Ecological Society

Let us build Temples

2011-02-07T02:39:00.000-08:00

LET US BUILD TEMPLES!

Hats off to the technological man out to conquer the whole planet! Hats off to technology bent upon redirecting energy and material flows towards human beings!! What grander achievement can there be when we command and consume more than 40 p.c. of the total terrestrial biomass of the world? Let us push the proportion to 60 to overcome poverty and hunger! With genetically engineered foods and biotechnology, this is already within our reach. Why? Even creating Superman and Super races is not difficult. Let us enslave every living being on the earth and realize God's dream of giving birth to a Supreme Being that will ultimately rule the Universe! Or is it a Satan's dream?

Those of us who have such visions and confidence in our scientific ability, what do we call them? Scientists? Visionaries? or Doomsayers? They are not scientists for they hardly understand the basic laws of science. They are not visionaries for their over-riding ambition inflicts incalculable harm on non-human beings. They can well be doomsayers because their blind faith in technology is fetching them ever near the abyss of self-destruction!

How? Simply because ecological science tells us that humans can never totally separate themselves from principles and cyclical processes of nature. If they attempt to enslave others in their greed, they will destroy the very web of life and foundations on which their own survival depends. If technology attempts to perform natures' services, the costs will escalate so much that only a lucky few can afford them and that too will be possible only by enslaving fellow human beings.

The supreme triumph of technology forebodes utter disaster, strife and violence among human societies!!

Who is to blame? Technology or the use of technology by human beings? To make a telephone call is perfectly benign. But to tap the call may be sinister and illegal. Technology is power and power is likely to corrupt. With the help of machines and technology, we have produced a system which has forced the people forget all the good things in life. In the last over 300 years our training, culture and civilization have failed to produce a human being, morally sound, socially responsible and materially a conscientious consumer. Liberty, equality and fraternity are corrupted to lack of restraint, disequalising progress, and a disintegrating society.

Let us understand science correctly and not through the sunglasses of technology. Let us find out what science has to tell us about natural evolution: how a weak, diffuse energy source is utilised to create innumerable life-forms fabricating a web of life manifesting distributive justice, no human society has ever been able to match. A simple principle underlies this wonderful biodiversity. Species with high metabolism have large populations but short life cycles while species with low metabolism have small populations but longer life cycles. This has enabled species to look for and cultivate a variety of habitats containing a mind-boggling variety of niches. As habitat is the address and niche the profession of a species, evolution progresses through distribution of energy and resources towards diverse life-forms. Technology however, progresses through uniformity and mass production. It has no formulae to bring about distributive justice. The call of the saints:

"सर्वे s त्र सुखिनः सन्तु| सर्वे सन्तु निरामयः | सर्वे भद्राणि पश्यन्तु| मा कश्चित् दु:खमानुयात||”

is muted in the age of technology!

While the march of evolution is ordained by the basic laws of science, technology has marched by perverting these laws. It was able to do this because human beings evolved in tandem an economic system, a perfect hand-maiden to its powerful mistress! The collaboration between technology and economy has produced all the strife and stress that afflict human societies today.

Our economy is based on the assumption that consumer is sovereign and his/her free choice is always right. But the consumer is trained to obey and cultivate a technology bent upon redirecting flows of energy and resources to human beings by denying them to non-human beings and nature. Technology confers power that nurtures greed and avarice among consumers and flaws their choice. To redirect flows of energy and resources, technology has to convert resources by using energy. Each conversion brings about losses of energy and creation of waste matter, the latter increasing entropy in nature. Like evolution technology cannot use sun's diffuse energy at ambient temperature. It has to use energy of fossil fuels. The economy has to invest large sums in exploring, extracting and processing the fossils before energy is produced. Any loss of energy in conversion means a negative return on investment made to facilitate use of fossil fuels. If these losses are internalised in the cost of production, the cost becomes higher than the value of the product. If the social and environmental costs of the entropy are internalized, cost escalates so much as to make all manufacturing impossible to continue! The system is a contradiction in itself!!

In such a scenario profits can never be possible. Then how are colossal profits made by individuals, companies and the corporate sector? In the past developed nations made profits by acquiring political control over raw materials from their colonies and importing cheap labour and even using slave labour. Profits were made by denying adequate wages to labour and prices to raw materials. Costs of entropy were never internalized causing immense pollution. These devices are still used to amass profits today. India cannot have colonies so in the name of development, we are exploiting our own resources keeping down their prices. As labour cannot be exploited easily, industry and commerce have to depend increasingly on government subsidies which take various forms. The amount of subsidies to industry, commerce and modern agriculture runs into thousands of crores. These really are concealed profits sanctioned by the government in the name of employment and economic growth. The expenditure on subsidies also means less expenditure on health, education and denial of support to necessities of life on which the survival of the poor depends. Government support to industry and modern agriculture ultimately results in production of goods needed by the rich while production of necessities of life goes a-begging.

The gap between the rich and the poor becomes wider and wider in such an economy.

Who is to blame? I squarely blame the wrong use of technology by us. Most of us are ecologically illiterate simply because the importance of this subject is utterly unknown to our educational system. No one is aware of the ecology of technology. Priority should be given to technology that strengthens our natural resource base. Natural resources are the foundation of our life, especially of that of the rural population which still forms more than 60 p.c. of our people. City people too must understand that cities are primarily supported by natural resources. If they degrade we have to depend on imports, of food, water, timber and many other products. Total dependence on imports will make the cost of living in the city exhorbitant. Today we are simply directing more and more resources to the cities without providing anything for their maintenance, revival and enhancement of quality and quantity. Restoration of natural resources is today's primary need. Unfortunately very few people are aware of the significance, techniques and how to involve rural India in this vital job. Everyone including rural people is taught to believe that technology is a perfect substitute to nature. Nature can be safely ignored, because it is technology that is going to provide everything to human beings.

This is not only wrong but it is extremely costly too! Ecologically speaking indiscriminate use of technology is destroying many natural linkages that go to make our atmosphere, the quantity and quality of our water, the quality of our soil, the waste assimilating capacity in nature, the work of pollinating insects that enrich our crops and horticulture, and lastly maintenance of biodiversity, a wonderful reservoir for our future needs of food, medicine and raw materials. Moreover, this indiscriminate use is destroying not only the wherewithals of our own life those of our children and grandchildren too!!

These linkages are the arteries of our life support systems. Nature provides us life support free of cost. But when these arteries are harmed technology has no alternative but to try providing these wherewithals of life. Technological services based as they are on costly energy, are expensive and cause pollution too. Technologically produced drinking water is almost as costly as milk. Insecticides is a terribly costly substitute for natural pest control. Biotechnology is many times costlier than biodiversity.

Our experiments in restoration and revival of nature around Pune have demonstrated their cost effectiveness in comparison to technological and engineering solutions. Moreover they tend to establish natural linkages which confer on them the quality of sustainability and obviate the need to spend on repair and care of restored systems. It is the vital need of our country that we start restoring our soil, restore our streams and water-courses, restore vegetation on hill-tops and hill slopes, along stream banks and in-stream habitats, revive wetlands and wastelands and lands that are degraded and industrially made derelict, saline and water-logged lands, deciduous and evergreen forests, savanna and grasslands and littoral and seashore areas. Restoration techniques for all these are available. One only has to understand and practise them. These can be combined with our traditional wisdom to involve villages and communities.

In a former era, Jawaharlal Nehru had called our irrigation and power dams as temples of newly-independent India. That era is long past. The new temples of India, if I may venture to say so, are our Restoration Projects, though they are as yet too few. Let us build these temples all over India to make our lives materially and spiritually richer. Let all the NGOs gathered here build such a temple, start a restoration project in their area to make the foundations of our country strong and bring prosperity to all those millions who have been denied fruits of development so far. Let us unite to restore the glories of Mother India.

Prakash Gole.

THE NEW WATER VISION

2011-02-07T02:26:00.000-08:00

THE NEW WATER VISION

The 3 pillars of the water vision for the next century are: Adequacy, Equity and Purity.

These pillars can only be supported if their foundation is Ecology and not Technology.

Sustainability in every aspect of life can only be achieved if basic ecological processes – the life supporting systems – on the earth are kept viable and functioning. Biodiversity is the outward manifestation of basic ecological processes. This has been recognized by all leading scientists of the world and has been enunciated in many international declarations.
The present mindset of the bureaucrats and technocrats only emphasizes preventive actions and not curative ones. It lacks true understanding of ecological processes. It thus piously believes that viability of ecological processes will be ensured if environmental safeguards dictated by the concerned Ministry and by pollution abatement laws are guaranteed . Unfortunately in the present water management system even these minimum things are not carried out. The mindset is you can safely ignore peoples’ health, welfare and quality of life

Let us therefore, see what positive things can be incorporated in the Water Vision to ensure the viability of basic ecological processes and life supporting systems.

Of paramount importance are the Sources of Water: Springs, Streams, Rivers and the Underground Water Table. It is necessary to understand their ecology to keep them functioning. A river basin should be divided into 3 zones 1) The Conservation Zone 2) The Storage Zone and 3) The Utilization Zone.

The first covers the source region where the stream flows through a wild landscape of steep gradient , the second where the stream coalesce to form a large flow and the third where it forms a floodplain and meanders towards the sea .

Measures that can be suggested to protect basic ecological processes and biodiversity are:

The Conservation Zone: The accent here should be on restoration and maintenance natural habitats. At least 10 percent area of each catchment should be reserved for natural regeneration ( no plantation) Forests , bank vegetation, in-stream habitats , shallow pools , rock crevices , rapids , eddy formations etc. should be restored and maintained . These measures will rejuvenate mountain springs, control erosion and ensure adequate flows to the next zone.
Man’s activities should be constant with conservation goals : No shifting cultivation , stall-feeding of domestic animals , nurseries of a variety of indigenous cultivars and seedlings , agroforestry , horticulture that is not energy intensive , tourism that does not indulge in overuse of resources .

Reservoirs which submerge some part of this zone should be well managed through bank protection, protection to tributary streams and their habitats and catchment area development consistent with conservation goals.
These measures will ensure gains in biodiversity as this zone is breeding ground of many wild animals, birds and fish. Viability of indigenous genetic stock will thus be ensured.
Some work in this direction has been carried out in the catchment areas of some dams in Maharashtra.
At present catchment area in hills are mostly neglected. The drinking water needs of hill residents can be met by excavating ponds on rejuvenated streams and keeping them inviolate. Some wise communities have demonstrated this simple measure in the hills of Maharashtra.
The Storage Zone: The goal should be to service the minimum water needs of far-flung areas at low costs.
Many storages have already been built in this zone. The accent in future should be on more equitable distribution of water. The objective of reaching to far-flung areas can be more economically achieved by keeping the area’s streams flowing and their in-stream and bank habitats healthy. If conservation zone is managed well, it will ensure adequate flows in streams which in turn will recharge the hyporheic zone helping the underground water table. This will be far more economical than building fresh storages. Livelihood security is ensured by lowering costs all around, not by enhancing output at high costs.

As agriculture becomes more important from this zone, it is necessary to say something about agriculture that is viable in the tropics. In a tropical country with fragile soils, the Green revolution Technology with high inputs of water, fertilizers and insecticides is not appropriate. It is costly and efforts to maximize output through this method have been successful over a limited land area and that too at great cost. The resulting prices are not affordable to the common man. The method to increase output should be cost effective and resources saving. Our country has thousands of mini-catchments with their own micro-climates. We have cultivars suited to these micro-climates. If we revive them, they will provide for basic necessities of local communities and indeed be free from insecticide poisons! Moreover the low cost will make them affordable. This will also obviate the necessity of keeping centralized stocks and transporting them over great distances.

We need an inexpensive water delivery system for this zone, which can only be provided by flowing streams providing adequate spring flow for wells. Water intensive crops need not be prescribed here. This strategy will conserve our biodiversity of crops and genetic resources directly useful to man. The streams will have to be kept free from sewage and other waste dumping. Keeping land reserved for waste disposal in each village should form an integral part of water management. This disposal should be kept as decentralized as possible so as not to generate large flows.

Dam sites in this zone are ideal sites to conserve biodiversity. Each dam site can be used to restore indigenous forest, indigenous and endemic varieties of medicinal plants and can be a demonstration site where wetland creation, stream bank management can be demonstrated. Such experiments have been carried out at some dam sites in Maharashtra.

