Week 3

We started off the session with a discussion on developments in healthcare and their adverse effects. Improvements in health care have helped decrease death rates, thereby causing an explosion in populations around the world. Prof mentioned how this is a “Malthusian Nightmare”. The Malthusian theory (recalling some 11^th grade Economics) basically states that global food supply is increasing at an arithmetic rate, whereas global population is increasing at a geometric rate. This means that the increasing population is putting more and more pressure on existing resources.  As more developments are made, improving the longevity of people around the world, this pressure on food and other resources will keep increasing.

This would potentially increase inequalities and regional disparities around the world. In developing countries, like India, there is a lack of sufficient space, resources, and infrastructure to support this increase in population. I think curbing the birth rate is essential to reduce this growing pressure on such countries, and many other factors need to be considered in order to achieve equality between them and the developed countries.

The session was focused on Industrial Development. Most countries adopt a rather flawed approach to achieving industrialization. Though industrial development leads to massive wealth generation, there are definitely many negative impacts involved, such as environmental degradation.

Prof talked about how we need to stop thinking “linearly” and think in a “cyclical” manner instead.  When industrialization occurs ‘linearly’, it means that all that is taken into account is the life cycle of the product: from extraction of raw materials, to disposal by consumers. It completely disregards other factors, other externalities, such as methods to ensure the safe disposal of the product, recycling wastes to save raw materials, and other actions that would promote sustainable development.

Thinking back on the topic, I remember reading about “environmental management” in high school, where there were many suggestions on what people could do (as producers and consumers), to limit waste generation, and to promote industrial ecology and sustainable development. One such approach was for producers to adopt a “life-cycle-perspective” for their products, where they would be required to consider the impacts of their products, at various stages, on the environment. In case their products contained toxic materials, they should undertake the responsibility to safely dispose of them.

Speaking of waste generation, something new that I had no idea about was the ‘Great Pacific Garbage Patch’, also known as the ‘Pacific Trash Vortex’. I YouTubed it, and it’s pretty much a patch of garbage in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, and twice the size of Texas apparently. ‘Patch’ is probably an inadequate word to describe it. It’s pretty mind blowing as to how much trash is floating around in the Pacific, and the adverse effects it could have on marine life.

Long story short, we need to stop thinking “linearly”, and take into account all the surrounding factors (such as, dealing with the wastes that you produce), and thereby think “cyclically”. 

We also talked about the advantages of being backward, or the advantages of starting late, where you can make use of technologies that are already available.  You can jump to technology of the future without having to go through everything in between.  Although it seems like this could benefit developing countries, I’m not too sure of how easy it will be for them to adopt this advanced technology when they already lack basic infrastructure and so on. So it’s rather difficult to say, how it could reduce inequalities. 

While discussing the opportunities and challenges of innovation, we looked at a quote by Tom Peters. He said:

“Life is pretty simple: You do some stuff. Most fails. Some works. You do more of what works. If it works big, others quickly copy it. Then you do something else. The trick is the doing something else.”

This quote got me thinking. I feel like it’s linked to the concept of “backwardness having advantages”. I think when it comes to innovation, trying to produce something that would help backward/developing countries could be a really good opportunity. If the innovation happens to be successful, not only are the developing countries being helped, but the innovators would be greatly benefitted as well. 

One of the final topics discussed was the RDA Translation Process, where RDA stands for research, development, and application. A large number of ideas are generated, but very few of them are translated into practical applications. I think increasing the number of ideas that are applied is rather important, and maybe it can be achieved by shaping ideas to meet market needs, and whatever the situation is at that point in time.

Aside from the new facts and approaches to development that I learnt this week, a key takeaway from this lesson for me, was the potential that technology has to bridge the gap between the countries of the world, in various aspects, through industrial development.  There is also potential to bridge gaps between present and future generations through sustainable development.  

I rate the session a 7 out of 10.