tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87652022010-04-28T22:33:57.115+05:30Orange Huesthe fascinating art of being good in businessManu Sharmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01951983669844271992orangehues@gmail.comBlogger139125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8765202.post-3445322874957075932010-04-28T18:58:00.007+05:302010-04-28T22:33:57.123+05:30The Suckers At Delhi Government<i>An outdoor air purifying system made by Italian company Systemlife and installed at Connaught Place by NDMC is symbolic of cluelessness that prevails in the higher echelons of the government.</i><br /><br />I returned home this morning, after an interview with a German researcher on Delhi government's climate initiatives, to find a newspaper report which made a perfect specimen for the central argument I tried to put across in the meeting -- the Delhi govt, just like its counterpart in the centre, has no clue what they are talking about, no clue about the scale of the climate crisis, what needs to be done and how ineffective will be their so-called plan.<br /><br /><img src="http://orangehues.com/blogstuff/CITTA.jpg" align="left" hspace="5" vspace="5">The newspaper report I'm referring to touted "<a href="http://www.hindustantimes.com/rssfeed/newdelhi/CP-s-air-cleaner-than-before/Article1-536560.aspx">CP’s air cleaner than before</a>" because of an outdoor air purifier installed there for the last month. You read that right, an <i>outdoor</i> air purifier. <br /><br />I cannot believe this scam has survived over one month. When I first saw <a href="http://www.indianexpress.com/news/civic-body-experiments-with-air-purifier/589010/">news</a> <a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article7063117.ece">reports</a> last month, I was aghast at the collective ignorance of the government and the media. Certain at the same time that I'd see a report in the next few days citing an expert clarifying that this had no chance of making any discernable impact on air quality of the region. Surely, I thought someone would point out that you don't install air purifiers in open areas!<br /><br />The emperor-has-no-clothes moment I was expecting has not only <i>not</i> arrived, but the emperor is on to another round of parade. The news today is covered by several newspapers. It apparently originated with this release from the PTI: "<a href="http://www.ptinews.com/news/629000_Air-purifier-station-at-Delhi-a-big-success">Air purifier station at Delhi a big success</a>." The source cited is not an air monitoring agency but the company that did the installation. <br /><br />The machine is claimed to have captured 2 kg of particulate matter but <i>out of how much</i>? All this claim proves is that the device does filter out the air it sucks but is it actually <i>effective</i> in reducing pollution of that region? What is the reduction in particulate matter (in ppm) measured by nearby monitors? If it impacts a limited localised region, how much precisely is that area?<br /><br />Systemlife, the Italian company behind this technology publishes no specifications of their products on their website. The site contains no technical details and there is no mention of peer-reviewed scientific papers or independent studies that corroborate that its products meant for the outdoors improves air quality of a localised region. <br /><br />Interestingly, the company's product page for Model Città, that was installed at CP, does not even make such a claim. All it says is that it cleans the air it sucks -- without specifying the quantity or the effect on the localised area. News reports from last month do provide an indication of capacity -- 10,000 cubic meter per hour. <br /><br />10,000 m^3 capacity effectively means an area less than 23 meter long, 23 meter wide and 20 meter high (air we breathe)! That certainly wouldn't cover much of CP.<br /><br />But this is assuming that air stands still over a given area, which of course it doesn't. The rate of air flow over a 100m distance at just 1 m/s wind speed at the height of 20 m is 72 Lakh cubic meter per hour (7,200,000 m^3/hr), according to Dr. Sarath Guttikunda, founder of <a href="http://www.urbanemissions.info/">UrbanEmissions.Info</a>, a research unit meant to share information on air pollution and its management. This is taken from <a href="http://urbanemissions.blogspot.com/2010/03/jumbo-size-vacuum-cleaners-to-purify.html">his blog post</a> -- the only online reference I could find online where this scam has been exposed.<br /><br />You don't need to be a scientist or a mathematician to know that air mixes rapidly in open areas. The question is, is our government incapable of both simple math and common sense? What about newspaper editors?<br /><br />Proponents of the machine could argue that whatever little the machine is doing is still commendable. But that would be an argument made without any sense of scale. The scale in this case is like a 2.5 crore (which is what this machine cost) water purification system installed on the banks of Yamuna with a cleaning capacity of a home water purifier! <br /><br />Sure, it may be cleaning 10 litres of polluted Yamuna water per hour, at the rate of 0.003 litre per second, but does it matter in a river with a flow of 8.5 million litres per second? That is the scale of con that is being perpetrated here. <br /><br />The health chief of NDMC while launching the machine said that money does not matter when it comes to health of Delhi citizens. Systemlife intends to installl 100 such machines in Delhi. Ritika Modi, head of Uniglobe Travel South Asia, the Indian partner company of Systemlife, said every Indian city needs these machines. <br /><br />At 250 crore for hundred machines that promise to be as effective as the proverbial drop in the ocean, I hope that better sense will previal with the government. Thankfully, the current installation is only a pilot one and the government says it will monitor air quality for three months before taking a decision. If the process is honestly followed there is no chance of it getting through. <br /><br />The point is, the pilot was not needed had anyone done even the most rudimentary thinking. But I suspect the lure of a magical vaccum cleaner that sucks out all the city's pollution was too much to resist for any thought process.<br /><br /><img src="http://orangehues.com/blogstuff/cartoon2019.jpg"><br /><br /><small><b>Notes</b><br /><br />The post was copied to:<br /><ul><li>The German researcher <br /><li><a href="http://www.systemlife.eu/">Systemlife</a>, the Italian company <br /><li><a href="http://in.linkedin.com/pub/ritika-modi/6/21a/3b8">Ritika Modi</a>, head Uni Globe Travel South Asia, Indian partner of Systemlife <br /><li>Delhi government (several individuals) <br /><li><a href="http://green-india.in/">Green-India</a> <br /><li><a href="http://groups.google.com/group/indian-youth-climate-network">Indian Youth and Climate Network</a> <br /><li><a href="http://delhigreens.com/">Delhi Greens</a> <br /><li><a href="http://www.dri.edu/People/Sarath.Guttikunda/">Dr. Sarath Guttikunda</a>, Affiliate Assistant Research Professor at Division of Atmospheric Sciences, Desert Research Institute (Nevada, US) and founder <a href="http://www.urbanemissions.info/">UrbanEmissions.info</a>. He's credited for the featured cartoon.</ul></small><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8765202-344532287495707593?l=orangehues.com%2Fblog' alt='' /></div>Manu Sharmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01951983669844271992orangehues@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8765202.post-10414905726231841192010-01-28T17:46:00.046+05:302010-04-28T14:15:15.011+05:30Top Five Reasons Why Apple's iPad is Revolutionary<i>People lamenting iPad's lack of "features" are discounting its user experience as well as the big picture change it represents.</i> <br /><br /><img src="http://orangehues.com/blogstuff/ipad-jobs.jpg" align="left" hspace="10" vspace="5"> [<i><b>UPDATE 28-APR 2010:</b> After finally spending hours with the device, reviewers at Engadget reluctantly <a href="http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/03/apple-ipad-review/">admitted</a> earlier this month that "it's a <i>little bit</i> revolutionary" indeed. Wall Street Journal's veteran tech reviewer Walt Mossberg went further in his <a href="http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20100331/apple-ipad-review/">March 31st review</a>: "I believe this beautiful new touch-screen device from Apple has the potential to change portable computing profoundly, and to challenge the primacy of the laptop." <br /><br />Meanwhile, Apple is so inundated with iPad orders within the U.S. that it has decided to <a href="http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/04/14/ipad-overseas-launch-postponed/">postpone its international launch</a>. Clearly, iPad is turning out to be as much of a success as this blog had predicted at its January unveiling when the tech community was almost unanimously focussed on its lack of "features" disregarding the user experience and the implications for personal computing.</i>]<br /><br />Apple's introduction of iPad has been received with mixed response. While many reviewers are excited about the device, most have expressed serious disappointment with the perceived lack of "basic features". Let's take <a href="http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/27/editorial-engadget-on-the-ipad/">reviews by Engadet</a> that are representative of what tech bloggers are generally saying about this device. <br /><br />Out of three of their editors who got to check the device hands on, Josh called it underwhelming and unimaginative, Ross said he couldn't justify buying this device while Chris Grant from Joystiq said iPad doesn't represent sea change in quality like the iPhone. Others were less forgiving. Darren calls it one of Apple's biggest misses. All bemoaned the lack of features they were expecting. <br /><br />Many people perhaps expected a full-fledged computing device so I can understand some of the disappointment. But Apple never said what they were going to release and all the hype in the media and blogosphere in the weeks and months leading up to the event was creation of these very people who are now criticising the device for not living up to their expectations. When Jobs got on stage, he made it clear from that start that iPad lies somewhere between the laptop and smartphone. <br /><br />With that said, in my view, characterising iPad as simply "an over-sized iPod touch" is what is really unimaginative. Failing to see beyond their "power" needs most reviewers have shown lack of thinking. They also demonstrate that they have learned nothing from the success of iPhone and iPod.<br /><br />I think iPad goes far beyond in terms of what it offers today to users, what it represents for the future of portable computing, what it means for Apple as a company and what it can do for the publishing industry. To call the device revolutionary is not an exaggeration by any measure. Here's why:<br /><br /><br /><big><b>#1 The User Experience</b></big><br /><br />Success of a device of this kind is about the overall user experience and not about a few features here and there. It's not what it "can't do" but how it does the things it can. <br /><br />Let's rewind by three years. Apple releases a smartphone that doesn't have any new "feature" and yet it explodes in sales. What happened? Can you name any single new feature that iPhone introduced when it debuted that no other phone had? Did you say, web browsing? Well, people had been using the web on their cell phones for ages. Email? That's what blackberry did. Touchscreen? Again, lots of phones had touchscreens even then. Camera? Music player? All of these were already standard features.<br /><br />If you said multi-touch, that would be spot on but why have we forgotten about multi-touch now? How many mainstream computing device can you name -- be it a laptop, PC, Netbook or ebook -- that allows you to browse the web, access files on your computer, scroll lists and read a book using a specialised interface designed for multi-touch? Sure there are touchscreen tablets but neither are they mainstream nor do they carry multi-touch capability anything resembling the iPad. <br /><br />Let's get back to iPhone, what was unique about it was its user experience. The way the interface flew when it touched your fingers. While most people drooled over the demo when Jobs first revealed the iPhone in his January 2007 keynote but by the time they got home they began to wonder what kind of cool aid were they drinking. Several tech bloggers wrote in the following days that there was nothing revolutionary about this Phone. All the iPhones features could be found on other Smartphones as well. After all, they pointed out, the iPhone even lacked many things they took for granted -- it couldn't forward a text message, couldn't record video, couldn't send an MMS, didn't have expandable memory and didn't come with a swappable battery.<br /><br />Forty-two million iPhone sales later, it's clear that none of that mattered. <br /><br />Nine years ago, iPod debut saw a similar response from parts of the tech community. "No wireless. Less space than [competition]. Lame," said the <a href="http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23/1816257&tid=107">post on Slashdot</a>. And again, 250 million iPods later, nobody's calling the device lame. Obviously, tech bloggers don't get that the user experience is king in software just as content is in media.<br /><br />Why do we discount the user experience? For one, because it's an intangible. Image transitions, ease of scrolling, surfing the web, pinching and expanding photographs, accessing information with ease, accuracy of search results and the user interface in general aren't counted as "features" and "functionality" of a device in spec sheets unlike tangibles such as webcam, USB ports. And yet it's these intangibles that make the user experience and define how the tangible "features" of the device behave.<br /><br />A mp3 player with a brand new interface to scroll down long lists or a smartphone with no new "feature" might look boring when you compare spec sheets - get them in your hand and it's an entirely different experience. Steve Jobs emphasised twice in his Keynote on Wednesday that it's one thing to hear about iPad and quite another to take it in your hands.<br /><br />The reason many people aren't enamored by the device today is that they are used to multi-touch on their iPhone and its novelty value has long worn off. On phones, that is. Wait till they actually get to do the same things on a computing device. Although the iPad isn't a full fledged computer, if the videos are any indication, it does some of the key tasks exceedingly well. <br /><br />Apart from the user experience of reading/ viewing/ browsing/ accessing content, the entertainment experience especially gaming is going to to be completely unmatched by devices of this kind. SGN Holdings is <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704194504575031561969855580.html?mod=rss_Today's_Most_Popular">planning</a> to bring "Xbox 360-quality 3D multiplayer game" to iPad. They are also said to be planning games that will let users "handle their iPhones like a Wii-like game controller for an iPad."<br /><br />That is the kind of experience you can look forward on an iPad and this is why the iPad is revolutionary.<br /><br /><br /><big><b>#2 The End of Laptop Form Factor</b></big><br /><br />If the iPad does succeed in capturing a large market, and I have no doubt that it will, it'd be hard for Apple to limit the tablet form factor of the iPad to the current device. I see no reason why there can't be full fledged portable computing devices of 15" to 17" size in the tablet form factor ready to be used either as a touchscreen iPad or as desktop with standup monitor and split keyboard configuration or even as traditional laptop with removable wireless keyboard plus touchpad inside a tablet jacket. <br /><br />While Apple hasn't made any explicit statements to this effect but its lead designer Jonathan Ive did offer hint of such future development when he said referring to the iPad: "this defines our vision, our sense of what's next." <br /><br />After seeing how iPad works, it's really difficult to imagine that this will not happen. Weight of the device might be an issue for large screens but most people will still use it on some kind of a platform such as tabletop, kitchen counter or simply on their knees rather than holding it with one hand. The possibility of ending portable computing's most famous form factor of the last two decades, the laptop, is what makes the iPad revolutionary.<br /><br /><br /><big><b>#3 Breaking The $500 Price Barrier (also called The Netbook Effect)</b></big><br /><br />Figures <a href="http://hothardware.com/News/DisplaySearch-Netbook-Sales-Up-103-Revenues-Elsewhere-Fall-In-2009/">released last month</a> show that in 2009 while Laptops lost revenue by 7%, Netbooks grew 72% in sales and over 103% in units sold. The data clearly indicates that people are not just buying them as secondary machines but their primary computers -- a fact that "power users" (especially those who dominate tech blogs and media outlets and who were the first to crticise iPad as lacking "important features") might find hard to digest. <br /><br />The point is, success of Netbooks amply demonstrates that if you give them a really low price consumers will happily ignore lack of few features. <br /><br />Introduced in late 2007, a Netbook is a small form factor, low performance portable computer sans an optical disk which became a phenomenal and unexpected overnight success. Steve Jobs himself deningrated the Netbook in his Keynote when he said they are not better at anything. He's generally right if he's referring to the user experience. With low resolution screens, slower processors and cramped keyboards, netbooks leave a lot to be desired.