electricity

I switched on the news to day to find people in Delhi breaking into a power distribution station and setting cables on fire to protest against the power cuts that have been occurring in India’s capital. People are complaining that what kind of capital is it, if power cuts like these happen.

I couldn’t help but wonder, have we become dependent on electricity so much that we cant live without it? I know that when I don’t have power at home and I’m without my computer, I become extremely fidgety. I feel uncomfortable not having a computer that’s playing music. So I switch on my mobile phone that can store and playback mp3’s. Why, just the other day, at 12:50 AM power in our apartments went. When the generator did not come on for 15 minutes, I walked down 10 floors (as the lifts don’t work without power) to find the watchman sleeping. Boy, did he get a piece of my mind.

Electricity has so become a part of our lives that we have almost taken it for granted. Can you imagine life without electricity? Imagine that for a day, there is no power anywhere in the world. Our cell phone batteries and laptop batteries would die and we wouldn’t be able to recharge them. That would mean that all the contacts that we have stored wouldn’t be accessible. No computers to work on and get the data either. No share markets to trade on. No lights to do any work after sunset. No television!!!! No telephone lines working. No mixers, grinders, microwaves to help with the cooking. No lifts to carry us up the multistory buildings we have built.

Hold on. We have generators and inverters. Yes???

What happens if they are also destroyed? How long do u think we will survive if all over the world we don’t have sewage treatment plants, water purifiers, hospital services that depend on electricity?

Do u think I’m being paranoid? That such a thing cannot possibly happen? Well, think again after reading this article and this one

Makes you want to think about what things in life are really valuable.

edit: another interesting link