Thoughts on Environment - 1

Global warming… Ozone hole… Rising temperatures… Rising sea levels… the banter about all this and more is getting louder and slowly, as these things which are a result of our narrow minded development policies across the globe is set to get louder in the coming days as the nations across the globe have started to recognize the powers of the demon they have created through the past decades. The statements of President Barack Obama about the necessity of the changes needed in policies and the new reforms to be introduce the much needed changes in the general American lifestyle, and also the remarks of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the recent Indian Science Congress about the environment problems of India signify the same.

I have always been attracted to the nature since I was a kid. I was always affected by the plight of what saw around me, be it the cutting of a tree of the ill treatment of a poor animal. But I could not build up the courage to act decisively in these matters. But I thought I’ll do what I love… writing. So I’m here trying to pen down(maybe that expression will stick around for sometime) the recent thought turmoil of my mind for you.

There’s a myth among the middle classes that if u want to do something for the environment, consume less, keep a car for a longer period of time, use lesser plastics etc. But seeing it economically if we consume less, demand for it will decrease and production will therefore go down, resulting in downsizing of companies and the loss of job of thousands...So, consuming less will not solve our problem. What we need is a complete system overhaul. But I’ll come to that later.

Let’s take up the topic of Recycling. Recycling is the biggest guilt management activity we do in our lives. It’s a way we see as putting down some of our guilt of using plastics all the time, of using a car with high emissions, of using air conditioners all the time and so on… People sometimes take the wrong approach to recycling. Recycling is fine, but sometimes it goes over the top. See this one, recycling 10% of a city’s waste plastic use more energy that producing a whole new bunch of them. We try doing small recycling at our home too, that’s really nice but it contributes almost nothing towards the entire system. So, is recycling benefitting at all? Well, the answer is still yes, but not very much. The current phrase about recycling is really down cycling. We are just peddling the same things back into the system when the amount being produced is the same and keeps on increasing.

We need more concrete and group efforts by the people to make things better. Like if a manufacturer launches a new product it should be asked to him how the product will be disposed off. New technologies keep propping up, but they survive only if the people support them. If we support the products which indeed are eco friendly then things would get better. The IT boom took place in India in the 1990s. Today, we see computers everywhere. But have we ever thought what happens to our computer when we discard it after 2-3 years of usage. The life of a PC is extremely small, and new technologies are coming up by the day. The waste, referred to as the ‘E-waste’ has been massive and is increasing as old technologies which remain of no use pile up. Currently there is no other alternative to it other than reuse and recycle it.

Continued in the post below............

Thoughts on Environment - 2

Continued from the above post...

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Today we face a lot of challenges in this field. Global efforts are on currently to reduce global CO₂ emissions, trying to reduce the release the hazardous materials in the atmosphere and to introduce a change in the lifestyle of the people, making it eco-effective. New innovations will play a big role in this. The new technologies which are turning up should be eco-effective. It should be appropriate and available to all. The transfer of eco friendly technologies from the countries where there are developed to the places where they would prove effective in reducing the adverse affects of development should be made easier. The developing countries need to develop, no questioning that, but instead of taking the wrong and damaging paths, which have been treaded once by the developed nations, they should take the greener road to development. And the developed nations have the responsibility to share their knowledge and data in helping them do so. Profit should cease to be an issue in this case.

The formulation of right policies by the legislature is also one of the prime challenges. After its formulation should be enforced properly and a continuous monitoring of them and of other policies on the global level is needed. Along with this the right education is also needed to the young. The Indian Supreme court’s judgment of making environmental studies a compulsory subject in schools and all undergraduate courses in the country will prove to be very effective in the coming years. An effort in this regard is needed in the industry too. Seminars should be organized and industries made to understand the ways in which they can efficiently become eco-friendly. The governance in this field is a crucial factor. In this capitalist world it may be difficult to implement policies that are good for the environment but affects the development of a field. But tradeoffs are always there and seeing the bleak future that we have, it is essential that the narrow mindedness in our industries and future plans culture be eased out.

Then there is the big question of Development vs. Environment. It has remained a shady subject and though widely debated, the people have yet the find a solution for the problem. The development guy says ‘we need to develop at all costs. It’s our need for survival.’ The Environmentalist says, ‘No development at the cost of development’. Both are right to almost the fullest extent. But then, what to do?? The answer to this would be that development and environment are not adversaries. It’s not the case that one will have to be compromised for the other to continue. In fact to keep developing we need the environment to support us by providing the resources and taking in our waste, whatever it may be, and enabling us to progress with time. Development works in the domain of environment. True, we need to keep developing in our quest of everything with time. We can’t survive if we don’t. But it can’t be done single mindedly. Development needs to be within the limits of the environment, that it needs to survive, which we need to survive on this planet. All development measures must take into account their impact on the environment and what are the ways in which they can harm it the least, working in a way that everyone benefits, and we are able to preserve the beauty of nature for our generations to come.

Synapse 09: Trying something new...

Hi... I told you that we were trying to do something very different for Synapse this time. Enough technical we thought. Suddenly the idea of making a short movie jumped up from nowhere. Even the theme was decided within 15 minutes. We decided to take up a different. A genre usually not tried in college made films… HORROR.

We finalized the story. Four characters. And named the movie ‘SHE’. We had some problems finding the heroine for the movie(after all who wants to be seen on screen as a witch… lol). Well, finally we found our girl and began shooting. The first scene was a day scene and was shot easily in a couple of hours. That night we even edited that scene and finalized it, even added the sounds. A couple of days later, we were to shoot our first night scene. It was supposed to be the introduction scene for the supernatural element. Eerie…

Well, we reached the pre-decided location and tried to shoot. But all our efforts went in vain. We were getting a black screen at the camera. Very less lights. We tried very hard, tried different angles, even changed the location but to no avail. We returned disheartened, knowing that we would have to drop the idea of making a movie.

That night in the gloom, came a new thought, why not change the theme and the story?? BANG! All of us brought our minds to the table and within five hours (11pm-4am), we finalized the scenes and characters for our new movie. Thus, ‘ETHOS’ was born. As we had only 4 days left, the shoot was completed in two days. Half the team then put their heads in editing the scenes, trying to put the scenes together and the other half searched for the music tracks to be played as background score in the movie. Finally, after another two days of fighting over tracks and adding them the whole movie was finished in a total of 4 days.

Though we may have not won the event, but we did have loads of fun making the movie. We’ve even made a hilarious making of the movie. It’s really excellent. I’ll try to upload both the things on Youtube soon. Hope you’ll like them…

I’m thinking of writing on some serious issues now. So, watch out this space for more.

Also, in relation to the previous post, i have also made an account on Flickr to upload my pics.

Do go through my photostream at http://www.flickr.com/photos/naman_anand/do put your comments in there... :)