<br /><br />But even Jobs knows that netbooks are still good at one or two things. Portability and price. At around 10 inches in size and $300 in price, on average, Netbooks are 70% the size and 50% the price of traditional 15" Windows laptops. This -- the price in large part, and portability closely following -- explains their unprecedented rise to prominence.<br /><br />It's easy to see that Apple has recognised these factors behind the phenomenal success of Netbooks because the iPad seems to be designed to compete in the same market with the same key characteristics. Starting at $499, the iPad is priced at a price-point which is precisely half-way through Apple's entry level laptop, the Macbook priced at $999. Not coincidentally, the iPad is also 10 inches in size.<br /><br />By crossing the $500 price barrier and ensuring portability, Apple's iPad appears destined to experience the same explosion in sales that Netbooks are experiencing. This is why the iPad is revolutionary. <br /><br /><br /><big><b>#4 The App Store</b></big> <br /><br />Here's another question for the skeptics: name another computer manufacturer that makes money from sale of third-party software written for their device, completely controls this software ecosystem and successfully thrwarts all competition. With over 140,000 apps, three billion downloads and Apple's infamous approval process with the golden clause that rejects any application with "<a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-13846_3-10041187-62.html">duplicate functionality</a>", the app store for iPhone is a money minting machine for Apple Inc. <br /><br />About one third of all revenue generated from the app store goes into Apple's pockets. No other hardware maker has anything that comes close. And once again, we've gotten so used to it that we forget the genius of an invention it is for Apple. <br /><br />Free from the limitations of a mobile device, the iPad will guarantee one thing for Apple, many many more new apps and zillions of downloads. If Apple discontinues the Macbook and Macbook Pro line and converts them into iPad's tablet form factor over the coming years, as I predict above, there will be serious temptation to continue with the app store's closed ecosystem model simply because it's just so profitable. <br /><br />With the first closed ecosystem of applications for a major computing device in the iPad, Apple has just redefined the rules of engagement with its competitors like Dell and Microsoft. Neither of them are poised to respond likewise because unlike Apple, neither of them makes both software and hardware. This is what makes Apple's iPad revolutionary. <br /><br /><br /><big><b>#5 Old Media Saviour</b></big><br /><br />Finally, with the iPad, Apple is set to forever change how newspapers, periodicals and textbooks are read. While Jobs' keynote did not venture much beyond books, it's been widely reported that he's working closely with several bigtime publishers. <br /><br />Old media has long been grappaling with new media and how best to employ it to their advantage. Yet, they have failed to make it work for them. Meanwhile, as news aggregators and free online news sites gain readership, real world newspapers' and magazines' subscriptions are falling, advertising rates decreasing and publishers are closing shops. <br /><br />For the first time, they are provided with an opportunity. All of a sudden, print publishers get to be on a platform that can push them inside homes of people who have their credit card ready and who are accustomed to paying for consumption of media content and software. The number of payment transactions of songs, movies, TV shows and applications through the iTunes store and app store run in billions. Apple could possibly do to publishing what it did to the music industry. So a seriously troubled, if not dying entity now gets a good chance of revival. That's revolutionary.<br /><br /><b>Update: <a href="http://digg.com/apple/Top_Five_Reasons_Why_Apple_s_iPad_is_Revolutionary">Digg this</a></b><br /><br /><small><i>About the date mark: While I started drafting this post on 28th Jan, it was first published on 1.30am [IST] 1st Feb 2010.</i><br /><br /><b>Past Apple posts on this blog</b><br /><br /><a href="http://orangehues.com/blog/2007/04/design-of-apple-badge.html">Design of an Apple Badge</a><br /><a href="http://orangehues.com/blog/2007/01/iphone-apples-most-profitable-product.html">iPhone: Apple's Most Profitable Product Ever?</a><br /><a href="http://orangehues.com/blog/2007/01/steve-jobs-iphone-whats-big-deal.html">Steve Jobs' iPhone: What's the Big Deal?</a><br /><a href="http://orangehues.com/blog/2004/11/steve-jobs-excelling-in-art.html">Steve Jobs, an artist of the highest order</a><br /><a href="http://orangehues.com/blog/2005/06/lessons-from-extraordinary-life.html">Lessons from Steve Jobs' life </a><br /><a href="http://orangehues.com/blog/2005/02/jef-raskin-stands-atop-cliff-holding.html">On Jef Raskin</a><br /><a href="http://orangehues.com/blog/2005/09/ipodnano.html">Unveiling of iPod Nano</a><br /><a href="http://orangehues.com/blog/2004/01/great-apple-turnaround.html">The Great Apple Turnaround</a><br /><a href="http://orangehues.com/blog/2005/02/so-i-was-looking-for-blogs-by-apple.html">User Experience as competitive advantage</a></small><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8765202-1041490572623184119?l=orangehues.com%2Fblog' alt='' /></div>Manu Sharmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01951983669844271992orangehues@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8765202.post-7271901609592612422010-01-19T22:44:00.077+05:302010-01-20T18:02:09.107+05:30On IPCC Inaccuracies and Inadequacies<i>Yes, IPCC is inaccurate but not just the way the media has been projecting it in relation to melting of Himalayan glaciers.</i><br /><br />Joe Romm has a great post on his popular <i>Climate Progress</i> blog in which he counters recent criticism that IPCC overestimated the date of Himalayan melting. He accurately mirrors my feelings <a href="http://climateprogress.org/2010/01/18/science-ipcc-melting-ice-himalayan-glaciers-2035-sea-level-rise/">when he says</a>:<br /><blockquote>It isn't news that the 2007 projections by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are not accurate. The real news is that the 99% of their "mistakes" are UNDERestimates of likely impacts.</blockquote>Since the IPCC is said to be reviewing evidence regarding this issue, Joe suggests they review <i>all</i> scientific literature regarding sea level rise and ice melt. That would be a good idea but limiting it to only sea level rise and ice melting does not make much sense. <br /><br />Those of us who have been tracking climate science closely know that if one considers all the evidence that has come to light over the last three years, much of the IPCC edifice would crumble. In fact latest scientific assessments of literature published over this period, such as, <a href="http://www.copenhagendiagnosis.com/">The Copenhagen Diagnosis</a> (Nov 2009), <a href="http://climatecongress.ku.dk/newsroom/congress_key_messages/">Scientific Congress Climate Change</a> (Mar 2009) and to some degree <a href="http://www.unep.org/compendium2009/">Climate Change Science Compendium</a> (UNEP Sep 2009) have been critical of IPCC.<br /><br />It's not just sea level rise and ice melt in the poles that have been underestimated in IPCC AR4 projections but its reports are found lacking in several other areas as well.<br /><br /><ul><li>Emission growth scenarios - underestimated</li><li>Oceans' capacity as carbon sinks - overestimated </li><li>Methane forcing - underestimated</li><li>Forcing of geological and geomorphological hazards - inadequate</li><li>Tipping elements and general irreversibility of climate change - inadequate</li><li>Emission reduction approach - inadequate</li></ul><br />New research and evidence on each of these areas show IPCC projections and its approach to be either deeply conservative or largely inadequate. So yes, IPCC needs to re-analyse evidence regarding the extent of melting in Tibetean-Himalayan glaciers -- the mistake occurred as they included a paper that did not go through the peer-review process, something that is supposed to identify errors such as these.<br /><br />However, this is more of an exception than the rule. Almost all of IPCC research is based on peer-reviewed research. And as Joe says, most of the time IPCC has made a mistake, it is an <i>underestimate </i>of impacts. <b>The important point is that it is these mistakes, the underestimates, that are much more dangerous</b> than any inaccuracy that turns out to be an overestimate because the former lull our policymakers into thinking they have more time when in fact the time to act is long gone.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8765202-727190160959261242?l=orangehues.com%2Fblog' alt='' /></div>Manu Sharmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01951983669844271992orangehues@gmail.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8765202.post-81837442133409532042009-08-08T22:54:00.005+05:302009-09-09T13:54:15.377+05:30Mindbender<img src="http://orangehues.com/blogstuff/60-ppl_new.jpg"><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8765202-8183744213340953204?l=orangehues.com%2Fblog' alt='' /></div>Manu Sharmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01951983669844271992orangehues@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8765202.post-32273732768075857922009-07-31T17:24:00.003+05:302009-07-31T18:00:34.336+05:30TV Appearence - Climate Change: India DithersEarlier this month, I was fortunate to be invited to be part of a TV programme on climate change. The programme ran on 8th July during prime time on <a href="http://newsx.com">NewsX</a>, a 24hr News channel by the INX group that owns 9X entertainment channel (this less well-known news channel is actually pretty decent).<br /><br />Other panelists included: the ever astute Manish Tiwari, spokesperson of the ruling Congress party; Suresh Kumar, Prof. National Disaster Management Forum and Hannan Mollah, MP from opposition CPM party.<br /><br />Manish and I had a bit of a sparring close to the end of the show, which is natural as he represented the leadership that us minions are trying so hard to influence on this issue. I can't possibly be as spontaneous and fluent as him but the feedback I received after the show was quite positive and indicated I did come out on top. <br /><br />I long for the day when I get to interview a policy maker eye to eye and put him through a grilling session -- you can use rhetorics and other evasive tactics but you cannot escape an argument with sound logic and infallible reasoning. <br /><br />Since YouTube has a 10-min limit, an edited version of the show (basically the part featuring me) is included below.<br /> <br /><object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/SMEW8FtizZE&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/SMEW8FtizZE&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object><br /><br />You can watch the <a href="http://www.revver.com/video/1810733/newsx-on-climate-change-india-dithers-8-july-2009/">complete 30-min show here</a> on Revver.com.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8765202-3227373276807585792?l=orangehues.com%2Fblog' alt='' /></div>Manu Sharmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01951983669844271992orangehues@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8765202.post-53540751181804559662009-07-30T17:09:00.000+05:302009-07-31T17:23:58.775+05:30Motorwind Power - now accepting investmentMotorwind Power (P) Ltd. is now ready to accept investment proposals for expansion in India. Motorwind Power is Indian subsidiary of Hong Kong based Motorwave Co. - inventor and manufacturer of revolutionary Motorwind turbine solution. <br /><br />The Hong Kong company has now committed itself to the Indian market. Mr. Lucien Gambarota, CEO Motorwave Co. will visit New Delhi in the first week of August to meet investors. A brief investor profile of the technology can be <a href="http://orangehues.com/blogstuff/Motorwind_Investor-profile.pdf">downloaded here</a> (PDF - 260 kb) that introduces the Motorwind solution and the context in which it will exist. <br /><br />This is a unique opportunity for an investor in Clean Tech space. Please get in touch if this interests you.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8765202-5354075118180455966?l=orangehues.com%2Fblog' alt='' /></div>Manu Sharmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01951983669844271992orangehues@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8765202.post-58151498768486634742008-11-08T10:13:00.003+05:302008-12-08T14:26:26.616+05:30A touching and inspiring story about the power of one. <br /><br /><small><a href="http://www.downtoearth.org.in/full6.asp?foldername=20081115&filename=news&sec_id=50&sid=40">Down to Earth magazine</a>, Nov 15 issue.</small> <br /><br /><blockquote><big><b>“Sir, did you get a cut on my dam?”</b></big><br />Aparna Pallavi<br /><br /><i>Maharashtra’s agriculture department is wiser after a brush with Banabai Kumre</i><br /><br />The agriculture department official told Banabai Kumre that nothing would come of her complaint of corruption, because he had already paid hush money to the district collector and the chief minister. So the septuagenarian did what she thought was best: she went to Mumbai and asked Maharashtra’s chief minister if he had received a cut on the check dam on her land.<br /><br />Banabai hails from village Kharula in Maharashtra’s Yavatmal district. The district attracted media spotlight in recent years because of a large number of farmers’ suicides. Banabai’s family of six barely managed to make ends meet. Though her extended family of more than 20 owned a farm as big as 10 hectares, only parts of it were cultivable where they grew jowar, pulses and paddy.<br /><br />But their routine was upset in early June this year when a check dam flooded after a spell of heavy rains. The rushing waters destroyed the seedlings on Banabai’s land.<br /><br />The dam was not very old. It was constructed barely a year ago. Banabai decided to report the matter to the agriculture department’s office at Yavatmal tehsil. After all Rs 3 lakh was spent under the prime minister’s relief package for constructing the dam.<br /><br />An inspection team of the department visited the site on June 16. It confirmed Banabai’s allegations that inferior quality material was used to construct the dam. Fearing consequences, V B Mitkari, a supervisor with the agriculture department, who was involved with the construction of the dam, went to Banabai’s house and unleashed a volley of threats. He accused her of breaking the dam and told her that he had “fixed” all higher ups.<br /><br />Unfazed, Banabai filed a second complaint with the district collector, mentioning Mitkari’s threats and demanded that the official be suspended. She alleged that only Rs 1 lakh had been spent on the dam, instead of the officially sanctioned Rs 3 lakh. She also alleged that instead of black soil, murum (a local variety of thick gravel) was used to construct the dam.<br /><br />But there was no action. So Banabai went back to the collector’s office on July 1, and asked him directly, “ Tumhi paise khalle ka (did you take a bribe)?” The collector, Sanjay Deshmukh, was initially speechless. But within moments his team was in a hustle. An inspection team was dispatched immediately to the check dam site.<br /><br />The memory of that day is precious to Banabai. “The inspection team and I had to travel by the collector’s own lal divyachi gadi’ (official vehicle with a red lamp), because there was no other vehicle at the collectorate at that time,” she says with a smile.<br /><br />The team’s findings confirmed Banabai’s allegations. By this time, Banabai had become a bit of a star in the local media: pictures of the elderly woman walking with the help of a stick were splashed in several local dailies. On July 3, a pressured collector issued an verbal order that the dam on Banabai’s land be reconstructed. On the same day, Yavatmal district’s panchayat Samiti also passed a resolution supporting Banabai’s demand that Mitkari be suspended.<br /><br />But no action was actually taken. So on July 7, Banabai went to Mumbai and sought a meeting with Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilas Rao Deshmukh. She had to wait for two days. The wait was not in vain.<br /><br />Describing the meeting, Banabai says, “I recounted what Mitkari had told me, and asked the chief minister if indeed any money had arrived at the mantralaya (the building that houses most departments of the Maharashtra government).” The chief minister gave her a patient hearing. Banabai says, “He told me, you have come from very far. Please sit down. He ordered someone to bring water for me. ”<br /><br />During the 15- minute conversation that followed, Banabai gave the chief minister an account of the corruption in works performed under the farmers’ package. The chief minister assured Banabai that he would take personal interest in the case. On August 17, Mitkari was suspended.<br /><br />Banabai’s case attracted a lot of attention from the media. Her neighbours, are, however, somewhat guarded in their reaction—evidently fearing reprisal by the agriculture department.<br /><br />Banabai’s life has returned to its daily rhythm. As this correspondent took leave, she told her, “One is lucky to land a government job. But those who get it become arrogant. These people have robbed poor farmers. They should be punished.”