March 24, 2004

• there's a Rolex Award now? And it's for poor folks? What rock have I been under?
• Not to be snarky but the Pot-in-Pot cooling system is technology. But on your point, this is quite cool, pun intended. Western-style technology is not intrinsically good or bad but they way it's applied by most westerners (yes, I'm one) what leaves too much to be desired. Here, Mohammed Bah Abba has shown that it's the brain and imagination that fuel progress. Not the money or resources invested. By the way, big bannana for you jb!
• Ingenious, indeed. Mohammed Bah Abba is very clever to have designed such a useful device. (Decades ago, I remember seeing some unglazed clay pots called ollas, I think, in the southwestern USA, which were traditionally used for storing water and keeping it cool by evaporation. But they were single pots, not double walled, and had no insulation layer.)
• That settles it, I'm going out and buying me a whole lotta clay pots!
• Great! Now I know how to keep my cannibal bits of people fresh when the end of civilization happens!
• Excellent work. Now then: let us get busy with getting these people some electricity!
• Fes: Is electricity really an important priority? There may be reasons you don't want to rush in. Can the people afford electricity? Or do you propose free government subsidized? Which I wouldn't be against, but I wonder if the local people might want something else if the government were to be giving them things. I can imagine that in this area water might be more important than electricity. Or more books for schools. The point of all the awards for this kind of invention is that it seeks not to simply bring in large scale changes through development, but to find a local solution to a local problem. There are very serious issues of independence from western countries and companies, sometimes even from the central government. In an ideal world, power would be free, and free from problems,* and accessible to all, but the third world is far from ideal. It would be interesting to know, though, if there have been local requests for access to electricity. But I would hope that the agenda for development would be set by local concerns, and proceed in a manner that worked sucessfully with the community. Part of my skepticism is coming from the fact that last term I had a chance to attend seminars with people who have worked in and who have studied development, and I have learned that all is not well in the twentieth century project of development - some places have had successes, others have been left worse off, and in most places the local priorities were ignored in favour of more centralised or international priorities. No one wants to stop development, but only think more carefully about it before we leap. *Our (aka the developed world's) own electricity is far from problem-free. Aside from the generating issues, which are well known, the light pollution caused by our profligate use of lights in cities is both aesthetically and physically damaging to our environment.
• Physically damaging, J? I hate light pollution as much anybody short of an astronomer can, but even I wouldn't say that.
• Hell yes it's an important priority! I can't imagine that, though there might be some issues to resolve, that the introduction of electricity to anywhere that doesn't have it would be a bad thing. Easily available power changes *everything*. Pumps for your water, lights for your schoolchildren's books. I mean, seriously, I have a feeling that these people have far greater issues to deal with than light pollution. Electricity would be huge step in remedying that - a world-changing step, for them. I *do* understand where you're coming from - power generation is a dirty industry, no question - but imo a lot of the third world burns while those of us in the first world - who already have electricity, and refrigerators, and the time and leisure to consider aspects of aesthetics - fiddle Nero-like with questions of development. These are people who desperately need every bit of development they can get. Once they have food, water, electricity, peace, and the potential for economic improvement, THEN is the time, imo, to worry over aesthetics.
• The point of all the awards for this kind of invention is that it seeks not to simply bring in large scale changes through development, but to find a local solution to a local problem. Lack of refrigeration isn't a problem, it's a symptom of the greater problem, the problem of have and have-not. Abba shouldn't have *had* to worry about using pot-in-pot refrgeration - in today's world, first or third, it's a *ridiculous* problem; no one should have to worry about this, and that Abba HAD to invent this shows that something is very wrong there. It would be interesting to know, though, if there have been local requests for access to electricity. But I would hope that the agenda for development would be set by local concerns, and proceed in a manner that worked sucessfully with the community. Local concerns have their own blinders, and the argument could be made that if they were capable of proceeding in a successful manner, they would have by now.
• Hey, a pot-within-another-pot doesn't put money in the pockets of big corporations, and is therefore un-American! Won't someone think of the corporations?
• Fes: I agree, there is a danger that we may "fiddle Nero-like", and I don't think there are any easy answers. But I have learned in the past few months that many of these concerns are not being raised by westerners, but by the people whose lives they impact directly. There has also been a movement within the development world (consisting of governments, agencies and scholars from the third and first worlds) - some are trying to move away from the kind of planning that took place in the late colonial period (very top-down, often knowing little of the local environment, economy and culture). It has certainly made me rethink many things about the way the world and development works. Development never comes without its pains, but one always has to ask "Whose pains? Whose gains?" And do the gains outweigh the pains? In this case, which I, of course, know nothing about, it may be the gains would outweigh the pains. However, I heard a talk about the potential use of GM corn in Mexico, which concluded that there probably wouldn't be any net gain to the farmers. (For cost reasons, they reuse part of their corn for seed corn, and GM only produces large crops in the first generation - its second generations apparently may not produce even as well as very traditional breeds). The argument could be made that if they were capable of proceeding in a successful manner, they would have by now. But that argument wouldn't be very good. There have always been incompetent governance, big or small, developed or not, but one would have to be quite blind to not see how the conciously unequal trade provisions, forced cultivation and/or labour and other abuses of the colonial period (in which the bulk of profit from the resources of the third world were conciously bled away), and the continued double standards in the world market (like agricultural subsidies in Europe and the US) mean that already the third world is set at a disadvantage - it's like starting three miles back in a race, and then finding the guy at the front gets to say what track everyone runs. goetter: I have been hearing on the news lately about recent research into the effects of light pollution on plant and animal, as well as human, health. I tried finding links - that was the best source, though you have to follow their links out.
• Yes, but that's not really physical harm to the environment, in the sense that burning old truck tires or overgrazing does. Somehow I don't think that these folks live in a perfect Rousseauian balanace with nature today that development -- electricity, plumbing, sanitation, twentieth century medicine -- would only spoil. If I'm hairsplitting, I apologize. And I am certainly hairsplitting, so I apologize. Thanks for the dark-sky links. This one has the advantages of being concise, in English, and still working.