Do Phuket’s coconut men have a carbon footprint?
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Do Phuket’s coconut men have a carbon footprint? (Editor’s Eye)
ByBarry Daniel
Living on a quiet beach in the south-eastcorner of Phuket, I eschew turning on my television when I wake up, lest what Isee there sends me hurtling to my medicine cabinet in search of the blood pressure pills. Unfortunately I forgot this one morning last week and found myself confronted by a BBC presenter explaining that the huge UN climate change pow-wow will commence in Copenhagen on 7 December, 2009
Now I’ve got nothing against all those well-fed worthies flying to this Scandinavian city to enjoy a gab-fest about saving the rest of us from our profligate energy use. But what struck me was the description of how the emissions of these well-heeled delegates would be offset by such astounding initiatives as having poor Indian farmers use foot-operated treadle pumps to irrigate their tiny plots, rather than diesel engines. Someone had even worked out that if 10,000 Indian peasants used these treadle pumps for the next year, it would offset the carbon emitted by the flight of the US President’s 747 from Washington to Copenhagen.Well that’s alright then!
Turning away from all this I stepped out ofmy cottage to be confronted by a kinder parallel universe. I was greeted with atumult of thudding coconuts hurtling to ground from the vaulting palms allaround. Phuket’s coconut men were at their business, culling the nuts withtheir machetes, as they hung, terrifyingly, amidst the fronds fifty feet above.In a world of insane environmental conferences, here in Phuket was a wonderfulexample of low tech, manual methods being deployed, not so that westernerscould fly around the world to global warming conferences with a clearconscience, but because that’s the way it’s been done for generations.
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