Gosh. If someone at the Physics Department of Imperial College, London could only develop a way to harness the power of The Rant, the entire energy/global warming crisis would go away instantly.
The other day I was listening, in desperation because there was nothing else, to Melvyn Bragg on BBC Radio Four's "In Our Time." Bragg has been working hard on celebrating the history of the Royal Society, which - for the benefit of those of you who've not heard of it before - is a British institution founded after our Civil War for the advancement of science and the betterment of human existence.
Uh-huuuuuh.
Well, get this. As part of the episode that was talking about what the Royal Society is up to today, there was an interview with a bright young student at some science fair thing they were running at Carlton House Terrace in London. Bragg described it as a sort of "Farmer's Market" for new scientific ideas but I found myself wondering if it was more like a car boot sale: For, as well as a smattering of NEW science ideas, there was also an unhealthy representation of OLD ideas about natural resources, and especially about who is entitled to reap (rape?) the natural resources in the African subcontinent.
An enthusiastic young go-getter was heard extolling the virtues of their wonderful new photovoltaic cell, which is something like twenty percent more efficient that the cell being commonly used around the world. Excellent, I hear you say. Superb. Yes. Give me three dozen. Have them gift-wrapped and sent to my apartment.
The student explained how these cells, which work by making use of ALL of the available light in the spectrum, and not just a small percentage of it, could be put in the Sahara Desert and then the power thus generated could be fed via high-voltage cables straight back to Europe.
Oh, I thought. Oh! OK. So .. because the Europeans have been able to pay for the development of these wonderful new power cells, then it is obviously they who should get all the benefits of the power that is generated, is that it?
So. Instead of feeding that power into the process of developing (especially) sub-Saharan Africa; powering its hospitals, its schools, its water pumps, its cooking stoves, its computer servers and its mobile phone networks, we should instead send that power directly back to Europe so we can use it to play on our Nintendo Wiis? Or leave our downstairs lights on all night for the dog to see where its water bowl is? Or to power our garage-mounted security lights that we are too stupid to programme to not come in during the day, triggered when a cat strolls over to the flower bed to have a dump? Or to power our ridiculous displays of Christmas lights every year - getting bigger and bigger in a pointless show of defiance against the moron over the road who has gone out to B&Q and bought YET ANOTHER string to go over the loft conversion?
Oh, I'm quite sure that the young person from the physics department at University College London was just nervous, was just all of a wibble at being interviewed for the radio, and as such can be forgiven for making a common error-of-speech; that OF COURSE the energy would also be made available to the poor Africans! I mean, after all - they wouldn't need awfully much of it would they .. just enough for a single low-voltage bulb to light the interior of their mud and straw hovel, isn't that it? Yes, I am sure we could spare them a bit.
Why don't people THINK before they open their gobs? No, don't answer that till you've really considered it.
2 comments:
ha.
I think this happens with scientists and grad students - they become so focused on one little thing, making it their world, that they lose sight of the larger picture.
Perhaps too, he was trying to make his one thing directly relevant to all those listening. It's terrible, we live in a capitalistic society. There is little altruism in our daily lives.
"Who cares about the rest of the world" is the shout that goes up. Then they wonder why others fly planes into buildings.x
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