Text of my ‘When Worlds Collide’ column published in Ceylon Today Sunday newspaper on 30 September 2012
“Those who are crazy enough to believe they can change the world are the ones that do!” – Steve Jobs (1955-2011)
It will soon be one year since Apple’s co-founder and inventive genius departed in a hurry. There are many ways to remember him. I think of him as the quintessential maverick.
Indeed, he turned that personal quality into a core value at Apple. That was also the theme of a memorable advertising slogan – ‘Think Different’ – that boosted the company’s sagging image in 1997.
Jobs had just returned after 11 years in the ‘tech wilderness’. The campaign’s TV component, a commercial named “The Crazy Ones”, saluted notable mavericks through history.
The commercial, entirely in black-and-white, featured 17 iconic personalities –including Albert Einstein, Mahatma Gandhi, Buckminster Fuller, Thomas Edison…
In this week’s Ravaya column (in Sinhala), published on 30 September 2012, I discuss how to nurture a culture of innovation in Sri Lanka — a topic that I’ve been writing and talking about for over two decades.
On the eve of the first major national exhibition of inventions, I discuss the role of Sri Lanka Inventors’ Commission (SLIC), state agency mandated to promote innovation, and talk to its head, Deepal Sooriyaarachchi.
I revive a question first asked when Apple co-founder Steve Jobs departed one year ago: how do we nurture innovation in our kind of conformist and hierarchical societies don’t give mavericks a fleeting chance. Our cultures instead suppress individualism and iconoclasts. What is to be done?
Sahasak Nimawum: Sri Lanka’s national exhibition of inventions and inventors
Despite the recent International Year of Chemistry (2011), chemicals don’t get good press in Sri Lanka. If at all they make it to the news, or become a current affairs topic, that is usually as a bad story: a chemical spill, water contamination or suspected pesticide residues in our food.
All these happen, and we should be concerned. But chemicals are everywhere in our modern lives — reducing drudgery, protecting us from disease and overall improving the quality of life. It’s all a question of balancing risks with benefits. Also discerning what we really need as opposed to what we want.
Focusing on bad news is the media’s typical approach, and demonising science and technology is common in many sections of our print and broadcast media. Such posturing also fits well into the prevailing narrative of the ‘whole world being out to undermine, destabilise and destroy us’. So chemical industries must be part of that ‘conspiracy’, no?
Many of Lanka’s environmental activists don’t allow facts and analysis to get in the way of a good scare story. Uncritical journalists and their editors often peddle their half-baked arguments and conspiracy theories unsupported by any evidence. Very few scientists speak out for science and reason.
So when the Centre for Environmental Justice (CEJ), a moderate advocacy group, invited me to talk to a group of journalists and broadcasters at a media workshop, I welcomed the opportunity.
I based my talk on five scientists each of who took on once-revered chemicals and formidable industry interests, all in the public interest. By showcasing these champions of public science, I wanted to show that there are honest, diligent scientists who engage in evidence-based advocacy. Not all scientists are part of some global conspiracy to poison us…
The five are those who worked tirelessly and left their mark in their discipline, and in how we look at chemical and environmental management: Rachel Carson (1907 – 1964) Alice Hamilton (1869 – 1970) Sherwood Rowland (1927 – 2012) Theo Colborn (1927 – ) Anil Agarwal (1947 – 2002)
I ended by urging journalists to look for credible and moderate scientists who are led by evidence, not conjecture or prejudice. Amplifying their voices is something we in the media are well positioned to do, but don’t do nearly enough.
Presentation to Media workshop on scientific reporting on chemical issues, organised by Centre for Environmental Justice in Colombo, 25 September 2012:
Nalaka Gunawardene, photo by Sarath Kumara“Question, When At Crossroads”
With that title, Ceylon Today on Sunday 23 September 2012 carries a profile of my new Sinhala language book, Sivu Mansala Kolu Getaya (SMKG for short).
