The Great Bamboo Story

a trash-covered creek in Manila, Philippines, where slums often adjoin rubbish dumps. The country's poorest sift through the garbage to find discarded objects they can sell on or re-use, or even scraps of food to eat.

How long until we realize that we are sitting on a chair with a bamboo growing under our @ss and when it’s time to move out, it’s too late ‘coz you are freaking stuck to the chair and the bamboo continues to grow, unperturbed about what it’s going to touch. It will continue to grow with a lot of force: Like it fu*&ing has a brain.

But, we do.

So what are you doing, as an individual to combat climate change, fight Global Warming and prevent it’s ill-affects? Celebrate another “world environment day” until the bamboo … do I need to mention !

There’s a small story I want to tell you.. the wash room at my work place has a paper-napkin vending machine. You don’t need to drop in a coin to get paper… but just pull it out, wipe your hands and throw it in the bin. Why can’t these guys, bloody carry a handkerchief? I didn’t care to ask them. I dont’ want to educate, “educated” people. Nature help these “educated” people; I don’t think it cares. It must be happy that it will get rid of us.

Now getting back to the Great Bamboo Story, if it begins to hurt.. .. dude… I will move the chair.

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I am Vaibhav Dugar

I cried when i was born and many smiled. It’s said that a baby cries when it enters into the world. The sound of the world is disturbing to his ears compared to the sweet, comforting sound of his Mothers heart beat. Then the saga unfolds of stories being told, difference between the right and wrong, religion and faith, et al. But I was never told bout dreams. The word “Dreams” is an amazing discovery. Without such a word how will one have foresights, goals, fantasies, hope?

I dreamt of being a saint when i was 11. We were studying about religions then. Jainism and Buddhism fascinated me; which eventually earned me a nickname in St Pauls, ‘saddhu‘. A year later, physics enthralled me. I got down making motor boats, vacuum cleaners, lifts, models of aero planes and jets. I loved my name then, kinda Hollywooddy, ‘Mad Professor Dugar‘. My love for Physics sprouted into my dream of becoming an engineer and later taking up a profession in the marketing line. But in all these years, there was a dream, a constant dream in my sub-conscious mind, a dream to do something for the cause of the environment.

Last year i founded ek titli, Experimented by sending money to people to plant trees. It didn’t work. This year, I took it a step further. A few of my friends and i distributed potted plants for free at a multiplex in Pune [for details, please click here]. This was basically to test the waters. I wanted to understand how serious the recipients were about plants, about global warming. They were serious. There were many who were willing to help us and support us for the forthcoming activities. We took it as an achievement and pride. It was very encouraging for us, very encouraging for me. My obscure dreams were getting clearer and defined. A dream of clean roads, clean cities. A dream of purity in air, purity in water. A dream of green technologies and green energy. A dream where we will all be self sufficient. Everything will be recyclable and renewable.

It’s said that if you want something, shoot it to the universe and the universe gives it to you. So here are my visions for ek titli:

1. A company dedicated only to the betterment of the environment.
2. Educating children on the impacts of global warming and how they can make a difference.
3. Increasing greenery in towns and villages in every possible way.
4. Building an “all natural township”. Also considering adopting a village/town/city where every form of energy used is naturally acquired. Either through Solar, bio gas, wind, etc.

A couple of people have shown their enthusiasm and interest. Meanwhile Bhavik and me are getting the website ready and looking for details on registering the name. We plan to take the free distribution of potted plants further, Do it at multiple locations and cities so that the importance and urgency can be felt by one and all. If you would like to be of any help do mail me at vaibhav {at} ektitli {dot} org

Unitl then, I’ll work towards building my dream ‘coz I believe that The titli needs a tree, the titli will survive.
 

links:   ektitli.org | Event Blog | Event Pictures | FaceBook Group

I’ve realized that

• If you can’t stand up for yourself then you can’t stand up for anyone else.
• If you can’t control your mind, you can’t control your life
• If you can’t be true to yourself, you won’t be true to anyone else.
• If you have a million thoughts at the same time, you’ll have your hands in too many things at any point of time.
• If you can’t keep yourself happy; you won’t keep anyone happy.

Mumbai – No Honking Day

Mumbai witnessed it’s first “No Honking Day” yesterday and it was successful. The effect of the “No Honking day” also brought more discipline into the roads, from both the drivers and the pedestrians. There was no lane cutting, no rash driving, no unnecessary honking and no pesky pedestrians.

Mumbai has also seen another successful campaign. It was the “Mumbai Un-plug” campaign. Citizens were requested to switch off all electricity appliances for an hour on this particular day.

Seeing two successful awareness campaigns happening in the city, can trigger more awareness drives. I am listing a few down, which I believe will be as successful as the others.

