Post carbon villages in India
India truly lives in its 600,000 villages. The breathtaking Urbanization is a transient phenomenon...we'll soon be back to riding donkeys or horses. In the final transition to sustainable living, which peak oil, global warming, collapse of food security, radiation poisoning (from depleted uranium and other radiation), energy crisis (we are hugely short of electric power), our lives will be fundamentally affected. More so the life in villages because from being sustainable entities right up to 1950s, they have come to depend entirely on urban centres for basic survival. These villages supply India with food, fibre, fruits, fodder for animals. The forces of globalization, unbridled operations of MNCs, lop-sided policies of the Governmetn of India, in every facet of human life, has driven these villages from one crisis to another, so much so that the entire rural India is under continuous stress.
We need to go back to the basics...tone down media-induced consumerism, raise awareness, train people to strengthen community life,formulate their respective strategies for survival. Bottom-up approach, as opposed to an approach driven from New Delhi.
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May 5th, 2006
water filter
A while back when I was researching my book, "What MoneyCan't Buy" one of the things I was looking into was a low cost water filter. Walkerton had been in the news at that point and I wanted to be prepared. I do not remember the site, but I found out a about a water filter invented in India I think with UN help. Basically all it is is a pancake shaped combination of local clay, sand and charcoal( burnt wood) and I think some ash was added to the clay. What they would do is place the "Pancake" into a container that had a hole in the bottom, sealed it in with fresh clay and then poured "Dirty " water in the container. They would put a bucket under it to catch the filtered water. They experimented( I think) with letting the "Dirty" water stand in a settling container first.It was last year some time, so my memory is not exact. They said the surface of the "pancake" would need to be scrubbed every once in a while. Once it was used up, they just made another one.
This is a prime example of using local materials to provide a sustainable solution to a chronic problem. Low tech works. Their filter took out around 97% of the bad stuff, which, for that village was a vast improvement over useing the ditchwater directly. Granted it is not a long term solution, a treatment plant would be better, but the village could not afford a treatment plant. This would save lives and keep things going till a long term solution could be found.
Michael J. Kaer, Owner of www.mikesworms.com and www.2bitpixel.com