sam's blog

Lau are my favourite folk band during the last couple years....

Sat, 26 May 2012 11:51:49 +0100

Lau are my favourite folk band during the last couple years. I’m listening to them a lot at the moment and really missing playing the violin. If you ever have the chance to see them live, they are incredible and not to miss.

Although I believe that actions speak louder than words1, well...

Sat, 26 May 2012 11:01:00 +0100

Although I believe that actions speak louder than words¹, well done is better than well said², and a witty saying proves nothing³, I agree with Winston Churchill when he said that it is a good thing for an educated man to read books of quotations.

I disagree with the idea that quotes are nothing but inspiration for the uninspired⁴. Like Talmud said, a quotation at the right moment is like bread in a famine⁵. I’m don’t actually like that simile, so perhaps we should just say that good quotes are vitamins for the brain⁶.

I could go on with this waffle. My main point is that when a thing has been said and said well, have no scruple. Take it and copy it.⁷

I’ve been collecting some quotes I like. Most of them are environment-related. I started the collection a while back as I was struggling to find good environmental quotes and think they are really important when engaging audiences.

I’ve uploaded them right here for your reading pleasure.

Just remember, a collection of quotations… can never be complete⁸.

List of quotes: ¹ Theodore Roosevelt. ² Benjamin Franklin. ³ Voltaire. ⁴ Richard Kemph. ⁵ Talmud. ⁶ Patrick Driessen. ⁷ Anatole France. ⁸ Robert M. Hamilton

Photo: taken at sunset on Mfungano Island, Kenya, 2012.

My colleague Sam Duby recently posted a challenge to some...

Fri, 18 May 2012 14:12:51 +0100

My colleague Sam Duby recently posted a challenge to some students at Nairobi University who were taking part in the Nasa Spaceapps Challenge.

We asked them to build a monitoring tool for our access:energy wind turbines. In just 24 hours, they built the Bit Harvester, an sms-based remote data acquisition and control system for remote renewable energy installations.

And it’s just been voted the People’s Choice winner of the International Nasa Space Apps Challenge! Congratulations to all the team for their brilliant design work! Really impressive open hardware.

I think I met a future president of Kenya today. Although still...

Thu, 17 May 2012 20:13:58 +0100

I think I met a future president of Kenya today.

Although still in primary school, these children spoke with charisma, intellect, charm and the composure of leaders. It was a project coordinated by Kisumu Library, working with surrounding schools to increase confidence in public speaking skills, whilst engaging children in politics and current affairs. Schools were arranged into different political parties, they received some guidance and held regular debates in which they voted for ministers and leaders of their party. Next week, they will be voting for their president of Kenya.

Many people complain that the overcrowded education system in Kenya only educates students by rote, precluding opportunities for creativity and free-thinking. This project is an excellent example of an initiative that promotes just that, and is bringing kids together, engaging them on important issues whilst promoting independent thought. And another reason to love your local library. I left inspired.

I remember my brother having the albums Check Your Head and Ill...

Tue, 08 May 2012 23:18:00 +0100

I remember my brother having the albums Check Your Head and Ill Communication on cassette growing up. I loved those albums to bits. I remember one afternoon copying the lyrics of Sure Shot from the cassette insert on a type writer - I must have been about 10 years old, and I was trying to learn and dicypher the lyrics.

Later on, the Beastie Boys made this song (above): Three MCs and One DJ and it was my favourite videos. It may not have had a comic story like Sabotage, or the cosmic adventures of Intergalactic. But it was done in one take, in a simple room with the king of scratching, Mixmaster Mike - and I remember watching it again and again after I had recorded it off the TV. This video planted a huge desire to one day be a DJ.

Adam Yanch / MCA was the husky voiced member of the Beastie Boys who was also known for his work in independent film and political campaigning - including the Tibeten Freedom concerts. Last week he sadly died, aged 47, from cancer of the salivary gland - may he Rest In Peace.

Read his obituary on the Guardian and a piece by Hadley Freeman.

I’ve been neglecting Dizzy Rascal until today.

Tue, 08 May 2012 16:54:59 +0100

I’ve been neglecting Dizzy Rascal until today.

Light being refracted and dispersed by water. Early evening in...

Sun, 06 May 2012 13:53:00 +0100

Light being refracted and dispersed by water. Early evening in the garden.

This entry is about three things: 1) access to music, 2) hip hop...

