If you read any sort of energy or environmental news these days, you are certainly aware that  government initiatives to combat climate change are taking place from the local to state to federal level.  These laws and incentives offer great hope that renewable energy could serve a much larger portion of our energy needs in the years to come.  While large scale energy projects offer us great hope in making a sizeable impact in our energy dependence, we should not forget all the small projects that together will  make a huge change. Today I’d like to give a shout out to International Development Eneterprises India, who is creating home-grown solutions to traditional irrigation for agriculture.  The company “ has developed human/gravity-powered irrigators, water storage systems and treadle pumps that consume no electrical power, use far less water than current irrigators (hence requiring less storage to start with), and are most importantly simple, low cost and user friendly.”*  On the surface, this is great technology because it requires no electrical power.   This technology is however much more than that – it offers independence to small users of energy, the farmers of India.  They are taking control or their own access to water and finding that independent systems do not have to come at a cost – most of the time they are even cheaper.   This is just one story of innovators in India creatively meeting their energy needs, even without the government initiators such as those existing in the West.  To read more about Indian climate change innovators, visit: http://www.indiaclimatesolutions.com/

*http://www.indiaclimatesolutions.com/pump-sets-irrigation-and-human-power