The story goes like this. Victor Hugo was travelling out of town and wanted to know how his latest book was selling. He messaged (telegraphed?) his agent: ?
The agent, not to be outdone, replied: !
Enough said. How I wish I could beat that economy of words…
I have a fondness for both question marks and exclamation marks — I used a good deal of both in my own speaking and writing. I use these as a metaphor in a tribute I just wrote about one of my mentors: Ray Wijewardene.
“If I had to condense the multi-faceted and fascinating life of Ray Wijewardene, I would reduce it to a whole lot of question marks and exclamation marks. In his 86 years, Ray generated more than his fair share of both.
“He was unpigeonholeable: engineer, farmer, inventor, aviator and sportsman all rolled into one. Whether at work or play, he was an innovative thinker who rose above his culture and training to grasp the bigger picture.”
Wangari Muta Maathai (1 April 1940 – 25 September 2011)
“We are very fond of blaming the poor for destroying the environment. But often it is the powerful, including governments, that are responsible.”
That was a typical remark by Wangari Muta Maathai, the Kenyan environmental and political activist who has just died.
In the 1970s, Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement, an environmental non-governmental organisation focused on the planting of trees, environmental conservation, and women’s rights.
In 2004, she became the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for “her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace.”
The Green Belt Movement in a profile about their founder counted the many roles she played: environmentalist; scientist; parliamentarian; founder of the Green Belt Movement; advocate for social justice, human rights, and democracy; elder; and Nobel Peace Laureate.
“”It is the people who must save the environment. It is the people who must make their leaders change. And we cannot be intimidated. So we must stand up for what we believe in,” Wangari Maathai kept saying.
As a tribute, I have assembled a few links to interesting online videos featuring her.
Taking Root, a long format documentary, tells the dramatic story of Wangari Maathai whose simple act of planting trees grew into a nationwide movement to safeguard the environment, protect human rights, and defend democracy—a movement for which this charismatic woman became an iconic inspiration.
TAKING ROOT: The Vision of Wangari Maathai Trailer on PBS YouTube channel:
Wangari Maathai & The Green Belt Movement, short film by StridesinDevelopment:
Riz Khan’s One on One: Wangari Maathai: Part 1
Interview with Al Jazeera English first broadcast on 19 Jan 2008
“I will be a hummingbird” – Wangari Maathai
Two more memorable quotes from her to inspire us all:
“I have always believed that, no matter how dark the cloud, there is always a thin, silver lining, and that is what we must look for.”
“We cannot tire or give up. We owe it to the present and future generations of all species to rise up and walk!”
My weekly column on science, development and media, published in Ravaya newspaper on 28 August 2011 (converted into unicode Sinhala font using UCSC online facility, which has some limitations).
In this Ravaya column (in Sinhala), I summarise the views of late Dr Ray Wijewardene on sustainable farming. Written to mark his first death anniversary, it is the beginning of a series of explorations of his critical thinking on issues of agriculture, energy, environmental conservation and innovation.
This first appeared in Ravaya Sunday broadsheet newspaper on 21 August 2011.
When it comes to climate change, we're all Maldivians!President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives is an articulate, passionate climate witness on behalf of his endangered island nation of 350,000 people. The technocratic and amiable President is one of the youngest heads of state in the world today. The one-time freelance journalist (who worked with and for various media when he was in political exile) remains very accessible to the international media. He knows the power of old and new media — and how to leverage it for his cause.
I admit to being a Nasheed fan. During the past couple of years, I have blogged about, interviewed and made a short film about President Nasheed. In the less than three years he has been in office, he has faced more than his fair share of economic and political challenges at home, but he has never lost sight of the long-term, bigger issue of climate change advocacy.
And now, his global status as the ‘rock star of climate change’ is enhanced by ‘The Island President’, a 90-minute, feature-style major documentary about him produced by a leading American production company, Actual Films. The film is to be released this summer at various film festivals. I can’t wait to catch it.
The Island President has been in the making for nearly two years. The film makers had exclusive access to the President both in his island nation and on his international travels.
The Island President: Official Trailer
The official Synopsis reads: “The Island President is a a dramatic feature documentary that lifts the issue of global warming out of the theoretical and into the personal. President Mohamed Nasheed is trying to save 385,000 people from drowning. His nation of 1,200 low-lying islands, the Maldives, is sinking into the Indian Ocean as sea levels rise due to global warming.
