Planet Earth is in Deep Trouble

The Environment was back in the news because of an oil spill at the Gulf of Mexico and the release of a report by US president Obama's cancer panel of the link between chemicals and cancer. Oil spills cause irreparable damage to fauna and flora, and people who depend on these resources for livelihood. The recurring episode shows that we have not yet learnt the right lessons from Exxon Waldez.

The report prepared by Obama's cancer panel says that, "...Approximately 41 percent of Americans will be diagnosed with cancer at some point in their lives, and about 21 percent will die from cancer...". The panel, in its 240-page report, suggests strengthening of research into environment chemicals and cancer. The chapter, Environmental Exposures Related to Modern Lifestyles, is a great read on how humans are being exposed to environmental carcinogens daily.

After carbon footprint, the digital footprint is also affecting the environment or is going to affect the environment in a much bigger way. A report in Guardian says that cloud computing will use energy in such a way that the carbon footprint increases by leaps and bounds, unless reined in by truly green technologies. Jan Wildeboer, an open source evangelist, says in a video posted on YouTube that proprietary formats will augment the volumes of digital waste, unless replaced with open source formats. Sounds pretty grim. Watch the video anyway.

BBC reports that the ash misery from Eyjafjallajökull will continue to haunt air travellers.

Commonplace Books and Echo Chamber Effect

I have a fascination for terms and jargons. My eyes lit up when I feel that the connotation of something I read is more than skin deep.

Commonplace books: I saw this word in a post titled, The Glass Box And The Commonplace Book. Wikipedia defines the words as "Commonplace books (or commonplaces) were a way to compile knowledge, usually by writing information into book."

Echo Chamber Effect: Echo Chamber effect is used to describe how media outlets follow stories reported by a major media outlet.

A Few Quotes

The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting-Milan Kundera in The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

Beauty, the last triumph possible for man who can no longer hope-Milan Kundera in The Art of the Novel.

We live in an age of conspiracy theories, some people preferring to believe that nothing is ever what it is but an elaborate plot by powers elsewhere-From Malcolm Bradbury's Doctor Criminale.

The sea is a symbol of collective unconscious because unfathomed depths lie concealed beneath its reflecting surface-Carl Jung in Dreams

Man has lost the capacity to foresee and to forestall. He will end up by destroying the Earth-Albert Schweitzer

Daily Recap

I watched the recorded version of the Author-IT Dynamic Assistance Platform webinar. It was interesting to read Steve Job's article on Adobe Flash, and also to know that Ozzfest 2010 would have Girls Girls Girls! fame Motley Crue and Rob Halford. Another article says technical writes can be good scientifc writers( not sure), while The FrameMaker Five turned out to be written for FrameMaker 9. On a day I bought a few Indian philosophy books, there comes a list of science fiction detective novels in New Scientist. The week also saw the Indian parliament passing a bill to establish a national green tribunal in India. According to Business Standard, this is "the first serious attempt in the country towards environmental rights."