</blockquote><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8765202-5815149876848663474?l=orangehues.com%2Fblog' alt='' /></div>Manu Sharmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01951983669844271992orangehues@gmail.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8765202.post-72504117134029045872008-09-10T13:57:00.004+05:302008-09-10T14:19:40.815+05:30The best explanation I could find on what the Large Hadron Collider was designed for...<br /><blockquote>A recipe. Build two pipes, each about 6 centimetres wide and 27 kilometres long. Bend them both into a circle and cool to 1.9 kelvin, about 300 °C below room temperature. Fill with protons - about a hundred billion of them to start with - all travelling as close to the speed of light as possible. Add a magnetic field a hundred thousand times more powerful than the Earth's to steer the particles through the pipes. And make sure the protons in each pipe move in opposite directions.<br /><br />Now here's the exciting bit. Align the two pipes so that the particles collide. About twenty protons should smash into each other, creating showers of other particles. Take a good look at each one. If you spot a particle you don't recognise, shout.<br /><br />Finally, repeat forty million times. Each second.<br /><br /><b>- <a href="http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg14219304.000-take-a-handful-building-the-large-hadron-collider-will-pushparticle-accelerator-technology-to-new-limits-but-some-of-the-worldsleading-physicists-tell-justin-mullins-that-they-are-confident-they-canpullit-off-.html">New Scientist 1994 article</a></b></blockquote>Wired too has an insightful take on the <a href="http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/09/the-bosons-that.html">Best and Worst Case Scenarios</a> for the world's costliest scientific experiment. See also the funny FAQ in the sidebar.<br /><br />UPDATE: Here's an <a href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/08/cern-rap-video-about-the-large-hadron-collider-creates-a-black-h/">even better explanation</a> in a CERN rap video.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8765202-7250411713402904587?l=orangehues.com%2Fblog' alt='' /></div>Manu Sharmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01951983669844271992orangehues@gmail.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8765202.post-12169075228732234582008-07-22T11:03:00.008+05:302008-07-22T14:59:06.033+05:30HT Changes Tack, Gets Bold On Global Warming<i>A day after I criticised Hindustan Times' glaring omission of Al Gore's speech on climate change, the paper carries a bold feature on global warming as if trying to compensate. But is it really informed by climate science?</i><br /><br /><img src="http://orangehues.com/blogstuff/100months.jpg" align="center" /><br /><small>Hindustan Times ran this extraordinarily bold full page feature in today's paper</small><br /><br />I made the entry on <a href="http://orangehues.com/blog/2008/07/hindustan-times-on-gores-speech-it.html">HT's censorship of Gore's speech</a> on Sunday evening. It was published at four places online and was sent to a bunch of prominent personalities -- Dr. R. K Pachauri, Sunita Narain, Bittu Sehgal, Malini Mehra, Barkha Dutt -- as well as HT editor Vir Sanghvi and three HT correspondents.<br /><br />Today (Tuesday), the paper carried a bold story on global warming.<br /><br />It's hard to say that this was in response to my write up but it does seem likely.<br /><ul><li>For one, the full-page feature is very loud and bold (see <a href="http://orangehues.com/blogstuff/100months_big.jpg">larger version</a> of the above image) with a massive headline and a huge graphic disproportionate to the small content the story carried.<br /><br /></li><li>Second, such an aggressively promoted feature on global warming has not come out in HT since last year when the IPCC report came out and Indian print media woke up to this issue.<br /><br /></li><li>Most important indication is that this is relatively a much smaller story. It was released by the BBC two days ago and Google News has hardly 20-30 mentions of it, none of which are from outside UK. Compare that with 1000+ mentions of the Gore story from all across the world that HT did not publish. </li></ul><br />It's as if they were trying to compensate!<br /><br /><big><b>A Hundred Months to Act? Not On Earth!</b></big><br /><br />The original BBC story is available <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7513635.stm">here</a>. It's based on a report by a little known British <a href="http://www.neweconomics.org/gen/">think-tank</a> called New Economics Foundation. My take is that it will be foolish to presume we have 100 months to act. IPCC itself has said, even if we start making serious reductions by 2015 (about 77 months away) we may still reach <a href="http://www.cedaily.com.au/nl06_news_print.php?selkey=35354">2.4 deg C</a> of temperature rise.<br /><br />Nasa's top climate scientist James Hansen in his landmark <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jun/23/climatechange.carbonemissions">testimony</a> to the US congress last month (which was <i>also</i> not covered by HT) said: "the oft-stated goal to keep global warming less than 2C is a recipe for global disaster, not salvation." So you can imagine 2.4C would be a calamity.<br /><br />We do not have time. This is why <a href="http://orangehues.com/blog/2008/07/history-in-making-gores-challenge-will.html">Gore's challenge</a> is so significant. It calls for radical reductions right away. But it needs your support.<br /><blockquote>"I have seen first hand how important it is to have a base of support out in the country for the truly bold changes that have to be made now. That is why I'm devoting my life to bring about a sea change in public opinion that supports the truly massive changes."<br /><br /><small><b> - <a href="http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/19/gore-wows-the-netroots-crowd/">Al Gore</a> at a blogger convention on July 19, 2008</b></small>.</blockquote><br />Hindustan Times' <a href="http://orangehues.com/blog/2008/07/hindustan-times-on-gores-speech-it.html">censorship of Al Gore's challenge</a> continued into its fifth day today.<br /><br /><small><b>Notes</b><br /><br />This entry was also made on, <a href="http://whatswiththeclimate.org/2008/07/22/ht-changes-tack-gets-bold-on-global-warming/">Whats With The Climate blog</a>, emailed to <a href="http://groups.google.com/group/indian-youth-climate-network">IYCN</a> & <a href="http://groups.google.com/group/green-india">Green-India</a> discussion lists and copied to the following:<br /><ul>Vir Sanghvi, Editorial Director Hindustan Times<br />HT correspondents: Kinjal Dagli, Shalini Singh and Chetan Chauhan<br />Barkha Dutt, Group Editor, English News, NDTV<br />Dr. Rajendra K Pachauri, Director-General TERI<br />Sunita Narain, Director, Centre for Science and Environment<br />Bittu Sehgal, Editor, Sanctuary Magazine<br />Malini Mehra, Founder & Chief Executive, Centre for Social Markets</ul></small><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8765202-1216907522873223458?l=orangehues.com%2Fblog' alt='' /></div>Manu Sharmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01951983669844271992orangehues@gmail.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8765202.post-25885204570081205642008-07-20T18:24:00.011+05:302008-07-21T01:44:46.270+05:30Hindustan Times On Gore's Speech: "It Didn't Happen"<i>The leading national daily keeps the Indian public in the dark about Gore's historic energy challenge by refusing to make any mention of it.</i><br /><br />Despite Al Gore's <a href="http://orangehues.com/blog/2008/07/history-in-making-gores-challenge-will.html">Rock Star status</a>, certain media organisations seem to have a thing or two against him. In the U.S. they have Fox News and in India it looks like Hindustan Times is keen to take on that role. <br /><br />When Gore spoke in Washington on Thursday on the challenge to abandon fossil fuels, New York Times <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/18/washington/18gore.html">reported</a> that the plan goes beyond even the most audacious ones. Bill McKibbon, journalist and climate activist went a step further when he <a href="http://www.wecansolveit.org/content/pages/303/">said</a> Gore deserved "the prize you get once you've won the Nobel." Nasa's leading climate scientist James Hansen <a href="http://www.wecansolveit.org/content/pages/303/">called it</a> "the turning point that is needed."<br /><br />So how did Fox News report the challenge? Fox's <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/07/debating_al_gores_energy_speec.html">reporting</a> focused not on Gore's call but his personal emissions. Its reporter stood outside the Gore event and counted the number of minutes Gore's driver left the car on idle with the AC on to keep it cool when Gore and wife Tipper returned (it ran on idle for an earth destroying 20 minutes! The horror!). <br /><br />Editors at Hindustan Times went a step further by pretending that Gore never spoke.<br /><br /><br /><big><b>What Does HT Have Against Informed Public Opinion On Climate Change in India?</b></big><br /><br />This isn't the first time Hindustan Times has negatively influenced the Indian public on climate change front. I consider deliberate omission of an important global event from its reporting as a negative influence. There are many many examples of omission on this front in the past. But there are also examples of deliberate negative influence. In early April, HT ran two ridiculous stories challenging man made global warming and discrediting the IPCC. <br /><br />I <a href="http://orangehues.com/blog/2008/04/climate-change-in-media-ht-reaches-new.html">exposed those stories</a> on my blog and am currently suing the paper in the Press Council of India for publishing them. Its editor and correspondent have been served notices and I can't wait for the proceedings to begin. Have collected a wealth of evidence to share. <br /><br />But let's give them some benefit of doubt and see if this omission was really intentional or caused by some other reason. Maybe it was too late for Friday's paper. Maybe they didn't have enough space. Maybe it wasn't relevant for Indian readers. Let's look at each of these reasoning.<br /><br /><b>"It was too late for Friday's paper"</b> <br /><br />Gore's speech began at 9.30 pm Indian time on Thursday and ended just before 10.00 pm. Okay that could have been a little close to their cut off time. But earlier in the day, around 5.30 pm Associated Press (AP) had released an interview with Gore <a href="http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gjptxU3Gttw57CeYvLUZc_r0GTpQD91VH6B00">previewing the speech</a>. So there was plenty of time for the paper to run a story on Friday. <br /><br />I was lucky enough to get hands on the AP story just as it was out and <a href="http://groups.google.com/group/green-india/msg/7b12fcb601b21761">wrote about it</a> around 6.00 pm. I found my hands on the actual <a href="http://groups.google.com/group/green-india/msg/871d3956d8b74f60">transcript</a> of the speech around 10, before Gore had finished delivering it in Washington. But by 9.00 pm itself, there were lots of media reports on Google News referencing the AP release. In fact, rival Times of India even <a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Developmental_Issues/Gore_Make_all_US_electricity_from_renewable_sources/articleshow/3246316.cms">published the AP story</a> on Friday and mentioned it on the front page header too. So why did the Hindustan Times ignore it altogether? <br /> <br />Even if one accepts it was too late for Friday's paper, there can't be a reasonable explanation of its omission on Saturday as well, apart from it being intentional. TOI ran an <a href="http://orangehues.com/blogstuff/TOI_Gore_editorial.jpg">editorial</a> on it on Saturday. A full day after the speech was out when papers around the world were writing about it (1000+ mentions on Google News by now), India's leading newspaper pretends it didn't happen. <br /><br /><b>"They didn't have enough space"</b><br /><br />A story as important as this deserves to create its own space pushing aside other less important ones. But perhaps there were other reports even more important that needed to be mentioned. Alright, lets see what else HT ran in the World section that day. <br /><ul>World section, page 19 | Hindustan Times, New Delhi, Saturday, July 19, 2008<br /><br />Main page<br /><br />Happy Birthday, Mandela <br />India, China drive up Christie's sales<br />Osama's driver to be tried for war crimes<br />European terrorists trying to enter US<br />Ahead of Games, sex shops shut down<br />Pak terror groups getting bolder: US<br />Progress on Saarc varsity to be reviewed<br />Young's self-published 'The Shack' a hit<br /><br />Sidebar<br /><br />Nature's fury: typhoon kills 7 in Taiwan<br />Obama raises $52m in a month for campaign<br />Iran expects positive US presence at N-talks<br />Sex trade up in Oz during Pope's visit<br />Female suicide bomber held in Afganistan<br />Libyan sent to jail for lying about Afgan visit<br /><br />Header<br /><br />Emmy nominations<br />Python spins out of washing machine<br /><br />World section, page 20<br /><br />Desperate Housewives to end in three years<br />Want free gas? Name baby after radio station</ul>I can't see any of these stories being more important than Gore's challenge which, if pursued, could fix the US economy, end their national security threat and most importantly lead the world into addressing the climate crisis <br /><br /><b>"It wasn't relevant for Indian readers"</b><br /><br />Looking at above stories, it's clear that wasn't the case. Climate change is a problem that will hit India severely. U.S and India share similar challenges in terms of moving from fossil fuels to clean energy sources.<br /> <br />The same is true for China and other Asian countries as well. So I looked up Chinese and Pakistani news publications to see whether they covered this issue. Turns out they did.<br /><ul><a href="http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/SCMP/menuitem.2c913216495213d5df646910cba0a0a0/?vgnextoid=753f98111ab3b110VgnVCM100000360a0a0aRCRD&vgnextfmt=teaser&ss=Insight&s=Opinion">South China Morning Post, China</a>: <br />Gore's is a cry the whole world should heed<br /><br /><a href="http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-07/18/content_8565111.htm">Xinhua News Agency, China</a>: <br />Gore proposes carbon-free electricity production by 2018<br /><br /><a href="http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=zh-TW&u=http://cache.qikoo.com/shot.php%3Fu%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Ftw.myblog.yahoo.com%252Fcarl-chiu%252Farticle%253Fmid%253D1215%26s%3D18c22b0192cf4d74706401ce6a35aeaa&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=5&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3D%25E9%25AB%2598%25E7%2588%25BE%25E8%2599%259F%25E5%258F%25AC%25EF%25BC%259A10%25E5%25B9%25B4%25E5%2585%25A7%25E6%25A3%2584%25E7%2594%25A8%25E7%259F%25B3%25E6%25B2%25B9%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26hs%3D0kX">UDN, Taiwan</a> (translation): <br />高爾號召:10年內棄用石油 (<a href="http://udn.com/NEWS/WORLD/WOR6/4432310.shtml">source</a>)<br /><br /><a href="http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=124895">The News, Pakistan</a>: <br />Al-Gore urges US to generate power with clean fuel</ul><br />Clearly, there are <a href="http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/1992----02.htm">some vested interests</a> at work to ensure that public opinion in India remains uninformed or misinformed about climate change. The effort seems to be working. For example, most people in urban India, even those who consider themselves "environment friendly" do not grasp climate change mitigation potential of their actions or how far their actions go to address climate change, in other words.<br /><br />Today's (Sunday's) paper, for example, contains a full-page feature titled "Green brigade: Even five-year-olds are doing their bit to counter the dangers of global warming." The stories in this feature are commendable and probably inspiring to some but are largely uninformed about what causes global warming and what kind of actions can address this issue.<br /><br />Only one of the several examples mentioned in the three stories have something directly to do with lowering energy consumption. Others are about minimising waste generation, saving water, tree plantation, ozone depletion, air pollution, unemployment, recycling and cultural education. <br /><br />All of these are most welcome and do lower CO2 emissions but only indirectly. They certainly cannot be clubbed together under the title of "examples that counter the dangers of global warming." Even if every kid in India did all of that (and they should!), we'd still be nowhere close to addressing global warming as long as we kept burning fossil fuels. Apparently, even seasoned reporters can't differentiate between good environmental practices and those that mitigate climate change.<br /><br />I'd rather see real climate change news in the papers. Al Gore's energy challenge is likely to be a historic event in the fight against this issue as I <a href="http://orangehues.com/blog/2008/07/history-in-making-gores-challenge-will.html">wrote previously</a>. I'd like some answers as to why Hindustan Times kept its readers in dark about it.