A warm welcome

It was not even 7 AM. Huffing and puffing I kept walking. It was almost as if people were laughing at how profusely I was sweating. I did not mind that because, well .. that is true anyways. I was like sweating to my core anyway!

Oh no! I am not on any weight reduction program. On the contrary, it is more like a weight gaining program (i.e.) my walk to catch office bus :))

At 7 AM, it is so hot daily that all the energy just gets sapped out of me. I realize this is the hottest I have ever felt Chennai to be and am beginning to wonder about all the people who work in this sweltering heat. The sales executives, the small-scale shop vendors and even the beggars draw pity just thinking about this heat.

Unfortunately we do not have authentic Indian agencies making such news. So, I take the quote from NASA this has been the hottest quarter of an year recorded so far

http://climateprogress.org/2010/05/16/nasa-easily-the-hottest-january-and-hottest-jan-april-in-temperature-record/

Despite many cries from so many visionaries regarding the global warming and impending disasters of it, our governments are choosing to simply ignore the cries of common people and the scientific community. It feels bitter to say this, but after all, it is not the children of those in power that are suffering due to these heat waves. It is only the common public - the you and me.

Too much hype and hoopla over the recent oil spill, but not enough to the cancer that is the warming eating away our apple of a planet from inside.

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/may/10/opinion/la-ed-oil-20100511

I am ashamed to even say this - I really wish to do something about this. Why being ashamed for this? It is because I feel am also responsible in a way for this disaster directly or indirectly as part of the society. If anyone could help me figure out what could be done at grass roots level, I would be glad to extend my help.

Green (err...) life

Why should life be all gloomy? This article provoked such thoughts in me immediately:

http://www.livescience.com/environment/earth-temp-may-exceed-livable-limits-100504.html

Why not we humans learn to see opportunity in the midst of calamity and look for alternatives?

Just a single alternative that I could think of - Is it not possible to plant a few million trees by then that could bring down the overall warming levels to a normal stage? If each of us can think of such ways by which this calamity could be avoided, we certainly can avoid it. After all, what is a society or civilization if not individuals!

Take a look at the Project Green Hands effort by Isha Foundation (http://www.projectgreenhands.org/). As Sadhguru says, to plant and nurture a tree to grow is one of the noblest things to do (amidst all other nonsense) towards the future generations. If of the 6 billion people, only 10% decide to plant just 1 tree and see it grow in their life time, we would still end up with 600 million trees making the earth greener by a big percentage!! And this is just assuming 1 person cares for only 1 tree in their entire life time.

If we teach our children in schools to plant / nurture trees, I am sure that will be one of the best things to happen to them too. The joy in seeing something grow, especially if it is out of your efforts, is to be experienced by everyone.

Let us make it happen ... Let us strive for a positive thinking happy world.

Precious!

I have been meaning to write this for at least a week now. It is about the power of 'a single drop' and is with respect to pollution. It is difficult to explain but some analogies could help.

What is common between 'A thousand drops of water', 'A hundred ants', 'A colony of bees' and 'Waves rolling together'? Of course, the commonality is that these are multiple entities of same type. But if you look at these examples a little more carefully, it becomes clear that though a single entity in these groups is not very significant, when they get into these groups, their effectiveness increases multifold!

All that is fine but what has that got to do with pollution - you ask? Think of yourself (an individual man / woman) as that single entity, an ant or a bee or a single wave, and the analogy becomes apparent now. If not now, it will be once you reach the end - so read on.

I have been traveling almost constantly this week, to various places in Chennai on my 2-wheeler or in my car. At every opportunity where I had a little over 30 seconds stop at a traffic signal, I switched off my vehicle engine thereby saving some precious time & money. One might laugh now reading about the 'precious' phrase ... but I really mean it.

From my home to office, there are at least 3 traffic signals where I stop for over 30 seconds each. So, that is approximately 1.5 minutes one way and a total of 3 minutes during a regular working day. Added to that, I was out visiting the dentist and to my bank this week, going via Anna Salai (anybody in Chennai knows how crazy that drive would be), giving me an extra whopping 15 minutes during the total 4 hour driving time!!

So, my total savings on petrol usage last week alone has been 30 full minutes!

Now imagine about 1 million vehicle users in Chennai city [let's talk small numbers now :)] and if even 1/3rd of them stop their vehicle engines like I did, we have about 1 million minutes per day & 5 million minutes for a regular 5-day working week!! Now do you see how tiny drops add up?

We humans have been burdening Mother Earth too much with so much of our own non-sense. Let's at least save some burden for the trees we are chopping off so non-chalantly. If not for the green cover on Earth, we would have wiped ourselves out much earlier I think.

For people really who want to do something about eco-friendly stuff, the start has to be with themselves. Some guidelines are in these sites:

http://motorinsurancesingapore.com/articles/129/7-ways-to-reduce-petrol-consumption/
http://ezinearticles.com/?Saving-Money-by-Eco-Friendly-Driving-Techniques:-Not-Such-a-Bad-Idea!&id=215122

Hope to see you join the drive soon :-)

Brilliant! And Cruel!

It is just amazing how technology turns what we call as 'dirt' ;-) into something we use so much in our daily lives that some cannot think living without it!!

http://www.techradar.com/news/computing-components/processors/how-sand-is-transformed-into-silicon-chips-599785

http://www.techradar.com/news/computing-components/processors/how-sand-is-transformed-into-silicon-chips-599785?artc_pg=2

It took me sometime though to realize that there are some unwanted byproducts too to this process - the core silicon production involves a lot of CO2 release into the atmosphere. And I am not even considering the acidic products used in this procedure and what it takes to create them in the first place and what effects their byproducts have.

Sigh ... after all it is a human engineered product and one we take for granted without thinking much about what we are doing to the environment!

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/05/090517-pollution-changes-dna.html

Unless we do something right and fast, we will end up annihiliating the human race (and possibly all organic life) from planet Earth which has nurtured life for billions of years, that is till now.