Desicritics Category: BizTech: Environment

Movie Review: The Happening

Aaman Lamba — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 09:52:27 EDT

The Happening is a concept in search of a storyline. It might very well have been a Sci Fi Channel special, tucked away among Sabertooths Attack! and Mansquito on the same channel that gave us the M. Night Shyamalan con job (The Buried Secret of M. Night Shyamalan) last time he had a movie coming out. This is tragic, because it succeeds in ways that would have been above average for a run of the mill B movie director, and yet is many notches below what we know M. Night is capable of.

All the same, the exegesis of the subprime crisis, post-9/11 revisionism, and a million ways to kill yourself combine to produce an intensely unsettling look at 21st century America. The director's reiteration of the unknowable nature of wonders is to be expected - the signs don't explain the happenings, as it were. It is this expectedness of the unexpected that is the problem with M. Night's recent films - it gives us a Brody-view of Kafka, rather than allowing us to experience the unknown for what it is. Dumbing down the material might be appropriate for the mainstream, but when popular culture is so much more challenging and complex, and so are the audiences - life imitating art, or vice versa - the creative artist must rise to the challenge and set ever greater imponderables in our path, not proffer the facile "there are forces at work beyond our understanding" thesis.

The shock value of the film plays on both usual disaster movie themes and classic American Paranoid styles. It becomes hard to distinguish between a neurological infection and fear of the stranger. Post the Green Revolution, it is not hard to imagine the plants might feel the same way, having had enough nitrogenous fertilizer for a decade.

The science teacher turned survivalist is beset by too many issues, rocky marriage notwithstanding. He doesn't get to go on a Resident Evil style rampage, the crisis peaking and tapering off. Life then inexplicably returns to normal, although the plant menace doesn't go away for good.

Neither will M. Night. Give him a year or so and he'll be back with another predictable tale of warnings ignored, dark events, and strange happenings.

In Traffic: Window With Many Views

Tanay Behera — Sun, 25 May 2008 14:00:13 EDT

The mini-bus comes to sudden stop and I along with few of my colleagues board the bus, which would ply to my destination about 5 kilometres from where I reside. The day has just started and it's 8:30 A.M. and the roads are already gridlocked.

Congested roadways mean we spend hell lot of hours in traffic. Some newspaper reporter or township planning consultant would equate the lost hours in traffic to the surpassing loss of fuel, not to mention environmental damage. In fact each one of us have read endless stories on these topics, the infrastructure problems, and the few resolutions floated by citizen forums to curb this menace, being well aware that governmental action takes years to mature.

I am not going to repeat those chronicles again. This is my personal view from what I have seen, most of the people who quetch about traffic issues are master preachers. This should be done, doing things in that way would make the traffic flow seamlessly but those are the very same people who break the traffic rules, take a left turn when the small hoarding right in front says, 'No Left'. The same set of people who profess that there is lot of pollution in the environment, are generally the ones who proudly own more than one fuel-guzzling vehicle and this is rigidly coupled with the environment contamination issues.

You know this, I know this and we all know this. So let's leave the chapter closed here.

What I like the most during my short long commute by bus is the colors, the multifariousness, the disparities that I see. The society, the changing dynamics of the economy, the emotions in action are the dominant players in this movie called 'The Race'.

Driving in city traffic does not involve a great deal of concentration because we are going through a route we have traversed before more than 10 times at least and our minds are sort of automated to the flurry of external factors. But is it as smooth as it sounds in my words here? Definitely, no.

Road rage and the sudden proliferation of irrational drivers are the prime traffic tremor creators. I feel that keeping aside the infrastructure shortcomings, most traffic jams aren't the result of an accident or a breakdown. The best place to show a child the dynamics of chain reaction is a busy traffic jam.

I guess you are laughing now, or saying that I have gone crazy but tell me the truth have you encountered the following or not.

A driver reacts to another driver, more out of ego, disrespect for others, and non-acceptance of one's own fault than anything else. Imagine you are fiddling with the music player in your car, and unknowingly you get close to the car in front. Damn, you hit the brakes, but it's a bit too late.

This small mistake can make a queue of vehicles for miles and one gets to hear the blaring sounds of horns from vehicles. Now if the two people involved in the minor mishap would have behaved with a small pinch of maturity, by bringing both the cars to the side from the main path and then got into an argument or verbal tussle, then the traffic would have coursed smoothly.

So too, a single erratic vehicle can trigger feedback effects that push the entire system into a state of stand stillness often denying passage for emergency passengers on the road such as a loaded cab plying to the airport or an ambulance transporting a patient to a specialized hospital in another corner of the city.

How can you be on the road and miss the ubiquitous auto rickshaws? Often known for charging more than the accepted rates, I can see from my bus, an auto rickshaw driver bargaining with a lady, with one hand bent down with the laptop bag and the other carrying the lunch box, rushing to her workplace.

'Madam, traffic jam, madam one and half.'

The lady finally agrees and the three-wheeled speed demon snakes its way through bumper-to-bumper traffic.

Suddenly my eyes catch a glimpse of some of the most adept multi-taskers and acrobats. True to the punchline of Hutch Telecom Services, which goes as 'Wherever you go our network follows', I find many people on bikes and on cars uttering, blabbing and talking on their mobile handsets, completely oblivious of the outside cacophony.

