Often these people take a certain pride in defiantly stating that they’ve “made up their own minds” and haven’t bought in to the corporate scam/misinformation campaign that everyone else has fallen for. And while I don’t disagree about the importance of using one’s mind, this sort of Ayn Randish “Oh I’m such a stud independent person” mindset is faintly nauseating. Because in plain fact, very often “finding out the facts for yourself” and making up your own mind isn’t a good idea. It fact, it’s downright foolish.

"Making up your own mind" isn't a luxury we can afford

We live in an age of specialization. Gone are the days of Gauss when a single person could know everything about every field of scientific and mathematic endeavor. Even the most common devices today – like cell phones – are so mind bogglingly complex, that I can state with confidence there’s not a single person on earth who knows everything about how they work, including the chip design, electronics and the software stacks and protocols they implement.

And yet none of us hesitate for even a moment before entrusting our lives to an airplane – the workings of which are pretty much mysterious to most of us. We can use fancy words like “aerodynamics” to pretend that we know something, but we don’t. We don’t know the first thing about aircrafts. We don’t stop to “make up our own mind” about it.

I graduated from St. Stephen’s with a B.Sc (G) in physics. I can confidently state that my understanding of the subject is superior to the vast majority of humanity. But even I can’t prove something like the General Theory of Relativity. The mathematics is too complex for me. And yet every educated person knows about this famous theory (some even know what it means!) and people don’t doubt it’s validity or usefulness. If I were to bet my life on the theory being accurate or inaccurate, I would choose the former without a moment’s hesitation. So would everyone else. How come? Why doesn’t everyone try and “make up their own minds” about it?

I’ve played chess for a long time and a few years back, I achieved an ELO rating of around 2000-2100. It’s quite a decent rating, but not master level. Many times I’ve tried to follow a game between Grandmasters and have been totally perplexed as to why a particular move was played. And yet in the post analysis, most GMs will agree that a certain move is the correct one though for the life of me I can’t figure out why. But I believe them! I realize my limitations. I don’t go around making a fool of myself by saying “But if you do that, you’re putting your queen in danger!” I have enough intelligence to know that they would see what I see – and much more. I don’t try and “find out the truth” for myself. Not unless I spend many more years forging my skills and proving myself in battle.

There are many more examples I could give where it makes infinitely more sense to listen to competent minds instead of torturing oneself by trying to figure out the truth – with a very high probability that you’ll reach a wrong conclusion anyway. This doesn’t mean you’re giving up your intelligence or sacrificing your integrity. Quite the contrary. It means you’re using all facets of your intelligence to draw conclusions which a brute force method could never reach. It means you use your powers of observation to know your limitations and choose which battles to fight. It’s a more efficient way of gathering knowledge with a higher chance of success.

But when it comes to Climate Change, suddenly everyone wants to “make up their own mind.” And facts are there in plenty to pick and choose from – enough to support any given view! Never mind that 98% of the most active scientists in the field accept the evidence for human induced climate change. These scientists are from all over the world, from multi disciplinary backgrounds, and working for different organizations and governments. To say it’s unlikey they’re all wrong is an understatement. A skeptic will have to somehow convince me that they’ve all been deceived and that their analysis from a layman’s point of view is more valid.

Good luck with that. So let’s just stop this nonsense shall we? Enough is enough. It’s time for people to stop trying to figure out the truth of climate change for themselves and use their intelligence in a more creative manner. It’s time to use other people’s knowledge to fill the gaps in one’s own. It’s time to stop trying to reinvent the wheel. Because it’s counterproductive, and a waste of my time.

My latest bit of sunshine refers to the fact that we Indians have been ranked as the greenest people in the world for the third year running! This study is conducted annually by National Geographic in conjunction with GlobeScan and is a measure of how environmentally friendly the people of a country are – not the government or corporations.

Now hold the screaming! Don’t be so eager to crash the party – I know the objections. “It’s only because so many Indians live in poverty” and “It’s because so many Indians are veggies.” These facts are true of course.