<br /><br /><small><b>Notes</b><br /><br />This entry was also made on <a href="http://whatswiththeclimate.org/2008/07/20/hindustan-times-on-gores-speech-it-didnt-happen/">Whats With The Climate</a> blog, emailed to <a href="http://groups.google.com/group/indian-youth-climate-network">IYCN</a> & <a href="http://groups.google.com/group/green-india">Green-India</a> discussion lists and copied to the following:<br /><ul> Vir Sanghvi, Editorial Director Hindustan Times<br />HT correspondents: Kinjal Dagli, Shalini Singh and Chetan Chauhan<br />Barkha Dutt, Group Editor, English News, NDTV<br />Dr. Rajendra K Pachauri, Director-General TERI<br />Sunita Narain, Director, Centre for Science and Environment<br />Bittu Sehgal, Editor, Sanctuary Magazine<br />Malini Mehra, Founder & Chief Executive, Centre for Social Markets</ul></small><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8765202-2588520457008120564?l=orangehues.com%2Fblog' alt='' /></div>Manu Sharmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01951983669844271992orangehues@gmail.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8765202.post-88854730566043507962008-07-19T22:35:00.008+05:302008-07-21T01:05:05.415+05:30History in The Making: Gore's Challenge Will Transform The Political Landscape<i>Why Gore's "Generational Challenge to Repower America" changes everything.</i><br /><br /><img align="left" src="http://orangehues.com/blogstuff/Rockstar_Gore2.jpg" hspace="10" vspace="5">Rock Star Al Gore (formerly a politician but now rivaling a rock star in his <a href="http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/19/gore-wows-the-netroots-crowd/">popularity</a>), pulled a great performance in Washington DC this week when he got on to the stage and sang <i>"Gimme 100% baby."</i><br /><br />If you don't know what I'm talking about, Al Gore delivered <a href="http://www.wecansolveit.org/content/pages/304/">a landmark speech</a> on Thursday in which he proposed an audacious target of generating 100% U.S. electricity from renewable energy resources by 2018. <br /><br />Having been frustrated for years over lack of vision on this issue from all of our leaders, the news had an electrifying effect.<br /><br />Prior to Gore, no one has had the courage to propose such a humongous target. Not the biggest environmentalists, not the doomsday scientists, no journalist, no engineer. The closest someone has come is Lester Brown. In his book <a href="http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/PB3/80by2020.htm">Plan B 3.0</a> he argues for a complete switch to renewables (largely wind power) and an eventual 80% reduction in emissions by 2020. <br /><br />But even Lester Brown acknowledges that his plan is guided not by political feasibility but the necessity of such a target. Gore's plan on the other hand is unapologetically bold. He argues that not only is it feasible, it's also attractive as it will create employment and will pay for itself several times over. Besides, Gore's target betters Brown's by two years. Every other plan or proposal talks about 2030 or 2050 targets. Even an organisation as radical as the Greenpeace wouldn't have thought of proposing anything as audacious as this. <br /><br />This is leadership.<br /><br /><b><big>Exactly What's Needed</big></b><br /><br />And this is exactly the kind of leadership we need. Every few days a <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/environment/global-warming/all-you-need-to-know-about-garnaut-20080702-30s1.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap2">new report</a> or <a href="http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gPrtcbibwjohTkEOUIwBjKIo1AnA">evidence</a> appears raising alarm about the extent of changes to our climate while our politicians are busy sleeping or playing the blame game. When we do hear of solutions and plans, they are piecemeal solutions, half measures and plans that are guided by outdated science. <br /><br /><big><b>Not A Technological Challenge</b></big><br /><br />Some reports are calling Gore's plan <a href="http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1824132,00.html?imw=Y">unrealistic</a> or outright <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-9994015-54.html">crazy</a> arguing that it's impossible. Well, perhaps they should meet executives of Ausra, the Australian company now based in U.S which is building <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/print/magazine/content/07_42/b4054053.htm?chan=gl">Gigawatt scale solar thermal</a> plants using a new technology that's cheaper than 2020 cost projections of the current one. Or maybe it's <a href="http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/04/boone-pickens-rides-the-wind.php">T Boone Pickens</a> they should be meeting who's investing a billion dollars to install world's largest wind farm in Texas. <br /><br />Perhaps they should pay a visit to Greg Watson of <a href="http://www.greenandgoldenergy.com.au/">Green and Gold Energy</a> who's installing hundreds of MW of concentrator photovoltaic solar farms around the world that produce energy at three times the efficiency of traditional solar panels and at less than 40% of the cost. Or maybe they need to learn about Blue Energy which has orders worth thousands of MW of their <a href="http://www.bluenergy.com/economic.html">tidal energy turbine</a> platform for the oceans that also works as a bridge. <br /><br />Gore did not create this target out of thin air. As he said in the speech, he met with engineers, scientists, and CEOs and had consultations over "solutions summits". One such expert was Paul Gipe whom Gore met in January this year. When asked about Gore's target, <a href="http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/ate/story?id=53095">he said</a>, "Ten years is certainly an aggressive target, but many experts [including himself] who consulted with Gore have said that it is achievable."<br /><br />As someone who has been tracking emerging renewable energy solutions around the world, I came to <a href="http://orangehues.com/blog/2008/05/climate-change-solutions-delhi-youth.html">conclude</a> some time back that this is NOT a technological problem. We have all the technology today to take this issue head on. What we lack is the political courage. And this is what Gore has attempted to infuse in the leadership by setting up what others are calling an impossible target. <br /><br /><big><b>Great Timing</b></big><br /><br />Before Gore gave the speech, fellow Democrats were <a href="http://thehill.com/index2.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=74885&pop=1&page=0&Itemid=70">complaining</a> that it was poorly timed. They thought the party would be seen as "caring more about polar bears than Americans who have had to pay record prices for gasoline." Actually, there couldn't have been a better timing for Gore's challenge. <br /><br />As Gore said in his speech, rising price of fossil fuels have made renewables more attractive than ever before. Those of us who care more about the environment than the economy have been watching rising energy prices with much glee. Each Dollar per barrel of oil price rise translates directly into reduced consumption of oil and reduced consumption of everything else that gets expensive. <br /><br />At the same time it also makes renewable cost competitive as the gap between their prices narrows down. So this is absolutely the right time to make the transition to clean energy. As price of oil gets higher -- it's projected to be $200/barrel before the end of this year -- things will only get better. <br /><br /><big><b>Transformation of Political Landscape</b></big><br /><br />I have not the slightest doubt in my mind that one or both presidential candidates will either announce that they're accepting Gore's challenge or will be forced to announce it.<br /><br />Here's how I think things will go: Gore will give Obama and McCain time to announce the acceptance. If after a certain period, they don't, he's going to call out to the public to put pressure on them to do so. Either way, they will have to take on Gore's challenge now or when the oil crisis worsens. <br /><br />Moreover, each candidate will try to out do the other in being first to make the announcements. I'm certain as I write, they are holding their own consultations with energy experts and are closely watching how people react to Gore's call. One thing is clear though, the public is on Gore's side. <br /><br /><img align="left" src="http://www.sfgate.com/polls/2008/07/18/gore/result.gif" hspace="10" vspace="5">According to an online poll that's currently <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/18/MN2711QRVL.DTL">running</a> on San Francisco Chronicle website, close to 70% people believe the goal of carbon-free electricity is achievable with only 15% doubting it (live results on left). The increasing public support for the plan will mount enormous pressure on the candidates to accept the plan even though they very well understand that implementing it will require nothing short of another industrial revolution. <br /><br />If the next president accepts Gore's challenge -- and if you ask me, that's close to a certainty -- then climate politics will be altered forever. This is going to set the agenda at G8 and it's is going to inspire UNFCCC to take bold decisions. As has always been the case in recent history, the world will follow the United States.<br /><br />With a progressive U.S. stance, other nations, particularly the developing world will no longer be able to blame the West. So there's little chance the West will permit these countries to continue doubling or quadrupling their emissions every few decades. In other words, Gore's challenge changes everything.<br /> <br /><big><b>Planned Strategy</b></big><br /> <br />It's obvious that Gore had planned this move a long time ago. It seems to be part of the deliberate strategy in which he refused to enter the presidential race earlier this year despite being pressured from all quarters and enjoying huge public support. Gore has played his trump card at a time when he has endorsed Obama and the latter has openly stated that he will consult Gore on the climate challenge. Now it will be extremely difficult for Obama to ignore Gore's call. <br /><br /><big><b>Turning Point</b></big><br /> <br />The challenge to generate all of U.S. electricity from clean energy sources by 2018 will give a huge boost to environmentalists and others around the world fighting for big reductions. As I wrote above, this will lead to increasing pressure on nations around the world and might well prove to be a turning point in our fight to combat climate change.<br /><br />If the applause he received during his speech and the number of news headlines on the topic are any indication, Gore's new number appears to be an instant hit. Now it remains to be seen how it does on the charts. I can't seem to get it out of my head.<br /><br /><big><b>Words of Caution</b></big><br /><br />A few words of caution lest anyone should complain of the overly optimistic future gazing above. Admittedly, this is only a speech although it's the very first time that we have someone calling for a bold and visionary response on this issue commensurate with the challenge. The speech has not been endorsed yet by either of the presidential nominees. <br /><br />If the United States alone meets the challenge ten year later, that does not mean climate change would suddenly end. The developing countries need to move to clean energy as well. Besides, there is still warming already in the pipeline that will continue to worsen climate change for some time. <br /><br />Another point to remember is that tomorrow if oil drops to $100 a barrel or below it might delay, if not threaten, implementation of Gore's plan. History of past oil crises show that as soon as oil gets cheaper people forget about conservation and alternatives.<br /><br /><em><small>This entry was also made on <a href="http://iycn.in">IYCN</a> blog <a href="http://whatswiththeclimate.org/2008/07/20/history-in-the-making-gores-challenge-will-transform-the-political-landscape/">What's With The Climate</a>.</small></em><br /><br /><b>Update 21-Jul</b>: Some news reports are saying that <a href="http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7011642076">Obama has accepted</a> Gore's challenge. While both McCain and Obama have released <a href="http://www.wecansolveit.org/content/pages/303/">statements</a> welcoming the challenge, with Obama embracing it <a href="http://www.barackobama.com/2008/07/17/statement_from_senator_barack.php">more wholeheartedly</a>, it would not be entirely correct to say that either of them have accepted it.<br /><br />It is not until they really commit to take it on with an <b>explicit change in their previously stated energy policies</b>, that it would be called an acceptance. John McCain's website does not even mention Gore's challenge (at least not under media releases) while Obama's site <a href="http://www.barackobama.com/issues/energy/">still states</a> that he's looking at 80% emission reductions by 2050 and to "invest $150 Billion over 10 years in clean energy." <br /><br />In other words, <b>Obama has committed to investing 15 billion every year</b> for ten years. This is way off Al Gore's plan which calls for investing several times that sum. <b>Gore has said it will cost</b> $1.5-$3 trillion over 30 years or an investment of <b>$50-$100 billion every year</b>.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8765202-8885473056604350796?l=orangehues.com%2Fblog' alt='' /></div>Manu Sharmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01951983669844271992orangehues@gmail.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8765202.post-85644305142860449622008-07-17T13:26:00.003+05:302008-07-17T13:48:11.653+05:30Reviewing National Action Plan on Climate Change - Index<i>A series of writings that review the National Action Plan on Climate Change.</i><br /><br />The country's most important policy document that will determine how it deals with climate change is here. The National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) released by Prime Minister Mr. Manmohan Singh a little over two weeks ago is a historic document as it purports to address a challenge that is grappling humanity. <br /><br />In a series of posts over the next few weeks, I will attempt an in-depth step by step analysis of the NAPCC, covering all its contents: principles and approach, each of the eight missions individually, their implementation, as well as areas that are conspicuously absent from the policy. <br /><br />In my first entry, I will talk about the history of the plan, its scope & implications and how it was was received in the country and internationally. I will be publishing this over the weekend and will continually update this post with links to subsequent parts.<br /><br /><small><em>This entry was also made on the <a href="http://whatswiththeclimate.org/2008/07/17/reviewing-national-action-plan-on-climate-change-index/">blog</a> of <a href="http://iycn.in/">Indian Youth Climate Network</a>.</em></small><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8765202-8564430514286044962?l=orangehues.com%2Fblog' alt='' /></div>Manu Sharmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01951983669844271992orangehues@gmail.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8765202.post-65991336016840647112008-07-10T23:53:00.005+05:302008-07-11T02:01:54.115+05:30BBC Interviews Me (sort of)Akash Soni from <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/hindi/">BBC Hindi World News Service</a>, UK called in yesterday to interview me for a ten minute special edition radio programme on climate change. <br /><br />I wasn't the only one interviewed though. Others featured in the programme include chief executive of <a href="http://csmworld.org/">Centre for Social Markets</a>, Ms. Malini Mehra and IPCC Chairman R.K. Pachauri.<br /><br />I think I spoke to them for 20-25 minutes. Out of this, a generous two and a half minute clip made it on air! I can be first heard at around 35 sec into it and then at about 6 min 30 sec. Click the play button below to listen or <a href="http://orangehues.com/blogstuff/BBC_World_News_Hindi_Jul_10_2008.mp3">download the mp3</a> file. <br /><br /><embed src="http://www.blogcastone.net/audio/player.swf?soundFile=http%3A%2F%2Forangehues.com%2Fblogstuff%2FBBC_World_News_Hindi_Jul_10_2008.mp3&playerID=10&bg=0xf8f8f8&leftbg=0xeeeeee&lefticon=0x666666&rightbg=0xcccccc&rightbghover=0x999999&righticon=0x666666&righticonhover=0xffffff&text=0x666666&slider=0x666666&track=0xFFFFFF&border=0x666666&loader=0x9FFFB8&loop=no&autostart=no" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" height="40" width="290"></embed><br /><br />PS: During the conversation, I also told them about the SunCube solar power device developed by <a href="http://www.greenandgoldenergy.com.au/">Green and Gold Energy</a> in Australia and their Indian licensee, <a href="http://www.squareengg.com">Square Engineering</a>. They ran a snippet on it right after the climate change programme. Though I don't know where they got the details about output and price.<br /><br />PPS: According to an independent estimate, around <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/hindi/institutional/aboutus.shtml"><b>25 million people</b></a> in India listen to BBC Hindi Service!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8765202-6599133601684064711?l=orangehues.com%2Fblog' alt='' /></div>Manu Sharmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01951983669844271992orangehues@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8765202.post-66489986196802697332008-07-01T13:11:00.009+05:302008-07-22T15:38:10.977+05:30India's Climate Change Action Plan SummaryThe Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has just unveiled the long-awaited National Action Plan on Climate Change. I've split the first 5 sections from the long document that <b>summarise the policy</b> and put it up on my server. You can <a href="http://orangehues.com/blogstuff/1-5.pdf">download it here</a> [10 pages, 2 MB]. <br /><br />The five sections contain: Overview, Principles, Approach, Way Forward: Eight National Missions and Implementation of Missions: Institutional Arrangements.