Al Gore's New Perspective on Climate Change

For this post I again watched an interesting lecture that Al Gore gave for TED talks. The presentation had a simple idea....We need to become more active now in the climate crisis before it’s too late!! Al strongly encourages not only changing the light bulbs to new energy efficient ones, but to also form social coalitions to help congress make new laws that address the climate crisis. New laws like placing a tax on carbon emissions to replace taxation on employment. He says that there is not enough emphasis in America of how real the problem is and what will happen if we wait. He says this is the primary issue of why lawmakers will not pass not laws in favor for cleaning up the earth. He says that lawmakers pass laws that are parallel with what people feel is important in society and if they don't feel it is important it gets placed on the backburner. Lawmakers relating with the people is important, but we need to make this issue important to the people by becoming more active in our society. Al listed some bold changes our society has had, like ending slavery and giving women the right to vote. These were all changes that people fought hard for….why can’t we do the same for our environment? In other words, we the people do have the capacity to create change and if everyone comes together new laws can be made and real change can happen. In fact Al states, "In order to solve our climate crisis we first need to fix our democracy".

 

Al also brought up some interesting perspectives on how responses to climate change can help reduce poverty. One in which related to my other post, which states essentially renewable energy is often the best way to bring electricity to places that don't have it. In addition, Al also claims that emissions trading can bring new resources to rural areas, and that reforestoration programs can support rural livelihoods. He also brought up an interesting new power grid idea of supplying heavily populated areas of Europe with solar panel power stations positioned in southern Europe and Africa. Clean energy sources would supply power not carbon emitting suppliers. He made it a point that we can do these things we just need to change the way we think about the issue and act, instead of waiting until it’s too late! For example, not by using better sounding titles for same old energy forms like "clean coal", this isn’t a bold change this is essentially the same thing we have been doing, we need to make bolder strides than this! He says not one more coal burning energy plant should be built until we have a defiant way of capturing all of the carbon emissions and storing them!

 

In conclusion to this post, Al believes that we can't solve this climate change crisis until we look at our own democracy and fix it in order to create new laws! The people have to develop a higher level of conscious about the issues at hand to realize how big of an issue it really is. Changing our light bulbs to energy efficient ones is only the first step, if we want to make a bold statement we have to act now not later!

 

Iqbal Quadir on Cell phones to help figh poverty!

I just wanted to put up a small little post based on the recent Ted Talks video I watched. The video's central theme was: giving aid to poor third world countries doesn't help fight poverty because the money gets in the wrong hands and corruption stops the money from getting to the poor. Additionally, aid empowers authorities and marginalizes minorities! One way to help curb this is by changing the way we think about fighting poverty. Iqbal Quadir, suggests that by giving cell phones to poor people in third world countries will enable them to connect with villages around them and the outside world allowing them to advance faster than they have in the past. Furthermore, cell phones will develop economic development of the people, for the people and by the people, rather than always having government, by the government and for the government. It is a common misperception that these people are poor because they lack skills for a job. The reality is third world citizens are very eager to learn and Iqbal claims third world citizens can learn how to use a phone in one day! Furthermore, Iqbal also claims the phone is a massive production tool because the phone allows people to have specialization in their businesses. It leads to specialization because it provides connectivity between businesses!! In turn, the video has a much different view on how to fight poverty, which fights the traditional way of simply throwing money at the problem.

 

Link of the video: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/iqbal_quadir_says_mobiles_fight_poverty.html

What solar energy can do for third world countries!

I recently browsed over an intresting article while I was trying to gather other research. The article talked about the benefits of green energy as far as solar power for rural areas of Bangladesh. The benfits that the solar power brings are unique compared to our first world society. For example, solar energy would bring clean lighting, so villagers would no longer have to use kerosene lighting at night which the smoke from the buring is very harmful. It also looked at the producing dimension, where solar energy would allow small business owners to work longer hours, thus generating higher production, which leads to a higher income. This would be possible because the solar energy would harness energy during the day into battery cells, which could be used at night. This could power various equipment need to for the entrepreneurs to produce their products. Another intresting benefit is the solar power would bring about power for electronics, more specifically communicative products such as radios, t.v.'s, and most importantly mobile phones. Mobile phones have been shown to be essential for small business owners, so they can be kept up to date on important information on the product they are trying to sell or produce. 

This article was fairly short, but it brought up an interesting apporach to solving third world poverty. With the help of micro loans, even the poorest people can get a solar power system, which can lead to completly changed lives. It's interesting of how one change in a persons living establishment can make such a huge impact!

The Diffusion of the Internet and Rural Development

This was a very interesting article in a sense of what technology such as the internet can do for poor rural communities, in this case rural China communities. As the technology, was introduced to the communities it was introduced into a city wide center in which the farmers or rural members could go. Once their they could surf the internet, but in this case it was demonstrated closely of how the internet can be a bridge for most users. For example, one user was able to learn more about different types of cotton seeds and which types would be most suitable for the land in which he is planting on. The result, is he had a much higher yeild crop than the rest of surrounding communities, which gave him an economic advantage. In other cases, the use of internet helped the farmers find more trustworthy buyers and eliminated middlemen who sometimes neglected to pay the farmers, which in turn gave the farmers more money.

Besides farming, it was also mentioned that with help of the computer center helpers, could help these undereducated, poor people recognize what the upper level society was doing to them, in some cases taking advantage of them. In one case, a family was able to learn how to file a lawsuit against a former doctor who gave a faulty procedure which left the child crippled. With help they were able to sue the doctor and gain a settlement, which was then used for other procedures to help the child get better.

The article simply shows how technology can connect people to the virtual world and eliminate some of the disadvantages they have for not having that connectivity. However, these trials were defiantly not natural to the villages and without institutionalized help they would not have happened. With that in mind, awareness of this technological dived between villagers and rest of the world must be spread more amongst the greater population. The farmers have no money to single handedly purchase these systems, nor do they have the will sense none of the farmers have an idea of how these new technologies can actually help them. In time technology will become so cheap these poor, rural villagers may be able to afford it, but will the time it takes for the technology to get that cheap be too long? Just something to ponder

The diffusion of Gramen Bank in Bangladesh

This article was very interesting review of micro financing at its best! The Article goes into talking about this so called "Grameen Bank" and how it is so much different than other banks within the world. This Grameen bank (rural bank), extends credit to third world entrepreneurs who would other wise not be able to obtain a loan. The bank amazingly provides collateral-free loans, but also recovers 98% of that money, which is then redistributed to other third world entrepreneurs. Part of the research in the article addressed how the innovative features of the bank were to be distributed towards the poor entrepreneurs. Well it was determined that mass media may be a good idea for 1st world donors, but since illiteracy rates are so high in third world countries word of mouth practices would have to be used in order to communicate features that the bank offers. The banks employees almost entirely came from interpersonal networks that were developed by the banks employees. Thus, many channels and social levels of communication were formed, which demonstrated the importance of interpersonal messages within this third world country. In turn, the Grameen bank has shown that collateral-free loans can help curb poverty in Bangladesh and other countries. Through, developing innovative principles different from traditional banks, to developing highly trusted, multi-level interpersonal networks in which the bowers consist of. Look for more articles on how communication plays a role in the diffusion of micro financing.