The Mistake of Mankind!

I found this interesting and it echo's my thoughts on the present situation, most of the cities in India are facing today due to water problem.

An interesting article in a blogger’s page –

From past few days I have been reading about rain failure, power shortage and water problems. Bangalore Mirror posed a question to its users – “Should Bangaloreans take the issue of power shortage to streets just as Delhites?” Today 80% have responded saying ‘YES’. I wonder how many among that % really know the cause of power shortage.

Almost half of India’s electricity comes from coal and almost the other half from hydel power. Wind and solar power are still new concepts gaining momentum. So if rains fail, India drowns in darkness. The best part is the awakening of the bourgeois. All of a sudden bourgeois is showing concern – it wants electricity to run its televisions, ACs, treadmills and what not. These people must have domestic UPS right? Yes. Most of them do. But these UPS require 8-14 hours of power to charge completely. How can they charge 100% when there is intermittent supply? The best part is, for every 10 units an UPS absorbs, it gives away only about 7-8 units. 20% is lost in storage and reconversion. After 3.5 years, the entire fleet of batteries needs replacement, adding to the pollution caused by improper disposal of these batteries/chemicals.

Now that bourgeois has no option, it may retaliate. Delhi feeds on Tehri. Even then it has still not been able to meet its demands. How can we meet demand when the demand is on a constant rise with ever increasing population and frivolous needs?

I remember Nandan Nilekani’s words. I agree with him. We, the middle class, have created a parallel society of our own. We are not bothered about good education or transportation facilities because we can put our children into private schools and buy motorbikes and cars. We have even solved the problem of water with our own borewells and that of power with domestic UPS.

But we have forgotten the fact that we are connected to nature. How can your borewell suck water when nobody is worrying about recharging it? How can your UPS function when the electricity that charges it is dependent on rains? When rains fail, even government cannot do anything. China has tried chemical techniques for catalysing cloud formation and bringing home rain. But it cannot work on a larger scale.

This is a glimpse of our greed. The worse part is yet to come. Bangaloreans should worry about conservation of water, electricity and other resources. If we all protest, nature is not going to budge.

We are just worried about us. Think about all the living creatures that are on the brink of extinction because of severe deforestation. Think of all the people who get displaced in our country just because the urban population needs water and power. Think of all the damages made by our large dams – today they are dry – neither they have water nor they are producing electricity – these dams stand as a testimony of our ego and folly.

There are several options. We all can adopt solar and wind power. We have been using solar water heater at home. We use it for almost 330 days in a year. But now hybrid power is also an option – you can harness the power of Sun and Wind at the cost of Rs.2.2lakhs per house hold (after 50% govt. subsidy). Time to sell your extra car and worry about nature.

I am reminded of Jared Diamon’ds book – Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. It is time that we wake up and worry about our future not just today or tomorrow. Remember – someone else is paying for our comforts.

Quite true, can you post the source as well?

Apana

I agree with the underlying thought.

Man has become a big burden on earth. We have been drawing more than what mother earth can give us. Mother earth is not like the Govt. that it can ask the central bank to print currency to tide over budget.

I have been speaking about the inefficiencies involved in our power generation, transmission and distribution; and the defective power pricing model.

However, far you may be located from the power generating station, the tariff that you pay is the same as the person who lives next door to the power station. I have seen power lines drawn for several kms just to supply power to one family. Since the true cost of power is not known, green power like Solar energy is shown as costiler. With more adoption of Solar energy, the cost would come down.

However, we are overlooking one major fallacy in our planning process. Why do we need mega cities. Due to lopsided development, our cities grow bigger and bigger. Naturally, infrastructure crumbles. For supporting a huge city, we have to create huge dams and canals or pipelines to bring water to the city. So huge tracts of pristine forests are submerged. Lots of species are wiped out. Migration corridors are cut off.....

Lot of industries converge around these mega cities. Those attract more people (read labour) who are weaned away from their traditional avocation. They are now converted into coolies and live in filth and squalor. Since there is hardly any waste management system, all the wastes generated goes to the rivers, streams and wetlands. The water thus polluted can't be used and hence we have to depend on water from those distant dams bordering two states....and how can those water wars be far away....

When will we learn?

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

Apana, this was mailed to me, I am aware of the source.