Wanting the Moon

The latest antics of government sector doctors, or at least those active in their association, namely the Government Medical Officers' Association (GMOA), need some public reflection. They ask for special privileges over and above those privileges already granted to them - in this case the automatic allocation of high standard schools for their children wherever they might be located in the country.

Two key components of our now world famous social welfare system were, and yet are, the free education system and public health system which have been major contributors to this country's social achievements that long preceded its subsequent economic rise to middle income status.

The medical profession perhaps more than any other profession is positioned at the conjunction of these two social benefit structures: doctors attain their career status through free education and then move on to be key actors in the free healthcare system that has enabled Sri Lankan citizens enjoy a standard of health far better than other underdeveloped countries.

For this to happen, more than most professions other than, perhaps teaching, the doctors have had to fit into strict requirements that first tied them to state sector careers and further, subjected them to deployment to wherever the state system wanted them to serve. This included postings to remote parts of the country often minus basic modern comforts, requiring long journeying from hometowns, and distancing from family and friends. Opting out of the State health system, before completing their mandatory service, meant the payment of a fee as a token reimbursement of the public investment in their medical training.

Nevertheless, this has not reduced the decades-long 'brain drain' of medical professionals fleeing their island home for more affluent lifestyles for themselves and their families. This exodus continues.

Their yeoman service to their country notwithstanding, this doctor migration cannot and should not be used as a lever to force even greater social privileges from the State. The threat of abandoning their motherland is nothing more than a holding to ransom the very society that the doctors swear to protect and nurture as disciples of Hippocrates.

The demand for allocation of high standard schools for their children is a demand for unfair privilege when other sections of society do not have such access. Well, not all other sections.

The country's elected politicians actually lead the way in grabbing and further grabbing such unfair privileges, from numerous special allowances for basic facilities over and above their tax-free official salaries, to the right to sell their duty free vehicle import permits, to the right to give jobs or recommend state sector jobs to their followers or kin. With our political leaders leading the way with such social privileging, doctors may well feel justified in demanding the moon.

Coal versus Development

The recent decision to abandon the Sampur coal power project is being hailed by some ecology protection groups as a 'victory'. However, without a viable model of energy production for economic and social development, this may be a hollow victory.

After all, the dangers of coal-fired thermal power generation have long been known: from immediate health risks and environmental pollution to long term increase of heat in the biosphere, namely, global warming. The perils of global warming are, actually, no longer a 'long term' hazard but are now a short term prospect, with Earth temperatures already acknowledged as higher and climate changes already occurring.

As that eminent think-tank, the Club of Rome, warned in the 1980s, if everyone wanted to emulate the lifestyle of an affluent city like Los Angeles, USA, then the Earth will not be able to sustain human civilisation. There are physical limits to growth imposed on us by the planet on which we have no choice but to live.

Today, even as we abandon the long awaited coal power project in Sampur, the country faces a shortage of hydro-electric power due to the lack of rainfall. Actually, as our energy experts will tell us, it is less the lack of rainfall rather than the huge rise in power consumption.

Two things have happened since this country saw the successful establishment of a strong hydel power system in the 1970s, thanks to our engineers' visionary planning and, the sagacious expediting of power development projects by the late President J. R. Jayewardene, whose 110th birth anniversary was marked yesterday. By the 1970s we were boasting of the possibility of excess power that could be exported to South India.

One of those two things that happened was the rapid expansion of industry and services - again, thanks to the late J. R. Jayewardene's market economy liberalisation. The burgeoning of the economy, especially of the manufacturing sector, resulted in a massive rise in energy consumption to serve this economy. The second thing was the growth of the population which rose from 14.7 million in 1981 to just over 20 million by 2000.

Thus, even if the economy's need for energy could have been met by the hydel power sector, the sheer expansion of the population meant that both the economic consumers as well as the domestic consumers of energy need to be now satisfied.

The quick answer to this was cheaper coal power, relying on coal imports. Even at the time Norochcholai was conceived and then pushed through, it was already being acknowledged that coal is not the long term answer. To date, the louder voices discussing energy alternatives have focussed on alternative sources of energy - sustainable energy. Wind, nuclear, and solar energy have all been extensively debated but a solution, in terms of an economically viable energy sources, is yet to be found, whether in this country or globally.

Far less discussed is the possibility of a brake on energy consumption and changes in the pattern of energy usage. As the Club of Rome pointed out long ago, we should not fantasize about affluent cities that grew by simply ignoring the issue of sustainable energy - as well as 'sustainable' everything else!

It is time that the national debate begins to include an exploration of fresh models of 'development' in which social goals of affluence and wholesome economic life can be envisaged differently with less emphasis on mere affluence and super-abundance of goods and services and, more emphasis on sustainable and, reasonably enabling, standards of living.

Our ecology protecting think-tanks should focus on models that balance both energy production as well as consumption. This means a radical shift away from simplistic, growth-based models of development. Let our anti-coal champions lead the way to a solution.