The Utilization Zone: This zone will have great concentrations of human population and their activities such as agriculture, business and industry.
Surface flows through canals in this zone are wasteful and harmful to the quality of water. Delivery of water should be through pipes. In this extremely stressed zone, river basins also call for careful, coordinated management. River banks should be kept free of encroachments and lined with buffer zones and greenways. Base flow in rivers has to be ensured by controlling lift irrigation. For disposal of waste, retention and detention basins should be provided to settle heavy and particulate matter and filter many other debris. Bank, in-stream vegetation and habitats should be maintained to avoid excessive eutrophication.

Reservoirs in this zone call for intensive, imaginative and multiple-use management. If properly managed they will greatly contribute to biodiversity conservation and be points of aesthetic interest. Experiments in this direction have been carried out on certain reservoirs in Maharashtra.

All these measures are labor intensive and have great employment potential. Moreover they will strengthen the natural base of economic development, lower the costs of satisfying basic needs and check inflation. The focus should be to restore nature and satisfy basic needs at very low costs from the restored abundance of nature. Once this is achieved, surplus can remain in the hands of many to satisfy intermediate wants for which the market caters. It will ensure adequate demand for manufactured goods. Otherwise even with high growth rate deflation will result due to lack of demand as is happening in China. The high cost water management today has increased prices all around, accentuated income disparities and made necessities costlier. The present mindset needs to be changed to ensure a low cost equitable water management.

PRAKASH GOLE

ENGINEERING, ECONOMICS AND ECOLOGY

2011-02-07T02:25:00.000-08:00

ENGINEERING, ECONOMICS AND ECOLOGY

The 3 Es, Engineering, Economics and Ecology should be the basis of human life. But are they really ? Indeed the first 2 Es definitely form the basis of modern life. Without engineering and technology modern life cannot be conceived. Also human beings are taken to be rational, objective. Self interest governs their actions and attitudes. Objectivity, not sentiments, is essential for the advancement of science. Economics therefore, which assumes rational human behaviour based on self-interest, rules human behaviour and social relations.

The third E, Ecology, however, lacks recognition. It seems invisible, is neither immediately felt nor readily identified. The general consensus is, Ecology is something extraneous, can either be totally dispensed with or replaced by technology. Human beings are or can become capable of producing every arrangement that nature has taken millions of years to produce through evolution. In India we already have a role model in sage Vishwamitra who threatened to produce exactly a parallel world.

The first 2 Es are therefore, considered enough for the survival and welfare of people, rational human beings technologically adequately equipped. Let as now analyse what the first 2 Es imply. Human beings started using engineering and technology ever since they used a stick to grab a fruit from a tree or to dig roots and tubers. But the real use of technology began when people started harnessing energy first fire, then fossil fuels like coal and peat, then hydro-electricity, oil and atomic energy. Technology essentially involves transformation of matter by using energy. As everyone knows matter and energy are governed by laws of thermodynamics. The first law states that matter and energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Energy is used not consumed. Energy is high grade when it is in a form with high availability to do applied work. All natural and technological physical processes proceed in such a way that the availability of energy involved, decreases. What is consumed when we use energy, then, is not energy itself but its availability to do useful work.

The 2nd law of thermodynamics tells us that it is impossible to recycle energy and that eventually all energy will be converted into waste heat. Also it is impossible to recycle materials with 100% completeness. Some material is irrevocably lost in each cycle. If matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed, what does the economic process do? Matter and energy enter the economic process in a state of low entropy and comes out of it in a state of high entropy.

Any living organism fights the entropic degradation of its own material structure. Man’s economic activity may transform a high entropy copper ore into a low entropy copper sheet but this lowering of entropy is more than compensated by increase in the entropy of the surroundings. In entropy terms the cost of any biological or economic enterprise is always greater than the product. In entropy terms any such activity necessarily results in a deficit.

The transformation of matter by energy, which is the essence of technology therefore, involves costs - costs in terms of lost quantities of matter as 100% transformation is impossible and costs in terms of energy passing into a state of unavailability; also these two things involve creation of waste leading to entropy of surroundings - a local cost in terms of pollution and garbage. Now if all these costs are taken into account, the cost of production of any commodity, where energy other than solar energy, is used, is higher than its value. Increase in production means increased costs. This is how the first E is intertwined with the second E.

The economic effort is actually a dual effort. It aims at producing a surplus by keeping down costs. In nature however, surplus is produced without apparent costs by plants using solar energy. The use of solar energy through solar energy apparently considerably slows down the operation of the laws of thermodynamics. In photosynthesis food is synthesised for plants for their survival needs and additional food is produced for the survival needs of other organisms. Very little solar energy is passed out as waste heat and almost no waste is produced to increase the entropy of surroundings.

What evolution has produced is a closed system. Matter is recycled and energy is radiated without producing waste. Entropy in the surroundings is mainly through accidental happenings, sudden, natural events such as exceptional floods, fire, lightning, earthquakes, meteoric hits, droughts or failure of rain. Evolution continues its work of remediation and rehabilitation resulting in reduced entropy.

In such a system as costs are low so is the surplus. In a mature forest the net productivity is zero. Whatever is produced is consumed and/or recycled. Surplus is small and cannot be stored for a long time. All animals living in the forest are tuned to utilise this small surplus whenever it is available. The small amount of this surplus controls their populations and keeps them in balance with food supply. Ecology thus puts limits on the creation and maintenance of this surplus and controls population growth. Human beings can only increase the food supply and consequently human population by negating controls prescribed by ecology.

The relationship between the three Es can be explained as follows: Engineering and technology aim at increasing the amount of the surplus and make it as long lasting as possible; Economics prescribed and regulated the distribution of the surplus in such a way as to facilitate advances in technology and Ecology defines the limits to the creation of this surplus and awakens in human beings a desire to desist from the possible disastrous consequences of man’s actions in increasing the surplus.

Surplus is only produced by negating the influence of ecology. Agriculture is the earliest human effort to produce a surplus. Essentially agriculture means a mono-culture contrary to poly-cultural arrangements existing in nature. The ecological control on agriculture is expressed in terms of pests that try to destroy crops. In promoting agricultural surplus people are still trying to overcome these controls either by using chemical weapons or by following rather than opposing ecological principles, as in organic farming. The gross amount of surplus increased enormously when people started using machines run on various forms of energy such as coal, oil and electricity.

Ecological controls were not immediately apparent as they appeared as social costs. As emissions and effluents were freely discharged in the atmosphere or rivers, the pollution so caused was borne by the society as a whole. Private costs were kept low through monopoly on raw material sources, low wages, child labour and captive markets. Natural wealth of colonies in Asia and Africa was freely exploited and manufactured goods sold in those countries. The scale of production came to be increased enormously through the application of technology realizing the economies of scale. The post Second World War boom resulted in over-exploitation, indeed ruthless exploitation of resources, especially non-renewable resources. The result was rapid depletion of accessible stocks and rise in social costs such as pollution and waste. The industrial society of USA was described by Prof. Galbraith as producing private affluence and public squalor. With the growth in the scale of production, ecological controls came to be felt as waste and pollution increased by leaps and bounds. This was the time (in the seventies of the last century) when environtalism had its birth. It was an attempt by a few to make the majority aware of ecological controls and pay heed to them.

Industrialism which was the result of great advances in technology during the second world war, though global in character, may spawn its own anti-climax. One may even ask will it dig its own grave? At present industrialism, whose social incarnation is capitalism, is basking in its own triumph which resulted from the almost total annihilation of communism. But to make the surplus larger and more permanent, it must constantly search for cheaper and more accessible sources of raw material and energy and improve technology so as to reduce social costs, the so-called externalities, which costs have to be internalised due to pressures from the environmental lobby and legislation. This constant need to reduce costs (as scale is increased) results from the operation of laws of thermodynamics. Large-scale transformation of matter through the use of energy produces large-scale entropy, i.e. waste and pollution.

The need for reduction of costs calls for greater investments in raw materials, energy and improvements in technology. This calls for capital accumulation through savings which are made by concentrating wealth in ever fewer hands and if governments make the investments, by depriving the majority of many necessities of life like good education, health, sanitation, fuel, fodder and shelter. In less developed nations it also involves destruction of natural capital on which the livelihood of many depends. Indeed the number of people in slums is a measure of the destruction of natural capital and the number of people in upper and middle classes is a measure of the population that can be supported by man-made capital! The need to reduce costs deprives people from having adequate purchasing power to make a living possible as creation of man-made capital has increased costs all round. Shrinkage of purchasing power leads to failure of demand which periodically plagues capitalism. One must realize the direct connection between poverty amelioration and existence of natural capital. The greater the amount of natural capital the less will be the poverty and the greater the amount of man-made capital the greater will be the poverty!

Deprivation of adequate purchasing power for the majority and greater inequity in distribution of income make a mockery of all the ideals that a free, capitalistic society is supposed to have!

In reality ecological controls are becoming manifest through these two forces. The so-called developed countries are trying to thwart them through improvements in technology and greater access to available energy and resources. Technology requires great investment which becomes readily available during a war effort. One wonders whether it is in the interests of advanced technological nations to fan the fire of wars so that they can justify to their people greater investments in technology which always come at the expense of peoples’ welfare.

The tragedy is that the less developed countries are trying to follow the same model, i.e. larger scales of production, greater and ruthless exploitation of natural resources, higher entropy of surroundings, greater inequality of incomes and lack of purchasing power for the majority. Higher investments in technology and production are possible by denying a majority of people education, health, sanitation, fuel, fodder, shelter and clothing. The apparent prosperity and wealth that is seen in certain pockets, in rural and urban areas is due to mining and liquidation of stocks of natural resources : air, water, soil, forest and marine wealth. The figures speak for themselves. Almost 50 % of the land area lies in various degrees of degradation; most of the rivers lack fresh water flows and are actually sewers; natural forest cover smaller area each year though plantation monoculture has increased; there are 86 threatened mammals in India as against 76 in China though in land area China is far larger than our country; there are 1236 threatened plant species in India as against only 312 in China. It looks ecological controls are being negated by deliberately destroying ecology, the very foundation of our life. All people are not unaware of the impending crisis. There are efforts and movements to counter centralisation of power, to make the production of surplus more people-oriented, use soft technologies and restore degraded eco-systems. Watershed development, eco-system approaches and restoration are being used to promote environmental awareness and ecological rehabilitation.

All these may prove mere palliatives and not cures. A much more holistic approach is required. Only then will the promotion of greed inherent in the present system because of periodic failure of demand, be replaced by saner and judicious management of resources and markets. There should be a conscious effort to recognise ecological needs and to allocate adequate resources for them. In effect we must recognise the importance of and the necessity to bring back the operation of ecological controls. This is essential to control the greed of a few and satisfy the needs of many. The imperatives to achieve this are:

1. Decentralisation of planning : local resources used to satisfy local needs. Watershed development, the present local developmental effort, should not only aim at increasing the surplus but satisfying the basic needs of all. Basic needs include besides food, clean air, potable water, health and sanitation, adequate education, fuel, fodder, timber and other biomass etc. To provide these it is necessary to keep these resources in good shape ; i.e. restoration and qualitative improvement of atmosphere, water(stream), soil, vegetation etc. in other words to allocate resources for eco-system functioning. Agricultural production should be planned and market at village level. Though land remains individually owned, its utilization, i.e. crop pattern, water use should be planned by the village as a whole.

2. Landscape approach in planning : planning of the use of resources based on geographic and geomorphic features, soil and lie of the land, climate and vegetation. The aim should be welfare individuals in a particular landscape. Thus agriculture need not be taken into account.

3. Avoid settlement and other “brown uses” on agriculturally good soil.

4. Restoration of degraded eco-systems, especially compensatory restoration to be made compulsory to all major and medium projects; the focus has to be on restoration of natural capital.

5. Rejuvenation and revival of local and indigenous varieties of crops, fruit, fibres, domestic animals breeds and their marketing on a village or a group of village basis. The idea is to develop specialities at local level and to that extent free villages from the middlemen. Also to encourage service and processing of produce at the village level.

6. The basic idea is to restrict the scale of production in such a way as to provide minimum resources for the production of intermediate goods. Such abstinence and restriction of ostentatious and orgiastic consumption can be possible with universal, correctly designed, holistic education. It should emphasize inter-relationships between various disciplines and should not erect unbreachable walls between them. Ecological research will have to be the foundation of this system. Technology has to change its direction and content. Soft technology seems to be essential for providing welfare to all sundry. Technology should facilitate rather than obstruct and replace the essential ecological services and processes. Replacement is costly and will have side effects.

