Archive
Cars & TVs that last 25-years
![]() Garbage mush, mostly plastic and paper, three times bigger than India in size, floats across the Pacific and Atlantic. Progress and development …
|
Bright purple crabs with big red claws were one of four species recently discovered on the Phillipine island of Palawan during a study by the Senckenberg Research Institute in Germany and De La Salle University in Manila. Our Amazing Planet calls Palawan a “major biodiversity hotspot” and about half its species are found nowhere else on earth.
So of course the crabs’ habitat is threatened, in this case by mining activities.
Of course it is. When was the last time you read a story that said, “Wow, look at these awesome animals and people are leaving them alone”? (via 10 Amazing Discoveries You Missed This Week | Environment | AlterNet).
Is this worth dying for?
This dig-and mine, the strip-and-bare system of natural exploitation by our ‘development’ only comes out with cars that need to be replaced every 5-10 years.
Is our global cardiac problem due to excess nitrogen via fertilizers in our food? The link between nitrogen and cardiac functioning is known.
Our first family-TV worked for 15 years. The second lasted all of 6 years. The third TV is in its 5th year. I am told that these LCD panels do not last for more than 7 years. Is there is a big difference between these three TVs. Not worth the Rs.1,00,000 (US$4000) that was spent on these TVs.
All this becomes trash, garbage, waste.
Where is this garbage going?
A “plastic soup” of waste floating in the Pacific Ocean is growing at an alarming rate and now covers an area twice the size of the continental United States.
The vast expanse of debris – in effect the world’s largest rubbish dump – is held in place by swirling underwater currents. This drifting “soup” stretches from about 500 nautical miles off the Californian coast, across the northern Pacific, past Hawaii and almost as far as Japan.
Charles Moore, an American oceanographer who discovered the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” or “trash vortex”, believes that about 100 million tons of flotsam are circulating in the region. (The world’s rubbish dump: a tip that stretches from Hawaii to Japan – Green Living – Environment – The Independent).
It gets worse.
Billions of bits of plastic are accumulating in a massive garbage patch in the Atlantic Ocean—a lesser known cousin to the trash vortex in the Pacific.
“Many people have heard of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch,” said Kara Lavender Law, an oceanographer at the Sea Education Association in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. (See pictures of the Pacific Ocean trash vortex.)
“But this issue has essentially been ignored in the Atlantic.”
The newly described garbage patch sits hundreds of miles off the North American coast. Although its east-west span is unknown, the patch covers a region between 22 and 38 degrees north latitude—roughly the distance from Cuba to Virginia (see a U.S. map).
As with the Pacific garbage patch, plastic can circulate in this part of the Atlantic Ocean for years
Tiny pieces of trash, each less than a tenth the weight of a paper clip, make up most of the debris, Law said February 23 at the American Geophysical Union’s 2010 Ocean Sciences meeting in Portland, Oregon..
In some places the students found more than 200,000 bits of trash per square kilometer (520,000 bits per square mile). The vast majority of these fragments come from consumer products that were blown out of open landfills or were tossed out by litterbugs.
Similar surface trawls in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch have found as many as 750,000 bits of plastic per square kilometer (1.9 million bits per square mile), noted marine chemist Giora Proskurowski, also with the Sea Education Association.
But that’s only a portion of the total, he said, because waves often carry plastic as deep as 65 feet (20 meters) below the surface. (via Huge Garbage Patch Found in Atlantic Too).
Is this the only model?
Why can’t we have a TV or cars that works for a generation – 25-years?
We can have aluminum and stainless steel cars that will last 25 years. Or made of plastics that have to be recycled by the manufacturer.
Technology updates can be modular. We don’t have these products because of faulty tax policies.
Will our manufacturers come out with junk if they had to pay 25-year tax upfront?
A pollution tax paid upfront for 25 years on all industrial products. Future payments could adjusted against 25-year warranty fulfillment or when producer takes the product back from the consumer and recycles it.
In the meantime, maya rules.
