Riku’s Comments (group member since Oct 13, 2013)

Riku’s comments from the The Transition Movement group.

Ted wrote: "Last night saw DiCaprio's film about global warming, Before the Flood. It's available for free streaming here http://channel.nationalgeographic.com... (don't know for how long).

Th..."

Thanks! Watching tonight

Ted wrote: "Caroline wrote: "And this morning in The Guardian we learn that 40,000 people marched in London yesterday...

http://www.theguardian.com/environmen......"

You're back! Pls do post a piece about the experience. We need the hope.

Bit late, but on it now. Will try to catch up and discuss.

India's budget this year allocates 8500 kms of new highways.

While admitting the absolute necessity of roads for a developing country, how can we proceed in a more ecologically-oriented discussion on future planning?

Is it viable to argue for rails over roads (say rails for long distance transport and roads for last-mile-connectivity)?

Or do we have to just accept that the roads have keep growing and vast stretches of barren-land criss-crossing the country is just something to be accepted?

Any suggestions on how to direct such a debate towards something practicable would be appreciated guys.

I think I will also try to cross-post this in some relevant review thread.

The whole course is allowed upto a month and a half or so to finish, so yes multiple lectures. Thanks for the links, Ted. I am looking through them now. Really appreciate your interest! I am also thinking of structuring a few talks around certain books, but that has to come after the basics (also because I have to maintain a connection with their academic stuff).

Ted wrote: "By the way, what's the age of the students you think you will be talking to?"

Thanks Ted, I will also take a look at those chapters. They would be mostly final year engineering/science/humanities students, so very early twenties. I want to try and talk to an even younger crowd but nothing has materialized yet. The main focus is to give them a good grounding on the scientific basics of environmentalism -- to show that the emotional appeal is coming from very strong incontrovertible principles.

Here is my 2 cents of bugging.

How to structure a course on environment and sustainability

Hi all, I am going to be lecturing on Environment, Ecology & Sustainability at a few campuses in my area from next week on. This is going to be a non-formal, interest based thing, mostly.

I am trying to put together an interesting course structure that covers the basics and yet connects to the daily life of the students and generates some passion in them. Initial lectures would be focusing on the ecological basics, the mechanism of co-evolution, etc. and then move on to bigger things...

Any suggestions/leads/advice from experience etc. would be welcome. Thanks!

Ted wrote: "You need to understand that fracking is a very big deal in the area I live in right now. So it's become a more urgent issue here, and not so much one of "global theoretical" interest.

I'm going fo..."

I am sorry if I got you upset! But I am sure you appreciate the value of a theoretical discussion too. You need to beat The Economist to win! :)

Ted wrote: ""--- all this might lead to a situation where America becomes a majpor oil supplier and being a well-regulated country also contains its bad effects to a point."

Under the very best assumptions, t..."

I agree, Ted. I just thought it was an interesting perspective to discuss. I had not thought of it before I came across this edition of the magazine.

Ted wrote: "Riku wrote: "And the focus is on geopolitics... would love your opinion on that. We might have less wars + less environmental ravages in less regulated countries? Overall positive?"

I'm not sure I..."

Don't get me wrong, Ted. I am just looking at the article on its own terms. It basically assumes that the env effects can be contained and goes on to talk o the geopolitical effects.

If "A world in which the leading petrostate is a liberal democracy has much to recommend it." is true,

then we might see less of the 'resource curse' and resultant wars and destabilisations.

africa, middle-east, etc might find less funding for weapons and less interference

the dictatorial regimes might find that they cannot bank on easy money

more selfishly, pakistan might find no money for terrorism (!)

companies will have less incentive to go hunting for easier grounds where less well-regulated regimes help them rape the natural bounty


--- all this might lead to a situation where America becomes a majpor oil supplier and being a well-regulated country also contains its bad effects to a point.

Extrapolating so much and stopping there would be a good recommendation for fracking?

I would however go further - if America makes fracking universally acceptable, we will end up exporting the tech without the regulation and soon the rest of the world would be addicted too.

So yes, a few short term gains might be there. In the long term it is still iffy. That is my take on the article and its follow-ups

And the focus is on geopolitics... would love your opinion on that. We might have less wars + less environmental ravages in less regulated countries? Overall positive?

Ted, it is more than just an article. It was the lead article for that edition. See of you can get a copy. There were some 4 odd articles on fracking in all. I think you should find most defenses there.

Ted, Elisabeth

just wanted to share a recent Economist article here. It says: A world in which the leading petrostate is a liberal democracy has much to recommend it.

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders...

I will come back to this in a while, Ted.

Ted wrote: "Riku, this is the content of an email that another friend sent me when I sent your questions to Elisabeth and two others. (She can no doubt guess who mailed back this response to me.)

============..."

Thank, Ted. He is right - google searching throws up mostly BS, and very opinionated BS.

I will go through those sites to get at some research and post back when I do.

Elisabeth wrote: "Riku, it's hard to have a longterm study when this sort of fracking (horizontal and with lots of toxic chemicals and millions of gallons of water)is relatively new. Scientists (and doctors) are try..."

Thanks, Elisabeth. I can see that I need to learn a lot more about it. As Ted says, the political motivations of the press decides our everyday education...

and any longitudinal (multi-year) impact measurements?

Ted wrote: "Elisabeth is a local activist here in central Maryland. We were both at the anti-Cove Point/anti-fracking rally in Baltimore on Thursday. It's really a hideous project, but of course the fossil fue..."

could you point me to any unbiased impact studies in the US? Newspapers in India are pretending as if US has solved everything with fracking tech.

Elisabeth wrote: "As the Whos in Whoville would say: We are here! We are here!
I read a lot of Ted's commentaries on the chapters...So I encourage Riku to post his review here."

Here you go, Elisabeth: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Hope you find it useful.