The article is written by Yashasvi Kannangara based on an interview with myself, and her reading of the book that came out last week.
A recurrent theme in SMKG is my interest in Sri Lanka’s ‘Children of ’77’ — the generation who were born after the economy was liberalised in 1977 which, in turn, ushered in radical changes in our society, culture and media. So I’m intrigued to be profiled by a member of that very generation, @YashasviK!
Here’s an excerpt, where she quotes me directly:
“I studied in the Sinhala medium, but with effort became bilingual and began writing in English. For the past 20 years, I have written in English, so it was not easy to begin writing in Sinhala again. Even though I have training and an educational background in Sinhala, when I made a comeback in 2011, I had to find my feet in a world of Sinhala writing and communication, my style of writing is essentially conversational Sinhala. In a sense, with this column, I have come back home. The last time I wrote in Sinhala was in another century and in what now feels like another country!”
Text of my ‘When Worlds Collide’ column published in Ceylon Today Sunday newspaper on 23 September 2012
“Why don’t the greenhouse gases escape through the Ozone Hole?”
The misperception of the TV viewer in this cartoon (which first appeared in the Akron Beacon Journal in Ohio, United States, a few years ago) is more common that you’d imagine.
In recent years, as climate change rose up in the news agenda and the public’s concerns, I have met many people – from different educational and cultural backgrounds – who confused or conflated the two issues.
I once listened to a senior Lankan civil servant saying in a public speech that the ozone hole was “letting in the Sun’s heat that, in turn, was warming up our atmosphere”. He could have been forgiven – but as the then head of our environmental agency, he should have known better.
This is the text of my (Sinhala language) column in Ravaya newspaper of 23 September 2012. I review two new books, both of much public interest, and written by two senior professionals who have been passionately committed to public safety for decades.
Protect Your Child from Injury (in Sinhala) is written by Dr Wijaya Godakumbura, while Traffic Signs, Road Markings and Traffic Signals is authored by T Perinpanayagam, a retired senior police officer.
T Perinpanayagam (left) and Dr Wijaya Godakumbura: Life-long commitment to safety
මේ සාහිත්ය මාසයයි. කොළඹ පොත් ප්රදර්ශනය පැවැත්වෙන සතියයි. මේ නිසා මෑතදී මට හමුවූ පොත් දෙකක් ගැන අද කථා කරනවා.
Text of my article that appears in Ceylon Today newspaper, on 20 September 2012
Ozone Friendly Logo adorns Ceylon Tea packaging – photo by Nalaka Gunawardene
On 21 September 2012, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) will honour Sri Lanka for its long standing commitment to preserving the ozone layer.
At a special ceremony at Jana Kala Kendraya (Folk Art Centre) in Battaramulla, a global plaque is to be presented to the Speaker of Parliament and Minister of Environment by Marco Gonzalez, Executive Secretary of UNEP’s Ozone Secretariat.
This is one of six events worldwide to mark the 25th anniversary of the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer — the world’s most widely subscribed international law.
Since it signed and ratified the Montreal Protocol in 1989, Sri Lanka has been active on several fronts to phase out various industrial and agricultural chemicals that damage the ozone layer – a natural occurring atmospheric phenomenon that protects all life from the Sun’s ultraviolet rays.
Among the many accomplishments is introducing the world’s first ozone friendly tea. The May 2011 launch of ‘Ozone Friendly Pure Ceylon Tea’ logo highlighted a remarkable success story of a developing country complying with a global environmental treaty while also enhancing a major export industry.
The logo is already displayed by many Ceylon Tea manufacturers and distributors. It marks another value addition to the island’s best known export product, an industry worth US Dollars 1.5 billion a year.
The logo reminds Ceylon Tea drinkers worldwide that their favourite ‘cuppa’ has been produced without harming the Ozone Layer. That means our tea is growing without any Methyl Bromide on tea plantations. Instead, ozone-friendly substitutes are now used as fumigants to protect tea bushes from pest attacks, particularly the nematodes (roundworms).