“With a young, charismatic South Asian leader updating a role once played by Jimmy Stewart, The Island President is like a non-fiction Mr. Smith Goes to Washington elevated to the world stage. Actual Films has secured exclusive access to follow President Nasheed as he prepares over the coming months for the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Summit in December. The terms of the 1997 Kyoto Treaty on Climate Change are about to expire, and leaders from around the world will converge on Copenhagen to hammer out a new treaty with renewed urgency. As the Danish Minister for Climate and Energy acknowledged, “the December days in Copenhagen in 2009 will be…a political thriller on an international scale.” The Summit will be an international showdown where President Nasheed will try to convince world leaders to finally take serious action against looming danger of climate change. The stakes couldn’t be higher-President Nasheed sees this as the last chance to save his homeland, and the world.”
The Island President is a co-production involving Actual Films, AFTERIMAGE PUBLIC MEDIA and the Independent Television Service (ITVS), with funding provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB).
In this Ravaya column, in Sinhala and printed in the Ravaya newspaper of 3 July 2011,
I point out that a certain speech said to be uttered by a native American chief is, in fact, a latter day script by a filmmaker.
Elephant Walk: Another century, another island - but casting its shadow on us?How can anyone review a film made nearly six decades ago — especially if its first release took place even before I was born? Well, there is only one way to find out – by just doing it.
I’ve just done it with Elephant Walk (103 mins, colour), released by Paramount Pictures in April 1954 — a dozen years before I was born on the same island (then Ceylon, now Sri Lanka) where the movie was set and filmed. In fact, this was among several that were shot on location in Ceylon in the 1950s when Hollywood studios ‘discovered’ the island as an exotic, relatively inexpensive and hassle-free location. But this is the only one whose story is actually set in Ceylon.
Elephant Walk was directed by William Dieterle, and based on the 1948 novel with the same title, written by “Robert Standish” — actually the pseudonym of English novelist Digby George Gerahty (1898-1981). It starred Elizabeth Taylor, Dana Andrews, Peter Finch and Abraham Sofaer.
One benefit of reviewing a film so long after its original release is that it allows the benefit of hindsight and perspective. I have exploited this to the full in my review cum op ed essay, titled Elephant Walk revisited: Mixing Tea, Jumbos and Monsoons, just published on Groundviews.org.
Here’s an excerpt:
“The movie has been remarkably prescient on several fronts, which can only be appreciated now — in another century, and on a wholly different island. A key theme of the movie was the human-elephant conflict, but passing references to social exclusion and rampant poverty in post-independent Ceylon are also of much interest.
“I doubt if Paramount’s writers were intentionally making any social commentary. One of the studio’s co-founders, Samuel Goldwyn, had famously cautioned against it. When asked about movies with a “message” some years earlier, he had replied, “If you want to send a message, use Western Union.”
“Nevertheless, the movie (and perhaps the book on which it is based, which I haven’t read) was contrasting the British planters’ opulent lifestyle with the forced austerity in post-War Britain. Even more striking is the poverty and squalor among the hundreds of resident workers whose sweat, toil — and occasional tears — ensured that the ‘cups that cheer’ were always brimming.”
The setting is exotic enough – I’m near some of the finest beaches and bluest seas in the world. It’s a cloudy day outside, with tropical sunshine interrupted by occasional showers. We’re just a few hundred kilometres north of the Equator.
But it’s whole different world inside the meeting room. We have no windows and are visually cut off from the scenery. And the air conditioning is too strong. Even the 50 or so people inside the room don’t emit enough body heat to counter the chill spilling out from the ceiling.
Paradise (resort) isn’t alone. Across tropical Asia, our public offices, hotels and shopping malls just love to freeze us out.
This habit has a particular irony at this meeting. Convened by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), it’s discussing how to stay cool without killing the planet.
To be precise, how air conditioning and refrigeration industries can continue their business – and keep cooling people and goods – without damaging the ozone layer or warming the planet.
It’s the semi-annual meeting of government officials from across Asia who help implement the Montreal Protocol to control and phase out several dozen industrial chemicals that damage the ozone layer in the upper atmosphere.
A nitpicker in Paradise? Photo by Darryl D'Monte
Adopted in 1987 and now ratified by 196 countries, it is the world’s most successful environmental treaty. It has reversed a catastrophic loss of ozone high up in the Earth’s atmosphere, and prevented tens of thousands of cases of skin cancer and cataract.
A landmark was reached at the end of 2009, when it succeeded in totally phasing out the production and use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) — chemicals that had helped the cooling industries for decades. Now, a bigger challenge remains: removing two other widely used gases known as HCFCs and HFCs.
Both were originally promoted as substitutes for CFCs in the early days of the Protocol. HCFCs are less ozone-damaging than CFCs, while HFCs are fully ozone-safe. However, both have a high global warming potential — up to 1,700 times that of Carbon dioxide — and therefore contribute to climate change.
It was only a few years ago that scientists and officials realized that there was little point in fixing one atmospheric problem if it aggravated another. So in 2007, the Montreal Protocol countries agreed to address the climate impacts of their work.
