Hello to my favorite people! The title is not of my creation, as I have already nixed any thoughts about my creativity in an earlier post. It is plagiarized from the editorial by Paul Krugman in the New York Times today. The last few days have been an amazing experience in the Obama land, from the Climate Change and Green Energy perspective, i.e. my perspective:). The State of the Union address, and the ensuing budget brought forth by the government solidly stated that this administration believes in walking the talk. A welcome relief from the past regime, and in general of the class of politicians who mostly subscribe to all talk and no walk.
It feels great to be writing a blog during this historic week in US politics. For the uninitiated, the Obama administration has included setting up a cap and trade system in this year's budget proposal. This is such a HUGE moment in the climate change arena, such an admirable change from the last US regime that didn't even seem to recognize the concept, at the cost of irreparable harm. Anyway, as they say, good riddance!:) Not just that, the resources generated from selling the carbon credits will be channeled to further research and deployment of renewables. Did they say that double whammy was ever as good! I might say this at the cost sounding banal, but I am amazed at the amount of change I am about see in a lifetime:) Anyway, more on this later, time for the topic of today.
Again, I shall start with replying to the comment of my last post and then go onto discussing something new. And believe me, there shall be something new today:)
The one comment I got to my last post was related to ice caps in the Arctic have risen to a 17 year high and that defeats the argument of Climate Change. Its a very potent argument brought forward by a very special person, whom I have always looked upto. And this is another instance why. Thanks Anu for bringing forth this topic, for I somehow forgot to broach it. This is the distinction between the Climate and Weather. Weather is the seasonal variation of temperatures, pressure, wind speed, etc., a very temporal phenomena and I shall not even go in detail for I can hardly be aware of all the forces at work here. What we concerned about is Climate, and Climate Change. Its not the year after year temperature in a part of the world, but the environment's behavior, overall. I still doubt the data that ice levels in the Arctic were at 17 years high, but reports show that they were greater than the levels reported in 2007. However, if you compare the level of ice caps between 1979 and 2007, they have HALVED! I am not saying that the ice caps reduced each year, there could have been fluctuations in the annual level, but they have been monotonically decreasing, as a trend. Hence, the yearly levels of ice caps should be used as a point to negate the concept of climate change. As I said earlier, we have long moved beyond that phase, all its skeptics should be treated as pariahs now:) Like George W. Bush in US:)
Monotonically, aah, I love to use this word! I was introduced to this word in my high school maths, through a chapter on Functions and graphs, and have been hooked onto it ever since:) Whenever I am able to plug this word into any of my writing or conversations, the literary side of me gives a pat on the back to my mathematical side. What were the odds of my exposure to this word had I taken literature as a major:) Thanks Anu for giving me this opportunity, again!!:)
Now for the topic of the day. Since we started the post with with a political overtone, lets stick to it for the day! Consistency should be a hallmark of my blog, something that has never been of my life! So we shall discuss the policy side of Climate Change today. Precisely speaking, the development of the Kyoto Protocol and the post Kyoto scenario. Hopefully, I will be able to justice to this humongous topic.
Just to give you a little background to it, Kyoto Protocol has been modeled on the lines of the Montreal Protocol, which was signed by countries to arrest the depletion of the ozone layer. The Ozone layer protects us from the harmful ultraviolet radiations of the sun and it was getting severely depleted in the 1980s due to the emission of the CFCs into the atmosphere, the primarily refrigerants used at that time. It was a pointed problem and got a pointed policy response. The different countries ratified it without breaking a sweat, as it required a simple technological fix. The technical world had brought out a cheap and easy alternative to the CFCs and compliance was easy. The latest numbers for ozone layer confirms the fact that Montreal Protocol was a great success as countries are still sticking to the targets.
The grave error policy makers did at the very beginning was to build the Kyoto Protocol on the lines of the Montreal Protocols. But we can't blame them for basking in their glory, for seldom does a policy response meet with this level of success. The problem here is far more complex than the ozone layer depletion, and the to think of a solution would be amateurish. The second grave error that they did was to exclude the developing nations, the Non-Annex B countries, from making any commitment to reducing emissions. They were asked to jump onto the bandwagon at their own sweet will while the developed world were told to adhere to time bound targets. This was a failed strategy, right from the very beginning and confirmed only lately, when China trumped US in total Green House Gas(GHG) Emissions in 2008.
