No Nest is good Nest!

A few years ago, the business world was abuzz with the news that Google had swooped down and bought the next wonder startup called Nest, whose only claim to fame at the time was that it made what was referred to as a "smart thermostat" - an internet connected device that would revolutionize the way you consumed energy for heating and cooling your home. At a retail price of $ 249, it was roughly 4-5 times the price of the most intelligent thermostat around at the time, which a user could program to turn on and off as required. The USP of the Nest was that it could "learn" a user's preferences and would automatically turn on heating and cooling as needed. The sleek design and touch interface made it an instant darling of techno-geeks and soccer moms alike - after all, who wouldn't want something easy to use that could also save money on your energy bills? This was truly the win-win that both greens and die hard capitalists could embrace.

Of course, the reality is that the Nest has very little to do with energy management and everything to do with big companies trying to sell you more goods and services for your home. While I would agree that the Nest is definitely better looking, and clearly easier to use, than the next best alternative, it should not be the target when it comes to reducing energy consumption because of the way in which homes are heated/cooled. At the very least, it is not the place one should be looking for to achieve savings.

First, the average US home is a good 2000-2500 sq ft, and at around 20 ft tall, translates into (roughly) 40-50,000 cubic feet of air to be heated and cooled. This is usually achieved by a forced air system that exchanges heat with the surroundings, and additional cooling (from refrigerants) and heating (from electricity/natural gas/oil). The air is transferred to different parts of the house via a system of ducts that are typically the weakest link in the system. For a start, these ducts are made of simple sheet metal that is bent to fit which results in plenty of gaps for air to leak. They are also not insulated and so lose the heating/cooling power very easily. The cost of installing ducting is just a fraction of the entire house price - and yet no one bothers to ask for or make better quality ducting.

Secondly, the way in which air is heated or cooled around the house does not take into account any natural temperature differences that arise from location of the sun, trees, wind direction etc. Everyone has experienced the phenomenon of one part of the house being hot and other part cold - and yet the heating system does not seem to be able to handle this. That's because the thermostat is measuring temperature in only one location, typically in the main living room. If all rooms of the house are to be at the same temperature, then one should be able to move air around from one room to another to balance this out. The Nest can't do this as it requires hardware that is typically not provided in a house - such as louvers installed in the ducting system that are controlled by the thermostat to move air around.

So what we're left with is a simple on-off mechanism that just moves air into the house when the temperature drops below a certain threshold. And while Nest's white paper quotes 3 different studies that show at least a 10% savings on energy, and significant homeowner satisfaction even if they did not save any energy (which suggests that the sexy look of the thermostat is doing its job!), there are still enormous savings that can be gained. All while retaining your original programmable thermostat.

America's two addictions

Down the road from my house is a scene that is repeated thousands of times across the US - a corner gas station with a fast food joint right next to it (in this case, it happens to be an Exxon with a McDonald's, but it could well be any of the other usual suspects). The fast food establishment, as expected, has a drive through that enables people to avoid taking even the dozen steps in and out of the store (not that those steps would do a whole lot to improve their health).

The fact that these two types of businesses are in close proximity is not surprising given the prominent role they play in American life. Unless you happen to live in a city downtown that has excellent mass transit (Boston and NY), and have been a life long vegetarian, there is no way you would have been able to escape the experience of going into a gas station, or visiting a burger joint. Both of these are addictions as well - our desire to consume more fuel is matched only by our desire to eat fast food at every single opportunity. They are cheap, they provide high energy content and they are everywhere. And they both contribute to the growing problem of obesity that will seriously compromise the long term competitiveness of the US workforce.

Cheap fuel resulted in the growth of suburbs, which from the 1950s onwards drove the American dream of a large car and an even larger house that was naturally filled with all kinds of consumer products. The nature of the suburbs, and the zoning laws that went with it, essentially eliminated any kind of movement by foot or even bicycle which was so prevalent in Europe. The only time someone would be outside a car were if they were running or biking for leisure as opposed to being a primary mode of transport.

Similarly, fast food capitalized on the fact that most American families at this time were starting to focus more on leisure activities, such was watching television, which made the entire business of cooking food from scratch simply too tedious to even consider. The advent of the TV dinner, which could be heated in a few minutes, and was loaded with fats and sugar that appealed to us biologically, epitomized this shift. For baby boomers whose parents could still remember having stood in soup lines during the great depression, fast food went from an occasional indulgence to the basic meal - families no longer sat around the dinner table but went out to eat. Or, in the most perverse combination of these two addictions, you could simply drive through a fast food restaurant and bring your food back home. The ten steps from the car into the front door were also eliminated.