The welfare of the individual should be the prime concern and not of the economic system. In all fields and areas, today’s policies seem to favour the market and the economic system and not the individual. Dreams of a strong and powerful India can be realised not by augmenting the GNP or by increasing the growth rate from 3 to 13% but by making individual citizens educated, enlightened, responsible, work conscious, healthy and happy.

Prakash Gole

WHY “NO” TO TECHNOLOGY-BASED DEVELOPMENT?

2011-02-07T02:19:00.000-08:00

WHY “NO” TO TECHNOLOGY-BASED DEVELOPMENT?

Many critics accuse environmentalists of opposing economic development wholesale. But this is not so. Environmentalists oppose development which involves large-scale displacement of people, or severe pollution which affects the health of many or large-scale destruction of nature and of traditional livelihoods of thousands!

Unfortunately today’s technology-based development inevitably gives rise to all the above problems. Why is this so? Let me explain.

Science can be divided into pure science and applied science which is basically technology. Research in pure science is mostly restricted to astronomy or space science, quantum physics and ecology ( how life survives on this planet). It is applied science or technology which has made modern life possible on this planet. But what in essence is technology? It is redirecting sun’s energy towards things that benefit Man only. That is why we feel happy when new inventions increase our amenities and comforts. But it creates imbalances or entropy in nature which we generally designate as pollution.

Moreover, it essentially violates basic laws of physics. Technology on large-scale has only become possible since the discovery of fossil fuels, i.e. coal and oil. These are the cheapest sources of energy on this planet simply because Nature has done the work of concentration of energy over millions of years. We only have to extract these from the earth.

When energy is applied to convert matter, the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics tells us, entropy increases. This means more energy and matter are wasted than are converted into useful product. More energy comes out as heat and more matter comes out as waste than are incorporated in the product. In economic terms it involves loss. That is why all modern industry is interested in getting energy, labour, raw materials, land etc. as cheaply as possible. In historical times technological advances were possible only when western nations established political control over nations and people and made them provide resources, labour, energy etc. at almost no cost. They also completely ignored technology created imbalances in nature.

Today all this is not possible for a country like India. Today’s technology-based development therefore, is based on grants or subsidies from the govt. Govt. finances research in technology, it makes land and power available at concessional rates, offers tax exemptions, promotes export through subsidies etc. One must clearly understand that technology-based development is impossible without such help.

It creates imbalances in nature and even in our economy. I may recommend everyone to go through two excellent reports prepared by India’s leading economists. Their titles are: Disequalizing Growth and The Decline of the Welfare State. In them the economists have clearly shown that poverty and inequality of income have greatly increased in India since 1990 i.e. when the present prime minister liberalized the economy and imported technology.

There are many instances of the use of wrong technology or even dangerous technology promoted by the govt. The latest is the invitation to a French company to install atomic power plants on the Konkan coast. The incipient technology has not yet been successfully tested, has yet to become operational. When Finland adopted it, it created insuperable problems even in its installation. Yet our govt. wants our people to accept it without protest! Such is the pressure of multinationals and western powers who want bolster their economies by exporting technologies that they cannot use in their own lands.

Be assured that technology-based development will never create mass employment as it wants to minimize labour costs to reduce overall cost of production. It may create employment in fields which give rise to high and ostentatious consumption.

The alternative development path is nature based development, i.e. enhancement of our natural resources. Unfortunately there are no facilities in India to train people in this field.

In the present circumstances therefore, social inequalities, social strife, economic disparities and destruction of natural resources in India are likely to continue!

Prakash Gole

The Technological Man

2011-02-07T02:17:00.000-08:00

The Technological Man

This is the age of Science & Technology. We all know how they have improved our lives & we are always looking forward to miracles they are expected to achieve tomorrow or day after. The computer and the mobile phone are the symbols of modern life. Biotechnology is expected to give us the power to control all other life forms for our benefit & provide us with all the wherewithals of life including food, fibre & medicine.
But have we ever stopped to ask the question what really are science & technology? What do they involve? Why is it that what they do appear as miracles to us? Let us try to answer these questions.

Science tries to unravel the secrets and mysteries of the universe, and enriches our knowledge of the physical & biological world. Technology is the practical manifestation of science. By applying Principles of Science, it provides us newer & newer means & tools to mould & bend the physical & biological world for the benefit of human beings. It caters to our wants & desires, increases our command over resources, thereby saving labour & providing more comforts to human beings. Therefore, it is technology that everyone is enamoured with.

How technology achieves this? that is, how it gives us greater command and control over resources? It does this by diverting & making available exclusively to human beings the natural flows of energy and materials evolved on this planet. What are these natural flows of energy and materials?

Everyone knows that energy flows to us from the Sun. Seventy percent of the energy that strikes the surface of the earth warms the planet, contributes to the movements of winds & sea water & generates the hydrological cycle. A small part of the Sun’s energy is converted by plants through photosynthesis into food on which all living beings including humans depend. Sun’s energy thus flows from plants to insects & higher animals ( herbivores & carnivores) and enables them to survive, grow, mature & carry out various movements & work. Energy is again used by decomposers to break down plant & animal waste & release nutrients stored in them so that they can be recycled in the system. Materials are then brought back into the system continuing the flows. Energy concentrated in the plants is converted over geological time into coal & oil which we increasingly use as fuels.

Nature therefore, is a wonderful system & an organization whose working depends on these flows of energy & matter. This system has evolved certain processes which ensure continuity of life on this planet. They are: the hydrological cycle which gives us rain & fresh water, the atmospheric balance which ensures a continuous supply of oxygen, the work of decomposers, which assimilates waste & assures the continuation of flows, the making & supply of soil which enables plants to survive & diversify & a pool of genetic resources embodied in various life forms whose survival and multiplication depends on these processes & who become an integral part of Nature’s organization.

Technology tinkers & interferes with this system so that more energy & materials are available to human beings. Less energy & materials are then available to other life forms, plants and animals of every hue, thereby affecting their lives & populations. They are deprived because the total flows of energy & matter on this planet are given; these can neither be created nor destroyed as laws of physics inform us.

The principal technologies through which Man interferes with energy & material flows are agriculture & industry, i.e. use of machines. Energy available to a variety of plants is diverted to a single plant by agriculture. The plant then provides ample food to human beings by taking away energy from other plants. More & more lands for agriculture means less plant variety, change in landscape, in soil chemistry, in insect & animal life, more erosion, sediment flows & creation of bare areas. If rivers & streams are used to provide irrigation to agriculture ( through dams & canals ) and power to industry, energy incorporated in rivers & streams which provides wherewithals to a number of riverine plants, animals, fish etc. is diverted to ensure survival of a few plants. The change in river flows affects the life in river basins, percolation & evaporation rates, ground water, the moisture holding capacity of soil and encourages water- logging, salinity & breeding of mosquitoes.

More & more use of machines leads to greater extraction of materials, cratering & gulleying the landscape, creating huge piles of waste, encouraging leaching of minerals & materials, emissions of heat & gases, effluents & chemicals polluting atmosphere, water, soil, & affecting vegetation and animal life.

The question before technological man is: in the pursuit of technology & benefits derived from its use, how far the changes described above should be allowed to proceed? These changes in energy flows & materials affect nature’s system & processes which are essential for our survival also. Should we, for our short term benefits, kill the goose that lays the golden egg? Much depends on the question how far the technology be allowed to proceed? The future of you and me, our children and grand children depends on how we handle technology today. Put your conscience to test & answer this question to the best of your abilities!

Prakash Gole

Atomic Energy – At What Cost?

2011-02-07T01:44:00.000-08:00

Atomic Energy – At What Cost?

“Atomic energy? Yes! But at what cost!! This question is being posed to powers that be by a number of poor and middle class families who reside on the picturesque Konkan region of India’s western seaboard. For their livelihood – farming & fishing & raising fruit orchards – their health & future are being threatened by the up and coming atomic power plants being located in the coastal area.

The people are stoutly resisting the government acquisition of their lands for installing power plants. They have even refused to accept cheques proffered by the government as compensation to acquire their lands. The government, pressurized as it is by some multinationals and the powerful atomic energy lobby, seem adamant. It appears the government wants to replace local productivity and sustainable livelihood by expensive technological innovations based on imports which, moreover, benefit not the local people but outsiders, mainly urban areas danger, industries and chemical farming spread throughout India.

The government even frowns upon the security argument that coastal atomic power stations may prove easy targets for enemy missiles and if destroyed, entire populations may fall victim to atomic radiation! This danger is amply demonstrated by the recent entry and attacks on the west coast by terrorists! The coastal system presents an integrated profile. It consists of elevated lateritic plateaus with their characteristic vegetation, slope forests, farming and fruit orchards and coastline with mangroves,, mudflats, scattered rocks and sands. The local people so far have formed an integral part of this picture simply because their traditional practices involve sustainable use of resources. Here again government interventions, though well meant, ultimately resulted in over exploitation. The government provided subsidy and easy loans to fishermen to buy mechanized trawlers. Government even provided cold storages at almost no cost. The result was a boom in fishing, entry of multinationals, leading to severe depletion of fish stocks on the otherwise very productive shallow marine areas adjoining the coast. Of late lateritic plateaus are much in the news. To the common man they provide immense visual delight when at the end of monsoon, they are embellished by a variety of herbaceous flowers with attractive colours. Kaas, a plateau on the crestline of Western Ghats, overlooking Konkan, has been attracting hordes of visitors from Mumbai and Pune. Jaitapur and Madban plateaus in the Konkan are slowly gaining popularity as sites as much endowed with wild flowers, as is Kaas.

Researchers have studied their herbaceous flora and have demonstrated that some of the plants are rare and endangered and need protection. Some are highly endemic and have heritage value. In fact when a World Conservation Union team of experts visited India, they were invited to examine Kaas and researchers put up a strong case before them to include Kaas in the world heritage list. The experts agreed after their site visit and after going through the evidence gathered by the researchers. Jaitapur and Madban are in line for the inclusion. Their biodiversity value transcends all other values. But huge windmills generating power have already destroyed parts of the plateaus. To the local people they are equally valuable as the source of perennial water supply. During the rains cracks and fissures in the laterite catch rain water which seeps through to bottom layers and remain a source of water for springs and underground seepage which moisturizes farm soil and replenishes wells.

Recent research has demonstrated that these herbs tolerate extreme climatic conditions and lack of soil and survive even through the driest summers. They are therefore, called desiccation tolerant. Scientists are hoping to find among them some of agricultural and horticultural values. These can then be introduced in regions where extreme dry seasons and vagaries of monsoon make farming very dicey.

People do not want to lose all these valuable resources for atomic power plants
whose benefits may prove to be severely negative. One may then ask why the government is so insistent about atomic energy development in the face of opposition by local people and even by experts in the field?

Pioneers in this field included such renowned physicists as Dr. S.N. Bose, Dr. C.V. Raman,
Jagdishchandra Bose & Dr. Saha. They were for dissemination of atomic physics through
universities and research institutes. But the 1948 Atomic Energy Act made the development of atomic energy the exclusive responsibility of the government. Atomic Energy Commission was organized by the government under the chairmanship of Dr. Homi Bhaba.

The main argument against atomic power is its high cost. The capital cost of a thermal power plant is slightly over 30 million rupees per megawatt and for the atomic power plant it is around 110 million. The per unit cost therefore of these two types is `2.37 and `5 respectively. All atomic power plants in India are beset with the problem of uranium supply. As the supply is inadequate, the plants work up to only 50% of their installed capacity. Import of uranium and of fossil fuel to convert it into fissionable material is the only option for the government. It seems the government is bent upon adopting this high cost road to power development. In 2002-03 atomic power was given a budget allocation of over 33 billion rupees while development of non-traditional sources of power such as solar, wind etc. received only about `4 billion. In spite of this step-motherly treatment in 2005 the non-traditional sources achieved an installed
capacity of 4800 megawatts against 3310 megawatts of atomic power.

It seems experts including officials of the Atomic Energy Commission heavily discount hazards posed by atomic radiation. Already over 300 radiation incidents have been documented, most of them involving workers in atomic energy plants and residents of villages and towns in their vicinity. Physical deformities and high incidence of cancer are common among them. According to Dr. Helen Caldicott, an atomic expert of international repute, India’s atomic energy programme is the least efficient in the world and is highly pollutive exposing hundreds of workers to dangerous radiation.