And then the poor thing hit the rock called George W. Bush, who just didn't budge an inch. US did not approve the Kyoto Protocol, and the entire treaty has been a cross between a good starting point and a meek response to a grave problem. It is too focused on the short term, with no thought given to the road ahead. In fact, the first phase of compliance started in 2008 and is until 2012 and I will not burn my hands by making any predictions here.
All is not lost yet!The world leaders reconvene in December 2009 in Copenhagen to decide the future of this treaty, post 2012, when its first compliance period ends. That should be an event worth waiting for, and it gives me great pleasure to imagine that US would be on the right side of the arguments, finally!:)
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Blogging revisited!
Yaayyy! Blogging time! Its hard to fathom that a person so averse to blogging just a week ago has been waiting all these days to write another post!:)
I am really amazed and honored by the kind of people who took time out to read my blog and post their comments. There are some very old and special friends, some very special seniors, special family members and some enthusiastic blog readers. I take this opportunity to thank each one of you for your time and effort. I will start this blog by responding to the comments first and then shall delve into a topic for today, if space permits.
The first, rather overarching, feedback I got on the blog is that I am acting as a doomsayer by saying that Climate Change is the biggest threat faced by mankind. This is certainly not a prophecy of doom based on any whim, that a comet will hit the planet earth on this day of that year. Carbon Dioxide accumulation is a hard fact of life, proved by science. And this is bound to happen, if we don't act accordingly. My endeavor here is to make people aware of a threat that is very much there, but is taking shape very very slowly. It is so glacially slow that people might ignore it, at their own peril. Climate Change is no Lehman Brothers, that it is here today and gone tomorrow, it won't be that sudden a process. It is more like a small opening in the embankment of a river. The opening is so small that nobody, in the Business As Usual scenario(BAU), hardly ever notices it in the rigmaroles of their daily life, but the water of the river is slowly eating away the sediments, and the cavity grows ever so slowly! One might say that the cavity is not there, but the process is irreversible and would get noticed at the point of no return.
You might have read this story in school, of a small Dutch boy who prevents his village from drowning by blocking a similar cavity in his village embankment with his finger overnight, until people notice him standing there and repair the damage. He saves the whole village by his prudence, else the river would have destroyed it. Sadly speaking, we are beyond the point in the saga where one heroic effort can do the needful. We need the masses to sit up and take notice of the cavity. Until then, researchers, scientists and other activists of Climate Change will only act as small Dutch boys so that the masses of the world can take notice and remedy the situation.
This blog is just a small effort in the hope of making people inquisitive about Climate Change, so that they start asking those questions that we have hitherto conveniently swept under the carpet. And make no mistake, this is pure science. There is no conjecture, or mysticism involved here. If people are still not convinced about the change, I will urge them to do a small experiment at home. Try sitting in a closed room with an open furnace, with some fresh wood, or coal,better still, in the furnace. Sit in the closed room and try to do your normal activities. See for yourself what changes begin to happen as you spend more time in the closed room. I agree, all this is happening at a very fast pace in the room, but the changes will be there for you to feel. The same is happening with the environment, albeit at a very slow level.
The second point brought about by a dear friend, Mrigank, was related to the developing world and their role in this process, given their usual problems with poverty, literacy, public health etc. While I must give him the credit for an impassionate plea for Climate Change not being as important in the developing world as it should be in the developed world, I have reasons to the contrary. And I hope that I can convince him with my reasons, something that I have not been able to do very many times in the past:) The reason is exactly what Sreekumar mentions,Sustainability, and I hate him for stealing my thunder on this:) Sustainability is the buzzword for the developing world, that can take them beyond the mentality of the third world countries.
Consider this: the total share of global CO2 emissions of India is around 5% and that of US is around 24%. If you take a per capita value of the same entity, the ratio is even more skewed as we know that US has around 300 million people emitting that amount while in India 1.1 billion people cause a smaller dent. Now do an interesting slicing of data, for all the data enthusiasts in you, take the top 5% of Indian population, in terms of personal income, and look at their average CO2 emissions. It comes out to be of the same order as an average person in the US!!! A wealthy Indian is at the same consumption level as an average American! This simply means that rich people in our part, or any poor part, of the world are hiding behind the poor. They will keep enjoying their level of comfort, and keep blaming the developed world for all their emissions, as long as they have a good chunk of poor people in their country to take care of them, in order words average out the emissions for them. Thus, there is vested interests in keeping people poor and ignorant. This may sound ludicrous, but this my friends is close to reality. We need to bring the lot of poor in these countries up in a sustainable manner. Imagine if all the poor people in India start dreaming of a life like the wealthy, at the same level of consumption, the emissions will simply shoot through the roof, literally speaking!
