Earth Hour

Look around, and watch your world getting destroyed. Or take a stand and make a difference.

Put simply, out planet is dying the death of a million cuts. If each person contributes even in the smallest proportion it can make a difference. It would take an ignorant person to not know by now what I’m referring to.

Global Warming. Despite being ignored for decades, the issue has found public interest in recent years. Amongst many efforts comes Earth Hour – a stand taken up first by the city of Sydney (Australia) in 2007. By switching off their lights for one hour in the evening, 2.2 million homes and businesses in Sydney collectively voiced their concern for our planet.

Moved by their actions, people around the world joined in the next year. In 2008, 50 million people switched off their lights. Global landmarks such as the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, Rome’s Colosseum, the Sydney Opera House and the Coca Cola billboard in Times Square all stood in darkness.

And on March 28, 2009 an estimated 1 billion people took part in Earth Hour. Sitting in my university in Singapore, I watch the lights go off and realised how collective people from different parts of the world were at that instant. Pictures posted at Boston.com reveal the effect in a series of before-and-after photographs – which (starting with the second one ) fade between “on” and “off” when clicked.

This is the official Earth Hour 2009 video:

To learn more about Global Warming, you can check the following websites:

• Global Warming.org – http://www.globalwarming.org/
• The New York Times – http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/news/science/topics/globalwarming/index.html
• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency – http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/
• Al Gore’s ‘The Inconvenient Truth’ documentary – http://www.climatecrisis.net/ (Watch here on Google Video)

The Lost Generation

A good message…

Corruption, Population, Government

It would be interesting for some to note that there is a ‘Bribe Payers Index‘ (BPI) and a ‘Corruption Perceptions Index‘ (CPI), prepared each year by an organisation called Transparency International.

The methodology is not difficult to understand – All sources measure the overall extent of corruption (frequency and/or size of bribes) in the public and political sectors and all sources provide a ranking of countries. Sources include country experts (business leaders, risk agencies, country analysts) and few internationl organisations (Economist Intelligence Unit, World Economic Forum, etc).

The CPI ranks 180 countries by their perceived levels of corruption, as determined by expert assessments and opinion surveys. The BPI ranks the likelihood of firms from 22 top exporting countries to bribe abroad.

Some scores from CPI & BPI 2008 are:

On looking at the bribe payer’s index, the last few countries on the list are also some of the most populated countries on the planet. Though the correlation seems obvious, I wonder if there is a cause and effect relationship between corruption and population.

Though I firmly believe that corruption in itself is wrong, I also feel that many nations have realized that they need to firmly stamp down on it. Despite a good conscience, some of the more populated nations are unable to tackle the problem as fast as others expect them to. For example, if one was entering India and was asked to pay a bribe at the customs area in the airport, they have the option to complain to higher authorities and make a legal case of it – take the wrong doer to court. However, as is known, court cases in India – at every level, Supreme Courts, High Courts, Magistrate Courts – take a long time to be heard and resolved. There are cases which are pending a hearing for over 10 to 15 years! So, if this person at the customs is asked to pay up, will he or she actually want to get involved in potentially such a long drawn process?

The fact that it’s a long process to get justice, could in some ways be reflective of the government and constitutional set-up. In the case of India, as the largest democracy in the world, a person guilty of crime would have a number of legal options to seek a delay in judgment. (This framework also indicates the time and opportunity given to the innocently accused to prove their innocence.)

Not to be too critical, but I feel that the Indian government has come a long way in trying to tackle corruption. A few bad apples like the recent case of Mayawati (Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh) taking bribe, and the Satyam scandal only divert attention to a nation that has historically been plagued by this problem. Under a hypothetical scenario, if say the leaders of one of the ‘least corrupt’ nations were put in power in the India, I do not think they would be able to do any better a job than the current leaders. If this is accepted, then the source of corruption boils down to the constitutional set-up.

I wonder if it’s worth trading a free democratic environment for an authoritative pseudo-democracy like some of the ‘least corrupt’ countries.

Leaving Baghdad: Culture Shock in America

This is a beautifully written piece by Ahmad Fadam on his experiences in USA.

Having stayed in the US for two months, Ahmad reflects on a number of issues: the freedom he was never aware of when he lived in Iraq, how people take it upon themselves to represent their culture abroad, his rich Iraqi heritage and culture, the ignorance and disinterest of common Americans towards a country they’ve invaded, and yet their amiability and sympathy on recognising him as an Iraqi.

Written in simple english, Ahmad’s deliberations and questions are evoking and moving. It’s a piece you wouldn’t want to miss!