Heat pollution and Earthquakes – Why the world needs to have broader conversations about climate change

According to NASA website, “Global warming is the long-term heating of Earth’s surface observed since the pre-industrial period (between 1850 and 1900) due to human activities, primarily fossil fuel burning, which increases heat-trapping greenhouse gas levels in Earth’s atmosphere.”

NASA’s definition of global warming is misleading for a very specific reason. It is placing the primary responsibility of global warming on fossil fuel burning. While it is true that releasing trapped carbon in fossils back into the atmosphere has led to the greenhouse effect and increase in Earth’s surface temperature, global warming has to be understood from a much larger perspective.

From the smallest microorganisms to the blue whales, every living being generates and emits heat from its body. We consume food, break it down for providing us energy and release that energy as heat into our surroundings when we do our activities. In order to understand Earth’s surface temperature, we have to first select areas in all geographic locations, measure heat generated by every organism except humans in those areas and extrapolate the results to find out the total heat generated by all animals except humans over a specific period of time. There is a good reason to exclude humans from this exercise.

Except the animals that live in packs, all other animals try to keep distance from their own kind and from other animals except during breeding time. Being territorial about food is one reason and the other reason is, as population density increases, heat released from their bodies become amplified. Understanding body heat is easy. In a room cooled by A/c, the room will be moderately cold when there are more number of people and as more people leave the room the remaining people will start feeling colder. Also, greater population density results in faster spreading of diseases. Predator-prey relationships and diseases are two major ways how nature enforces population control on animals. So measuring the population of each animal and the amount of heat released from the body of each animal would give a good account of how much heat animals contribute towards Earth’s surface temperature. This is another reason why population control in nature is important because population control will ensure heat released from the body of animals will not significantly add to Earth’s surface temperature.

We have not only broken all laws of nature we have done lot more things that are mind boggling and incomprehensible. Earth is 70% water and 30% land of which 10-15% land is habitable. 8 billion and growing human population is jostling to live in this small percentage of land. Our perpetually increasing population density is amplifying all our body heat and to add to this, any disease could manifest into an epidemic and pandemic in no time. But it is not just our body heat that is contributing to Earth’s surface temperature. Every single creation of ours, from the smallest light bulbs to mobile phones to the largest aircrafts and rockets are burning fuel and generating heat. We are not just polluting Earth with heat generated from carbon emission, we are also creating heat from sound, light, breeding different types of cattle and poultry for our dietary needs and many more types of pollution and every type of pollution is generating copious amounts of heat all of which adds to Earth’s surface temperature. Simply put, the most significant and largest pollutant we are creating is heat.

To add to all of this, we are cutting down trees and destroying forests. Trees absorb harmful rays from the Sun and when they are gone, those harmful rays also end up heating Earth. So there are two ways in which Earth is getting heated now. Earth is getting bombarded by more harmful rays from the Sun and by the increase in Earth’s surface temperature and we are contributing significantly in both.

When we speak about climate change we have to take all of these into account. In our rich history, there is a great example of climate change if our population decreased suddenly and consequently, forest grows back. The Spanish Inquisition in the Americas in the 16th century eradicated 90% of the local population due to wars, famines and epidemics and forests grew back in the millions of hectares of human settlement areas. Research points to a global temperature drop in the 17th century which adversely affected Europe resulting in famine and epidemics and this is being correlated with what had happened in the Americas a century earlier.

All conversations about climate change largely revolve around carbon emission and the need for carbon neutrality. This is not just a very narrow way of looking at global warming but also a misleading one as well. Our exploding population and everything we are creating are all adding to global warming. Population control is no longer the solution. If human species has to survive, human depopulation is the only way. Most of us will have to die for some of us to survive. Otherwise, receding forests and increasing human population will increase Earth’s temperature to a point where Earth will become uninhabitable. But, long before it goes that bad, something else will happen. There is a natural disaster that will happen if Earth gets heated up like it is getting now – Earthquakes. Oceans when heated up will cause underwater earthquakes resulting in tsunami. There are ancient tribes that believe the world has been destroyed completely 3 times in the past and the 4th one is imminent which will be caused by cataclysmic earthquakes.

We need broader conversations about climate change caused by all the heat created by us and the consequences leading to global awareness programs with the clear message that Earth is already overloaded with us and can take no more of us. Without this, all conversations are useless.