There has to be a 2 pronged approach for this. The rich, in the poor countries, have to cut down on consumption and the poor have to be developed in a sustainable manner, without being forced to give up any of their amenities. As a simple example, the bulk of the emissions in an Indian village is caused by the 'chulha' or the open coal furnace. Once ignited, it keeps burning for the most part of the day as it is very difficult to reignite, once put out. Just imagine, if we could harness some sort a solar powered furnace for these people, how much of a dent in the emissions we can cause at the national level,and at the global level too. We did not ask the village poor to let go of any benefits he/she was entitled to, we just changed the source of it. I am not talking chimerically here, this very much being implemented at the village level. Check out the work one Mr. Harish Hande is doing in this field in the villages of Karnataka and Gujarat and you will be convinced of the scope of possibilities here. I have met him personally, and must say that his work is really commendable. It takes a lot of guts and gumption to go the way he has gone, and endure as much as he has endured!
God! I will have to tame my blogging prolixity or else will end up making a tome of my blog! I will postpone broaching a new issue on Climate Change at a later date, on a different post. Till then, enjoy saving the planet! You are all heroes this world is looking upto:) At least, I tell myself this statement everyday, first thing in the morning. Keeps me going strong through the day!:)
P.S.: It is scientifically reported that if we start living the same lifestyle as we had in 1750, the pre-industrial era, things would come back to normal and we will not have to worry about climate at all. How many of us are willing to do so?:) Some food for thought....:)
I am really amazed and honored by the kind of people who took time out to read my blog and post their comments. There are some very old and special friends, some very special seniors, special family members and some enthusiastic blog readers. I take this opportunity to thank each one of you for your time and effort. I will start this blog by responding to the comments first and then shall delve into a topic for today, if space permits.
The first, rather overarching, feedback I got on the blog is that I am acting as a doomsayer by saying that Climate Change is the biggest threat faced by mankind. This is certainly not a prophecy of doom based on any whim, that a comet will hit the planet earth on this day of that year. Carbon Dioxide accumulation is a hard fact of life, proved by science. And this is bound to happen, if we don't act accordingly. My endeavor here is to make people aware of a threat that is very much there, but is taking shape very very slowly. It is so glacially slow that people might ignore it, at their own peril. Climate Change is no Lehman Brothers, that it is here today and gone tomorrow, it won't be that sudden a process. It is more like a small opening in the embankment of a river. The opening is so small that nobody, in the Business As Usual scenario(BAU), hardly ever notices it in the rigmaroles of their daily life, but the water of the river is slowly eating away the sediments, and the cavity grows ever so slowly! One might say that the cavity is not there, but the process is irreversible and would get noticed at the point of no return.
You might have read this story in school, of a small Dutch boy who prevents his village from drowning by blocking a similar cavity in his village embankment with his finger overnight, until people notice him standing there and repair the damage. He saves the whole village by his prudence, else the river would have destroyed it. Sadly speaking, we are beyond the point in the saga where one heroic effort can do the needful. We need the masses to sit up and take notice of the cavity. Until then, researchers, scientists and other activists of Climate Change will only act as small Dutch boys so that the masses of the world can take notice and remedy the situation.
This blog is just a small effort in the hope of making people inquisitive about Climate Change, so that they start asking those questions that we have hitherto conveniently swept under the carpet. And make no mistake, this is pure science. There is no conjecture, or mysticism involved here. If people are still not convinced about the change, I will urge them to do a small experiment at home. Try sitting in a closed room with an open furnace, with some fresh wood, or coal,better still, in the furnace. Sit in the closed room and try to do your normal activities. See for yourself what changes begin to happen as you spend more time in the closed room. I agree, all this is happening at a very fast pace in the room, but the changes will be there for you to feel. The same is happening with the environment, albeit at a very slow level.
The second point brought about by a dear friend, Mrigank, was related to the developing world and their role in this process, given their usual problems with poverty, literacy, public health etc. While I must give him the credit for an impassionate plea for Climate Change not being as important in the developing world as it should be in the developed world, I have reasons to the contrary. And I hope that I can convince him with my reasons, something that I have not been able to do very many times in the past:) The reason is exactly what Sreekumar mentions,Sustainability, and I hate him for stealing my thunder on this:) Sustainability is the buzzword for the developing world, that can take them beyond the mentality of the third world countries.