We may be dying of myriad cancers, with our diabetic lifestyles – if we are not dead due to cardiac arrest.
But we are getting technology and progress.
Is that not good?
Related articles
We can challenge India on Copenhagen goals: US – Global Warming – Environment – Home – The Times of India

We know how this place got so dirty
White House senior advisor David Axelrod told CNN that the Copenhagen Accord would allow US verification. “Now China and India have set goals. We are going to be able to review what they are doing. We are going to be able to challenge them if they do not meet those goals,” Axelrod said.
While this was probably intended to keep the enraged constituencies of US labour unions at bay, who had insisted that Barack Obama come back with a commitment from India and China for carbon cuts and their verification, these statements will only fuel a fire in countries like China and India. (via We can challenge India on Copenhagen goals: US – Global Warming – Environment – Home – The Times of India).
Like last time
This time around, based on similarly dubious research, India is being pressured to accept monitoring of climate change. Climate control and the Copenhagen meet is that fast growing octopus which is spreading out. It tentacles can be found in all kinds of places. One of its tentacles has reached India – which was any way the target. The Aspen Institute, India (AII).
- Something doesn’t add up …
To ’soften’ up India, the AII organized a gab-fest. Who could be a good candidate for a gathering of such worthies? At least, Nobel Prize winners. Rajendra Pachauri? Al Gore? Any better candidates. Yes.
Amartya Sen – who ‘graced’ this gab-fest, hosted by Aspen Institute, India (AII) – an ‘associate’ of Aspen Institute, USA. Amartya Sen is tenderizing up the media, the academia, to accept Copenhagen outcome – which is primarily International ‘monitoring’ of India’s climate control and administration. Does Amartya Sen raise any of these questions? For his efforts to weaken Indian position and interests, Amartya Sen will soon qualify as a unique category of Indian passport holder – Non-Resident, Non-Indian, holding an Indian passport.
The AII-Board of Trustees reads more like Who’s Who of Indian industry – Bajaj, Birla, Godrej, Thapar et al.
The carbon credits ‘opportunity’
The rich fat-cats are already licking the chops. Estimates have been put out that the ‘carbon-credits business s worth Rs.28,000 crores.
Interestingly, note one thing very carefully. No one, but none, is talking up about cleaning up on pollution. No industry is being asked to reduce their pollutants (think of inks, dyes and chemicals), manage by-products (sulphur from petroleum refining), eliminate contamination (paper plants), decrease waste (electronics), recycle (just imagine the number of mobile phone batteries).
Dada Amartya, you got a memory lapse! How come you don’t talk about any of this?
Polluter cleans – not pay
One of the fundamental flaws of the Kyoto Protocol was the principal of ‘polluter pays’. Based on retributive justice logic, it was something that was bound to fail. Instead it should have been based on the Indic justice principle – ameliorative and make good. The operating principle should have been ‘polluter cleans and does not pollute again.’
Camels … in the kingdom of heaven
Copenhagen is for the rich (from poor countries), by the rich (from rich countries) to the rich (from poor and rich countries) – and may the poor and common be damned. And one thing you can be absolutely, completely, definitely, positively, wholly sure of.
The poor will never, ever, at all, in any manner, benefit from climate control.
Copenhagen Talks End With Agreement, But No Binding Deal – AlterNet

Too much money ... creating too much of maya
Environmental writer and activist Bill McKibben of 350.org voiced his disapproval. (and) summarized what Obama accomplished:
He formed a league of super-polluters, and would-be super-polluters. China, the U.S., and India don’t want anyone controlling their use of coal in any meaningful way.
QED
On Aug 14, 2009, a Quicktake post wondered if this entire climate change and global warming had something to do with coal-fired power plants.
This is too close to my dis-comfort zone
Bill McKibben’s peeve does prove that this is indeed the case.
Now, coal is the cheapest way to generate electricity. Looking at the shortfall in electricity, and Indian consumers’ ability to pay, coal is the answer.
