|
If you visit Kathmandu you may be struck, as I was, by the number of satellite dishes and solar panels that seem to sprout from rooftops all over the city, and in fact all over Nepal. I was a physics major, just beginning to appreciate the meanings of energy and information in a non-theoretical context, when I began to think about the connection between renewable energy and sustainable development. This connection is not a new one, but it was new to me in 1994, when I participated in Naropa's wonderful semester study in Nepal, then held in Kathmandu. Out of this experience evolved a question: why is there so little exchange between energy researchers in the U.S. and in developing countries, where large populations can (and do) benefit from renewable energy technologies? In 1997 I received a Fulbright fellowship to study the development of non-conventional, or renewable, energy in India and promote collaboration between research communities in the U.S. and India. |
Although my year in India was a life-changing experience, at the end I still found myself poorly equipped to promote a subject that seemed of marginal interest in U.S. energy circles, involving a country of marginal interest to U.S. scientists and policymakers. (The latter problem, at least, changed with the event that crystallized my resolution to work in the area of nuclear nonproliferation). Even more telling for me was the opinion of many well-educated people in India, who questioned the long-term utility of technologies that can support, at best, a standard of living that would consume perhaps one-fifth of the energy per capita as the U.S. average, while costing more in the short term. Although I did not change my mind concerning the long-term importance of shifting from fossil to renewable energy, I accepted the point: why should India, which by the 1990s still used per capita barely a tenth of the hydrocarbon fuels consumed by the United States, opt for economically inferior energy production in the name of sustainability? As in the case of nuclear nonproliferation, the US can only lead world policy by example: if the U.S. isn't willing to follow a restrictive policy on carbon emissions for the sake of global human interest, why should any other country do so? This the familiar logic of the prisoner's dilemma on a global scale. Nevertheless, many countries do follow their own restrictive policies. India continues innovative research and development in renewable energy as well as many other areas pertaining to sustainability, such as more efficient use of conventional fossil fuel resources. I outlined several of these areas in a 1998 report entitled "Non-Conventional Energy Development in India".
The work I did in sustainable development led me in some unexpected directions, the most important one being social justice and its extensions to economics, politics, philosphy, and education.
Although I am still very interested in sustainable development, and hope to contribute to that field again one day, the focus of my academic interest has shifted from technology, policy and development to the study of problems in learning and cooperation, among individuals as well as organizations and governments, as stemming from the intrinsic complexity of human social systems. My current research seeks to model learning and cooperation in the context of formal education.