Earlier this year, a friend and I travelled to a remote monastery in a small town of Nemo in Tibet. Since it was wintertime, the nights there were quite cold. The tricky part was that you wouldn't feel it at first but it crept up on you and within a few minutes you are wondering why you are shaking uncontrollably. The Tibetan's have a remedy for that...its Yak butter tea. Being one that hates...I mean strongly dislikes diary, the yak butter taste is very overpowering. However, holding the tea cup defrosts the once shaking hands and drinking small sips warms you down to the core. After you politely finish one cup, a huge thermos is retrieved and more butter tea is poured to the brim. As I looked at the wall, I saw dozens of giant thermoses filled with butter tea. Not sure my small bladder could handle much more tea; I decided to walk around the monastery. On the roof I noticed these huge wing like steel flaps with tea kettles sitting on top of them. It almost looked like a homage to kettles or something. When I asked a monk what it was for, he explained that they were used to heat the water! How ingenious, right?
In the U.S. we spend gobs of money on solar panels that quite often break. We buy $70 dollar organic t-shirts to reduce pesticide usage on cotton crops. We even spend thousands more to buy a hybrid cars. These green acts are great starts but for an entire nation to be sustainable, it needs to be affordable as well. Here in Tibet, they spend a couple of cents to buy a small curved piece of cheap steel and they harness enough solar power to boil water in 30 minutes or less. Now that's what I call rocket science!
Earlier this year, a friend and I travelled to a remote monastery in a small town of Nemo in Tibet. Since it was wintertime, the nights there were quite cold. The tricky part was that you wouldn't feel it at first but it crept up on you and within a few minutes you are wondering why you are shaking uncontrollably. The Tibetan's have a remedy for that...its Yak butter tea. Being one that hates...I mean strongly dislikes diary, the yak butter taste is very overpowering. However, holding the tea cup defrosts the once shaking hands and drinking small sips warms you down to the core. After you politely finish one cup, a huge thermos is retrieved and more butter tea is poured to the brim. As I looked at the wall, I saw dozens of giant thermoses filled with butter tea. Not sure my small bladder could handle much more tea; I decided to walk around the monastery. On the roof I noticed these huge wing like steel flaps with tea kettles sitting on top of them. It almost looked like a homage to kettles or something. When I asked a monk what it was for, he explained that they were used to heat the water! How ingenious, right? 
In the U.S. we spend gobs of money on solar panels that quite often break. We buy $70 dollar organic t-shirts to reduce pesticide usage on cotton crops. We even spend thousands more to buy a hybrid cars. These green acts are great starts but for an entire nation to be sustainable, it needs to be affordable as well. Here in Tibet, they spend a couple of cents to buy a small curved piece of cheap steel and they harness enough solar power to boil water in 30 minutes or less. Now that's what I call rocket science!
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