I also get to see the benign material side of India's growing economy. After more decades of socialist deprivation, when consumer goods were so limited, today I see the latest models in gadgets right from my bus window. Laptops with plug in data cards for connectivity to the internet even when in transit, Blackberries synced with office e-mail boxes pumping in messages, iPhones, iPods playing music are no longer scenes restricted to the western world. I see these panoramas amidst traffic.

Earlier seen only on weekends, now seven days a week is their new schedule. I am referring to eunuchs in their usual makeup and sari. Clapping their hands and tapping the closed windows of the cars/jeeps if they are closed asking for money is a usual sight. Those in bikes and auto rickshaws pass a one- or two-rupee coin to the eunuchs immediately to avoid being hassled. Today such coins have lost value in general and the eunuchs at times turn aggressive when the amount tendered to them is less than five rupees.

I see, a long 'Q' of cars with the stickers of various MNC firms on the rear glass, generally on one corner. A few small kids tap the rolled-up windows asking for a rupee, probably that would buy them a few peanuts or half a cup of tea.

Suddenly, a few bikes driven by handsome boys carrying their helmets, their stylish girlfriends as pillion riders, dressed in thin sweaters over tights, short boots, high heeled boots, scarves tied snappily around their necks zip-zap-zoom past my bus. Just then I lift my head to see, a new billboard, sporting the flamboyant Vijay Mallaya and it has a catchy punchline 'King of Good Times'.

Right next to the billboard stands a mother, bony thin who carries a child in a thick blanket wrapped around her waist. The matted hair of the child has a dull look and the mother stares at another lady sitting inside an air-conditioned car pampering her maybe 5-year-old kid with fresh fruits for breakfast.

You, I and everyone else feel good that India is in on a rapid economic transformation ride but for a few, life seems very much the same. The mother with her kid now shifts towards the new shopping arcade, hoping that someone would give her an amount that would feed her and her kid for the day. But no luck as the city's rich and nouveau either spent their money buying Parisian lingerie, Swarovski crystals, FCUK apparel, flat-screen TVs, Virgin mobiles, Calvin Klein jeans, DVD players, digi-cams, and more and more and more. Or they are just not bothered.

My mind has been wandering across these various boulevards, intermittently flipping through the pages of 'In Spite of the Gods', tapping the window pane of the bus, suddenly to realize that the vehicle has come to a stop and it's time for me to enter a classy office corridor.

Now this is an interesting news item I read recently as to how the Royal Thai Traffic Police trained 145 of its officers in basic midwifery. The reasons were to help newborn kids needing help when stuck in traffic with their parents and to assist pregnant ladies to deliver in traffic.

So next time onwards, don't crib when you are stuck in traffic. Keep your eyes open and I can assure you a wide kaleidoscope of human emotions, expressions and behavioral patterns to view.

Photo Essay: Sunfeast World 10K Run

Tanay Behera — Tue, 20 May 2008 01:15:50 EDT

For a moment forget the regular kvetching that one hears in various sources of news and media regarding Bangalore's woeful infrastructure issues. Keeping aside all these daily resentments, everyone rushed to the Kanteerva Stadium on a bright Sunday morning.

But what for? To be a part of the Sunfeast World 10K run, this is an international annual event, and was organized in India for the first time. The Sunfeast World 10K was touted as the richest 10K runs with total prize money of 150,000 USD up for grabs.

The event comprised of six races: World 10K Elite Men, World 10K Elite Women, Senior Citizens run (4 KM), Wheelchair event (4 KM), Open 10K Run and Majja Run (5.7 KM). Since the event was slotted between 6AM and 10:30AM, the city police authorities had made punctilious plans for minimal diversion of traffic during the four-hour marathon which saw active participation of around 20,000 people.

When I reached the spot around 7:30AM, preparations were in full swing for the Senior Citizens run which saw an impressive crowd of 700 plus participants. Most of senior citizens were aged above 60 but the energy and the exuberance that they displayed, quashed the roar of helicopters circling the stadium. Harmony, an NGO organized the senior citizens run. Each of the participants was given a T-shirt by Harmony and once they were dressed, there was a wave of uniformity at the starting point, very similar to a sight when children assemble in schools for morning prayer before classes commence. The highlight of this race was the high energy level of the senior citizens making them feel as if they were still in their teens. Jokes were cracked, few laughs were shared and there was an infectious air of camaraderie among these people who came not only from Bangalore but also from different parts of India.

Oprah Winfrey once said running is the greatest metaphor for life, because you get out of it what you put into it. This was the kind of perseverance exhibited by a group of steel-willed people. Braving the heat and the dust, the handicapped persons maneuvered their wheel chairs, reflecting the true spirit of participation.

Suddenly the action shifted to inside the stadium because the World 10K Elite Men/Women had entered the final stage. In a closely contested run, Zersenay Tadese of Eritrea bagged the 1,50,000 US Dollar Sunfeast World 10K title by completing the marathon in 27:51 seconds just three seconds ahead of his rival Moses Kipsiro of Uganda. The women’s section witnessed the rarest of rare photo finishes in any 10k run, with both Grace Momanyi of Kenya and Elevan Abeylegesse of Turkey, declared joint winners. The complete results can be seen here.

