Friday, October 29, 2010

Simple tips to reduce carbon foot prints (using technology): Pat-6


Hi friends, according to law of thermodynamics, energy can neither be created nor destroyed and it can only change forms. We are living in an era where demand for energy is increasing with increase in human population. To meet this ever increasing demand, fossil fuel resource hidden beneath the Earth is being exploited and it may not last longer. Now it is time to look at “Pancha Bhoota” or 5 elements for fulfilling our need of energy. Our universe including our body is made of these five elements - earth, water, wind, fire and space. All these elements are rich source of energies and more over they are renewable. For example, heat energy from Sun will be always there and nobody knows how many billion years it may take before Sun stops emitting heat and light to us. So we already on the process of taping light energy from Sun and using it for heating purpose. Similarly wind energy is converted in to electrical energy using large windmills and as per theoretical calculation the entire global electrical power demand can be met by wind energy. Since the initial cost of setting up a windmill is very huge, it is yet to become common man’s choice. In India, private players are investing in this filled looking at the potential for making profit in the future. If we set up more windmills wherever there is scope for rotation of windmill wheels, it will result in reduction of global carbon foot print.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

CNN Hero of the Year Award


Hi friends, in India we believe that offering food is the best gift among all and if this gift is offered to a needy person who is not in a position to earn it then the significance of this offering becomes multifold. To justify the importance of food offering in Hinduism, I will quote an ancient Sanskrit verse – “Anna daanam maha daanam” which means food offering is the greatest offer. In spite of world wide economic progress and development in all spheres, still there are some backward areas in different parts of the world including my own country, where some people are lacking food and shelter. When it comes to poverty, hunger and malnutrition we talk about only Ethiopia and pretending as if our country is free from these entire social issues. In this back ground, I would like to mention the selfless service of Mr.Narayana Krishnan who has been short listed for the prestigious “CNN Hero of the year” award. He is the only Indian among short listed 10 heroes from all over the world and through a public online voting system “CNN Hero of the year” will be selected in which anybody can vote through internet.Before writing this article I have already voted for Krishnan. Mr. Krishnan hails from Tamil Naadu a South Indian State and when I read his life story in an e-mail received from my friend, I have decided to write a blog post appealing people to vote for him. arayana Krishnan is from a middle class family and after completing his preliminary studies, he was about to proceed to Switzerland for higher studies which could have changed his life entirely. But, during one of his visits to Madurai Meenakshi Temple about ten years back he happened to saw an old helpless, homeless person eating his own human waste and decided to spend his life to feed hungry people. He could have become a rich NRI like many of his co country men who settled in western counties but thought of perusing a unique service to mankind in the form of hot meals supply to hungry people. Presently he is employed as chef in a luxurious hotel and along with he is carrying out his mission without any break. He wakes up at four in the morning, cooks meals to about 400 people every day, travels about 200 kilometers to feed them along with his team members who are sympathetic to this great cause. In the mean time they have established a trust called Akshaya and till date they have distributed hot meals to about 1.2 million hungry people in a span of about eight years. Apart from this, Akshaya trust carres out other free service like hair cut who need it. They are having ambitious plan like providing permanent shelter to these people but mobilizing necessary fund is a major constrain and I think the ongoing poll is a God send opportunity not only to Krishnan but rest of us because a huge sum of cash award is waiting to enter the bank account of the winner. If our vote makes him to win, then he will receive $100,000 apart from $25,000 which he entitled to get for being short listed which will be entirely utilized to fulfill the vision of his mission. I request all my friends from blogging community to visit the site http://heroes.cnn.com/vote.aspx and vote for Narayana Krishnan. The voting lines are open till November 18.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

My videos are online

Hi friends, I am a proud owner of Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H50 digital camera which was presented to me by my son on my 25th marriage anniversary and I make use of this user-friendly camera occasionally with my limited knowledge about its functions. Though it is having many features to get high quality output, I use only automatic setting for both video and snaps. Also, I own a Nokia Express music 5800 mobile phone with a built in 3.2 mega pixel camera and I love to take snaps and videos from it also. I need not mention that this phone is also a gift from my son. My videos and photos collection is very huge which is consuming 49GB of my PC’s hard disk memory. I used to browse for my favorite video songs especially old Hindi movie songs in You Tube whenever I get free time and I was wondering how those video clips are made and published. Today I joined YouTube to know about its functions including uploading and publishing of video files from PC. Thanks to Google and its associated sites, I could upload and publish as many as four video clippings without much difficulty. To edit a large video clipping of my son’s marriage function I downloaded free software Videopad Video Editor Software and with its help I made a small clipping from a big video file. Even happily I went one step ahead and linked all those YouTube clippings to my orkut and Facebook profiles where I have got many friends. I am eagerly waiting to here my friend’s feed back.