But here’s the kicker. We’ve actually increased our Greendex for the third year in a row! While more and more Indians are being lifted out of poverty at a breakneck pace, and we’re eating more and more meat, the fact that we’ve constantly increased our “green” scores really deserves some applause don’t you think?

Not only that, Indians have registered the biggest increase from last year compared to all the 17 countries after polling 17,000 people. The survey is pretty damn comprehensive and looks at a whole range of things such as housing, transportation, citizen attitudes, citizen knowledge etc. Strong growth with better environment friendliness.

Now isn’t that something that’s worth being optimistic over? So the next time someone tells you that Indians are good for nothing, you know what to say :)

This simply shows that we humans are unable to change our short term habits and stave off long term disaster. For this shortcoming, we deserve to go extinct. Don’t mistake me though. Obviously the earth itself isn’t going anywhere – we are! Watch this video where George Carlin eloquently explains how we’re screwed. Initially it seems as if he’s against environment protection, but then 2 and a half minutes into the video, he reveals his real agenda. Kind of an odd way to look at it at first, but then it makes sense. Carlin argues that the planet is just fine – it’s the people that’re fucked!

To cap it all, climate change skeptics are pointing to the recent cold wave sweeping the US and Europe and are saying that this disproves global warming. This really makes me lose hope and question the concept of humans being an intelligent species. As if you can disprove decade long trends by a single data point. As if climate is the same as weather. And worst of all, as if they really think that global warming means that the whole earth is just going to get warmer and warmer each year – like switching on the thermostat!

So you think we have some hope left eh? Let me tell you why that’s an illusion.

The amount of CO2 the planet can handle without catastrophic climate change (catastrophic for us that is) is 350 ppm. Here is proof for that. And here is more proof. Our current level is 390 ppm and we’re predicted to touch 900 ppm by the end of the century! So basically:

Required CO2 concentration = 350 ppm
Current CO2 concentration = 390 ppm
Projected CO2 concentration = 900 ppm
Last time the earth had 400 ppm = 13 million years ago!

And in case you think we can cut emissions to reach 350 ppm, let me disabuse you now. Here is what we need to do to reach 350 ppm:

1. No further oil and gas exploration
2. No more dirty coal burning by 2030

If the US or China takes either of the above two steps, I’ll eat my iPod Touch. Nuff said. So pack your bag folks, we’re leaving. It’s been a nice 100,000 years on this earth of ours. There must be another one out in space somewhere but we’re so separated that they might as well not exist. It’s just as well we didn’t find any actually – fucking up one planet is enough! And I’m so glad I’m not having any children. What’s the use? We’re gonna all die anyway, and I don’t want my progeny to curse me.

What do you think? Are we screwed?

Image Credit: Molas

Dumping Toxic Waste in Developing Countries - because rich people's lives are worth more?

The problem of where to dump toxic waste generated abroad has plagued planners in the west for a long time. The recent controversy regarding the Platinum II cruiseliner on Indian shores is evidence of this. Summer’s memo makes a very clear point by saying,

“The World Bank should be encouraging more migration of the dirty industries to the LDCs [Least Developed Countries]“

He gives three reasons. First, rich people in the west earn more money. Therefore if someone has to die, it makes economic sense for it to be the poor people. In his words:

“I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that.”

Second, poor countries like Africa are under polluted! To quote:

“I’ve always thought that under-populated countries in Africa are vastly UNDER-polluted, their air quality is probably vastly inefficiently low compared to Los Angeles or Mexico City”.

His logic is that the pollution generated by the west must be spread over the globe instead of being restricted to the countries where it was created. In other words, he sees the good air quality in Africa as a haven for dumping the Industrialized world’s waste into.

And finally, he says that since people in poor countries anyway have a shorter life expectancy, dangerous chemicals will have less of an impact on them. He goes on to claim that they’ll be willing to trade clean air in exchange for money since they must value a clear environment less than rich people

Remember that these aren’t the words of some loony fringe economist, but the Chief economist of the World Bank in 1991 and who still holds a position of prominence in the Obama administration!

