Who’s Who in Green: Shalini Kantayya

Growing up between Mumbai, India and Brooklyn, New York, it took filmmaker and water rights activist Shalini Kantayya a long time to understand how the survival of cities is dependent on finite natural resources. But soon enough, Kantayya began to feel torn between the materialistic, technologically advanced American society and the world that can’t even get a clean drink of water.

On Changents, Kantayya explains,

“My passion for water rights did not begin with an intellectual study, but as all great adventures of my life begin—with the heart. In 2001, I spent 40-days documenting the religious festival at the convergence of three holy rivers. In awe of the millions of pilgrims giving reverence to the river as a life-giving Goddess, and its contradiction with the environmental impact of the festival on the river, called me to ask questions. As I became aware of the mounting global water crisis, I realized that it represented a clash of cultures – between a culture that values water as a shared sacred source of all life and a corporate culture that regards water as a commodity to be bought and sold.”

Kantayya began to feel that there were many stories about the struggle for water that just couldn’t be told using words. She committed herself to using media to give a powerful voice to the unheard, founding a production company called 7th Empire Media and beginning work on films that highlight social injustice across the world.

The William D. Fulbright Scholar in documentary film was the only woman to place in the top ten out of 12,000 filmmakers on FOX’s On the Lot, a reality television show created by Steven Spielberg dedicated to the search for Hollywood’s next great director.

“Water is life,” Kantayya said as keynote speaker at Wesleyan University’s 2009 Earth Day celebration. “We are facing a world water crisis. A world in which nations are at war for water and every drop is for sale.”

Kantayya’s recent film, a DROP of LIFE, is a futuristic sci-fi flick about the mounting water crisis and has been used by the African Water Network as an organizing tool in over 40 villages across Africa. A DROP of LIFE has also screened at festivals around the world, winning Best Short Film at Palm Beach International as well as the Audience Choice Award at the IUOW Film competition.

Check out a preview of a DROP of LIFE:

Kantayya was also nominated for the Reebok Human Rights Award and also received a Senior Performing Arts Fellowship from the American Institute of Indian Studies to make a film about political street theater in India.

A DROP of LIFE can be purchased on DVD at AdropofLife.tv. Learn more about Kantayya’s water rights activism at Changents.com/Shalini.

Shalini Kantayya’s Green Score: 20,599

Water Wars Already Starting in India

The idea of wars being fought over water just as they’ve been fought over oil may still seem foreign to a nation full of people who regularly waste millions of gallons of it just on watering useless lawns. But, water wars are already a reality in India where a water crisis has caused escalating violence and several deaths.

Climate change has altered rainfall patterns in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, a situation made even worse by inequity in the water distribution system.

From Eco Worldly:

This has led to a spurt in water related violence and conflicts so shocking, we thought they were predicted to take place only in the next 50 years. The local incident mentioned in the news report above was one among many where a mob of about six people killed a family for illegally drawing water from the municipal supply even as onlookers rushed back and forth to collect water before the pipe ran dry.

The incident, which occurred in a below poverty line (BPL) settlement, is yet another validation of how climate change is having much more impact on the poor, especially in the developing world.

Since 2008, the duration and frequency of rainfall in major parts of the state of Madhya Pradesh has been decreasing. Water levels in all major water bodies in have fallen to alarming levels. As a result, most parts of the state including the capital city of Bhopal is receiving almost half of the volume of water required to fulfill the population’s needs. The poor are the most impacted and drinking water is being supplied only about once every 4-5 days in the slums and other poorer localities

It’s incredibly unfair that so many communities of people living in extreme poverty are forced to fight for meager amounts of water just to survive while we Westerners waste it without a thought. We need to put a higher value on water, or soon, situations like this will begin escalating around the world.

It’s already too late to stop some of the effects of climate change and of our own cavalier attitude about this most basic element of life. But, we can lessen their impact. The fight against climate change, our own efforts to conserve as much water as possible and contributions to water-related charities like charity:water make a huge difference. Do your part!

Link [Eco Worldly]
Photo credit: Hindustan Times

Who’s Who in Green: Vandana Shiva

Physicist, ecologist, activist and author Vandana Shiva is often called one of the world’s top environmental leaders and thinkers. The Indian food-sovereignty activist is an outspoken critic of industrialized globalized agriculture and has dedicated much of her life’s work to uncovering the devastating human and environmental impacts of corporate international trade agreements. Her books include Water Wars: Privatization, Pollution, and Profit, Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply and Soil Not Oil: Environmental Justice in an Age of Climate Crisis.

