Silent Sundays

So, this weekend, Radha and I decided to hike up Camelback (again). We decided to do it on Sunday, because, well, we were lazy on Saturday. We took our own sweet time in getting things done, and found ourselves in the Camelback area around 915a.

We had assumed that getting a parking spot would be quite a simple deal -- but it did not work out. There was not a spot in sight -- just a line of cars ahead of us, seeking that non-existent spot.

Since Camelback wasn't going to work out, we though going up Squaw peak (2 weeks in a row) should not be such a bad deal --- it'll get the heart beating fast -- good cardio.

Same problem there. No place to park. For a city with so many things to do, Phoenix does not have enough parking places to keep your car while you do the things that you can do.

So, we made our way to South Mountain. (We were going to get that cardio -- no two ways about it). And as soon as we entered the park, we were informed that it was a silent Sunday, and that no motor vehicle would be permitted within.

We took some bikes on rent near the parking lot and climbed up (all the way to the summit). It took us a good 1 hr 35 min to go up (because we were no physical shape to do so). The bike that they gave us was a thick wheeled mountain bike -- and it did not perform as well as one of the thin wheeled ones. The way up was a struggle, though reaching the top did allow us to wallow (for a little while) in a sense of achievement.

And then the downhill ride was fun.

All this was done without coping with vehicular traffic on the mountain thanks to the city's silent Sunday program. This is what they ought to do on every paved mountain around the world!

Cold in NY, Warm in the Arctic

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/25/science/earth/25cold.html?hp

The surprising variability of climate never ceases to amaze. Clearly, the last line of the article makes sense. Nature is the total perspective vortex!

“Just when you publish something and it looks like you’re seeing a connection,” Dr. Wallace said, “nature has a way of humbling us.”

Uranium in Punjab Water

It started off with Mrinal's post RTI requests (pages 1, 2, 3 and 4 ).

The gist of these reports is that high concentrations of Uranium have been found in bore-well water in areas in Punjab. The uranium in question here is natural uranium and not depleted or enriched uranium, suggesting that a military connotation is unlikely. The study is being conducted by the Guru Nakak Deo University at Amritsar -- and a final report is due in 2 years. The report also states that using reverse osmosis is sufficient to reduce the concentration of U in water.

Concerns regarding consuming food grown in Punjab were raised by Mrinal.

Further investigation lead to the following links from Akhilesh:

Article from Punjab Newsline regarding links between H2O U concentration and mental retardation. Dr. Carin Smit (from RSA) was responsible for the study.

A wikipedia article on the same subject was also unearthed, which contains a good summary of the issues. Along with the summary, several excellent links are also available in the footnotes section, including an NDTV report, a report in the Telegraph and an article in the observer. (Subsequent talkback regarding this article – especially regarding the link between Autism and waterborne Uranium cited by Lingo available here).

From the wikipedia article, it is clear that the likely source of uranium in Punjab was fly-ash from coal-fired power plants. There are 3 coal fired power plants in Punjab, as per this wikipedia article. (a) Ropar (b) Lehra Mohabat (c) Bhatinda

Source map available here. Figures are from the BARC documents referenced above.

The map is mildy suggestive of a correlation of U concentration in water to proximity to Power plants. This correlation was originally investigated by an article in the Observer in 2009.

The technicalities of Uranium pollution due to thermal power generation were then explored. PJ cites a couple of articles

Around 90% naturally occurring uranium could be stopped in the RO membrane. However methods like ion exchange would be more effective. If it is a naturally occuring uranium(?), is probably composed of 99.3% uranium-238, 0.7% uranium-235, and a negligible amount of uranium-234 (by weight), as well as a number of radioactive decay products. The half-life of uranium-238 is about 4.5 billion years, uranium-235 about 700 million years, and uranium-234 about 25 thousand years. 235 and 234 isotopes are much more harmful than the 238 one. US EPA guideline for drinking water is 20-30 µg/l, Australia is 20 µg/L and California Public Health Goal for Uranium in Drinking Water (not a regulatory standard) is 0.5 µg per litre. So the water in Punjab is definitely 6-7 times higher in concentration even by the modest guidelines. This level of uranium is not dangerous for example if one was to be in the water or bath in the water. But it is NO NO for drinking. Because all uranium isotopes are primarily alpha emitters, they are only hazardous if ingested or inhaled, so definitely NO NO for eating the vegetable products in the area as well. Several of the radioactive uranium decay products are gamma emitters, that is why workers in the vicinity of large quantities of uranium in storage or in a processing facility can also be exposed to low levels of external radiation. This could come in picture if there is a dump site. This is a very serious issue and definitely worth taking considering this will affect generations to come (ofcourse it would depend on the extent of contamination in all of Punjab and neighbouring state waters).