In my opinion, such statements can only come from economists who view everything including life in terms of money. Wait, that’s not true. Corporates whose only motive is profit also think the same way. When you start looking at the entire world using just one metric – money, you commit terrible atrocities because your sole aim is then to increase that metric to the expense of everything else. The whole world becomes a means to increase your money as much as possible. The lives of all living things, and the environment are fodder to be used.

When Summer’s memo was released, it created a terrible backlash leading him to claim that it wasn’t serious. But from reading his language in the original memo, I don’t believe that for one moment. I think he was dead serious. And for a brief moment, we the regular public caught a glimpse of the kind of people who rule our world today.

So it makes me happy when I see a company in India showing how things should be done. Ahmed Khan’s company in Bangalore is using discarded plastic to make roads which last longer – removing the need for the plastic to enter landfills. And it seems to be a success in Bangalore which already has around 1200 km built using this technology.

Image Credit: Himalayan Trails

Green Roads Reducing waste

Here’s my favorite part though: “The Khans’ business spread to other cities and states, and although they patented the plasticized pavement in India, other companies are copying the technology. The Khans said they had decided not to object”

Don’t you just love that? Inventions like this help the entire country and can speed up the process of making our living space a bit cleaner. Now with competition, prices can be cut and made more affordable. If this was a traditional western company, they would not only have not allowed anyone else to use it, they would also have charged triple the price of a regular road to maximize their profit and milk their monopoly.

Incidentally this highlights the difference between a professional corporate company and a smaller personal firm. The former doesn’t belong to any one person and has no morals other than profit. A smaller firm on the other hand is linked to a person and can behave ethically as well as make a profit. Can you for example imagine a corporate like AT&T giving away a technology to other people because it’ll be good for the country? Never! Till a few years back, I used to dislike smaller businesses, but now I understand why they’re better than large faceless organizations.

Profit isn’t the sole motive of innovation and human kind has adapted and succeeded in the world only because people copy others and when one person discovers something, the entire group shares the benefits. Here’s hoping that more of common sense prevails!

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It is a real pleasure to be guest posting here; I’ve enjoyed this blog a great deal since I found it a month or so back. I spend most of my time writing in Delhi at the Green Light Dhaba; I’d love to have you stop by there as well, some time.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve made fun of Delhi’s mega malls several times. That is because I think they are symbolic of much of what is wrong with India’s model of urban development. No matter how many basil plants Arjun Sharma, the director of Delhi’s Select City Mall, may have given away this Diwali, there is no escaping the fact that his mall is a disaster from an ecological and economic point of view.

I took my kids to the pair of monstrosities known as the Select City/MGF Metropolitan Malls and we did a little research a few weeks back. (And yes, I did have to compensate them with a round of over-priced iced teas. But I have never pretended to be perfect in matters of personal consumption.)

Here are some of the things we found. First of all, the positive side: malls are designed to make people giddy with excitement! It happened to my kids; it even happened to me, just a little bit.

Where does this feeling come from? Some of it is a result of the fact that suddenly we are in a “market” where we don’t have to jump out of the way of speeding two wheelers. But there are other things malls do to make you feel that way. Look at all the lights; feel the AC; ah, the spray of the water from the fountains. Scarcity has no place in a Delhi mall; neither do really poor people.

It is an intoxicating illusion–if you don’t think too much about what it costs to create and maintain it. (On the way out, I had to wonder whether the bright blue “Riot Control” van permanently parked on the road in front of the mall was part of how that illusion is enforced.)

The Riot Control Van

Of course, the good feeling does not feel so good once you see the price tags of the goods being sold.

