On climate change..

After warm ice free winter in Europe, Frosty California, over cold east coast, string of typhoons in US and finally a big storm raging across most of Europe the developed world finally woken up to the ultimate truth, that of global warming caused by the "Waste is development" philosophy led by US and followed by most of the developed world.

This is the first time in many years that the common man in Europe and US is being directly affected by the effects of global warming. After trying to stifle the voice of scientist on global warming for years, the American administration has not be able to completely eliminate it. And now the public opinion in the countries that matter is totally in favor of reducing the environmental impact.

A few hours of watching BBC and CNN will show the amount of change in the perception of media:
1. Toyota ad with tag line "aiming for zero emission" is broadcasted multiple number of times per day
2. Number of advertisements from many funds advertising the projects they undertook to reduce emissions.
3. US Congress rejecting the multiple billion subsidy and stating that the money is better used for renewable technologies

World is changing. But are they doing enough to save the world from catastrophe?

The new and emerging manufacturing powerhouse China, still does not care about the environment as long as it gets to manufacture and sell cheap products. And the materialistic world will not care how a product was manufactured as long as it is cheap and desirable.

India with its population is not much behind. As the affluence increases the consumption, we dont care what is the impact on the world.

Just guessing how many million deaths will be needed to actually open the eyes of the world.

And how feasible is it to save the earth as we know today from the conflicting and competitive citizens of the earth.

[Book Review] Guns germs and Steel by Jared Diamond

A "brief history of last 10000 years" is what the book promises. And we get much more than that. A complete paradigm shift of how and why civilizations developed only in Europe-Asia region, while people of Africa, Australia and Americas lagged behind.

Book starts off with an anecdote when the author, a naturalist, is roaming around in the jungles of New Guinea with a local tribal as a guide. As they prepare to cook dinner, the guide gets some mushrooms as food. The author is afraid as he knows the quite a few varieties in the jungle are poisonous and even experts in the field cannot distinguish between the poisonous and edible ones. However when the guide realizes the real reason behind the skepticism to eat mushrooms, he starts listing the varieties available not only in that jungle, but also in the whole island, and their uses and their characteristics. This anecdote is used to make a point that the reason some tribes dint civilize is surely not due to lack of intelligence. All the native tribes in the world have complete knowledge of their environment. If there was anything to be discovered, the natives would have discovered. The author proves convincingly numerous reasons leading to civilization in Eurasian region. And none of them depends on the intelligence of the local tribes.

Reason 1: Availability of appropriate plants and animals
The golden crescent, one of the three areas where agriculture was first developed, has some unique characteristics. 5 out of 7 grasses with largest seed size are found in wild in this area. Also it has an unique topology of mountains and plains due to which the olden day tribal could sustain agriculture throughout the year. Similarly the lack of domesticable animals in Africa, Americas and Australia led to continuation of "Hunting based" lifestyle of the natives in those places.

Due to the surplus created due to agriculture/domestic animals, professions like philosophers, soldiers, doctors etc could be sustained and which are necessary for development of civilization.

Reason 2: Axis of the continent
The reason for development of civilizations across Europe and Asia is the East-West Axis of the land mass. The east west axis provides a conducive environment for spread of the newly developed crops as for example the crops which grow in Mediterranean face similar climate 5000 miles across in China. Compare this to the north south axis of Americas. Every few hundred miles, the climate changes drastically. For eg. The Day length variations in US/Canada border is significantly different that one found in the Mexico US border.  This hampers the spread of plants from one place to another.

Thus the book conclusively proves that no-other tribes residing outside of Eurasian land mass had any chance of development. May be they would have reached the same level of advancement in technology, had they got enough time to progress. But clearly they were not supposed to get the required time.

And hypothetically, if the American continents had the environment and conditions which we have in Eurasia, the history might have been very different. American Indians would have been the ones who would have discovered Europe and Asia. And they would have wiped of all the natives of Europe and Asia and would have Ruled the World.

Overall, this book provides an excellent insight into the factors influencing the development of human civilization and the significant role natural resources and environment played in the development. This is quite contrary to the "casteist" belief held by the conservatives across the world. And this book provides a refreshingly new outlook of looking at things.

--Rahul