Writings on the Wall

Hello!

All around the world communities are taking action to spread the number 350, the safe level of CO2 in the atmosphere measured in parts per million, and make sure world leaders are on course to reach that target.

Sounds weird right? Well, there's an animation that explains everything in just 90 seconds. Check it out here: http://www.350.org/animation.

It's urgent that we act together and build a movement that will solve the climate crisis and ensure a safe and just future for the world.

Please join me, and help build this movement at 350.org

-----------


The plan is to deliver photographs of destruction by climate change and the action people took till date to respective embassies and consulates. We need to reach out as many embassies as possible before November 30th. We need to take photographs as well when we deliver the pictures to embassy/consulate officials.

Then on December 12, we need to gather at JBR to form a human chain with the numericals 350 and join the united effort with our fellow human beings all over the world.

Remember the world is burning and we need at act, act fast.

Hello!

All around the world communities are taking action to spread the number 350, the safe level of CO2 in the atmosphere measured in parts per million, and make sure world leaders are on course to reach that target.

Sounds weird right? Well, there's an animation that explains everything in just 90 seconds. Check it out here: http://www.350.org/animation.

It's urgent that we act together and build a movement that will solve the climate crisis and ensure a safe and just future for the world.

Please join me, and help build this movement at 350.org

-----------


The plan is to deliver photographs of destruction by climate change and the action people took till date to respective embassies and consulates. We need to reach out as many embassies as possible before November 30th. We need to take photographs as well when we deliver the pictures to embassy/consulate officials.

Then on December 12, we need to gather at JBR to form a human chain with the numericals 350 and join the united effort with our fellow human beings all over the world.

Remember the world is burning and we need at act, act fast.

What? Shufi? What are you looking at? Kya hai?

Sounds familiar? Well, almost. A friend once famously mentioned, "If you murder someone in front of a 16 year old who grew up here, they won't even blink an eye and pass by coldly." Some of you might disagree, but most won't.

Now before you read further, I am not talking about any particular nationality, race or religion. For god's sake, Dubai is an International City where people from more than 150 nationalities live in almost perfect harmony equilibrium. People from all over the world come to this place in search of a better life, and most of them, well almost, even get one. But it’s a quite disturbing pattern which I have noticed on uncountable occasions here - lack of compassion!

On the road, driving in the fast lane at max speed, errant teenagers coming from behind will flash their vehicle headlights continuously until you clear way AND if you are a split second late, be ready to hear a word or two of abuses from the 'in-hurry' pilot driver. Well, one can always argue these are driving habits, so, let's just move on.

Just the other night, I parked my car in a municipal parking lot, came back to find some hip-hoppers/rappers camping all over my vehicle. Pulled out my keys and pressed the unlock button, the headlights flashed and the car was unlocked. Now I assume that all the teenagers were deaf so obviously they didn't hear the car unlocking and continue to make themselves comfortable. I reached the parked vehicle, gave a glance to the guys, opened the door and put the keys in the ignition. As I did that, one of the guys still didn't bother to get up, so I just lowered the window and said ' "Excuse me". Just call me and ask for $100 if you can guess the reaction of that guy, no questions asked! Instead of getting up and making way, the guy peeped in and asked arrogantly - "WHAT?" What? What? Get your f***ing a** moving you douche bag, but no, as a matured and law abiding resident, I just said, "I need to go." Of course none of them cared to say or even think about any sort of apology.

Another one and this one happened more than a hundred times, even today. As soon as you come out of a elevator, instead of making way, youngsters, the gum chewing generation, just walk-in straight, rather arrogantly. Forget an any apology, just hope they don't yell, "Watch it".

Remember the times when there used to be friendly smiles or courtesy greetings, even short conversations with unknown people? Well, today's teenager, you would be better off asking them- How are you?, because in all certainty you will get - NONE-OF-YOUR-DAMN-BUSINESS- sort of reply.

Honestly, I've met a lot of fabulous, amazing people here in Dubai, but all of them are matured, grown up career-holics. Teenagers here are a really cold, unfriendly bunch. But the question is - WHY? Compassion? Well, it’s solely missing and till the time we look into ourselves, we will never discover it, PERIOD.

What? Shufi? What are you looking at? Kya hai?

