Hari Batti--Agony Uncle: Green Book Giving Advice

Dear Mr. Batti,

I have a lot of books in not-bad-at-all condition that I would like to give away. It would be a shame to recycle them, but as it is they are just taking up room in my small flat. Where do you suggest I give them?

Ms. P 
Delhi

Dear Ms. P,

I love to hear from book lovers like yourself.  I often hang on to books longer than I should, but space is always a concern, and the more times a book is read, the better, from a green point of view! Still, your question is more difficult than it appears, which is why it took me so long to answer it.  Books are a little bit like sweets.  Just as some people love jalebi but are allergic to barfi, some readers love history but cannot tolerate mysteries, even good ones!  And some will recycle anything you give them anyway!  Of course the opposite is also true in many cases; there is simply no accounting for taste. 

Books are, however, superior to sweets in two important respects; they are not bad for your health, and they have a much longer shelf life!  This is why I have been known to give poetry at Diwali.  I reason that even if the gift does not find a reader right away, it may someday.  And it won’t give anyone gas or contribute to heart problems.

I am not suggesting you give away your used books at Diwali, although now that I think of it, that might actually work if your friends are book lovers and you choose your gifts well.  Wrap them up in some recycled paper, make cards to go with them, and you’ve got some super green gifts, suitable for any occasion!

You could also hold an informal book swap.  Invite a dozen book lovers over for food and refreshments.  Ask them to bring anywhere between one and six good used books to trade.  (What makes a book good depends on who is reading it, of course.  But for the purposes of a book swap, good books do not include your friend’s uncle’s volume of self-published poetry or your friend’s father’s self-published business memoirs. It certainly does not include manuals for decade-old software. If you have to, give those books away to someone you don’t like at Diwali. Or give them to the kabadi wallah; he’ll put them to good use!) 

In a book swap, everyone puts their books on a table and can take away as many books as they bring. The point of a book swap is to get books into the hands of people who want to read them.  If you are hosting the swap, you should make sure you contribute a few really good books; if people have enough fun, someone might offer to host the next one.

Friends of Books, a Delhi-based book rental agency, held two book swaps earlier this year in Delhi, and both were a lot of fun.  I’m not sure if they’ll do another one, but it wouldn’t hurt to get on their mailing list, just in case.  And while you are at it, why not check out their service?  Though free public libraries are best, it's almost always better to rent than to buy new from a green perspective.  Friends of Books also sells books, by the way, and I have heard they do a good job of that, as well.

Speaking of selling books, you could try selling yours to a used book dealer.  There are used book sellers in Lajpat Nagar, Saket, and of course there’s the big market in Daryagang.  Used book markets are great because, from a green point of view, the more people that read a book, the better, and there's no harm in making a bit of money out of the deal!

If you have children’s books, it is tempting to want to give them to needy children. But used book are not like used clothes, because it is much more difficult to find the right fit when it comes to books. First, and most obvious, there is language. It makes little sense to give books to children who cannot read them. Even if language is not a problem, it is difficult for students who have no experience reading outside of what is required in school to pick up a book and read for the joy of it. 

One solution is to find a school, an NGO or a family that already values reading and give the books to them. This is not always as easy to do as you might think.  Even elite schools in Delhi often pay only lip service to reading for pleasure.  The same is true for most schools that serve working class and poor children.  Many schools will take your books, but won’t know what to do with them, since they haven't taught children how to read from anything except a text book.

If you have time to give and experience reading aloud to children, there are a lot of NGO’s out there who would welcome volunteers who like to read aloud to young people.  Or you could set up an informal reading hour (start with 30 minutes!) with the children in your own colony.  Once children learn to love hearing stories, it is much easier to convince them to read themselves.  Do this, and you’ll have no problem finding a home—either temporary or permanent—for your old story books, because you’ll have created readers—and readers crave good books!  This is a good thing to do, but don't do it out of charity.  Reading improves many things, including thinking.  And we will need a lot more good thinkers if we are ever going to solve the problems we’ve all collectively created!

