Malawi Youth Builds Windmill

http://www.inhabitat.com/2007/07/11/malawi-youth-builds-windmill-to-power-village/

This article tells of William Kamkwamba who built a windmill from scraps to provide power for his home. He had to drop out of school due to lack of funds, but his primary school had a number of donated books, one of which showed in detail how to build a windmill to generate electricity. This is a very interesting example of the way that sustainable development has "trickled down" to individuals. The book he used to learn how to do this most likely came from a "first world" country.

It does seem to me that if "under-developed" countries have the desire to become developed, they should follow sustainable models (as should we, in the U.S. - we should switch to sustainable models as well). I also like the fact that this youth did it himself - he chose for himself this route towards development. It was not "forced" on him, except perhaps by showing him in a book how to generate electricity from wind power. So in this way, I am not against technology or knowledge that is "western" in its origin being used by local people in their own initiative and in their own way.

He has become a bit of a celebrity, and people are sending him donations directly. Here is his blog:

http://williamkamkwamba.typepad.com/

He is now going to finish school, and go to college, and has used the donations to benefit his family, extended family, and village.

I really love these personal accounts, and personal stories, and seeing how these individuals feel about their life, their future, education, etc. It is really interesting to read his blog. I find it much more inspiring than these "bigwig" conferences and political figures, and all that nonsense, which is generally depressing. The personal is more genuine, more touching, and I would say more truthful than most of the "news" these days. It is good to understand the theoretical aspects of development (like we learn in class) and also be able to see those big picture ideas in action in the little picture, and I think it's important to have both.

Sustainable Development News

I found an interesting website today: the World Business Council for Sustainable Development

http://www.wbcsd.org/

and I am reviewing this article -
http://www.wbcsd.org/plugins/DocSearch/details.asp?type=DocDet&ObjectId=MjU2MTY - from July 29, 2007

This article documents how one business in Honduras which raises and fillets fish for sale uses its own fish waste (head, scales, guts) to make biofuel which runs the whole factory as well as the buses that bring workers in each day.

I had heard about the problems with biofuel - especially that made from corn, which may be renewable but is not really sustainable. However, using fish waste that would normally simply be garbage for fuel is really a sustainable thing.

This whole website is full of "success" stories about sustainability, which is a very different kind of news source than the others I have been looking at so far (CNN, BBC, etc.). I had been looking for the more "personal" stories all this time, but most of the big news corporations are about political figures, conflicts, and the like.

World Social Forum

I had not heard of the World Social Forum before, but these two articles talk about it some:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4204829.stm
from 2005

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6281649.stm
from 2007

It is a gathering intended to be the opposite of the World Economic Forum, and as you can imagine it concerns itself with social issues such as poverty, disease, environmental damage, fair trade, etc.

It sounds like a very interesting forum that perhaps is able to accomplish something that the other ones (in which mainly people of means get together to talk about how the world can be improved) have failed to accomplish. I suppose it could be seen as the "socialist" vs. the "capitalist" forums, at least the way they describe in the articles.

"The World Social Forum describes itself as a platform for ordinary people to
exchange ideas opposed to a world dominated by capitalism and imperialism."

I am happy to hear about these kinds of things, and would like to know more
about these alternative forums and what they may or may not have been able to
accomplish. Anybody have any information about these?

Apocalypto

I watched "Apocalypto" the movie by Mel Gibson about the Mayans last night. I drew some interesting comparisons of the scenes of the Mayan city and the talk we had in class about the core and the periphery. You could almost see this visually in this movie, where on the outskirts of town there are the agriculture fields and the extraction of raw materials (limestone and trees) and the shanty-towns where the poor live, and as you get closer to the center, you see there are more tradespeople and craftsmen, and ultimately at the center of town there are the extremely wealthy people who are enjoying themselves, and the government. I just thought it was like a mini-model of the core and periphery - the poor, agricultural, raw materials are on the periphery (like the third world) and the wealthy merchants and probably capitalists essentially are in the center (like first world).