You see, high end malls are…expensive! The week before Diwali, Mint ran a big spread on holiday gift ideas. It included things like a Boombox for Rs. 4,199, an iPod for Rs. 11,200, and playing cards in a crocodile skin holder for only Rs. 36,000. This is the kind of stuff you will find in a high-end Delhi mall, and it is terrible for a number of reasons. Aside from the obvious issues of bad taste and dead crocodiles, there is the fact that much of what you find in a mall is imported. From an environmental point of view, that means that a whole lot of stuff had to be shipped a very long way–and shipping is a major source of global CO2 emissions. From the point of view of old fashioned economics, there is another problem caused by all those imported goods: a large part of the money spent at the mall goes straight out of the country. Which means it does very little in terms of creating jobs here. By contrast, when you buy locally grown food or locally made products in your local market, nearly all of the money you spend stays right here in the local economy.

But what about all those workers the mall employs, you ask? In fact, a mall is a very inefficient employment generator, because very little of the money spent in the mall goes to the workers who work there. Of course Arjun Sharma is not going to let me go over his books, but we did speak to one worker who sells brand name handbags ranging from Rs. 1000 all the way up to Rs. 4,200. She earns Rs. 4,500 a month. In other words, one hand bag sells for nearly as much as she earns in a month. If there is a sale on, this woman may sell as much as Rs. 35,000 worth of product over the course of one day.  Malls promote the growth of overseas factories along with a few low wage local jobs.  We can do better than that.

Speaking of employment, it’s not as if the people who do the work of building these malls will ever be able to shop in them; in fact, they live in horrible slums. One of these tent cities occupied the land right outside Select City for years while it was being built. Now it has moved down the road closer to where some other projects are being developed. So as not to offend shoppers, it is hidden behind a tall fence.

The Slums of the Workers

After seeing this, my 9 year old asked me this: “Instead of building another mall, why don’t the workers build homes for themselves?”

I tried to explain about how people who invest money to build things want to make more money, and they think building a mall will give them more profits than building homes for poor people. “It’s how the game works, son,” I said.

“But it’s not a game. It’s life,” was his answer.

There wasn’t much I could say to that, of course, because he was right; life is not a game and to use such metaphors runs the risk of trivializing things that are not trivial: poverty, environmental degradation, enormous unfairness.

A new mall, like over-consumption in general, is possible and profitable because we don’t pay the full cost of products from the mine to the dump. It is profitable because the monthly wages of the woman who sells you a handbag may not be equal to the price of the handbag itself. It is profitable because we allow the men, women and children who build our malls and our roads and our homes to live outside under tarps.

It will not be easy to encourage investment in sustainable development. Investors won’t change their behavior out of the goodness of their hearts. Somehow, we need to change what is profitable.  We can start by strengthening and enforcing minimum wage laws.  Then we can see to it that companies are not allowed to pollute for free; the full cost (including the cost of pollution and disposal) of all products should be reflected in their price tags. That will make a lot of stuff, especially stuff  that is designed for the dump, more expensive. If we do this, we will have to consume fewer material goods; if we do it right, we can compensate by consuming more things that are sustainable: art, leisure time, good food, clean water etc.

Figuring out how to make all this happen will be a complicated business, but it’s not impossible, and it’s terribly important that we start soon. We need to change the way we do business; to do this we’ll to change the rules of the game. The rules of life.

HB

Tirupur, known as the “Knitwear Capital of India”, produces most of the garments that originate in India and find their way all over the world. The garments are cheap. Overly cheap. In reality, they cost far more. The real cost of the garments is paid by the people and other living creatures of Tirupur who have to live near the Noyyal River that’s contaminated by the textile producing factories. The sludge in the water has been building up over generations.

Image Credit: TamilBuddy

Noyyal River Sludge

Finally, someone decided to make the factories pay the full price of the garments they produce. The Noyyal River Ayacutdars Protection Association (whew!) made them pay 55.6 Cr for  the treatment of the river as well as for pollution checks. Well they tried to anyway. Predictably, the factories fought it tooth and nail. But the Supreme Court had the final word. And very sweet words they were too. Here they are:

“Undoubtedly, there has been unabated pollution by the members of the appellant association (factories). They cannot escape the responsibility to meet the expenses of reversing the ecological damage. They are bound to meet the expenses of removing the sludge from the river and also for cleaning the dam. The principles of `polluters pay’ and `precautionary principle’ have to be read with the doctrine of sustainable development.”

