Music Monday: Summer Tunes and Solar

Celebrating summer with a chill song by Natty. It's officially monsoon season! Last week Kolkata finally got hit with the heavy rains that cooled the city down and brought a refreshing breeze for a few days. On Thursday, the main road I walk along to get to the metro was flooded, so I ended  up wading through a foot deep, very questionable murky water. Ugh.  

Two cool solar related articles from my new favourite website, Good.is:

Google's newest clean energy project: solar leasing. Google announced this week that it’s investing $280 million in SolarCity, a company that installs and maintains residential-scale solar panels. Customers pay a fee for this service, either up-front or at a monthly rate—and end up saving less money on electricity than they would if they were to buy and install the panels themselves—but they avoid the risk and long-term commitment of ownership. It's good to see solar becoming more accessible and affordable on the consumer level.

"If you’re like me, Google already backs everything else in life; why not let them help you save on your electricity bill as well?"

In NYC, The Mayor’s Office of Long-Term Planning Sustainability, sent a plane over the city  to capture its every contour with a system of lasers, which created a map showing how much energy rooftops would be generating if they had solar panels installed. If the city’s solar potential were realized, the study showed, New York City could get half of the electricity it needs at peak times from rooftop installations. However, due to the high cost of solar, in many cases the resulting savings per apartment per year aren't yet substantial enough to motivate landlords to invest in rooftop systems. The good news though, is that the city is beginning to offer a new type of lease that would allow landlords to earn back their investments in green improvements quicker. 

Music Monday and the power of crowdsourcing

Howrah Train Station - Kolkata, India (May, 2011)

Well I'm back from my insane 65 hour round trip train journey! I felt very old and British as I drank copious amounts of chai while reading a copy of Reader's Digest. At night the rolled up magazine then double as a cockroach swatter as more than a few bugs came crawling out of various crevices in search of the samosa crumbs scattered on my bunk.
Once in Mumbai I met up with interns, got out to see the city for a few nights, and attended a social business conference at a fancy hotel. True to my cheap backpacking roots and eating skills gained from the bike tour, I took full advantage of the amazing (and free!) buffet meals served over the 2 days. I enjoyed the conference which was my first major industry event, and took away a lot of insights from the various speakers, panelists, and people I met.


I've missed a few weeks of posting new songs but after listening to heaps of music on the train the past few days I was inspired to bring Music Monday back. Canadiana, bumpin' track, cool video - BOOM HA!

Cool Story: The Power of Crowd Funding
This new company Lunatik shattered Kickstarter records when they attempted to raise $15,000 in 30 days and ended up with nearly $1 million. Kickstarter is a funding platform for artists, designers, filmmakers, inventors, explorers, etc. to use crowd sourcing to fund their projects. Lunatik makes beautifully designed (minimalist Apple style) watch bands that transfer the new ipod nano into a multi-touch watch. More about their Kickstarter story on Lunatik's site.

Music Monday and Celebrating Holi

Song from Destroyer's new album Kaputt

Last week I made a field visit to one of our centers to visit customers in rural villages to conduct surveys. Staring up at the starry night while laying on the back of a rickshaw bouncing along a country road was pretty surreal, thinking how far I was from home and excited to be having this kind of work experience taking me to such interesting places.

It was super cool to go to an off-grid area at night where it's near complete darkness. We walked around with our solar lamps, visited some customers, and as per usual developed a small following. On the ride back our autopan, being driven by some 12 year old kid, broke down. He and his 2 buddies turned it around, pushed back to the nearest market, and found some mechanics. While they were welding we sat at a little stall drinking tea and watching the Canada vs. Australia cricket match. 

We tried to explain the concept of 'look natural' - didn't work.

Village electrification - embroidery

Saturday we went to Eden Gardens cricket stadium in Kolkata to watch the Netherlands vs. Ireland World Cup match. Also this past weekend was Holi, the Hindu festival of colours which commemorates the victory of good over evil, and is celebrated by throwing water balloons and other missiles filled dye . I am still completely covered in pink dye, and guessing scalp, hair, eyelids, and ears will be dyed for at least a week, so upcoming business meetings should be interesting.