Well, Ms. P, that's a long answer for a short question.  I do hope some of it helps.  And if anyone else out there has a question for the dhaba regarding green stuff, why not send it our way?

UPA II: Who’s Fooling Who?

--ACTION ALERT--

Before you read any further, if you are outraged about the Bhopal verdict, and the government’s response to it, there will be a rally today (Saturday) in Delhi at Jantar Mantar from 4-7pm.  Details are on Facebook event page, here, or call Kabir Arora at 9911879675. A list of more things you can do follows this post.

 ***

On Thursday, I outlined, in simple terms, four things governments can do to keep corporations from behaving unsafely: regulate them strictly; punish unsafe corporations financially; punish the people who run corporations unsafely; and insure that corporations account for their long term liabilities before distributing profits to their shareholders.

Recent events, however, clearly demonstrate the unwillingness of the current government to take any of these simple steps.  In fact, in the last week, we’ve seen three examples of the UPA doing the kinds of things governments do when they want to make corporations happy, whatever the cost.  In this case, the cost may well be the health and safety of millions of people.

First, on Monday, a quarter century after what was by some measures the worst industrial disaster in the history of the world, we saw the guilty parties getting the kind of sentence a reckless driver might expect to receive after causing a traffic accident—two years in prison (with bail already granted) and a small fine.  Though the government has acknowledged that the case against Warren Anderson (the head of Union Carbide at the time of the Bhopal disaster) is not closed, they gave no reason to believe his extradition from the US would be pursued in any serious way.

As if that weren’t bad enough, the day after the verdict, the government announced it was further weakening the already ridiculously weak Nuclear Liability Bill.  The revised bill offers further protection to US nuclear equipment suppliers from liability in the case of a nuclear incident that “has resulted from the wilful act or gross negligence on the part of the supplier of the material, equipment, or his employee.”  As bad as the bill was, and it was very bad indeed, it just got worse!

Then just yesterday, The Hindu revealed internal government memos that show that Home Minister Chidambaram and Kamal Nath, both of whom are members of the Group of Ministers on Bhopal, have been pushing a behind-the-scenes plan to let Dow Chemical, the owner of Union Carbide, escape from its liability for ongoing costs related to the Bhopal disaster. Not surprisingly, the plan originated with...Dow Chemical! The Hindu reports:

Documents released by the Prime Minister's Office under the RTI Act show that in 2006-2007, both Ministers recommended that a Site Remediation Trust be set up to let Indian corporates fund and implement remediation activities, leaving Dow free of any responsibility. This would send “an appropriate signal to Dow Chemicals, which is exploring investing substantially in India and to the American business community,” Mr. Nath said, in a memo dated February 2007. Mr. Chidambaram's recommendation came in the wake of the Indo-U.S. CEOs Forum meeting in October 2006, where Dow CEO Andrew Liveris wanted to discuss the issue. “I think we should accept this offer and constitute a Site Remediation Trust,” he said in his memo.

Coming all together as they have, it is natural to conclude these developments would be an embarrassment to the UPA II government.  But that’s only true if one assumes the government cares about what the general public thinks.  With the next election still years away, the UPA obviously feels free to say what it thinks its most important constituents want to hear.  And these days it seems that this government feels that its most important constituents are large corporations—India Inc. or “the American business community”, it hardly seems to matter anymore.  Viewed from that perspective, this week’s developments are far from embarrassing; rather, they send “an appropriate signal” to those the government is most eager to please.

There is only one remedy for that, of course, and that is to send “an appropriate signal” to our current leaders reminding them that in a democracy, it is the consent and support of the people, not the corporations, that give them the right to govern. Otherwise, they may think they’ve got us all fooled!  But as Abraham Lincoln once famously said:“You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.” 

It’s true that some of the people actually believe that pleasing corporations should be a government’s first priority, and they will support the government’s recent actions on that principle alone.  But I’m confident that a very large majority of the people believe that a government’s first responsibility is always to the health and welfare of the people it governs.  And if this government is counting on fooling those people for very much longer, it might find itself in trouble sooner than it thinks!

