There are fools in the world and sometimes if a fool meets another fool, the contract that may result from a series of agreements is just an agreement between fools and has no value.
I am often reminded of this when I read of some ‘innovation award’, ‘energy efficiency award’ or ‘new design idea’ which has been handed out (with a cash prize) by some bank or electricity undertaking to some individual who, on analysis, has innovated nothing or invented nothing new but is blissfully unaware of the fact and has managed to fool the bank or electricity undertaking that something new has in fact occurred, in particular with regard to ‘green inventions’.
An example: an English learner received an award for inventing a ‘vaccine refrigerator’, which consisted of two containers, one inside the other, with the space between filled with sponge. Evaporation kept the inner container cool. Man, shoot the lights out. Is it new? Nope – it was first invented in 2500 BC. But she got an award. Wow!
Similar things have happened in South Africa. An example, quoted from a blurb on the subject: “Wonderbag is a standalone, nonelectric insulated bag designed to reduce the amount of fuel required in the cooking of food in developing nations. Instead of being placed on a stove for the duration of the cooking period, food is instead heated to a hot enough tempera- ture and then transferred to the Wonderbag, which uses the principle of thermal insulation to continue cooking, and keeps food warm, without needing addition fire, or additional heat . . . In some countries, this is a matter of safety as well, with rapists preying on single people who gather wood by themselves.”
The Wonderbag is an invention claimed by two South Africans, to whom the idea occurred a few years ago. Good show, huh? In fact, not. In my commune, in the 1970s, Trisha had a box which she used to make bean stew using thermal insulation bags. Further, the idea dates back more than 120 years. There are books written on the subject in 1914 and 1908. Hardly new. Perhaps its role in rapist opportunity reduction is. Oh, the hype.
Next, sandbag houses, quoted from the blurb: “The completed structure is waterproof (sand does not have the intrinsic capillary action found in cement), fire resistant and soundproof, and has extremely good thermal properties (cool in summer, warm in winter). While standard walls may develop cracks in the plasterwork that can carry through the entire wall, this will not happen with this process, as cracks cannot run through sandbag walls. Once the framework is in place, filling and stacking sandbags can be undertaken by semi/unskilled labour or by the owners themselves, reducing labour costs and potentially pro- viding job and entrepreneurial opportunities for the local community.”
Okay, at least they do not claim to have a new invention. After all, military bunkers came first. But is it necessary? In Mabova village, in Zambia, the old school is made from wattle and clay. It has been standing since the 1950s. It too is cool, waterproof, fire resistant and soundproof. Do we really need sandbags?
Then again, I am at the Urban Design Exhibition. There is a stand where a woman pedals a bicycle. It supposedly charges a battery. There is an invertor connected to the battery, which supplies power to a knitting machine. How wonderfully green. But I know that an adult human would struggle to supply 100 W of power for longer than 20 minutes and that a knitting machine draws about 700 W. So, in fact, the bicycle does nothing at all – it all comes from the battery. So why, I wonder, do they do it?
Why, I wonder, do any of these examples do it? Simply put, for money disguised as green caring. Nothing wrong with money. But the caring part is the thing. If you really want to care and save the planet, do not fly in passenger aircraft, eat fruit outside season and Skype rather than travel. Wildly proclaiming the (green but pale) limelight for things that are not new or helpful seems wrong, somehow.