The oil shocks of the 1970s brought the oil addiction to the forefront, and efforts were made to look at other options for our energy. Fuel economy standards that had wallowed in the low double digits were raised significantly, to the extent that one could get a small fuel efficient car that gave about 25 mpg in the mid 1970s. But the shocks did not last long enough to undo the two decades of damage done by low energy prices and soon enough we were back to gas guzzlers - the Chrysler mini-van ironically being what brought the company out of bankruptcy!

The nation also started to pay attention to eating habits, with dietary guidelines in the form of the food pyramid first being issued in 1977. This got Americans talking about fruits and vegetables, whole grains and meat in a way that had been forgotten with the ubiquitous burger and fries. And while the food pyramid has continued to evolve over time, and more people are eating healthier than ever before, the stranglehold of the fast food industry remains as strong as ever. Combined with the power of the meat industry, that sees fast food as a ready outlet for its prime products, we continue to rely on others to provide us our meals. And this mania has been exported all over the world to the extent that McDonald's is one of the most globally recognized brands.

So where do we go from here? Is there any hope that these addictions will be overcome? After all, we point to the case of the tobacco industry and the realization that smoking was truly dangerous to health which resulted in a significant reduction in the number of smokers. But it never really put an end to smoking, and I suspect that even if we find a way to push oil and fast food into the same corner, they will find a way to take a temporary hit but come back in a slightly different form. For that is the very nature of addiction - you are never really cured, and the only way to get out is to never really get into it in the first place.

The curse of the Doozers

Sometime in the mid 1980s, a television series called "Fraggle Rock" burst onto the scene, with its cast of fun loving muppets embarking on all sorts of zany adventures. With names like Gobo, Moki, Wembley, Booper and Red (so named for her wild mop of red hair), they provided a half hour of wholesome family entertainment.

One of the characters in the background of this series were not really muppets but a group of small humanoid figures called "Doozers" whose primary job was to go around building. They were dressed like people on a construction crew with little hard hats, and had cranes and all the equipment one would need to build a bridge or road or just about anything else that they needed.

The muppets for the most part ignored the Doozers but once in a while they would go on a rampage and destroy whatever it was that they were building - and it was a complete destruction. The funny thing is that the Doozers didn't seem to mind one bit - they never even made a pretence of fighting back, but simply went about re-starting the job once the muppets moved on.

This utopia of sorts experienced a mild collapse one day when one of the muppets felt guilty that the Doozers were being targeted in such a way and decided that it was time to stop their vandalizing ways. The muppets promptly stopped their destruction in order to allow the Doozers to life happily ever after.

Except that's not what happened - they found that the Doozers were really unhappy! A quick investigation uncovered the fact that the Doozers actually looked forward to the muppets destroying their work so that they could start all over again. Without any destruction, they ran out of work to do and so just sat around all day.

This fable of the muppets and Doozers is an accurate representation of our modern industrial economy which is based on constant activity - of production and consumption. We have built up our systems in such a way that we cannot stop factories for a second - to do so would bring the entire economy to a standstill. Similarly, the well meaning desire to reduce consumption is also fraught with danger - if you no longer consume, what would happen to the producers? This is the proverbial ride on the back of a tiger where you know that you cannot stop or else the tiger will make a nice meal of you. So we have no choice but to keep our head down and create activity even when it is not required. We are cursed as a species to be Doozers.

The tragedy of the commons

The young woman raised her hand to her mouth and proceeded to polish off the last piece of whatever roadside snack she was eating. From the look on her face, it was clear that she was enjoying the taste - she even licked her fingers before taking a paper napkin and wiping her lips and hand.

And then the napkin was tossed casually, indifferently, to the ground a few feet away from where she stood. It lay there amidst all the other napkins, plastic cups, newspaper scraps, food waste that must have been dropped by dozens of people like her, either standing there or simply walking by.

What was even more amusing was that barely a few feet away from the pile was a blue bucket that had presumably been placed there for the act of collecting waste. It lay there empty, while the pile of trash next to it continued to grow.

This scene is repeated tens of millions of times every single day throughout India - a country where, despite all the achievements made in the past few decades, such as bringing people out of poverty, providing education, healthcare and economic growth to millions, the basic idea that the individual should take responsibility for the cleanliness of their surroundings has somehow failed to take root.