• No ‘peeing’ day: There’s not a single wall in the city that can boast that ‘I haven’t been ‘pee-ed’ upon!‘
• No spitting day: ditto
• Walk on footpaths day: But for that, we need to get rid of all the hawkers, vendors, garbage who happily call these footpaths their homes.
• No Newspaper day: I am sure this will be a pain for so many people who rely on the newspaper first thing in the morning. It helps them drink their morning tea, finish with the loo, etc but above all it will help the environment. So many Trees will survive.
• No Smoking day: If this actually happens, many Mumbaikars will die of hypertension and stress!mu Many believe that Smoking is the best way to kill tension, stress, viz.
• No email day: If this happens (why should it?), it will be back to the “Morse Code” days.
• Say Hi with a smile day: Mumbai is one of the loneliest cities to live in. Saying Hi with a smile to a stranger will make so much of a difference to this reputation that Mumbai has earned.

Mumbai Unplug – How does it matter?

The Batti Bandh or the Mumbai Unplug campaign has been a success, even if 10-20% of the Mumbai population participated. I am sure that the figures will be different if this campaign is done again in the future. It only shows that people are interested and want to help in combating Global Warming, because agree or disagree we are causing it.

The remainder either weren’t aware of such a movement (where on the 15th of December, all electrical appliances and consumers had to be switched off from 7:30 pm IST for an hour) or they had this to say, “How Does it Matter?”

Such people are apprehensive because we humans are always pessimistic about a change or trying something new.

Humans believe that they always need a leader to perform a show, it talks about our dependency. It’s sad to say that they/we have forgotten the power of ‘I’
For the fight against Global Warming we don’t need leaders, we need ‘I’s. It has to be you, me and our contemporaries joining hands not to follow someone but working together to fight it.

You may be the one who said, “How does it Matter?” but remember it’s the thought that matters because a thought becomes a habit; a habit becomes your nature; a nature your character. And it’s this character that creates Revolutions.
So, don’t kill the thought by saying “How does it matter?”

Related Tags : mumbai unplug batti bandh global warming mumbai

This Post got featured in Mumbai Mirror on the 17th of December.
[To view the epaper of the article click here, to see the article on Mumbai Mirror.com, click here]
Thankyou

Happy Earth Day

Finally todays Sunday Times has something to write about;

• Will males get redundant ?

It seems so, probably in another 1,25,000 years as Dr. Bryan Sykes (Dr. DNA) postulates it to be. Due to the deterioration of the Y chromosome (the male chromosome) and researchers and scientists able to successfully create the male sperm, the need for a male will only be subjected to ‘personalized toys’.
This means that the ancient Indian art of Kamasutra will only be ‘affordable’ for a privileged few.
And also that the society will comprise of only three kinds of people: In the minorities we have the ‘personalized toys’ and ‘women who were men’ and in the majority, Women (Wo-Man : the new super hero).

But fear not oh brave men, the way by which we are degrading the environment this world won’t last even one-thousandth of the years that Dr. Dna has predicted and to solve this “little” problem of ours… read on !

• It Pays to Go Green

We all have heard of Global Warming and are well aware of the problems that we are facing in our day to day lives due to the impact of this man-made creation. But what about the solutions to counter the growing and disturbing circumstances that we have to live in.

One such solution is bringing down the emissions.
Emissions can be brought down by two means. One can either tweak existing technology to make it more energy efficient or else completely replace the existing technology with a cleaner one. But undertaking such conversions on a large scale demand a lot of capital investment. Hence, the world community came up with a novel market-based plan called the Clean Development Mechanism or CDM also known as Carbon Trading.

An industry in the developed world, which has a target to reduce emissions from its production process, would fund the conversion of an industry in the developing world (at a cheaper rate of course) and take credit for the carbon dioxide saved. A win-win, as the industry often mentions. The developing world would get cleaner technologies, the rich countries would meet their targets and the world would be a colder place.

The measure of improvement would be the tonnes of carbon dioxide not released. And for each tonne of carbon dioxide that any developing world industry saves by changing or tweaking its production, the UN body on climate change gives a certificate called Certified Emissions Reductions (CER). The company can then sell this certificate to any entity from the developed world which has targets to meet at a mutually agreeable price. The developed world entity gets to offset its targets against the certificate. To be pithy, a market to trade in carbon is what CDM is.
Indian enterprises have already committed investment to generate more than 379 million CERs. Worldwide investments have been made that will generate 1.9 billion CERs by 2012. These investments would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 1.9 billion tonnes. Indian CERs are selling in the international markets right now at a range of 5-10 dollars each which are priced lower than some other countries.

So, oh humble human beings, I call upon thee to take the initiative to transform the world into a cleaner and a greener place because it’s not everyday that the world pays you, and pays you well, to come clean.

source : http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1935746.cms

To download a step by step guide to how you can be a part of the energy [r]evolution, click here

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