The Montreal Protocol now encourages the countries to promote the selection of alternatives to HCFCs that minimize environmental impacts, in particular impacts on climate change.
The air conditioning and refrigeration industries are being encouraged to switch from HCFC to substitutes ahead of the global phase-out deadline of 2030. Alternatives — including natural refrigerants such as ammonia, carbon dioxide, hydrocarbons — are entering the market for many applications.
Parallel to this, consumers are being encouraged to opt for newer appliances that are both ozone-safe and climate friendly.
It takes time and effort for this message to spread and take hold. Many users — especially in the developing countries — only consider the purchase price of appliances and not necessarily the long-term energy savings or planetary benefits.
Events like the first Asian Ozone2Climate Roadshow, held in the Maldivian capital Malé from 8 to 12 May 2011, are pushing for this clarity and awareness. It’s still an uphill task: too many people have to be won over on too many appliances using a wide range of chemicals and processes.
And sitting here at my freezing corner of Paradise, I feel we should add another message: conserving energy includes a more rational and sensible use of air conditioning.
Perhaps we should promote and adopt the Japanese practice of Cool Biz.
Introduced by the Japanese Ministry of Environment in the summer of 2005, the idea behind Cool Biz was simple: ensure the thermostat in all air conditioners stayed fixed at 28 degrees Centigrade.
CoolBiz LogoThat’s not exactly a very cool temperature (and certainly no freezing), but not unbearable either.
The Cool Biz dress code advised office workers to starch collars “so they stand up and to wear trousers made from materials that breathe and absorb moisture”. They were encouraged to wear short-sleeved shirts without jackets or ties.
A Cool Koizumi: Leading from the front...Then Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi himself set the tone, wearing informal attire. But then, he was already known for his unorthodox style.
Clothes designers and retailers chipped in, with clothes offering greater comfort at higher temperatures.
Cool Biz changed the Japanese work environment – and fast. I remember walking into a meeting at a government office in Tokyo a few weeks after the idea had been introduced, and finding I was the most formally dressed.
The Japanese like to count things. When the first season of Cool Biz ended, they calculated the countrywide campaign to have saved at least 460,000 tons of Carbon dioxide emissions (by avoided electricity use). That’s about the same emissions from a million Japanese households for a month.
The following year, an even more aggressive Cool Biz campaign helped save an estimated 1.14 million tons of Carbon dioxide – or two and half times more than in the first year.
The idea also traveled beyond Japan. In 2006, the South Korean Ministry of Environment and the British Trade Union Congress both endorsed the idea.
This summer, the seventh since Cool Biz started, there is an added reason for the Japanese to conserve energy. As the Asahi Shimbun reported on 28 April 2011: “In what has been dubbed the ‘power-conserving biz’ campaign, many companies plan to conserve energy during the peak summer period in light of expected power shortages caused by the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.”
Meanwhile, the rest of us freeze-happy tropical Asians can evolve our own Cool Biz practices – we don’t need to wait for governments and industry to launch organized campaigns.
For a start, we – as consumers or patrons – can urge those who maintain public-access buildings to observe voluntary upper limits of cooling. Sensitive thermostats can automatically adjust air conditioner operations when temperatures rise above a pre-determined comfortable level.
It all depends on how many of us pause to think. Of course, we can also continue business as usual – and freeze ourselves today for a warmer tomorrow.
The sun sets in Paradise too - photo by Nalaka Gunawardene
2nd LIRNEasia Disaster Risk Reduction Lecture, 27 April 2011 in Colombo: Nalaka Gunawardene (standing) moderates panel discussionWriting on 20 April 2011, exactly 25 years after the Kantale large dam breached and washed away downstream villages, I posed the question: “If there were to be a catastrophic dam failure in Sri Lanka today, is there a warning system in place to detect the failure and issue timely warnings? Have the downstream communities participated in evacuation drills and know what action needs to be taken when a warning is issued?”
I’ve been asking such questions for a while. In fact, the post-mortem of the Kantale dam breach was one of the bigger stories I covered soon after I entered mainstream journalism in late 1987. By then, a few months after the incident, a presidential commission of inquiry was looking into what caused that particular disaster.
My interest in this subject is perhaps inevitable. I live in a country that has a high concentration of man-made water bodies. There are approximately 320 large and medium sized dams in Sri Lanka, and over 10,000 smaller dams, referred to as “wewas”, most of them built more than 1,000 years ago. In fact, Sri Lanka probably has the highest number of man-made water bodies in the world. According to the Sri Lanka Wetlands Database, the major irrigation reservoirs (each more than 200 hectares) cover an area of 7,820 hectares, while the seasonal/minor irrigation tanks (each less than 200 hectares) account for 52,250 hectares. This adds up to 60,070 hectares or just over 600 square kilometres — nearly a tenth of the island’s total land area.