 ****

• Watch Greenpeace video about the Bhopal--Nuclear Liability Bill connection and sign their petition against the bill here.
• Lots of information; a good place to give money: bhopal.org 
• Students for Bhopal explain how to Dump Your Dow!
• I'm a Bhopali--bloggers bring the attention back to December 3, 1984 
• Join one of the many Bhopal-related  Facebook groups here. 
• See the Dhaba's Toxics  & Trash page for more on Bhopal.

Lessons from the Bhopal Verdict: Four Simple Ways to Hold Corporations Accountable

Speaking to media after the court announced it's decision in the Bhopal gas case, Robert Blake, the US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia said  he hopes "this verdict helps to bring some closure to the victims and their families." Given the ridiculously small sentences awarded--a maximum of two years in prison with bail already granted--it is hard to imagine Bhopal victims using the word "closure" anytime soon.  Especially since Warren Anderson, the former Union Carbide chairman, is still absconding and will likely never face justice.  The government is promising a tough new law to deal with man-made disasters, but it's difficult to have much faith in that effort, given the government has so little to enforce the laws that already exist.

The Bhopal verdict is very bad news not only because it is a case of justice denied.  It's also bad news because it teaches corporations the wrong lesson.  And that's not a safe thing to do!

The problem is that corporations are not, in fact, people, though you might not know that, given the rights they are often accorded under the law.  Corporations are legal entities, charged with making money for their shareholders. It's important to be clear about this fact, because it has real implications for how we understand corporate behavior--and what we should do to keep corporations behaving well.  

Because corporations are not people, it makes little sense to appeal to their sense of right and wrong.  After all, corporations did not grow up learning to look out for their brothers, sisters, classmates.  They were not taught to be polite to the Auntie upstairs. No one explained to them when they were young that when they grow up they will be expected to take care of the generations that preceded them or the ones that will follow.

To be fair, some corporations are run by people who want to do good things in the world.  But we can't protect ourselves from dangerous corporate behavior by assuming all corporations will be "responsible corporate citizens".  And we mustn't forget that at the end of the day, even a corporation run by good people is still judged by the profits it delivers to it's investors. If it doesn't deliver, chances are it will either go out of business or undergo a change of management.

I'm not an economist, but from what I can tell there are basically four ways you can keep corporations from doing dangerous things:  

1. Pass and enforce laws to make sure corporations don't engage in unsafe behavior in the first place.  This requires having strict safety laws and agencies that can enforce them.  The recent incident involving radioactive material finding it's way into a Delhi scrap market is an example of what happens when these mechanisms don't work.

2. Punish corporations financially when they do unsafe things that result in death or damages. Corporations understand financial consequences, because they cut into profits, so they will do what it takes to avoid them.  On the other hand, if you limit corporate liability, as the government is trying to do with the nuclear liability bill, you tell corporations it makes sense to take risks, since you haven't got much to lose!  After all, you can save a lot of money by cutting corners!  This is just common sense and the same principle operates in gambling, because successful gamblers are actually rational.  They know that if they have little to lose and much to gain it makes sense to take chances.  On the other hand, if they have a lot to lose, they won't make risky bets as often.

3. Punish the people responsible for unsafe corporate behavior.  Corporations are not people, but they are run by people.  And if those people think that there is a chance they might end up behind bars for negligence, then they are less likely to do unsafe things.  This is why the Bhopal verdict is such bad news.  It tells corporate leaders not to worry; after all, if your company causes the worst industrial disaster in the history of the world (not including NAZI gas chambers and acts of war like the atomic bombs dropped on Japan), at most you will be treated like an unsafe driver. 

4.  Insure that corporations account for long term environmental and environmental and health costs that may result from their work. Writing in The Guardian this week, George Monbiot uses the example of oil companies to suggest a way to do this:

"...the governments in whose territories oil companies work should force them to pay into a decommissioning fund. The levy should reflect the costs that economists are able to calculate, plus a contingency for those we can't yet foresee."

The problem with not doing this is that you allow big corporations to take their short term profits and give them to their shareholders, ignoring their long term liabilities.  Then when a corporation does something really stupid, it can claim it doesn't have the money to pay for what it's done; it's given it all away to their shareholders.  Monbiot says it better than I can--read his explanation here.