PJ Also supplies a link to a SciAm article, which asserts that coal ash is more radioactive than nuclear waste. However, the article asserts that both are fairly harmless and does not get worked up about it.

There are several unanswered questions at this point.

(1) Why Punjab? If fly ash is responsible – why not the USA, which gets more than 50% of its energy through coal? Why not other areas in India?

(2) Is food from Punjab (grown, presumably on this high U water) dangerous?

(3) Are we confident that U is responsible for the retardation in children? Is the number of retarded children in Punjab abnormally high?

(4) Are the concentrations of U unequivocally die to coal ash?

An email was sent by Mihir to offer help with this issue to Ms. Smit in RSA.

Dr Smit,

Hope this email finds you well. I am part of a small group that has recently discovered the issue that you have been working on (regarding extremely high levels of exposure to Uranium in children in Punjab's S Malwa region) and have read the paper that you published together with the team from Microtrace.

Quick introduction to who we are: We are a community of Indians - living both in India and abroad - who have graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras sometime between the last 5-8 years. Our group focuses on policy discussions, but we also want to help out with targeted issues such as this.

First, we wanted to thank you for all the work you have done to analyze and publicize this issue. I am sure it must have been an uphill struggle, and I cannot imagine what it took. For all of this, thank you.

Second, we wanted to ask you how best we could help. Here are a few avenues we are toying with, but we would be interested in your thoughts:

It seems to us that our effort may need two clear goals:

1. Identify and mitigate the root causes of the uranium exposure as quickly as possible

2. Evaluate how widespread the effects of this problem are (eg. Most of India's food comes from the Punjab - is there a possibility of the metal seeping into groundwater that is subsequently used for agriculture?)

There are potentially a few ways of doing this (all thought starters at this point):

a. Get the company I work for (I am an Engagement Manager at a consulting firm called McKinsey) to do a pro-bono study on this issue through their social sector office with a group of volunteers from within the company and try to unearth key causes.

b. Organize fundraisers to highlight this issue and fund academic studies that help us get to the root cause/ mitigate it

c. Reach out to contacts we have in the media in India to ensure that we raise the profile of this problem

d. We may need to do all of these to get anywhere

For now, we would be quite interested in 2 things:

1. Understanding if you are still actively working on this issue, or is there another person you can point us to that may be a better point of contact.

2. If you are active on this topic, we would love to set up a conference call with you and speak to you on what the right approach/ setup might be to make a difference to the children of Faridkot.

Apologies for this long email, and please let us know what we could do to make a difference. Thanks so much!

Mihir Mysore

I'm disabling comments on this post -- let's keep the discussion on FB.

Income distributions

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States

Just to put things in perspective -- Obama's proposal to do away with the Bush Tax cuts would have affected only the top 1.7% of the population. The 1.7% that would feel it the least.

And it would have helped balance the budget a bit better.

Capitalism in the Leak Industry

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TECH/web/12/12/wikileaks.rival/index.html?hpt=T2

That is all.

Wikileaks and Freedom of Speech

These are early days, but I am very impressed with America's handling of Wikileaks. That Mr. Assange is doing well (albeit imprisoned), and that the leaks have not stopped coming out. This augurs well.

This is in stark contrast with the current Nobel Peace prize winner, Chinese dissident Mr. Liu Xiaobo who is currently languishing in a prison in North China.

The west certainly bestows upon those who can express themselves the freedom of expression. Prof. Noam Chomsky comes to mind (who seldom has a good thing to say about any power structure). As does Julian Assange. As also do the usual suspects(the KKK, the Neo Nazis et al.).

The problem with this freedom of expression is that it is selective. The rights of, say, the Iraqis who have been killed for no fault of their own have certainly been trampled upon.

The plight of silent victims is often ignored by the western system -- often with explicit knowledge of American authorities. This is what the Wikileaks cables are revealing.

