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Scientific Approach to Knowledge by Tency 20/10/07

Presentation by Tency at the UHU Seminar on the Scientific Approach to Knowledge on 20/10/07

Excerpt from the presentation:

"I am fascinated by the sentence of Mother, The City the Earth Needs. I asked myself, what do we need in order to realize the city the earth needs? I came to seven steps that could be a roadmap. You can add as many as you like.

1. The land – 80% is there. Now that we have the soul, the Matrimandir, we should work on the body. What can we do to get the rest together? We can all remember to ask the question. Everybody needs to be involved, actively or passively.

2. The water- through the work of Water Harvest we have mapped the aquifers and today the water table is in a most unhealthy state, in some places 50m below sea level. The more water we draw the more risk of massive salt water intrusion. To date, the conventional sewage system is unpayable. We should have a decentralized alternative. Quite a bit of our research is concentrated there at the moment. We need to work also on the macro level to secure water resources. For example the Pondicherry sewage farm releases 30 million litres of water every, which they have no intention of using, it just flows out. A professor at the Smithsonian has led us to research with algae for absorbing toxic material. The water comes out really pure and could be used to tackle the Pondy problem. …There are two aquifers flowing into the Kaluvelli tanks with an excess runoff of 200 million cubic litres of water a year. In order to catch that runoff there are huge challenges with land, salt flats, shrimp farms, sugar cane pesticides and excess water use, space for catchments, repairs of tanks, etc.

3. Energy – fire – Is uninterrupted power achievable? We are working with no-maintenance solar batteries, CFL lamps, we found a breakthrough with LED lamps which means the solar panel can be smaller. We have a built a prototype dehumidifier that keeps the conference room cool. They consume one-fourth of the energy used for AC. We produce solar water heaters. This machine makes ice with hot water – we are in the second generation and will be testing it on an AC. …We all spend double the amount for electric connection with back up systems… Is uninterrupted power such a dream? The 24 hours, 7 days a week electric supply is possible – we are maybe a year off getting for Auroville a heat transfer turbine system that could produce 6 Megawatts from solar energy – if the prototype comes through. It is being developed in Puna.

4. Food security – We are far from it. People are looking at hydroponics. If we want to grow we need to work on it.

5. Transport – The era of oil is out. We have several samples of electric mopeds. We should invest time and energy.

6. Afforestation – Its one of the most successful of achievement, but let’s not become complacent. We have to maintain and expand afforestation in the bioregion.

7. An integral approach – It combines these six streams which should come together. We found inspiration in “the galaxy” - to build the city the earth needs. We should take care to protect the soul from what happens traditionally in the city with religions and vulgarity. There will be a huge water body, areas which are protected for water birds, a bridge for servicing Matrimandir, connecting roads…let’s be very careful how we plan…" - Tency

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