The Emperor Has No Clothes On

You know what truly fucking baffles me? This cottage industry of “panel discussions” – this ecosystem where four “experts” assemble, and with the gravity of oracles, parrot the most obvious, safe, and neutral fucking statements imaginable. It’s amazing, really, how much noise can be generated without producing a single functional idea. Like I didn’t fucking know that “financing nature is important”. They speak in polished, immaculate language – an eclectic dialect of “global frameworks”, “cross-sectoral synergies”, and “unlocking catalytic capital” – but the beauty is, the more they talk, the more you realise: yeh sab angrezi hai. A farrago of decorative vocabulary masquerading as value add.

And of course, someone eventually pipes up with the first counter-argument that is meant to silence all criticism – “But people need to network and meet each other!”. Ah yes, networking. The sacred fucking mainstay of every poorly designed event. As if without this group therapy session for professionals the world would lose its only functioning mechanism for human interaction. Why hold a panel at all? Just announce “tea outside” and skip the hour-long cacophony of recycled insights.

Then you have the next counter-argument – “Panels help create awareness!”. The only thing being created is humidity in the room. Everyone attending already knows exactly what the fucking problem is – biodiversity loss, climate stress, lack of capital, poor governance yada yada yada – and yet, somehow, we gather to hear the same diagnosis like it’s a goddamn open-mic for environmental déjà vu.

“Panels help bring investors and conservationists into the same room!”. F.U.C.K. Investors and conservationists?? Natural enemies forced into polite proximity. Investors want pipelines; conservationists want funding; neither trust each other, and yet we stage this illusion of harmony through shared acronyms. Maybe let’s try to be honest for once: if the entire point is just to bring people into the same room, let’s save everyone else the agony – lock the doors, lose the moderator, and let them talk to each other like fucking adults.

But no, the theatre, the charade, the show must go on. So we sit there, listening to people declare “we need to rethink valuation models for ecosystem services”, while nobody fucking proposes how. We hear “unlocking private capital”, but never about the uncomfortable truths that prevent it.

The solutions can’t be specific. Because specificity is dangerous. Specificity implies responsibility. Responsibility implies accountability. And accountability creates losers. And, well fuck, who wants to be a loser? Do you?

“We need more collaboration.”

“We must empower communities.”

“We have to think long-term.”

Yes, all true. We also fucking need oxygen and gravity. This is just a performance. To circle the same talking points like vultures over the desert of original thought.

The worst part? Everyone in that room knows it. There’s something almost archival about it, really. As if these panels aren’t meant to change anything, but to be recorded — to exist as evidence that we knew. That the diagnosis was clear. That the warnings were delivered in calm, reasonable tones. So that someday, looking back, no one can say the collapse came out of nowhere. A final prophecy of sorts before it all goes to shit.

Each attendee performing their role as scripted; nodding at platitudes, clapping at the end, collecting the brochure and leaving with the same understanding they entered with. Because the format was never designed for actual debate or problem-solving. No—it was designed for safe commentary, controlled messaging, and the warm glow of having “participated”.

The equivalent of a single PowerPoint slide that reads:

“We care about this topic, but not enough to do anything difficult.”

If this sounds like hostility to collaboration, that’s just convenient. What it actually is, is hostility to rituals that make inaction feel like insight.

But these panels are important for moving “the needle”, or so I’m told.

Everyone leaves satisfied because nothing was demanded. Nothing risked. Nothing named.

But we know, I know, you know.

Yeh sab angrezi hai.