And this is where I believe transparency is important. And this is where I think Mr. Assange has done the right thing. If the American people know how their government is exploiting people in the third world to "protect their freedom", certainly, they will vote differently. Maybe I am too naive, but I think this has the potential to create a paradigm shift in the way America (and the west) votes.

Mr. Assange will go into the history books as a hero. Of that I have no doubt.

Open Again

It has been a long time since I had closed this blog to the public. I have opened my doors again. I'm hoping to get back to regular blogging.

The purpose of this blog will be to

(a) Save interesting articles on the web (and editorialize on them) - something that I do on Facebook - an interface which I have begun to dislike.

(b) Write serious articles

(c) Write humorous articles

My emphasis will be on energy, climate science/politics, electronics (my new thing), thermal-fluid sciences, development economics and statistics.

I am fairly liberal as Americans go (on economic and social issues). That said, I believe in fiscal conservatism for India. Oh, and I have a thing for Chomsky.

... and I'm back

While I'm not ready to make the blog public yet, I've decided to start doing some groundwork to make this thing more legible and easier to navigate. I also intend to spend some more time on each post, ensuring that I am proof-reading it well.

I've also come up with the following resolutions:

(a) Less sporadic, more regular posting

(b) More humor

(c) Less typos

Critics of Homeopathy take Note

This is what got me into the doggerel mode.

Of course homeopathy works.
Because the Placebo effect works.

If you believe homeopathy works
Then it works.

Because of Placebo.

But proving that homeopathy does not work,
You will ensure that the placebo does not work.

Because if people think that homeopathy works,
Then their faith will heal them.

Of course you can argue that they believe in a lie.
But what's so bad about it, if it works?

To me homeopathy is a lot like religion.
They're both factually wrong.
But people are happier with them.
People are fitter with them.

Faith is underrated.
Homeopathy works because of faith.
And to prove that it's wrong
will kill those who believe in it.
Because, bottomline: they're being healed by placebo. By faith.

Faith is under-rated.
Placebo is under-rated.

Why is this front page material?

This is the top story on the hindu.

http://beta.thehindu.com/news/national/article81957.ece?homepage=true

This even makes it to CNN's front page.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/01/18/india.terror.trial/index.html

There is unequivocal photographic evidence tying Kasab to the massacre in Mumbai. I have no idea why news organizations want to lend credibility to the voice of a man who has been throughly brainwashed by some of the most evil people in existence right now - religious terrorists hailing from Pakistan.

This guy has been trained to manipulate India's relatively liberal media by making all sorts of statements. Looks like the media is playing right into the hands of the terrorists. The sooner people stop lending credibility to this brainwashed young murderer, the better.

Why Haiti?

Haiti has a per-captia income which is less than half that of India's. This is unquestionably the poorest country this side of Africa.

This monster of a quake hit the tiny, over-populated (higher density than India) destitute nation of Haiti.

I am wondering how the religious will reconcile this disaster with the benevolent god that they keep harping about. Because man did not cause this quake.

Update: Here's one imbecile answer.

Why I love Science

This is a good reason.

Per captia vs total

Finally, an American economist realizes that GDP means nothing on the scale of things. The only thing that matters is per-capita GDP. (Paul Krugman here)

This is a big day for America.

Tyler Cowen, I think makes a better point: It's not the derivative, it's the level that matters.

These debates remind me of some we used to have back at IIT. (Of course we did not know so much, but we did keep fighting with what little we did know).

After Dark

Long long time ago, when I had my very first computer, I used an incredible screen-saver utility that called itself After Dark. Among the more interesting one had something to do with flying toasters.

But my hands down favorite was a random sentence generator. It would construct standard sentences using arbitrary nouns, verbs, adverbs and adjectives, which were strictly grammatically correct. It would have us in splits.

A modern day update seems to have been provided by the company in the forms of a gentleman who talks in his sleep. What is more interesting is that there seems a thread of coherence to the sentences - but they are nonetheless nonsensical. Gems include:

"The plumbing doesn't help with the cucumbers anymore."

"My vision of hell is a lentil casserole."

Costa Rica

I've been shouting about how one can live perfectly content lives without humongous GDPs. A country which seems to have done so seems to be Costa Rica.

Nick Kristof writes a good piece in today's NY Times. And here's the Wikipedia article that is necessary for appreciating his piece.

They're the happiest people in the world - and each Costa Rican earns only four times the average Indian (as opposed to the sixteen times that the average American earns).

