Guest Post: Journey Just Begun, by Kabir Arora

Kabir Arora is well known among Delhi environmentalists for his tireless activism. He's now begun a two year Gandhi Fellowship working in village schools and communities.  Here's the first of his updates.

Last year around September-October, I was struggling with a question, “What to do after Graduation?”. Personally wanted to take a break and move away from everything. Exploring “New Time and Space” was something, I was looking forward to. Luckily came to know about Gandhi Fellowship, applied for it. Gandhi in the “fellowship programme” attracted me. Now I'm here in Udaipurvati for Learning Quality induction, Jaitpura is my school.

Gandhi said “India lives in villages” and he left to find “India”. My journey is to find him and follow his footprints on the sands of time. Got a glimpse of his in my school, where kids are all set to explore new dimensions. They are small but with big dreams of mingling with the high mountains, deep seas. Make the world a better place to live, that's what Gandhi wanted. Every day I see him smiling in my classroom!

“Every kid has an adult in him/her, and every adult has a kid in him/her”, once a statement made by someone. I observe it, with every passing day. Students help me to unlearn and see the world with innocent eyes full of curiosity. I used to love silence but my class is always chaotic--the chaos which has a silence of innocence. “Am I becoming a good teacher?”, No! Kids are creating a facilitator out of me to help them in studying the lessons of life. Life which will lay the foundation of humane society.

The words here are not mine, but the dreams of Pawan, Hansu, Pramod, Sunil, Virendar, Garima...

Journey has just began!

Rangon Ka Ek Indradhanush Le, Chale Hamara Kafila...

What Climate Refugees Look Like

Before the main post, two action alerts. First, Greenpeace is asking us to send a letter to Sonia Gandhi about the BRAI Bill; apparently, she's our best hope on this issue, at this moment. It's just like signing a petition; it won't take long, so why not do this today?

And this just in via the Indian Youth Climate Network:

The Alliance for Sustainable & Holistic Agriculture (ASHA), a new network of individuals and organizations across the country has announced that a “Kisan Swaraj Yatra” would set off from Sabarmati Ashram on October 2nd 2010, to remind all Indians of our hard-won independence and the insidious ways in which agri-business corporations, supported by the State are taking this independence and sovereignty away, especially with regard to our food and farming. This Yatra is a call for joining forces to save Indian farming and farmers mired in deep distress and to forge a sustainable path forward for Indian farming.

Please go here for more information. 

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I don't watch TV much at all.  In fact our TV is not even currently hooked up to cable and reception is so bad on the ground floor of our block of flats that there's almost no point of turning it on. Don't get me wrong; I do watch an occasional film on DVD, and I get more "screen time" than I need through the computer.  I'm no purist. Still I do think that less TV means more reading and that's generally good.

But last weekend, I took an internet holiday and got out of the house.  Somehow I found myself sitting with a friend...watching TV. My friend is a rather serious fellow, so we ended up watching coverage of the flooding in Pakistan.  Of course I've read a lot about that flooding. I know the destruction is massive and Pakistan's infrastructure has been set back years, even decades.  I can even hyper link to an article that explains how many billions of dollars in damage has been done, how many thousands of miles of roads destroyed.

But in spite of an annoying team of American reporters, the TV footage I saw last weekend gave me insight I think I'd missed in the print coverage I'd seen.  There were thousands of people streaming out of villages and cities, fleeing the rising water; there were people fighting over drinking water and flour; terrified little children wandering, knee deep in water.

Here is the problem honest environmentalists have.  We know you can never say with certainty that this flood was a direct result of climate change. But we also know that most scientists believe that climate change is leading to an increase in certain kinds of extreme weather events--like severe flooding and cyclones.  And that means that in years to come, we are going to see more and more disasters like we've been seeing in Pakistan, Leh and China.  

So we're stuck: if we claim a connection, the climate deniers will question our credibility, even though many of them jump at the chance to cry "global cooling" every time it snows.  If we don't claim a connection, we lose a powerful opportunity to educate about the kind of future we are looking at if we allow climate change to go unchecked.

Politicians are trying to figure out how to talk about this issue.  Hillary Clinton recently spoke of "linkage" between the recent floods and climate change. I guess it's a start, but I'm sure we can do better than "linkage".  Scientists are also grappling with how to explain uncertain events clearly: many are looking at the connection between climate change an severe weather much more seriously than they did a decade ago, even.  My sense is that we need to get comfortable with the word "probably."  (Read this article if you want more on that.)

