The Grey Lens: Ageing, Sustainability, and Climate in Our Shared Tomorrow
About this ebook
The Grey Lens brings ageing and sustainability into the same frame. Drawing on public-health research, climate science, policy analysis, and lived experience from India and across the world, the book examines how rising temperatures, air pollution, and environmental stressors disproportionately affect older adults, also highlighting the often-overlooked role of elders as custodians of ecological knowledge, restraint, and resilience.
Structured across themes of vulnerability, exposure, systems readiness, and stewardship, the book moves beyond crisis narratives to ask deeper questions about justice, responsibility, and intergenerational ethics. It argues that climate resilience cannot be achieved without addressing the realities of ageing, and that policies for older persons must now engage directly with environmental risk.
Written for informed citizens, practitioners, and policymakers, The Grey Lens offers a grounded, evidence-based perspective on what it means to grow old in a warming world and why protecting the dignity of older adults is inseparable from protecting the planet itself.
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About the author
Arvindd Narayanan is a development professional with close to three decades of experience in designing and implementing large-scale government, donor-funded, and corporate social responsibility programmes across India and international contexts.
Over the course of his career, Arvindd has worked closely with government departments, corporate houses, non-profits, and international development agencies including U N I C E F, U N H C R, and U N E S C O.
A significant part of Arvindd’s work has focused on ageing and geriatric care. He has been actively involved in the design, training, and certification of elderly care workers and played a key role in developing a structured curriculum for geriatric aides aimed at training underprivileged youth.
Arvindd holds a degree in applied psychology (honours) and an M B A from the International Management Institute, New Delhi. He is also a musician and continues to explore the integration of music therapy within geriatric care practice.
Ambika Shankar is the founder and C E O of A Writing Venture, an integrated content development firm, and has over two decades of writing, editing, and publishing experience.
Ambika is also the state president (Delhi) of the Content Development and Communications Council of the Women’s Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (W I C C I); serves as the chair of the advisory board of Anant Valley Public School (a school focused on providing affordable, quality education to children from migrant and low-income families); and is Head, Content and Communications, at Pratyusha, a technology-driven company working at the grassroots level. She was among the top 30 women changemakers chosen by N I T I Aayog and Safe Job and one of Exchange4Media’s Content 40 Under 40.
Ambika holds a master’s and an MPhil in English literature from Annamalai University and is currently pursuing a diploma in music therapy. She is also a Carnatic classical vocalist and served as guest faculty at the National School of Drama, where she taught Carnatic classical vocal music.