Tue, 01 May 2012 14:33:57 +0100

This entry is about three things: 1) access to music, 2) hip hop and 3) an interesting remix of Sufjan Stevens’s Illinois album.

Without access to the internet there’s almost no access to worldwide music for most people in East Africa. In Kenya, local music dealers don’t branch far from a limited selection of Kenyan gospel and Kamba, some African pop, and Congalise reggae. It’s all sold on horrible quality CDRs, with the audio quality reduced at the expense of including the music videos - colourfully costumed dancers, having a merry dance in a garden or next to a waterfall.

I’ve recently met some local rappers. Young, passionate lovers of hip hop. Talking to them, I’ve noticed what a limited selection of worldwide hip hop they’ve heard of. It’s usually just a few artists, often Tupac, sometimes Notorious B.I.G and the Wu-Tang Clan.

So I’m putting together a little mixtape to share with some of the hip hop heads of Kisumu. A selection of hip hop that I’ve loved: Pete Rock, Roots Manuva, De La Soul, Q-Tip, Madlib, Gangstarr, Nas, Ty…. and maybe some more off the beaten track hip hop, Shabazz Palaces, Soweto Kinch, Heart Streets… oh there’s so much to choose from. Need to whittle it down and not overwhelm. And need to keep that mixtape flow.

I was listening to Grand Puba’s I Like It - deciding whether to put it into the mix, and on my exploration I found the acappella over a Sufjan Stevens track. Surprised that the two were being put together, I checked it out further. The album is Illinoize, a free remix album of Sufjan Steven’s legendary album Illinois, from Montreal producer Tor.

You can download it free here.

I’m so hooked on this tune right now. It’s not been...

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 13:21:58 +0100

I’m so hooked on this tune right now. It’s not been released. Waiting very impatiently.

My friend Simon is crowd sourcing funds to build a bore hole,...

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 08:48:30 +0100

My friend Simon is crowd sourcing funds to build a bore hole, that will help provide clean water to the Amoyo community he works with in Kenya.

He’s just set off on a 500 mile sponsored walk, following the Camino de Santiago Trail, from the Pyrenees in France to Galicia. You can sponsor his trip on IndieGoGo.

Having strapped two wind turbines to the roof and a solar panel...

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 12:40:00 +0100

Having strapped two wind turbines to the roof and a solar panel inside our yellow Pajero named Beryl, we took to the road bound for Mfungano Island. We drove from Kisumu to Luanda K’Otieno where we took the car ferry to Mbita. From there, we loaded all the equipment onto a small wooden passenger boat.

Mfungano is a wildlife rich island on Lake Victoria with a population of around 30,000. Early settlers came to the Island from Uganda, escaping accusation of an attempt to assassinate the King. We were there to install two wind turbines and a solar panel on top of the mountain, Soklo. This will provide power for the new Ekielo Kiona community radio station and a high-speed line-of-sight internet link from Kisumu.

The youth-driven radio station will broadcast in Suba and Luo language, and facilitate community-driven programs aimed at raising health and nutrition awareness, mobilising youth activism, improving social solidarity, promoting sustainable agriculture and fishing innovation, and preserve the endangered Suba language and cultural identity. This project is part of Organic Health Response’s fantastic work on the Island.

The Island has just one road around its circumference. So we had to carry all our tools, the turbines, the solar panel and batteries all the way up the mountain - it was back breaking! But the beautiful views made up for it, and it was great to get down to work with lots of help from the local community, including Mr Ekelo, the local Mze who generously donated the land for the tower and turbines.

To find out more about this work, visit accessenergy.org

This is a pepper-bark tree (sp. warburgia ugandensis), also...

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 21:33:34 +0100

This is a pepper-bark tree (sp. warburgia ugandensis), also known as greenheart. My uncle introduced it to me. It’s meant to be one of the most valuable medicinal plants in central Africa. One of it’s local names is omukuzannume (which means the tree that makes male maleness!). Apparently, it was over-harvested to extinction in Zimbabwe.

Just look at all these medicinal uses:

Dried bark is commonly chewed and the juice swallowed as a remedy for stomach-ache, constipation, toothache, cough, fever, muscle pains, weak joints and general body pains. It is also effective in powdered form for treating the same diseases. Fresh roots are boiled and mixed with soup for the prevention of diarrhoea. Leaf decoction baths are used as a cure for several skin diseases. The inner bark is reddish, bitter and peppery and has a variety of applications. It provides treatment for the common cold; dried and ground to a snuff it is used to clear sinuses; and it is chewed, or smoke from the burning bark inhaled, as a remedy for chest complaints. The bark, roots or leaves can be boiled in water and the decoction drunk to treat malaria, but this causes violent vomiting.

