Mischa Altmann

Event: GOAL Recruitment Evening for Engineering Professionals

Link: GOAL UK (IE, US)

GOAL is an international aid agency established 30 years ago in Ireland.

GOAL ensures that the poorest of the poor and the most vulnerable in our world and those affected by humanitarian crises have access to the fundamental needs and rights of life: food, water, shelter, medical attention and literacy.

The recruitment evening was good. One of the speakers worked almost two years in Sri Lanka in the aftermath of the tsunami (re)building 62 schools.

GOAL is one of very few development agencies that in willing to take on volunteers with relatively little professional experience (min. two years). This makes GOAL an ideal agency to get into the development sector.

I was rather annoyed by the amount of advertising/branding GOAL seems to be doing in their aid projects. However, I may simply be naive in thinking that this is unnecessary after all development/disaster relief agencies are well known to be quite territorial. GOAL collaborates with various other organisations including USAID whose packages are boldly labelled “USAID - from the American People”. So in comparison GOAL’s banners are discreet :-/

One of the highlights in GOAL’s marketing is that it has a very low administrative cost of under 5%. I am sceptical about that figure (creative accounting?) but even if it was several percent higher it would still compare favourably with various other charities. Keeping administrative costs down is important to make sure the highest possible amount of a donation goes to the actual cause. Nevertheless, I wonder whether slightly more money in an efficient administration couldn’t benefit the full organisation disproportionately.

Overall, I can very much imagine sending my CV to GOAL and spending a year or two with them in a few years time. In the mean time, initiatives like RedR or EWB will have to do.

There are two main topics that fit this title:

1. irreversible climate change
2. peak oil

First things first (no pun intended - after all #2 will hopefully happen before #1): Renowned NASA scientist James Hansen (NASA page, Columbia University page) recently published a paper claiming that the Earth’s Climate is Approaching ‘Dangerous’ Point. Very interesting reading. (Why am I sitting here not doing anything?!)

There’s a stunning interview with Fatih Birol, chief economist of the International Energy Agency in the French newspaper Le Monde (article). Fatih Birol essentially states that peak oil is happening in the next few months. (interesting English translation & discussion)

First time use of Google Trends - and i’m not disappointed. Google seems to have managed it once again! Quantitative comparison between articles mentioning peak oil or oil production. Of course that’s not a meaninful comparison…

So we are all tired of both non-recyclable and recyclable table ware. Why oh why is it so difficult to provide proper reusable table ware? So what are the current options?

I would love to read some well-researched papers on energy-intensity, raw material waste, etc.

1. reusable
I would assume porcelain and metal cutlery is best due to durability but I am certain there are other materials that could be more innovative and possibly less energy intensive.

However, there is a big variable that is often beyond our control : dish washing. If done by hand it’s bound to be more wasteful in terms of water. Modern dishwashers are quite water and energy efficient and don’t need much detergent. Speaking of which, this is another real unknown: how much is used/wasted and is it environmentally friendly?

2. disposable recyclable
This isn’t particularly common but some food stores in the UK such as Marks&Spencer, Planet Organic and similar are offering biodegradable (wood/sugar pulp/Corn/potato/tapioca) or recyclable (certain plastics) table ware/cutlery. It is questionable whether it is intelligent to use wood — we may end up like China with bamboo chop-sticks where I think they now carry a tax to curb waste.

In terms of plastic cups I have never understood why companies don’t subscribe to  schemes such as save-a-cup which at the very least recycle the cups. Mind you, if you can have a coffee/tea in mug i don’t understand why you’d go for a cup… As for juices/water — I’d love to see glasses.

3. disposable non-recyclable
well, these are obvious offenders. It is questionable whether paper plates are recyclable — especially the ones that are have a glossy top layer.

As usual: no answers just questions. For the moment I’ll stick to my mug, glass, and porcelain.