Also, a salient point being made in the movie was about environmental and social degradation which ultimately allowed for their downfall (with the help of Europeans of course). They overused their resources, and abused their people, and so the core collapsed along with the periphery. The beginning quote of the movie says something about how a civilization can only be destroyed from without if it is first destroyed from within.

So do aliens have to come to Earth to make us see that we are destroying ourselves from within? (teehee)

One other thing - most of the actors in the movie were not professionals, they were just normal people from Mexico - some who had never seen a movie or a camera in their life. I just wonder if the production company paid them US wages? Or did some of these village people just do it for free? Or was it conducted in an exploitative way, where none of the profits or even fair wages were paid to the actors and extras?

Burma and the US

Burma/Myanmar is my country of research for this class, so I looked for news about it. I found this article:



http://www.bbc.co.uk/burmese/news/story/2004/12/041201_thursday_dawn.shtml



Today, the US Congress voted for a one-year extension of sanctions over Burma, because of their deplorable human rights record.

The main goal of the sanctions is to gain freedom for more than one-thousand
political prisoners -- the most prominent of whom is the Nobel Peace Prize
winner Aung San Suu Kyi.

Aung San Suu Kyi also won the democratic election in 1995 but has never been allowed into office. The military basically controls the country.



The US sanctions ban imports from Burma and also denies US visas to Burma.



I guess this is sort of a form of "blackmail" in which the US (and perhaps other countries) do not allow Burma to export things, thereby harming their economy (which is in bad shape anyway) unless the Burmese people change their ways - to a real democracy.



What do you think about this kind of behavior? Is it helpful or harmful, or neither?

UN Troops authorized for Darfur

Today, the UN Security Council voted unanimously to authorize 26,000 troops and police to Darfur to stop attacks on civilians.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/africa/07/31/darfur.troops.reut/index.html

"The plan for Darfur from now on is to achieve a cease-fire, including anend to aerial bombings of civilians; drive forward peace talks ... and, as peace is established, offer to begin to invest in recovery and reconstruction," he [British Prime minister Gordon Brown] said on a visit to the United Nations.

Since 2003, over 2 million people have become refugees in this area.

Rape, looting, murder and government bombardment drove millions from their homes in Darfur, where mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms in early 2003, accusing Khartoum of neglecting their arid region.

In many ways, I am glad that something more is going to be done about the situation in Darfur by the United Nations. Often, I have thought that it is "none of our business" to interfere with civil wars in other countries. However, when this many civilians are being attacked and driven from their homes (genocide?), it seems necessary for the other more powerful countries in the world to step in and stop the killing and displacement.

However, I do think it is ironic that we have maybe 100,0000 (more?) American troops deployed in Iraq at the moment, and we are still unsure of what to do next in that area...

Strangely I say "we" when I am referring to the U.S. although I have really no control whatsoever over our foreign policies or what "our country" does. Still, I live here, so somehow I feel in some way responsible for "our" actions as a country....

Columbian communists

I will try to be more brief in my postings, because I am not getting any comments and maybe this is because my postings are too long!

Columbia rebel group breaks off peace talks

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/americas/07/27/colombia.rebels.reut/index.html

Basically, the Columbian government has asked the communist rebel group ELN to concentrate their troops in one area as part of the cease-fire agreement, and the rebel groups have refused. Apparently, this group got started in the 1960's along with another larger revolutionary group, and they are all branded as terrorists by the U.S. government. Of course, they are communists, so go figure. This war that has been going on kills thousands of people every year, and forces millions from their homes because of the violence between government and rebel forces.

Obviously with a civil war going on, it is hard if not impossible to proceed towards development, socially or economically. However, I think that if so many people are willing to fight and die for their communist ideals, perhaps the government should take those concerns into serious consideration. I am assuming the rest of the country (not the rebels) are more capitalistic?

Was that a short enough post to extract some comments?