Sounds familiar? Well, almost. A friend once famously mentioned, "If you murder someone in front of a 16 year old who grew up here, they won't even blink an eye and pass by coldly." Some of you might disagree, but most won't.

Now before you read further, I am not talking about any particular nationality, race or religion. For god's sake, Dubai is an International City where people from more than 150 nationalities live in almost perfect harmony equilibrium. People from all over the world come to this place in search of a better life, and most of them, well almost, even get one. But it’s a quite disturbing pattern which I have noticed on uncountable occasions here - lack of compassion!

On the road, driving in the fast lane at max speed, errant teenagers coming from behind will flash their vehicle headlights continuously until you clear way AND if you are a split second late, be ready to hear a word or two of abuses from the 'in-hurry' pilot driver. Well, one can always argue these are driving habits, so, let's just move on.

Just the other night, I parked my car in a municipal parking lot, came back to find some hip-hoppers/rappers camping all over my vehicle. Pulled out my keys and pressed the unlock button, the headlights flashed and the car was unlocked. Now I assume that all the teenagers were deaf so obviously they didn't hear the car unlocking and continue to make themselves comfortable. I reached the parked vehicle, gave a glance to the guys, opened the door and put the keys in the ignition. As I did that, one of the guys still didn't bother to get up, so I just lowered the window and said ' "Excuse me". Just call me and ask for $100 if you can guess the reaction of that guy, no questions asked! Instead of getting up and making way, the guy peeped in and asked arrogantly - "WHAT?" What? What? Get your f***ing a** moving you douche bag, but no, as a matured and law abiding resident, I just said, "I need to go." Of course none of them cared to say or even think about any sort of apology.

Another one and this one happened more than a hundred times, even today. As soon as you come out of a elevator, instead of making way, youngsters, the gum chewing generation, just walk-in straight, rather arrogantly. Forget an any apology, just hope they don't yell, "Watch it".

Remember the times when there used to be friendly smiles or courtesy greetings, even short conversations with unknown people? Well, today's teenager, you would be better off asking them- How are you?, because in all certainty you will get - NONE-OF-YOUR-DAMN-BUSINESS- sort of reply.

Honestly, I've met a lot of fabulous, amazing people here in Dubai, but all of them are matured, grown up career-holics. Teenagers here are a really cold, unfriendly bunch. But the question is - WHY? Compassion? Well, it’s solely missing and till the time we look into ourselves, we will never discover it, PERIOD.

There couldn't have been a better and more important topic to be chosen for this year's Blog Action Day campaign - Climate Change.

For starters, here is an example of climate change simplified: Glaciers grow when climate cools and shrink when it gets hotter. The World Glacier Monitoring Service collects data annually on glacier retreat and glacier mass balance. From this data, glaciers worldwide have been found to be shrinking significantly, with strong glacier retreats in the 1940s, stable or growing conditions during the 1920s and 1970s, and again retreating from the mid 1980s to present. Mass balance data indicate 17 consecutive years of negative glacier mass balance.

The glaciers are in fact one of the most sensitive indicators of climate change around the world. To put it into context, if glaciers continue to melt at this pace, the water level in our oceans (which some nations term as "THEIR OCEANS") will rise exponentially resulting in submerging of land near the coasts and gradually growing further.

In essence, climate change is not a problem that would be talked around in the semi-urban or rural households of Africa or Asia and that's where the problem lies. If we would have to put the problem in terms of stages of a critical illness where First stage being symptoms, Second being diagnosis, Third being the period when its curable and Fourth being the incurable stage, then we are more than half way through. The symptoms were evident- loud and clear, the diagnosis was rather delayed, and perhaps already in the Third Stage of the illness which is curable period. But for this particular illness, there is one more stage, somewhere between the third and fourth and that’s exactly where we stand- its curable, strings (no, not the super cool pop band from Pakistan, I wish they could have solved this) attached.

The climate change problem has entered a phase where it’s curable but with a lot of precautions and needs an urgency not shown ever before by anyone. Some wrong steps and it will enter the fourth stage without warning - the point of no return.

So the question arises how can we solve it? Now I won't go listing down the number of things that we can and we must do in order to help fight the devil. Instead I would name the culprits who are NOT doing what they should be doing - cooperate.