Looking at the deteriorating environmental condition some times I feel technology and modernization are curse to man kind or Mother Nature but while harvesting its benefits I get confused. We have reached a stage from where we cannot go back as far as using technology and development is concerned but choosing a path of sustainable development may minimize the harm on various compartments of our environment.

Saturday, October 23, 2010

How to earn free credit and use it for blog advertising?

Hi friends, as a blogger I want to see more and more number of visitors to my site and my blogging activity becomes dull when my blog audience number decreases. I cannot survive and grow without oxygen supply to my body, similarly my blog cannot have a respectable place in internet search engines lists unless I don’t attract visitors and my blog does not have enough network partners. I started my blog two years back and used to spend hours together to boost my blog visitors. After joining Entrecard which is a free blogging network, not only visitors to my site increased but my online activity became effortless. Bloggers who become members of Entrecard network need to place a small widget on their blog and this arrangement is a win- win situation for everybody who is part of this network. You will earn free credits for dropping your card which can be accumulated and spent for displaying your site’s advertisement on other sites. Members are offered free credits to participate in various Entrecard online contests and by taking part in the latest Entrecard contest every participant can win as many as 5,000 credits which can be used to promote his blog.

I feel, this is an opportunity for low profile blogger like me to boost site traffic by using the Entrecard credits earned without any effort.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Happy Dasara

Hi friends, Happy Dasara to all.

Each and every festival which is celebrated around our globe may be having many more significances apart from spiritual (religious) one. There may be many stories attached to different festivals and our present generation may not be interested to digg them may be because of lack of interest, busy time schedule or may be because of the inevitable mind set change arising out of cultural pollution or dilution. Moral tags are associated with these stories which tell us what is right and wrong with respect to ethics. But, irrespective their lack of understanding about all these moral stories it is heartening to see active participation of younger generation in all festivals. I always believe that main purpose of festival celebration is for entertainment and other things are secondary. Spiritual part of any festival may be for inner happiness which is difficult to understand but in a given day anybody can enjoy participating in a festival with family and friends. India is a great country carrying the richest cultural heritage of the world and under the fold of Hinduism which is a way of life; more than a billion people from different faiths are celebrating different festivals in their own way. Vijaya dasami the last day of navaratri festival which is popularly called as dasara (Dussehra) is one of India’s major festivals and people from different parts of the world are attracted towards it. Wheather it is Mysore dasara in Karnatak(South India) where Goddess Chamundeshwari is worshipped or Dussehra in West Bengal where Goddess Durga is worshipped or Ramleela in Northern India, people from different faiths are participating for enjoyment. World famous Mysore Dasra is celebrated in a most traditional way and millions of people gather on the streets of Mysore on Dasara day to see and enjoy the most colorful Elephant procession (Jamboo Savari). In India, most of our festivals are based on stories in which evil forces were defeated by God and apart from mere enjoyment we can adopt the moral of the stories for the betterment of society as a whole. On this auspicious day I wish the evil force of international terrorists may be destroyed for ever by combined effort of rest of us. Today if any body watches the act of evil forces without supporting the victim as a mute spectator, then tomorrow may be his turn where he will be at the receiving end from terrorists. In the Mahabharata battle field Lord Krishna tells Arjuna that in Dharma Yuddha (war for right and wrong), one cannot remain neutral and everybody should take one side or the other.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Simple tips to reduce carbon foot prints: Pat-5

Encourage Green Business:

Since the so called “green business” encourages sustainable development without producing any negative effect on environment, we need to support it with our full might One of the best descriptions of green business is that “the business which tries to meet the needs of the present generations without compromising the ability of coming generations to meet their needs”. As I have already mentioned in my earlier blog posts, our present generation is only the custodians of resources of the Nature and we cannot exploit them lavishly. The best way to preserve the natural resources for the coming generations is to support green business by using green products and green services. Since green business involves usage of renewable energies such as solar and wind, recycling of products, reducing waste, usage of organic products, the resultant generation of green house gases are very less compared to traditional business activities. For example, a restaurant run with green concept may not produce as much negative effect on the environment as in case of a regular one. In most of the cases green products and services are cheaper than conventional products. I feel, use of renewable energies in green business only can make it more environmental friendly because use of non renewable energy source at any stage of the production activity is bound to produce negative impact on our environment.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Simple tips to reduce carbon foot prints: Pat-4

Reduce taking hard copies

The positive aspects of computerization in our day today life are many and some of these aspects are very significant as far as environment protection is concerned. With the introduction of the concept of soft copy, it is observed that there is a considerable reduction in paper consumption and some organizations are holistically practicing the concept of “paper less office” which is beneficial for nature as well as to the organization. It was estimated that annual world paper production was in the range of about 300 million tons which means that more than 600 million tons of wood or trees were uprooted every year. But looking at the increasing popularity and world wide voluntary usage of soft copy in place of paper, one can say that there is some reduction in wood consumption. Various types of memory devices like laptop, pen drives with high memory are supplementing this revolutionary change which finally ends up with environmental protection. It is nice to see school going children using pen drives containing study materials instead of bulky printed books. Introduction of e- news paper, e- ticket are some welcome moves as far as preservation of natural resources are concerned.

I feel, introduction of the concept of digital photography is a blessing for our environment for various reasons. Apart from putting brake to printing of photos for which wood is one of the raw materials, digital photography puts an end to usage of hazardous chemicals which are part and parcel of photo film manufacturing process. Thanks to the healthy competition prevailing in the electronic manufacturing industries, digital cameras are becoming cheaper in one hand and computers with high memory hard disks are available in affordable ranges on the other and these things are encouraging people to save soft copies of snaps instead of taking its prints. This is a good example of use of technology for sustainable development.

Monday, October 4, 2010

Simple tips to reduce carbon foot prints: Pat-3

Minimizing the usage of polythene bags:

Hi friends, disposal of used polythene bags has become a matter of grave concern for authorities because it is neither biodegradable easily nor it can be burnt in the air. Depending upon the density of polythene, it may take many years to centuries to get degraded. As I have mentioned in my earlier blog post, even if we use a polythene carry bag we can reuse it until it becomes useless and finally dispose in a scientific way. More than 80 million metric tons of polythene is being produced every year all over the world and major portion of this huge quantity goes to the production of shopping bags of different qualities and sizes. Since shopping bags are made of low density polythene, they are not strong enough for reuse and thrown unscientifically to dust bins. There are many hazards associated with these bags when mixed with soil such as it arrests or block the entry of rain water below the earth, its toxicity can damage the plants, water as well as soil. Entry of polythene to soil will result in reduction of agricultural yield and reduction in ground water level. In the year 2005, the city of Mumbai was virtually waterlogged due to heavy rain and it was found that choking of drains and sewage by plastic bags was the main reason. As I have mentioned in one of my blog post, I am a disciple of Rishi Prabhakar, founder of Sidha Samadhi Yoga(SSY) and in our daily class we were advised not to use plastic bags for carrying purpose and cloth bags made of old dress were provided to students.

I remember a tragic incident associated with over use of polythene bags which took place few years ago in Kerala state of southern India. One fine morning, one of the temple elephants (owned by the temple for the purpose of temple ceremonies) has become ill and finally died. Unable to find the exact reason for its sudden death, the body was subjected to postmortem and for every bodies surprise there were large number of plastic bags in side its stomach. Pilgrimages who were ignorant about the danger of consuming polythene used to feed fruits and other edible items to elephants along with the plastic bags which ended up with this tragic incident. We are hearing news of banning plastic carry bags by authorities from different parts of the world. In India, Philibit is the first district where use of plastic is banned totally and the credit goes to the then Member of Parliament Smt. Maneka Gandhi, lady who dedicated her life to environmental and animal protection.

