligence blossoms when information meets judgement-what judgement about life can a mechanism which does not live have?" she said. "The pettiness of information has diminished the grandeur of our planetary existence."

While ecology and economics are interconnected, she pointed out that the latter has shifted from respecting nature to exploiting it, a change that is now negatively affecting the planet. She emphasized that this gap must be urgently addressed.

She left the captivated Indian business leaders with a powerful message: "As we face the Anthropocene, it is your responsibility, as industry leaders, to invest in a more informed future."