Remember there was an assembly of some important and powerful world leaders in the steel-turned-green city of USA? The so called 'LEADER'S' statement of G-20 Pittsburgh Summit said the following:

"We will spare no effort to reach agreement in Copenhagen through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations."

Do you know where the above commitment was placed in the communiqué? At number 29 out of 31 declarations- that’s where it stands in the priority list of our LEADERS. It might not be as forthcoming as Iran's nuclear bomb (seriously, you people think they can build one?) or North Korea's list of long range missiles (impressive, I tell you), but it definitely deserves univocal commitment, urgency and unrelenting commitment from our REPRESENTATIVES (the leaders actually seems to forget that after elections).

Unless and until the leadership shows their seriousness towards this problem and start a campaign to educate the masses, the masses would not be even aware of the effects and catastrophic situations that awaits them.

Climate change is not a national threat, (No, don't worry, Bush's gone, thank god!), it’s universal. The efforts to tackle this needs to be taken collectively and should be binding, regardless of the clout of a country and its bank balances. We cannot have countries like India and China always in disagreement with the world and US always trying to stamp its authority. There must be a solution and we must learn to cooperate.

As they say- You can run, but you can't hide!

There couldn't have been a better and more important topic to be chosen for this year's Blog Action Day campaign - Climate Change.

For starters, here is an example of climate change simplified: Glaciers grow when climate cools and shrink when it gets hotter. The World Glacier Monitoring Service collects data annually on glacier retreat and glacier mass balance. From this data, glaciers worldwide have been found to be shrinking significantly, with strong glacier retreats in the 1940s, stable or growing conditions during the 1920s and 1970s, and again retreating from the mid 1980s to present. Mass balance data indicate 17 consecutive years of negative glacier mass balance.

The glaciers are in fact one of the most sensitive indicators of climate change around the world. To put it into context, if glaciers continue to melt at this pace, the water level in our oceans (which some nations term as "THEIR OCEANS") will rise exponentially resulting in submerging of land near the coasts and gradually growing further.

In essence, climate change is not a problem that would be talked around in the semi-urban or rural households of Africa or Asia and that's where the problem lies. If we would have to put the problem in terms of stages of a critical illness where First stage being symptoms, Second being diagnosis, Third being the period when its curable and Fourth being the incurable stage, then we are more than half way through. The symptoms were evident- loud and clear, the diagnosis was rather delayed, and perhaps already in the Third Stage of the illness which is curable period. But for this particular illness, there is one more stage, somewhere between the third and fourth and that’s exactly where we stand- its curable, strings (no, not the super cool pop band from Pakistan, I wish they could have solved this) attached.

The climate change problem has entered a phase where it’s curable but with a lot of precautions and needs an urgency not shown ever before by anyone. Some wrong steps and it will enter the fourth stage without warning - the point of no return.

So the question arises how can we solve it? Now I won't go listing down the number of things that we can and we must do in order to help fight the devil. Instead I would name the culprits who are NOT doing what they should be doing - cooperate.

Remember there was an assembly of some important and powerful world leaders in the steel-turned-green city of USA? The so called 'LEADER'S' statement of G-20 Pittsburgh Summit said the following:

"We will spare no effort to reach agreement in Copenhagen through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations."

Do you know where the above commitment was placed in the communiqué? At number 29 out of 31 declarations- that’s where it stands in the priority list of our LEADERS. It might not be as forthcoming as Iran's nuclear bomb (seriously, you people think they can build one?) or North Korea's list of long range missiles (impressive, I tell you), but it definitely deserves univocal commitment, urgency and unrelenting commitment from our REPRESENTATIVES (the leaders actually seems to forget that after elections).

Unless and until the leadership shows their seriousness towards this problem and start a campaign to educate the masses, the masses would not be even aware of the effects and catastrophic situations that awaits them.

Climate change is not a national threat, (No, don't worry, Bush's gone, thank god!), it’s universal. The efforts to tackle this needs to be taken collectively and should be binding, regardless of the clout of a country and its bank balances. We cannot have countries like India and China always in disagreement with the world and US always trying to stamp its authority. There must be a solution and we must learn to cooperate.

As they say- You can run, but you can't hide!

For someone who hasn't even heard of TED till a month back, to attend, in fact to be a part of TEDxDubai was an enlightening experience.