To low costs, add the fact that India has coal reserves that will last for the next 100 years – at least. But, coal-generated electricity, will also makes India industrially competitive.
And we don’t want that, do we? Right, Billy Boy!
Inside Indian bedrooms
60years ago, an assault was made by foreign ‘observers’ into Indian bedrooms. Foreign ‘observers’
- Tied ‘development aid’ to India’s population control.
- Trained Indian ‘health workers’ to control India’s human reproductive behaviour.
- Paid for by Western Governments, soon after that, we had ‘health workers’ fanning out across the Indian country-side, conducting vasectomies /tubectomies on India’s (especially poor) population.

Is this the science we are talking about?
It did not matter then, who the ‘observers’ were – foreign or Indian. Neither does it matter now. What matters is someone’s monitoring. And I don’t like that at all.
Even if the monitors have brown skins (my liking for brown skin notwithstanding). Even if it comes with a recommendation from Nobel prize winner, Amartya Sen. How Indian power producers generate electricity is our business.
Getting a handle on the Indian economy is the second and related part of the agenda.
An agenda, I don’t like.
All that nice, fresh, white newsprint …
Wasted!
Just the amount of newsprint that has been devoted to climate change and global warming must have raised temperatures (going by the ‘warmers’ calculations and estimates) enough to make this debate of questionable value. To that add, the amount of gimmickry and media overdrive (through slick PR) that raises many doubts and questions.
Hush, boy! Do not even mention ‘scientific manipulation’.
Just look at the record.
The most prominent and vocal votary of Climate Change was Al Gore – who was promptly awarded the Nobel Prize. The recruitment of Maldives and the positioning of President Mohammed Nasheed was again a very slick operation. The underwater Maldives cabinet meeting had a interesting story.
Maldivian officials said the idea to hold the attention-grabbing underwater cabinet meeting came from President Mohamed Nasheed when he was asked by an activist group to support its “environmental day” action on October 24.
“The 350.org group asked if the Maldives can hold an underwater banner supporting environmental day,” an official from the president’s office said.
“The president thought for a while and then came up with the idea to have an underwater cabinet meeting.” (via Maldives cabinet rehearses underwater meeting).

Is this the problem?
Propping up Maldives as ‘fifth’ column was done over the last more than 20 years. Based on excellent PR and media management skills, the Maldives was the trojan horse loosed on the G77+Basic grouping.
350.org is rather well armed on the PR front – with a specific agency for South Asia itself. The PR agency for the Maldives Travel and Tourism Authority McCluskey International does seem to either bask in reflected glory – or is hinting at the authorship of this stunt. The Maldives climate change campaign seems to be headquarted in Britain also.
Been there and done that
The hallmark of the Maldives’ climate change campaign has been it slick PR. Dramatic statements, intriguing sound bites, the Maldives’ campaign was beyond the common bureaucratic ‘creature’ – much less a Maldives’ bureaucrat. This is consistent and in line with Al Gore’s media and public relations management – which won the PR agency, the campaign of the year award. And Al Gore the Nobel Prize.
All this is much like, how from the early 1950’s to the late eighties, the Western world created hysteria regarding ‘population explosion’ in India and China. Enormous pressures were brought onto the Chinese and Indian Governments to ‘control’ their populations.
Same game, different name! Doesn’t wash. Just like last time.
Related Posts
- Climate change – How India is falling for propaganda
- Climate Change at Copenhagen – Britain mounts a Trojan operation
- Indian cows were blamed for global warming!
- US Euro Clubs hobble Third Wold
- Climate head steps down over e-mail leak
- NASSCOM wakes after 15 months
- PR Stunts – The Maldives underwater meeting
Amartya Sen at the Aspen Institute India’s Conference in New Delhi – WSJ.com

This is what we are talking about ...