Medical notes source: AgroForestryTree Database

Bringing electricity to fishing communities on Lake...

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 19:39:05 +0100

Bringing electricity to fishing communities on Lake Victoria

Dotted around the shores of Lake Victoria are hundreds of villages that depend on fishing. As night falls, thousands of fisherman row out on boats to catch omena, nile perch and tilapia. The lake lights up like a city, as a thousand paraffin lamps flicker through the night, attracting omena fish to the surface so fishermen can sweep them up in their nets.

Grid electricity is not available or affordable in these villages which means that the catch must be sold within hours, before the fish rot. Ice filled trucks arrive in the morning to take away the night’s catch to be sold in fish markets as far away as Europe.

I’ve recently spent a few days visiting some of these villages to scope out the potential for a project to install wind and solar systems that can power cold storage for the fish and charging stations for electric lights. I was with a group of university professors and two NGOs that we are partnering with to design this project. In our interviews, we talked with Beach Management Units (BMU). Each bay as a BMU that everyone involved in the fish trade are members belong. From experience, we had decided not to approach the fishing villages to tell them our ideas, but rather gather information, understand their greatest challenges, and understand the suitability of an energy project and how it might fit.

Establishing cold storage facilities would enable the fisherman to have greater bargaining power, enabling to sell at reasonable rates on their terms. The other major energy opportunity is providing renewably powered lights for omena fishing boats. Omena are small fish, caught at night time and dried during the day. They are used in cooking but also as feed for chickens and other animals (we feed omena to our cat and he loves it).

So what’s the opportunity for replacing paraffin lights with electric lights charged during the day from renewables? Each omena fishing boat has four fishermen and four paraffin lamps that are used all night. The fuel cost is significant, around KSh 600 per night (about US$7). For a typical village such as Got Kachola, this amounts to over a daily expenditure of KSh 21,000 per night. At this price, renewable energy quickly becomes within easy reach.

We aren’t the first to think of this. Osram are an organisation that have built solar powered charging stations that lease out solar lamps to locals. When interviewing the fisherman, they spoke highly of the idea, but most complained that the solar lamps could not hold enough charge to last the night. So the challenge is to provide longer-lasting lights, and get them within easy reach of the fishing communities (Osram stations aren’t always located nearby).

There’s one other important benefit to getting affordable electricity into the fishing villages. The fisherman we interviewed often talked about a trend of declining catches: overfishing on Lake Victoria is occurring and well-recognised. To try and manage this, there is an omena fishing ban from April-September. Some fishermen probably ignore the ban, but most switch to catching tilapia and nile perch, or continue on the Ugandan shores where no ban exists. Declining fish stocks means declining jobs and these villages don’t have many other means of income. Providing electricity provides opportunities for new businesses, for example, video stores, barber shops, manufacturing facilities. This is an indirect but important reason why fishing communities need affordable, clean electricity.

Urban animals in Kampala. Some pretty, some not so pretty. The...

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 18:26:16 +0100

Urban animals in Kampala. Some pretty, some not so pretty. The turkey paroles outside my uncle’s compound and is nick-named satan. I don’t think it’s as ugly as the marabou storks though, man they are the ugliest creature I’ve ever seen!

After a sweaty Friday afternoon spent running around Kisumu...

Sun, 11 Mar 2012 23:00:00 +0000

After a sweaty Friday afternoon spent running around Kisumu buying car hub bearings, copper and other oddities for the access:energy workshop, I jumped on a bus bound for Busia, a town that sits on the Kenya-Uganda border. I met with Garret, an adventurous fellow that works for IPA. We stayed the night at the IPA house in Busia and arose early the following morning to head into Uganda. Garret rides a motorbike which I had a backie on until finding a matatu (known as a taxi in Uganda) to take me to Jinja. There, we met a few other folks from Kampala (a trainee doctor called Mara, and two researchers, Steve and Sid) and headed for a relaxing weekend away on a little island resort called the Hairy Lemon.