There was cut throat competition in the Open 10K run which had large groups of amateur runners, trying their level best to live up to their own expectations. Few ran, few jogged and rest others just walked in the spirit of sport.

Everyone was indeed up and running. It was a place where the east met the west while running.

The most delightful aspect was to see each one run irrespective of caste, creed, color, religion, sex, age, language, region, etc.

There was one single motive to be a part of the excitement and ebullience.

The Majja Run as the name signifies (majja means fun) merriment was the epicenter of frolic and liveliness. Though the distance to be covered for this particular race was only 5.7 kms, what separated this one from the others were the variety and the diversity. There were runners turning up in varied costumes with powerful messages, banners and placards.

Few celebrities like Dino Morea, Rahul Bose, Charu Sharma and Vijay Amritraj had the crowd screeching as they made their appearance for the Majja Run. Everything here resembled a mini-carnival and fancy dress competition. Girls with different attention-getting dresses very much like the Indianized version of IPL cheerleaders attire.

Someone even put on special clothes to appear princely, like the mighty Tipu Sultan.

The one that surpassed every other costume in terms of ingenuity and colorations was the Ravana attire. Participants were pulled in towards this individual dressed as Ravana to take a few snaps in the midst of the race.

There were lots of groups and voluntary associations such as Parikrma, Harmony and others who all came under one umbrella 'Bangalore Cares'. This aggroup participated in the race for a number of causes such as children welfare, greener and pollution free Bangalore, togetherness, etc.

How can an event of such extensive magnitude and variety happen without the support from corporate and business sponsors and advertisers? Well of course there were some sponsors from a wide spectrum. DHL was the logistics partner and it participated in big numbers, with few of the team members having flown from Mumbai. To name a few, Nike was the running partner, Kingfisher, the airline partner, Radio Mirchi as the radio partner, Manipal Cure and Care, as the medical and health partner, etc who passionately supported the cause and diversity of the World 10K experience. Steve Young, General Manager, Nike Inc., Asia Pacific Region, had flown in from Portland, U.S., to participate in the Sunfeast World 10K run. CNBC-TV18 was media partner and it brought the event live to millions of Indians on that day, to the television sets from 7AM onwards, along with a potpourri of other coverages and programmes related to this the event.

All in all, it was a well organized event with got an equally receptive reactions from all those who participated for this run. This race put Bangalore in the map of conducting with dynamism and zings a global marathon. More so, it was a testimony to the fact that multiple goals can be achieved through sports and citizen’s active participation and above all how sports are a social leveler.

In this huge ocean of human beings, I could see some human faces which pulled my attention like a magnet pulls pieces of iron. There was this elderly woman selling ground nuts who was a bit perplexed to see a sea of people just running, a very new site from what sees in her day to day life.

This man was also confused to see this sudden wave of sneaker lovers on an otherwise traffic struck road.

But one of the most satisfying moment in this entire event running with my camera was to capture this bubbly toddler, who had come with her dad and brother (if you can see, the young brother is just hidden from the father) to be a part of this race. She was giving poses which to me meant, 'Daddy isn’t allowing me to run or crawl this year, well next year I would be there to tip toe with other people'. That's a smart and emotionally charged expression, so I and my fellow Bangaloreans would wait for you, sunshine girl, till we meet again.

The rest of the pictures are in this album.

Book Review: The Global Food Economy by Tony Weis

C R Sridhar — Mon, 19 May 2008 08:28:57 EDT

The corporate images of the food economy are full of deceptive advertisements of a mythical cornucopia of contented animals waiting for their disposal as someone else’s meal. The other images, which reinforce the intrinsic ‘fun and plenty’ of the food economy, are of supermarkets catering to the affluent sections of society, with food products stacked in shelves procured from far off places.

Beneath the illusion of plenty, there are other contradictory images of starved babies with distended bellies in famine stricken Africa, coexisting obscenely with obese people from the developed world. Starved farmers in agriculturally dependent economies who eke out a miserable living out of cash crop economy offer a harsh contrast to the bon vivant life style of CEOs of Transnational Corporations.

Tony Weis, an Assistant Professor of Geography teaching at the University of Western Ontario- Canada, has written a book called The Global Food Economy, which is a searing indictment of Big Agri-businesses destroying small farmers and the delicate eco-systems devastated by modern capital-intensive modes of production. Going beyond the platitudes of corporate PR, the author ‘examines the human and the ecological cost of what we eat.’

At the heart of the problem, the author argues, lies the role of TNC agribusiness, especially the grain-livestock complex, in adopting industrial methods, which are inimical to the eco-systems and the condition of human beings in general.

Ecological footprint

The ecological footprint left by Industrial Agriculture is a negative one and exacts a mounting toxic burden. In the past the long-term viability of farms depended on a sensitive relationship with respect to the ecological limits of growing food. It was recognized that there must be functional diversity in crops, soil species, trees, animals and insects to maintain ecological balance and nutrient cycles. This was maintained in traditional farming methods by multi-cropping, rotational patterns, green manure, fallowing land, careful seed selection and the integration of small animal populations.