Awesome. Like all judicial judgments, this one can be cited in the future for other similar cases – and since it’s pronounced by the Supreme Court of India itself, it can be applied anywhere in the country. You want to pollute? Pay for it. This is one for the history books. Corporations can no longer deny the sole responsibility of cleaning up the muck they produce. Of course, this may lead to higher costs for the final products, but that’s the burden we all have to bear. That’s the real cost you’re paying!

Some proclaim that they don’t care since they will be long dead by the time any such effects are in a position to harm them, and you know what – they’re right. There is an excellent chance of most people currently living not being affected by climate change. As Bjorn Lomborg so eloquently puts it, Bangladesh would probably have become rich enough after a hundred years to escape the problems caused by rising sea levels. This he argues, is enough reason not to sink money into environmental protection efforts.

Discussions on the environment at a global level almost exclusively deal with the effects on humans. Whether such and such country’s economic progress will be affected. Whether or not the threat to this particular coastal city is real. Whether or not we will have enough oil. Overuse of natural resources is an issue only so far as it affects human lifestyle.

However, I feel that most of these people are missing a crucial fact. Even assuming that you don’t feel regret for ruining the planet per se, aren’t we ignoring the large number of non-human living creatures on the planet? How many multicellular living creatures are there on earth anyway? With how many conscious creatures do we share the earth? To put things in perspective, let’s just take insects. There are a hundred million insects for each human on earth! Assuming there are no other species, what percentage of the conscious life do we make up? Answer: 0.000001%

Not that the insects really have much to worry about. They’ll survive long after humans have gone even in the event of a nuclear holocaust (kind of relieving isn’t it?) But what about all the other species whose lives are affected by our activities? The amount of suffering we cause them is incalculable. Yet we never think of them because they don’t suffer in front of us. Well, I want to bring some of it forward. Into our faces. This is what we do:

Image Credit: Save_The_ Planet

Bird Trapped in an Oil Spill

Fish dead due to pollution

Polar Bear trapped on thinning ice

These are just isolated examples. There are so many more. Ask yourself. Even if our policies were to have no impact on humans whatsoever, do we still have the right to cause so much suffering by our actions? I’m not exactly a bleeding heart animal lover – it’s just a question of what is fair and what’s not. If these animals had votes, we wouldn’t be so casual about them would we? What exactly gives us the right to mess up resources that we share with an overwhelmingly large majority of other conscious creatures?

Having met some of the people that I have, I know that they will continue to not give a shit about anything that doesn’t bite them on the nose. But hopefully there are others out there to whom this has given some food for thought.

It’s a travesty and an insult to the natural behavior of humans and goes against the very impulse that has propelled humanity to the top of the food chain. Don’t believe me? Read on!

Image Credit: 917press

Patents and Intellectual Property are killing us

Being copycats makes humans great!

Does anyone really think that the brain of a human is good enough to survive in the wild by itself? Take any human, with his opposable thumbs, his giant brain, and his upright stature – take him and dump him (say it’s a guy) in the middle of a forest. He wouldn’t have a chance. Not one in a hundred – unless he can reach civilization somehow. No fur, claws, flight, smell, speed, strength (relatively), or super cool eyesight. Chances are he’ll wind up in several bellies in no time – opposable thumbs and all. Don’t kid yourself. None of us know how to make a fire from scratch, carve weapons, or hunt.

So what makes us stand out? What put us in a position to decide the fate of the planet? What makes us a super predator? I’ll tell you what. Learning. Mimicking. Because children don’t have to learn how to make a fire by themselves, and can build on knowledge freely transferred from others. If one person invented a superior spear, that invention (if it works) would spread throughout the tribe, enhancing it as a whole. Enhancing humanity as a whole. The advances made by one person are quickly propagated and give the entire race an edge.