<br /><br />The complete policy including section #6: Technical Document, which is over 40 page long, is <a href="http://www.pmindia.nic.in/Pg01-52.pdf">available on PMO website</a> (a large 16 MB PDF with 52 pages).<br /><br />I haven't studied it yet but my first impression is that although the initiatives listed are welcome, but...<br /><ul><li>without any firm commitment towards a target of emission reductions, <br /><li>without setting up any time-frame to achieve those reductions and <br /><li>without a commitment to phase out new energy generation from fossil fuels and their subsidies...</ul> it is unlikely to make a significant short term or long-term impact into India's fast growing carbon emissions.<br /><br />A longer, more detailed analysis including an official response from my organisation (CSM) will follow in coming days.<br /><br /><b>UPDATE 3-Jul</b>: 'Climate Challenge India' coalition formed by CSM just released <a href="http://csmworld.org/public/pdf/CCI-NAPCC_statement_final.pdf">an interim assessment</a> (PDF) I had the privilege to be one of the contributors to this report.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8765202-6648998619680269733?l=orangehues.com%2Fblog' alt='' /></div>Manu Sharmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01951983669844271992orangehues@gmail.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8765202.post-12424153585392891602008-06-26T19:50:00.009+05:302008-06-26T22:16:48.782+05:30It's called *Revenue Neutral Carbon Tax* and It's a Good Thing!<i>Not "Tax and Dividend." And certainly not "Cap and Dividend."</i><br /><br />This is getting ridiculous. On an popular blog ('It's Getting Hot in Here') someone named <span style="font-weight: bold;">Alisha Fowler</span>, who, by her own admission, doesn't understand one bit of economics, is <a href="http://itsgettinghotinhere.org/2008/06/24/dear-dr-hansen-cap-and-dividend-not-worth-fighting-for/">lashing out at James Hansen</a> for supposedly suggesting a "Cap and Dividend" scheme to reign in CO2 emissions.<br /><br />Only problem is, Hansen made no such proposal.<br /><br />Hansen did not propose "Cap and Dividend", the term he used was "Tax and Dividend" something entirely different. I suggest Fowler looks up <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jun/23/climatechange.carbonemissions">Hansen's testimony</a> again. What Hansen has proposed is actually more commonly known as a <b>revenue neutral carbon tax</b>. This what it should be called. I don't know who re-invented this term but calling it "tax and dividend" is evidently a very bad idea as people confuse it with "cap and dividend".<br /><br /><hr />To understand Carbon Tax visit <a href="http://www.carbontax.org/">Carbon Tax Center</a> (CTC), an <span style="font-style: italic;">excellent </span>resource on the topic.<br /><hr /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Carbon Tax</span> refers to a stipulated amount (such as a starter tax of $37 / ton) of tax applied to carbon content in fuels. Applied at the top most level of fossil fuel chain, i.e., - at the point they are extracted from earth. At the retail level, the starter tax would translate into about 10 cents/gallon of gasoline.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Revenue neutral</span> because the collected amount is returned to the public. This is how it'll work, according to Carbon Tax Center:<br /><blockquote>Each individual’s receipt of dividends or tax-shifts would be independent of the taxes he or she pays. That is, no person’s benefits would be tied to his or her energy consumption and carbon tax “bill.” This separation of benefits from payments preserves the incentives created by a carbon tax to reduce use of fossil fuels and emit less CO<sub>2</sub> into the atmosphere.</blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold;">How would Carbon Tax reduce emissions?</span> The same way high gasoline prices are doing that - by reducing consumption and generating investment into alternatives. That said, it would be foolish to depend upon oil prices because they tend to fluctuate depending on a number of factors. Carbon tax on the other hand will grow by a predictable amount year after year, as CTC proposes. The $37/ton tax would become $74/ton the second year, $111 the third and so on until it reaches $370 by the tenth year.<br /><br />It is simple economics that a high and constantly increasing price of energy would create <span style="font-weight: bold;">incentives for conservation and efficiency</span>. Industries would go all out to reduce their consumption and pursue alternatives. Money would begin pouring in to find cheaper sources of energy. It's a market driven mechanism and not one that relies on the governments or politics.<br /><br />A carbon tax has <span>nothing to do with a cap and trade</span>. A large number of people have shown that <span style="font-weight: bold;">cap and trade doesn't work</span>. But don't confuse it with carbon tax. There is no cap applied anywhere and no emission credits traded with anyone. Cap and trade schemes such as the Clean Development Mechanism, are very complex, highly susceptible to corruption, take years to implement and have failed miserably in the past as a <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7436263.stm">BBC investigation</a> recently exposed.<br /><br />Carbon tax on the other hand is a <span style="font-weight: bold;">transparent way of putting a price on carbon</span>. It has been applied very <a href="http://www.colby.edu/personal/t/thtieten/eco-taxation.htm">successfully in </a><a href="http://www.colby.edu/personal/t/thtieten/eco-taxation.htm">Sweden</a> and elsewhere as well. It's no surprise therefore that so many economists and other eminent people support a carbon tax. In his book, Plan B 3.0, renowned environmentalist <span style="font-weight: bold;">Lester Brown calls it an exciting new option</span>.<br /><br />I briefly met Mr. Brown couple of weeks ago when he visited India to launch his book and deliver a talk. I've been a big believer in Carbon Taxation for a long time so it was great to see him endorse it. I asked him about the support that Cap and Trade traditionally gets versus <span style="font-weight: bold;">Carbon Tax which is much less understood by the general public</span>. He responded that almost all economists of the world agree beyond doubt that carbon tax can be a very effective solution in reducing emissions.<br /><br />When I pointed out that Nick Stern isn't a proponent, his response was that Nick was a supporter earlier but more recently he's changed his position perhaps in view of the political opposition that any taxation scheme receives.<br /><br />Some of the <a href="http://www.carbontax.org/who-supports/scientists-and-economists/">prominent economists that support carbon tax</a> include <span style="font-weight: bold;">Paul Volcker</span>, former chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve; <span style="font-weight: bold;">Lawrence Summers</span>, former president, Harvard University; Nobel laureate <span style="font-weight: bold;">Joseph Stiglitz</span> and <span style="font-weight: bold;">Jeffrey Sachs</span>, director of the Earth Institute.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Al Gore</span> is another longtime supporter of carbon taxation and in fact he even tried to introduce a version of it during the Clinton administration.<br /><br />I think the blogosphere is full of far <span style="font-weight: bold;">too many people talking authoritatively</span> on issues related to climate change when in fact they have <span style="font-weight: bold;">no clue what they're talking about</span>. This is a classic example. The blog where this was posted - <a href="http://itsgettinghotinhere.org/">It's getting hot in here</a> - is a popular team blog so it's all the more surprising that Fowler wasn't led to the corner and politely told that she's a little off in her evaluation. A day after the post, it still stands without a correction or an update.<br /><br />For further evidence, check out <a href="http://itsgettinghotinhere.org/2008/06/24/dear-dr-hansen-cap-and-dividend-not-worth-fighting-for/#comments">comments to Alisha Fowler's post</a>. Commentor after commentor goes on and on about why she's wrong and why "cap and dividend" "as proposed by Hansen" is a great idea! None of them have any idea that what Hansen proposed was quite different from what they're talking about.<br /><br /><big><b>More Cluelessness Courtesy The Breakthrough Blog</b></big><br /><br />Fowler has <a href="http://thebreakthrough.org/blog/2008/06/dear_dr_hansen_capanddividend.shtml">cross posted</a> her entry on The Breakthrough Blog where even more cluelessness prevails. Her colleague, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Teryn Norris</span> has another <a href="http://thebreakthrough.org/blog/2008/06/step_aside_james_hansen.shtml">post on similar lines</a> vehemently attacking Hansen titled "Is James Hansen Undermining his Credibility." In which he says: "Dr. Hansen declared he would fight against any agenda other than cap-and-dividend." Really Teryn? Did he say that?<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8765202-1242415358539289160?l=orangehues.com%2Fblog' alt='' /></div>Manu Sharmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01951983669844271992orangehues@gmail.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8765202.post-78997790075488437872008-05-30T13:25:00.014+05:302008-06-18T15:51:11.952+05:30Climate Change Solutions: Delhi Youth Summit PresentationI just attended the <a href="http://iycn.in/dysoc/">Delhi Youth Summit on Climate</a> organised by the enterprising folks at Indian Youth Climate Network (IYCN) who put this event together in three weeks!<br /><br />I made a presentation on <b>Countering the Challenge: Youth and the role of media in social and political transformation</b>. I talked about the challenge from climate change (its severity, scale and the speed of changes needed), causes of this challenge and how we should counter it.<br /><br />What I hoped to achieve through the presentation is instill a sense of urgency about the problem and show a path towards solutions. I proposed that a widespread and comprehensive media campaign targeted both at the society and the leadership can bring about the required changes in our attitudes and policies so that we can begin to tackle this problem.<br /><br />The underlying argument is that personal lifestyle changes although important will not bring about the change needed and that it can be meaningfully addressed only through policy changes. I also argue that technology is not holding us back, rather it's lack of social awareness (about severity, scale and speed) and lack of political will. I've tried to show how we can change this with the help of media.<br /><br />The presentation contains some video clips so it's quite large. There are two ways to download.<br /><ul><b>Download presentation & videos separately</b> and add videos to it later.<br /><a href="http://orangehues.com/blogstuff/CounteringChallenge.zip">Presentation</a> (876 kb zipped)<br /><a href="http://orangehues.com/blogstuff/PresentationVideos.zip">Videos</a> (32 mb zipped). <small>Also on <a href="http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=C6E27F2490FA3308">YouTube</a>.</small><br /><br /><b>Get entire presentation</b> including the videos.<br /><a href="http://orangehues.com/blogstuff/CounteringChallenge_embd_vid.zip">Available here</a> (36.4 mb zipped).<br />This method is not recommended but still provided for those who don't have time and have the bandwidth.</ul>It's a little crude in its present state (I put it together the night before presenting it). But the message is important and I hope it gets through. I will continue to work on it to refine and make it more compelling. Will update this post as and when I do.<br /><br />You are free to use this in any way you wish (as long as you don't call it your own!). If you use the material without changing the intended message, please attribute the source and provide links (you'll find them on the last page). If you want any help in presenting it, feel free to email<br /><img border="0" src="http://orangehues.com/blogstuff/email.jpg" /><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8765202-7899779007548843787?l=orangehues.com%2Fblog' alt='' /></div>Manu Sharmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01951983669844271992orangehues@gmail.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8765202.post-37819124502293263432008-05-05T22:24:00.022+05:302008-05-08T02:38:05.161+05:30Our Inefficient Cars & The Poulsen Hybrid Solution<i>You may be surprised to learn how inefficient that shiny new car is that you drive to work everyday. Thankfully, there's a solution in sight.</i><br /><br />I think a lot about cars and urban transport. I honestly believe that cars are unsustainable for a large number of reasons and that we must give them up in favor of walking, using the bicycle, two wheelers and public transport. In my personal life, I've taken the first step towards that by placing a moratorium on single and dual passenger car travel - will only take out the car when there are three or more people traveling <small>(more on that later)</small>. <br /><br />One of the reasons cars are unsustainable is their horrible inefficiency. I've mentioned this <a href="http://orangehues.com/blog/2007/06/ford-to-world-we-promise-global-warming.html">before</a> but here's what Amory Lovins of Rocky Mountain Institute has to say:<br /><blockquote>I've been thinking in background for 20 years about the physics of cars and why are they so inefficient that you know, your car's using a 100 times its weight in ancient plants everyday and yet only 0.3% of that energy ends up moving the driver. This didn't seem very good.<br /><br />Of all the fuel energy you put into the car, 87% (seven eighths of it) never gets to the wheel. It's lost first in the engine, driveline, idling and accessories. <br /><br />Of the 1/8<sup>th</sup> of fuel energy that does reach the wheels, half of that either heats the air that the car pushes aside or heats the tires and roads. Only the last 6% of the fuel energy actually accelerates the car and then heats the brakes when you stop.<br /><br />- <b>Amory Lovins</b> in <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/car/efficiency.html">Car of the Future</a> </blockquote> Not everyone is as inspired to give up their cars -- most people actually love theirs -- so we must live with them for some time. The only alternative then is to produce more efficient cars. But the auto industry has refused to budge so far, you say. Soooo... you get the independent auto makers to produce efficient cars. But how do you do that? It's not as simple as producing water bottles, you know. Well, give them an incentive. Announce a $10 million prize for a car that is over 3 times as efficient and sells in large numbers. <br /><br />This is precisely what <a href="http://www.progressiveautoxprize.org/">Auto X-Prize</a> is all about. <br /><br />I've been following Auto X-Prize development for almost two years. I think it's a great initiative though I feel they should have aimed higher -- 300 MPG instead of 100 (today's cars average about 29 MPG in US). We need to make a big leap to make up for the inefficiencies of the past century. Nevertheless, it's an exciting venture and I can't wait to find out who among the 64 contenders wins the X-Prize and what it does to the industry. <br /><br />Popular Mechanics magazine just announced a list of the <a href="http://www.popularmechanics.com/automotive/new_cars/4261425.html?series=19">top 10 contenders</a> according to them. They're all good but the one that has the greatest likelihood, in my opinion, isn't on anyone's radar. It doesn't feature in the list and it's never been mentioned on AutoBlogGreen or TreeHugger, two popular blogs covering green cars and low-impact living. Both of them have dozens of posts on other X-prize contenders. <br /><br /><big><b>The Solution</b></big><br /><br />I'm talking about <a href="http://www.poulsenhybrid.com/">Poulsen Hybrid</a>. A product of a <s>European</s> US company* called Alpha-Core, it's essentially a couple of rear wheel hub motors which can be installed in any conventional car to convert it into a plug-in hybrid, increasing its mileage significantly. So you get 2 hub motors, two controllers along with batteries and a charger which go in the trunk -- <a href="http://www.poulsenhybrid.com/install.html">all for $3300</a>. Give it a couple of hours and you car's now a plug-in electric hybrid!<br /><br /><small>(* Founder, Ulrik Poulsen has an unmistakable Scandinavian accent so I assumed it's a European firm but <a href="http://www.alphacore.com">Alpha-Core website</a> says they're based in Connecticut, US.) </small><br /><br /><center><img src=http://orangehues.com/blogstuff/poulsen.JPG></center> <br /><br />I think it's an absolutely brilliant concept. Totally inexpensive, efficient, simple and it doesn't even mean getting a new car. If it works as promised, it should sell in huge numbers - many times more than any of the fancy cars in Popular Mechanics list. Converting an existing internal combustion engine car into a plug-in electric to get mileage in the range of 100 MPG without any substantial mechanical changes to the car and at such low cost is an unbeatable proposition. <br /><br />More reasons why I like the Alpha-Core/ Poulsen Hybrid solution:<br /><br /><li>Retrofitting existing cars to make them more efficient is <b><i>the most effective and sustainable way of tackling auto emissions</i></b>. There are well over 600 million cars in the world. Any new new alternative automotive solution will take several decades to become mainstream provided it is cost effective and is available worldwide. While we need new technologies, the greatest impact will come from a technology that can improve the existing one running inside each of those 600 million cars. <br /><br /><li>Alpha-core has been in the manufacturing business since 1982. So unlike most other X-Prize contenders, it's not a startup - it doesn't need any funding to get going. <br /><br /><li>The product is ready for launch. There's no long development cycle in between by the end of which most companies discover their technology isn't yet ready or that it has a fatal flaw. In an <a href="http://xprizecars.podomatic.com/entry/2008-03-29T19_16_22-07_00">audio interview</a>, founder Ulrik Poulsen says it's expected to be available by June 2008. That's next month!