CONSERVATION PSYCHOLOGY AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

In Oct 2016, I was at Munnar for a short family holiday. Our first stop was at Cheeyappara waterfalls. The cascade was great to be viewed from within our car. With great excitement we walked towards the falls. There were about 50 tourists at the site. I could identify four languages in the crowd. The seven stepped fall of Cheeyappara was enchanting. 

However, the serenity of the scene was ripped apart in a fraction of a second, when I glanced down. At the bottom, people had carelessly thrown empty water and liquor bottles (photo 1).  The scene under the bridge, across the road was no different (photo 2). Ironically nobody was even remotely upset at the disgusting sight. 

Photo 1. Used bottles discarded carelessly at Cheeyappara waterfalls, Kerala, India.

Photo 2. Careless behavior at Cheeyappara waterfalls, Kerala, India. As seen below the bridge

This is where our system fails. It can safely be assumed that anybody who could afford the bottles discarded carelessly there would be sound and literate enough to have heard about global change and sustainable development. Such behavior only reinforces the premise that our education is not transformative. We are only taught to regurgitate on exam sheets. There ends the learning. It is better to remain illiterate and lead a primitive life, if after spending almost two decades in formal system, our behavior remains uncivilized.

Today the notion of conservation is more valuable than pearls. Like nacre, it  has to be imbued layer upon layer. The seed has to be sown in the mind and raised through the formative years. Only then will such sights disappear from landscape forever. 

Sustainable development ranks next only to defense in terms of international monetary investments. Despite our luminous understanding of consequences of unsustainable consumption pattern, why are we unable to change track? These require paradigm shift in our social outlook that looks down on certain domains. Walking with obtusely tilted head, we have waded into quicksand. 

It is time that we shrug off the social stigma and consider emerging trans-disciplinary domains like conservation psychology. Let us hand over the baton of sustainable development to social scientists and philosophers. They are more likely to rekindle the extinguished fire and sustain mankind.  

SENSIBLE GOVERNANCE OVER e OR m GOVERNANCE

The social drama unwinding in the state of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu over Cauvery are curtain raisers of tomorrow. It betrays the widely held belief that social accommodation is an increasingly accepted urban norm in today's word. Benguluru and Chennai, both claim to be cosmopolitan cities. Both are racing against time to become smart cities. But when it comes to sharing resource, monopolization and barbarism continues to  reign. The drama that is unfurling at multiple locations across the two states are just curtain raisers of tomorrow. 

These expose the fragility or non-existence of global change adaptation strategies that we have in India. They remain confined to higher level curricular deliberations. Social systems have started to exert more than acceptable voice in shaping  global bio-physical systems. It is high time that corruption is added to the list of factors that drive global change processes. 

I am referring to cobwebs in development. In December 2015, it led to precipitation of probabilities at Chennai (http://envinfoiiitmk.blogspot.in/2015/12/precipitation-of-probabilities.html). 

Despite receiving millennial rain six months ago, the state of Tamil Nadu is dry again. What does these point to? Is anyone bothered? Does either Tamil Nadu or Karnataka (or any state in India) have any plan in ground to deal with the scenario of Cauvery (or other lifelines) going dry? 

Prolonged drying or unpredictable seasonal drying of rivers is a highly likely probability to happen in less than 4000 days. What will Karnataka do if inter-district fury gets enacted in sharing of Cauvery water? 

On more than one instance, it was reiterated that, Cultural Empathy is the Key to Sustainable development. An earlier piece had outlined how our Education can become Transformative. 

Does e Governance or m Governance have anything to offer? It is difficult to say whether these are outcomes of inabilities to prioritize and balance development or insensible Governance. As an individual, I can only hope for Sensible Governance.

THE DARK SIDE OF UNIVERSE - The Other Half !

I do not know whether what I am going to write is already well established or is just hallucination that I felt yesterday.

While reading at my study table late yesterday evening, I suddenly felt that although the room was lit (pretty well by a fluorescent tube); I was sitting in darkness. I was wide awake, somehow my eyes could not pick up the light. Instead it could only see the darkness around. Surprisingly, I could still continue to read!!!

Perhaps lightness and darkness cannot exist singularly. Darkness exists wherever there is light and the vice-versa! Seems strange for a casual reader. 

How would it be if the universe as we know it today were only of light? What if we are absolutely ignorant of what happens right in from of us - in darkness?

OR

Would the Universe be oscillating between light and dark? The current  out swing or expanding phase (post big bang) being that of light. One day light will stretch beyond its elastic limits to ebb out and be occupied by darkness. That will represent the phase when the Universe will start swinging back (compress) till dark density crosses some threshold for the next big (or bigger bang)?

The in swing, would represent a period when, life forms will sense darkness and be ignorant about light! 

We need some equipment to quantify darkness in a well lit room. I will only say that we are almost midway in out swing, if magnitude of both light and dark be almost comparable.  

It would be something like superpositioning of light and dark waves that result in the brightness in my room.

An Orphan who has discovered his parents

The Evergreen lines of Robert Frost .. "Two roads diverged in a wood and I took the one less traveled .." inspired me nine years ago, when I started my journey of Ecological Informatics (EI) at the Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management- Kerala (IIITM-K).

Over the last many years, I experienced almost all human emotions. Anxiety, disappointment, frustration, dejection, anger, cheer, joy and hope are the few to easily recollect. IIITM-K stood along and never let us down. Nevertheless the lack of a mentor was felt many times. Multiple instances of in-house debate on the wisdom of Frosts' words were inconclusive. Days seemed to get shorter and the nights longer. 

Although I felt like a lone orphan on the deck of a ship without sails; I never let optimism slip off.  Patience, perseverance and persistence has finally yielded. Deep within the forest I have come across a clearing with well-preserved imprints of great scientific work. I do not have words to express my feeling. Perhaps this would be the feeling of an orphaned child upon discovering his/her parents. 

I see the Sun in the horizon. As the day advances it will reveal the professional lineage of EI can be traced to one of the most respected scientists. I am signing off for now. 

Will be back soon with more revelation.

What Happens to An Idea That Gets Rejected By a Startup Funding Agency?

Knowledge and skill are fast being replaced by ability to innovate as a non-negotiable attribute that corporate recruiters look for, in prospective employers. The shift from emphasis on bulk campus recruitment to selective acquisition is already visible in the horizon. These justify existence of multiple avenues of funding available for start ups.

Idea(s) are the core of startups. Occasionally one can hear grievances about idea being poached. These point to the darker side of startups, which are seldom openly discussed. Suppose an young innovator develops an idea, but lacks access to resources (to convert it into a prototype/ product).  S/he discloses the idea to someone (a startup support agency) but fails to get a positive reply. Six months later, s/he would be disappointed to learn that somebody else has developed a prototype/ product  using the same idea. Although it would be difficult to establish, chances of unfair practices cannot be ruled out.

Under the present practice, there exists a latent potential that will increase the gap between 'genuine innovators' and 'armchair innovators'. The former has ideas and the latter, access to ideas. This is not a hypothetical probability. It can happen because, all startup funders require innovators to disclose their idea in advance. No one has time to study the fate of rejected ideas.

Strong propaganda works to instill the notion that ideas without implementation strategy are non-ideas and hence will not get purloined. However, it would be objective to view innovative idea and its implementation strategy as boat and oar respectively.

Ideas can come in two forms - patentable and non-patentable. The line that separates them is almost always thin. It is likely that 'armchair innovators' will seek to emphasize patentability of idea. 

Let the reader think over the question posed as the title of this comment.

Shouldn't something be done?

Perhaps it is time for an Innovation/ Idea Register.