Exposing human ignorance about nature

Came across this social media post about a leopard and a dog getting stuck inside a toilet and the leopard choosing to not feed on the dog. What is interesting is the comments of wildlife researchers who have opined that the leopard became sad because it got stuck inside the toilet and lost its freedom so it no longer had interest in feeding. The glaring flaw here is, if this was true all predator animals would have starved themselves to death in captivity. Predators hunt prey and feed on the fresh meat. Some predators like lions leave the leftover carcass and walk away. Some felines like leopards and jaguars carry the leftover carcass and hide it to feed later. The point here is, fresh blood and flesh when in contact with air develops strong stench after some time. The stench is at the spot where the prey is killed. Scavengers catch this stench and arrive to devour the leftover carcass. If the leopard had killed and consumed the dog inside the toilet it would have been stuck in the enclosed space with the stench of the carcass. This is the most likely reason why it did not attack the dog.

Here is another social media post which tries to compare and equate predator-prey relationships in nature with capitalist exploitation. Animals kill only for food. Also, no animal kills members of its own species. Only we kill our fellow beings for a thousand reasons (which is why we have words such as murder, assassination, etc) and only we kill animals without the need to consume them. Capitalism is a human construct intended for some among us to become wealthy and powerful and exploit the rest of us. There is no exploitation and greed in nature and there is no parallel to capitalism in nature.

Social media platforms are inundated with posts in which animal behavior is being interpreted from our perspective. Our emotional side becomes dominant when we analyze most of the incidents and situations in life. This is what has created what we call as human-wildlife conflict. Tempers rise and emotions become frenzied every time tigers and leopards attack us, elephants enter our area and cause destruction, wild boars destroy crops and dogs, snakes and jackals steal our poultry. Question is, are animals intentionally trying to harm us? This is where we need to think from their perspective and understand their situation. The fundamental need of animals is food and water. When there is enough food and water available, animals will reproduce and multiply. When food and water becomes scarce they will not reproduce and focus only on self sustenance. To be a dominant species in nature’s ecosystem, animals have to reproduce and maintain a sizeable population. Animals adapt to changes in nature’s ecosystem to survive which is why every animal’s diet consists of a range of different items. Many animals have become omnivores and consume both plants and meat because of this reason. The exploding human population has been forced to encroach into forests thereby destroying the habitat and food sources of wild animals. We have all grown up being taught and in the belief that wild animals will die if forests become extinct. We completely missed the factor of adaptability. To survive and to reproduce, wild animals are adapting to us which is why they are attacking us, our crops and our poultry. There are always degrees of risk involved in hunting in the wild. Prey animals can cause significant injuries to predators such as zebras breaking the jaws of lions by kicking with their hind legs during hunting chase. We, our crops and poultry are easy and risk free meals so wild animals are adapting more quickly to all this. Contrary to popular belief, population of many wild animals is going to increase in due course of time.

It is this ignorance of nature and the lack of understanding of the ability of animals to adapt that has prompted this minister from my home state (Kerala) to call for the culling of tigers to control their population. There is also discussion going on to control the population of wild elephants and monkeys. As long as food is available animals will continue to reproduce and they will counter any forceful reduction in their population through more reproduction. We still do not want to admit that it is the destruction of the habitat of wild animals because of our burgeoning population that is causing human-wildlife conflict. We have already created many types of imbalances in nature’s ecosystem, the most deadly one being burning fossils and releasing all the carbon trapped in them into the atmosphere. Human-wildlife conflict is creating another imbalance where some animals are going to adapt to us and the ones that cannot are going to become extinct. We have been tugging at nature’s sleeves and pushing it to the tipping point. A global natural catastrophe is becoming increasingly imminent. What we are doing is suicidal and we are going to achieve nothing but self destruction.

How Maslow’s hierarchy of needs can help us understand patriarchy

I was explaining Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to a good friend and that is when I realized how it can be used to understand patriarchy. We have come across patriarchy being interpreted and described in a variety of ways but we still do not have a good understanding of its evolutionary aspects. For those who are new to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, it is a simple illustration of our needs in life and has to be analyzed from bottom to top. There are new and hilarious versions of the model now, with internet and mobile battery being the most important of our needs.

Our needs in life begins with the most basic ones which is why they are at the foundation of this model. According to priority our physiological needs can be further subdivided into

Air and water
Food
Sleep

These are our most fundamental needs for survival.

Then comes shelter which offers us protection and that is when we step into reproduction.