Back to Bhopal.  If you want to get involved in the fight to hold Dow Chemicals, the current owner of Union Carbide, accountable, here are some places you can go:

• Lots of information; a good place to give money: bhopal.org 
• Students for Bhopal explain how to Dump Your Dow!
• I'm a Bhopali--bloggers bring the attention back to December 3, 1984 
• Join one of the many Bhopal-related  Facebook groups here.

Excuses, Excuses: Lessons from the Commonwealth Games--Pollution Story

Two more lessons from the Commonwealth Games
1. We are worried about the wrong athletes
2. If you lack a convincing argument, look for a good excuse.

This year, for the first time in 44 years, the Queen will not be attending the Commonwealth Games.  The papers say it is due to her heavy workload, but one has to wonder if other factors could have been involved; the announcement did, after all, come on the heals of news that several Canadian athletes are pulling out of the games due to Delhi's unsafe levels of air pollution.

The CWG-Pollution story hit the papers back in May, when the good people at the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) announced the results their study of Delhi pollution to a meeting of experts from various government agencies.  According to the CSE's assessment, Delhi's levels of air pollution are very high and this may cause problems for athletes during the Commonwealth Games.  The CSE makes some very good points, and their plan calls for both long term and short term pollution reduction steps.

In the weeks since the CSE report, the CWG-Pollution story got a lot of attention. The Times of India quoted a doctor as saying, "Athletes, who breathe deeper and longer, can find themselves very uncomfortable. Higher level of suspended material could increase their stress level, and in turn affect their performance."  A leading sports scientist urged athletes from New Zealand to avoid training in Delhi as much as possible.  The UN praised the high-tech pollution monitoring system that will be used during the Games.  Following the CSE report, the Delhi government quickly announced a list of measures aimed at cutting pollution in time for the CWG.

I agree with the CSE: Delhi's air is a mess and it needs to be cleaned up.  The dust from all the construction, coupled with the stuff coming out of the tailpipes of millions of vehicles, is quite literally, deadly.  You don't need a hyperlink, or a quote from a doctor, or a report from an NGO to tell you that.

But the way this story is being told is making my blood boil.  First of all, with all this talk about how hard our air will be on athletes, you could almost forget that Delhi is a city that is being built and run, to a great extent, by people who use their bodies as machines: women who carry pots of water or stacks of bricks on their heads daily; cycle rickshaw wallas who haul heavy loads;  the workers who dig trenches by hand.   Do these people not breathe deep and long? Are they not athletes in every relevant sense of the word?  Are they not being caused "discomfort" every day?  Do they not die of cancer by the thousands?

And what of all of our children?  Who doesn't know at least one child not suffering from asthma?  I'm sorry about those Canadian marathoners.  But whether they run in October or not is really a small matter compared to the health of the millions of people who live here year round.

When you look at the Delhi government's plans to reduce pollution during the Games, most of what they plan to do will have a short term impact: temporary closure of power plants and traffic reduction, though a variety of means, including mandatory closure of schools.

These measures will make a difference, but their affect won't last long: no matter how tempting it may be, you can't solve the pollution problem by closing schools forever!  And unless you install a lot more solar power, it's hard to imagine power plants closing for very long. A few solar powered cycle rickshaws or light bulbs won't be enough, I'm sorry to say!

It is true that construction will probably slow naturally after the Games. But nobody can seriously believe that the Delhi government is going to do anything long term to reduce traffic; after all, they've spent most of the last five years building roads and flyovers!   In fact, it was not even three years ago that The Hindu ran an article titled, "Pollution-free by 2010, says Sheila."  Part of the CM's pollution reduction strategy? Flyovers!  Yes, flyovers were supposed to make our city more beautiful and while at the same time cutting idle time and thus reducing pollution.  Of course, that's not how the world works.  There is plenty of research that says when when you build more roads, you get more traffic!  And more traffic means more pollution!

