JNU TRCSS Course on Science in the Public Interest Non-Invasive Solutions for the Planet|Starting Tomorrow| Enroll Now

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Course on Science in the Public Interest Non-Invasive Solutions for the Planet

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The course is about finding solutions and redefining our living scheme to be in symbiosis with nature.

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An Interdisciplinary Course on Planet Science and Non-Invasive Technology, being taught for the first time at any University.

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by

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Vikram Soni

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20 Lecture course starting on 15/09/2016

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Days and Time: Tuesday & Thursday (15:30 pm)

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Venue: CSRD Lecture Hall 202, JNU

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If we want to work with the planet we have to understand how the planet works. The course is about designing a non-invasive scheme of living. How? By understanding how the planet works and how our production practice has been destroying it for 200 years. By moving technology to a new level to avoid this.

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 Commentary on the main text "Naturally: Tread Softly on the Planet", by Vikram Soni, Harper Collins, 2015. A non-credit course, School of Social Sciences and Transdisciplinary Research Cluster on Sustainability Studies, JNU Contact: Vikram Soni Email: vsoni.physics@gmail.com Mobile: +91-9899821135.

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Course Outline

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The first part is about what we are and how we got here. The course will look, with new perspective, at how nature works. How it provides a scheme of living and a production system that has no waste, is self-sustaining and integral. In the part we look at what we have done. We look into the production system we have invented through technology that is contrary to nature's and find that the scale of consequence of this technology has grown beyond the planet's capacities. This derives strongly from the market driven ideology that fuels consumption. We suggest reform and deal with contradictions in the Local versus the Global. Next, the course will walk you through the major contemporary problems of threshold loss, climate change and population growth. The latter part of the course is about finding solutions and redefining our living scheme to be in symbiosis with nature.Transition suggests moving to natural cycle technology, with explicit examples. Next, the energy landscape is assessed with some natural wisdom – looking not just at renewable source for energy, but renewable apparatus and non-invasive waste. The final part is about the living natural resource bequeathed to us by evolution and the great value in using it non-invasively. Here we give new and operational solutions on sourcing water and drinking water for cities. Last, we consider nature's rights as a must for human survival; placing values in line with preserving nature and the progress on this front. Simple Scientific models for evolutionary networks and biodiversity and on climate will be given for the interested students. Further new, non-invasive solutions using local nature resource, particularly for water in cities, will also be given.

 

 

 

About Vikram Soni

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Prof. Soni is presently UGC Professor at the Centre for Theoretical Physics, at Jamia Millia Islamia. He was awarded a PhD in Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 1976. He has been faculty at Sussex University, UK from 1976 to 1978, after which he was at the University of Madras till 1983. In 1983 he went to the Institut de Recherche Fondamental at Saclay in Paris, followed by two years at the University of Regensburg in Germany. He then worked at the Institut du Physique Nuclaire at the University of Paris in Orsay, as a visiting Professor, before returning to India as UGC Professor at the National Physical Laboratory in 1989, where he worked till 2009. He has worked mainly in High Energy Physics and Astrophysics. In Physics, he has made seminal contributions to our understanding of phenomena ranging from the nucleon to neutron stars and from the matter-antimatter puzzle to evolutionary networks. More significantly he has produced a body of work in public interest science that deals with non invasive, 'Preserve and Use', solutions to contemporary problems, particularly related to water issues. This work is published in prestigious science journals. Acting on his convictions, he has worked tirelessly to protect living natural resource both with the courts and government. The Aravalli biodiversity park in Delhi exists thanks to these efforts. The protection and moratorium on building on the floodplain of the river Yamuna followed from the novel natural water storage scheme proposed by him and his co-workers.