Tuesday, March 31, 2015

MUSINGS FROM PRIYADARSHINI KARVE: How our values have changed!

In the last couple of posts, I have been talking about the changes involved in shifting from hunter-gatherer lifestyle to agriculture based lifestyle. Let's now talk about how the value system changed with the change in lifestyle. 


Studying the still-surviving hunter-gatherer communities in some corners of the world, we infer that hunter-gatherers generally followed egalitarian principles. Contrary to popular belief, both men and women participated in hunting and gathering, depending on their skills and inclination. Irrespective of who succeeded in getting how much resources, at the end of the day, everyone in the group got an equal share in the day's collection. The group listened to the advice of elders, but the decision making was collective, and consensus based.


Agricultural societies are on the other hand, hierarchical, with the person or group controlling more land (and therefore more resources) calling the shots regarding who gets how much importance in the society, and share of the produce. 


The hunter gatherers had no 'emotional bond' with the land. If the going in a particular location got tough, they simply picked up and left in search of greener pastures. Since they were constantly on the move, not having too many personal needs meant less personal belongings to carry, and therefore greater mobility and higher chances of survival in case of unexpected disasters. In other words, for hunter-gatherers keeping their own 'backpack' light was a survival instinct.


With settling down, it was no particular benefit to being minimalist. On the other hand, there was power and prestige attached with ownership of more land than anyone else, a bigger house than everyone else, and so on. The emotional bond and sense of 'ownership' of land emerged after humans settled down in one location. We can blame all our land-ownership related family feuds on the shift to agriculture 10,000 years ago! 


Another important factor of hunter-gatherer lifestyle was living in the moment. Every day you focused on providing for yourself and your band just for that one day. Every night you went to bed, with either all the needs fulfilled, partially fulfilled, or unfulfilled, for that day. Tomorrow was another day, and a fresh start. One learned from past experiences, but didn't worry about the future beyond a day. 


An agriculturist has to plan his/her activities for a season at least, and then has plans for what to do with the produce at the end of the season. If s/he is putting a lot of effort in cultivating the land, the planning doesn't stop with a season, but extends to an year, several years, and so on. As a result, loss of a crop in one season, can have adverse impact on the plans for the next few years... leading to a lot of stress and anxiety. 


If you were toiling just to fulfill today's needs, the 'work' part of the day in an abundant ecosystem would not be more than 3-4 hrs. Rest of the time was available for leisure - to practice your skills through games and play, chat with your friends, draw paintings in the caves, spend time with your kids and your partner, and so on. 


On the other hand, an agriculturist, very conscious of the possibilities of a crop failing, or a flock of cattle dying in an epidemic, toils harder to reduce the odds against 'Plan A' and also to put in place a 'Plan B'... resulting into a work day of 8-10 hrs, leaving very little time for socialising, creativity and so on. 

A hunter-gatherer actually lived a more healthy lifestyle because there was automatically a great variety in food items consumed, the body got plenty of exercise, and so on. Of course, the life was full of more risk - of being hunted by other predators, of consuming something poisonous, of falling prey to calamities in unfamiliar lands, etc. Children being the weakest members of this harsh society, were more prone to die before reaching adulthood. The combination of low average life span and high child mortality kept the population stable, or allowed it to grow at a very slow rate. 


Agriculturists lived relatively safer lives, the survival rate of the children went up as they could be nurtured into adulthood in protected environment, however the life was less healthy due to the reduction in the variety in the food, large periods of food scarcity (and therefore malnutrition) in case of crop failures, etc. But one of the consequence of increased life expectancy, and increased lifespan was the spurt in population. 



So, to sum up, while shifting to agriculture solved the main problem of sustainability by increasing the carrying capacity of the land, it also transformed the human society in a number of other ways creating an entirely new culture. Ironically, it is this value system that has again put the sustainability of human population in jeopardy. How did that happen? Let's talk about that next week! 


Priyadarshini Karve
Director, Samuchit Enviro Tech

Monday, March 30, 2015

Not three, but five RE words we need to incorporate in ourselves


Hey Folks,

The last week's last post was all about "RE" : the three most commonly known words about environment conservation.

Without giving you a riddle or a quiz, we ensure you'd still scratch your grey locks!

So here's the deal:

Tell us five RE words which are most apt with environment conservation (You already have three words: REduce, REuse, REcycle, so you need two more)! Also tell us why you feel the two words are most suitable....

Two winners with best answers will await surprises. Post in your answers asap....Winners will be announced on Wednesday.

















    Samuchit Enviro Tech.     samuchit@samuchit.com     www.samuchit.com

Friday, March 27, 2015

REduce, REuse, REcycle...Tell us more!



The famous slogan seen, read and heard everywhere when the subject is related to environment.


Tell us how you would use this slogan in your daily life without compromising your lifestyle, time, money and energy. Alternately, if you do not have an answer, ask us how. Share your background and we give you the answer...






    Samuchit Enviro Tech.     samuchit@samuchit.com     www.samuchit.com

Thursday, March 26, 2015

The Septuagenarian Legend

Hello Folks,

Dr. Anand Karve featured on the cover page of Lokmat 'Pratham Purushi' on Saturday, March 21, 2015.

The article is in Marathi, but our non-Marathi readers, do not be upset - the good news is that you can communicate with the septuagenarian himself on samuchit@samuchit.com

Full scoop below:




    Samuchit Enviro Tech.     samuchit@samuchit.com     www.samuchit.com

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Ever bothered to know the 'waste'd facts?