This brings us to the second thing that's been bothering me about the Commonwealth Games-pollution story.  You see, for years, we've had massive transportation budgets justified in the name of the Commonwealth Games.  In fact, roads and transportation got 38 percent of the most recent Delhi budget. Now I'm not saying that all that was wasted; certainly the investment in public transportation is important. But overall, it seems terribly strange that we've built so many flyovers and widened so many roads in the name of the games, especially since, as we now learn, we could have solved the CWG-related traffic problems by reducing traffic in other ways!  In fact, that's what we are going to have to do anyway, because of our levels of pollution have gotten so out of hand!

Which just goes to show that the massive investment in roads and flyovers never really had much to do with the Commonwealth Games.  The games were just an excuse to do something that would have been politically impossible, otherwise.  And if you think about it, it makes perfect sense. 

In a city where millions of people don't have adequate housing or water, you'd have a hard time convincing people that transportation should be the top priority for government spending. Lacking a convincing argument, our leadership turned to the next best thing: a good excuse.  Call it what you will--old-fashioned politics or sleight of hand--but you have to admit Sheila Dikshit has played this game--these Games--brilliantly.

World Environment Day 2010: Celebrate, Mourn...Organize!

If you are in or near Delhi, there are plenty of things you can to to celebrate World Environment Day, which is happening today itself.  The Times of India tells us how to "Go Green: Shop Eat Watch Gift".  Their list of weekend events is here. Or try this list of events from around India.

However, if you are like me, you might not feel like shopping or celebrating.  You may feel tempted to stay home and mourn instead.  After all, staying home would help you avoid inhaling (or contributing to) the unusually hight levels of air pollution that we are experiencing this year in Delhi. And there is plenty to mourn.  In spite of what “climate skeptics” would have us believe, the latest data from scientists at NASA suggests the world is continuing to warm at an alarming rate.  And it’s not just the heat wave in North India; the data points to other things that are hard to deny—like melting ice caps and warmer oceans.  Closer to home, scientists see a clear correlation between strengthening cyclones and warmer ocean water. (For more on how this works, see this article in The Hindu.)

Those who profess undying faith in the power of technology to save us from our follies might want to ignore how utterly helpless BP and the US government have been to plug just one underwater leak.  Problem is, that leak is getting harder to ignore, because it’s spreading oil over such a large and sensitive area.  Sensitive environmentally, sensitive economically and, most of all, sensitive politically.  To see just how large the spill is, take a look at this graphic. (Thanks Amruta). Or this interactive map from the NY Times.

But as bad as that looks, there’s another story that we aren’t getting.  You see, in the eyes of large corporations, powerful countries and the mainstream media, not all the wold’s regions are as …sensitive as the US coast.   Last week, the Guardian's John Vidal reminded us that in many less “important” places, such as the Niger delta, oil spills are a regular occurrence.  (In this article, he looks at the issue in more depth. You won't find an interactive map there, but it's worth reading.)

These spills are ignored, because they affect only poor countries and/or poor people.  Of course this is part of what makes oil as cheap as it is; if we enforced the same safety standards world wide that are enforced in the richer countries, oil prices would rise dramatically and alternative sources of energy would become more attractive.  A lot of people don’t want that to happen, for a lot of reasons.

Among all the bad news last week, I did see one heartening story.  Writing in the Economic Times, M.   Rajshekhar reports on a government health care initiative that seems to be making a real difference in Chhattisgarh, of all places.  It seems that the program, which depends on an army of 60,000 volunteer healthcare workers who also function as advocates and activists, has resulted in more responsive doctors and more functioning health centers.  Infant mortality in the state is down from 95 per 1000 in 2000 to 44 per 1000 in 2009. Rajshekhar reminds us that health care programs alone will not make people healthy; for that, you need to do things like reduce poverty and improve nutrition.  But this story does remind us that government can make a difference in the lives of people and that progress is not impossible, even in these difficult times.  It takes leadership and some honest officials, of course, but most of all it takes the involvement of everyday people. 

So maybe the message this World Environment Day should be something like this: whether you celebrate or mourn is up to you.  But whatever you do, don’t forget to organize. With as big a mess as the world is in these days, it's going to take a lot of us to clean it up!