I will go no further than what Morgan Freeman’s character Professor Norman says here in the stunning and eye opening movie Lucy. When the habitat of a living being is not conducive enough for life it will choose self preservation and when the habitat is conducive enough it will choose reproduction. It is an evolutionary fact in all animals that a major portion of their energy is meant for reproduction because for the survival of their species reproducing as many as they can is critical since nature controls population of all animals primarily through predator-prey relationships and diseases. So in difficult environment animals choose their own survival over reproduction because even if they reproduce their offspring will not be able to survive. This is evidently how Turtles and Crocodiles survived the asteroid strike that made dinosaurs extinct.

Reproduction leads to security in Safety needs because we need to protect our family. Then, to work and take care of our family, we need health and work to do. For the longest time in our evolution, being able to meet the physiological and safety needs led to directly to Esteem. Being physically stronger it was the men who went out, faced the dangers in nature and weathered the different climates to hunt for food and find wood to burn. So men who were able to meet all or most of the physiological and safety needs were recognized and respected within the families and community which lead to attaining higher social status and being considered as a community leader.

Love and belonging are not characteristics in nature, in fact what we get to see in animals during their courtship is different aspects of the process involved in mating and breeding. There is no place for love and belonging in the harsh and uncertain nature where life expectancy is very low. It was only after we became more intelligent beings we became civilized and started leading societal life did our emotional aspects evolve. In those times when we had to brave nature’s extremes there was only the need to work together to hunt, fish and cut wood. Friendship and camaraderie are products of our evolution into the societal life we live now. Life was all about survival so intimacy was not even known or required and the only form of love required was affection for the children when they were growing up.

Patriarchy is essentially men taking care of physiological and safety needs and expecting esteem in return from their families. Nothing exemplifies this better than a particular scene in the biopic Bhaag Milkha Bhaag of celebrated Indian athlete Milkha Singh. The young Milkha and his older married sister had managed to cross over into India from Pakistan during the bloody partition of India in 1947. They were in a refugee camp and his sister is shown in a makeshift tent cooking food when her husband arrives. There is no emotional reunion, he ignores Milkha and heads straight for the tent, enters, sees his wife and closes the entrance. This is how men were from the cave dwelling times. All the male testosterone and adrenaline rush from hunting and fishing and bringing home food and wood is further bolstered by the exhilaration of returning home alive. They had no time to understand women and their needs. Women were simply meant to satisfy them in whatever ways that made them happy and put them to sleep after a long day outside. This patriarchy is clearly visible in the epic Ramayan followed in India. Ram, the protagonist travels all the way from the north to southern tip of India and crosses over to Lanka in search of his wife who was kidnapped by the demon king of Lanka. After slaying the demon king and rescuing her, patriarchy overpowers his love for her and she is asked to walk through fire to prove her “purity” for him.

We have evolved in all aspects of life but we are still holding on to some remnants from our past, notably religion and patriarchy because their effectiveness in controlling us hasn’t waned. A lot hasn’t really changed from our ancient cave dwelling past, hunting first got replaced by agriculture, livestock and barter system and now there is the additional factor called money. We have created a new world that stands on the foundation of money and with money we can buy all the utilities and services we have created to meet our needs. There is a simple tradeoff though, there is a barter system between time and money now. We get more money in return for giving up more of our time. The ancient patriarchal mindset has simply shifted to earning more money, buying utilities and services with money and expecting esteem and stature in return.

Our patriarchal mindset is blinding us to the simple fact that what we build physically is a house and the house becomes our home only with love, togetherness, sense of belonging and emotional contentment. Ancient Indian texts have a very sensible classification of human lives. Till 23 years it is time for education, attaining knowledge and becoming wise of the world. Then from 24-48 it is family time. From 48-72 it is time to step out of the family and serve the community and after 72 renounce all earthly needs and attachments to make our death and journey to the afterlife easier. The hidden secret here is the population control aspect. By the time we become 48 our children have to be old enough to live on their own only then we can step into community service. So what we have is 24 years to raise our children with the right balance of physical and emotional health and contentment. Patriarchy and patriarchal mindset ignores these simple things which is why without emotional understanding and bonding we have lost the connection between our souls and are increasingly becoming individual isolated beings searching in the virtual world for what we have lost in the physical world.