A short canoe ride guided us to the island and it took a game of frisbee golf with the owner of the Island and resort before I realised that it could be circumnavigated in just 5 minutes. It was a beautiful spot. We grabbed some beers and spent the afternoon wallowing about in the Nile and reading our books. This was the general theme for the weekend - a chance to unwind, rest, talk, laugh, and play games. It was clear the Hairy Lemon was designed for nothing other than this. My favourite part was the vollyball, which they had set up in the river.

So I’m feeling refreshed from a thoroughly enjoyable weekend in excellent company. I grabbed a lift to Nairobi with the others and I’m now sitting on the Kamba bus back to Kisumu. Unfortunately, it arrives at the less-refreshing time of 2am.

A few years ago, the Stockholm Environment Institute released a...

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 06:42:00 +0000

A few years ago, the Stockholm Environment Institute released a paper on planetary boundaries. I failed to rouse much interest from friends about the paper, but it had me tremendously excited. It provided me with a much needed framework to describe how climate change isn’t the only major threat of our lifetimes, there are several others, and each one can be considered to have a safety boundary. Together with climate change, there are two other planetary boundaries we have crossed, these are exceeding safe levels of nitrogen extraction from the atmosphere (to produce fertilisers for crops and animal feed) and biodiversity loss. By illustrating this (see picture) we have a platform for talking more holistically about solutions, and can make sure we don’t miss gaping holes in our environmental policies.

But there is one gaping hole that is continually exploited by corporations and journalists. This is the supposed incompatibilities of pursing environmental goals with social justice. I know that badly put together environmental policies can exacerbate social justice, but is this idea really true in general? That’s exactly what Oxfam has been discussing in the run up to the Rio Summit.

Oxfam’s have just released a discussion paper that explores the dynamics of living within safe environmental limits and within acceptable levels of human deprivation, and illustrates the concept in a doughnet (see picture).

Individually, none of the ideas or data is new, but the report is a great step towards tying together some of the top-level discussions around social justice and the environment. It also does well to explain the all important question: what happens to the environment when poor countries start consuming more? Here’s what the data suggests:

Food: Providing the additional calories needed by the 13 per cent of the world’s population facing hunger would require just 1 per cent of the current global food supply.
Energy: Bringing electricity to the 19 per cent of the world’s population who currently lack it could be achieved with less than a 1 per cent increase in global CO2 emissions.
Income: Ending income poverty for the 21 per cent of the global population who live on less than $1.25 a day would require just 0.2 per cent of global income.

Meeting basic human needs such as food security, energy and income poverty must be done in tandem with a greater global equity in the use of natural resources. The greatest reductions have to come from the world’s richest consumers. Unfortunately, as George Monbiot writes in his blog, “the politically easy way to tackle poverty is to try to raise the living standards of the poor while doing nothing to curb the consumption of the rich. This is the strategy almost all governments follow. It is a formula for environmental disaster”.

All this has motivated me to work for BioRegional and access:energy, two organisations that I believe understand the dynamics between environmental limits and global equity. BioRegional is an organisation that invented the One Planet Living framework, which helps people design sustainability action plans that are holistic and ambitious (in line with a sustainable and globally equitable level of consumption). access:energy is a social enterprise based in Kenya that designs and manufactures affordable, locally-made, clean energy technologies (focussing on wind turbines).

Sources

Oxfam (2012), A safe and just space for humanity. Can we live within the doughnut?

Monbiot (2012), Is protecting the environment incompatible with social justice? Featured on the Guardian Blog.

SEI (2009), Planetary Boundaries: A safe operating space for humanity. Featured in the Nature Journal.

The graphic explained: The social foundation forms an inner boundary, below which are many dimensions of human deprivation. The environmental ceiling forms an outer boundary, beyond which are many dimensions of environmental degradation. Between the two boundaries lies an area – shaped like a doughnut – which represents an environmentally safe and socially just space for humanity to thrive in. It is also the space in which inclusive and sustainable economic development takes place.

Classic scene from Nuts In May. A British film by Mike Leigh.

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 05:24:18 +0000

Classic scene from Nuts In May. A British film by Mike Leigh.

I’m feeling some hefty musical cravings at the moment. It’s not...

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 21:17:00 +0000

I’m feeling some hefty musical cravings at the moment. It’s not that I don’t listen to music everyday, but I miss the adventure of discovering music. With limited Internet, I can no longer roam freely across cyberspace like I used to, downloading random bass music podcasts at a whim, or greedily snatching obscure albums from blogs such as WFMU.