But sanity, wisdom and even sound economics fail before the interplay of international politics. It looks countries like France & USA are putting pressure on the GOI for they want to sell to India technology which they can no longer use in their countries. Government of India now proposes to hand over the installation of Jaitapur atomic energy plants to a French Company called AREWA. They would install reactors called EPR ( European Pressure Cooled Reactor ) which is still in an experimental stage and has not been successfully installed and operated anywhere. In fact in Finland the installation of these reactors has not been successful. In U S A the Atomic Energy Commission has not given permission to operationalize this technology. Yet the Government of India proposes to invest over 50,000 crores of rupees in this dubious technology. Now a counter pressure from international conservation and peace keeping
organizations is necessary to fight the one put up by certain countries and multinationals.

We appeal to them to write to the GOI protesting strongly against their decision to go
ahead building atomic power plants. Is it extravagant to hope that these will come
forward in support of Indian people?

Prakash Gole

Ethics and Ecology

2011-02-07T01:41:00.000-08:00

Ethics & Ecology

Ethics is a set of principles about right & wrong & how human beings should behave. Ecology is about inter- relationships – between living organisms (both plants & animals) and between biological & physical entities. The still unresolved issue seems to be how these two can be reconciled – probably in the interests of the future of mankind & the future of all the non- human beings.

The dichotomy between right & wrong began to be significant when the needs & efforts of human beings proliferated. The ethical question was probably absent or insignificant when the predominant theme and effort of human life was survival, as in the hunting gathering stage. It began to be more & more significant as one abandoned nomadic life style, became settled with the spread of agriculture which induced a sense of individual and / or communal property.
The surplus food that agriculture created tuned the communities into a human society with diverse skills & professions and a hierarchy of classes based on wealth & power or their lack & gave rise to different cultures which reflected aspirations, beliefs & motivations. Environment probably played a crucial role in shaping these. In the comparatively benign environment of the tropics flowered cultures which professed human life in tune with nature & its ecological compulsions. Human beings were never considered to be superior to nature. The cosmos & the nature were considered to be so vast & complex that they would always remain beyond human comprehension.

On the other hand cultures that survived in a comparatively harsh environment considered nature to be subservient to human beings and a resource to be conquered & exploited. As Lynn White Jr. says, “Christianity, in absolute contrast to ancient paganism and Asia’s religions (except perhaps Zorostrianism), not only established a dualism of man and nature but also insisted that it is god’s will that man exploit nature for his proper ends”; and further. “To a Christian a tree can be no more than a physical fact. The whole concept of the sacred grove is alien to Christianity and the ethics of the west.” (Lynn White Jr. The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis published in The Environmental Ethics and Policy Book: Ed. D. Vade Veer & C. Pierce, 2003, Thomson Wadsworth, USA).

But it was not until the Industrial Revolution when the west effected a union between science and technology, a marriage of theoretical and empirical approaches to nature, that knowledge came to be considered as technological power over nature. By the 19th Century conquest of nature became a normal pattern of action (Ibid).

Almost simultaneously, that is in 1873, this new pattern of action gave rise to the concept of ecology. As the study of the plant & animal kingdoms progressed, the western thinkers became increasingly aware of the necessity of preserving these in the interest of human survival and so arose the need to question the notion of human rights ( & later duties) towards the --- human world. An investigation began in the origins of right & wrong in humans & other animals. People began to discuss whether the animals have rights, whether trees have a moral standing & how the present generation should use nature & resources so as to ensure a decent standard of living for future generations. The constant rise in consumption & pollution triggered a movement that questioned the very basis of religious dogma and culminated into a Land Ethic and Deep Ecology.
Manual G. Valasquez examines the pros & cons of Ecological Ethics in his essay ‘Ecological Ethics’. The discussion is especially in relation to business & industrial practices & policies as these affect ecological systems. He examines the views of several authors who have contributed to the development of Deep Ecology by advocating that every animal & plant has an intrinsic value & needs to be treated with respect; that non- human parts of the environment deserve to be protected for their own sake whether they benefit humans or not & that business & industry should recognize the inter- relationships & interdependence of ecological systems in which they operate.

In the end however, he concludes that all these thoughts & actions emanating from them are still controversial. Authors who think otherwise argue that “why the fact that something is alive implies that it should be alive & that we therefore, have a duty to keep it alive or to express respect or reverence for it …. and that whether” We can claim that animal have rights or intrinsic value”.

What seems to be absent from thoughts of the authors quoted in the article, is the existence of predator- prey relationships in eco- systems. Humans today are the apex predator. Their consumption needs engulf almost the whole plant & animal world. The question then is how far should we stretch our consumption needs? Ecology recognizes thresholds for every natural systems beyond which a predator cannot & should not destroy prey species. Are we going to heed this scientific fact & Herold Laskis’ maxim that liberty is a system or restraints? Or should we go ahead destroying everything in the belief that technology will always find a substitute for everything?

The question of animal rights probably does not attain as cutting as an edge in the eastern cultures as it does in the west. Meat- eating is not such a compulsion in the tropics as it is in the temperate latitudes. In the east ecological knowledge is still a curiosity & has not led to awareness creation among the masses. Plants, animals & ecology are more a matter of neglect than of serious concern scientific, philosophical or otherwise.

The other relevant issue, that of pollution prevention has a wider audience both in the west & in the east than that of animal rights. This is because it directly affects business & industry’s profit- making & accumulation of wealth. The issue is whether companies should bear the responsibility of creating & maintaining an environment conducive to the welfare of people in the neighbourhood. The court case between Mackline Mining Co and official pollution prevention authority & environmentalists very well illustrates the issue of corporate environmental responsibility.

The law requires that the industries should use the best available technology to prevent pollutants entering atmosphere, water & soil. The company was accused of polluting a creek & destroying its fish & wildlife through the discharge of its effluents. The company then built a settling pond & there was some improvement in the water quality. Later the pond began to leak pollutants resulting in the water quality deterioration in the creek. The company pleaded that difficult market conditions had lowered its profits & it found it difficult to maintain the pond. If any penalties were to be imposed the company would have to close down resulting in loss of employment to locals.

Whether the penalty was imposed and the company has to close down is not known. But the case very well illustrates the arguments & difficulties faced in enforcing the “Polluter Pays Principle”. The “Precautionary Principle” states that any profit- making project should not be undertaken if the consequent pollution is difficult to prevent. In reality both these principles are rarely accepted due probably to the influence of English Common Law which gives priority to enterprise & asks pollutee to compensate the polluter if the former wants the enterprise to close down for introducing pollutants! In the modern world profit- making is still the “right” thing & not the preservation of the environment!!

The deeper question here is whether the right to a livable environment should or should not be considered a basic human right. William T Blackstone examines this problem in his article Ethics & Ecology. He considers rationality & freedom essential to develop capacities in human beings; that quality of life in a society is dependent on the availability of education, housing, medical & legal care etc. But finds that a livable environment though recognized as a human right is hardly enforceable legally. ( In India however, the apex court has upheld this right in recent cases). Given man’s great ability to manipulate the environment, it is necessary that new institutions & regulative agencies need to be established to make sure that manipulation is in the public interest. The state must prevent abuse & waste of environmental resources. By themselves private businesses are hardly agreeable to provide solutions to multiple environmental problems that they themselves create. Competition implies production at lowest possible cost. The calculation of GNP does not allow for the destruction of the environment. The uncontrolled growth culture basically encourages artificial needs detrimental to the quality of life.

If the ecological attitude is to challenge this reality, reconsideration of a host of current values is unavoidable. This reconsideration will undoubtedly affect the present institutions of private property & enterprise. Resources cannot be considered free or capable of unbridled exploitation.
In response to these problems there is now talk of a new economy, of natural capitalism and of a restoration economy. These recognize that a great many things have value & use which have no economic value & use. It is accepted that we should go in for soft technology as hard technology is responsible for most of the problems.

All this boils down to the ecological wisdom that everything on this planet is finite & perishable.

Unfettered rights & unbridled freedom are just not enduring & sustainable. Today’s reality vindicates therefore, the eastern ideals of restraint & abstinence; that the happiness is the highest when needs are controlled! Human rights imply not only responsibilities but also ecological wisdom!! The inter-relationship between ethics & ecology is therefore, enduring & irreplaceable.

Prakash Gole

Climate Change & India

2011-02-07T01:35:00.000-08:00

Climate Change & India

It is well said, “If climate change is the problem, biodiversity is the answer”.

Indian scientists are already forecasting that monsoon in India will be weakened if global temperature rises. At present the global average CO20 c, if the total Green House Gases concentration is 385 ppm. It is predicted that global temperature will rise by 2 (GHG) concentration goes up to 445 ppm. Global warming will affect growth rate of plants, many of them will go extinct and distribution of species & their reproduction will be affected. This will directly affect India’s poor. People who are directly dependent on forests are estimated to be more than six crores. For many rural poor wild plants provide 14 to 42 percent of their income.

Quality of life of people, especially those living in rural areas is therefore, greatly dependent on the quality of natural resources in the country.

It is alarming to note that over the last 50 years, the quality of natural resources in India has been degrading rapidly. The Noble prize winner Mr. Pachauri & his team have estimated the loss in billions of rupees due to degradation of natural resources. Here are the figures

Problem	Annual economic value (Rs billion)
Preventing adverse effects of poor quality of drinking water on human health	122
Loss of crop productivity due to degradation of soil	89 - 322
Loss of wood due to degradation of forests	57
Adverse effects on human health due to polluted air	885 - 4250

The loss must be continuing as little evidence is there for corrective measures on a large scale. As the opening statement says, climate change will deeply affect India as we have already lost the protective cover of biodiversity.

I am not going to enter into the controversy whether human activities contribute to global warming in a major way or not. It is far more important to discuss what measures should be taken to avoid losses due to climate change. Such measures include policy changes at the centre and state levels, corrective actions to be taken by various government departments and agencies & NGO level actions based on peoples’ participation.

I shall speak mainly, on research & action programmes with which our Ecological Society is directly concerned. A nation wide move is currently going on to collect basic information on Biodiversity in the form of Peoples’ Biodiversity Registers. It is necessary that these registers are brought under Intellectual Property Rights so that individuals & communities who hold this information can get some material benefit.

Before discussing action programmes let me first take you to regions with which I am associated over several years & where effects of climate change are strikingly evident. The first such area is Ladakh, the northern most region of India.

Ladakh was known to be a cold desert with average altitude above 11000 ft or 3500 meters. Climate change has led to melting of glaciers flooding the sand filled valleys with water & turning them green.

This has benefited wildlife in general as food has become plentiful & reproduction is easier. Breeding pairs of the rare Black necked Crane (Grus nigricollis) were hard to find in 1990s as freshwater marshes where they breed were widely scattered. There were in all 5 or 6 breeding pairs in entire Ladakh. Now there are 30 pairs in 2007 as freshwater marshes can be met everywhere due to glacier melt. Animals like Bharal & Urial have increased in numbers too & could be easily seen by the roadside. But knowledgeable people predict that these conditions may not last long & the reverse process of drying up will begin soon.

Coastal areas of Maharashtra are also witnessing changes in sea level. The famous Jaki Mirya beach near Ratnagiri now lies submerged as the sea has invaded over it. Since 2000 the coastal biodiversity of plant & animals has been rapidly declining. There is a horrendous decline in fish catch & large size; deep water fish have become rare. Already in 1998 some 24 species of fish had become scarce & were rarely recorded in fish catch.

Government efforts to create awareness of the situation among fishermen rarely succeed as the government fails to provide alternative occupations that will generate income for fishermen.

Initiatives & programmes to fight not only climate change but also ill effects of the present process of economic development are conspicuous by their absence. How can we reverse the ill effects of both? What could be the nature of such programmes? Some pointers in this direction can be gauged from the work Ecological Society has been doing over the last 26 years.

But before I delve into the nature of such programmes let me remind you of some simple truths which we seem to have forgotten in recent years because of the overwhelming influence of technology on our minds. The first simple truth is healthy nature i.e. natural ecosystems with their regenerative & absorptive capacities unaffected & high quality natural resources are the foundation of economic progress. The second one is in a tropical country like India, decentralization is far better than centralization. It accounts for microclimates & peculiar local biodiversity and the third seems to be technology should be consistent with ecology.

