“Say that again,” said Stan Ackney, Dean of the Anthropology Department at Stanford University.
“Hadzabe,” said Dan Miller, the fast rising faculty in the department.
“So this is a tribe that has not been yet touched by civilization?”
“Civilization as we define it,” said Dan.
“Fair enough,” agreed Stan. He opinions on what constituted development and progress were quite aligned to those of Dan.
“And just what do you want to get access to them for?”
“To understand how they respond to some of the technologies and solutions that we use in the modern world”
“Seriously, why can’t you let them be? At least let some folks really get a life.” He said it only half in jest.
Dan Miller and his team of anthropology PhD students from the illustrious Stanford University were keen to know more about the Hadzabe tribe the moment they heard about it. This ethnic group in North Tanzania still live today in the same ways as man did in prehistoric times, before writing or agriculture or many other things we have always associated with humans appeared.
Climate experts come to know about an Amazon tribe that lives on exceptionally sustainable practices that everyone in that tribe had an exceptionally low carbon footprint, and some even negative carbon values.
A small group of researchers from the USA decides to learn more about the tribe. They live with the tribe for almost a year and both sets of people share knowledge – while the tribe teaches the researchers about their sustainable ways of life, the researchers share with the tribal folks how the rest of the world works and about the various devices and technologies we use.
After a year, the researchers go back to their university with a thorough knowledge of how to lead low carbon lives and in fact are successful in making their lives almost zero carbon.
The following year, they revisit the Amazon tribe again. To their amazement, the carbon footprint of the tribes was as much as what it was for a person from the USA. The tribal folk were using television, scooters, cars, phones and many were even using air conditioners.