Shiva was one of the most influential figures of India’s environmental movement and has played a major role in the international ‘ecofeminism’ movement. Shiva believes that a more sustainable and productive approach to agriculture can be achieved by reinstating a system of farming in India that is more centered around women. She was a co-chair of the 1991 World Congress on Women and the Environment and more recently launched a global movement called Diverse Women for Diversity.

One of Vandana Shiva’s most ardent causes is the introduction of genetically modified crops to Indian farmers by big corporations like Monsanto, which have led to thousands of farmers committing suicide when the experimental crops failed. The seeds are engineered not to reproduce, so the farmers have to continually buy more every year, putting new financial strain on people who are already struggling.

Shiva believes that corporate seeds aren’t about increasing productivity, they’re about increasing debt. That’s why she set up the Navdanya movement to counter corporate seed control in 1991. Navdanya distributed seeds to farmers and taught them how to go organic, creating what she calls “an alternative to corporate destruction”.

Opposing monoculture in the fields is far from Shiva’s only cause. She helped build the Movement for Retail Democracy to oppose monopolies in the commercial distribution of food, fighting to keep Wal-Mart out of India. She also heads up the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, an independent research institute that she founded in 1982 and has argued on behalf of the wisdom of many traditional practices as a superior alternative to a life ruled by corporate money-mongering.

Yes Magazine interviewed Shiva in 2003, asking her what keeps her so energized and alive.

Well, it’s always a mystery, because you don’t know why you get depleted or recharged. But, this much I know. I do not allow myself to be overcome by hopelessness, no matter how tough the situation. I believe that if you just do your little bit without thinking of the bigness of what you stand against, if you turn to the enlargement of your own capacities, just that in itself creates new potential.

And I’ve learned from the Bhagavad Gita and other teachings of our culture to detach myself from the results of what I do, because those are not in my hands. The context is not in your control, but your commitment is yours to make, and you can make the deepest commitment with a total detachment about where it will take you. You want it to lead to a better world, and you shape your actions and take full responsibility for them, but then you have detachment. And that combination of deep passion and deep detachment allows me always to take on the next challenge because I don’t cripple myself, I don’t tie myself in knots. I function like a free being. I think getting that freedom is a social duty because I think we owe it to each other not to burden each other with prescription and demands. I think what we owe each other is a celebration of life and to replace fear and hopelessness with fearlessness and joy.

Vandana Shiva’s Green Score: 85,689

Photo credit: Benjamin Root via Treehugger

Man-Powered Ferris Wheel is Dangerously Green

Sometimes, low-tech is the best way to tackle a task, and sometimes it’s not. In this case, it may be really fun to watch, but Jesus, you’d have to pay me a lot of money to ride it: a man-powered ferris wheel. A group of about 5 men keep it going by jumping up on it and using their body weight to make it spin, one after the other.

Sure, it’s zero-emissions, but that thing is going awfully fast. And, safety inspectors here in the U.S. would take one look at that thing and condemn it. Watching the video, I was just waiting for one of those guys to get caught in the bars as the wheel turns. That would be painful.

Link [Environmental Graffiti] via [Really Natural]
Photo credit: Flickr user sourabhj via Environmental Graffiti

Eat Rats to Solve World Food Crisis

An Indian official says that he has the ultimate answer to solving the world’s food crisis. Vijay Prakash, secretary of the northeastern Indian state of Bihar, wants to put rats on food menus. According to Prakash, regular rat snacks would result in fewer rodents eating grain stocks – plus, you know, rats are packed with protein.  And just look at that photo – doesn’t it make your mouth water?

From Breitbart.com:

Prakash’s plan promotes consumption of rat meat in homes, street stalls, restaurants and even international five-star hotels.

He said he was also holding talks with prestigious hotels outside India to encourage them to put rat meat on their menus, but admitted his scheme had to overcome public prejudice.

“The only issue is how people react to rat meat, but I think it will not be a problem,” he said.

“Some socially deprived people in Bihar have always consumed rat meat. If they can eat rats, why can’t the rest of the people?” he said.

Members of the Mushar community and some other impoverished groups have traditionally eaten rats in India.

Call me crazy, but somehow I just don’t see this catching on in most areas of the world, especially the United States. Something tells me that rat fritters and the rodent filet sandwich would be the least popular items on the McDonald’s menu. We could certainly all benefit from eating a wider variety of foods, but rats are probably not the answer to the food crisis.