In contrast modern farming transformed by capitalism and industralisation represented ‘a movement toward the radical simplification of the natural ecological order in the number of species found in an area and the intricacy of their interconnections’. This was made possible by the development and rising use of synthetic fertilizers, agro-chemicals, enhanced seed varieties/genetically modified seeds, farm machinery, concentrated feedstuffs, animal antibiotics and hormones, and the expansion of irrigation systems, which allowed industrial techniques to override previous ecological constraints. Moreover, embedded in industrialized farming is the new dependence upon fossil fuel consumption in the twentieth century, not only on transportation costs involved in bringing the food from the place where it is grown to the plate of the consumer and the demands of the machinery used for agriculture instead of animals, but with the petroleum demands of proliferating synthetic fertilizers and agro-chemicals. With the price of oil reaching $120 per barrel (expecting to touch $200 per barrel) it is certain that food prices would shoot upwards.

Rejecting simplistic notions that the industrial transformation in agriculture has resulted in high yielding crops, which are also yield stable, the author points out the inconvenient truth that it leads to chronic toxicity. This is evident as crops grown in industrial monocultures are prone to pest infections- a threat that is suppressed by the use of pesticides leading to greater pest resistance to the pesticides and involving greater use of pesticides in a never-ending cycle. The excessive use of pesticides results in pesticide poisoning which afflicts nearly three million suffering every year leading to 2,50,000 deaths. The other problems that arise with mechanized tillage are that the soil is drained off its nutritive power. The quick fix in the form of technology is a mere illusion as more and more use of inputs serves to mask the problems while creating fresh ones, one of which is the increasing use of fresh water for agricultural purposes, which is becoming scarce and a flash point of conflict.

Hoof prints left by livestock

The increased meatification of diet offers fresh challenges to the eco-systems as the increased demand for consumption of meat products leads to large-scale supply from feedlots. There are also health problems associated with increased meat intake as it increases the risk of strokes and cardio-vascular diseases.

In the factory, the dense livestock population is the major consumer and polluter of water. It is calculated that in excess of 3000 litres of water go into producing a single kilogram of US beef while a factory farmed pig requires about 132 litres of water for drinking and flushing of its wastes. A typical slaughterhouse in US uses in a day the water used by 25000 people.

The faecal matter of the cattle and pigs creates problems of waste disposal, as it is a gigantic task to get rid of 1.4 billon tons of animal manure (US) without polluting the rivers and streams. Added to the problems of sink function, there are health hazards arising out of over crowding of poultry birds in production factories which exposes the public to the dangers of a virulent strain of H5N1 which is capable of mutating and jumping the species barrier to human beings. The WHO warning led to hundreds of millions of birds getting culled in China, Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia. The feeding of neural tissues, bone meal and blood from cattle carcass to essentially herbivorous cattle created the mad cow disease (BSE), which could transmit to humans when they eat the infected meat. Thus the hoof prints left by livestock production leaves an intolerable burden on eco-systems and public health.

An Uneven Playing field

The human cost of the food economy is a heavy burden disproportionately resting on developing countries- where overwhelmingly large sections of the rural people depend on agriculture for livelihood. TNC Agri-businesses, which are subsidised by rich developed countries (especially US) flood the world market with cheap grains/ cereals, driving the poor farmers of the developing world out of the market leading to destitution and poverty. They are driven to cities in search of jobs in Urban areas, where they constitute the under class found in Urban ghettos living in abject poverty and filth. Most of the poorer countries are still trapped in neo-colonial relationship with centers of Metropolitan capital as they increasingly depend on cash crops grown for export to the affluent people of the world and face the daunting prospect of not able to feed themselves out of their dwindling export earnings. The producing countries simply do not control the international price for their commodities- they take what they get. The export earnings are insufficient to buy finished goods from the developed countries and they face the dreary prospect of increasing the volume of export of cash crops without increasing the value, which is just not enough to pay for the imports.

The author’s book is a sane and compassionate plea to reorder the global food economy to serve human needs and not the diktat of corporate agriculture with its obsession of profit maximization. In the last chapter of his book called the future of farming, he passionately calls for moving agricultural systems off the chemical and fossil energy treadmill and towards lower-input, labour-centered intensification and more bio-diverse agriculture. That this vision is not that of a Luddite who wants to turn the clock back to a romantic past, is borne out by the fact that there is an urgent need for agro-science to be shaped by more scientific research for more humane ends like empowering the small farmer and not for mindlessly enriching the corporate coffers of the few.

For people of India, especially the middle class, who are enthralled by the IT service economy, it may be a wake up call to know that even today two-thirds of its one billion plus population still depend on agriculture as source of income. The author’s book, which pleads for a socially just, ecologically rational and humane food economy, should find a place in our bookshelf.

Eco Friendly Vehicles: A Case of Misplaced Emphasis?

Krips — Sun, 11 May 2008 14:07:45 EDT

In this year's budget, the Government reduced the excise duty on electric cars from 8 per cent to nil. Recently the Government repeated the same with 2 and 3 wheel electric vehicles. (Full article here) Why? Well, if one were to believe the advertisements, this is because the Government wants to promote these "eco friendly", "zero pollution" vehicles. Just open any electric vehicle manufacturer's website and you will see these words laced all over the site.

Well, that might be true if one were to compare electric vehicles with carbon dioxide emitting vehicles. However, I seem to have been bitten by the recent bug of measuring everything by its carbon footprint. Considering that most of the power produced in India is from hydro carbon fuels I fail to see how these vehicles are eco friendly. Just because you choose to be blind to the technology that brings the electricity right to your doorstep it does not cease to exist. Add to that the fact that we are an energy deficient nation, I fail to see the rationale in promoting electric vehicles.

