Today I woke up as the idealist.. since morning I have only been seeing idealistic solutions in action or have been thinking them.
I have had many ideas which I thought were worth thinking about at a later time.. unfortunately my memory retention/retrieval sucks. So here is an idea I'm expressing to mostly to myself. It's crazy, it's foolish, it's mine. Of course you are free to comment. Please be kind.
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Alternative source for energy
For sometime now I've been thinking about child labour and how passing a law that prohibits children from working is not the best solution.. coz some kids really need the money to survive.
So..
So then I was thinking of this ideal office building where there is no AC and its built in such a way that natural ventilation provides enough cooling effect. I was also thinking of plan B should it turn out to be summer and should the people want more cool air..
If plan B involved too much electricity then it would contradict the original purpose.. so I thought we could employ kids to fan us :))
then I went back to the child labour problem..
Taa daaa!!
What if we could generate electricity by employing children to do what they do best... play! we could ask them to play cricket and swing and play on a seesaw! Isn't there anyway that we can link up this mechanical energy and convert it to electrical? [is there any ethical/moral problem in generating electricity through kids this way?]
Imagine an alternative energy centre where you can get batteries charged, hell if enough kids are "employed" we could even think of supplying electricity to a small town!
Yes, I realize I dunno shit about producing electricity and the practical problems and logical loop holes in this, but what the hell I thought it was a damn good idea to indulge in for the morning
so :p
Nice thoughts Sou. I agree with you totally.
We should move away from non-renewable energy sources to renewable energy sources. Let me explain.
Electricity generated from fossil fuels such as coal and crude oil has led to high concentrations of harmful gases in the atmosphere. This has in turn led to many problems being faced today such as ozone depletion and global warming. Vehicular pollution has also been a major problem.
Therefore, alternative sources of energy have become very important and relevant to today’s world. These sources, such as the sun and wind, can never be exhausted and therefore are called renewable. They cause less emissions and are available locally. Their use can, to a large extent, reduce chemical, radioactive, and thermal pollution. They stand out as a viable source of clean and limitless energy. These are also known as non-conventional sources of energy.
I have been part of the study of Photovoltaic cells or Solar Energy (Electricity generated through Solar Rays). Do you know that some villages in India already enjoy the benefits of Solar Energy? So they have Solar Lanterns, Solar Cookers, Solar Water Purifier ... and more.
Merc, BMW, Honda and a few other car makers are building Hybrids where the car fuel is not the traditional oil but instead what's naturally available - Hydrogen fuel!
That's the future! And it requires no kids to be employed. Kids should best be left to what they do best - "have fun".
Do you know that we have a ministry of non-conventional energy sources?
http://mnes.nic.in
You should check it out sometime.
Making kids work so you can have cool air is not an idealistic idea by a long shot.
Moving to alternative sources of fuel rather than burn more and more fossil fuels is.
Let't talk about the children first. Childhood is what sets you up for adulthood. Making a child work robs it of too many things to in anyway justify it.
The argument that some of these children really need the money is an old one and one that does not hold water. There are many organizations that are dedicated to picking children off the street and ensuring they get an education. It is not the optimum solution, but it is better that leaving them on the street or giving them jobs.
I earnestly and very successfully urge my friends to donate to CRY. CRY makes an amount like 1500 go a long way. That is all you need to give them to be able to educate one child for a year. On the other hand if you were to go to a hotel or tailor or kirana shop that employs children and spend even 15000, they still would not get to see 1500 out of that.
You can donate online to CRY using your debit or credit card. This is one swipe you will not regret.
http://www.cry.org
Alternative fuels. Hmmm!
My solution for that has always been to remove the subsidies on petroleum products. The left front and whoever else is in the opposition cry themselves hoarse over every fuel hike. But the fact remains that as long as fuel continues to remain as cheap as it is, no car manufacturer will take the touble of spending money on research for alternative methods of powering travel.
The same goes for any other industry that uses fossil fuels.