But, hey, it’s the Year of the Rat – and as you can see on this National Geographic video, residents of the West African country of Togo have been doing it for ages.

Link [Breitbart] + [YouTube]

‘Hell on Earth’ in Bangladesh: The Lives of Shipbreakers

There are many moments in life where you realize just how good you have it: you’re clothed, fed, and sheltered, and have a job that doesn’t subject you to constant broken bones, burns, malaria, cholera, dysentery, tuberculosis and great risk of drowning. And that’s enough, isn’t it?

Unfortunately for the shipbreakers in Chittagong, Bangladesh, life is not that good. Every malady I listed is what faces them each day, as they disassemble old, rusting ships sent to India by first-world countries to be sold as scraps. It’s difficult to get to Chittagong – tourists aren’t allowed nearby, and if you try to bring in a camera, you’ll find yourself in jail.

DeviantArt user alexiuss has compiled all of these photographs and the following information on Chittagong, which more closely resembles hell on earth than anything I’ve ever seen.

From the journal entry:

These ShipBreakers scrap the world’s ships with little more than their bare hands.

Despite wretched conditions, they say it is better to work and die than to starve and die.

Using blow torches, sledgehammers, chisels and wedges workers break the mammouth steel behemoths.

Massive slabs of carved up ships, plunge into the water, raising clouds of mist.

After the huge pieces crash into the water like glaciers calving, they are winched onto shore where they are cut up into bite-size pieces weighing hundreds of pounds then lifted and loaded by teams of guys–who sing in rhythm as they walk lock-step carrying the very heavy inch-thick steel plates–onto trucks

These metal scraps are sold (very profitably by the owners who live in huge mansions in town) as scrap metal across the country and Asia (with some reworked into ‘new’ ships).

This ShipBreaking installation exists because of the tide. It is one of those places — like the Bay of Fundy in Canada — where a host of geographical circumstances come together to create exceptionally large differences between the twice-daily high and low tides. Coupled with a soft, shelving beach, the tides at Alang make shipbreaking possible with a minimum of construction. There are no piers or drydocks. Ships are simply run onto the shore, and sometimes even pulled by the ShipBreakers towards their final destination.
ShipBreakers live in hovels built of scrap, with no showers, toilets or latrines. You can see such hovels from space using google map:

Ship breaking is done from 7 AM to 11 PM (same crew) with two half hour breaks and an hour for lunch (supper is eaten after they go home at 11); 14 hours a day, 6-1/2 days a week (off half day Friday for Muslim observations).

Workers in Alang begin stirring around 7:30 a.m.. Some wash from a bucket on the muddy ground outside their huts. Others squat by puddles, dipping toothbrushes in the yellow water and cleaning their teeth. There’s early morning coughing all around.

I don’t know about you, but this sure as hell makes me incredibly grateful that I’m safe and comfortable in my home as a paid blogger. I can’t begin to imagine living such a life as the shipbreakers lead.

Get the whole story on DeviantArt.

Link [DeviantArt]

Jeebus! Indian Oil Magnate Builds $2 Billion 27-Story Skyscraper House in Mumbai

This might just be the ultimate in excess. The richest man in India, Mukesh Ambani, has built the world’s largest and most expensive home. Ambani is the head of India’s most valuable firm, Reliance Industries, an oil and petrochemicals giant. The home is 4,000,000 square feet and 550 feet high with 27 stories.

From the Times of India:

“The only remotely comparable high-rise property currently on the market is the 70 million dollar triplex penthouse at the Pierre Hotel in New York, designed to resemble a French chateau, and climbing 525 feet in the air,” Forbes said in its report titled, “Inside The World’s First Billion-Dollar Home.”

“At the request of Nita Ambani, say the designers, if a metal, wood or crystal is part of the ninth-floor design, it shouldn’t be used on the eleventh floor, for example. The idea is to blend styles and architectural elements so spaces give the feel of consistency, but without repetition,” it said.

“Atop six stories of parking lots, Antilla’s living quarters begin at a lobby with nine elevators, as well as several storage rooms and lounges. Down dual stairways with silver-covered railings is a large ballroom with 80 per cent of its ceiling covered in crystal chandeliers.”

The report said that Ambanis plan to use the residence occasionally for corporate entertainment also and they want its interiors to have a “distinctly Indian” look and feel.

Four million square feet… how could you not feel like an evil archlord living in this place? It’s like Castle Grayskull if Skeletor had been a modern corporate businessman.

Link [Times of India]

Photo credit: Wikipedia