India’s approach should have been to push for what it considered to be a “fairer, juster deal” on climate change that all parties can agree to — and if that means mandatory cuts, then so be it. “To say under no circumstances will we accept mandatory restraints is ridiculous,” he said. “Our position should be we will accept a just agreement, an agreement that creates a better world.” He said he was particularly disturbed at one point during the Copenhagen deliberations to see African and other developing nations side with China on the ramifications of an increase in global temperatures and to see India on the side of the U.S. and western Europe when “we have been traditionally the spokesman of the underdog.” (via Snapshots from the Aspen Institute India’s Conference in New Delhi – WSJ.com).
Inside Indian bedrooms
60years ago, an assault was made by foreign ‘observers’ into Indian bedrooms. Foreign ‘observers’
- Tied ‘development aid’ to India’s population control.
- Trained Indian ‘health workers’ to control India’s human reproductive behaviour.
- Paid for by Western Governments, soon after that, we had ‘health workers’ fanning out across the Indian country-side, conducting vasectomies /tubectomies on India’s (especially poor) population.
It did not matter then, who the ‘observers’ were – foreign or Indian. Neither does it matter now. What matters is someone’s monitoring. And I don’t like that at all. Even if it done by a Brown.

Perverted logic
Mirror, Mirror on the wall
Who is the most dubious of them all? And Carbon emissions is a very dubious subject. Sometime back, cows (read that as India) were targetted for carbon and methane emission. Will it be Indians and human beings next? Rhetorical you think?
Australia proves how this logic works. For Australians this has become a habit. They decided recently, in Australia to kill thirsty camels. Some time back, they were killing cane toads. Before that it was kangaroos. Before that it was dingos. And before that were humans.
Like last time
This time around, based on similarly dubious research, India is being pressured to accept monitoring of climate change. Climate control and the Copenhagen meet is that fast growing octopus which is spreading out. It tentacles can be found in all kinds of places. One of its tentacles has reached India – which was any way the target. The Aspen Institute, India (AII).
To ‘soften’ up India, the AII organized a gab-fest. Who could be a good candidate for a gathering of such worthies? At least, Nobel Prize winners. Rajendra Pachauri? Al Gore? Any better candidates. Yes.
Amartya Sen – who ‘graced’ this gab-fest, hosted by Aspen Institute, India (AII) – an ‘associate’ of Aspen Institute, USA. Amartya Sen is tenderizing up the media, the academia, to accept Copenhagen outcome – which is primarily International ‘monitoring’ of India’s climate control and administration. Does Amartya Sen raise any of these questions? For his efforts to weaken Indian position and interests, Amartya Sen will soon qualify as a unique category of Indian passport holder – Non-Resident, Non-Indian, holding an Indian passport.
The AII-Board of Trustees reads more like Who’s Who of Indian industry – Bajaj, Birla, Godrej, Thapar et al.
The carbon credits ‘opportunity’
The rich fat-cats are already licking the chops. Estimates have been put out that the ‘carbon-credits business s worth Rs.28,000 crores.
Interestingly, note one thing very carefully. No one, but none, is talking up about cleaning up on pollution. No industry is being asked to reduce their pollutants (think of inks, dyes and chemicals), manage by-products (sulphur from petroleum refining), eliminate contamination (paper plants), decrease waste (electronics), recycle (just imagine the number of mobile phone batteries).
Dada Amartya, you got a memory lapse! How come you don’t talk about any of this?
Polluter cleans – not pay
One of the fundamental flaws of the Kyoto Protocol was the principal of ‘polluter pays’. Based on retributive justice logic, it was something that was bound to fail. Instead it should have been based on the Indic justice principle – ameliorative and make good. The operating principle should have been ‘polluter cleans and does not pollute again.’
Camels … in the kingdom of heaven
Copenhagen is for the rich (from poor countries), by the rich (from rich countries) to the rich (from poor and rich countries) – and may the poor and common be damned. And one thing you can be absolutely, completely, definitely, positively, wholly sure of.
The poor will never, ever, at all, in any manner, benefit from climate control.
