I think I have been able to convey the nuances of the Cap and Trade system through the printout analogy. We will be using that a lot in the coming weeks to further strengthen the concepts and cap the whole topic off.
In this post, I will be meandering off a little from the energy focus here and talk a bit about my summer time here:) No no, I am not reneging on the basic principle of this post of not putting any personal stuff here. So I will not be telling you how I am having a great time in Boston this summer, how it has been fantastic weather for the most part, how I have been enjoying the morning runs, weekend beaches and the generally lively atmosphere, minus the nagging workload of courses and going through the easy-paced research life:P Nothing of this sort here...don't worry!
I wanted to write something about the extremely enriching conferences that I have attended over the past 2 weeks. Just to back it up a bit, I had got an internship at The World Bank for the summer in their Carbon Finance Unit. It was the kind of place I wanted to work at, the kind of place for which I had come to this program in the first place. But then, as is with life, I had to give that up and work on my research to get a paper by the end of the summer. I was so angry at this turn of events....so ANGRY!! However, it has turn out to be a great experience so far, mainly because of the conferences I have been to in a span of a few weeks and the amount I have learned from them!
So last week there was this 40 year celebration of the Apollo landing on the moon. Technically, a month earlier as 20th July, 1969 was when that happened. I have always been a little critical of the Space programs, mainly from the developing country perspective. When we don't have money to feed our people, I thought it preposterous for civilization to engage in a space war to land on the moon and then come back with tonnes of moon rocks! As if, we didn't have enough rocks on earth. I have been pretty opinionated on this regard and got into lengthy conversations with my peers in the Aero/Astro department here. So, this celebration were a chance for me to see what did we learn from all the trillions of dollars spent on space missions!
Was I swept over! The man's inquest of space has shaped the way we do things in a phenomenal way! From the area of telecommunications, to education to life sciences, to the food industry! You look at something and you find it linked to the space related research efforts. I must say, this was a big eye-opener for me and I accept my rather naive opinion of this whole area.
And now for the biggest part: I met Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin at the conference! Yes, the first 2 people on the surface of the moon! Yes, the men about whom I used to read in the books in my school! Yes, the same voice which said something to the effect of "A small step for man, a giant leap for mankind":) I fall short of words to describe how I felt when I met them...goosebumps would be a euphemism!:P In one of the sessions, we were asked to clap for the people involved with the Apollo missions and I must say I would be right up there in terms of the decibel level of my clapping:)
The contribution of the space program in the realm of climate science is also crucial. The ozone layer problem was first spotted through a satellite image over Antartica that led to the Montreal Protocol. These space borne cameras have been very vital in the fight against carbon dioxide accumulation and we will have to increasingly depend on them in the future in the face of a climate treaty post Kyoto. Any global effort in this area will hinge on the confirmation that every country is following suit, primarily due to the global nature of the problem. So, if any country/region is not adhering to the assigned emission target, the problem is not getting solved and even those places that are managing their emissions well are getting hurt. These space systems will keep everyone in check and make sure that the offenders are punished/reprimanded. They have been doing a great job in the ozone layer maintenance by providing a region wise data on the emission levels globally.
So this proselytistic self is all about space program now! Go ISRO! Go NASA!
The other conference I was talking about was on Engineering Systems, the most recent discipline of Engineering that brings together an integrated approach on problems. It is the new belief of the complex nature of the problems in the 21st century and how only one discipline of engineering, or even social sciences, is not enough to solve them. It was an enriching experience, in its own way, looking at the evolution of a whole new field that could be taking up all the space in the future.
I would finish with a quote from the movie Apollo 13, motivated from my new found love for space! Tom Hanks was asked by a Senator in the movie the relevance of going ahead with space programs once they had already landed on the moon and led in the space race against the USSR. What more benefit can they derive from going to a place they have already explored a couple of times. The actor, very prophetically retorts that wonder what had happened if people after Christopher Columbus had the same logic!
Back to climate change in the next post!:)
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