Simple tips to reduce carbon foot prints: Pat-2

Reuse:

Hi friends, continuing my discussion on tips for reduction of carbon foot prints which is nothing but generation of green house gases due to our day today activities, I feel reuse of some of the day today materials should make considerable difference in its generation. Reuse should be a subject which can be debated wherever possible and the need of the hour is to make re use as way of our life. There are many items such as plastic bags, plastic utensils, tinfoil, paper which is used or typed on one side where other side is in a usable condition, using cloths as long as you want and giving them to needy people if you are really fed up with them wearing etc. If you know the gravity of situation with respect to deteriorating environmental health, you should not hesitate to buy second hand materials from the market in spite of your capacity to buy brand new items which are directly made of precious natural resources such as wood. Loss of a tree always results in the reduction of nature’s conversion capacity from carbon dioxide to oxygen. I heard that Japanese adopted the concept of waste to wealth long back which can be adopted by all of us with a multiple view of improving the environmental health as well as our personal financial health. Here I want to mention a website http://ethicalaffiliate.ning.com,which aims at nature protection. I am also a member of this site but my contribution to their cause is very negligible. The members of the site themselves created different groups and one such group I would like to mention here is “CO2….. Cut it out” and the related website is http://magneticfuelsaver.co.uk/.

Friends, if there is a will there is always a way and lot of websites are maintained with a sole purpose of saving our planet from environmental disaster and we can get valuable information from then as far as everything related to environment condition and its protection is concerned. The concept of reuse may not be liked by business community which is directly affected by this movement but to save our planet we must make our self tough.

Saturday, October 2, 2010

It can’t be a better birthday gift to Mahatma Gandhi!

Hi friends, to day is the birthday of Late Mahatama Gandhi and many people call him as father of our great Nation (but I have got strong reservation about it) and I think all Indians have given a most precious birthday gift to the messenger of truth and non violence. His soul will be the happiest one in the heaven among all and the simple reason is every Indian followed his path of non violence on the crucial day of Ayodhya verdict on 30th of September. Proving all the all predictions of violence wrong, Indians shown highest level of maturity and all sections of society shown the world that we Indians are also ready to be part of a civilized Global Village. India as an oldest civilization went though some ugly phases in the recent past on the religious ground and I believe Ayodhya verdict provided us an opportunity to count our positive aspects as human beings. Just like a pat on the shoulder of a school boy as an appreciation for his good work, we also got a gentle pat on our shoulder and we want to show more qualities of a civilized society to the rest of the world who were expecting a civil war and blood bath in India. I believe we Indians born on this soil are very lucky to be a part of a very old civilization and our positive aspects are bound to come out one day or the other in spite of many odds in our society. Now it is the moral responsibility of all our leaders both religious and political to encash the good will created in favor of a stronger India where real secularism is practiced. If we proceed in this direction and succeed to devote all our energy to rebuild our Nation which is free from violence, intolerance and above all free from corruption, then it will be a touching tribute to Mahatma Gandhi and a great service to Mother land which comes first and every thing next. The speed at which our population is increasing, we need to concentrate on multi fronts including infrastructure, job creation but we cannot forget the importance of an education system which will make our citizens proud of our country and its heritage but we are still banking on Lord Macaulay’s education system which is aimed at division of Indian minds. Let us prepare now it self to give a better tribute to Mahatama Gandhi on his next birthday.

Simple tips to reduce carbon foot prints: Pat-1

Hi friends, blogging is my passion and I love to blog about environmental protection related subjects. I strongly believe that, with small changes in life style we can bring positive changes in our biosphere. We need to remember that the present generation is only the custodians of the precious natural resources available in the Nature and it is our moral responsibility to hand over it in good condition to coming generation which includes our own kith and kilns. We cannot afford any further exploitation of Nature and its resources and I am going to discuss some tips in my blog posts which may reduce our carbon foot prints if adopted in our day to day life. Some of the points are known to all of us but it is the need of the hour to adopt them without any delay otherwise it will be difficult to repair the damage. Some of the points which are going to be discussed in my posts may look very insignificant but in totality they will also make huge difference to carbon foot print or green house gas generation. Use of solar energy, wind energy and reforestation are some major steps towards restoration of a healthy environment but small scale effort from individuals can accelerate it.

It is only the beginning of October month and the effect of rising mercury is unbearable in my area. I have written a post observation of a lay man in which mentioned the capacity of Nature to take corrective action during critical climatic changes and hope to see Nature use its hidden power.

 
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