The Montreal Protocol requires all Methyl Bromide use to end by 1 January 2015 (except in emergency situations and quarantine purposes). Sri Lanka got there ahead of schedule.
“Sri Lanka is renowned for its creative activities to raise public awareness on ozone layer protection. The Ozone-Friendly Ceylon Tea logo is another significant achievement of Sri Lanka,” says Atul Bagai, Senior Regional Coordinator of UNEP’s OzonAction team based in Bangkok, Thailand.
He sees multiple benefits from this branding exercise: “Considering the worldwide popularity of Ceylon Tea, this initiative will greatly contribute to the global efforts to protect the ozone layer.”
Searching for Substitutes
It took many years and involved collaboration between government agencies, private companies, scientists and the international community.
Producing Ceylon Tea — known for its distinctive and diverse range of flavours — is as much an art as it’s a science. In recent years, Sri Lanka’s tea industry has modernised manufacturing, distribution and marketing. It has also responded to rising consumer expectations and regulatory requirements in export markets.
The Sri Lanka Tea Board believes that ‘Ozone Friendly’ status could give a competitive advantage for Ceylon Tea at a time when ethically and environmentally responsible products are gaining markets around the world.
Methyl Bromide, also known as Bromo-methane, is a colourless, odourless and highly toxic gas at normal temperatures and pressures. It has been widely used in agriculture since the 1930s to fumigate the soil against weeds, harmful insects and worms. It is a versatile pesticide that works against various creatures that attack crops both in the field and at storage.
UNEP says alternatives have been identified for most Methyl Bromide applications. These include using other chemicals, as well as non-chemical measures such as solarisation, exposure to steam or hot water, and crop rotation.
The National Ozone Unit of the Ministry of Environment initiated action to phase out Methyl Bromide in tea plantations over a dozen years ago. The Tea Research Institute (TRI), working with tea plantation companies, found some environmentally friendly alternatives. The Registrar of Pesticides, the state regulator for all agro-chemicals, was also consulted.
In fact, the search for substitutes started in the mid 1990s when the Ministry of Environment alerted the TRI about on-going discussions at Montreal Protocol meetings about controlling Methyl Bromide.
Perceptive officials realised how the highly technical discussions being held in far away places could one day affect how Ceylon Tea was grown and marketed.
Dr Janaka Ratnasiri, then head of the Ministry’s Montreal Protocol Unit, recalls negotiations at Montreal Protocol meetings in the late 1990s. “We had to persuade other countries to get tea included in the list of crops eligible for research funding to eliminate Methyl Bromide. Initially only five other crops – grown mainly in the west – were on that list.”
To make matters more difficult, no other tea-growing country was using this chemical. But his ‘scientific diplomacy’ worked, and Sri Lanka’s case to add tea to the crop list was accepted.
In 1995, the TRI responded with a proposal to research for substitutes. Initial funding support came from the Norwegian aid agency NORAD. The Multilateral Fund of the Montreal Protocol, set up to assist developing countries in protecting ozone, helped continue that research and field testing.
“TRI scientists, led by Ms Sushila Vitarana, worked with meagre sums of money and came out with several recommendations for adoption by the tea plantations,” says Dr Ratnasiri.
Many Hands, One Aim
During the past few years, all Sri Lankan tea plantations – large and small – have gradually introduced substitutes to Methyl Bromide. For example, plantations owned by Sri Lanka’s Dilmah Tea, among the top five global tea brands, have switched to using Basamid-Granular for soil fumigation.
“Although the new methodology is cumbersome, our plantations have adopted it unreservedly in order to reduce the damage to ozone layer,” says Dilhan C Fernando, marketing director of Dilmah Tea.
It was the partnership between policy makers, researchers, tea plantation companies and the development donors that enabled the Sri Lankan tea industry to wean itself from a decades-long dependence on a trusted chemical.