Music Monday - Attending a ceremony in a remote island village

This weeks music selection is from Radical Face, a band from Portland, Oregon. Heard of these guys from an Oregonian by the name of Max who I worked with on the vineyard in New Zealand last year and also lived with us in our awesome community backpacker flat. I loved listening to music all day at work, it made some of the tedious hours fly by, and the best part was switching ipods and hearing others' music recommendations.

Last week I got to go to an inauguration ceremony for a solar mini-grid village electrification project set up by an Australian company and sponsored by WWF India and the Australian government. It was a full day trip, requiring a 3 hour bus ride from Kolkata followed by a 3 hour boat ride to a remote village in the Sunderbans. The Sunderbans is a National Park in eastern India that consists of a massive land mass of wetlands that empty out into the Bay of Bengal in the Indian ocean. There were heaps of Mangrove trees which have breathing roots and grow in salt water, pretty neat. There is also a tiger reserve that's a main tourist attraction for the area that we went by, however did see some species of monkey chilling on a concrete post on the way back at night and I SWEAR I saw a light flash up near his mouth as if he was smoking a cigarette, then he jumped down and walked away. Of course no one else believed me.

All around awesome trip, got to meet people from various organizations all working on interesting projects. There was a long lineup of school kids to greet the arrival of our boats, as well as a cool group of drummers and dancers that led the procession. We walked about a kilometer to the site of the mini-grid setup for the ribbon cutting ceremony, got to check out the system and panel setup as well as a few huts to see the lights in action. Following that was an official ceremony under a tent attended by the community and a lovely return boat trip backdropped by a lovely sunset.

Tomorrow is TED Talk Tuesday, which will be a video that argues for a solution opposite of that suggested by Bill Gates on his recent Ted (which I posted last week). 

Music Monday - Commemoration to Christchurch (alliterations are awesome)

In spirit of remembrance to all those recently affected by the catastrophic earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand this weeks music selection comes from Kiwi supergroup Fly My Pretties. They only release live albums from the rare shows they play, and this song 'Bag of Money' comes from the album 'Live at Bats' . I wanted to post 'All the Goodness', but alas could not find it online. Either way, solid album, groovy tunes.

Christchurch, New Zealand - September 2010

Last September I had been in New Zealand for about a week and was unable to find a working holiday job so I jumped on a flight bound for Christchurch to visit my dear friend and university flatmate Kyle, who's teaching at a rad alternative high school in the city (and fortunately safe and sound after the recent quake). It had been less than a week after the first big earthquake, which toppled many buildings, but thankfully left no casualties. We were awakened abruptly many nights in a row by strong aftershocks that shook the entire house. I wasn't too concerned about it at the time since I hadn't been there for the initial quake, and I knew that although many buildings were affected, it wasn't too grim. Still, the entire country banded together in support, and crews were working hard trying to restore some sort of normalcy to the city which had many sections of sidewalks and roads fenced off that were covered in crumbled bricks and shattered glass.

Less than a few months later, it was a mine explosion on the west coast that shook the country a second time, unfortunately resulting in the loss of 29 lives. It was incredible to see the support shown by the kiwis during that ordeal. Of all the places I've travelled, they are hands down the most genuinely kind, compassionate people I've met. I was working on an organic vineyard at the time with an awesome crew of fellow backpackers, and we were told there would be a national moment of silence that we could choose to participate in. It was without question that we all stopped our work at the determined time, which was the least we could do to show our support for those in a country that had been so kind to us. Looking down over the hills of the vineyard to the main road below, I noticed all of the vehicles had pulled over to a stop on the side of the road, while those of us listening to the radio on our phones at the time commented afterwards on how the stations had also stopped broadcasting: the entire country was on pause for those meaningful two minutes. These seem like small gestures, but it just further showed the spirit of the kiwis, and I'm not sure I could confidently say that same national solidarity would have happened in Canada.

Though my body will be in India during the national moment of silence to be observed in NZ on Tuesday, my mind will be picturing myself standing back on the hills of the vineyard overlooking the sparkling lake, and my heart will be with all those who lost their lives in that earthquake, along with their friends and families.

Burn Cottage Vineyard, Oct. 2010