I have been following the run-up to the Climate change meet at Copenhagen, with great interest. The recent meeting of world leaders at the U.N. has thrown up some interesting points. Most notable has been the inability of the developed world to acknowledge their primary responsibility to resolving the crisis and the reluctance of emerging economies like India and China to commit to any binding commitments without firm and significant commitments first from the developed world. It’s a classic case of who blinks first, and as the days progress this dichotomy of views is going to become more acute. I certainly don’t see any way to bridge this gulf between the two halves of the world, or rather the thirds of the world viz. the haves, the aspirers and the have-nots. The reason for my pessimism is due to the fact that the kind of compromise required to reach some sort of real solution for the climate crisis is not going to be marketable (politically speaking) for any of the leaders involved.
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Posts Tagged ‘Environment’
Slicing the Gordian knot – Is a global solution to climate change possible?
Thursday, September 24th, 2009Where are the fireflies ?
Wednesday, July 1st, 2009Remember those tiny little lights the glowed in the dark while flitting about ? What we used to call glow-worms ? Ever seen them lately ?
Seems that firefly populations across the globe have been declining at a rapid rate. According to some reports this may be as high as 70%. The usual suspects cited are pollution , urban expansion, declining wilderness etc. A key reason for their decline might be light pollution. It seems our constantly awake and running culture may be playing spoilsport with the fireflies. Light pollution, basically excessive lighting (ever notice how you can see fewer stars in the night sky in the city than the countryside ?), interferes with the fireflies mating rituals leading to maybe smaller and smaller populations (not to mention the problems they already face with shrinking habitat, pesticides, pollution etc).
Well, I don’t know how far this is true in India, but I clearly remember seeing my last firefly sighting more than two years ago in the city. A single lone solitary firefly that left a trail of glowing light as it flew over the path in the darkness of late evening. It was magical, don’t know if I will ever get to see one again in the city.
How much Oil does the world have left ?
Sunday, June 21st, 2009Well, according to BP we’ll have enough to party with over the next four decades. As per this chart on the Economist website, BP (possibly in its Statistical Review) states that we should have enough oil to meet our needs for the next 42 years. The Economist chart isn’t very clear though as to how this magic figure was arrived at.
So I searched a bit. Seems that the estimates are based on current production rates, and assuming current consumption rates.
I think that this is rather naive. I seriously doubt that consumption is going to remain constant at today’s rates. One of the assumptions I think that has been made here, is that more fuel efficient technology will let us generate more energy, drive more cars for the same amount of fuel. However given the immediate costs of clean technology and the sorry state of the global finance and the auto industry, I don’t think we can count on this factor. Also globally oil discoveries have been declining and in some cases new discoveries have only served to replace depleted sources. I guess that effectively rules out hitting an oil jackpot (though this is still probable but not very likely). So end result - consumption is going to grow over the next 50 years and production is probably not going to keep up.
What does this mean for the mythical peak oil point ? When that will occur is anybody’s guess, but the fact that it may occur as early as 2020 should certainly make the case for going green and clean and intensifying research into alternative fuels.
Solar Power !!!
Sunday, August 3rd, 2008Researchers at MIT have made a revolutionary breakthrough in Solar energy. They have developed a “cheap” catalyst, which can breakdown water into it’s components: hydrogen and oxygen, under the action of sunlight. The hydrogen can then be used in fuel cells or burned to generate electricity whenever it is needed. The entire system functions like “artificial” photosynthesis. (more…)
Green “RDX”
Wednesday, May 28th, 2008The current “green” wave sweeping the planet has caught up with the military. An article on Yahoo! News talks about efforts to build “environment” friendly explosives. Apparently the current generation of explosives leave a lot of toxic residue behind after the explosion. The new generation of explosives based on tetrazoles (which use Nitrogen for explosive power) has turned up less toxic residue in tests. The “only” really toxic byproduct is hydrogen cyanide gas. Though scientists are confident that even this can be eliminated through the use of appropriate oxidizing agents. The U.S. Army’s Armament Research, Development and Engineering center is one of the agencies funding the research.