I precisely remember it started as a passing mention by Masarat Daud during my first meeting with her. I came back home not even vaguely remembering the name of organisation or event.A week passed and then I stumbled upon a red coloured pigeon on twitter - @TEDxDubai. I have a twitter id since 28th November, 2008 but was never really posting or what I now call Tweeting. Then after some mouse maneuvers, I landed on TEDxDubai website. Ahhhh, another offline event for the online community, doesn't interest me, though no harm in registering. So I clicked on a subsection titled 'Attend'. Downloads another page which looks like any other registration form vastly common for someone who had 8 email addresses when he was just 16.

But here I got the first good vibe for TEDxDubai! It wasn't a simple Name, Date of Birth, Email, Cell blah blah blah kinda form! The questions were simple yet clear like- why do you wanna attend TEDxDubai? To answer this, one would have to know what the event is about, so I went to the top right box in my browser window and typed TED and go! Google never disappoints you, on came a string of results in less than a second which eventually took me to official TED website. What I saw on the website was not what I expected. There were videos, videos of people, ordinary people who had their ideas of changing, impacting the world. I got so engrossed in the videos that I forgot the primary task in hand- to register for TEDxDubai! So, I went back to face the next question in the form- what's your idea to change the world? This wasn't really difficult, I had it in the back of my mind ever since I came to Dubai, so I fill that in, answered the other questions and submitted the form.

And then began the wait. The wait for an invitation to the event. Time passed and then came the first list of attendees. Only 30 attendees, I surely didn't expect to be the top 30, but still, I jumped in, checked the names out, not mine. Then came the next batch, not there, then the 3rd batch, again disappointed. Along came the Eid holidays. As everybody else, I was on road, in the desert, in a camp when I decided to switch on my BlackBerry, 4th and 5th batches released. Anxiousness, am I in? Am I gonna make it? Somehow the holidays passed and I came back to find my name in the 5th batch. I froze the video and kept starring at the screen, it’s my name!!! That's me! I got selected as an attendee! Great!!!!

Than came an announcement asking for help from volunteers. Okay, here are two enthusiastic gentlemen - James Piecowye and Giorgio Ungania trying to pull-off a huge event, they can surely do with some help.

I sent in my details for the volunteers call. To my surprise, received an email from Habiba Hamid, someone I knew from Dubai Cares time and here she is, trying to contribute to social causes as always! Great, the good feeling started taking me hostage, something told me it’s gonna be big, huge!

Friday, 9th of October, the dry run for TEDxDubai. My first thought when I saw the Palladium was - this is no joke, it’s not some offline geek-get-together, these guys mean business! I entered the Palladium with one of the speakers and my inspiration - Masarat Daud and I saw a lot of friendly faces eager to help, eager to be a part of the revolution! Got our briefing as the volunteers, met the speakers and tada! - Let the show begin!

Big Day, 10-10-09, and couldn't have had a better start to the day than James telling me - "Look at this, people around the world stereotype Arab women and here, they sit behind these registration desks, eager to be the part of a change! Wonderful!!"

Went through the brief pep talks with fellow volunteers - Let's rock and roll! Everything was so perfectly managed that none of the volunteers even had to ask the organisers about anything at all! Saturday morning, up early, people started coming in and settling down!

Then comes the moment I have been waiting from past month or so. James starts with the humorous no-mobile-phones policy of TED! The two mandatory presentations from TED and Bruno Giussani, TED Europe director with his inaugural TEDxDubai talk!

Next were the TEDxDubai specific speakers. The total data available on the internet from evolution of mankind till 2003 - 5 Gigabytes and the data for the year 2008 alone - 487 Gigabytes, I surely don't know how to put it into context but I can understand the difference as a student of Mathematics! That’s amazing and it applies for the speaker also who presented this fact - Mohammad Gawdat.

The speakers were awesome, Leo Laporte and his signature style of mixing humor with reality, specially the 'Torches of Freedom' part, and so were Ian Gilbert, Ernst Van Der Poll and others.

Paul Bennett kept the audience interested with a very intriguing question - What is your dream for Dubai throwing back equally interesting replies!

Then came the rock stars of Dubai- the Al Awadhi Brothers or as the twiteratti call them- the Wild Peeta Bros! Entrepreneurship = Persistence, the words were so common yet when they were put together, it was a Eureka moment!