Humanity’s fantasy world has been shattered by a virus

I had a very interesting conversation with a friend (who is going to read this) about whether COVID-19 virus is a zoonotic virus or a man made virus. There are many articles and videos that have been circulating on social media proposing to provide evidence that the virus was created in the virology lab at Wuhan, China. What my friend is worried about is, if these allegations turn out to be true, it means we have interfered in nature and tampered with the natural evolution of a microorganism. He wants strict regulations on biological testing similar to the ones imposed on nuclear and chemicals testing so that we do not end up engaging in a biological war with one another like the atom bombs in Japan and chemical warfare in Vietnam. My answer to him was in 2 parts. 1) Human interference in nature We started interfering in nature when we started cutting down trees to build our houses. We did not pause to wonder why animals are not doing the same. Rather, in our arrogance of having superior intelligence we looked down upon the supposed lower intelligence of animals. We never wondered from where did we get this ability which no other living being on the planet has. Nature will never give the intelligence and ability to any living being to destroy nature’s ecosystem. Nature is a closed ecosystem which means everything that is born or created within it will or has to return to it. Animals build nests using items available in nature which gets recycled by nature after use. When we die our bodies are recycled by nature. Fully knowing this, we created tar, concrete, plastic and a zillion other things nature cannot recycle and knowing that nature cannot recycle our waste, we keep forcing it on nature which nature has duly started returning to us during natural calamities. So we have come a long way to worry about human interference in nature now. 2) Tampering with the natural evolution of a microorganism My friend believes biological testing in labs is essential to understand about microorganisms so that we can build medicines and vaccines to protect us from them. First of all, every organism in nature is in continuous evolution. So there is no end to biological testing. Why are animals not doing the same? This is not about higher or lower levels of intelligence. Nature has a sophisticated and effective way of handling this situation. Immune system. Diseases are simply conflicts between organisms of higher and lower orders. All living beings when exposed to nature will constantly be under the attack of microorganisms. Immune system keeps learning about more microorganisms and becomes more robust in protecting us. So we do not need to test microorganisms in labs for our protection from them. The bigger problem with this is, not everyone will have good intentions. These genetically modified microorganisms could be stolen and released into nature. We will have no control over them once they are in nature and consequences could be catastrophic. We have found ways to splice genes in lab and now we are working towards repairing genes in human genetic structure that cause diseases. I am all for it because it can cure genetic diseases like diabetes permanently. But any lab experiments that can potentially involve nature has to be strictly forbidden. Even if COVID-19 is a man made virus and we let it out into nature, did it affect nature? No animal died because of it. 3 million humans and counting have died. Every time we go against nature, the consequences will come back to bite only us. Most importantly, it is inconsequential whether the virus is natural or man made because in either case it has broken the glass houses we have been living in for so long. This goes back to the conversation I had with another friend (who is also going to read this). Every aspect of human life has become untenable in nature. Our food habits have become extremely inorganic and unhealthy, our sleep cycle has vanished and our entire lifestyle is in disarray. We are no longer in communication with nature because of which our immune system gets to learn nothing and has literally become idle. One virus of moderate virulence has raised a question mark over the survival of our species itself. Diseases are one of the ways in which nature controls population of every living being. So death is inevitable. Greater the size of population higher the mortality rate and more number of reasons to die. If diseases don’t kills us, accidents, murders and so many other reasons are lurking. We do not even know if we will wake up from our sleep the next day. Common reasons for death during sleep – silent cardiac arrest, brain hemorrhage. But we are “existing” in a blissful fantasy world. We take housing loans and agree to pay EMIs every month for the next 20-30 years. In interviews, candidates are asked ” where do you find yourself in the next 5 years or what are your professional goals for the next 5 years”. Education is linked to profession which is linked to money which is linked to social status. Health has become irrelevant. We take insurance policies and swagger around in arrogance that when we fall sick, the policies will take care of us. Health is wealth has become wealth is health. We rush to hospitals where we get treated when we fall sick. Note : Hospitals are not places that ensure we do not fall sick. Doctors do not take us off tablets and tell us how to become healthy naturally. We no longer seem to remember that prevention is better than cure. Moreover what diseases are doctors and hospitals curing us from anyways? We are given medication that suppress diseases. There is still no cure available for even common cold. Google and see the classifications of headache. There is a type of headache called stress headache the cause of which medical community has no clue about. This is how little the medical community and doctors who treat us know about human anatomy. Medication for pain simply interrupt the signal to the brain that indicates pain so we stop feeling pain. This is called workaround in other professional jobs and cannot even be considered as treatment. Suppressing a disease and keeping it inside the body long enough can result in the genetic information of the disease getting encoded into our genetic structure. This is how genetic diseases are created and passed on to future generations, thereby making the entire species unhealthy. This is what has happened to us which animals with their lower intelligence avoids by identifying and abandoning/killing unhealthy offspring. Even more ironical are the facts about medication and vaccination. Diabetes is a genetic disease and medicines only help to keep it under control. Can pharmaceutical companies manufacture medicines and vaccines to repair our genetic structure? Human body is tuned to absorb vitamins from nature and food on its own. I have read about people in western countries who live on diet of vitamin tablets completely ignorant of the fact that human body is incapable of absorbing vitamins from tablets properly. I have heard of people suffering from Vitamin D deficiency in India which is literally unbelievable. I can understand this in the colder western countries where there is less sunlight but in a tropical country all it takes is soaking our body in sunlight for a while. We are all made to believe that medication will cure us and vaccines will protect us from diseases. In reality, medication and vaccines are top ups for our immune system, a miniscule external intervention which provides more information for the immune system to fight diseases and protect us. If our immune system is already weak, medicines and vaccines can never protect us on their own. These are the reasons why keeping ourselves healthy is so important for the survival of our species. We have no control over diseases and death. The healthcare system we have does nothing to protect us from diseases. All we can do is to stay healthy, maintain a good immune system and hope that it will protect us from diseases. We cannot run away from nature, live inside concrete buildings and hope to have a good immune system. People are being kept under lockdown now and are being told that staying at home will keep them safe from COVID-19 virus when the reality is governments are completely unprepared to handle a health crisis. Staying at home without enough physical activity and away from nature can drastically affect our immune system and make us vulnerable to other diseases. It is mind boggling that almost the entire human race has become so ignorant about themselves, about nature and have become so gullible to live in such an artificial world. There is a business evaluation model called PESTEL which evaluates uncertainties in the business environment such as political situations, economic conditions, etc to find the associated risks that can impact business prospects. The 2nd E in the model is for evaluating environmental factors which includes natural disasters and diseases. Very less importance is given to this as I came to understand from the experience of a local businessman. Even though some corporate companies do give importance to natural disasters, diseases are largely ignored. We saw how much companies have struggled after the COVID-19 pandemic broke out and it has taken a year for employees to get used to working from home. Just like fever is our immune system’s indicator that a foreign organism has entered our body, nature sends out signals when there are changes in its environment. Animals understand signs of natural disasters in advance and are able to protect themselves. We have lost that ability somewhere along our evolution. I do not know how useful is our higher intelligence if it does not even help us to survive in nature. I do not know if we are too late to break out of the glass houses we are living in and return to nature, but it is never too late to try.

