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Green the World

(Click on the image to see the animated version). Feel free to share. [http://www.ideafarms.com/NewYear2010/NYC_2010.html]

Thank you Michael Jackson!!
May your soul rest in peace.

Let’s cut our noses. Yes Prime Minister!

Two of my favourite subjects here – the fascinating global warming debate and India’s bollywood style negotiation script. Hopenhagen is around the corner and will make Kyoto passe. We love being underdogs because like our movies, the hero comes from behind in a good-over-evil victory lap while the crowd applauds his heroic antics.

Two wrongs don’t make a right, and I fully intend the pun.
US spews Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) into the atmosphere when India sleeps. [Pat on back .. I'm getting good at puns]Now India wants America to pay for their long and sinful polluting behaviour. And guess what, if they don’t, we’ll have an equal right to kill the planet first so we’re even. That’s the craziest example of serving our self interests I’ve come across. It’s almost like saying that since I just found out that my neighbour has been raping my mother for 20 years, the way to punish him is by killing my own mother.

Uncapitalistic “Glacial” Innovation

Now this is innovation,

- disrputive, passion driven and socially responsible, sustainable & non-capitalistic - not what management gurus are touting.

Chewang Norphel, Director of the Leh Nutrition Project.

Glaciers are the sole source of fresh water for the Buddhist farmers who make up more than 70% of the population in this rugged range between Pakistan and China. But rising temperatures have seen the icy snow retreat by dozens of feet each year — to find evidence of global warming, the farmers simply have to glance up from their fields and see the rising patches of brown where, once, all was white. Knowing no alternative, they pray harder for rain and snow.

But Chewang Norphel has gone beyond prayer. The 73-year-old civil engineer has come up with a solution that won’t exactly save the ancient glaciers, but it could stave off a looming irrigation crisis.

Norphel has created artificial glaciers, frozen pools of glacier run-off perched above the farmers’ fields … [read the full article here].

Highlights:

1. His innovation has been hailed as an elegantly simple and cheap [I'd substitute this word by 'cost effective']solution to a devastating problem.
2. Only local materials are needed, and the villagers themselves can build and maintain them.

I’m so inspired …

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• Global warming shrinks glacier at alarming rate (telegraph.co.uk)

Paulo Coelho’s Counterpoint to my take on Climate change

Over the weekend, my wife was reading my last blog post [Climate Change Bollywood Ishtyle] and, at the same time, Paulo Coelho‘s – The Winner Stands Alone. I suspect she may have been hoping against hope that his literary talent will rub off on me through her! And guess what, she suddenly found herself reading about his take on climate change. Synchronicity? Disbelievingly I listened as she read out the following lines that, Coelho – through one of the central characters [Hamid] – professes. His take is quite the antithesis [counterpoint] of my view. It cannot be too good for my ego to even consider such a course but there’s something in there that’s worth a closer look. I have reproduced the lines here …

I know this sounds crazy guys, but I can’t help agreeing with him. Sorry Mr. Ego, you’ll have to eat humble pie this time!!

Tech things for granted.

I met a classmate a couple of weeks ago after 20-odd years. He’s doing stuff at the leading edges of – you guessed it  - IPTV. The passion with which he explained the potential of the technology, and what it could do, sucked me into a discussion of fancy features; about how we could provide seamless interactivity with the back ends of Amazon, Walmart, Nike, D&G, etc. and how people could order pizzas from the comfort of their TV couches without as much as lifting a finger (after all, you’d only have to press a couple of buttons on the remote handset to achieve the impossible).

Whoa! Not so fast folks. The next time you are relaxing and watching your favorite TV program — think!