<br /><br />Go Poulsen Hybrid!<br /><br /><br /><b>UPDATE 7-May-08</b>: AutoblogGreen makes amend, <a href="http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/05/07/who-else-thinks-the-poulsen-hybrid-is-the-sleeper-team-to-win-th/">writes</a> about Poulsen Hybrid. Links to this post. Most people commenting <a href="http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/05/07/who-else-thinks-the-poulsen-hybrid-is-the-sleeper-team-to-win-th/#c12009937">are overwhelmingly positive</a> about this.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8765202-3781912450229326343?l=orangehues.com%2Fblog' alt='' /></div>Manu Sharmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01951983669844271992orangehues@gmail.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8765202.post-55654971485634407882008-04-03T18:28:00.031+05:302008-06-03T23:29:29.174+05:30Climate Change in Media: HT Reaches New Low<i>Two recent articles in Hindustan Times challenging human induced climate change raise questions about credibility of its reporting and integrity of its correspondent. It also raises a question for serious environmentalists on how to respond to such reports.</i> <small>(<a href="#UpdateApr5">view updates</a>)</small><br /><br />Two days ago (Apr 1, 2008) Hindustan Times carried an article titled <i>Climate change not as big a problem: report.</i> Lest anyone should think it as an April Fool's joke, it was a completely serious piece based on real events. Today (Apr 3, 2008), the same correspondent published a report titled: <i>'Sun too causes global warming.'</i><br /><br />Both articles are highly misleading, contain factual inaccuracies and at the very least deliberately hide widely known facts that counter its argument to paint a biased picture. In the following paragraphs, I will attempt to highlight the key issues raised by each of the stories. <br /><br /><b>Climate change not as big a problem: report</b> <a href="#ref1">[1]</a><br />by Chetan Chauhan | Page 14, HT New Delhi, Apr 1, 2008 | 353 words<br /><br />Opening excerpt: <blockquote>An international civil society report has debunked the claims of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, saying there is no evidence available to show loss of human life directly due to climate change.<br /><br />The report of the Civil Society Coalition on Climate Change [CSCCC], to be released in India on Tuesday, says there is no evidence to suggest climate change has caused an increase in diseases.</blockquote><br /><big><b>Highly Misleading</b></big><br /><br />By pitting CSCCC <a href="#ref2">[2]</a> directly against IPCC <a href="#ref3">[3]</a>, the article creates the impression that both organisations are of similar stature. Nothing could be further from the truth. IPCC is a Noble prize winning United Nations body made up of hundreds of scientists and governmental representatives while CSCCC is merely a coalition of so-called global "think tanks" - corporate lobbyists funded by big oil corporations, the likes of ExxonMobil, to further their interests. <br /><br />The HT article makes no mention of the background of CSCCC - who comprises the coalition and how are they funded. Unlike IPCC, which was formed two decades ago, CSCCC was only organised a little more than an year back <a href="#ref4">[4]</a> by International Policy Network (IPN) which is a well known recipient of Exxon funding. IPN has received $390,000 from Exxon <a href="#ref5">[5]</a>. Several other members of the coalition have also been a beneficiary.<br /><br />Paul Reiter, the expert cited in the article, for example, sits on the "Scientific and Economic Advisory Council" <a href="#ref6">[6]</a> of an organization called the "Annapolis Centre." What is Annapolis Centre? It's a US based "think tank" <a href="#ref7">[7]</a> that has pocketed $793,575 from ExxonMobil and has been very active in playing down the human contribution to global warming.<br /><br />Reiter doesn't have anything too substantiative in his research papers <a href="#ref8">[8]</a> published in scientific peer reviewed journals to back his claims of lack of relationship between disease and climate change. It's unclear how many other claims of CSCCC report are backed by research in peer reviewed journals.<br /><br />Yet, here's a newspaper that reaches out to a country of one billion, publishing unsubstantiated "research" of corporate lobbyists that have a direct financial interest in sensationalising their so-called findings; and pits them against a neutral, highly conservative group of scientists and government representatives whose work is completely based on pure scientific research published in peer-reviewed journals.<br /><br /><b>'Sun too causes global warming'</b> <a href="#ref9">[9]</a><br />by Chetan Chauhan | Page 17, HT New Delhi, Apr 3, 2008 | 327 words<br /> <br />Opening excerpt:<br /><blockquote>FRESH RESEARCH by Danish Space Research Centre can possibly give a new twist to the controversy whether Green House Gas emissions is the major contributor for global warming. The Center's research based on climate date [sic] of 150 years shows that varying activity of the Sun is the most systematic contributor to natural climate variations.</blockquote><br /><big><b>Completely Inaccurate</b></big><br /><br />The article falsely states that new research claiming sun as the cause of global warming has now emerged and that it may alter the widely held belief in man-made global warming. Global warming skeptics have been arguing sun as the cause for several decades. In fact Danish Space Research Centre's (DNSC) Galactic Cosmic Ray theory itself is over 11 years old. <a href="#ref10">[10]</a> So it's absolutely false to imply that this is a new discovery that somehow challenges man made global warming.<br /><br />Not only is it old research, it has also been debunked several times (see <a href="http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/recent-warming-but-no-trend-in-galactic-cosmic-rays/">here</a>, <a href="http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/05/on-veizers-celestial-climate-driver/">here</a>, <a href="http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/10/taking-cosmic-rays-for-a-spin/">here</a>, <a href="http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/03/cosmoclimatology-tired-old-arguments-in-new-clothes/">here</a> and <a href="http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/10/cosmic-rays-don%E2%80%99t-die-so-easily/">here</a>). In July last year the prestigious Royal Society of UK published a study concluding that the Sun's output cannot be causing modern-day climate change. <a href="#ref11">[11]</a> To quote BBC News on it: <i>Mike Lockwood's analysis appears to have put a large, probably fatal nail in this intriguing and elegant [Galactic Cosmic Ray] hypothesis. He said: "It might even have had a significant effect on pre-industrial climate; but you cannot apply it to what we're seeing now, because we're in a completely different ball game."</i><br /><br />Mysteriously, the HT article quotes Deepak Lal, former Indian Foreign Service officer in support of the Galactic Cosmic Ray theory. How is Lal related with the Danish Space Research Centre is not mentioned in the article. I looked up his background. Among other things, Lal is the author of a little known book on globalisation called "In Praise of Empires." <a href="#ref12">[12]</a> More interestingly however, he is a Senior Fellow at the CATO institute. <a href="#ref13">[13]</a> What is CATO institute? You guessed it -- a US "think tank" funded by ExxonMobil. It has received $110,000 from Exxon. <a href="#ref14">[14]</a><br /><br /><big><b>Questions about journalistic ethics and accountability</b></big><br /><br />The two articles raise serious questions. Why did the Hindustan Times publish misleading, inaccurate, unsubstantiated and biased reports on climate change. Did the correspondent receive an incentive for publishing these from outside or is there an organisation wide effort to discredit opinion against climate change?<br /><br />Those of us who understand the severity of this planetary emergency have watched every mention of this issue in mainstream Indian media with interest over the last year. Most of us can also recall a time prior to the release of the IPCC report when climate change was conspicuously absent from Indian media. The Stern report for example, which was hailed as a landmark event in UK (released at the end of Oct 2006), never found a mention in India's two main newspaper for months. This conspiracy of silence was broken only when the crescendo of international reporting on the issue reached mile-high by the time the IPCC report came out (Feb 2007).<br /><br />Poor reporting is worse than no reporting. In this particular instance, it's hard to accept that this came out simply as a result of ignorance. Chetan Chauhan has been covering environmental issues for HT for some time and it's hard to imagine someone at that position being incapable of making a distinction between CSCCC and IPCC or being unable to conduct simple background checks through web searches prior to writing. <br /><br />A bigger question for those of us who see through such reporting is: how do we address this problem. How do we respond to such reports to bring the truth to public attention. And how do we make the media accountable for what it writes or does not write.<br /><br />On my part I plan to follow this post with a formal complaint to the Press Council of India unless HT issues a well-placed corrective article in the following days. <br /><br /><br /><b>Notes and Links</b><br /><br />This entry is also posted on <a href="http://groups.google.com/group/green-india">Green-India</a> mailing list and copied to the following: <ul>Chetan Chauhan, HT correspondent and writer of said articles<br />Vir Sanghvi, Editorial Director Hindustan Times<br />Dr Rajendra K Pachauri, Director-General TERI<br />Sunita Narain, Director Centre for Science and Environment<br />Malini Mehra, Founder & Director Centre for Social Markets</ul><br />References:<br /><br /><a name="ref1">1</a> HT April 1, 2008: <a href="http://in.news.yahoo.com/hindustantimes/20080401/r_t_ht_nl_general/tnl-climate-change-not-as-big-a-problem-7244580_1.html">Climate change not as big a problem: report</a><br /><br /><a name="ref2">2</a> <a href="http://www.csccc.info">Civil Society Coalition on Climate Change</a> [2] (CSCCC) website<br /><br /><a name="ref3">3</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPCC">Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change</a> (IPCC) on Wikipedia<br /><br /><a name="ref4">4</a> The CSCCC is organised by IPN according to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instituto_Liberdade">this Wikipedia entry</a>.<br /><br /><a name="ref5">5</a> <a href="http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=108">International Policy Network fact sheet</a> on ExxonMobilSecrets.org<br /><br /><a name="ref6">6</a> Paul Reiter on <a href="http://www.annapoliscenter.org/skins/default/display.aspx?Action=display_page&mode=User&ModuleID=8cde2e88-3052-448c-893d-d0b4b14b31c4&ObjectID=da40efcb-8193-4197-87d6-23a5e9b9cedf">Science and Economic Advisory Council</a> of The Annapolis Center<br /><br /><a name="ref7">7</a> <a href="http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=13">The Annapolis Center fact sheet</a> on ExxonMobilSecrets.org<br /><br /><a name="ref8">8</a> <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/node/1279">Reiter's research background</a> on DeSmogBlog<br /><br /><a name="ref9">9</a> HT, April 3, 2008: <a href="http://in.news.yahoo.com/hindustantimes/20080403/r_t_ht_nl_general/tnl-sun-too-causes-global-warming-7244580_1.html">Sun too causes global warming</a><br /><br /><a name="ref10">10</a> DNSC 1997 research papers on <a href="http://www.spacecenter.dk/research/sun-climate/Scientific%20work%20and%20publications/resolveuid/93609c093e9f2d72d2f63a25d71d4ec4">sun-Climate connection</a> [PDF] and <a href="http://www.spacecenter.dk/research/sun-climate/Scientific%20work%20and%20publications/resolveuid/5b604472894dadd59102474e2705b269">cosmic ray flux and global cloud cover</a> [PDF]<br /><br /><a name="ref11">11</a> BBC News on Royal Society study: <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/uk_news/6290228.stm">'No Sun link' to climate change</a><br /><br /><a name="ref12">12</a> Deepak Lal's <a href ="http://www.amazon.com/Praise-Empires-Globalization-Order/dp/1403936390">In Praise of Empires</a><br /><br /><a name="ref13">13</a> <a href="http://www.cato.org/people/lal.html">Deepak Lal at CATO</a><br /><br /><a name="ref14">14</a> <a href="http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=21">CATO fact sheet</a> on ExxonSecrets.org<br /><br /><br /><a name ="UpdateApr5"><b>UPDATE 5-Apr 2008</a>: IPCC Chairman, Dr. R. K. Pachauri Writes Back</b><br /><br />Words of encouragement and support have poured in from several quarters via various channels. Including one from Noble Laureate and IPCC chairman, Dr R. K. Pachauri himself. Dr Pachauri graciously took out time to reply to my email. My sincere thanks to everyone once again. I've compiled all responses - received via email or on Green-India group - as comments on this page. <a href="http://orangehues.com/blog/2008/04/climate-change-in-media-ht-reaches-new.html#2830408040554730378">Read Dr. Pachauri's response</a>. Note: timestamps on these comments may not be valid.<br /><br /><br /><a name ="UpdateApr5.2"><b>UPDATE 5-Apr 2008 [2]</a>: CSM Issues Press Release</b><br /><br />Centre for Social Markets (CSM) headed by Ms Malini Mehra, which last month served as adviser to Al Gore's climate project in India, has issued <a href="http://groups.google.com/group/green-india/msg/4af9407f92c5bb50">a press release against the climate change misinformation campaign</a> in the media. It discusses the launch of "Civil Society Report on Climate Change" in India by deputy chairman of planning commission - Montek Singh Ahluwalia.<br /><br /><br /><a name ="UpdateApr9"><b>UPDATE 9-Apr 2008</a>: TreeHugger picks up this story</b><br /><br />TreeHugger.com - the US based popular green blog, which has a daily reach of around <a href="http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/treehugger.com">200 million</a> (that's as much as Hindustantimes.com), has <a href="http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/04/outsourcing-skepticism.php">published a detailed story based on this entry</a> calling it a <i>"complete, excruciatingly well-referenced analysis which elegantly dismantles the erroneous arguments put forth in both [HT] pieces."</i> The TreeHugger post quotes widely from this blog and its author. Thank you TreeHugger!<br /><br /><br /><a name ="UpdateMay1"><b>UPDATE 1-May 2008</a>: Malini Mehra writes in HT</b><br /><br />Founder and CEO of <a href="http://csmworld.org/">Centre for Social Markets</a>, Ms. Malini Mehra wrote an oped piece in Hindustan Times, published on Earth Day, flaying the two HT reports calling threat from climate change exaggerated and unfounded. an excerpt:<blockquote>Having failed to win the argument in the West, the climate deniers are now moving into India and China. They see our country as a soft-touch for their propaganda and easy to hoodwink through arguments pitting poverty against development. What they do not realise is that there is a domestic movement brewing in India for positive action on climate change.</blockquote>Complete article can be <a href="http://hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=b58bcc71-dc2c-466a-8c15-0a778d4d4342&&Headline=...Not+at+all%2c+stupid!+It%u2019s+the+politics">found here</a>.<br /><br /><br /><a name ="UpdateMay11"><b>UPDATE 11-May 2008</a>: Frontline Magazine writes on this issue</b><br /><br />Well known political analyst, journalist and activist <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praful_Bidwai">Praful Bidwai</a> penned a column in Frontline magazine (Apr 26 - May 09) on this issue. Opening excerpt follows: <blockquote><big>Falling back on pseudo-science?</big><br /><b>Indian policymakers are clutching at straws to duck their responsibility to reduce the country’s greenhouse gas emissions.</b><br /><br />AS Indian policymakers come under growing pressure from global scientific and political communities on climate change, they are increasingly resorting to disingenuous, devious or downright specious arguments to avoid taking purposive action to cap and reduce the country’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, which are rising 3.5 times faster than the world average.</blockquote><br />The detailed article calls the CSCCC report flimsy and "an exercise in charlatanry and sophistry." It also references this blog post as containing "some interesting facts" on the issue. Complete article can be <a href="http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl2509/stories/20080509250909600.htm">read here</a>.<br /><br /><br /><a name ="UpdateMay20"><b>UPDATE 20-May 2008</a></b>: The Unsuitablog <a href="http://thesietch.org/mysietch/keith/2008/05/20/civil-society-coalition-on-climate-change-astroturfing-the-ipcc/">cites this post</a> while parodying CSCCC with a game called "follow the links."