And then we must say clearly, and with a high level of confidence, that much of the recent flooding we've seen in Asia was probably a result of climate change, but it most certainly offers us a glimpse of what we expect to happen more and more often in the future if we don't do something soon.  And it's not a pretty picture.  

We must tell our friends and neighbors: Hey, if you are wondering what to worry about when it comes to climate change, the destruction wrought by extreme weather events and the resulting climate refugees is a good place to start.  After that, you can start considering the hunger caused when too many monsoons fail.  Or think about what suddenly happens when you reach the bottom of your bottle of Limca and then consider tube wells and falling water tables.  And if you really want a scary scenario, imagine the political destabilisation that tends to accompany these kinds of events.

That should be enough to worry about for now.

What Climate Refugees Look Like:

What They Carried Away (Time-CNN photo essay)

Pakistan Flood in Pictures (The New Statesman)

Photos from the Huffington Post

Thermos Technology: Waste Not, Want Not!

A joule saved is a joule not generated!

Greens all over the world get very excited by big, high-tech projects, like this one which claims to convert North African sun into European electricity. It relies on thermos technology, among other things, such as huge amounts of desert land. 

I, for one, have more faith in the power of lower tech projects, like efforts to use thermos bottle technology to produce solar hot water heaters that work in cold places.  If you really get down to it, even solar powered water heaters can seem pretty complex.  Still, I think I understand them well enough, ever since that July I spent in Uttarakhand, producing enough warm water to bathe my children and myself by placing old water bottles, wrapped in a plastic bags, on a sheet metal roof. (Mrs. Batti, who came down with a nasty bug, rightfully got most of our small allotment of wood fire-warmed water.)

In fact, I think good old fashioned thermos technology is under-rated. I love to drink coffee and tea, but I don't like to drink it all at one time.  No, the best thing to do, is to have a lot of small cups.  Before I had a thermos, I had to re-heat my coffee over and over, and that was not very fun at all--besides, it wasted a lot of cooking gas and the coffee tasted burnt after a while. Then I got a nice thermos.  I can sip coffee all day long, if that's what I want to do!  

And while we're on the subject, what would we do without that roti warmer?  Yes, I know it's tastier to eat them hot and fresh, but our warmer, which uses thermos technology, gives us that little bit of extra flexibility we sometimes need.  No need to use an oven to keep things warm, or to have someone working in the kitchen while everyone eats; you can all sit down together! And it's not just for rotis--it works for idlis and pancakes and all kinds of things!

Thermos technology may be over one hundred years old, but it has a lot going for it! You see, it's almost always better to save energy than it is to figure out how to generate unnecessary energy.  I put that in italics, because it is so important.  In fact, I think I'll write it up nice and big and nail it to the wall of the Dhaba: Hari Batti's third law of thermodynamics or something like that...Yes, thermoses are the ultimate energy saving devices. They are time tested and eco-friendly--and they keeps things tasting good!  What more could you ask for?

Sometimes low tech is the best greentech; for more examples like this, check out this page.

Nuclear Liability Bill Takes Another Bizarre Turn

The UPA keeps trying to sneak major changes into the Nuclear Liability Bill.  

Do they think we are stupid? Or do they just want the US to give them extra marks for their efforts to protect negligent nuclear suppliers?

There is no other way to say this: the UPA's effort to protect foreign companies and governments from any liability in the case of a nuclear accident has taken a bizarre turn over the past few days.  If it weren't so serious, it would be funny.  Late last week, it looked like the BJP was ready to sign off on an improved, but still deeply flawed Nuclear Liability Bill.  Then someone in the government tried to sneak in the word "and" between two clauses of the Bill, and that one word would have made it almost impossible to use the Bill to hold nuclear suppliers accountable for negligence in the case of a nuclear accident.  Luckily, The Hindu caught the change and the BJP withdrew support for the amended Bill until things could be sorted out. The government made conciliatory noises.

But when the final version was released, the government had again tried to slip in a small, but very important, word: intent. According to a report in The Hindu:

'The amended version of the bill says the suppliers of any defective equipment involved in an accident can be sued by the Indian operator of a nuclear facility only if the supply in question was made “with the intent to cause nuclear damage."'

