Data Comics #49 - A little more sustainable Singam

Earlier this month IPCC — Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published an in-depth report on climate change and how human activities have accelerated it. Also, it outlined a few possible climate futures based on the wide range of actions the world probably agrees to take in the coming decades to cut down emissions.

While the report doesn’t outline all possible earth-shattering events that might occur under each surface temperature, they seem they seem to believe it will definitely not be anything like a Vikraman movie. Out of these 5 possible scenarios, only the ones with low and very low carbon emissions seem to be sustainable in the long run. And both of these seem to heavily rely on cutting down emissions to a very large extent by 2030 and moving towards net-zero carbon emission around 2050.

Switching from the level of carbon we emit now to such lower levels is a drastic change like waking up at 5 o clock. It is possible but will we put in the effort to do it is the question. Another thing a sustainable future seems to rely on is moving towards net-zero emissions. Put simply, net-zero refers to the balance between the amount of greenhouse gas produced and the amount removed from the atmosphere. We reach net zero when the amount we add is no more than the amount taken away. So it is a way to offset the carbon that we are emitting. Just like how Simbu offsets his poor movies by not acting for few years. Again the technologies related to carbon capture are in very nascent stages and they can’t scale up to our current level of emissions.

Another way to naturally offset carbon is trees. You would think, okay then let’s just plant a few trees and continue living life as usual. Here is where it gets interesting. Let’s do some napkin math.

For people who are the fans of Singam movie franchise like me, you must remember the first face-off scene between Surya and Prakash Raj in the first part of the movie. If you don’t, here is the gist.

Couldn’t find this particular scene, but here is the Hindi dubbed version of the full movie on?youtube. Enjoy!

Prakash Raj gets conditional bail in a case filed against him. The Judge orders that PrakashRaj should go and sign every day for the next 15 days in a police station which is in Nallur, a small town near Tirunelveli. That happens to be Surya’s hometown and he is the inspector of that police station. But Prakash Raj lives in Chennai and he takes a very environmentally responsible decision of sending a proxy who lives in Thirunalveli to sign for him. Surya gets to know about this. Gets very angry and asks Prakash Raj to come himself and sign or else he will take strict action. When a local MLA questions that he is in Chennai and how do you expect to come and sign here in 3 hours, Surya advises taking the next flight from Chennai to Thirunelveli. And that’s the start of a face-off between Egoistic Surya and environment-friendly Prakash Raj.

Prakash Raj loses his cool. He doesn’t care about the environment anymore. Takes the next flight. Not alone but along with some 10–15 gang mates and manages to reach Thirunelveli airport. From there takes some 8 Tata sumo cars to reach the police station. There is a lengthy heated dialogue exchange between Surya and Prakash Raj, which ends with Surya warning him that he should come and sign properly the next 14 days too.

Aviation fuel is one of the major contributors to carbon emissions. According to this?Guardian?article, a short round from London to Edinburgh generates about 118 kgs of Carbon per passenger. The crow flying distance between London and Edinburgh is 534 Kms. The flying distance between Chennai and Thirunalveli is similar around 558 Kms. So this Round Journey also should account for 118 kgs of carbon emissions for a passenger. But Prakash Raj doesn’t come and go alone he comes with a bunch of at least 10 goons.

The distance between Nallur (Where the police station is situated ) to Thirunelveli airport is 68 km. Prakash Raj obviously takes a car from the airport. Sorry, not a car but 8 cars. Here is the per km CO2 emission chart for Indian passenger cars.

Singam 1 was released somewhere around the year 2010. We will take the average carbon emission around that point in time which is around 139gm/km.

So 8 Cars will emit around 1.12 kg of Carbon per km. As the total onwards and the backward journey will be 136Kms (68kms*2). Hence the journey between the airport to Nallur alone will emit around 152kgs of Carbon.

So Summing it up.

118Kgs of Carbon / Passenger * 10 Passengers (Flight Travel) + 152kgs for Car travel. = 1132 kgs of Carbon. So Surya’s anger to make Prakash Raj come all the way from Chennai to sign has cost this environment about 1.132 tonnes of carbon emissions.

According to this?literature, A typical tree can absorb around 21 kilograms of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year, however, this figure is only achieved when the tree is fully grown — saplings will absorb significantly less than this. Over a lifetime of 100 years, one tree could absorb around a tonne of CO2. So ideally it will take a tree 100 years to offset the amount of carbon created by Prakash Raj and his fellow goons in half a day. But we can’t wait till 100 years to offset something which happened because of Singam’s anger on a single day. Because Singam will likely keep making decisions that will continue to cost the environment. So it has to be offset then and there rather than wait for centuries.

Okay, let’s consider Surya is given a timescale of 1 year to offset the carbon emission created by this scenario. So ideally he will have to plant some 50 fully grown trees and wat for a year. But wait that only covers for one days’ visit by Prakash Raj. If he visits similarly for the next 14 days. Surya will have to plant at least 750 fully grown trees and nature it for a year to offset the carbon emission. Just to give you a sense of the effort involved, around 200 trees can be planted in an acre. So around 3.75 acres is needed to plant 750 trees. Which is around 375 cents. Let’s consider Nallur police station is built in 1 ground of land. Which is 5.5 cents. So Singam should actually plant and maintain around 68 police stations worth of trees for a year to offset his one single decision! Which is a big ask and mostly won’t be done.

We (Myself included) don’t even bother to think about the environmental consequences of our actions. Singam could have given a thought about it before asking Prakash Raj to come and sign. Prakash Raj could have thought about it before boarding a flight with 10 people or taking 8 cars. The judge could have thought about it before giving such a conditional bail. Also, Director Hari could have thought about it before making the same movie thrice or Rohit Shetty could have thought about it remaking it thrice more in Hindi, when the Hindi dubbed version of all the originals were already available on youtube for free.

This blog was originally written in the Data Comics publication.