Global Warming | The Alien World

Nov 13

Chaos in Teleportation

I was sitting with my friend, P, today after lunch, having a smoke and appreciating the beautiful weather. It is very rear in Hyderabad to have a sunny sky and still not hot. As with all good things in life, this was also short lived. As usual we blamed it on global warming (the most overused term these days).

Of many reasons we picked fossil fuel as one of the primary contributor in the global warming. With cigarette in hand and beautiful weather you tend to think of changing the world. So we were discussing many ‘what-if’ scenarios – alternate energy sources, nuclear cells, and many others.

P suggested teleportation should be our primary means of transportation. It will result is going away with all the current gas hungry means of transportation, and it will be fast, fast as in speed-of-light. Guess what, we can reach New York in less than a second, which otherwise takes anywhere from 15 to 20 hours. I liked the idea, but then I started thinking on means to implement it and its consequences.

You remember Star trek, don’t you? Well teleportation seemed so simple in it. But we have a bigger problem at hand. Our star trek fellows only have to teleport very few at a time, but here we are talking about it as a means of mass transport. So we may need teleportation station, like we have railway/metro station, bus stands, airports, etc.

We are all made of hydrogen and carbon, and so is everything else around. Isn’t it? So it boils down to the atoms of hydrogen and carbon that we really need to transfer from one end to another. Transferring them physically may not be a real good idea. What if we have huge containers of stored hydrogen and carbon on the receiving end and we just transfer the details about the composition of a particular person to that end, so that we are reconstructed at the other end. In order to do so, you have to be first broken down into these molecules or atoms (whatever you want to call them). It sounds so painful, right? Well its not my idea, I read it somewhere. If I come up with something, that will be less painful.

Now consider the consequences of having teleportation stations.

First we need an infrastructure that can support mass teleportation,
Huge band width to transfer the molecular information to the other end,
Fail safe, of course I don’t want to be lost in transaction
Each station having multiple entry and exit points

Imagine what really happens at teleportation station – you get inside one of thousands of machines, enter your destination. The machine analyzes your vital signs, molecular structure & composition and breaks you down in to the basic elements. Stores your converted form in its hydrogen & carbon containers, and transfer the information of your reconstruction to your destination, where you are reconstructed again. Isn’t it fun? No way… it’s scary…

But never mind, we will do it for the sake of our beautiful planet earth. But I still have some unanswered questions:

What if there is a traffic jam?
What if all the receiving ends are busy?
What if a VIP (like a politician or film start) is on the transfer? Will others have to wait for reconstruction?
Do they need queuing?
When we are reconstructed, will we have our cloths on?

Nov 20

Agent Smith says…

Posted in: Human Effect, Society

“…when I tried to classify your species, I realized that you are not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctly develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but humans do not. You move to an area and multiply & multiply until every natural resource is consumed and only way you can survive is to spread to another area.

There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern – you know what it is?

A virus. Human beings are a decease to this planet, a plague & we are the cure…”

Well I dont like the cure, but part of what Agent Smith said in The Matrix is true. As far as the cure is concenrned, it is within ourselves. Only thing i we have to realize it.

May 15

Aliens destroying our planet

Posted in: Human Effect

In many of my previous blog entries, I have tried to justify why humans are aliens on earth. Here is yet another reason. It is our indifference to this planet that always makes me wonder if we belong to this place.

Earth is a unique planet, because of its ability to sustain life. Earth formed at the same time as rest of the 8 planets and yet life found its way only on earth. Earth is the only suitable place in the solar system to sustain life – neither too close to sun nor too far, making it just the ideal place. Mercury is too close to the sun and too hot. Even if water was on Mercury it would have long ago evaporated. Venus also is too close to the sun to have any surface water. Mars on the other hand is too far away from the sun, making it too cold for any water in liquid form. So, the conditions happen to be just right here on our planet Earth. It is just the right distance from the sun. Our Earth is of perfect size and the heat is neither more nor less, to keep water neither all frozen nor all gas.