You will immediately realize that our educational system, our occupational strategies and our top-down developmental planning deride these three basic propositions.

Our educational system seems to be hardly aware of the importance of micro-climates of different livelihoods that these generate & of the importance of local conditions & other genetic variants of plants & livestock. All this leads to neglect of local natural resources & biodiversity, their degradation & students are made to believe that technology alone generates livelihoods & that too primarily in cities. The urban sprawl therefore, continues.

Our occupational strategies & development planning shows their excessive dependence on modern technology. Our administrators and politicians seem to be totally unaware of eco-processes & basic life support systems which are provided by nature free of cost. These are: self cleaning of atmosphere and fresh water, natural development of soil, biodiversity or gene bank, assimilation & waste absorptive capacity of nature, the self- generating marine wealth etc.

When a person enjoys these services free of cost, his/ her cost of living decreases remarkably. For example, if agriculture is supported by an adequate area of forest, a farmer’s input cost comes down & soil improvement & availability of water enhances productivity.

Modern technology, in its efforts to divert more & more Sun’s energy towards human beings, first destroys these eco-processes & then tries to technologically restore them which increase the costs tremendously. In order to enhance per capita consumption of food & water, agriculture is standardized through green revolution techniques, and fresh water flows are disrupted by building dams. Both these lead to unprecedented quality losses in soil & water. These are then sought to be corrected by application of inorganic fertilizers and chemical treatment of polluted water. Both are extremely expensive.

Overall impact of economic development based on technology is unbelievable degradation of natural eco-systems & eco-processes & consequent steep rise in the cost of living.

Our efforts now should be directed towards understanding the ecology of natural eco-systems, & eco-processes & restoration of degraded nature in all its forms. Ecological Society has been working in these two related fields for the last 26 years.

If our technology is to be consistent with ecology, we need a complete overhaul of our educational system. We must aim at a holistic view of life & not compartmentalization of knowledge into different subjects. Social Sciences such as Sociology & Economics need to be combined with physical sciences such as geography & general science to clarify the role of human beings in a natural setting. With this goal in view we are working with urban & rural school students, making them aware of the importance of micro-climates & local natural resources. We have also devised a post-graduate holistic course in management with special emphasis on restoration & sustainable management of natural resources & eco-systems.

The importance & potential of restoration of nature are hardly understood in India at the administrative & political level. Our efforts to restore nature have been more appreciated abroad than in India. Restoration of nature is basically labour intensive & has a potential to create millions of jobs. Again it will create natural assets for the nation & will be directly beneficial to India’s poor. The great potential of restoration of nature in eradicating poverty is hardly realized in India.

I may indicate here certain areas where restoration is urgently necessary. Restoration of soil quality & fresh water will benefit almost everyone. Basic truth seems to be that our mountains & hills are the sources of both. Many of our dams & reservoirs are located not far away from the source regions of rivers. Ecological Society has produced a plan to revive the ecology of the source region and catchment area of a dam which supplies drinking water to Pune, irrigation to farming in downstream areas. It has actually carried out a project to restore the ecology of hill slopes and other economic benefits to local people.

Areas around dams generally present a picture of desolation as soil; stone & rubble have been removed together with destruction of plant life. Such stone quarry areas have been restored to wetlands & indigenous forest yielding significant gains in biodiversity.

We have hundreds of reservoirs all over Maharashtra but there is hardly any attempt to manage them for multiple benefits. Our project on the reservoir of Ujani dam was a pioneering project in reservoir restoration. If such projects are carried out, local biodiversity will get a welcome boost.

We have extensive dry & drought prone areas in Maharashtra where farming in risky. The best way to revive productivity & ecology of these areas is to promote grassland development. Our restoration of grassland project located in Phaltan (District Satara) tehsil aims at quality enhancement of grasslands.

Restoration of streams & rivers in rural & urban areas is another dire necessity. Our river front development projects in urban areas & Niraml Ganaga Abhiyan in rural areas have quality enhancement of water as their main objective.

If educational reform & restoration of nature go hand in hand the benefits in terms of biodiversity & eco-processes regeneration & employment & income generation are immense.

Prakash Gole

How Do I Understand Biodiversity?

2011-02-07T01:22:00.000-08:00

How Do I Understand Biodiversity?

India covers about 2 per cent of the land area of the world but possesses more than 8 percent of world’s biodiversity. This biodiversity is not evenly distributed in India. It is more concentrated in Western Ghats & in the north- eastern states such as Arunachal Pradesh & Assam. These areas are therefore, called “Biodiversity Hotspots.” Andaman & Nicobar Islands also have remarkable biodiversity.

Indian biodiversity is characterized by high endemism. It means a number of species have limited ranges, being confined to particular areas only & not found anywhere else in the world. Such species obviously have high conservation value, should receive highest priority in any conservation programme as their loss implies that the world heritage becomes so much the poorer.

But why should we care to protect and conserve biodiversity, many people would ask. The simplest answer to this question is this: the variety of species provides a gigantic gene bank which becomes an unlimited source of food & fibre, medicines, antibiotics & pesticides and raw materials for different industries, small & large scale. Wild genes are much stronger in resisting diseases & can impart this strength to domesticated plants such as crops to make them pest resistant. Forest food is an important supplement in the diet of many communities in India. Wild plants can also be an additional source of energy as Pongamia ( Karanj ) and Jetropha have shown.

If biodiversity is so useful, how do we account for it? Do we know how many plants and animals are immediately useful to human beings, how many are likely to be useful in future and how many are not directly useful? To account for each & every species of plants from lichens to trees and of animals from bacteria to larger animals like whales and elephants, is a mind-boggling task. No nation has achieved this feat so far. We have initiated an effort to document biodiversity as much as possible by preparing biodiversity registers for the countryside & for urban areas. But it is feared that a lot of biodiversity is going to be lost by the time we complete this task!

Why is this so? For biodiversity is not only the number & variety of species & sub- species of plants & animals, higher & lower, but also includes the variety of habitats & niches available in a particular area. Habitat is the address & niche is the profession of each species. It is extremely difficult to separate out & count each & every habitat & niche as they are connected to each other & to larger divisions like biomes in a maze of linkages. Our ecological knowledge is not adequate to understand all these linkages. In our precipitate haste to industrialize & urbanize, we may be unintentionally destroying a number of habitats & niches. The collapse of linkages must be having a devastating impact on biodiversity!

This way we are destroying forever not only the gene bank but also the verybasis of ecological knowledge & understanding.

The reasoning so far makes clear that biodiversity knowledge is not enumeration of species & sub species only. We must also try to understand what habitats & niches species & sub- species represent? The wonderful diversity of attractive flowers that adorns many a lateritic plateau & open area in Western Ghats, during monsoons, is a case in point. These areas are “open” because of unrestricted grazing & trampling by our domestic animals & cutting of wood by human beings. The character of biodiversity on these plateaus when they were not “open” must be quite different from what it is today. If we enclose this area & protect it from grazing & cutting, the present diversity of attractive flowers is likely to be replaced by some other set of plants. Which is important for us? The attractive flowers which is an expression of nature’s reaction to a variety of impacts? Or the more sedate variety of plants which emerges when these impacts are
removed?

Cast in this mould, the question of biodiversity enumeration & conservation appears to be quite an intricate one. We must understand that biodiversity is nothing but an expression of certain physical conditions. In a country like India, which boasts of human settlements dating back to thousands of years, human beings have been constantly modifying these conditions. Biodiversity must have been modifying too. In the name of preserving certain apparently “natural” areas, we have evolved a system of protected areas like sanctuaries & national parks. Yet they are not completely immune from human interference. It means that the biodiversity that these areas manifest must have been modified over the years. A study in Germany has shown that 65 % of biodiversity is found outside protected areas. It is likely that this biodiversity is the result of human modification of habitats & in a sense “man- made diversity, while the 35 % which remains within protected areas are an expression of physical conditions which existed some years ago.

The significance of biodiversity then seems to depend on decisions made by human beings in a particular country or nation. People must decide how much area they would continue to modify & how much they would leave to relapse into physical conditions that existed in the past. As such biodiversity is quite a dynamic concept. Enumeration of biodiversity cannot be once for all. Each time we enumerate or document we must put a date on it. We should repeat this exercise every 5 or 10 years. In fact we should have a census of biodiversity every 5 or 10 years, as we census human beings. If we can describe & quantify physical conditions of the area, each time we enumerate, we may begin understanding the linkages between biodiversity & physical conditions. An NGO from Pune enumerated the biodiversity of Metropolitan Area at the turn of century. In some cases as in birds, they were able to establish the change in the character of biodiversity as some older records were available. If they repeat the exercise, and also record modifications in physical conditions, linkages between these two can be established with much more certainty. Indeed if somehow the scale of human impact can be quantified, the character of biodiversity can be related to the scale of human impact. This is directly useful in restoration & conservation of biodiversity.

Together with physical conditions, biodiversity also helps to define the character of nature’s services. If in an area atmosphere, soil and water are polluted, nature’s services such as providing atmospheric balance, soil formation & self- cleansing ability of flowing water, will be affected. The existing biodiversity will be an indicator of such disturbed conditions. The linkage between the degree of disturbance & the character of biodiversity can thus be established.

If the restored area is monitored annually we will understand how physical conditions & biodiversity begin to “relapse” to conditions that existed before they were modified by human beings.

Some people have differentiated between the “natural” & “domesticated” biodiversity. In the above sense, it is extremely difficult to locate & define natural & pristine biodiversity. The better differentiation would be between biodiversity that is only indirectly useful to human beings and has more or less intrinsic value and biodiversity which is directly useful & is associated with them.

How then do I understand biodiversity? I feel biodiversity is one of the components of Nature. If we single it out, accord it greater value, try to glorify it, we obtain a distorted view of nature. Biodiversity should be cast in its proper perspective: the time scale, physical conditions & most important, the character & intensity of human impact.

If conservation of biodiversity through protection & elimination of human impact, is planned, one must accept that it will mean a kind of relapse into conditions that existed sometime in the past. If biodiversity is to be taken care of in a human milieu, we must minimize human impact in certain natural processes such as the drainage pattern, the balance of erosion & deposition and stepping stones & corridors for the movement of life forms.

Prakash Gole

Riddle of Energy Part 3

2011-02-07T01:18:00.000-08:00

ECOLOGICAL MACRO ASPECTS OF ENERGY

PART III – POST MODERN LIFE-STYLE (SUSTAINABLE ENJOYMENT)

Girish Abhyankar

girish.abhyankar@gmail.

Phone: +91 9860547471

INTRODUCTION

Using solar radiation energy plant kingdom synthesises carbon dioxide, water and salts into biomass, the only source of low entropy energy for the animal kingdom on earth. Animal kingdom uses free biomass energy and enjoys! Micro-organisms completely decompose biomass back to carbon dioxide, water and salts by chemical processes and render reusable to plant kingdom. Synthesis-decomposition cycle is sustainable if the overall rates, the biomass creation and the waste disposal, are generally matched. Animal kingdom, including human society, has only role of enjoying free services – free energy and free disposal of debris. (Then why am I slogging?)

I and many others could not be socially engineered to accept concepts of enjoyment set in the industrial world. We can not enjoy work load of employment (loss of freedom) and insecurity (loss of peace of mind) caused by using energy technology excessively (industrialisation). We want net security, comfort and enjoyment from the use of external energy and so we develop post-modern life styles. These life styles are based on the scientific knowledge of energy usage: capabilities and limitations - soft technologies -, natural services and local ecosystems. These life styles are specific to geographical area, community and individuals. They are practicable any time, today and compulsorily in post industrial era.

SOFT TECHNOLOGY

Soft technology is a technology that creates very few new problems and most of them can be left to nature for recovery without accumulating harmful effects on the ecology. Soft technology, thus, ensures net security, comfort and enjoyment by matching the rate of problem creation and the rate of its natural solution/disposal.

Soft technology applications depend on user’s requirements, life style ideas, resources, social commitments and surrounding conditions. Hence, there cannot be standardisation.

Soft technology developments are individualistic and situational. If many models are developed, and they are developing, choice is easier. I present below my model.

Factors for my soft technology applications

Total energy input making the equipments, maintaining and running them: low
Energy input based on coal and crude oil as original source: minimum
Energy input based on local biomass: preferred
Self generated energy use: equivalent to my daily exercise necessary for fitness

(No drudgery, no toiling)

Technology: simple, based on local skills and material (Ridiculed DOMBAL or Dombalachi life-style but the acronym represents the underlying principle and the spirit. Direct and Obvious Methods Based Applications for Living/Leisure).