Dr. Naif Al Mutawa- a name I had never heard before, but one I will never forget. Frankly, my sense of religious understanding evolved manifolds after I heard him. The 99 - Hey, when's it releasing? Now this is someone trying to clear a lot of misunderstandings in the world through a relevant medium! He deserved the standing ovation he got after the world premiere of the trailer.

Frankly, it was only because of Masarat that I wanted to attend this conference and when I saw her entering the side stage from the green room, I could actually feel butterflies in my stomach. I have been telling here all the while she's gonna be fine, she doesn't have to prove anything to anyone and so on, but here I was praying myself, God, let's hope everything goes well. What she said & what she presented was summed-up by the standing ovation she got and by many attendees going up to her after the presentation with tearful eyes!

Samar Jodha and his passion to save the marginalised Buddhist community in Phaneng was evident in his work.

Then there was a 13 year old girl who wanted to win the Oscars (best wishes, you surely will). Dubai Abdulla Abulhoul was not just another 13 year old; she was the youngest animation film director in the Gulf Film Festival. After her presentation, almost everyone was convinced - age is just a number!!

The standup comic of Arab World Jamil Abu-Wardeh reminded everyone what they have sorely forgotten - laugh at yourselves first and to take responsibilities seriously and themselves! Then the face of modern Emirati women - Khulood Al Atiyat and her innovative way of binding people together - Unleash was another example of development of mindset in the UAE.

What began as a passing mention was a fulfilling experience; I was forced to reflect on something I had almost abandoned. NO, I AM GONNA DO IT, I AM GONNA MAKE IT HAPPEN, NO MATTER WHAT IT TAKES and as James summed it up, Let the discussions begin, start something new and finish it up in a month, let the spirit of TED live on!

P.S. I have been trying to work for the betterment of the construction labourers in Dubai from sometime. The group's called : The Help Humanity Foundation. After attending TEDxDubai, I am motivated to take the cause forward and will try all that I can to make their lives better. I need your help, please visit the website and learn how you can help!!

For someone who hasn't even heard of TED till a month back, to attend, in fact to be a part of TEDxDubai was an enlightening experience.

I precisely remember it started as a passing mention by Masarat Daud during my first meeting with her. I came back home not even vaguely remembering the name of organisation or event.A week passed and then I stumbled upon a red coloured pigeon on twitter - @TEDxDubai. I have a twitter id since 28th November, 2008 but was never really posting or what I now call Tweeting. Then after some mouse maneuvers, I landed on TEDxDubai website. Ahhhh, another offline event for the online community, doesn't interest me, though no harm in registering. So I clicked on a subsection titled 'Attend'. Downloads another page which looks like any other registration form vastly common for someone who had 8 email addresses when he was just 16.

But here I got the first good vibe for TEDxDubai! It wasn't a simple Name, Date of Birth, Email, Cell blah blah blah kinda form! The questions were simple yet clear like- why do you wanna attend TEDxDubai? To answer this, one would have to know what the event is about, so I went to the top right box in my browser window and typed TED and go! Google never disappoints you, on came a string of results in less than a second which eventually took me to official TED website. What I saw on the website was not what I expected. There were videos, videos of people, ordinary people who had their ideas of changing, impacting the world. I got so engrossed in the videos that I forgot the primary task in hand- to register for TEDxDubai! So, I went back to face the next question in the form- what's your idea to change the world? This wasn't really difficult, I had it in the back of my mind ever since I came to Dubai, so I fill that in, answered the other questions and submitted the form.

And then began the wait. The wait for an invitation to the event. Time passed and then came the first list of attendees. Only 30 attendees, I surely didn't expect to be the top 30, but still, I jumped in, checked the names out, not mine. Then came the next batch, not there, then the 3rd batch, again disappointed. Along came the Eid holidays. As everybody else, I was on road, in the desert, in a camp when I decided to switch on my BlackBerry, 4th and 5th batches released. Anxiousness, am I in? Am I gonna make it? Somehow the holidays passed and I came back to find my name in the 5th batch. I froze the video and kept starring at the screen, it’s my name!!! That's me! I got selected as an attendee! Great!!!!

