Youth Activism and Climate Change
By S. Anantha Krishan and Priya Subramanian Youth in the Middle East today, are fighting back to end decades of autocracy, with a mandate for social reform, and it is now an established fact, that the bulging youth population can effect a paradigm shift in the entire socio political gamut of operations by driving radical, [...]
India’s Entrepreneurs Drive Renewable Energy Revolution, but World Bank info Declares Coal King
Given its desire to steer climate finance decisions for the international community, the World Bank should be at the vanguard of this emerging economic reality. Instead it is India’s young entrepreneurs, who are driving an energy revolution with a fraction of the resources. Having witnessed the landscapes of extraction and persistent energy poverty that coal has delivered for 400 million rural Indians, these entrepreneurs are laying bare the false illusions of cheap coal, relying instead on renewable energy to bring rural India from darkness to light.
The Problem of Electronic Waste and the Prospects of E-Recycling
The overproduction of waste has always been a global concern ever since people began throwing things away. What to do with all the trash that the world produces is not only an environmental issue but is also a societal one. Things like paper, plastic, and aluminum were usually the prime products when it came to [...]
From Darkness to Light: An interview with Ratnesh Yadav from Husk Power Systems
Ratnesh Yadav of Husk Power Systems, a social enterprise working to empower Bihar (one of India’s poorest states), was gracious enough to take time out of his extremely busy schedule to deliver a simple and powerful message: Traditional electrification routes have failed; Decentralized, off-grid renewable energy is the need of the hour. He backs this [...]
Piggyback or Leapfrog?
Cell Phone Towers, Community Power, and Renewable Energy for Rural Electrification By 2030 the International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts there will be 1.2 billion people lacking access to electricity, which gives the world 1.2 billion reasons to get energy lending right. Getting it right means making the future of rural electrification decentralized renewable energy systems [...]
Candid about Cancún
The climate negotiations live to see another day! Amidst the cheer and applause that marked the end of the talks in Cancun, Mexico; a mischievous sense of relief was shared by many parties and observers to the COP. Did we strike a historic deal that will limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius? Did we [...]
The Great Wall of India
India is fencing off its border with Bangladesh. What will that mean for millions of potential climate refugees? An 8-foot-high, double-walled, barbed-wire fence draped with laundry menaces the border between Sutia, India, and Dhannokulla, Bangladesh. But if I wanted to cross from Sutia to Dhannokulla last week, I wouldn’t have needed to jump the fence—I [...]