While we tried to enlighten you about hazardous dumpings of electronic waste last week, we cannot help but throw some light on other grave facts about garbage and waste management.



v   About 0.1 million tonnes of municipal solid waste is generated in India every day. That is approximately 36.5 million tonnes annually. 

v The urban local bodies spend approximately Rs.500 to Rs.1500 per tonne on solid waste for collection, transportation, treatment and disposal. About 60-70% of this amount is spent on collection, 20-30% on transportation and less than 5% on final disposal.

v   Calorific value of Indian solid waste is between 600 and 800 Kcal/Kg and the density of waste is between 330 and 560 Kg/m3.

v   Out of the total municipal waste collected, on an average only 5% is composted.




*Facts collected from www.indiatogether.org


    Samuchit Enviro Tech.     samuchit@samuchit.com     www.samuchit.com

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

MUSINGS FROM PRIYADARSHINI KARVE: How did the lifestyle shift occur 10,000 years ago?

In my welcome note, I talked about the connection between sustainability and lifestyle. It is a well established fact that humans had lived as hunter-gatherers for 90,000 years, but about 10,000 years ago there was a transition to a sedentary lifestyle based on agriculture (and animal husbandry)





Hunting-gathering was the lifestyle of almost all animal species. Agriculture essentially involved holding another species (plant or animal) in captivity and nurture and breed for our own benefit. It was a totally new way of life that had never been attempted before by any animal or human species. And yet, it took hardly a thousand years for almost all humans spread across the world to abandon the only lifestyle that was ever known to them, and to make this radical shift. 
  
How did this transition happen? 

It is also quite well known that there were seven locations in the world where agriculture and animal husbandry first became established. For a long time historians believed that the agriculturists pushed back the nomads in the quest to get more and more land under cultivation, and finally ended up by replacing the hunter-gatherers almost everywhere. But genetic data refutes this hypothesis. Genealogical studies indicate that it was the KNOWLEDGE of agriculture that spread widely across the world, not the GENES of the early agriculturists! 

This indeed is most remarkable! Remember that we are talking of a time when even the most primitive tools of communication were not around. The only mode of information transmission at the time was chance encounters between two nomadic groups. Even in these encounters, useful exchange of information could happen only if the two groups spoke the same or similar languages, and were friendly enough to spend time 'chatting and gossiping'. 

Of course, conflicts between the two lifestyles also must have happened often, whenever hunter-gatherers and agriculturists tried to share the same space. It is also likely that the hunter-gatherers losing the battles may have ended up in slavery to the agriculturists. After all, for the agriculturists, it must have been a logical step forward from holding other species in captivity for their own use, to holding some individuals of their own species in captivity to use as manual labour! Thus, it is quite plausible that some hunter-gatherers may have been forced into agriculturist lifestyle. But the rapidity of the spread of agriculture suggests that hunter-gatherer groups in the vicinity of agriculturists also must have felt compelled to abandon their way of life and try out this novel approach taken by their neighbours.

The resultant lifestyle changes were not just outward behavioural changes, but also involved changes in value system. What were these changes? Let's talk about that next week! 


Priyadarshini Karve
Director, Samuchit Enviro Tech

Monday, March 23, 2015

Gritty Grid


Gritty Grid!


Find out 5 types of renewable energy in the grid below. 



B
N
E
W
S
G
H
E
U
T
S
Y
D
O
A
O
Y
F
B
E
D
Z
S
O
T
N
D
U
S
O
G
E
O
T
H
E
R
M
A
L
P
C
L
R
U
F
O
N
S
N
M
S
A
E
Y
Q
E
S
M
Y
E
A
R
S
A
W
L
U
T
A
F
O
U
M
T
I
E
D
E
U
O
T
B
O
H
N
C
T
S
H
A
N
H
E
N
D
T
R
N
B
S
M
Y
N
H
U
R
E
H
O
Y
U
A
I
B
Y
I
O
A
M
O
H
D
U
S
E
C
Y
B
E
U
S
S
A
M
O
I
B
N
T

Post your answers in a separate message box to us as soon as possible! We are waiting for the first five winners.
Winners and answers will be announced on Wednesday.

Samuchit Enviro Tech.     samuchit@samuchit.com     www.samuchit.com

Friday, March 20, 2015

Friday Feed: Which is Asia's cleanest village?

20 March : Friday post


Asia's cleanest village is situated in Meghalaya, India. :-)


Samuchit Enviro Tech.     samuchit@samuchit.com     www.samuchit.com

Thursday, March 19, 2015

SUSTAINable Life : Gleams of Glory...

Gleams of Glory


So when all newspapers suddenly wake up to start projecting household garbage disposal concerns, most of us get goosebumps at the bilious full-page photographs of landfills and garbage dumps. The information that accompanies the photographs is no less appalling.

But this dark cloud does have a silver lining. At no much expense, with no compromise on the current lifestyles, if we realize that we have a solution to manage our kitchen, household waste, garden waste, agri or forestry waste at our own end, it is music to our ears.

Add more to it, you also end up producing some clean fuels as a by-product!

If you feel as responsible towards the environment as we do, click here to know more. Alternatively, call us, walk into our office, or express your interest by simply replying to this post, and we would get back to you!



Lets pledge to create a clean future for our children!




#BeModernBeResponsibleBeRespectful

Samuchit Enviro Tech.     samuchit@samuchit.com    www.samuchit.com

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Lesser known truth - about e-waste


Wednesday : 18 March 2015


E-waste represents 5% of our trash in landfills, but it equals 75% of overall toxic waste. The extreme amount of lead in electronics alone causes damage in the central and peripheral nervous systems, the blood and the kidneys.
Dispose e-waste responsibly....ask us how!


#BeModernBeResponsibleBeRespectful

Samuchit Enviro Tech.     samuchit@samuchit.com     www.samuchit.com