Monday, December 27, 2010

Airport freeze : Where is the preparedness ?

Was talking to some people who've traveled by air (both domestic and international) over the last few weeks and all of them have the same complaint : where is airport preparedness ?

Reminds me of the few (rare) occasions when Atlanta used to have a small (couple of inches worth) of snowfall. The city would grind to halt as it was totally ill-prepared for this.

Would that excuse hold for the large transit airports like London, Paris and Frankfurt ?
Why are they in such shambles the moment snowfall gets to be more than "usual" ?
Are they not watching the global trend of heavier snowfall / rainfall and cycles that seem swing to the extremes ?

IMHO : they seem to have an Ostrich mode to the problem ie. stick your head in sand (or snow) and it'll blow over ?. There also seems to be no "consequence" to this lack of preparedness that needs to be addressed.

Last I heard was that the governments were going to think of legislative mechanisms to pull up the autonomous airport authorities like BAA. Is regulatory the best way to address this or should commercial models push them ?

I'd opt for the commercial model anytime ?

Thursday, December 9, 2010

The proposed ban on plastic pouches : Gutka + Paan

Whether or not this proves a boon to the individuals involved (those addicted to Gutka + Paan), this is certainly a welcome measure for the environment.

Over the last few years, I've seen rural India being peppered with this "pollution". Everywhere I go, from a nature resort to a religiously oriented city, I'm shocked and distressed to see these small plastic wrappers scattered around. Even yielding wetlands with paddy seems to not have been spared.

I had posted a few years earlier, that, I think this is probably the most polluting packing material around as they are too small to be picked and too large to travel down an animals throat unhindered.

Am especially scared of the new kind of packaging that seems to have aluminum foil enclosed with a thin enamel of plastic. These, I'm sure do not degrade at all ?

I now wish that this ban comes through at the earliest and makes a difference ?