This is even more shocking when one considers that the level of cleanliness inside one's own house is taken to such a high degree that taking one's shoes off when entering is ingrained in social norms, no matter one's religion, caste or economic standing.

Invariably the onus falls to the government, which continues to be seen as the caretaker of all public spaces, and one can read editorials in every leading newspaper castigating the local authorities for failure to maintain hygienic conditions in shopping areas, railway stations, residential neighborhoods - all the places where people congregate.

There are a few exceptions - the latest shopping malls and shining new airports have somehow managed to escape this fate - but then again, the space we are talking about here is a negligible fraction of the total public space in the country. The minute you step outside the confines of the shopping mall, you see the trash waiting to ambush you. The airport cleaning machine's jurisdiction ends

But the average person on the street thinks nothing of disposing of whatever they are carrying in any corner they can find. If the corner happens to contain existing trash, even better - the trash you contributed is now somehow anonymous, lost amongst all the other trash that people before you have left behind.

If one were not born and raised in the country, it would almost be shocking to see this kind of attitude - a true tragedy of the commons, something that is immediately visible. I have travelled to dozens of countries that were in the same income bracket as India and have yet to find one where people treat their surroundings with such indifference as to be almost cruel to it. Malaysia's streets are devoid of trash, as are Vietnam, Sri Lanka - even Cambodia which barely has any GDP to speak of manages to keep things under control.

A possible explanation for this "throw away" culture is that at a time when waste was entirely renewable, it did not matter where it was thrown - all waste would break down in the environment and be completely recycled. So throwing a banana peel into a bush was quite natural and actually eco-friendly. But as the nature of waste has changed, and has become increasingly non-renewable, this breakdown no longer occurs. A empty packet of chips will remain in its location for not just days or weeks, but years and decades. The same goes for a plastic cup, the likes of which are to be found in even the most remote corners.

The latest initiative by the government "Swach Bharat Abhiyaan" aims to make India a clean country - but to date, other than some nice photo ops for ministers and celebrities, there is very little sign of this happening. yes, there are some isolated hamlets and enclaves that claim to have attained this goal thanks to an enlightened citizenry - but to the shop owner who sweeps the trash out of his establishment, across a pedestrian right of way, and dumps it onto the road so it is now the government's responsibility, this change in mindset will be a long time coming!

The End of Desire

Desire is, on the one hand, a very attractive word, one that evokes images of everything that is worth having. At the same time, it is perhaps the most damaging of all human emotions, because of the lengths to which people will go in order to satisfy it. I talk of course about the desire for power, for wealth, for objects of material value - but also about the desire for keeping busy, for attention and a feeling of self worth. The former categories have led to conquests and empires, for pillaging natural and man-made resources in different parts of the world, and directly to the culture of consumption that afflicts the developed, and increasingly the developing, world today. The latter fuels the unending quest of mankind for novelty, and prevents us from remaining content with our lot in life. No matter how advanced or wealthy a person is, there is invariably a nagging sense of that which eludes - stays beyond the grasp of one's fingertips, tantalizingly close but which we know can never be ours.

So how does one control or, at the very least, temper desire? Religions across the world celebrate the pursuit of moderation, or even complete renunciation, when it comes to material objects. Christianity, for example, advises its followers to "be content with what you have, little be it or much". The tale of King Midas, whose touch miraculously converted everything (including, unfortunately, his own daughter) into gold, exists to serve as a warning rather than an example worth emulating. The Buddha advocated the middle path, where one stays away from the extremes, with the ultimate recognition that the world is an illusion.  Hinduism's most sacred text guides us to "concentrate on the task at hand, and pay no attention to its fruits" - making the very concept of desire sterile, something that should not even enter the mind of the person, because attaining it is not within our control.

There is no question that discipline is critical - starting with something as simple as the desire to purchase an object, no matter how trivial it might be. What we know today as "window shopping" exists only to keep the desire to consume alive in the minds of people. Even if that desire remains unfulfilled for the vast majority of us, it nevertheless is a more satisfactory outcome (for the creators of desire) than to not have it in the first place. And desire is not just for luxury products or one of a kind items - every industry is engaged in the process of creating desire. When you see a McDonald's ad with a juicy burger and fries, you are being tempted into buying something that, for the most part, is unhealthy and likely to have more negative effects than positive. A magazine cover with a gorgeous starlet evokes feelings that one needs to be as good looking or well endowed to be successful in life.

So starting in 2015, one of my conscious actions is to minimize the impact of desire. Let's see how long that lasts!