Human destruction of nature – a historical and religious angle

I was on my regular morning walk yesterday looking to photograph anything interesting happening in nature when I suddenly heard a short whirring sound which sounded familiar. I looked around and saw a huge mounted electric transformer on the side. It was the deathly sound of a bird getting electrocuted. Because of overhead transmission cables and transformers kept in the open, house crows keep getting electrocuted all the time.

The crow that was with the one that died was in total shock and was making different kinds of sounds. Helplessly I stood there for a while wondering why do we create and construct things that we know will harm animals but do not care. So many different types of birds die every day because of our fishing nets alone. Why do we have scant respect for nature and animals?

When we look back at our history, we start from the point where we were afraid of everything we did not understand. We do not know when and why but we started worshipping natural elements like fire, rain, thunder and lightning and animals by creating Gods for them. The most probable reason is lack of scientific understanding of natural elements and the higher sensory abilities of animals. This is what became known as paganism. Though we started cultivation and raising livestock with time, in the name of worshipping all the Gods, we conserved and protected nature.

But pagan cultures developed deep flaws with time. To understand and relate to Gods, we started reducing Gods into human forms which resulted in idol worship. Emperors and Kings started calling themselves as Gods on Earth who could communicate with the Gods that were being worshipped. All of these eventually led to the evolution of monotheism, the concept of one God. Monotheism, introduced by Christianity became dominant with the advent of Islam and spread all over the world. As the world gradually moved away from pagan culture, it has had a significant impact on our perception of nature and wild animals.

Then, there is this critically important part in the Bible.

Genesis 1:26-28

26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion (7287) over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it (3533): and have dominion (7287) over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.

First of all, the first 5 days of creation as explained in the Bible does not have scientific merit. The Earth and everything we see about it has evolved over billions of years. Then, God says Let “us” make man in “our” image, after “our” likeness. So “God” apparently is made of blood, muscle and bone and looks just like us. Note the usage us and our. So it was not just one God. There were others who were equally powerful as the God and powerful enough to create us. This is a question mark over the concept of one God espoused by Christianity.