Sophisticated ways of passing on knowledge to others via writing merely cements our position. Looking at what others are doing and improving on it has made us what we are. Communication, learning from others, copying others and building on other’s work. Not any inherent intelligence or dexterity.

Inventing and Copying are Instinctive

These two qualities are therefore built into us. We invent on instinct and curiosity. We copy and improve without conscious intention. It is our nature to make things as well as copy them. Individual inventors never really need an external motivating force to invent. They have it in them from the start. If the right mind exists, and the right materials exist, an inventor cannot help inventing and exploring any more than he or she can help thinking.

We don’t need “Intellectual Property!”

The moment we start imposing “Patents” and IP on inventions, we throw a spanner in the entire works. We bring to a grinding halt the diffusion of technology and ideas that have served mankind so well in the past. Did people never invent before patents existed? Did the man who first made fire do so because he could sell the idea? People who claim that patents and intellectual property motivate people to invent seem to think that innovation needs an external reason to take place. We’re humans! It’s in our blood dammit!

The entire concept does gross injustice to human nature as a whole and stops us from progressing. The problem is compounded in emerging markets like India and China. Patents are getting in the way of combating climate change, and it is at this very moment that we need the diffusion of technology more than ever. In its time of ultimate crisis, humans need to reach out for the very qualities that have tided them over for thousands of years. Adaptability, adoption, looking at others and learning. This is no moment to hold back!

As a first step, let us get rid of Patents and Intellectual Property (at least for clean technologies), and let us work together to save ourselves.

What do you think? Take the poll!

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Clean Technology and Intellectual Property (IP)

Given that it’s in everyone’s best interests to adopt clean energy technologies, it makes sense that developed countries should give poorer ones the means to do so. However, rich nations have issues like patents and intellectual property that they are unwilling to let go of. They want poor nations to pay the high prices for these technologies so that they can profit by selling them. It goes without saying that poor nations cannot afford these technologies as long as they’re sold by the rich countries. It’s no secret that big businesses are not happy with the whole climate change issue and are willing to sacrifice our planet at the altar of their profit.

Image Credit: Dominic’s pics

Opposing Clean Technology Transfer

Developed nations (especially the US) say that a “free market” ensures that lower prices will result over time. But this doesn’t wash. For one thing, the “patents” for clean technologies take several decades to expire before a free market can ensue. Valuable time that we can’t afford to waste. By all estimates, we have a maximum of 10-15 years to cut and stabilize carbon emissions and for that, we must start now.

Developing and Developed – Not on the same plane

The truth is that developed countries have become rich in the first place at the cost of disrupting our planet. Not to blame them as such, since they didn’t know. But it does shift the burden of fixing the problem onto them since they created it.

Secondly, cutting carbon emissions will hurt poorer countries much more than it will developed countries. One reason is that people in rich nations are already well off. On the other hand, there is widespread poverty, lack of electricity and clean drinking water in poorer nations. These people will be doomed to remain in that state if carbon emissions are to be reduced without clean technologies to offset the loss. This is grotesquely unfair since it means that poor nations will be doomed to forever remain poor if they commit to cutting carbon emissions by themselves.

Another reason is that rich countries possess the know how that will enable them to cut carbon emissions without compromising economic development. Poor nations on the other hand will have to stop growing to achieve the same cuts. Once again, this is preposterously imbalanced.

In a way, developing countries are being punished for being poor since by being poor, they will suffer more. This is completely unfair. Certainly, developing countries also have to try and keep emissions in check – and from what we hear, they’re making more grassroots efforts than people in developed countries.

When all the world leaders meet in Copenhagen, it must be understood that it’s not a trade conference. It is meant to protect our planet. Something that they must be willing to make sacrifices for. Developed nations, having caused the problem must by necessity sacrifice more. No one’s asking for direct monetary assistance. The least that can be done is by helping poor nations help themselves by releasing patents and intellectual property rights for solar, wind and other clean energy sources. Given the burden of historic responsibility for the current crisis, it’s the least that can be done.