There is a buzz about green buildings. But the question is: what does one mean by building green? And how does one design policies to make the green homes of our dreams?Green is not about first building structures using lots…
Development
India Shining (Not)
by oliveridley • June 9, 2008
The guards at the gate are instructed not to let nannies take children outside, and men delivering pizza or okra are allowed in only with permission. Once, Mr. Bhalla recalled proudly, a servant caught spitting on the lawn was beaten…
Sunita Narain on the Tata Nano
by oliveridley • February 6, 2008
Unless you have been living under a rock recently (hey, nice way to start a blog post, insult your reader(s)), you must have heard of the Tata Nano, the much ballyhooed cheapest car ever built. People ask me (after all,…
Eastern United States vulnerable to climate change
by oliveridley • December 10, 2007
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-12/pu-sdn121007.php Time to get out of the Eastern United States? A study to be published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science tries to quantify the relative risk of climate change using something called a “socioclimatic” risk factor.…
A bit of good news – India and Wind Energy
by oliveridley • December 1, 2007
But renewable energy, of which the vast majority is wind power, accounts for more than seven per cent of India’s installed generation capacity – a rate that compares favourably with much of the rest of the world. India is the…
Friedman, India and Development
by oliveridley • November 4, 2007
Where Thomas Friedman of the New York Times echoes a blog post of mine from a few months back about cheap cars, development models and India. We have no right to tell Indians what cars to make or drive. But…
Canada loves asbestos (in third world lungs)
by oliveridley • October 30, 2007
In a normal world, when something is severely restricted in your country, you would not export it to another country under the pretense that used under certain, very restricted conditions, your product only causes a moderate increase in cancer. While…
Indian children work despite ban
by oliveridley • October 10, 2007
When I mentioned India’s child labor ban last year, I had many obvious questions about the implementation. One year on, this BBC report highlights on findings by Save the Children that the ban has not had much effect. BBC NEWS…
Pesticide Exposure and India's green revolution
by oliveridley • October 2, 2007
Pesticide exposure in Punjab and Haryana is out of control. When I was growing up, the Green Revolution was idolized and idealized to degree that in hindsight seems a little excessive. But back then, this octupling of wheat and rice…
One Person's Carbon Offset – Another's Child labor?
by oliveridley • September 24, 2007
The ‘carbon offset’ child labourers – Times Online “Pumping furiously on a foot treadle in the afternoon heat, six-year-old Sarju Ram is irrigating her impoverished family’s field, improving the crop and – without knowing it – helping environmentally sensitive holiday-makers…