Self generated energy

I list my capabilities and limitations so that I can design my working environment for effective throughput (similar to work study or industrial engineering practices but with focus on self) and minimum inconvenience.

My capabilities and limitations on every day working basis are:

(Self weight 60 kg, BMI between 20 and 25, age 15 to 45 years).

I can easily and comfortably

Make natural, non-straining body movements such as walking and climbing.
Use hands for tensile load and legs for compressive load.
Carry load on shoulders up to 20 kg (one third of self weight).
Work 180 kJ per day on every day working basis (3 kJ per kg of self weight)

(180 kJ is equivalent to climbing 300 m or 1700 steps of a 30 storey building. Limited by food intake, digestion efficiency and Carnot cycle efficiency: 3.7 %.)

Work 600 kJ maximum (40 km walk/50 km cycling using stored energy).
Work at rated power output of 60 W (as many watts as self weight in kg) and deliver 10 times the rated power output (up to 600 W) momentary.
Work at limb movements in tune with my normal pulse rate that is when rate of work done by muscle cells and energy supply to them are matched.
Work in standing position for shorter duration and work sitting on chair/stool for longer duration. (Sitting on ground necessitates lifting self weight consuming my 600 J energy every time I get up).
Work with 50% duty cycle (equal periods of work and rest).
Work in ventilated environment around 25⁰C ambient temperatureand 50 % RH.

I can not and I am not for

Impact load delivery.
High speed operation.
Carrying heavy load on head.
Often bending and holding.
Working in direct IR radiation (hot sun).
Cumbersome, repetitive work requiring attention for long periods.
Working under supervision.

Information in brackets is for reference. Capabilities are down rated with age and health.

I have developed few soft technologies for

Domestic water management, Cooking on any available biomass, Cleaning,

Protection from IR radiation (hot sun) when working in open, Heavy load management.

Also reviving/modifying existing soft technologies to suit my capabilities and limitations.

Riddle of Energy Part 2

2011-02-07T01:09:00.000-08:00

ECOLOGICAL MACRO ASPECTS OF ENERGY

PART II – Convenience VERSuS ENERGY efficiency

Girish Abhyankar

girish.abhyankar@gmail.

Phone: +91 9860547471

PREVIEW

We are the only one in animal kingdom using external energy (energy besides food generated energy) through medium of equipments – hardware and software – to derive following conveniences.

1) Security - shelters and storages,

2) Comfort - tools and machines,

3) Equipment aided enjoyment - toys and communication gadgetry.

Constructing, making tools, machines, and equipments is a process of decreasing entropy. A lot of low entropy energy is necessary in deriving the above mentioned conveniences for constructing/making, maintaining and running of structures and equipments.

Building shelter for security is beneficial only if low entropy embodied energy in stones and biomass is used and not beneficial when high entropy sand and mud is used because then, more energy is spent building shelters than the body energy consumed living without a shelter. Energy required in cooking food (10000 kJ per person per day) is more than the energy necessary digesting the uncooked food. (Total food intake itself is only 8000 kJ per day). Eating cooked food is beneficial only if heat by burning low entropy chemical energy in biomass is used and not beneficial when heat is generated by high entropy frictional energy or solar IR radiation.

Net convenience is possible only if the external energy resource is of low entropy.

Technology is the art and science of using external energy and its role is limited to changing the form of the problem, to one, better in respect of human capabilities of using external (low entropy) energy. Technology changes problem of “protection from the environment” to a problem of “building shelter”, a problem that can be addressed better than facing the environment. Similarly, the problem of “cooking food” is better than digesting the uncooked food. Converting a problem into another, better addressable problem, and also reducing effort (labour) due to external energy inputs, is the comfort.

Since accessing external energy and constructing/making, maintaining and running of structures and equipments requires energy, low input energy for the same benefit or higher efficiency is necessary for achieving convenience.

Net convenience is possible only if the external energy is put to use very efficiently.

Overall energy efficiency of direct and simple methods is better than that of complex methods because input energy in complex methods is high. Complex methods are adopted for perceived short term convenience - saving on labour at that time but net convenience is not achieved.

More convenience means lower efficiency resulting in lower net convenience defeating the very purpose of using external energy by technology.

Few examples from recent past:

Direct and simple method - efficient	Indirect, Complex method - inefficient	Considering energy inputs to…
Food gathering	Farming	Operations in farming
Self labour with appropriate tools	Animal labour †	Tame/breed; train and maintain animals
Grain grinding by stoned hand wheel	Wind mill operated grain grinder	Make, install and maintain the wind mill
Walking #	Bicycle*	Make and maintain bicycle and the path and carry weight of the bicycle

† Animal energy is for the animal’s own survival and reproduction and not for the master’s energy needs. Animal energy is, therefore, high entropy energy for the masters.

* Animals have no wheels. # walking on 4 legs requires less energy than walking on two.

Sources of external energy

Solar, wind and geothermal energy are high entropy sources. They can be used efficiently as free natural services only in the direction of increasing entropy: drying/germicide, separation of light and heavy particles, cooling by ventilation and local hot water usages.

Local biomass is a low entropy energy source when used as embodied energy making equipments. Low entropy coal and crude oil is used as heat source for thermal processing, warming and illumination. Few examples of harnessing wind and solar energy efficiently and conveniently using local biomass and thermal energy are: Sail boats driven by wind energy, water warmers by solar IR radiation, grain grinder or water lifting wheels by natural low entropy hydro energy such as high altitude waterfalls or tap able lakes.

CURRENT ENERGY USAGE TECHNOLOGY

Thermal energy released from coal and crude oil is converted to low entropy energies. On providing energy of activation fuel molecules burn and liberate heat. One part of this releasing thermal energy is used in lowering entropy of the other part - such as concentrating chemical energy (pyrolysis, cooking) or conversion into embodied energy (material processing - metal refining, heat treatment) or converted into work - mechanical energy (heat engines). Larger part of heat is thrown out in open in the form of exhaust - increase of entropy. Thus, only less than half of the released heat energy is transformed into embodied or mechanical energy.

Conversion to mechanical energy is geometrically represented below.

When heat is being released, gas molecules start travelling at high velocity in all directions. They act on total area of 4(pi)r²inside a sphere of radius 'r'. To convert this kinetic energy of molecules into constrained mechanical energy, we can place maximum two pistons (all molecules forming a piston, moving in the same direction with the same velocity - constrained energy) of radius less than 'r' each, for the random gas molecules to act. Their area is less than 2(pi)r². Molecular kinetic energy components in the directions, in which the two pistons can move, will only be useful for conversion into constrained mechanical energy. The ratio of “area available for random gas molecules to act" to “total area” is less than half. Thus only less than half of the thermal energy released can be converted into the constrained mechanical energy, more than half goes in exhaust, heat dissipation and entropy of the system increases.

Maximum achievable conversion efficiency

If Q₁is heat taken at temperature T1°K,

Q₂is unconverted heat thrown out as exhaust at temperature T2°K and

W is the work done, then

W = Q₁─Q₂(The law of conservation of energy)

W <>2 (The law of increasing entropy).

From the above expressions maximum achievable conversion efficiency W/Q1 is < style="position: relative; top: 12pt;">

Maximum achievable efficiency in terms of temperature (T1-T2)/T1 is also < style="position: relative; top: 12pt;">

And so, T2 is always < T1/2

Maximum achievable primary (thermal à constrained energy) conversion efficiency is always less than 50%.

Conversion efficiency in practice

The lower the temperature and the slower the speed of the process, the higher is the efficiency. But temperature depends on fuel input. Fuel input and speed depend on load, a varying parameter related to the usage. Efforts in improving efficiency necessitates controller for synchronous matching of parameters. Considering embodied energy inputs in controller overall efficiency may not improve. Efficiency reduces with aging, increasing energy for maintenance and deteriorating environment. Very little overall efficiency improvements have been possible on heat engines.

Overall efficiency

Mechanical energy is also further converted to electrical energy to be converted:

Back to mechanical energy (motors, compressors),

Back to thermal energy (heaters),

To chemical energy stored in batteries à electrical à mechanical (in electric vehicles) and to radiant energy (lighting, microwave oven à heat).

Electricity is only a transitory form of energy in all applications except in data processing and transmission.

Since energy is 1) lost at every conversion, storage, transportation, 2) consumed in making equipments 3) lost in maintaining the equipments, the overall efficiency of energy service is very poor.

Heating by electricity requires many times more coal than heating directly by coal. Motion by electric motor requires many times more fuel than motion by fuel run heat engine. Similarly, illumination by electricity takes a lot more fuel than illumination directly by the fuel.

Many human societies are marching towards greater and greater inefficiency.

SOCIAL EFFECTS

Overall efficiency of energy usage by technology is very low and therefore it gives rise to many new problems such as requirement of new skills (training and employment), exchange media (monetary systems and host of regulatory/monitoring systems), infrastructure, etc and also huge waste. Addressing new problems by technology again, increases energy usage, compounding the effect, generating more problems and more waste. Rate of waste generation then exceeds the natural disposal rate, accumulating the waste harmfully.

Energy efficiency and conveniences

Better convenience – security, comfort and equipment generated enjoyment - is the reason for opting energy inefficient methods. The convenience of using electricity is: button start, no noise and pollution at the place of usage, door delivery, available on demand, etc. Since coal and crude oil energy is readily available to many human societies energy intensive technologies are on the rampage for more and more conveniences – security and comfort. Even enjoyment by status is linked to use of energy, the more the energy use the higher is the status.

Overall energy consumption increases with inefficient and extravagant usage with effects:

1) High energy consumption systems – industrialisation - need reliably uninterrupted supply, in turn, control over resources, logistics and prices - matters raising conflicts. Every kind of pollution increases with energy usage. Both factors lower security, defeating the very purpose of using external energy.

2) Coal and crude oil reserves are available for free in nature but their processing, transportation, storage, etc and their usages by building equipments and maintaining them etc, including those for enjoyment, remain human functions - work load (work denotes “loss of freedom” and not “labour” in industrial world). Efforts to reduce human functions by automation technology actually increase the energy consumption and related effects - increased insecurity and increased work load. Thus, human society has to work to avail benefits of free energy. Work increases with energy consumption and increased work load lowers comfort (freedom), defeating the very purpose of using external energy.

3) Basis of enjoyment is peace and freedom, adversely affected by insecurity and increased work. Inevitably, largely energy dependent societies evolve “progress, success and status” as enjoyment (development is physical but progress, success and status is only psychological). Societies socially engineer following concepts of enjoyments, storage of enjoyments (by holding/saving money) through education, media and policies.

a) Competition, accessing power, hard work and “no time” (insecurity built-in).

b) Complex, fast, large, tall/high/deep, hi-tech, automatic, latest (inherently inefficient).

c) Artificiality-continuous growth, rising numbers, grand structures, clockwork discipline (heavily consuming energy, thereby reducing security and comfort).

d) Technology can solve problems by research and development, mass production, etc.

Nurturing such concepts result in rampant energy consumption, rapidly increasing, till the self limit is reached due to various reasons.

Perceptions

Perception of security, comfort and enjoyment varies with individuals and communities. Perception of local biomass generated and food generated energy usage (self labour) efficiency is obvious. But, when coal and crude oil energy is converted into high energy density fuels and electricity, overall energy efficiency and side effects thereof are not perceivable due to complexity of transformations and the time gap or the delayed effects.

Human sensory system is designed to responds to radiant, thermal and mechanical energy, required to face in nature, and hence effects thereof are perceived by us naturally. But since humans did not have to deal with electrical energy in the past effects thereof are not naturally perceived. (Perpetual motion machines involving mechanical, thermal or radiant energy are seldom but those involving electrical energy are very often).

It is not perceived that energy embodied (in equipments) also disperses, whether used or otherwise, and therefore, everything including all living matter come with an expiry date.

Perception of pollution by local thermal and mechanical energy usage (smoke and noise) is perceived but pollution by electrical energy usage is not perceived because power plants damaging ecology and polluting environment are located away from end user of energy service. Efforts are centred on improving energy efficiency of electrical equipments but such an effort is like attending a leaky tap of a broken water tank.

