"Three years ago, practically no one had a television set in this isolated community tucked between Nepal and Bangladesh. It is an area so remote and roadless that the only access is on foot or by bullock cart, after monsoon rains turn dirt paths into bogs that become impassable even for farm tractors.

Even so, half of the 1,000 households have TV, paying about 40 cents every few days to the owner of a diesel generator to recharge the batteries that power the sets. Ranvir Kumar Mandel, a slender 22-year-old, has built a bamboo hut here just to serve as a television repair shop."

This NYTimes article details the alarming rise of dirty diesel generators as a prime source of energy throughout Asia, often driven by the desire for Western amenities like TVs. To its credit the article does mention alternative programs including biofuel generators and microturbine hydropower plants but the telling number is that the diesel generators outnumber alternatives by a factor of millions. This is carbon dumping of the worst sort, completely unregulated and uncontrollable. Yet we can’t sit here in the greatest power consumer culture on earth and criticize their desire for what we take for granted.