Anything Under The Sun

Every morning I wake up to the sound of a 'thud'. Aaah! Its 'Squawky'. Yes, Squawky is the peacock who invariably acts as my alarm clock. Not only does he land roughly on the shed next to my room window, he also begins to sing 'melodiously' and persistently. I must take some lessons on persistence and perserverance from him sometime. ;-) Hehe.

If he stopped at that, it might have been ok; but the guy goes one step further. Literally!! He starts walking up and down the roof of the shed making it sound like the march of a parade. God Squawky, when will you learn to let me wake up on my own. 'Never' is what I think he'd say (If he could speak our language). Lets ignore him for the moment.

Squawky has friends; the green birds on the nearby tree. The parrots. Noisy birds, I tell you!! 'Birds' I believe, are synonymous with being noisy; so I'm told. Don't blame me girls, I didn't say it.

Anyway I think I'll have to continue this story later in the day, coz I've got to rush back to work. Coffee break over!!

Kowshik

 

The state-run buses in Karnataka take one step further in reducing vehicle emissions and reducing running costs. And how do they plan to do this? Simple.. For about 3 years now, they've been experimenting with alternative fuels.. And it looks like finally their experiments will be put into full-fledged action from the end of January 2006.

 

Here's the secret... The authorities have been testing a mixture of diesel and edible/non-edible oils for their buses. They mixed diesel with sunflower oil, groundnut oil and honge oil. Now the results show that honge oil is the best among the three. Honge oil costs Rs.28 per liter while diesel costs about Rs.35. The mixture uses 90% diesel and 10% honge oil.

 

Honge oil is obtained from the honge seeds of the honge tree. It is a wild tree seen commonly in Karnataka and the authorities see no problem getting their required quota every month. This tree grows with minimum water and doesnt need a lot of tending to. So we can expect more honge trees being planted in the future. This will also add to aforestation.

 

The state run buses in Karnataka consume about 12 crore liters of diesel annually. Using honge oil will reduce about 1.2 crore liters per year. At the current price different of Rs.7, this will mark savings of Rs 8.4 crores annually for the Govt.

 

Not only will this turn out to be economically feasible, it will also reduce emission levels by about 20%.

Just like buses in Gujarat are experimenting with CNG, buses in Karnataka are using bio-diesel.

It seems like the bio-fuels are beginning to make in-roads into the energy sector. Lets hope we see a day soon where we stop being completely dependent on petrol and diesel.

 

Saving the ecology is an act of greatness. And if you can save some money in the process, its even greater. A penny saved is a penny earned.

 

Kowshik

Save Water!

 

I know it sounds like a cliche. Every other activist is shouting his/her lungs out trying to get "people like us" to save water. I know we should save water, because it is becoming scarce.

 

Here are some facts I've read in different articles at different times: (There arent too many, but I'm sure this will be enough to get us thinking).

1. Did you know that 23% of the world's potable water is available in Brazil. Wow.

 

2. Do you know how much water we flush down the toilet everyday? Based on a research, on an average, each person flushes 4 times a day. In 365 days, it is 1460 times. COnsidering that flush tanks these days are small and use about 8 to 8.5 liters of water each time. That adds upto 11680 liters of water down the drain. Just one person. Now imagine the number of people in this world who flush down such precious water each day.

Next time you use water, think about it. Are you using too much? Can you reduce your usage a bit everyday?

 

Kowshik

Read more about ecological solutions on www.kopeinitiatives.com/bags