Efforts to clear/treat pollution (using energy) creates more pollution is not perceived. Individuals can not perceive that working more and working hard reduces their security, comfort and enjoyment in future.

Human society, neglecting/overriding the law of entropy, is in a trap of external energy.

Observation

Availability of free coal and crude oil energy should have reduced total work load of the human society, but the total work load and insecurity is increasing with the energy use.

Industrial technology has failed in providing net increase in security, comfort and enjoyment to the human society.

CONCLUSION

Conveniences - security, comfort and enjoyment - are derived only if the external energy usage is limited to the extent: no new greater inconveniences are created.

PART III – POST MODERN LIFE-STYLE (SUSTAINABLE ENJOYMENT)

A Riddle of Energy Part 1

2009-01-24T21:57:00.000-08:00

ECOLOGICAL MACRO ASPECTS OF ENERGY

PART I - ENGINEERING PHYSICS

Girish Abhyankar

girish.abhyankar@gmail.com

Phone: +91 9860547471

Concept of energy

Universe is made up of particles – molecules, atoms, ions, photons. Particles cause various forces resulting into their own motion. “Motion of particle” we call energy.

Human societies use motion of particles - kinetic energy - in following different forms.

All the molecules forming a body constrained to move in one velocity vector: we call mechanical energy. Velocity measured in meters per second.

Random movement (in fluids) and random vibrations of molecules /diffusion of electrons (in solids): we call thermal energy or heat. Temperature indicates velocity of the motion.

Motion of electric charges constrained to move through conductor from one pole to the other: we call electrical energy. Electric current (in Ampere) indicates velocity of motion.

Free or constrained motion of photons: we call radiant energy.

All forms of energies are simultaneously present in any matter. We name mechanical, electrical (both constrained forms), radiant and thermal (normally random and free forms but can be constrained partially) energy depending on which motion we put to use. (Piston of an engine moves, and is also hot, radiating and electrically charged. We use only the constrained movement of all the molecules that make the piston and call it a source of mechanical energy).

Quantity of kinetic energy is a function of mass/number of particles and their velocity.

If particles, due to their specific positions, are capacitated to release kinetic energy (by a trigger), we call it potential energy or stored energy.

Human societies use the following different forms of potential energy.

Gravitational energy is the positional (height) energy of a body with reference to a datum, used as mechanical energy when released.

Chemical energy is the energy stored in configured arrangement of atoms/ions, used as thermal/electrical energy when released.

Accumulation of electric charges in capacitors is the stored electrical energy, used again as electrical energy when released.

Energy possible to be released by fission or fusion of atomic nuclei is nuclear energy, used as thermal and radiant energy when released.

Energy to activate a trigger for release of stored or potential energy into kinetic energy is called activation energy.

Laws of energy, traditionally called laws of thermodynamics:-

First law or the law of conservation: The energy of the universe is constant.

Second law or the law of entropy: The entropy of the universe always increases ^[2].

Both the laws are fundamental and applicable universally.

Entropy: At any moment of time every particle occupies a unique position in the universe. (Since one particle is occupying a position there can not be any other particle in the same position at that moment of time.) Forces depend on positions. Since position of every particle is unique, every particle experiences unique forces acting on it and therefore, motion of every particle is also unique. It is highly improbable that motions of particles are identical in respect of their velocity vector. Completely irregular motions of particles, as per the Law of Statistical Behaviour ^[1], result in their dispersal.

Entropy is a measure of dispersal of particles.

In all physical processes molecules and energies associated with their motions and positions disperse ^[3] in the direction of increasing probability ^[1]. Entropy is a function of the number of different ways or microstates in which the energy of the molecules in a system can be arranged by positions and velocities. The number of accessible microstates for dispersal of energy depends on the constraints imposed by internal and external forces on the molecular motions. If the number of microstates accessible for dispersal of energy is small, due to constraints, entropy is low. If the number of microstates accessible for dispersal of energy is large, with no constraints, entropy is high ^[3].

Entropy is at the highest when the rate of dispersal of energy is infinitesimal i.e. the dispersal virtually stops - a state of equilibrium corresponding to maximum of probability ^[1] for local and temporal frame of reference.

Entropy is independent of the path of the process (technology) and medium (materials) and depends only on the endpoint condition i.e. volume and temperature ^[2].

The Law of Entropy: Any spontaneous changes in a physical system occur in the direction of increasing entropy ^[1]. Energy of any type will change from being localized to becoming dispersed or spread out -- in space, in quantum states ("energy levels") of microstates and thereby yield systems with greater numbers of microstates ^[3].

Thus in processes of energy transformation, storage or transportation energy output is always less than the energy input because energy disperses continuously - entropy increases - and the energy available for the intended final usage reduces 1) in such processes 2) with the time.

Decrease of entropy is reversal of dispersal - collection.

Principle of decreasing entropy: Entropy in one part of the system can be decreased if there is a compensating increase of entropy in its other part. The Law of Entropy requires only that the total entropy of the system increase and this can be arranged by making the second factor larger than the first.

Example: Some weight is placed on a shelf above the floor. According to the Law of Conservation of Energy, it is impossible that this weight will spontaneously and without any external help rise toward the ceiling. On the other hand it is possible to drop one (larger) part of this weight to the floor and use the energy thus released to raise another (smaller) part upward ^[1]. This trick is possible only if the weight is initially at a good height – possesses sufficient gravitational potential energy. If the weight is already near the floor, nothing can be raised upward.

Entropy can also be decreased by applying energy from outside the system under observation - weight lifted by a crane powered by an engine that runs by increasing entropy of coal or crude oil. But the energy stored as gravitational potential energy in the lifted weight is always less than the coal/crude oil energy spent in running the engine.

Decrease of entropy is a fall-out effect of increase of entropy somewhere in the universe. Energy for collection (decrease of entropy) is always more than the collected energy.

Observations in Nature

Since entropy of the universe is increasing, we observe, universe is expanding. Stars throw out matter and energy in space. New, smaller stars are formed out of the matter and energy released from breaking-up of larger bodies. Matter and energies tend towards uniform distribution in space, on earth: denudation of mountains, soil erosion, etc.

Solar radiation is due to entropy increasing on the sun. Solar radiation, as received on surface of the earth, is composed mainly of three frequency ranges. About half lies in infrared (IR) range, the other half is in visible range and some also lies in ultraviolet (UV) range. Intensity of solar radiation received on earth’s surface varies greatly throughout the day and the year. Since solar radiation reaching earth has no constraint, it is high entropy energy.

Frequency band of IR radiation generally matches natural frequency of many molecules over the surface of the earth and their random resonating vibration is the heating effect. Most of IR radiation is converted into heat.

The life on earth has to convert the only energy source on earth - solar radiant energy - into a suitable form required for survival and reproduction. Surface heating - random motion with no constraint, high entropy energy - creates conducive temperature and other conditions, winds, rains etc, but can not be converted into low entropy forms of energy such as mechanical or chemical energy, because decreasing entropy is impossible.

Plant kingdom is able to store the other half - visible light and UV – of radiant energy falling on it as chemical energy: complex bio-mass molecules by synthesising carbon dioxide, water and salts. Synthesis is decreasing entropy, possible by using huge amount of high entropy solar energy. Since energy necessary for collection of the same energy is more than the energy collected, plant kingdom remains stationery and collects whatever solar energy falls at their location. Plant kingdom grows very slowly because input solar energy is of low power. Plants spread themselves over larger surface area to receive maximum of solar radiation. They also use wind, rain and animal kingdom for their expanse to remote places, and grow wherever all inputs required by them are present.

For millions of years, photosynthesis has been the only method of decreasing entropy using solar radiant energy, not superseded by more efficient method by life on earth.

Animal kingdom on earth enjoys energy collected by plant kingdom in the form of biomass - food and raw material (low entropy energy). Animal kingdom maintains itself at a temperature higher than the ambient temperature by burning food and can, therefore, convert heat to mechanical energy for movement and to electrochemical form for data processing and communication, memory, etc as movement related functions. Input energy requirement of animal kingdom is large due to losses in energy conversions, heat radiation and friction met by consuming high energy density food readily available from the plant kingdom.

Animal kingdom survives by adopting itself such that it lives and reproduces on food generated energy, free natural services and not requiring any other external energy.

External Energy (other than food generated energy)

Human societies use external energy, besides food generated energy, for additional security - shelters and storages - , for comfortable living - tools and machines - and for enjoyment - toys and communication gadgetry.

Resource energy can seldom be used by human societies directly in the form it is available in nature. Energy transformation, storage and transportation are necessary so that the energy is made available at the desired place, at the desired time and in the desired energy form with the desired specifications - temperature/voltage. This involves decreasing entropy. This is possible only if the resource energy is low entropy energy and entropy of some part of this energy can be decreased during sudden increase of entropy.

Thus, only low entropy resource is of any physical benefit to human societies; high entropy resource, however large in quantity and available perennially, is not. Example: A tanker ship full of crude oil is a low entropy source because crude oil molecules are constrained inside the tank with fewer accessible microstates for dispersal. This resource is useful. But, if the crude oil spreads over the sea due to shipwreck, the crude oil molecules free, not constrained, with far more accessible microstates for dispersal, the entropy goes high, total energy remaining the same. Crude oil of increased entropy is useless for any benefit to the human society.

Decreasing the entropy has been possible by all kinds of heat engines (equipments) working on the above mentioned principle because the resource energy - coal and crude oil - is constrained in small volume and therefore, entropy is low. Ores found spread out in nature; at the lowest energy levels - the highest entropy - are collected, refined and then heat engines (equipments) are built using crude oil and coal energy. Building equipments is, thus, a process of decreasing entropy. Part of crude oil and coal energy used is deemed embodied in the energy conversion and support equipments to access, extract/collect, process, transport, install, store, activate, control, dispose the waste generated and also maintain both, the equipments and the environment affected. Embodied energy is the stored energy in positional/structural arrangement of molecules, manifested by saving in the process energy or facilitating energy transformation. However, embodied energy itself does not participate in the energy flow.

Examples of saving in the process energy: energy put-in to make a knife is deemed stored in the knife as embodied energy. Knife saves energy in the process of cutting. Vehicles, tools, machinery and explosives save process energy. Shelters save energy for protection. Processed food, medicines save internal body energy. Telecommunication equipments save data transportation energy.

Examples of facilitating energy transformation: Energy converters such as boiler, turbine, engine, cell, alternator, transformer, motor, pump, radiator, compressor, etc.

Storages such as battery and dam – facilitating energy/material storage;

Transmission lines, pipelines – facilitating energy/material transport.

According to the Law of Entropy, energy essentially disperses during conversions, storages and transportations. Embodied energy also disperses marked by continuous degradation of original properties of the equipments due to weakening of structural bonds - rusting, wear and tear, deformation, chemical changes, aging and eventual break-down, faster with the usage. Dispersed energy is lost, not preventable by any technology.

Using technology human societies accelerate entropy increase of a low entropy energy resource: coal/crude oil (entropy increase of coal/crude oil will otherwise continue at a very slow rate) by way of friction, radiation, scattering and scrap and achieve their purpose in the process.

ENERGY SOURCES OTHER THAN COAL AND CRUDE OIL

Considerable technological effort is devoted to development of all imaginable energy sources besides coal and crude oil because coal and crude oil reserves are exhaustible and also, their inefficient usage is damaging the environment. Solar radiation, wind, nuclear, hydro (rain and tidal) and natural/biogas are harnessed for electricity generation. Farm produce is converted to high density fuels as alternative to petrol and diesel. Energy from solar, wind, nuclear, rain water, tidal, hydrogen, geothermal, bio-fuels, etc is claimed to be renewable/sustainable/inexhaustible and friendly to the environment. It is necessary to check the correctness of these claims in larger interest of the human society. Attempts to evaluate these claims by energy accounting methods do not lead to conclusion.

Evaluation of the claims

The claimed renew able/sustainable/inexhaustible resources are evaluated below for conversion to any low entropy or constrained energy, particularly electricity, a desired energy form because it can be converted to mechanical, thermal, chemical or radiant energy conveniently. Electrical energy is movement of electrical charges, constrained to move through conductors from one pole to the other with very limited accessible microstates for dispersal and hence electrical energy is very low entropy energy.

Wind energy: Air molecules and their kinetic energy (A) are free, unconstrained and therefore, wind energy is high entropy energy, not possible to convert to low entropy, mechanical or electrical energy.