It’s not just an Internet limitation, it’s physical too. I miss the feeling of holding music, gazing at the artwork of album sleeves and sitting down to read the sleeve notes. Then there’s the ritual of taking vinyl from sleeve to platter, hearing amplified dust particles crackle as the needle works it’s way to the first beat. Then the music itself.

The extent of my cravings became apparent after my friend Forest teased me with an email of his current musical pleasures, including several links to youtube videos. One such tune was the Don Pullen George Adams Quartet - Serenade for Sariah, a piece of jazz that bustles at a pace that makes Kenyan runners look slow. In the words of Forrest:

On the jazz front we have to give it up right away to the post-bop piano virtuoso Don Pullen, who together with tenor sax man George Adams and their quartet, swept through a series of bad-nasty European live and recording dates in the eighties. I’m loving their 1986 Blue Note album Breakthrough at the moment, complete with liner notes by Amiri Baraka, who praises their ‘mutually enfunkifying balance’ and shit, but samples are, as is so often the case, not available on YouTube for licensing reasons, so another recording will have to do…Great band though.

Then I found a couple of East African music blogs a few days ago. A directory of East African vinyl and an African music blog called Likembe. I ashamed to say that I haven’t delved into the Kenyan music scene. I truly believe there is good music to be unearthed here, but I imagine it’s hidden deep. These reading materials should help. Let the journey begin.

There was a giant storm tonight, providing us our first proper...

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0000

There was a giant storm tonight, providing us our first proper rainfall in two months. At 5.30pm, Kisboswa turned a deep grey and the wind drove horizontal, shooting hailstones through our open windows. The living room was quickly flooded. The garden was covered in tree branches and littered with fallen mangos. Over the road at our workshop, the wood-working shelter was torn down. Similar scenes all around. I’m thankful that we have a proper shelter.

Last night I watched a documentary from the incredible series...

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 21:46:00 +0000

Sacred waters of Lake Antogo in Mali

Fog harvesting in Peru

Last night I watched a documentary from the incredible series Human Planet. It focused on the ingenious and astonishing lengths people go to in order to have access to water. From community traditions found in the Sahara including Algerian tunnellers that tap into ancient water networks, to fog harvesting in the Atacama desert in Chile, one of the driest places on Earth.

It reminded me of the inspiring Greening the Desert documentary by Jeff Laughton (I posted a couple months ago). This is based in Jordan, a country where 92% of the land is desert, with the remaining land in arid highlands (Amman) and the arid Jordan valley. It has one of the lowest levels of water availability per capita in the world and is in water overshoot - drawing much of its water from non-renewable deep aquifer reserves. The concept of drinking historic water which hasn’t been touched for thousands of years is compelling. But longevity is exactly what water excels in. It just keeps enduring, evaporating, precipitating, flowing through all living things. Ancient, yet fresh, able to revitalise our body, giving us life for another day. It must be one of the most recycled items us humans consume. Polluting to the extent of rendering water useless, or even harmful, may be considered a crime against humanity.

Gratefully, I’ve never had to experience the effects of drought. But I’m getting a little closer. This year, I’m living in Kenya. It’s now the dry season and our rainwater harvesting tanks are empty. I’m managing to have the odd shower and I’m getting used to a new mode of grubbiness. Luckily we have a car and a spring nearby, which we tap for drinking water, passing it through a .1 micron filter to keep the more eager bugs out. Water feels scarce but I can’t complain, I have plenty compared with others. This experience is certainly helping me appreciate the preciousness of water.

Drought isn’t just affecting the usual culprits. My friend was telling me last night that the South East of England is having a drought. “In February???” I gasped. A quick search confirmed it. Southern England is one of Europe’s most water stressed areas. It’s undoubtably a problem but I don’t think it’s that difficult to deal with, technically speaking. Examples like BedZED demonstrate how you can significantly reduce water consumption without affecting lifestyle quality. And in our streets and on our roofs, there is so much opportunity for better surface water management, which can be twinned with improving natural habitats and increasing local food growing. We can do it, if we really want to.

The greatest challenge is for desert-like countries such as Jordan where there is population growth, diminishing resources, heavy industrial agriculture polluting water courses, and climate change to exacerbate the problem. We need pioneers to show that the answers are within easy reach of us all. That’s why I love Geoff Laughton’s “Greening the Desert”, Permaculture Farms and One Planet Communities. And of course, documentaries such as Human Planet for providing us with a beautiful perspective on water around the world.