Kurt Archer

A story to share from this morning, I’d like to know how often this kind of discussion erupts from your breakfast table?

The scene began with Ale emerging from the kitchen with a plateful of delicious fruits; oranges, plums, kiwi and apples. Sustainability has been an issue on our tongues for the past month now as the My Choice! initiative rolls out.

Suddenly, the colourful plate of fruit before me draws my attention to its uniformity. Every fruit slice, identical to the next especially the seedless oranges. My curiosity overcoming me, I grab one of the uncut oranges an sure enough by hypothesis was correct:

I was sitting in Bangalore, India eating Oranges grown in Australia and my friends were eating apples grown in Washington.

The absurdity of my situation grew into a discussion about food transportation, genetically modified (gm) crops, pesticides and mono cultures.

So I related this story to my friend who had purchased the oranges:

“Imagine being born, to a city where every single person looked identical to you, acted like you, sounded like you when they spoke. How could you imagine yourself in such a community?” Well these are the communities of monocultures that we are growing around the world to feed our desire to have the ‘perfect’ apple or ‘perfect’ orange, completely oblivious to how, and what cost was made to get these ‘perfect’ products to us.

What joy could we have by biting into an orange that is of the same concentration of pulp and juice as the next. In fact, remember the last time you ate Mandarine oranges for Christmas holidays? How bland have they become? I remember my oranges being so much sweeter and juicer as a kid.

The conversation continued on to hair products. Shampoo. Recently, in my rare visit to a super store, I was persuaded to purchase an organic shampoo. It was about the same price as the usual Fructus product I usually buy. I thought; heck it’ll try it! To my amazement, it works great!

Now this particular morning, fully charged on a sustainability epiphany, I compared the ingredients of a fructus shampoo and the my new organic shampoo. Well, needless to say the fructus won the battle in terms of number of chemicals it uses, total of 23, 4 of which were chlorine related, and 1 was perfum. Whereas the organic shampoo had 5 natural extracts, 1 of which was purifed water.

The math is simple, but the question on my mind was why do we need conditioner? Where did it come from? And why are we dependent on it? The answer was triggered by a comment made by William McDonough in an address to Vanderbilt University. The chemicals found in shampoo may clean your hair stripping it of many essential nutrients necessary for its own growth, but it also drys the hair making it tangly and rough, which is why you need more conditioner to make it feel smooth and silky.

What a con.

moral of the story: buy organic (locally)

So many of you have been asking what I have been upto, and why I have stayed in Bangalore for so long. Well, that is because I have signed on to a small project here called: My Choice! Here is a small blurb about it:

My Choice! is a project that aims to raise awareness among Indian young generation about Sustainability Issues.
We offer to deliver a holistic understanding of Sustainability seen as People, Society and Environment. For us, Environment is impacted by human footprint; human footprint is the results of community interactions in Society (economy, leisure, family) , Society activism is the expression of embedded values in the people that are part of the society. It is vital for Youth to grab this inclusive picture if we call on more responsibility from them.

The projects will have a 3 step learning approach. 1. Classroom presentations to inspire youth to get active. 2. Simulation and learning activities about sustainability. 3. A project competition on sustainability, where students get mentors and are awarded prizes based on creativity, sustainability of design, and general youth choice.

It has been a pleasure to settle down and work with this team and helping to see their passion become a reality.The output of this project has the opportunity to be a part of a best case practise, I will be sure to share the output afterwards with you all.

Looking forward to hitting the road soon again!

Is your world grown in a lab?

More and more everyday the food we eat is tampered through Genetic Modifications (a man made version of Darwin’s concept of survival of the fittest) – where the strongest yield of plant or vegetable is maintained and replicated while weaker ones are simply destroyed. Sounds like a good idea until you hear stories about Terminator Seeds, and the Banana Crisis (see here for the issue related to the banana’s exploitative industry).

As more and more of our food is being cloned, and the risks of contamination high and research on health effects low: Will you accept a future grown in lab?

Know the issues.

Delhi is traditionally among the last places you would think about stepping out into the fresh air, but that is exactly what the Government is aiming for with its new control on tobacco consumption.

As of October 2nd 2008, all public establishment shall be smoke free zones, thus ending the majority of the threat caused by second hand smoke. In their campaign they targeted schools colleges and restaurants with signs that not only read no-smoking, but also “It is an offence here” just to drill home the point that there will be no tolerance.

Delhi is the first city to adapt such laws in India and the subcontinent, and can only hope that others will follow suit. This action was put forward by Dr Ramadoss from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare as a series of city wide pollution clean up efforts leading up to the commonwealth games in 2010.

Along with this campaign, Delhi University has seen a massive transition as the students union (DUSU) who speaks on behalf of the 40,000 plus students has also enacted a non-smoking rule in and around the campus. They have made it illegal for cigarette vendors to sell cigarettes within 100 meters of any college establishment, and for staff students and visitors that don’t comply, there is a fine up to Rs. 500.

This example just goes to show that tobacco companies don’t have the developing countries fooled any longer, that awareness is building, and there is only hope that other institutions will follow close behind. Recently, I had a chance to visit LUMS campus, one of the top universities in Pakistan, and it appalled me the sheer amount of smokers, both male and female, smoking all over campus. Whether it’s an act of poor enforcement or lack of policy, the students of LUMS should be encouraged to take action to make their campus a smoke free environment, with the hope that other institutions will also follow suit.

Can we turn the tap off in time?

Here water pours out of a tap without a wheel. It symbolizes our struggle to find a solution to the open tap before all the water runs out. If only it were as simple as turning the nob to off. It isn’t.