It is not possible to build a windmill of embodied energy (B) using energy in the wind because, due to high entropy, usable energy in wind (A) is less than the energy necessary to make the windmill or (A) < (B). Coal and crude oil energy (F) is, therefore, used for making windmills.

Energy embodied in windmill is less than the energy used making the windmill (B) < (F). In a windmill system, output energy is less than the input energy,

Rearranging the above expression, (C) + (B) ─ (A) < (F).

(A) < (B) and, therefore, (B) ─ (A) is always positive.

Thus, (C) < (F) or total energy delivered by the windmill in its life time is always less than the coal and crude oil energy input making the windmill.

Rearranging again, (C) < (A) + (F) ─ (B).

Since (F) ─ (B) is always positive, (C) < (A).

But as (A) < (B), (C) < (B) or the total energy delivered by the windmill in its life time cannot provide energy to make another windmill of the same capacity.

Solar energy: Radiant energy (A) from the sun is unconstrained and, therefore, the entropy is high, not possible to convert to low entropy thermal or electrical energy. Solar radiation concentrator or photovoltaic cell is made using crude oil and coal energy (F). The total energy delivered by the concentrator or the photovoltaic cell in its life time 1) is always less than the coal and crude oil energy input making them 2) cannot provide energy to make another concentrator or photovoltaic cell of the same capacity.

Hydro energy: Kinetic energy of rain or tidal water molecules (A) is unconstrained and hence entropy is high, not possible to convert to low entropy electrical energy. Hydro power plant is made and operated using crude oil and coal energy (F). The total energy delivered by the hydro power plant in its life time 1) is always less than the coal and crude oil energy input making it 2) cannot provide energy to make another hydro power plant of the same capacity.

Nuclear energy: Isotope of uranium, U-235, is the only fissionable substance on earth, always found strongly diluted by the heavier unfissionable isotope U-238 (0.7% of U-235 and 99.3% of U-238), hindering the development of the progressive chain reaction in natural uranium. It is, in fact, only because of this dilution by the inactive isotope that the highly fissionable atoms of U-235 still exist in nature, since otherwise they would have been all destroyed long ago by a fast chain reaction among them ^[1]. Since energy dispersal from the nuclear energy raw material has virtually stopped; the resource is at equilibrium. The entropy is the highest and therefore, it is not an energy resource of any energy. Nuclear power plants are built and operated using coal and crude oil energy. The total energy delivered by the nuclear power plant in its life time 1) is always less than the coal and crude oil energy input making it 2) cannot provide energy to make another nuclear power plant of the same capacity.

Natural/Bio gas: Gaseous form energy resource is a high entropy resource because gas molecules bubble out are free, unconstrained with very large number of accessible microstates to disperse. (Molecules of crude oil in liquid form are constrained by strong bonding forced with few accessible microstates for dispersal and, therefore, entropy is low. Energy density of natural gas as available on surface of the earth (STP) is 39.6 kJ per liter as compared to crude oil 37300 kJ per liter.) It is impossible to harness natural gas energy without external help. Gas power plants are built and operated using coal and crude oil energy where natural gas is compressed to 250 bar pressure to 11160 kJ per liter or liquefied to 25780 kJ per liter (decreasing entropy) for use in automobiles as fuel equivalent to petrol - 34920 kJ/liter or diesel - 38520 kJ/liter.. The total energy delivered by the gas power plant in its life time 1) is always less than the coal and crude oil energy input making it 2) cannot provide energy to make another gas power plant of the same capacity.

Farm produce: Natural biomass, 7.5 tons/hector, crop standing 1 m tall, in 100 days is 11000 kJ per square meter or 110 J/liter/day is a highly spread-out energy resource equivalent to less than a drop of crude oil/day - high entropy. Making and operating equipments, providing other inputs required cultivating, collecting the farm produce from very large area and processing them to high density fuel is done using crude oil and coal energy. Energy cultivating, collecting and processing is more than the net energy available from the farm produce generated high density bio-fuels.

Human/animal generated mechanical energy from farm produced food as original source is also high entropy energy and, therefore, its conversion to low entropy electrical energy is not possible.

Hydrogen, geothermal, natural biomass, etc are also high entropy sources and provide no net energy benefits to the human societies. None of the energy sources is renew able or sustainable for current high energy density technology and life style.

As (F) is always greater than (C); harnessing high entropy resources uses crude oil and coal in larger quantity; depleting their reserves faster and damaging the environment even more than if crude oil and coal were used directly for the same purpose.

Evaluation methods

Evaluation of energy sources for their renew ability or sustainability by energy accounting method requires input energy data independent of exhaustible energy source. But, equipments for harnessing energy are necessarily made using exhaustible crude oil and coal energy as original source and therefore, energy accounting method is not applicable. Observing entropy of the resource energy is the only method of evaluation.

Our energy measuring system has to be and is unidirectional - in the direction of increasing entropy. We convert all energies in question to heat and compare. We convert solar radiant energy to heat and measure. We burn biomass and measure the heat released. We compare these two measurements and conclude that 100 kJ of solar radiant energy must have been necessary to make 1 kJ of biomass energy.

We can not measure in the direction of decreasing entropy. We can not experimentally measure how much solar radiant energy is converted to say 1 kJ of electrical energy. A photovoltaic cell is necessary for this conversion which is made using coal and crude oil energy as original source. We can not experimentally measure input solar radiant energy, energy for compression and thermal energy that go in making coal and crude oil used in making a photovoltaic cell. Thus overall efficiency of photovoltaic cell can not be estimated. Input/output method of evaluation is not applicable to non-biomass – solar, wind, nuclear, hydro, etc - energy sources.

Coal and crude oil is available for free in nature. We pay only for the human services involved in providing us derivatives of coal, crude oil or biomass energy. Original source energy is free. If the input energy is largely free evaluation of an energy source for sustainability, independent of coal and crude oil, by input/output method is misleading.

conclusion

Solar, wind, rain water, tidal, hydrogen, geothermal and bio-fuels are not renewable/sustainable/inexhaustible energy sources and they with nuclear and natural gas are not friendlier to the environment than coal and crude oil. Machines and gadgetry converting these energy resources into any low entropy energy are perpetual machines of the second type and do not deliver any energy on the net basis.

Energy resources that are of low entropy on or very near the surface of the earth - coal and crude oil - are only useful for current high energy density technology and life style.

Corollary: Superconducting energy for net energy saving is impossible.

References

[1] George Gamow, One Two three...Infinity (Bantam Books, 1979) p. 200, 226-8, 186-7

[2] Feynman Leighton Sands, The Feynman Lectures on Physics Volume 1 (Narosa publishing House 1997) p. 566, 568

[3] Frank L. Lambert, Professor Emeritus Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA. http://www.entropysite.com/boltzmann.html

PART II – CONVENIENCE VERSUS ENERGY EFFICIENCY

PART III – POST MODERN LIFE-STYLE (SUSTAINABLE ENJOYMENT)

November 15, 2010

What is Wrong with Economics?

2008-06-17T04:01:00.000-07:00

If economics is primarily concerned with allocation of scarce resources among competing wants, it ought to show deep understanding of resources and their utilization. It does nothing of the sort. Mainstream economics tries to interpret and analyze the working of Industrial Capitalism and that too without any attempt to probe the foundations on which Industrial Capitalism stands.

Ideally environmental economics should fill in this gap but it too seems to be content in finding out and advocating certain palliatives which tend to bring in distributive justice in societal wealth distribution. The concept of sustainable development is introduced to counter depletion and deterioration of resources and promote their wise use. Resources are divided into manmade capital and natural capital. Economic sustainability is ensured if and when manmade capital is substituted for natural capital. But environmental sustainability cannot be achieved because the two are not perfect substitutes. Certain other requirements are to be fulfilled if environmental sustainability is to be achieved.

Scaling down economic activity may involve use of efficient technology to minimize energy and materials use, use of alternative sources of energy and even materials and ascribing proper prices to environmental (free) goods and nature's services. It is a moot question however, if distributive justice and social welfare can be achieved through adoption of these approaches.

A fourth approach which prescribes local resources used to satisfy local wants is likely to bring in far more social equity than the three approaches mentioned above. The problems of limiting consumer sovereignty and reducing the scale of production are sought to be addressed here not by establishing a central planning authority but by decentralizing authority and investment. If priority is given to use of local resources, their care, maintenance and enhancement should also have top priority. Under Panchayat Raj adequate powers are available to grass roots organizations to achieve this. Some enlightened Panchayats are already taking advantage of powers conferred on them.

If wise utilization of local resources results in an agricultural surplus over and above the basic necessities of the local population, it can be marketed and profits can accrue to the Panchayat. Local resources thereby will be given a value which is honored by the market. This value can be enhanced, local purchasing power increased, if local cultivars can be demonstrated to possess a unique taste, high nutritional qualities and durability. Marketing of such specialized products will bring in higher profits and larger purchasing power to grassroots organizations and rural public, thereby enhancing their interest and capacity to care for the quantity and quality of local resources.

Demand and supply will then have an organic relationship with such basic resources as soil and water and they will not be driven solely by advances in technology as happens today.

Something needs to be stated here about the ownership of resources. It is not necessary to do away with individual ownership. At the village level individual ownership can be retained but its use should be according to the needs of the village plan. Water may be individually allocated according to the crop pattern decided by the village. (Phad system from north Maharashtra which implies exactly these things needs to be publicized).

Mainstream economics has been accused of not caring for the quality of consumer choices and the resultant composition of output. Irrational consumer preferences propelled solely by technological advance have resulted in a product mix containing mainly intermediate goods demanded by the rich and privileged. When much of the resources are allocated to such production, the owners of resource are only interested in collecting rent and not exactly in care and maintenance of resources. They will be more interested in high short term gains and not lower but assured gains over a longer time.

When demand and supply are organically based the character of demand and the composition of supply are likely to be different. Priority will be given to the satisfaction of the basic needs of the masses than to production of high value, intermediate goods meant for the rich.

Eventually industrial capitalism and fossil fuel driven economy are likely to be replaced by natural capitalism and a carbohydrates based economy.

All this of course is easier said than done. A complete change of paradigms is in order. The legal emphasis needs to change from laws protecting exploitation of resources to laws protecting their conservation. Technological content needs to change in a similar fashion. We need greater doses and variety in what today is called appropriate technology---small scale and energy and materials efficient. Likewise radical changes are needed in our educational system. It may be easier to motivate groups of children in rural areas to take care of their own local resources such as the hill behind the village, the stream flowing through it, the quality of soils in their fields and wild flora and fauna found in and around the village. City children are already goaded to demonstrate against air pollution and traffic indiscipline. They can be further exposed to the reality of city's impact on the surrounding countryside and how resources and landscapes destroyed during city's expansion can be restored and regenerated.

Such a paradigm change may also involve tremendous savings: in terms of reduced or abolished subsidies, in terms of savings in energy and materials use, in terms of transport and traffic, in terms of reduced waste and garbage and obviating the need for centralized, gigantic projects.

As resources are diverted away from production of unnecessary or intermediate goods, the entire culture based on demand stimulation and promotion of a voluptuous life style will be gradually replaced by one which emphasizes quality of life including adequate health care, healthy and nutritional food for all, outdoor games and healthy recreation, care of the aged and the disabled, and promotion of arts and crafts.

As villages become self reliant in resource use, as quality of life in villages is enhanced, the supply of resources to cities (enjoying top priority today) will be reduced putting a stop to today's unending urban growth. It may even result in reverse migration, from urban to rural areas.

Lastly a word about the necessity of globalization, integrating Indian economy with the emerging world order. Ideally this paradigm also needs to change.

India's location in the world is unique, a fact appreciated by travelers who crisscrossed India from east and west since ancient times. The result is high biodiversity and resource availability. With their proper care and utilization, Indians can be self sufficient despite the population pressure. Globalization is sought by countries which are or have become poor in resources and biodiversity. They need resources to satisfy the needs to their pampered life style. They cannot survive without export and import: export of technology and weapons and import of natural resources. India however, can be quite selective in adopting globalization. We need technology and knowledge to bolster our security needs. We do not need technology and knowledge which guzzle resources and cater to individual ego (like expensive cars). On the other hand we can export knowledge based on the study of biodiversity such as their care and maintenance and innovative uses for medicine, as raw material etc.

In essence care and wise utilization of natural resources open up tremendous opportunities of employment, increase in purchasing power of the masses and enhancement of the quality of life in rural areas.