Consider this: the total share of global CO2 emissions of India is around 5% and that of US is around 24%. If you take a per capita value of the same entity, the ratio is even more skewed as we know that US has around 300 million people emitting that amount while in India 1.1 billion people cause a smaller dent. Now do an interesting slicing of data, for all the data enthusiasts in you, take the top 5% of Indian population, in terms of personal income, and look at their average CO2 emissions. It comes out to be of the same order as an average person in the US!!! A wealthy Indian is at the same consumption level as an average American! This simply means that rich people in our part, or any poor part, of the world are hiding behind the poor. They will keep enjoying their level of comfort, and keep blaming the developed world for all their emissions, as long as they have a good chunk of poor people in their country to take care of them, in order words average out the emissions for them. Thus, there is vested interests in keeping people poor and ignorant. This may sound ludicrous, but this my friends is close to reality. We need to bring the lot of poor in these countries up in a sustainable manner. Imagine if all the poor people in India start dreaming of a life like the wealthy, at the same level of consumption, the emissions will simply shoot through the roof, literally speaking!
There has to be a 2 pronged approach for this. The rich, in the poor countries, have to cut down on consumption and the poor have to be developed in a sustainable manner, without being forced to give up any of their amenities. As a simple example, the bulk of the emissions in an Indian village is caused by the 'chulha' or the open coal furnace. Once ignited, it keeps burning for the most part of the day as it is very difficult to reignite, once put out. Just imagine, if we could harness some sort a solar powered furnace for these people, how much of a dent in the emissions we can cause at the national level,and at the global level too. We did not ask the village poor to let go of any benefits he/she was entitled to, we just changed the source of it. I am not talking chimerically here, this very much being implemented at the village level. Check out the work one Mr. Harish Hande is doing in this field in the villages of Karnataka and Gujarat and you will be convinced of the scope of possibilities here. I have met him personally, and must say that his work is really commendable. It takes a lot of guts and gumption to go the way he has gone, and endure as much as he has endured!
God! I will have to tame my blogging prolixity or else will end up making a tome of my blog! I will postpone broaching a new issue on Climate Change at a later date, on a different post. Till then, enjoy saving the planet! You are all heroes this world is looking upto:) At least, I tell myself this statement everyday, first thing in the morning. Keeps me going strong through the day!:)
P.S.: It is scientifically reported that if we start living the same lifestyle as we had in 1750, the pre-industrial era, things would come back to normal and we will not have to worry about climate at all. How many of us are willing to do so?:) Some food for thought....:)
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
A 'blog' next door
'Why another blog?'
I have debated on this question over and over again, only to end up firm on my convictions of not jumping onto the blogging bandwagon. All this while that I was not writing a blog, or blogging as they say in the blogosphere, I used to pester my friends with random thoughts, to the extent of either driving them crazy with the volume of my thoughts or being completely ignored for the same reason.
Today in a session on 'Challenges in the Global Economy' by the Sloan School of Management here at MIT, Prof. Simon Johnson, a renowned faculty from that very school and the Chief Economist of IMF not so long ago, described himself as blogger first and a Professor second. Whatever may be the reason for him to make that comment, it drove home the point that I am already behind the curve on this phenomena, and its time to catch up.
Now that I have laid down the reason for this new endeavor, another rankling thought is the content of this blog. Should I just add to the mountain loads of personal information on the blogosphere, from detailing my diurnal activities as a lot of people do, to gross levels at times, or write about what my pet has done since morning? I decided to do neither, instead focus on what has become my life's passion of late. Climate Change! Now, before this name puts you off into not reading my blog anymore, and pass a word around to your progeny to follow suit, give me a chance.
I have decided that I will distill all the information that I receive at this amazing place, called MIT, and help spread the severity of the situation. Without doubt, and as more technical research claims it everyday, this is the biggest problem humanity has ever faced,probably, for it strives for its extinction. The current levels of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere has reached 380 parts per million(ppm), hence the name of this blog:), and if we continue in this Business as Usual(BAU) scenario, we will end up at a concentration level in the ballpark range of 900 ppm, or in other words, cease to exist for that level of CO2 would be simply catastrophic. Hence, the problem is real, and its getting serious with each passing second. And calls for action, immediately! The size of the problem cannot be tacked by a few scientists and engineers alone, the entire world has to come together to save the situation. Anyway, we will see more on this in every subsequent post!