Climate Change at Copenhagen – Britain mounts a Trojan operation
The Europeans, especially the UK, have been at the forefront of diplomatic maneuvers to carve out a separate voice of small vulnerable countries such as Bangladesh and Maldives which would, in the name of strong global action, put pressure on India and China to take commitments. The UK government had recently part-funded and helped organize a meeting of this group, called the “Vulnerable 14” countries, in Maldives. (via Cracks appear in G-77 bloc on Day One – Europe – World – The Times of India).
Awesome.
1. The Maldives jigsaw
The Maldives Government staged a dramatic PR coup to draw world media attention on climate change, by holding an underwater cabinet meeting. Nepal Government followed up with a cabinet meeting at the Himalayan foothills. These were in a long line of various other such PR stunts.
The PR agency for the Maldives Travel and Tourism Authority McCluskey International does seem to either bask in reflected glory – or is hinting at the authorship of this stunt. Apparently, Maldives has been at the forefront of climate change trip for some time. One journalist, from New York Times, Andrew C. Revkin, recounts his first encounter with Maldives representatives in
Toronto in 1988 to report on the First International Conference on the Changing Atmosphere. Most of the discussions centered on devising strategies to curb emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases from automobiles, power plants, and the burning of tropical forests. Among those in attendance was Hussein Manikfan, who holds the title Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Permanent Representative to the United Nations from the republic of Maldives. At first it seemed odd to find a representative from the Maldives at the meeting. The country, a sprinkling of 1,190 coral islets in the Indian Ocean southwest of Sri Lanka, has no tropical forests, hardly any automobiles, and little industry beyond the canning of bonito.
Well coached, when Manikfan was asked what was he doing in Toronto, a slick and dramatic answer was available.
Why was he in Toronto? “To find out how much longer my country will exist,” was his simple reply.
Such answers and sound-bites have been a recurring and regular Maldives phenomenon.
Media management and Maldives
The hallmark of the Maldives’ climate change campaign has been it slick PR. Dramatic statements, intriguing sound bites, the Maldives’ campaign was beyond the common bureaucratic ‘creature’ – much less a Maldives’ bureaucrat. This is consistent and in line with Al Gore’s media and public relations management – which won the PR agency, the campaign of the year award. And Al Gore the Nobel Prize.
For sometime, Nasheed was in Britain, a ‘political refugee’. Amnesty International declared Nasheed a ‘prisoner of conscience’ in 1996. The Maldives climate change campaign seems to be headquarted in Britain also.The New York Times report mentions how
Officials in the Maldives made the decision after soliciting a report on how to cut fossil fuel use and otherwise trim the country’s climate footprint from Chris Goodall and Mark Lynas, British environmentalists and authors of books on energy and climate.
The British press has been quite generous in its coverage and published his writings. Such coverage from Western media is normal for Western leaders or a significant head of State. Not for a President of a 300,000 people island-State.
President Mohamed Nasheed, declared with saturation Western media coverage, that Maldives will be the first country in the world to be carbon neutral. At another gab-fest, he dramatically declared, “We don’t want a global suicide pact” – which received wide publicity, especially in Canada, Britain, US media. News agencies like AFP and AP gave Nasheed saturation coverage.
Much like how the population explosion report by the ‘Club of Rome’ was released from the Smithsonian, the climate change
“announcement was made in the Maldives, but synchronized with the London premiere of ” The Age of Stupid,” a new film on global warming and oil that is a mix of documentary, dramatization and animation.
In response to this article in NY Times, significant data was shown, how Maldives will not go under-water.
High noon in Maldives
Interestingly, the current President of Maldives came to power, in rather unusual ‘circumstances’. “After violent civil riots in 2003 and fierce international pressure pushed Gayoom, to call for the 2008 Maldives Presidential elections. During the campaign and electioneering, “Gayoom’s allies accused Nasheed of seeking to spread Christianity in the increasingly conservative Muslim country, while the opposition accused the president of being a dictator who abused human rights.”
