The Brave Pedestrian

"There is enough on Earth to satisfy every man's need, but not enough to satisfy even one man's greed." We need to keep this thought at the centre-pinning -- the hub around which we build our lives. We are historically in a period when wants and comforts are confused with needs. Thanks to many decades of relentless industrial development and advertising, our psychology and culture is one of Endless Consumption and Insatiability. Please let us take perspective: Each modern middle-class individual enjoys the level of comfort that was not available even to kings and aristocrats less than one century earlier. What do we take for granted today? Instant atmosphere-modification Instant personalized communication Rapid personalized transportation Endless variety of entertainment options Endless variety of foods and beverages Endless supply and variety of clothing & personal possessions Elimination of need for manual labour and repetitive task...

November 7, 2007: I’m thrilled at the amount of awareness and concern there is on the issue of Global Warming. And I am delighted that Al Gore and Dr R K Pachauri won the Nobel Prize, as they have brought an enormous amount of global awareness to this cause with the movie,  An Inconvenient Truth,  and the IPCC’s report. However, I’m also alarmed at how much our thinking gets tripped up by petty technicalities, political ideologies and ego tussles. Some of us seem to believe that this entire Global Warming thing is a scare, a shibboleth, an urban myth motivated by faulty science, bad politicians, crackpot activists and sloppy journalists who don’t check their facts.   This particular post is not intended for people who hold this opinion. This post is intended for those who believe that our collective burning of  hydrocarbon fuels has brought us to a grave situation, and are wondering what mitigating responses would make a meaningful difference without be...