The motivation of doing something like this also came at a session last week at MIT, on Climate Change. Since when did I become innovative?:) That session was conducted by another renowned professor in this area, Prof. John Sterman. He drew an interesting analogy, combining two famous movements in the US history, which he claimed would be required to salvage the situation for us. And that is the amalgamation of the Manhattan Project, one that developed the atom bomb, for its technical expertise, and the Civil Rights movement, for its mass appeal and mass contribution. While he claimed we are making decent progress in the technical realm, masses are still not involved in ameliorating the situation. And he put the onus on everyone who is conducting any research in this area to help in whatever small way he/she can, to spread the word around. I shall try to come clean here!
Its hideously ironical that while all my undergrad years, I vehemently tried to enter a consulting firm, simply to get away from the academics, it was a stint in a consulting firm that sent me scampering back to academia:) And even more intriguing that I shall devote so much time and energy of my life, along with numerous other razor sharp brilliant minds, on studying a gas that had got a very trivial mention in my middle school biology books, only in the photosynthesis process. This seems to be Carbon Dioxide's attempt at redeeming itself:) And its an ugly way, indeed!
Gosh, I do love writing!:)
P.S.: Hope I am not the only person reading upto this line:)
I have debated on this question over and over again, only to end up firm on my convictions of not jumping onto the blogging bandwagon. All this while that I was not writing a blog, or blogging as they say in the blogosphere, I used to pester my friends with random thoughts, to the extent of either driving them crazy with the volume of my thoughts or being completely ignored for the same reason.
Today in a session on 'Challenges in the Global Economy' by the Sloan School of Management here at MIT, Prof. Simon Johnson, a renowned faculty from that very school and the Chief Economist of IMF not so long ago, described himself as blogger first and a Professor second. Whatever may be the reason for him to make that comment, it drove home the point that I am already behind the curve on this phenomena, and its time to catch up.
Now that I have laid down the reason for this new endeavor, another rankling thought is the content of this blog. Should I just add to the mountain loads of personal information on the blogosphere, from detailing my diurnal activities as a lot of people do, to gross levels at times, or write about what my pet has done since morning? I decided to do neither, instead focus on what has become my life's passion of late. Climate Change! Now, before this name puts you off into not reading my blog anymore, and pass a word around to your progeny to follow suit, give me a chance.
I have decided that I will distill all the information that I receive at this amazing place, called MIT, and help spread the severity of the situation. Without doubt, and as more technical research claims it everyday, this is the biggest problem humanity has ever faced,probably, for it strives for its extinction. The current levels of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere has reached 380 parts per million(ppm), hence the name of this blog:), and if we continue in this Business as Usual(BAU) scenario, we will end up at a concentration level in the ballpark range of 900 ppm, or in other words, cease to exist for that level of CO2 would be simply catastrophic. Hence, the problem is real, and its getting serious with each passing second. And calls for action, immediately! The size of the problem cannot be tacked by a few scientists and engineers alone, the entire world has to come together to save the situation. Anyway, we will see more on this in every subsequent post!
The motivation of doing something like this also came at a session last week at MIT, on Climate Change. Since when did I become innovative?:) That session was conducted by another renowned professor in this area, Prof. John Sterman. He drew an interesting analogy, combining two famous movements in the US history, which he claimed would be required to salvage the situation for us. And that is the amalgamation of the Manhattan Project, one that developed the atom bomb, for its technical expertise, and the Civil Rights movement, for its mass appeal and mass contribution. While he claimed we are making decent progress in the technical realm, masses are still not involved in ameliorating the situation. And he put the onus on everyone who is conducting any research in this area to help in whatever small way he/she can, to spread the word around. I shall try to come clean here!
Its hideously ironical that while all my undergrad years, I vehemently tried to enter a consulting firm, simply to get away from the academics, it was a stint in a consulting firm that sent me scampering back to academia:) And even more intriguing that I shall devote so much time and energy of my life, along with numerous other razor sharp brilliant minds, on studying a gas that had got a very trivial mention in my middle school biology books, only in the photosynthesis process. This seems to be Carbon Dioxide's attempt at redeeming itself:) And its an ugly way, indeed!
Gosh, I do love writing!:)
P.S.: Hope I am not the only person reading upto this line:)
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