In the first round, Nasheed was placed second with 44,293 votes (24.91%), behind President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom of the long-ruling Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP), who received 71,731 votes (40.34%). In the second round, Nasheed (supposedly supported by the unsuccessful first round candidates) won 54.25% of the vote against Gayoom (45.75) – “anyone waiting in line was permitted to cast a vote.”
Displaying penchant for excellent PR, Nasheed promptly declared himself as “the world’s first democratically elected president of a 100 percent Muslim country” – and promised to “to fight inflation, downsize government, tackle corruption and protect human rights”.
One comment simplified the Maldives riddle very well.
If the Maldives are doomed why spend $1.1 billion on the place. Abandon the islands. Move to higher ground. Ans.: They won’t get many $$ if they ask for any other reason. And they know better than anyone they are not sinking!
Of course, this begs the question, why Maldives? That brings us to the next part of the climate change factors. For more than 2 decades, Maldives has been nursed into a ‘leadership’ position. President Nasheed today leads the calling themselves the V11 – the vulnerable 11, which has become 14. Led by Maldives, this group includes far bigger and important countries like Bangladesh, Kenya, Ghana, Tanzania and Vietnam among others. Most of India’s neighbours have joined this group – like Maldives, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan.
If it wasn’t such deliciously, low life fraud, I may have even admired it.
Sunita Narain proposes more Government

Dilbert knows all ...
we bought samples of leading brands available in the market and analysed content for the toxin. What we found was staggeringly high levels of lead in virtually all samples we checked. India does not have a mandatory standard for regulating lead in paints. We only have a voluntary code laid down by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), which specifies that lead content should be 1,000 parts per million (ppm). Our tests found that the biggest and best companies had lead levels 180 times the voluntary standard.
But we were not surprised, as I said. After all, the government has not set standards to phase out lead in this daily-use product. Something most governments had done some 20 years ago. In the US, lead had been termed the number one environmental threat to the health of children. But it was a non-issue for the industry in India. We were angry at this indifference and decided to write to all major paint companies asking them about their plans to phase out lead. We expected little response. But this time we were really surprised.
Two of the major companies — Asian Paints and Nerolac — wrote back saying that they were planning to get rid of lead. They promised that this would happen soon, within a few months. So, instead of immediately releasing our report, we thought we should wait: To recheck and to validate if the companies kept the promise they had made to us. Some months later we went to the market and picked samples of the same companies.
Our analysis found a change. Of the big five, three companies had no lead in their product. Asian Paints and Nerolac had indeed cleaned up. Berger and Shalimar still had lead in the samples we tested. Both are big companies and neither have any excuses. The fact is that companies have the technology to phase out lead. (via Sunita Narain: New coat of paint).

Failed agency, failed agenda, failed model
Actions matter
Much as I like Sunita Narain’s work, her reading of this situation is wrong.
Unlike her fault-finding, this was good news. For three reasons.
1. Three out of the five biggest companies voluntarily agreed and reduced lead content – at a significant cost to their own bottom-lines. Without a sword over their head or legal threats hanging over them. Just a gentle pointer did the trick. That is good news. This is possibly why Indians trust their companies more than the Rest of the World.
2. The Government has voluntary codes – which are NOT enforced. Unlike the US. We should do more of this – and not less, Ms.Sunita Narain. Bigger Government, with greater enforcement agenda is a bad idea – and no good can ever come out of it.
For you to call for greater Government activism is simply more bad news. The American model is faulty, expensive and prone to abuse. Why copy a failed model?
3. Ms.Narain – Maybe, your organization can franchise a ‘प’ (Prakriti) logo – for all companies that voluntarily adhere to the highest global standards. And that will again be good news.
Let us take away the regulatory load (which will soon become overload) from the Government and move towards self-regulation.
I think it is time you took a 2ndlook.
Related Articles
- How India’s Success Is Killing Its Holy River (time.com)
- Tussle over forests shows India’s growth dilemma. (in.reuters.com)
- What They Said: The Bhopal Tragedy (blogs.wsj.com)