Than came an announcement asking for help from volunteers. Okay, here are two enthusiastic gentlemen - James Piecowye and Giorgio Ungania trying to pull-off a huge event, they can surely do with some help.

I sent in my details for the volunteers call. To my surprise, received an email from Habiba Hamid, someone I knew from Dubai Cares time and here she is, trying to contribute to social causes as always! Great, the good feeling started taking me hostage, something told me it’s gonna be big, huge!

Friday, 9th of October, the dry run for TEDxDubai. My first thought when I saw the Palladium was - this is no joke, it’s not some offline geek-get-together, these guys mean business! I entered the Palladium with one of the speakers and my inspiration - Masarat Daud and I saw a lot of friendly faces eager to help, eager to be a part of the revolution! Got our briefing as the volunteers, met the speakers and tada! - Let the show begin!

Big Day, 10-10-09, and couldn't have had a better start to the day than James telling me - "Look at this, people around the world stereotype Arab women and here, they sit behind these registration desks, eager to be the part of a change! Wonderful!!"

Went through the brief pep talks with fellow volunteers - Let's rock and roll! Everything was so perfectly managed that none of the volunteers even had to ask the organisers about anything at all! Saturday morning, up early, people started coming in and settling down!

Then comes the moment I have been waiting from past month or so. James starts with the humorous no-mobile-phones policy of TED! The two mandatory presentations from TED and Bruno Giussani, TED Europe director with his inaugural TEDxDubai talk!

Next were the TEDxDubai specific speakers. The total data available on the internet from evolution of mankind till 2003 - 5 Gigabytes and the data for the year 2008 alone - 487 Gigabytes, I surely don't know how to put it into context but I can understand the difference as a student of Mathematics! That’s amazing and it applies for the speaker also who presented this fact - Mohammad Gawdat.

The speakers were awesome, Leo Laporte and his signature style of mixing humor with reality, specially the 'Torches of Freedom' part, and so were Ian Gilbert, Ernst Van Der Poll and others.

Paul Bennett kept the audience interested with a very intriguing question - What is your dream for Dubai throwing back equally interesting replies!

Then came the rock stars of Dubai- the Al Awadhi Brothers or as the twiteratti call them- the Wild Peeta Bros! Entrepreneurship = Persistence, the words were so common yet when they were put together, it was a Eureka moment!

Dr. Naif Al Mutawa- a name I had never heard before, but one I will never forget. Frankly, my sense of religious understanding evolved manifolds after I heard him. The 99 - Hey, when's it releasing? Now this is someone trying to clear a lot of misunderstandings in the world through a relevant medium! He deserved the standing ovation he got after the world premiere of the trailer.

Frankly, it was only because of Masarat that I wanted to attend this conference and when I saw her entering the side stage from the green room, I could actually feel butterflies in my stomach. I have been telling here all the while she's gonna be fine, she doesn't have to prove anything to anyone and so on, but here I was praying myself, God, let's hope everything goes well. What she said & what she presented was summed-up by the standing ovation she got and by many attendees going up to her after the presentation with tearful eyes!

Samar Jodha and his passion to save the marginalised Buddhist community in Phaneng was evident in his work.

Then there was a 13 year old girl who wanted to win the Oscars (best wishes, you surely will). Dubai Abdulla Abulhoul was not just another 13 year old; she was the youngest animation film director in the Gulf Film Festival. After her presentation, almost everyone was convinced - age is just a number!!

The standup comic of Arab World Jamil Abu-Wardeh reminded everyone what they have sorely forgotten - laugh at yourselves first and to take responsibilities seriously and themselves! Then the face of modern Emirati women - Khulood Al Atiyat and her innovative way of binding people together - Unleash was another example of development of mindset in the UAE.

What began as a passing mention was a fulfilling experience; I was forced to reflect on something I had almost abandoned. NO, I AM GONNA DO IT, I AM GONNA MAKE IT HAPPEN, NO MATTER WHAT IT TAKES and as James summed it up, Let the discussions begin, start something new and finish it up in a month, let the spirit of TED live on!

P.S. I have been trying to work for the betterment of the construction labourers in Dubai from sometime. The group's called : The Help Humanity Foundation. After attending TEDxDubai, I am motivated to take the cause forward and will try all that I can to make their lives better. I need your help, please visit the website and learn how you can help!!