A english blog from a INSA student

One problem in our technologic world is that knowledge growth faster than our ethic.

In this article, I’ll try to fill the gap between my technological knowledge and my ethic about vehicles consumption. Hoping that in the same time, you will also learn something and develop a strong awareness.
Among many others, fuel combustion is the main waste in our society:
Imagine you’ve order a burger in fancy restaurant. When it’s coming you have to hurry and you can only have a bite and leave the rest. That’s approximatively what happens with vehicles. Why do we learn as child not to waste food and nothing about energy?

So what happens under the bonnet?

The oil is used in a thermodynamic 4 strokes cycle:

The piston goes down and the cylinder intakes fresh new air from the intake valve.
The piston compresses the air in the top of the cylinder.
Fuel is injected, burned and it heats the compressed air. It gives energy to push the piston and continue the cycle.
When the piston compresses again the cylinder, burned gases are purge by the extract valve.

During the first week-end of december, I went to a convention organized by an association called Christians and oil peak. it's a group of research about links between the ecological problem and the christianity.

I went there because I think that the confrontation of these both topics will lead to something unusual but rich.

The question that leads this association is "Which spiritual ressources to face up to the run out of natural ressources?"

The first speeche was told by Oliver REY, a searcher at CNRS and maths teacher. He spoke about the notion of scale in real world. We assume in our modern world that humain are able to do everythings thanks to technologies. But he said that it exists a scale for humain being. Indeed modern cities with huge supermarket, fast underground... aren't in the humain scale.Our humain size, our walk speed say something about our nature. To illustrate this notion of scale, he took the example of the size. If we were two times higher, we would be four times bigger, but our legs won't be able to support us anymore.He considered that we might come back to a civilisation at humain size.

One other topic was the necessity to associate again the "hard science" like maths or physics and "social science" like philosophy or litterature. The french university is divided into parts, but we have to consider ethic when we study law or engineering. Its a modern fact to dissociate subject and it's not obvious.

Of course, the political questions was broached. There was Mrs. MOREL DARLEUX, secretary of ecosocialism at Front de Gauche. She denounced the infinite growth in a finite world and said that fossil energy can be considered as drugs for the capitalism. Mr LEPESANT, a philosophy teacher, quite fun indeed, impressed me a lot. He perceived three main axes to transform our society. 1/ Give absolute priority to ecological questions. 2/Break off from our conception of illimited liberty, putting liberties after responsability. (He asked a question that interested me a lot: In our democraty, who represents the "missing" like future generations, animals,vegetals...) 3/Refind the taste of simplicity. He asked for a floor salary but associate with a ceiling salary. The reason for this requirement was "How can people can live together where there are so large gap of money between them?" He spoke about the concept of convivial cities where everyone lives at the same rythm than the poorest.

Another speeche was given by Mr. REVOL, a theologian and biologist at Catholic University of Lyon. He tryed to express the christian vision of the earth. How God makes us co-creator of this nature, and how the christian faith can help us to protect the environnement in changing our materialist and industrialist vision of the nature into love look.

I wasn't there during the two days but these speeches have been broadcasted.

You can heard them here:

http://www.chretiens-et-pic-de-petrole.org/colloque-2014/interventions/

I haven't write on my blog for months... But I'm still at INSA and I still have english lessons!

I also wrote an article for the newspaper of my school: INSATIABLE. I 'll try to share it here in english!

On september 2013, the administration of INSA decided to refuse to AGAPE, a christian association of the campus, the right to meet in a room of the school, as the association has done it for many years.

This decision give me the wish to write this article because it is the reflect of our generation point of view about religion. For most of our, religion would be like rugby team which usually punch the other team, here comes the rugbalistic expression "oh, what a cathedral!!"??

However in reality, religion isn't only a frame of conflict and believers from differents confessions listen to each other more than we think. A prooth is the conference between the rabbin, Elie Zekkri, the bishop of Lyon, cardinal Barbarin and the rector of villeurbanne mosque, Azzedine Gaci.