Adopting Costa Rica as an ideal will be a non-starter in larger countries that need their military. But certainly, what this does tell us is that an emphasis on cheap higher education and health care could very well result in happiness.

Whether happiness is the objective of each democracy is something I am not yet convinced of yet.

The Burj Khalifa

Beautiful building and all that. Fail to see any credible reason why it should have been made.

Here's why.

(1) There is no lack of Horizontal space in Dubai / UAE, making this a pointless exercise. If they made something like this in Mumbai / NYC, it would make sense.

View Larger Map
(2) This is pretty much why Dubai is in the state it is: absolute financial disarray. Excesses.
(3) And what is the likelihood that they will get anywhere close to full occupancy? Almost zero.
(4) Dubai has a population of 2M, of which 40% are Indian. 2M is Slightly more that the pop of Vizag. Does not need a tall building.
(5) Following from (1) and (4), this is clearly an ego thing. Which seems embarrassing, considering (2).
(6) No amount of tall buildings will make theocracies livable, especially the woman hating, gay killing kind.
(7) Futher, the predominantly South Asian workers hired for constructing the building were forced to live in conditions not in line with the developed world.
(8) Barbarism such as this is not helping Dubai's ghastly image.

It's been a wonderful decade

If you're not American.

Here's a remarkable piece by Professor Tyler Cowen in the New York Times. I could not agree more. And here is his follow up blog post. I love how he ends the piece:

Again, I'd like to stress the general point that most American-born economists are not sufficiently cosmopolitan in their thinking and writing.

What he essentially argues is that the world has become a much happier place over the last 10 years. Multitudes in India, China, Brazil and Indonesia have become come out of extreme poverty and moved up into the middle class.

History will probably judge this decade as one of the most successful in human history. Because the third world is filled with humans too.

With god On Our Side

And the lyrics are here. The following is my favorite paragraph.

But now we got weapons
Of the chemical dust
If fire them we're forced to
Then fire them we must
One push of the button
And a shot the world wide
And you never ask questions

When God's on your side.

Developing World and Climate Change

I have been the US for the last four years as a PhD student. I have gotten used to American customs, American televisions, American politics and American residences. I have seen America elect its first African American leader - Barack Obama. I have also seen the US suffer through the Bush years. I have seen the US fall into an economic abyss - which it is still trying to fight its way out of.

I have seen the Republican war on science in the US. There are nut cases here that deny human evolution. There are more nut cases who deny anthropogenic global warming - despite mountains of conclusive evidence to the contrary. I have seen policy made by people who have absolutely no empathy for the millions of people in the world who are suffering in war zones. There are some in this country who think that Afghans and Iraqis should have gratitude towards Americans for helping rape and pillage their motherland.

All that aside, I have seen that Americans are some of the most polite, least xenophobic and most accepting people in the world. Racism is frowned upon by both liberals and conservatives in this country - and those who practice it are usually marginalized. At the personal level, interaction with each and every American person has been very pleasurable. It is far more likely that I walk out of a business establishment upset in India than the US! Also, I have it from fairly unimpeachable sources that Americans are certainly less racist than Europeans - probably a consequence of the US being such a melting pot. As a consequence, I feel right at home in the US - because the American people are so warm and welcoming.

It is quite tough to reconcile these two Americas. But I will try to do so here, by addressing a current sticking point: emission cuts pertinent to climate change.

Population Issues:

People in the west say that there's too many people in India.. and that's a bad thing. They have this picture of India as one of those places that each familiy has a gazzillion children and that the population growth rate is absolutely out control.

While the above might have been the reality a few years ago, things have changed these days. India right now has a 2.7 children per woman rate fertility rate. India's population growth rate blew up in the 1960s-80s due to revolutions in sanitation, food availability and medical care. As dramatically more people started to survive, India's population started to grow. Indian reproductive practices took a little more time to adjust to the reduction in death - and this transient differential resulted in a population explosion. Now that birth rate has gone down to values close to the developed country average - and is still heading in the correct direction, it is unlikely population growth will ever be a problem in India.

What will be a problem is that a lot of these desperately poor people will start to become richer, and hog resources. So, it's not a population problem in India any more. It is a prosperity problem. Indians are beginning to consume more. The average Indian consumes 20 times less than the average American. Indian emissions are going to shoot up because the average Indian is likely to emit only one fifth the average american, rather than one-twentieth.