I see a lot of similarities between ethanol blended fuel and these electric vehicles. Ethanol blended fuel was supposed to be environmentally friendly since it used natural component that could be regenerated. However, this has a hand in the spiraling food prices as food crops like corn were diverted to produce ethanol. Similarly agricultural land meant for food crops began to grow crops that were in demand to produce this "bio-fuel".

As and energy deficient nation and one that meets its electricity needs primarily through fossil fuels can we really afford to promote electric vehicles?

The Merits of Deforestation

yuvipanda — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 14:53:03 EDT

Deforestation is the act of ridding the earth of space-eating, moth ridden, water sucking, snake hosting pieces of wood otherwise known as trees. Besides different categories of venomous Snakes, they also host various life-threatening organisms such as the baboon, Tarzan, the squirrel and the red ferret. They were once found almost all over the world, but now, due to the untiring efforts of several large organizations dedicated to the preservation of humanity, the prevalence of these pieces of carbon is decreasing considerably.

Origins

Despite the FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) being created by certain unsavory personalities in the Scientific and Political circles along with the media, mankind is not the first to discover the art of deforestation. Dinosaurs raked out so much trees that any attempt to compare human deforestation to the deforestation done by the Dinosaurs would go completely die before it is born. And those big lumbering lumbering machines lived 65 million years ago, which is so long ago that a normal human brain (which is not exactly normal in terms of animal infrastructure) will fail to comprehend the analogies involved. While it is true that Dinosaurs are no longer alive today (or we would be writing essays about escaping from a T.Rex on a rampage), it was a comet that got them and not the trees. So, to everyone who opposes deforestation, saying that it will ultimately lead to the destruction of the human race, watch out for the comet!

Uses

Deforestation has a multitude of uses that are not being given enough publicity. For example, getting rid of the rainforests has considerably reduced Rain on the planet, which means we get way less rain – which is A Good Thing™, since kids can no longer cut school due to rain. Isn’t that a service to humanity itself? Or take the deforestation of the forests of Africa. If not for anything else, the near extinction of the damned man-eating Tigers and Elephants (which, while technically cannot eat a man, might try and choke on one. Or might just decide to bore him (him, mind you, not her) with its round pointy tusk of a tooth) solely by continued deforestation is an accomplishment in itself. I mean, who likes big yellow striped things which can rip your throat apart on the same planet as themselves? We could have transported them off to Jupiter or somewhere, but deforestation is generally quicker, cheaper and doesn’t cause high noise pollution (We hate pollution, don’t we?) & ugly white streaks on the sky caused by some of the cheaper rockets (the costlier variety just bursts off even without having to take off from the soda bottle). And the Indonesian forests. The deforestation there killed enough monkeys to make sure that man will never evolve from them again, making sure that us Homo Sapiens have a monopoly as the most intelligent species on the planet, barring species you can’t count because they don’t exist. How cool is that?

Deforestation makes Money

Also, Deforestation makes money. Nobody seems to make a huge fuss of this, so here’s the logical, irrefutable proof: 1. Afforestation is planting Trees. 2. Planting trees involves buying them first, which costs money (i.e. Money goes out, which is A Bad Thing™) 3. Deforestation is the opposite of Afforestation 4. So, by definition of opposite, Deforestation makes money come-in, which is A Good Thing™ This is in addition to the non-obvious, non-trivial, non-common knowledge ways in which deforestation makes money, via the Lumber industry, the Agriculture Industry, the Hack-Saw making Industry, and ofcourse the Advertisement industry when they run ads against Deforestation.

Conspiracy

The whole Deforestation-is-bad-Afforestation-is-Good saga is a conspiracy theory run at the core by the Governments of India, US, Mauritius, Malaysia, Australia, The Vatican and of course Santa Claus. They are all backed by the huge Afforestation industry, which makes a whole lot of money by plucking plants from where they were sown and putting them down in places which they have not seen in their lifetime. This could only be bad for the plants (they were taken away from their home and planted in a dark, dangerous forest-like place along with a lot of plants they have never talked with before), and for us (hey, it’s our money!). Also, it is believed that Santa Claus is the main mastermind behind this conspiracy (ever noticed the fact he loves Pine Trees so much?) It is also believed that Santa Claus is actually a holographic representation of the Santa on Earth (note the red clothing on both. The black just translates to white on holographic terms). This conspiracy has to be true: I read it on the internet!

Conclusion

So, no matter what everyone else says, Deforestation is good for us. Believe me, despite this poorly constructed essay. If you don’t, you are wrong, because I am right and if you do not believe me, you are wrong. Got it?

Recycling Ships

Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 11:40:55 EDT

Ships are living creatures. Ask any sailor and he will agree and he will further say that ships are feminine. That combination of steel, paint, oil, blood, sweat, tears, sand, sea, wind and waves can be nothing but feminine. But unlike ladies, when ships reach the end of their lives, they are treated rather brutally. They are driven up dirty, oily beaches, and then are ripped apart unceremoniously till the only sign that a living breathing ship ever existed would be some oil stained patches of sand and a heap of unidentifiable steel pieces. The process of recycling a ship in the countries such as India, Bangladesh, China etc. has been highlighted in the western media. For us poor innocents who saw those videos and photographs that entire process looks horrifyingly like the personification of Dante’s hell. So I went poking around.