Lankans are justifiably proud of their ancient hydrological civilisation — but don’t take enough care of it. Nothing lasts forever, of course, but irrigation systems can serve for longer if properly maintained. In a world where extreme weather is becoming increasingly commonplace, we can’t afford to sit on 25 centuries of historical laurels. Unless we maintain the numerous dams and irrigation systems – most of which are still being used for farming – heritage can easily turn into hazard.
Cartoon from Daily Mirror, 20 Jan 2011As indeed happened in early 2011, when massive and successive floods lashed the country’s Dry Zone where most reservoirs are located. It was a strong reminder how dams and reservoirs not only attenuate the effects of heavy rains, but if breached, can magnify the effects of such rainfall.
More than 200 small dams did breach during those rains, causing extensive damage to crops and infrastructure. The most dangerous form of breach, the over-topping of the earthen dams of large reservoirs, was avoided only by timely measures taken by irrigation engineers — at considerable cost to those living downstream. This irrigation emergency was captured by a local cartoonist: the head in this caricature is that of the minister of irrigation.
In early February, Sri Lanka announced that it will expand its dam safety programme to cover more large reservoirs and will ask for additional funding from the World Bank following recent floods. Never mind the irony of a proud heritage now having to be maintained with internationally borrowed money. Public safety, not national vanity, comes first.
Bandula MahanamaThe main lecture was delivered by Dr Aad Correlje of the Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands. The response panel comprised Bandula Mahanama (a farmer organisation leader from one of the worst flood-affected areas in the Polonnaruwa District), S Karunaratne (Sri Lanka National Committee on Large Dams), Dr Kamal Laksiri (Ceylon Electricity Board) and U W L Chandradasa (Disaster Management Center). A summary is found on LIRNEasia’s blog.
Dams and irrigation systems are widely seen as the exclusive domain of civil engineers. They certainly have a critical role to play, but are not the only stakeholders. I was very glad that both our panel and audience included voices from many of these groups — especially the many communities who live immediately downstream of dams and reservoirs. Some of them are always in the shadow of a dam hazard, and yet helpless about it.
This was the gist of farmer leader Bandula Mahanama’s remarks – he made a passionate plea for a more concerted effort to improve proper maintenance of dams and reservoirs. “Wewas are part of our life, but right now our lives are in danger because the irrigation heritage is in a state of disrepair,” he noted.
I will write more about this in the coming weeks. My last thought from the chair was something I first heard many years ago in a global documentary. When it comes to water management, everybody lives downstream.
That’s certainly the case — but some are more downstream than others. And not everyone lives with the same peace of mind. We need to do something about it.
CSE TVEAP Media Briefing on Air Qualitry Issues in Colombo, 27 April 2011
Almost exactly four years ago, I wrote a blog post called Gasp! Asthma on the rise – and we made it all possible. I argued how we who suffer from Asthma — and our numbers keep increasing — are also contributing to making the bad problem worse.
I held up my life-saving inhaler that I always carry around wherever I go, and am never more than a few feet away from. This is not theatrics, but drama in real life. Almost exactly a year ago, I was rushed to hospital at night for nebulisation. I don’t suffer such attacks too often, thank goodness, but I also don’t want to take chances — as I can never count on good air in my home city.
And I’m far from being alone. Wherever I go, I find increasing numbers of fellow asthma sufferers: we gripe and groan, but only a few among us realise that our lifestyles, choices and apathy contributes to the worsening quality of our air.
Almost every South Asian city today is reeling under severe air pollution and gridlocked urban traffic congestion. Colombo, a medium sized city by South Asian standards, has the (slight) advantage of the sea breeze flushing out part of its polluted air — but Greater Colombo is still struggling with polluting fuels, outdated vehicle technologies and rising numbers of private vehicles leading to massive congestion. Air quality levels vary considerably as we travel to the interior of the island, but some provincial cities now have mounting air pollution problems.
Finding the 'Common Air' in everybody's self interest...
This is why we collaborated with CSE, which has a long track record in knowledge-based advocacy for clean air in India and other countries of developing Asia, to organise this event. It was an open forum where air quality experts in Sri Lanka and India engaged Sri Lankan journalists and broadcasters on the status of Sri Lanka’s air quality and what it can learn from the neighbouring countries.
In my remarks, I said: “The quest for clean air in developing Asia is much more than a simple pollution story. It has many layers and complex links to government policies, regulation, industrial lobbies and technology options.
I added: “Our big challenge, as professional story-tellers, is to ask tough questions, seek clarity and then connect the dots for our audiences. At stake is our health, prosperity and indeed our very lives. Air pollution kills, slowly but surely!”
Open Minds! 