Earth, as we all know today, was not always inhabitable. It took millions of year to have an atmosphere that can support life; otherwise earth’s atmosphere had only CO2. In those millions of years life evolved from one cell amoeba to a multi cell and more complex organisms, and then came humans.

Since then the rise in CO2 level is increasing. With each passing year we are producing more and more CO2. The CO2 generated in last 40 years is more than double of the CO2 generated in last 10000 years. The time is not far when there will be no ice on the poles, because of global warming.

Apr 18

Energy needs and it’s effect on global warming!

Posted in: Human Effect, Random Thoughts

My company is starting a initiative “Go Green – Reduce Reuse Recycle” on ‘Earth Day’ i.e. celebrated around the world by earth lovers. This initiative includes:

Travel smart - You reduce 1.5 kg of carbon dioxide pollution for every 5 km you don’t drive. Use public transport, avail of the company transport, or simply try car-pooling. You not only contribute to less pollution, you also cut down on fuel cost and stress pills because of less driving.
Tree plantation – The company is providing 55 trees, to be bought, and will be planted in the company’s campus.
Reduce paper – Resist the urge to print everything. A visit to the printer room reveals how much paper we waste. As a “green” measure, all printers are by default to duplex print. Also, hand dryers are provided in the wash rooms to reduce the paper usage.
Vermi-composting on Company’s Campus - Vermi-composting is the technique of using EARTH worms to break down the organic waste generated out of food, paper etc. to create fertilizer. The company will produce vermi-compost fertilizer for all trees on the campus.

This seems to be a really nice initiative at a company level, but the success of it depends on the individuals. Company cannot enforce them, these are just suggestion and best practices. It is left up to individuals to realize their responsibility and find out ways how they can contribute in making earth a better place to live. Companies like mine have started a small but a significant step toward making a greener earth.

I think the demand of energy is directly proportional to the green house gases which are the main source of global warming. Consider this – the electricity used in IT to keep the industry running is huge. The number of computers is doubling every year. Each computer consumes a lot of power and generates a lot of heat. This is not all – to keep the computers cool, air conditions are installed, which again consumes the equivalent amount of energy or perhaps more. Big companies like Google & Microsoft have huge data centers with tens of thousands of computers. They consume massive amount of energy. There is a lot of scope of reducing this electricity consumption by having more energy efficient computers with generate much less heat or does not require any external cooling. I read somewhere that Microsoft was planning to open a big datacenter in Russia or Siberia. I wonder if that is the step to reduce the air conditioning bill…

We all know from our school days that the primary source of electricity are coal (thermal), water (dams), nuclear. Wind and Solar energy is tried at some places but they have not gained the popularity, primarily because ROI is not good. Electricity produces from bio-wastes have been experimented successfully, but again there is the problem of adoption. People tend to use things which are easily to install and use. Wide adoption of alternate fuels requires willingness from both the government and individuals.

Fuel seems to be the major source of contaminating the environment because when it burns it releases CO2 and other gases participating in green house effect. It is very unlikely that the consumption of fuel may be reduced because our demand for energy is only going to increase with each passing day. We need to find better and efficient ways of using the available resources. Scientists are busy finding alternates to currently available fuels option – like in Brazil, ethanol produced from sugarcane is used as an alternate to petrol. Ethanol is cheaper then petrol and produces less green house gases. More than 70% of the gas stations in Brazil now have ethanol available. This was only possible by the willingness and participation of government and citizens.

Government in US is forcing the auto industry to come up with more fuel efficient engines, with alternate to petrol and diesel. With each passing year emission norm are becoming tougher. Hybrid cars are the future, but they are a long way from adoption by common man. We have long heard and seen nuclear powered submarines, but that technology is still far from being used in cars & planes. But there will be one day when our cars will have a small nuclear battery inside that may never be required to be replaced for the car’s entire life.

All this is a big plan, most of them may not even see the light of the day, but as individuals we should thrive of discipline to use our natural resources efficiently. Charity starts from home, so shall any good cause.

Celebrate ‘Earth Day’, everyday!