First of all, do you think I am exaggerating? I am not. Here, take a look at some of these links on this ship breaking industry.

Ship breaking in Chittagong, Bangladesh.
The science behind the complaints
Two photo essays here and here.
A video essay here.

See what I mean by Dante’s hell? Naked feet treading over hot oily sand, breathing in noxious fumes, no safety equipment, clearly devastated ships, fires and sparks around the place, dark eyes and mud, earnings in the bottom layers and garbage pickers. It is indeed a hell on earth. But, according to some estimates, there are more than a million people across the world directly engaged in ship breaking. Almost 200,000 in Bangladesh itself.

And for very poor people in poor countries such as India, China, Bangladesh, Pakistan, etc., the fact that they have employment is important. It will make the difference between starvation and existing. But this thought seems to have passed people by. When people get shocked at the sight, think about why ships are not being broken up in the USA, UK, Japan, Greece or the shores of Italy? Well, we in the west have put in so many rules, regulations, laws, notifications and ordinances that recycling equipment is simply not cost effective to break up ships here especially when you have lower cost locations available. You have to wear special shoes, wear a gas mask, worry about decontamination of the ground and so on and so forth. And if you lose your job, you will always have a welfare cheque or you can move to another job.

But there are no such human health and safety or environmental requirements in Alang in Gujarat in India or in Chittagong in Bangladesh. And still people are glad to have those jobs. If you put in those requirements for gas masks and decontamination in Chittagong, then you know what will happen? The ships will go to Sierra Leone to be broken up. The 200,000 people in Bangladesh will starve because as you know, jobs or welfare cheques are not really that readily available there. So while you blanch at the nightmarish conditions, do look at the smiles on the faces as well, they are doing honest jobs which the west has made it uneconomic to do in their own lands. But here is the Greenpeace site, quite an interesting site to read. The judgement call to judge employment versus environment protection is very difficult to read and make. Not an easy one at all.

There is an international convention which bars the transfer of hazardous waste between countries. The full name is, Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal. Quite a mouthful, eh? It was setup in 1992 and almost 170 countries have signed up to this declaration but it does not seem to be stopping the trade very much. An example of a successful usage of this convention to stop a dirty ship from landing on the shores of Pakistan or India was the case of the scrapping of the French aircraft carrier Clemenceau in 2006.

After a huge global protest campaign by Greenpeace who protested against the French violating the Basel Convention, the French decided not to send the ship to India to be broken up and the poor ship is currently tied up at the Naval port of Brest, gently rusting away. Quite a big victory, eh? It would have been if at exactly the same time, several other ships loaded with asbestos would not have been in the process of being broken up in Alang, India. And if no more French ships loaded with asbestos had landed in India. Or if Greenpeace had continued to campaign to make sure no more asbestos laden ships landed in Alang. But life goes on. An indication of the importance of this subject to Greenpeace can be seen at their main site for ship breaking. Notice the last date of update? It is early 2006. I suppose the camera’s and reporters have gone away but the labourers who are breaking the ships are still there.

The other main reason for scrapping in these countries is that they provide good quality steel at rock bottom prices. Bangladesh is notoriously lacking in raw commodity materials and by some estimates, this ship breaking industry provides up to 90% of the iron and steel usage in the country. Similarly, other countries utilise scrap steel in their domestic iron and steel industry. Have you sent the prices of steel recently? They have gone up through the roof. The Global Carbon Steel Composite Index has gone from 138.3 in February 2006 to 217 in March 2008. So for the poor countries that have to purchase steel, it makes more sense for them to get it in this way.

The European Union and the International Maritime Organisation seem to be working up the courage to implement a convention on doing pre-cleaning of the hazardous materials on the ships before they end up on the breakers beach and ship breaking in general. These hazardous materials are really bad, such as asbestos, dioxins, oil, chemicals, you name it. Now this is a very tricky area. And will be very difficult to implement. Who pays for the clean-up? Does the last owner of the ship pay for it? Does the owner of the last cargo on that ship pay for it? Who will enforce the ruling? Do you enforce the ruling where the ship has been tied up at the last port of call? Or where the ship has been registered? (Can you imagine a country like Liberia or Sierra Leone taking action?).

Or do you make sure that every cargo owner pays some element of the cargo fees aside for eventual cleanup? And if the fees are not paid, then where is the money to clean up going to come from? General taxation? Which general taxation? Do you wish this to be paid out of EU funds? Or national funds? If so, why would say Luxembourg have to pay for clean up of ships while it is totally landlocked? Who will enforce it? Do you change the penalties by size of the ship or by the cargo capacity of the ship? There are quite a lot of questions to be answered, but seems like some form of a convention will emerge and very slowly, with loads of holes and exclusions, take shape. Then countries will sign up slowly, the industry will shift its patterns, and over many decades or so, get to a stage where a global standard has been agreed, implemented, operationalised and policed. Long way to go yet. If you think I am joking, head over to the International Labour Organisation website and see the conventions they have written, the number of parties who have signed up and then look around to see if that has made much of a difference, these things take time.