<br /><br /><br /><a name ="UpdateJun03"><b>UPDATE 03-June 2008</a></b>: Filed a formal complaint with the <a href="http://presscouncil.nic.in/HOME.HTM">Press Council of India</a> along with related evidence.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8765202-5565497148563440788?l=orangehues.com%2Fblog' alt='' /></div>Manu Sharmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01951983669844271992orangehues@gmail.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8765202.post-9383991698270158562007-11-26T12:46:00.000+05:302007-11-26T20:09:09.409+05:30Epicenter of Earthquake Was Delhi University: US Geological Survey<i>According to USGS, the epicentre of Delhi earthquake was just south of Delhi University near GT road, not Delhi-Haryana border as media reports have said. (<a href=#4.15PM>See UPDATE 26-Nov, 4.15PM</a>)</i><br /><br />Delhi experienced what's being called a "moderate" earthquake this morning. It recorded 4.6 on Richter scale. I've felt earthquakes in the past and this was by far the strongest because its epicenter was right in Delhi.<br /><br />However, there seems to be some confusion over where exactly lies the epicentre in or around Delhi. Media reports mention Delhi-Haryana border but the Delhi Haryana border is not a single location, it stretches for several kilometers. However, the latitude and longitude figures released by India's meteorological department does not match this. <br /><br /><big><b>Epicenter According to the Met Department</b></big><br /><br />According to <a href="http://www.indiainfoline.com/news/innernews.asp?storyId=52176&lmn=1">Indiainfo</a> and <a href="http://www.zeenews.com/articles.asp?rep=2&aid=409536&sid=NAT&news=Mild%20quake%20rocks%20Delhi,%20NCR">ZeeNews</a>, <br /><blockquote>The epicenter of the tremor was at the Delhi-Haryana border at 28.6 N latitude and 77.9 E longitude. Precisely it was centered around 10 kms from Bahadurgarh in Haryana.</blockquote> This does not make any sense because those figures are for a location in U.P nowhere close to Delhi or Haryana. Enter <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&time=&date=&ttype=&q=28.6%C2%B0N,+77.9%C2%B0E+(Epicentre+by+Met+Dept)&ie=UTF8&ll=28.642389,77.522278&spn=1.294393,2.238464&z=9&iwloc=addr&om=0">28.6°N, 77.9°E in Google Maps</a> and you get this.<br /><br /><img src="http://orangehues.com/blogstuff/met_dept.gif"><br />(Scale: 20km)<br /><br />As you can see, the epicenter according to the met department is not consistent with the statement that it's on Delhi-Haryana border. It's actually about 100km East of the point where Bahadurgarh is. (<a href="#4.15PM">see UPDATE below</a>)<br /><br /><big><b>Epicenter According to U.S. Geological Survey</b></big><br /><br />The National Earthquake Information Center (NEIC), part of U.S Geological Survey maintains a database of earthquakes around the world. <a href="http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Quakes/us2007kdb6.php">According to their data</a>, the epicenter location was actually right in the middle of North Delhi just south of Delhi University. <br /><br /><img src="http://orangehues.com/blogstuff/usgs_details.gif"><br /><br />Enter <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&time=&date=&ttype=&q=28.677%C2%B0N,+77.204%C2%B0E+(Epicentre+by+USGS)&ie=UTF8&ll=28.696912,77.197151&spn=0.161719,0.279808&z=12&iwloc=addr&om=0">28.677°N, 77.204°E in Google Maps</a> and you get this.<br /><br /><img src="http://orangehues.com/blogstuff/USGS.gif"><br />(Scale: 2km)<br /><br /><img src="http://orangehues.com/blogstuff/USGS2.gif"><br />(Scale: 500m)<br /><br />The figures released by USGS have a location uncertainty of +/- 18km but that still doesn't put it anywhere close to the figures provided by the met department. <br /><br />I will update this post when I have more info but if you know a more reliable source of the epicenter location, please leave a comment.<br /><br /><a name="4.15PM"><b>UPDATE 4.15PM</b></a>: <big><b>Correct Met Dept Location Now Confirmed</b></big><br /><br />It seems the media reports picked up wrong Longitude figure released by the Met department. Met Department's list of earthquakes in November <a href="http://www.imd.ernet.in/section/seismo/dynamic/CMONTH.HTM">available on its website</a> (scroll down to 25) puts the Longitude at 77.0E instead of 77.9E as reported in news reports mentioned above. <br /><br />This puts their stated location at Delhi-Haryana border near Najafgarh or about 10km from Bahadurgarh. <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&time=&date=&ttype=&q=28.6%C2%B0N,+77.0%C2%B0E+(Confirmed+Epicentre+by+Met+Dept)&ie=UTF8&ll=28.600197,77.000427&spn=0.663146,1.109619&z=10&iwloc=addr&om=0">View location on Google Maps</a>.<br /><br /><img src="http://orangehues.com/blogstuff/met_dept2.gif"><br />(Scale: 10km)<br /><br />The <a href="http://asc-india.org/">Amateur Seismic Centre</a> (ASC), an independent centre based in Pune, continues to go with the USGS data source and <a href="http://asc-india.org/lib/20071126-delhi.htm">puts the epicenter</a> at Malka Ganj-Kamla Nagar in Delhi University area, as mentioned above.<br /><br />Note that both USGS and Met department locations are from their preliminary reports.<br /><br /><b>UPDATE 8.00PM</b>: I wrote to <a href="http://asc-india.org/abt/stacey.htm">ASC's Stacey Martin</a> to find out which data is more credible. Stacey kindly wrote back that eventually India Meteorological Department (IMD) figures will be more accurate since its monitoring station is in Delhi itself while USGS/NEIC's closest monitoring station is in Kabul. However, as of right now, the latter has provided figures up to three decimal places so at the moment ASC is going with NEIC's epicenter in North Delhi. <br /><br />Since this is only preliminary data, it's likely to be corrected and the final IMD location will only be available in the public domain in 18-months due to CTBT constraints. <br /><br /><b>Past Earthquakes in Delhi Region</b><br /><br />Here is some historical information on earthquakes in Delhi, taken from <a href="">ASC report</a> of today's quake.<br /><blockquote>This is one of the strongest earthquakes in the Delhi region since 2001 and the biggest since 1960. Prior to this latest earthquake, the strongest local earthquakes to have originated within the Delhi metropolitan area since the 1960 Gurgaon earthquake was a Mb=4.3 earthquake in the Dwarka-Najafgarh area on 28 April 2001 that caused minor damage & widespread panic. The strongest known earthquakes in the Delhi region include the M6.0 Khurja-Bulandshahr earthquake on 10 October 1956, the M6.0 Gurgaon earthquake on 27 August 1960 and the Mb=5.6 Moradabad earthquake on 15 August 1966. Historically, the 15 July 1720 earthquake in the Delhi region caused the greatest damage in the city causing many deaths and widespread damage including knocking down large parts of the Shaharepanah (city wall) in Old Delhi from Kabuli Gate to Lal Darwaza and the battlements of the Fatehpuri Masjid.</blockquote><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8765202-938399169827015856?l=orangehues.com%2Fblog' alt='' /></div>Manu Sharmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01951983669844271992orangehues@gmail.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8765202.post-26144509118371653162007-11-25T05:30:00.001+05:302007-11-28T23:10:13.696+05:30Ron Paul On Climate Change<i>How can a presidential candidate so right about almost every other issue be so mistaken about climate change?</i><br /><br /><img src="http://orangehues.com/blogstuff/RP.gif" align="left" vspace="5" hspace="8">I've just spent the last three hours learning about Ron Paul, a U.S presidential candidate I knew nothing about earlier and one who has recently experienced an unusually strong upsurge of support surprising many. TIME is calling it <a href="http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1678661,00.html">"The Ron Paul Revolution."</a> CNN went nuts when Ron's online campaign collected <a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=DKZmIzEMUN8">a record sum</a> in a day. The Washington Post just did a story <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/23/AR2007112301299_pf.html">trying to make sense</a> of the revolution. <br /><br />People are excited for good reason. Watch him speak and it wouldn't take you long to say to yourself: "Wow, I love this guy!" His speeches call for an end to "the U.S. empire" - words you'd expect from an activist, not a presidential hopeful. He also frequently mentions the "military industrial complex" - when was the last time you heard a presidential candidate admit its existence since Eisenhower coined the term. He talks of abolishing the IRS and the federal reserve, getting troops back from Iraq <i>immediately</i>, following a dramatically modest foreign policy than any past presidents, he's for freedom of the internet, in favor of same sex marriages and says the biggest threat to our privacy is the government. Ron Paul wants to drastically limit the government's ability to play big brother.<br /><br />In fact, all his suggested policy measures are radical. And this is the most striking thing about him. As the TIME story notes, Ron is the most anti-establishment of all candidates. He has the courage to admit big policy mistakes of the past and the vision of a radically different future based on a few simple principles he's been known to hold for decades. You can't get a better candidate than this. Or so I thought.<br /><br />Until I Googled his position on climate change and found that he thinks this issue is overblown. His website doesn't even mention the term and <a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=CUm1aVwRnC0">in this clip</a> from a visit to Google in July this year, Ron says "there are two sides of the (global warming) argument." In <a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=5vbMly74cZ8">another video</a> from August when asked whether increasing carbon dioxide in atmosphere is an important issue, he answers that it's debatable. <br /><br /><hr><blockquote>There are good people who are in politics, in both parties, who hold this [issue] at arm's length because if they acknowledge it and recognize it then the moral imperative to make big changes is inescapable.<br />- <b>Al Gore in <i>An Inconvenient Truth</i></b></blockquote><hr><br />It's incredible for someone to say this in 2007. Although none of the presidential candidates have been known to completely grasp the severity of climate change problem, yet for a candidate to say that it is an overblown issue is frankly quite outrageous. To hear these statements after IPCC fourth assessment, after Stern report and dozens of independent scientific institutions have raised alarm over climate change, is...well, I've run out of adjectives. I don't know what to call it.<br /><br />Needless to say, there is no debate, no other side. Global warming and other effects of climate change are a scientifically proven certainty. I can't imagine what ratio of denial, ignorance and bias would have combined to make Ron hold those opinions. It's very disheartening. On the one hand, I'd love to see him in the oval office - his term could really have a revolutionary impact on U.S politics and its relationship with the rest of the world. <br /><br />But on the other, the world can't afford another five years of inaction on the issue after ten years of the worst environment and energy policy from Washington. It could be very dangerous to have a global warming skeptic as the U.S. president when we're in the midst of what Al Gore rightly calls a planetary emergency. There may be hope though. In the Google interview he also admits that he doesn't know enough about this issue. I hope he finds out soon because he'd putting a lot of votes at stake otherwise.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8765202-2614450911837165316?l=orangehues.com%2Fblog' alt='' /></div>Manu Sharmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01951983669844271992orangehues@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8765202.post-89635991887687224152007-09-07T17:12:00.000+05:302007-09-08T23:01:57.606+05:30iPhone's $200 Price Cut = $2 Billion Customer Handout<i>Steve Jobs just handed out $1.92 billion to past and future iPhone customers. What does it mean for Apple and why did they do it? Orange Hues blog unveils the mystery behind the move.</i><br /><img src="http://orangehues.com/blogstuff/iphoneoff.jpg" align="center" hspace="0" vspace="20"><br />On September 5, Steve Jobs confirmed the massive margins of iPhone when he announced an unprecedented $200 price cut on the device within 10 weeks of its introduction. It's been justified as a trend in the technology industry but I think the real reason runs deeper than that. Just consider that the reduction is 33% of original price ($599) and a whopping 50% of the new price ($399). Such cuts have *never* been seen in the industry for a mass produced consumer product.<br /><br />If that wasn't enough, Jobs even announced that Apple will pay back $100 to every iPhone owner so far, after several Apple loyalists revolted saying that they have been duped for being Apple fans. While much is being written about Apple's generous gesture and what it means for Apple as a brand, nobody seems to have done the numbers to calculate the financial cost to the company.<br /><br /><br /><big><b>What Does It Mean: Unprecedented Profit Margins</b></big><br /><br />So here's an attempt to see what it means to take $200 off, what is now, a $400 product. Over 800,000 people have purchased an iPhone so far (from Apple's estimate of 1 million sales by end of September) out of its 10 million target by end of next year. That translates to <b>Apple handing out more than $80 million to iPhone customers now</b> ($100 x 800,000) <b>and $1.84 billion over the next 16 months</b> ($200 x 9.2 million).<br /><br />Irrespective of the reasons, one thing that's abundantly clear from Steve Job's $1.92 billion handout is that Apple's profit margins for the device are way beyond anything ever seen in the industry.<br /><br />When Jobs first introduced the iPhone on January 10th, I wrote a few hours later that it's poised to become Apple's most profitable product in its entire history. I based that on the simple premise that even with a two year contract, the phone is still not subsidised as is the industry norm. So naturally there's a sum that AT&T is passing to Apple for every sale of the mandatory contract. A few weeks later, details emerged that it's even better than that - Apple also has a share in monthly payments that AT&T receives from iPhone owners.<br /><br />We don't know if it's a one time cash deal or AT&T shares revenue on some other basis. Lets assume that Apple gets $300 for every iPhone sold (@$399) and $10 from each month's bill. If Apple achieves its target of 10 million phones by end of 2008 (18 months from its release), that's an earning of whopping $8.8 billion. A very small part of which is the actual hardware cost.<br /><img src="http://orangehues.com/blogstuff/salesgraph.gif" align="center" hspace="0" vspace="20" title="Market size of various consumer devices"><br />Compare iPhone's profit with the puny margins in gaming consoles or the PC industry. It's well known, for example, that both Microsoft and Sony sell their consoles for loss in hope of making it up over sales of games. This is in a market that sold just 26 million units last year. On the other hand, there were 957 million mobile phones sold the same year.<br /><br />Clearly, Apple hit a jackpot with iPhone. There is no other category of mass produced consumer product that makes that kind of margin on those kind of numbers.<br /><br /><br /><big><b>Real Reason Behind Price Cut: Preempt Competition</b></big><br /><br />There's little doubt therefore that iPhone will make a windfall of money to Apple's bank balance. But why did Jobs have to give such a large cash handout? No matter how high the margins, no company likes to part with such a sizable amount. Apple isn't known for increasing value by reducing price. They do it by giving more at the same price with regular product revisions. So what has changed since Jobs announced the price in January?<br /><br />The stock market which drove Apple's stock down at the news thinks it's poor sales behind the move. Nothing could be further from the truth. A number of analysts have pointed out that there's no way that could be the reason. There is no "fatal flaw" with the phone either. In fact, several customer surveys say iPhone buyers have overwhelming voted in the favor of the device.<br /><br />There may be truth to the argument that it's merely because Apple wants to hit economies of scale. Yes, but is it a planned move on the lines that - milk the first few months of crazy iPhone madness and then reduce price to expand the market - I doubt it. Before Jobs announced the price in January, nobody could have predicted the media frenzy that followed at the time and then again at iPhone's launch. Somehow I can't justify that Apple had planned a $200 cut from the start. <br /><br />What seems much more likely is that this a reaction to Google Phone and other competitors planning to enter the market. The much talked about Google device which was just fiction a few months ago has now become an almost certainty. A number of people have cited inside sources to claim that the Google Phone is real. The latest revelations come from a Boston Globe article from three days before Apple's announcement that cite a number of people having seen the phone. <br /><img src="http://orangehues.com/blogstuff/gphone.jpg" align="center" hspace="0" vspace="20" title="Google Phone mock-up by Gizmodo"><br />In his address at Moscone center and later in interviews, Steve Jobs repeatedly said he wants to be "even more aggressive." But hey, aggressive with what? Apple truly doesn't have any competition! Sales figures for the month of July suggest that iPhone is the only smart phone out there selling like that and despite the prohibitive price, it's already equaling sales of much lesser price phones.