But religion aren't only a subject of conversation and exchange. It is principaly deep life school. Learn to do silence in our world where noise is all, where we run everywhere isn't easy feat. On this topic, INSA may decided to apply a mechanical simplification to humans:  sum (interior forces) = 0 !

Also religion ask question about our priority. Today, we can easyli idolize the God-Money. Money who influence us on the way we see others and nature, who give sense to our life and that we think almighty. In face to our economical society of hyperconsumption, which let scandalous inequality, religion invite each of us to build a world where we share ressouces.

In our society, religion seems most of time like a set of superstitions and so opposite to scientifical reason developped on campus. But science and faith aren't opposite. They did'nt answer to the same questions. Science search how and faith why?

This research to give sense, understood as direction and meaning, to our tiny life, cannot be resolved scientifically. In this quest, believers don't pretend to possess the truth. God is a reality that overpasses the human mind. In the big monotheist religions: Islam forbidden all representations that would always be inferior to God and in Christiannity, the God of the trinity still a myster.

By taking the decision to forbid religious organisation, INSA doesn't offer to belivers the place to speak, think and live their faith. But it prevent curious to increase their religious culture. According to me, it can lead to intolerance by leak of knowledge.

Laicity is a delicate subject. It is a nice value if it helps personnal reflexion and mutual respect. But today, it is important to think of application of laïcity in the society. Indeed we cannot speak about religion without feeling a malaise.

Why speaking of God is considered so intrusif? We should search a laicity that lead to a real dialogue and not an interdiction imposed by a form of fundamental atheism.

I think that a sincere atheist is obliged to doubt, as much as believer. May be, to know the doubt of the other can lead us to go forward together. It's my hope. The benefice of the doubt: A dialogue who doesn't try to convince but to know.

I advice you to watch the reportage on the following link:

http://www.arte.tv/fr/2902234.html

This reportage made by Arte (The german and french channel) illustrates perfectly the huge problem of the electronic waste in Africa.

As I've already said it on a recent article, electronic waste are brought from all over the world to africa illegaly or as a "gift" to reduce the numerical break.

Sometimes good intention could be badly made and have terrible repercussion.

These situations show how our world is unfair. We create the bad economical situation in these countries (or anyway we don't let them a chance to grow up in "stealing" their mineral ressources). And then we use this bad economical situation, to exploit them with nasty job, saying we give them jobs... Moreover this activities of dismanting computers, distroy their environement and they won't be able in the futur to use their fiels to feed themselves....

With my insignificant voice, I try to think on what could be the best solutions of this problem:

-We have to control more the electronic waste, especially on the shipping. The law has to be clearer and finally I think it could be great to have a world court against the environnemental crime (Which are indeed crime against humanity).

-We have to improve our methods and means of recycling computers in occidental country. (China is already one step beyond us in this field)

-We have to help them to get more of this new technology of recycling. I'm sure that if it's well done, it could be a great source of wealth.

Anyway it has to be done but not this way !!

The problem of waste is huge all around the world. The way it is solved has repercussion on environement and economy.

Now some laws, especially in Europe, organize the field of treatement of waste and particularly the electronic waste.

This law purposes the one for one. It means that the seller has to recycle one electronic good if he sells one.

In 2011, french produce 16kg of electronic waste per year/personn. Most of these goods are recycle in France but some are exported illegaly to Africa, India or China.

I think it's really unfair that the richest countries, more than taking the ressources of poorest countries, distroy the environement of the poorest countries where waste are exported. There is always the argument of "It's make them more rich, because we finance them to treat this waste." But who will finance the clean of polluted area?

The system is really strange because big firms try to export their electronics wastes as donation. Infact few of the materials are able to work again and they are dumbed in waste reception centre. With the face of the kind country, the rich offer a poisoned give.

It 's really a shame, especially as this problem could be solved by transfers of technologies.

More over the African continent will produce many eletronics wastes (more than the european union) because of the explosion of new means of communication, like cell phones or personnal computer. This problem will increase and will be surely a source of violence.