I love ships, I adore their shapes and I love their behaviour. They are definitely human to me and could be the inner sailor in me speaking. They are definitely contrary, need to be handled very gently and carefully and very expensive to run. So much so that Admiral Chester Nimitz said, "A ship is always referred to as 'she' because it costs so much to keep one in paint and powder." Ships talk and murmur. Seriously, they do. Listen to them and you can listen to them talking, murmuring, creaking, screeching and whining. Not on those cruise ships, they are not ships, they are gaudy ornaments, sound proofed and carpeted all over. But a warship, a tanker, a container ship, a cargo vessel, serious vessels, who treat the sea warily and with respect, they talk to you.

Docks talk about ships taking birth in yards, joy you feel when the ship hits the water in the rush. It is very much like a human birth. Signing of the contract, the bringing together of men, materials and money in a womb like yard and the final birth as the ship rushes down and splashes into the water to be finally born. When a ship sinks and dies, it cries. Submariners who have torpedoed ships frequently talk about the sadness they feel when the ship dies. They talk about the haunting ship’s death groans when they hear the crumpling of the ships hull as it sinks down to the ocean depths.

But perhaps that is indeed the right grave for ships, the ocean depths. To be driven up a beach and then stripped naked, all the hull and steel cut away with flame torches, all the furniture and fittings unscrewed and unbolted, the oil drained away, till nothing is left but a patch of oil stained sand is somehow very distressing. But perhaps the fact that in the ship’s death, she has given back something to the humans who built and rode her while she was alive, makes the manner of her death worthwhile.

All this to be taken with a grain of salt!

Technorati Tags: India,Bangladesh,Pakistan,Turkey,China,European Union,Transportation,Shipping

Saving the Planet by Going Vegetarian

B Shantanu — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 14:50:03 EDT

I used to dismiss the idea of saving the planet by choosing a vegetarian diet as far-fetched until I came across this report from EarthSave, “

Although some of the points it makes may be contentious (e.g. the aerosols argument is more complex than appears: while some aerosols help reduce temperatures, others may have a warming effect), it nevertheless makes for fascinating reading.

It is richly annotated and deserves serious attention and wide publicity - far more than it has got in the mainstream media and press to date. I wish someone like Shri Pachauri makes it part of his/her agenda…Otherwise we are unlikely to see any significant move away from the current obsession with CO2.

Excerpts (emphasis mine):

“…The environmental community rightly recognizes global warming as one of the gravest threats to the planet. Global temperatures are already higher than they’ve ever been in at least the past millennium, and the increase is accelerating even faster than scientists had predicted. The expected consequences include coastal flooding, increases in extreme weather, spreading disease, and mass extinctions.

…Unfortunately, the environmental community has focused its efforts almost exclusively on abating carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

This is a serious miscalculation. Data published by Dr. James Hansen and others show that CO2 emissions are not the main cause of observed atmospheric warming….

Though this may sound like the work of global warming skeptics, it isn’t: Hansen is Director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies who has been called “a grandfather of the global warming theory.” He is a longtime supporter of action against global warming, cited by Al Gore and often quoted by environmental organizations…

…The focus solely on CO2 is fueled in part by misconceptions. It’s true that human activity produces vastly more CO2 than all other greenhouse gases put together. However, this does not mean it is responsible for most of the earth’s warming.

Many other greenhouse gases trap heat far more powerfully than CO2, some of them tens of thousands of times more powerfully. When taking into account various gases’ global warming potential—defined as the amount of actual warming a gas will produce over the next one hundred years—it turns out that gases other than CO2 make up most of the global warming problem

…the fact remains that sources of non-CO2 greenhouse gases are responsible for virtually all the global warming we’re seeing, and all the global warming we are going to see for the next fifty years. If we wish to curb global warming over the coming half century, we must look at strategies to address non-CO2 emissions. The strategy with the most impact is vegetarianism.

By far the most important non-CO2 greenhouse gas is methane, and the number one source of methane worldwide is animal agriculture.

…Methane is responsible for nearly as much global warming as all other non-CO2 greenhouse gases put together. Methane is 21 times more powerful a greenhouse gas than CO2. While atmospheric concentrations of CO2 have risen by about 31% since pre-industrial times, methane concentrations have more than doubled.

With methane emissions causing nearly half of the planet’s human-induced warming, methane reduction must be a priority.

…the number one source (of methane) worldwide is animal agriculture. Animal agriculture produces more than 100 million tons of methane a year. And this source is on the rise: global meat consumption has increased fivefold in the past fifty years, and shows little sign of abating.

About 85% of this methane is produced in the digestive processes of livestock…

…The conclusion is simple: arguably the best way to reduce global warming in our lifetimes is to reduce or eliminate our consumption of animal products.

Simply by going vegetarian (or, strictly speaking, vegan), we can eliminate one of the major sources of emissions of methane, the greenhouse gas responsible for almost half of the global warming impacting the planet today…

In addition to having the advantage of immediately reducing global warming, a shift away from methane-emitting food sources is much easier than cutting carbon dioxide…”

***

Read the report in full: EarthSave Report.

Adjacent Post: Of “Sacred Bulls”, Divinity & Development

How Green is My Antilla!

arZan — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 01:00:28 EST

In a hard hitting and valid argument Daniel Brook talks about Mukesh Ambani's Antilla being billed as a Green Building by its American architects Perkins+Will.