Janaka Gunawardana, Director of the National Ozone Unit with ozone friendly Ceylon Tea“This is a good example of public-private partnership (PPP),” says Janaka Gunawardana, Director of the National Ozone Unit. “It was with the support from the private sector tea plantation companies that Sri Lanka was able to eliminate Methyl Bromide use. And now, we are using this environmentally responsible conduct to enhance the brand value of Ceylon Tea worldwide.”
“Public-private partnerships are very helpful in implementing international treaties such as the Montreal Protocol,” says Gunawardana. “They can be challenging at times, but we want to build up more collaborations with the private sector.”
The Tea Board aims to have all tea exports displaying the ozone friendly logo by end 2012.
“All tea grown in Sri Lanka is now 100% ozone-friendly. This is a distinction of which no other tea-producing nation can boast,” says the Tea Board website, www.pureceylontea.com.
It adds: “When you reach for a cup of Ceylon Tea, you’re not just refreshing yourself; you’re also helping refresh and renew an environmental resource critically important to all life on Earth.”
Sivu Mansala Kolu Getaya book cover: A Ravaya Publication
PROMOTIONAL NOTE FOR MY NEW BOOK IN SINHALA:
Colombo, Sri Lanka; 18 September 2012:
Science writer Nalaka Gunawardene’s new Sinhala book, Sivu Mansala Kolu Getaya (සිවුමංසල කොලූ ගැටයා), is being launched at the Colombo International Book Fair that runs from 18 to 26 September 2012.
A Ravaya Publication, the book is an edited collection of his weekly Sinhala columns by the same name, contributed to the Ravaya Sunday broadsheet newspaper in Sri Lanka during 2011.
Beginning in February 2011, Nalaka has sustained a column that touches on many and varied topics related to popular science, human development, mass media and information society. The book compiles 44 of these columns.
“The title is of my column is derived from its particular scope and angle. I stand at the intersection (or confluence) of science, development, media and culture. Once there, I often play the role of that cheeky lad who asked difficult questions, and once pointed out the Emperor(s) had nothing on when all others were either too polite or too scared to say so,” Nalaka says.
He calls the book a personalised exploration of how Sri Lanka can cope with many challenges of globalisation and modernisation. Nalaka writes in conversational Sinhala, rich in metaphor and analogy, and drawing on his own wide experiences as a journalist, filmmaker and development communicator. He often mixes the big picture level analysis (bird’s eye view) with ground level reality checks (toad’s eye view).
“I like to ‘zoom in’ and ‘zoom out’ when discussing topics as diverse as coping with HIV/AIDS, nurturing innovation, regulating the Internet, tackling climate change or farming without costing the Earth,” he says. “I do so with an open mind and sense of wonder. I have no particular ideology to promote and no sacred cows to protect!”
He adds: “As a journalist, I was trained to look for what’s New, True and Interesting (‘NTI Test’). Early on in my career, I went beyond simply reporting events, and probed the underlying causes and processes. With those insights, I can now offer my readers perspectives and seasoned opinion. These are much needed today as we swim through massive volumes of information, trying to stay afloat and make sense of it all.”
The book marks Nalaka’s return to Sinhala writing after an absence of two decades during which he communicated mostly in English to various international audiences. “In a sense, with this column I have come back home. The last time I wrote in Sinhala was in another century, and in what now feels like another country!” he says.
Text of my ‘When Worlds Collide’ column published in Ceylon Today Sunday newspaper on 16 September 2012
Today, 16 September, is observed worldwide as the International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer. The theme this year is “Protecting our atmosphere for generations to come”.
This legally binding international treaty has now been ratified by 196 states (including Sri Lanka) as well as the European Union. With such universal ratification, it is the world’s most widely subscribed international law.
It is an extraordinary success story of governments, experts and ordinary people coming together and acting resolutely to protect all life on Earth from the Sun’s harmful ultraviolet rays.
In a quarter century, it has rallied governments and industries in…
Open Minds! (formerly: Moving Images blog) 