Lifestyles and Emissions:

Americans and the other inhabitants of the first world want the developing world do everything to ensure that their future emissions are under check.

Here's the scenario:

(1) The west has developed until now without any restrictions on its emissions because they did not know that CO2 emissions were contributing to climate change. The current emissions of the west have pretty much saturated (and just track the population expansion rate).

(2) The developing world, on the other hand (a) Is increasing in population (b) Is getting richer, and therefore increasing its emissions dramatically.

The recent increase in emissions, the western world argues, is due to increasing population and prosperity in the developing world.

Given that the increase in emissions is due to the developing world, the developing world ought to be the ones that should discipline their power plants and cut their future emissions. They can do so with foreign aid - because the rich world was responsible for the emissions until now. Some amount of emission cuts must also come from the developed world - and this can be accomplished by a cap-n-trade system.

This was essentially the import of both the Kyoto and Copenhagen declarations. The former resulted in a protocol calling for drastic cuts in emissions from the developed world. The latter was a blatant failure, resulting in a statement. If treaties are meaningless (like the Kyoto thing has proven to be), what hope does one have of declarations?

While the Copenhagen statement seems to be perfectly reasonable at first glance, a deeper look shows it to be horribly inequitable. I will try to elucidate how in the remaining space.

American McMansions vs Indian Apartments

For just argument's sake, let us consider the apartments that some of the richest people in India stay in. I'm not talking the Ambanis or the Birlas here - they're exceptions to the rule. I'm talking of people who are the General Managers in large companies (or even CEOs/Vice Presidents). I'm talking of professors at IITs (even though the latter are grossly underpaid).

And on the other side, let us consider mansions owned by large proportions of 40-somethings in the US. They need not be in the top income bracket - they could, say, own a shop in the downtown of a typical American town.

How big is the house?

Indians, listen. Americans want you to cut emissions. You know that extra table fan you bought to negotiate the 45C summer (with 90% humidity)? Well, they want you to trash it in the name of cutting emissions. If you don't throw away that table fan, they will threaten to impose climate sanctions on you.

And while you're getting rid of the table fan, the Americans will be sitting in their swimming pool cum Jaccuzi that they have just installed.

The American house under consideration has, on the average, four bedrooms, two studies, two living rooms, four bath rooms, a washer-and-dryer (which dries clothes completely, since clotheslines are not permitted by real estate developers). It is not uncommon for most houses to have a massive swimming pool in the garden - as well as the aforementioned Jacuzzi. The water in the Jacuzzi is usually heated to the correct temperature by in-line water heaters, sucking in kilowatts from the power grid. Poorer americans might not have such large houses - they might skimp on the pool and the jaccuzi - but not on the number of bedrooms and living rooms. The average American house has a square footage of 2400. [Very informative article, I must add.]

The Indian house on the other hand (and here, I am talking about the rich Indians) has three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a decent sized kitchen and a hall-cum-dining room. Gone are the days of the bungalow - land cost is extortionately exorbitant (due to lots of people speculating on land - i.e. buying and hoarding land because they see it as an investment to pay for their daughters' weddings, in the process driving up the price for people who really want to build a house there.)

How much of the house is centrally air conditioned?

Just to get an idea of the contribution of air conditioning to energy consumption, let me tell you about our electricity bills in Texas. Our summer electricity bill (in the months of July and August) averages to around $150 a month. In winter, when we usually do not have to use the heater or the air conditioner, we pay only $50 to $70 every month. Central air conditioning accounts for around 50% of the energy consumed by the house.

In the US, each house, each kitchen, each hall, each Walmart, each library, each mall, each skating rink, each airport terminal, each auditorium, each basketball court is fully air conditioned. When the outside is at a hot 34C, the room is called to a bone chilling 16C. When the outside is sub-freezing, the room will be maintained at the same 16C. To the Indian this would seem like hedonistic overindulgence. To the American this is just business as usual. And the American has the gall to ask the Indian to reduce emissions?

TO BE CONTINUED

Evidence of India's Economic Growth

N.D. Tiwari, 85 is in the middle of a massive sex scandal. India's own Tiger Woods?

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/videoshow/5377945.cms

India has really arrived.

Both the Indian politician and the Indian media are as sleazy as their American counterparts.