I strongly feel that taxes on all combustion engines should be increased, so too road tax for the same. On the other hand, tax write-offs should be allowed for any engine that does not burn fossil fuels. This is the only way we can stop this planet from becoming a poison-house.
http://pavementviews.blogspot.com
@hyperbole - wow krish ur comment took me straight to my social studies classes :)
yeah see now that's the problem.. they have a website for non-conventional energy but just look at how ugly it is!! makes whatever I call my aesthetic self cringe..
I should volunteer to give these websites a facelift for free :|
@ phreak - yeah!! like monster's inc. except not the scream part but like the happy ending.
@ maverick - err.. I dunno why u didn't get that Making kids work so you can have cool air was a joke.. I even put a laughing smiley next to it :|
Many of the kids needing the money is NOT a joke.. prohibiting child labour by itself is not enough. It needs to go hand in hand with welfare schemes where the kid doesn't have to worry about its next meal and has some school to go to.
Anyway, my idea was to let these kids play and generate energy so they'll earn and have fun at the same time.
I largely enjoyed this post just for the serendipity of following your wild thought. :-)
Certainly alternative energy is the way we need to go. And it's increasingly possible every day.
Of course, I've been giving a lot of dark thoughts to the hows and whys of fossil fuels lately . . . In the movie "Syriana," there was this suggestion that a lot of why the U. S. monopolized so much fossil fuel was, in part, so that other people couldn't acquire it and use all that energy to out-compete us in producing things and making their societies more affluent. It had never really occurred to me that we might, in part, be monopolizing resources for purely strategic reasons, rather than because we "need" them.
Okay, enough glooms-ville for today.
I do hear what you're saying about child labor. It's something that we're taught to think is automatically bad, but yeah, for many kids the immediate need to get food in the bowl has to trump the future benefits of education, sad as that is. Of course, there are probably half a dozen charities in the U. S. working to end child labor everywhere . . .
This is making me think about the tendency (here especially, I think; maybe more so in the South, where I am) to assume our standards should be imposed immediately on everyone. I believe that idea lay under so much of the thinking that took place around the decision to invade Iraq, topple Saddam's govt, and bring "democracy" to the Middle East. It's not working precisely because the people making these plans made them without much regard at all for the needs and traditions (positive and negative) in Iraq.
Most things only happen after a broad consensus is slowly reached. I hope the world continues to grow together on a positive consensus for our future. But the progress is generally so slow . . . Alas, as the situation in Iraq may prove, though, I guess there truly is a danger in trying to make things happen too quickly. Even incredibly positive things, like spreading democracy and such.
someone should find out how much electricity is eaten by all the blogging, comments on blogs, chatting, lame emails and forwards.
think it would be more than enough to spare the kids.adopt, CRY, whatever let em be.
@Hyperbole - Please mention your source when you are quoting someone's work.
All your content are from
http://edugreen.teri.res.in/explore/renew/what.htm
@sou - nice imaginative post.
RAS
:)
Interesting post Sou... gives a great insight into your mind.
Hey, it's autogato's B-Day!!!! Go give her a hard time about it. :-)
Hooray! Thanks, fondfire. :)
Oh, I want to generate electricity by playing. We can't just leave that to the kids! It sounds way to fun. I want to generate electricity by playing, but by schooling, too. Because, after all, if I could generate electricity by doing schoolwork, I think I could power the world. I do waaaay to much damn schoolwork.
And hell yeah, I enjoyed your post. I love your serendipity. It's one of the things that makes your blog so much fun.
I largely enjoyed this post just for the serendipity of following your wild thought.
thanks fondfire. i kept wondering why i got such serious varied responses coz what i actually intended to do was just that.. a tour guide of my thought flow and my idea.
yeah.. it's not good to have black and white thinking about issues. God knows the ppl running our governments are not exactly famous for higher cognitive processes and looking for ideal long term solutions.
@vibhor - thanks for the comment. i hadn't intended it to be a post on alt energy but what the hell.. if it's helping the cause why not! :)
@ oz - my blogging doesn't take away anything from those kids. grr..