When completed, the 24-story Ambani family home will include its own health club, terraced sky-gardens, and 50-seat screening room (the reclusive Ambani is reputed to be a huge Bollywood fan). Antilla also boasts three helipads and a 168-car garage. This may sound like transportation overkill, if not outright eco-terrorism, for a family of six. But despite its 38-to-1 car-to-person ratio, Antilla has been billed by its American architects as a “green building.” And under the leading standards for green architecture, the building will likely qualify.

The LEED rating system at best is a guideline and at worst is riddled with loopholes.

Installing a $395 bike rack is worth the same under the LEED checklist system as installing a $1.3 million environmentally sensitive heating system. Which is the cynical builder going to choose?

This allows for architects like Perkins+Will to claim to design green buildings while in reality it is all a hogwash.

The rating system is designed for US standards and when implemented on Indian conditions and buildings, every project could bag the "green" tag.

Perkins+Will is not the only ones who ride the hype-mobile. Even reputed Indian architects like Karan Grover do the same. By understanding the system and finding the loopholes, Grover has the "distinction" of being the first architect with both a LEED Platinum Building and a LEED Platinum Commercial Interior project.

Even FXFowle who is designing the India towers at Charni Road in Mumbai are billing their project to be

within a sustainable network of green roofs and hanging gardens; creating a singular, extraordinary building that, when completed, will be the tallest and greenest - building in India. [link]

Green has become the buzzword of the latter half of this decade. And it helps to sell everything from food to apartments costing millions (in whatever currency).

And from what I read and see, India seems to be picking up the hype which has somehow started clearing out in the US, as the article above points out .

The Indian Green Building Council has just now woken up to the big difference in standards and the first LEED guidelines are being formalized for India. However it will take a few years for the real effects to trickle down to the individual building level.

People like Mukesh Ambani and Reliance should be leading the way instead of being an example of the moral bankruptcy that Reliance has time and again shown.

Architects in India have an easier job designing in sustainable ways. A lot of our building materials procurement and construction technology are sustainable to start with. Indian architects, developers and designers have a real opportunity to push beyond the "green" envelope and set an example.

Mano a Nano - Coming Face to Face with a Nano

Lekhni — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 12:58:45 EST

The Tata Nano is finally a reality. We have all seen it and read about it. We have heard opinions on it from everyone and their milkman. But what is it really - manna from Heaven for the middle class, or the beast that will leave Indians gasping for air on their roads?

There are two main arguments that people are making about the Nano - one, it will add to the already congested traffic on the roads and two, it will add to the pollution on the roads. How valid are these arguments?

Argument 1. It will add to the already congested traffic on the roads: Certainly, it will. All those people who now commute on motorbikes, scooters and scooterettes will now buy the Nano. Traffic will become worse.

But let us step back and think about why we have so many motorbikes and scooters on the roads in the first place. Certainly, no one wants to spend two hours every day stuck in traffic, dicing with daily death in dangerous two-wheelers (with or without helmets) and spending thousands of Rupees each month on petrol. Not to mention the time spent in hunting for parking spots.

So why do they do it?

Because, quite simply, our mass transit systems are grossly ineffective. People prefer risky rides in motorbikes to even more risky rides in overflowing buses and trains.

Before we blame people for choking our roads, let us look at the alternative – buses that are completely inadequate, infrequent and crammed with passengers in every inch of space, including some people hanging on to the doors and windows. Buses that do not stop at required stops, and are subject to sudden route diversions. Buses that are even slower than the surrounding traffic. Passengers that provide free groping and unsolicited massages to women passengers.

And then there are the trains. The trains are present only in some cities, but where they do exist, they are careful to follow the spirit of the buses. So they are also overcrowded and passengers provide free groping in these trains as well.

If this is the alternative that people have, is it so surprising that people would rather take their chance with the traffic and petrol prices?

Argument 2. It will add to the pollution on the roads: Ratan Tata has said the Nano will meet all emission norms including Euro 4 norms. That should answer the debate on Nano emissions.

But let me go further and reframe our point of reference. What is the alternative to a Nano? What does a car-less family use when they all travel together? Sometimes, they all perch precariously on the same two-wheeler (the older kid wedged in the front, younger kid in mama’s lap at the back). Now this situation is way more unsafe than any air pollution. More usually, they take an auto, that rickety, smoke-spewing three-wheeler from Hell. Now, I am not sure what emission norms are applicable to autos, but I am willing to bet that they are less stringent than cars and in any case, the autos on the road do not follow any emission norms to the littlest extent. Just as they do not have electronic meters and any semblance of customer service, but that is another story.

If more Nanos mean less autos on the road, trust me, the roads are going to become a lot less polluted.

So how do we make India's roads less crowded? By improving the mass transit systems. We should expand our mass transit systems, integrate them with existing systems and embrace innovative ideas like "share autos" (of course, with emission norms that are in place and enforced). Not all solutions need to involve expensive multi-year projects to build elevated rail systems. Simple solutions, like allowing private operators to run commuter specials during rush hour can work as well.

Come September, we will see a lot more Nanos on India's roads. Let us see them for what they are - the attempt of our middle class to make the best of a bad situation. Let us not focus on criticising the Nano, but on criticising the state of our mass transit systems. Perhaps then, we may see some change for the better.

* derived from ma•no a ma•no : a direct or face-to-face confrontation.