This in my opinion takes what I would call the “green hysteria” sweeping companies, marketers, nations and people in general to whole new heights. I mean what’s next, green firearms ? Instead of wasting taxpayer money on such “green” deeds, maybe the US would be better off taking the climate change minotaur by the horns. And in the end if better weapons are needed, maybe designing a bomb that didn’t leave rubble in it’s wake (or radiation) would be much more green. What say ?
Technorati Tags: Environment, Greenwashing
Lets Greenwash the world
Monday, May 19th, 2008Greenwash - Term used to describe the act of misleading consumers regarding the environmental practices of a company or the environmental benefits of a product or service.
This term was coined by suburban NY enviromentalist Jay Westerveld in 1986, in an essay regarding the hotel industry’s practice of placing green placards in each room, promoting reuse of guest-towels, ostensibly to “save the environment”. Westerveld noted that, in most cases, little or no effort toward waste recycling was being implemented by these institutions, due in part to the lack of cost-cutting effected by such practice. (Source: Wikipedia)
Of late there has been a deluge of products claiming to be “green”. From light bulbs (CFLs) that promise to end global warming one bulb at a time, to electric cars that claim to end dependence on polluting fossil fuels to green data centers. Even Reliance has jumped on the bandwagon claiming to use “environment friendly construction practices” for its Versova-Ghatkopar railway link project.
Dear Mr.Ratan Tata, can you save the turtles ?
Saturday, April 5th, 2008The Olive Ridley turtle is one of the smallest sea turtles. It gets it’s name from the olive color of it’s shell. These small 100lb turtles are remarkable in the fact that they travel each year back to the same beach where they hatched from in order to mate. The Olive Ridley turtle is also one of the most endangered turtle species. Major threats to the turtle stem from trawling and threats to it’s nesting grounds.
The beaches of Orissa represent one of the last nesting grounds for the Olive Ridley turtle. One of the threats to it’s nesting grounds here, is the TATA steel port (Dhamra port). While evidence from various studies and the EIA report submitted show that the region is not frequented by turtles, the port’s proximity to an ecologically sensitive region is questionable. The port is less than 5 kilometres from the Bhitarkanika Sanctuary, India’s second largest mangrove forest, and less than 15 km. from the turtle nesting beaches at Gahirmatha Sanctuary. Besides this, several other rare reptiles and amphibians including a rare species of horseshoe crab nest here.
So if you care about our little turtle buddies, write to Ratan Tata, exhorting him to move the port to less ecologically sensitive location.
Technorati Tags: Tata, Ratan Tata, Orissa, Olive Ridley Turtles, Save the Turtles, Greenpeace
4th HSBC Mumbai Bird Race
Monday, February 18th, 2008The 4th Annual HSBC Mumbai Bird Race was held yesterday. Missed last years event due to some unforeseen last minute changes, so was determined to take part this year. For the uninitiated, the bird race is a dawn to dusk competition for birding enthusiasts. It is a team event , with the challenge being to identify (by sight or sound) the maximum number of bird species found in the demarcated Mumbai zone.
Triple Bottom Line Approach
Saturday, August 25th, 2007Wrote a “paper” for TISS – Manthan on the Triple Bottom Line concept. The Triple Bottom Line (3BL) approach in a nutshell is when a firm concentrates on People, Planet and Profits rather than just Profits. Almost every company worth it’s brand image seems to be jumping on this bandwagon with elaborate “balance sheets” chronicling their adventures in the 3BL world. Something just smells fishy when you look at these beautiful glossy 3BL reports. I kind of find this mad frenzy to show “Corporate Social Responsibility” to share holders to be a phenomenon of the post-Enron World. It’s probably the current fad in vogue.
This view is kind of echoed by Wayne Norman on the Business Ethics Blog. My little “paper” presents the current views and opinions against the 3BL concept and serves to show how hollow the concept is in it’s implementation.
The results for the initial shortlist of TISS-Manthan 2007 will be out on the 28th of this month. So keeping my fingers crossed.
I also hope to put this paper up along with some of my little experiments in rails when I put up Labs towards the end of the next month.
Technorati Tags: MBA, NMIMS, TISS, Triple Bottom Line
I'm Elroy Serrao, a technologist, photographer, and part time blogger from India.
I love to design web sites, program in php and rails in my free time and of course go trekking and clicking pictures in the great outdoors.
I'm from Mumbai, and am an alumnus of Mumbai University and NMIMS.