Energy poverty and ethical solutions

As world leaders and most influential business  people met in Davos (World Economic Forum) to discuss how to solve the global financial crisis, there was a special session on Africa (Governance and aid). The discussion was on Politics, poverty and how things can be changed there in Africa. People poured in amazing ideas and everybody owed to do more for the betterment of Africa. And at the end of it there was usual clapping and shaking, everybody seemed pretty happy. 

However, what really surprised me that no one talked about Energy poverty in Africa. You may ask what is this energy poverty in the first place? According to me "not having basic access to energy (be it in any form) is energy poverty" i.e. lighting a bulb in home to having access to fuel to burn stove in the kitchen. These are very basic yet essential needs for anybody's survival which we the people living in west take it for granted. One can ask here why is it more important to talk about energy poverty when people don't even have enough food to eat? But my argument for exactly reason we should talk about it. What is the core problem in Africa? Is it people are really hungry and world just can't produce enough food to feed them ? Nope, the problem is they (Africans) themselves can't produce enough food to feed themselves. Adding to this problem bad governance, war, corruption, etc., are not helping either. Feeding free food help them escape hunger for the day but thats no way for the permanent and sustainable development. I think world will a better place and Africa will be a better place if we start talking about energy poverty and create sustainable solutions for energy poverty. 

Having said that let me present some of the other problems and hypocrisies without risking myself sounding Anti-American all over again unlike in my last blog. Here are some basic questions we rarely see being asked in the media. "Why is that entire world just watched and did nothing when Mr.Mugabe was stealing the elections publicly in Zimbabwe? Why didn't any western country used any meaningful diplomatic tool to deliver the justice to Zimbabwean people?" The simple answer lies in the fact that Zimbabwean has no meaningful natural resources that World can benefit from. Would it has been same if Zimbabwe is some oil rich country. Would the world then wait to see Zimbabwean economy collapse with inflation at 2000% and elections stolen openly? Perhaps not. Neither those big corporations nor those governments wait to see that happen. May be I'm wrong to raise such an issue having seen what happened in Nigeria. But see my friends, Oil and gas was not that costly then?? Nigeria mysteriously always does fine when the fuel prices are high.

The moral of the story is simple, I would want to see world invest in small and sustainable energy projects in Africa apart from supplying food and water, etc. Energy is as essential as it is food. But profitability is the question of the day for business community. Will it be a profitable investment? How does the cost benefit analysis look like? Nothing look positive for projects like these and will never look positive. Thats why I call for ethical solutions not profitable solutions. Just consider it as delivering any other aid to Africa and change the face of earth in the night time..confused ... look at the above picture for the answers...how dark Africa is and can't we bring some light !! 

Sree

    

Who is the real culprit?

The recent Israel-Gaza conflict opened up an interesting debate over the fairness of the western media. During the recent Israeli attack on Gaza, the entire so called unbiased western media was very busy covering the President Obama's inauguration preparations and the 'puppy' that new president may opt for his kids whilst permitting the war to 'flash news', on the other hand, Arab media was 24/7 busy covering the brutality of killing and the loss of life in Gaza strip and at the same time criticizing the failure of western world to intervene and stop the war and apparently their coverage completely ignored Obama's inauguration until the war ended.  

Being a news buff myself, I was wondering and pondering over who might be right in their coverage of news. I just can't stop thinking but to blame both these media for this meaningless coverage.  It is clear that these days news coverage is not about what people need to know/see but its about what people want to know/see. I blame the ruthless western media for not highlighting the brutality of Israeli occupation of Gaza and Arab media for not actually showing what caused recent conflict in the first place. Shouldn't we hold them accountable?? But how do we do it, do have a system or mechanism to do so? In the name of freedom of speech, now we are so used to every tom, harry and dick telling us how stupid we are for not agreeing with their perspective. Every one has an opinion...agree! but are these opinions seen on the news channels are legitimate or the popular opinions of people??

As I was already busy and confused with what happened during the war and tried to carry on with my usual business, one interesting article on Post war events in FT blew my mind. It was an article describing how legitimate was distributing money for re-construction of lives in Gaza just a day after the war was ended. It's not just one or two dollars but millions of them! I started wondering, even as the world in deep economic recession and UN still in the process of figuring out the potential aid package to Gaza, how did Hamas manage to get the money??Hamas has already started to win peoples' hearts by distributing money..an old trick mastered by Hamas...but it really works when people are in such desperate need. But the real question is where did Hamas get this money from ?? Does it own major corporates? Does it own Oil wells?? Does it sell any products?? NO, wait a minute ...Hamas is just a political party after all..then where does the money come from?? May be Iran!!! Even if so hypothetically speaking if money comes from Iran, but economically Iran isn't doing good either. It has practically no economic relations with the western world and doesn't really export any major products....or does it! Yes it does " Oil and Gas".  During the recent oil price spike when all the major economies around the world were struggling to cope with price hikes, Iran actually built up a surplus of 50 billion dollars. 

And pointing to my question " who is the real culprit?" , who made Iran so rich and politically strong by invading the Iraq? who was the reason behind the unrealistic oil prices? who was actually buying and using all this oil and gas?? ...... USA. I'm not saying that for every problem in the world USA is the reason but unfortunately, the intentional or unintentional failed American policies in the last eight years led to so much agony in the world and it takes a real magic to turn things around or may be I'm too pessimistic, may be 'Obama' is the magic world waiting to see? 

Sree