Theatre of the Absurd Part 1

I heart the UAE. You never know what they’ve got up their sleeves. Here’s an excerpt, from Gulf News, today:

Bloomberg News

A Russian scientist believes icebergs could provide untapped quantities of pure water for the Middle East and thus create an environmentally friendly alternative to desalination.

Icebergs could meet region’s fresh water supply needs

By Emmanuelle Landais, Staff Reporter Published: August 09, 2009, 22:14

Dubai: Icebergs could provide untapped quantities of pure water to satisfy the thirst of the Middle East by creating an alternative to desalination without the generation of air or marine pollution, according to Russian researchers. The researchers hope their project will provide a solution to water scarcity in the region. Hamid Khalidov, a Russian scientist and his representative in the UAE, Kudret Efendiev, a doctor of physics working at Sharjah International School, have been promoting the theory of capturing ‘alive water’ from the North Pole for over a decade. So far the project, which would demand an investment of $2 billion (Dh7.34 billion), remains a theory. However, Khalidov has outlined five methods of capturing water from icebergs. These include towing them from the North Pole, Alaska or Greenland to the coast of Saudi Arabia – where plants will be built to receive the mammoth chunks of ice. Other methods include the extraction of liquid water on site, the transportation of fine pieces of ice or the transportation of large blocks of ice, cut out from the iceberg and which will weigh many tonnes. The most feasible method involved transporting smaller, whole icebergs rather than bigger ones. This was outlined in a paper published in the Aqua Journal of Water Supply Services and Technology in 1998. Khalidov said “an iceberg, six-sevenths of which remains submerged, and which floats 10 to 12 km a day, can overturn 5-6 times during its lifetime& After every overturning of an iceberg, each new installation of tow cables would require an unacceptable cost in time and labour to correct.” Around $2 billion would be required to complete the project in two years. Factors to consider include special boats, a special mooring facility and stationary ice-receivers. Containers and equipment for the project would also have to be manufactured. The Antarctic ice sheet is one of the two polar ice caps of the Earth. It covers about 98 per cent of the Antarctic continent and is the largest single mass of ice on the planet. It covers an area of almost 14 million square kilometres and contains 30 million cubic kilometres of ice. That is, approximately 61 per cent of all fresh water on the Earth – an amount equivalent to 70 per cent of the volume of the world’s oceans. “The removal of one cubic kilometre of ice [from a shelf glacier in the Antarctic continent] is of little consequence – particularly if one considers the benefits to the life and health of millions of people,” Khalidov said. Mohammad Raouf, the programme manager for environment research at the Dubai-based Gulf Research Centre, said he had heard of the idea. However, he added that the environmental impact would outweigh the potential gain of accessing fresh water supplies. “I think technically it is feasible. But if you take into account the costs and the environmental damage, it might not be. I believe it will remain one of the solutions – in case a real need emerges such as severe water shortage problem,” he said. The legal aspects of transporting ice would also be very complicated, he said. “Ecologically, which is more important, if countries race to get this, we will cause another imbalanced situation in these locations. [The] cost is still very high at $2 billion without taking into consideration ecological costs and water loss costs [such as melting],” he said.

Lord help us all, this is some subliminally funny/scary stuff.

Hope in the rubble?

I came across a fascinating article in Strategy-Business today: an interview with Tokyo-based business scholar Ikujiro Nonaka, discussing knowledge management.  It appealed to me for many reasons, however one particluar point really stuck in my mind and prompted me to write my first blog entry. Why? Hope in a time of great uncertainty.
First, a little background about the kindly chap, from Wikipedia:   

Ikujiro Nonaka (born May 10, 1935) is Professor Emeritus, Hitotsubashi University Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy; the First Distinguished Drucker Scholar in Residence at the Drucker School and Institute, Claremont Graduate University; the Xerox Distinguished Faculty Scholar, Institute of Management, Innovation and Organization, University of California, Berkeley. He is best known for his study of Knowledge Management. He co-authored The Knowledge-Creating Company with Hirotaka Takeuchi. In 2008, the Wall Street Journal listed him as one of the most influential persons on business thinking.

So he’s a smart cookie on a global scale. He plays a pivotal role in modern human capital management. The revelation that struck me in his interview  though, was this: 

Nonaka’s insights about knowledge reflect the distinctive arc of his own career, which was rooted in his childhood experience during the Pacific War (the Japanese name for World War II). “I was in the first grade when children from Tokyo were evacuated to the countryside,” he explains. “We used to go outside and watch the B-29s in the sky over Mount Fuji, and the smaller Grumman F4F fighters flying lower. One day, an F4F dropped down and began strafing the children as we walked back from the school. It was so close I could see the American pilot in the cockpit. It looked to me as if he was smiling. I barely survived; I was very shocked. And being a small boy, my first thought was, ‘I will beat them someday!’ I was on fire with the desire to beat America.”

What a motivation. And what an accomplishment. As I sit here in the Middle East and watch the disaster continue between Palestine and Israel, I’ve been thinking about how an abused child can grow up to become an abuser.  What struck me about this article is the thought that, while children who have suffered great trauma may seek revenge on their perpetrators, what if more people who have suffered so much could be taught how to harness their feelings to pursue excellence and foster understanding? Thereby steering away from the cycle of abuse?

In saying this I feel somwhat naive in a way… of course the differences between Japan’s actions in WW2 and the Arab-Israeli conflict are huge and by no means do I think people should be brainwashed, nor their experiences, memories and feelings diminished or manipulated by any means. It’s just that, well, at a time when I see such damage and injustice inflicted on innocents, this interview gave me hope. Simple as that.