<br /><br />So where's the need to be aggressive? Clearly this is not about today but about future competition. Usually Apple has competitors petty much in knots as to how and where to strike at Apple's offerings. But this time things went a little differently. Remember that Apple, which loves to keep their products secret until the very last moment, was forced to announce iPhone six months in advance of the launch because of FCC disclosure. This essentially gave the Nokias and the Googles a generous lead of half a year to plan their offerings. <br /><br />Things have changed since Apple's announcement in January. Google isn't the only one entering the market. Microsoft, which had previously ruled out a Zune phone, now admits the idea is "not unreasonable." I'm sure RIM, Palm, Nokia and other cell phone makers are prepping up launch of their own "iPhone killers" as the media would call them. Although I've little doubt that Apple will maintain its lead, the company isn't leaving anything on chance. With the price cut, Apple has clearly made a preemptive strike to ensure they have a smooth run.<br /><br />And this is absolutely the right time to strike. If they had made such a large reduction <i>after</i> the announcement of Google Phone or another competitive product, their stock would have <i>really</i> taken a beating. Besides, it would reflect very poorly on the brand. Apple has never been known to indulge in price wars with a competitor.<br /><br />I don't know if Steve jobs plays chess, but if he does, he must excel at it. You have to credit this man's vision for anticipating moves of future competitors and disarming them before they even enter the battlefield. It takes courage to give away $2 billion. <br /><br /><b>Related links</b><br /><br />MSNBC reports on the <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20625498/"> Apple's $200 price cut and $100 rollback</a><br />CNBC video on <a href="http://video.msn.com/v/us/msnbc.htm?f=00&g=e5841a23-fcd5-442b-9b99-47ea48835fc8&p=Source_CNBC&t=s55&rf=http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20625498/&fg=">Apple's inexplicable price cut</a><br />IT Wire: <a href="http://www.itwire.com/content/view/14317/1103/">US iPhone sales go ballistic in July</a><br />Boston Globe article: <a href="http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2007/09/02/introducing_the_google_phone/?page=full">Introducing the Google Phone</a><br />Gizmodo: <a href="http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/cellphones/department-of-duh-microsoft-admits-zune-phone-not-unreasonable-296405.php">Microsoft Admits Zune Phone Not Unreasonable</a><br /><br /><b>Past iPhone posts from Orange Hues blog</b> <br /><br />Jan 10, 2007: <a href="http://orangehues.com/blog/2007/01/iphone-apples-most-profitable-product.html">First to identify Apple's large profit margins behind iPhone</a><br />Jan 10, 2007: <a href="http://orangehues.com/blog/2007/01/steve-jobs-iphone-whats-big-deal.html">First to identify real reason behind iPhone's future success</a><br />Jan 12, 2007: <a href="http://orangehues.com/blog/2007/01/iphone-questionable-origins.html">First to identify another cell phone using multi-touch</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8765202-8963599188768722415?l=orangehues.com%2Fblog' alt='' /></div>Manu Sharmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01951983669844271992orangehues@gmail.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8765202.post-7110574674875235982007-09-03T19:06:00.000+05:302007-09-03T19:17:06.201+05:30Quote: On Working HardSeth Godin nails it...<br /><blockquote>It's hard work to make difficult emotional decisions, such as quitting a job and setting out on your own. It's hard work to invent a new system, service, or process that's remarkable. It's hard work to tell your boss that he's being intellectually and emotionally lazy. It's easier to stand by and watch the company fade into oblivion. It's hard work to tell senior management to abandon something that it has been doing for a long time in favor of a new and apparently risky alternative. It's hard work to make good decisions with less than all of the data. [...]<br /><br />Richard Branson doesn't work more hours than you do. Neither does Steve Ballmer or Carly Fiorina. Robyn Waters, the woman who revolutionized what Target sells -- and helped the company trounce Kmart -- probably worked fewer hours than you do in an average week.<br /><br />None of the people who are racking up amazing success stories and creating cool stuff are doing it just by working more hours than you are. And I hate to say it, but they're not smarter than you either. They're succeeding by doing hard work. [...]<br /><br />Hard work is about risk. It begins when you deal with the things that you'd rather not deal with: fear of failure, fear of standing out, fear of rejection. Hard work is about training yourself to leap over this barrier, tunnel under that barrier, drive through the other barrier. And, after you've done that, to do it again the next day.<br /><br />The big insight: The riskier your (smart) coworker's hard work appears to be, the safer it really is. It's the people having difficult conversations, inventing remarkable products, and pushing the envelope (and, perhaps, still going home at 5 PM) who are building a recession-proof future for themselves.</blockquote><br />-- Seth Godin in <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/typepad/sethsmainblog/~3/151608480/labor-day.html">Labor Day</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8765202-711057467487523598?l=orangehues.com%2Fblog' alt='' /></div>Manu Sharmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01951983669844271992orangehues@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8765202.post-8798799261178581192007-07-27T23:05:00.000+05:302007-08-29T00:16:27.028+05:30Quote: On BicycleI always knew the bicycle was the most energy efficient vehicle but this is just amazing...<br /><blockquote>Pound for pound, a person on a bicycle expends less energy than any creature or machine covering the same distance. A human walking spends about three times as much energy per pound; even a salmon swimming spends about twice as much.</blockquote> From the book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fexec%2Fobidos%2Ftg%2Fdetail%2F-%2F1886093040%2Fqid%3D1101203659&tag=mydc-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325">Stuff: The Secret Lives of Everyday Things</a><br /><br /><small>(found via <a href="http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/07/most_energyeffi.php">TreeHugger</a>)</small><br /><br />Update 28 Aug: Excellent post on <a href="http://greenoptions.com/2007/08/22/how_to_ride_your_bike_to_work">"How to Ride Your Bike to Work"</a>.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8765202-879879926117858119?l=orangehues.com%2Fblog' alt='' /></div>Manu Sharmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01951983669844271992orangehues@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8765202.post-70102705092523065352007-07-23T01:29:00.000+05:302007-07-23T11:10:26.607+05:30Scott Adams Stole My Carpool Idea!<i>I came up with the idea of an efficient carpool network that really works. While I sat over it for an year or so and did nothing about it, by an amazing stroke of co-incidence Scott Adams comes up with something almost identical.</i><br /><br />In Palam Vihar, Gurgaon where I live (an otherwise <a href="http://www.realtyplusmag.com/location_fullstory.asp?location_id=20">fine place</a>), one long standing problem has been the woefully inadequate public transport. Most residents somehow manage with their cars, however, since single car families are most prevalent - one car is never sufficient. Thinking about this problem over a year and half ago and mulling over the then recently introduced "Centrex" feature by our phone company (call any other resident for free), I came up with an idea that went beyond the needs of Palam Vihar residents. <br /><br />A massive carpool network that works on a system of credits. Lets say person X doesn't have a car today and wants to go from point A to point B. So he places a call to a toll-free number and enters the locations. Now person Y has a car, is going the same location but doesn't know person X. He calls up the automated voice network, learns about person X, looks up his profile and finding him OK offers him a lift. Person Y just earned a credit sold by X. <br /><br />To really understand the implications of this, you need to follow a link I'll add later in the post. But at that time I mulled over it for weeks together and developed it in quite detail. I thought Google would be the ideal company to launch something like this. Around the same time, I entered the following brief notes about the concept in my "ideas" spreadsheet as idea #4:<br /><ul><b>Description</b>:<br />Call to book available rides to your destination from your location in the next 15 minutes. Only registered license holders allowed anonymously.<br /><br /><b>Notes</b>:<br />Buyer-seller market much like eBay. Credibility feedback plays important role. Needs scale to work. VOIP hosted application to take calls. Algorithms determine who gets matched with whom.</ul><br />So last month when I come across a post in which Dilbert creator Scott Adams describes an <a href="http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/06/how_i_solved_th.html">almost identical idea</a>, I couldn't believe my eyes. It was like he scanned my brain while I was asleep! The similarities were uncanny.<br /><br />More seriously though, this is actually a pretty awesome idea. As Scott says, the biggest problem with carpooling is inconvenience. An all-pervasive carpool network solves this problem. There are only two large differences between Scott's idea and mine. One, I think GPS will make it more effective but I don't think it's absolutely necessary. Second, I conceived it around eBay like feedback by buyers and sellers. I think that would make the system very credible.<br /><br />P.S: How does the network provider makes money from this? Scott hasn't thought of that. I did. Since I thought Google should provide this service, they make money the same way they always have - from advertising. Since they know where people are going, they can serve pre-registered ads from retailers and companies along the route. If you don't like to get ads / text messages then pay Google a small sum to get an ad-free ride.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8765202-7010270509252306535?l=orangehues.com%2Fblog' alt='' /></div>Manu Sharmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01951983669844271992orangehues@gmail.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8765202.post-1736800870814256992007-07-03T16:12:00.001+05:302007-07-15T23:27:40.794+05:30The China and India Argument<i>The western media is making increasingly shrill noises about the growing threat of emissions from China and India while completely ignoring the scale of emission that goes on in their own backyard.</i><br /><br />In an increasingly environmentally aware world China and India are becoming the new villains. Every other day there's a news report highlighting the growing might of the two countries and the harm they are set to unleash on the environment. <br /><br />Lets take <a href="http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/07/02/low-cost-indian-cars-could-be-environmental-disaster/">this post</a>, as an example. Made by our friends at AutoblogGreen, it announces that <b>"Low cost Indian cars could be environmental disaster."</b> What caught my attention is not that it ignores India's adoption of tough Euro emission norms which are more stringent than EPA standards of US. Nor that it disregards that Tata's upcoming air car will emit anywhere from 25% to less than 1% of CO2 per km compared to an internal combustion engine gasoline car (more on that in next post). What I find most interesting is that there's no acknowledgment of the environmental harm done by cars in the west <i>today</i> while pointing to the <i>future</i> "environmental disaster" to be caused by Indian cars. <br /><br />The problem with the China and India argument is that it's disproportionate. It's made to move people's attention away from far greater environmental crimes that are being perpetrated in the west. Here is an apt example from automotive industry itself which is representative of total emissions. In 2005, the United States produced around 12 million cars. India, on the other hand, produced just 1.6 million. In other words, the U.S. with less than 1/3rd population of India, produced 7.5 times the number of cars. If we adjust the figure by population, <b>US is around 23 times worse than India!</b> <br /><br />I should mention here that these are production figures, not sales (<a href="http://www.oica.net/htdocs/statistics/tableaux2006/worldprod_country-revised.pdf">see source</a> PDF). India's share should actually be less than this since some of the cars were for exports. We export <a href="http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/India_zooms_past_China_in_car_exports/articleshow/1041894.cms">more cars</a> than China, whereas US doesn't do much car exports if I'm correct. I'm not even going to compare the size of Indian cars (an estimated 80% of our cars are small cars compared to 15% in US) or their efficiency (estimated around 50% higher than US) or the historical automotive production (more than 100 years in US vs. 25 in India). Let's just say that it will take a long time for us to catch up to the level of "disaster" US cars are unleashing over the environment right now. <br /><br />This is not to say that India should not do all it can to avoid reaching that scale. The point is, emissions on a much larger scale are caused in U.S. today and therefore it should be the last country to point a finger at China and India. Climate change is a global problem and all emissions are bad regardless of where they are caused. What the world needs from the U.S. is leadership in cutting down dramatically on emissions, not finger pointing.<br /><br />I've covered the India and China argument in the past on this blog without directly referring to it. The George Monbiot interview I pointed out recently touched upon it when Monbiot attacked the interviewer's contention that China is a big problem by <a href="http://www.therealnews.com/web/index.php?thisid=184&thisview=item&programid=interviews&programname=Real+Interviews&episodeid=1&episodename=On+Global+Warming">saying</a>: <br /><blockquote>For us to turn to the Chinese and point the finger at them and say they are the problem, we have to become hypocrites on a scale that's almost unprecedented. I mean, the Chinese at the moment produce 2.7 tons of carbon per year. Canadians produce 19 and the Americans 20.</blockquote><br />Don Brown, a U.S. scientist at IPCC, who has worked on the moral and ethical dimensions of climate change holds a <a href="http://orangehues.com/blog/2007/06/ethics-of-climate-change-don-browns.html">similar view</a>:<br /><blockquote>What are the other issues. Well, the issue of no country has to do anything until everyone else [India and China] does something, okay. That's the third excuse, unfortunately my country has been using for twenty years. We don't have to do anything until everyone else does something. That's a moral issue. Can a co-criminal decide that they don't have to stop their crime because the other co-criminals haven't stopped doing it? As a matter of moral and ethics, we believe that that excuse is also morally bankrupt.</blockquote><br /><b>UPDATE 13-Jul</b>: Autobloggreen added <a href="http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/07/03/abg-reader-writes-a-rebuttal-to-our-indian-car-growth-post/">a response</a> to this post a few days ago. It admitted that decision made by US in the past were unsustainable but the author still did not recognise the difference between the *scale* of emissions caused in US vs. China or India. <br /><br /><img align="left" hspace="8" vspace="0" src="http://orangehues.com/blogstuff/petrol-by-country.gif"> A <a href="http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/07/12/yipes-a-graphical-representation-of-gasoline-use-around-the-wo/">new post</a> made yesterday finally demonstrates the scale that I was talking about. <br /><br />Looking at this shocking graph with US on the left and a bunch of countries on right, no one can argue that China and India pose an "environmental disaster" in the near future. <br /><br />At least not without first acknowledging the environmental disaster that US is today.<br /><br /><b>UPDATE 15-Jul</b>: Sunita Narain, noted environmentalist, editor 'Down to Earth' magazine and head of Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), shares similar thoughts in her magazine <a href="http://www.downtoearth.org.in/editor.asp?foldername=20070531&filename=Editor&sec_id=2&sid=1">editorial</a> from May-31: <blockquote>"Currently, two things are happening. One, China and India are being projected as the new villains—they pollute; they will increase emissions; they don’t want legally binding commitments and are, therefore, blocking global negotiations." </blockquote> She goes on to raise some important points and concludes that the developing world must force rich nations to make the necessary reductions in emissions.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8765202-173680087081425699?l=orangehues.com%2Fblog' alt='' /></div>Manu Sharmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01951983669844271992orangehues@gmail.com1