This, dear friends, is truly bizarre! "Intent to cause nuclear damage" amounts to an act of terrorism, if not all out war!  If the government is relying on a "liability bill" to respond to this kind of act, perhaps a closer look at the UPA's foreign policy is in order! And even if you were going to use the court system in a case like this, why would you want to provide liability limits in cases of nuclear terrorism?  I just wonder, does the UPA think we are all stupid?   

After a careful reading of the tea leaves floating in my cup this morning, I think the UPA will have to back down again.  They will do so having sent a strong message to the US nuclear industry and government: "We really tried to give you complete protection, but we couldn't quite manage it."  However, there is bad news in my tea leaves also: the version of the Bill that the BJP is ready to support is also deeply flawed, in part because it severely limits the amount of liability in cases of nuclear accidents.  No, it's not a free pass, but it does highly subsidize the nuclear industry by putting strict limits on liability.  This kind of thing may make nuclear power marginally cheaper, but it will also encourage cost-cutting and risk taking.

For a more thorough analysis, you can read ToxicWatch's press statement on the Bill.  Here's an excerpt from it:

British Petroleum (BP) is facing a bill of up to $34 billion from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster. After US senators demanded, the oil company deposited $20 billion (about Rs 92000 crores) into a ring-fenced account to meet escalating compensation costs but the way Indian legislators are agreeing to a Rs 1500 crore cap on nuclear disaster from large nuclear power plants, Rs 300 crore cap for institutions involved in reprocessing fuel and Rs 100 crore cap for small research reactors is unacceptable and condemnable.

For now, I'm suggesting we support Greenpeace's campaign and send a letter to the PM calling for unlimited liability in the case of nuclear accidents: let the courts decide.  

And if you are looking for more resources, do check out the ToxicWatch site, linked above.  Also, Sukla Sen has a really excellent analysis of the Bill and it's history over at the Environment Press.  Read it, and while you are at it, join the Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace (CNDP)'s Facebook group. 

Bad News: Nuclear Liability Bill, BRAI Bill are better, not good enough

UPDATE:
Apparently, the Obama administration is pressuring India to go easy on Bhopal.  Students for Bhopal tell you how you can protest this double standard here.  It's easy!

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I promised my family I'd take some time off from the Dhaba this weekend, but there's a lot that needs to be said, so I'm throwing this together on Thursday and will autopost over the weekend.  If you have fresher links or ideas, please do add them in the comments.

A long time ago, it seems, I argued that the BRAI Bill and the Civil Nuclear Liability Bill were really stupid bills.  A lot of people agreed with that sentiment, and in the end, both bills were modified.  The question is, have they been modified enough? My sense is they haven't.  Of course compromise is needed in politics, and one cannot just say "no" to everything.  But if you compromise too much, you lose credibility in the long run.  A generation ago, a lot of politicians compromised again and again over the Bhopal disaster, and today we are left with the consequences of that.  If we can't learn from that situation, we are in trouble.

I'm suggesting that as a first step, people join Greenpeace's campaign against these two bills.  They are asking us to send a letter to Sonia Gandhi about the BRAI Bill and to send a letter to the PM about the Civil Nuclear Liability Bill. Both letters made sense to me when I read them, and they can't hurt.  For more information, I'd start there.

If you are looking for more analysis, it's still coming in.  It's not as easy to sort all this out as you might think, since in places these bills seem to be purposely ambiguous; the nuclear bill in particular seems to be using confusing language as a way of compromise. And the bills aren't in their final form quite yet, either. Still, here are some of the links I've been looking at:

Government letting suppliers off the hook? The Hindu reports on a major problem in the nuclear bill.

Did Congress let Modi off the hook in exchange for BJP support? The Hindu. If true, this would be corruption of the worst sort imaginable.

Elusive Benefits, tangible costs: Brahma Chellaney's editorial in The Hindu argues, among other things, that the US holds its own nuclear industry to much higher standards than it will stand for in India.  Words like hypocritical and insulting come to mind.

Sukla Sen writes about confusion in the Nuclear Bill in The Green Youth Movement google group. Also includes statement from Left parties.

Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace (CNDP) is a Facebook group where you can get more updates as they come.

Jairam Ramesh likes the BRAI BILL--but take that with a grain of salt for now. For problems with the current bill, see the Greenpeace letter, above.

Interesting piece on the problems with GM seeds in Mexico.  Thanks to Mira Kamdar for posting this; she's always got something interesting to say.