@ RAS - who are you?
@ hyperbole - :O
@ jenny - thanks!
@ phreak - govaway!
@ autogato - hahaha!! you know what.. i thought this idea was great precisely because i thought it would be so much fun if i could play and generate electricity.
whoa if we could generate electricity from your schoolwork i guess we could power up the whole world!! :)
Yep, I think that's true!!!!!!
ACcccccCCCkkkkKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!1
Ahaaaa! Some corrections... You wrote:
"some kids really need the money to survive"
Not true. Most of us educated kinds like to link poverty to child labor. But it has been proven conclusively by NGOs such as MV Foundation that there is no such link.
MVF have done several studies on poverty and child labor. And after years of data collection and analysis, the conclusion is that poverty and child labor are not related. For example, in most of the cases, the father stays @ home, drunk, while the kids and the wives work. And in all likelines, he would also physically abuse the child n wife too. As you probably know, a child is paid only about Rs 20 (max Rs 25) per day. Whereas adults are paid about Rs 55-60 per day. So to compensate for the father's lack of job, atleast 2 kids in the family have to be working. Also, in quite a few cases, young girls, will just sit at home, maybe taking care of their siblings, instead of going to school. So again no relation to poverty.
In some cases, where parents do realise the value of education, the kids are put into school. Sometimes even private schools. I know of cases where the parent's combined income is less than Rs 8500 per annum. But still tke kid is put thro a pvt school, costing more than Rs 3500 per annum in fee n books n uniforms! How many of us are willing to spend that kind of money, as a percentage of our annual income, on our kids? They sometimes even go without food at home (kid is ofcourse fed) to pay for the costly education. So even though they are living in poverty, as long as they undeerstand the importance, they do take action.
In the first case, where father is home drunk, there is more adverse psychological impact on the child than first meets the eye. The whole family equation gets changed, the child becomes a provider, which is the role of a parent. Basically screwing up the entire family structure. Once MVF counsels these famiies and kids put back in school, and father begins to work, the family begins to feel like a familyonce again. The parents visit the kid (if s/he is in an MVF bridge camp) and sometimes even bring them gifts!!!
Imagine, from a drunk, abusive father, he becomes a caring one. Now thats a huge transformation, and it has nothing to do with the family's income levels. Its only the change in the family structure and its thought process and the way it views itself that has changed. And thats enuf to change their world!
"is there any ethical/moral problem in generating electricity through kids this way?"
Even if it were somehow possible (dont know how though), how is this different from child labor?
When the kid doesnt have the right to choose whether or not to play, you are automatically taking "fun" out of the equation. As a child, I am sure you must have found making candles, carpets, glass objects very interesting. But thats because you had the luxury of choosing whether to do it or not. But these kids dont have that option; they are forced to work - not because of poverty bt other reasons listed above.
Would it really be fun for the kid if you tell her u either play or your family goes hungry today?
:)
Uday
You can find more info on the poverty argument here:
http://www.mvfindia.in/documents.htm
Search for "The Poverty Argument" :)
*sigh* another serious discussion..
i really and truly meant it to be a post on a silly but entertaining idea.
anyway..
NO i am not one of the ppl who link poverty with child labour.. but fact remains if you are an orphan and u have to fend for yourself then you do need to work for survival. However, i do understand the percentage of these kids is really low.. most of them are being used by their own parents and the society.. i do understand that.
and i wasn't saying employing them like really and truly keep them on payroll and not give them leaves kinda thing.. it was just an idea that kids could play and do what they want and be kids and we should find such natural ways of generating elec that's allll...
Sou, I appreciate the silliness! I got serious in response to everyone else. That and an annoying tendency to just get into my own damn verbiage . . . :-p
Uday, I do appreciate the good information. I would think people under fifteen doing paid labor would normally be a bad thing. Perhaps I let a few news reports take my eye off that ball. What's the MV Foundation?