Then comes the most important part of giving us the control (dominion) over the planet and all other living beings. To have such control, we needed to possess far greater intelligence than all other living beings on Earth. We have to notice here that we have been given the ability to control only the living beings, not the ability to control nature and natural elements. This could be the reason why we cannot understand natural disasters in advance and cannot escape from them. To understand nature through animals may be the reason why we were given control over them. It may have been left to our interpretation and could be the decisive factor in determining the survival or extinction of our species. We cannot destroy nature and other living beings and survive on the planet. We were given intelligence so that we can understand this as we evolve. This is why by destroying nature and wild animals we are setting the premise for our own extinction.

While I do not intend to state that the Bible is the reason why we are destroying nature and killing off wild animals, the shift from pagan culture to monotheistic belief has definitely had it’s influence on how we see and treat nature. With the tremendous growth we have achieved in science and technology especially in the last few decades, we need to urgently start looking at nature through the lens of logic, commonsense and rationale and understand ancient texts from the scientific perspective.

COVID-19 has brought into focus the importance of business risks due to natural disasters and epidemics

Back in 2018, much before the pandemic began, a businessman I know told me one day that his company was taking up the franchise of Wrangler, the leading international apparel brand and he was setting up a showroom in my hometown. When people look for more choices & one brand doesn’t fit all, I asked him why had he chosen to invest in a single brand & not a multi brand store. He had no answer. What baffled me was when I asked him about his operational costs. Since it could take up to 3 years for a business venture to break even & become profitable I asked him how had he planned to meet his operational costs till he reached break even & if he had ensured he could raise enough money every month. All he could do was to roll his eyes at me. Clearly, he was expecting to make enough sales from the first month itself to meet the expenses. To top this, he had started a slew of footwear shops in shopping malls across the state. The pandemic was an unexpected event but the demonetization fiasco in 2016 had sunk the Indian economy & he had made all the investments in bleak market conditions.

Last week, he called me to tell me that Kontoor Brands India Private Limited, the owners of Wrangler and Lee brands is moving it’s business online and has sent a letter to all it’s franchisees to close their stores. What struck me immediately was, in the franchisee agreement he signed with Kontoor, the ownership of business risk in the case of a large scale disruption may not have been mentioned. Even in rare cases, when a clause for natural disasters such as earthquakes and floods are added, epidemics are never even thought about.

He has invested more than Rs. 1 crore ($135,256) till now and he hasn’t made any profits from the store yet. My home state was hit by devastating floods in consecutive years in 2018 and 2019 and before businesses could recover from them, the pandemic struck. Kontoor is unlikely to pay any compensation or make a very small compensation offer and would argue that loss of business from their own and franchise shops and growing number of customers online due to the pandemic is what has forced them to move their business completely online. His only recourse lies in proving in court that the business agreement he signed with Kontoor Brands is invalid as it is one sided and mentions only about conditions and risks for his company and nothing for Kontoor Brands which throws the validity of the agreement into question. The agreement was signed for a period of 5 years and the franchisees are deprived of the right to cancel the agreement for any reason but this restriction does not apply for Kontoor Brands. The agreement has been written under the assumption that in the 5 years, nothing can or will go wrong with Kontoor Brands. For example, what if, due to financial irregularities, Kontoor Brands goes bankrupt? Do the franchisees have to bear the risk of business issues Kontoor Brands face? Companies use the franchise model to extend the reach of their products into the market and thereby increase their sales and revenue, so if a franchisee store gets damaged by a natural disaster, will the company have or will take complete or partial ownership of the damages? None of these business risks have been mentioned in the agreement. If he had spoken to me before signing the agreement, he may not have signed it at all.

If this issue goes to court, only someone who is a lawyer and has worked as a legal advisor in the corporate sector can clearly argue for the franchisees. But the bigger quagmire is, if Kontoor Brands has to compensate every franchisee for the investments they made, it will go bankrupt. There has to be a middle path and franchisees are going to have to swallow half of their investment or even more as loss.

This is going to be a hard and bitter pill to swallow for all the businesses that ignored diseases and took nature for granted when signing business deals. Natural disasters and epidemics can strike us anytime and business fortunes fluctuate with each passing day. The COVID-19 pandemic has put these aspects into sharp focus. Business risks have to be clearly identified using the PESTEL (Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental, Legal) model and listed out clearly in the business agreements along with the ownership of each business risk. This is going to be the only way forward for companies to do business together amicably.