The Last Tree Standing – the story of human “development”

For whom the bell tolls ? The last Tree standing proud and strong in the suburban Mumbai street or Mankind ?

The whole of last week, the DNA  newspaper had stories, which would seem completely dis-jointed from one another, but if you look at it from the prism of Sustainable Living they all are, but indicators of doom which we as People are heading towards. Let me start with links of some headlines which show the maximum indicators of the rot that has crept into human civilization.  The links are from random dates, but I have tried to set them in an order, which I’m sure that those who follow sustainable living would find the logic  and the irony therein. And those who are new into this are welcome to my analysis -

Tree obstructing traffic flow all set to go: In the wake of a DNA report, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has initiated action to remove a huge tree located in the middle of busy Lal Bahadur Shastri (LBS) Marg in Ghatkopar. Following the report about the tree proving to be an obstacle for scores of motorists taking the road (published on May 24), the BMC had issued a 10-day notice on July 7, inviting suggestions and objections from residents over the removal of the tree. However, till Monday, the local N Ward office did not receive any suggestions or objections.

Still in the wild on rehabilitation: It’s been more than 15 years that the Bombay high court ordered relocation of all illegal settlements inside Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) to accommodations outside park limits. The forest department, however, has failed to rehabilitate even half of the eligible settlers …..

Man-animal conflict unlikely to end soon: It will take at least three years to completely check the man-animal conflict at Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP). Measures such as construction of a boundary wall, rehabilitation of park inmates and establishment of an Eco-sensitive zone to control development at the periphery will not be in place in the next couple of years.  According to data from the forest department, the SGNP has a 92km boundary, of which, 22 will not require fencing due to the naturally formed buffer areas. The fencing of the rest 70km will be done in two phases. Phase one, which is in progress since 2009, 40km boundary is being fenced….

Centre sits on Gadgil report, draws HC ire: The Bombay high court on Tuesday rapped the government for failing to take a decision on the report submitted by the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel headed by Dr Madhav Gadgil…The panel has made recommendations on conserving and preserving ecologically sensitive areas within the Sahyadri range.

If scanty rain continues, state may cry drought: The Maharashtra government is ready to declare drought following scarce rainfall across the state so far. “There is no doubt that there will be drought this year,” said a top government source…

Cloud seeding answer to water woes:Worried about the low water levels in the lakes, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is considering cloud seeding in catchment areas in next month as an option. However, a similar experiment carried out by the BMC in 2009 with an expenditure of over Rs 8 crore yielded no results…

Plan ready to deal with deficient rain; Pawar: The country faces challenges in sustaining record food grain harvests as a 22 percent deficit in monsoon rain threatens planting, Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar said here on Monday. He, however, added that India — the world’s second-biggest rice, wheat and sugar producer — has not reached drought situation and the government is ready with contingency plan to deal with deficient monsoon.

17cr prayer for rain! : Halfway through July, monsoon rains continue to cause concern, with sowing of pulses and rice behind schedule and rainfall still below average for this time of the year –REUTERS …Karnataka muzrai minister Kota Srinivas Poojari is a worried man. The monsoon sky – alternating between grey and blue, but shedding very little rain – has got him worried. But while most of us can do nothing except wait for the rain, the minister, it seems, decided that he has had enough. Poojari is not going to sit idle and twiddle his thumbs any longer. The minister has decided to intervene. How? He has decided to placate rain God Varuna. Karnataka minister leads initiative to hold special puja at 34,000 temples across the state!

Will interlinking of rivers contain floods? : The delay in implementing a plan drawn out by the engineers of the National Water Development Authority (NWDA) has led to the loss of 125 lives in Assam in the recent floods, experts said. The floods caused by the Brahmaputra could have been avoided, had the authorities interlinked the Brahmaputra with the Ganga, said engineer MS Menon and Madhav Chitale, former water resources secretary to the Union government.

Many Moons ago in my anguish I had mentioned – Killing is not a crime,only Murder is;The difficulty of preaching Sustainable Living.

And perhaps the image of the sole tree standing between a widened road, which would be killed ( chopped down) is a cause for glee, as more GHG producing Vehicles can ply without any obstruction, thus  help speed up the process of Oblivion for Mankind !

As one would read, not a single person has come forward to suggest ways to try and save the tree, perhaps by relocating it. All need to read: “Mature Tree Transplanting: A Growing Trend” – ….Amazingly, through the use of carefully executed transplanting techniques, fully grown trees of almost any specie or size can be successfully integrated into the residential or commercial landscape.

One would wonder, what is one tree ? In the natural progression to “development” civilisation has always laid waste the Ecosystem. So what’s the big deal ?

Just look where that high-carbon life-style is leading us, the same news paper screams in its various headlines the scarcity of Water & Food ! Without which the basic foundations of our modern-life comes to a standstill.

Yet, our governments and leaders are in a state of confusion; so much so that to cover their utter lack of understanding of the matter, they  seek divine intervention !  The unholy part being the 17crore would be the foolish tax-payers money. But then we had it coming, its the responsibility of WE, the collective; who still want to remain in deep slumber while the tide of Climate change and Global Warming rises above the nose. How long should the Earth tolerate the myopic self- aggrandized thoughts of Mankind before making its last move of eradicating the menace ?

That the collective citizens (of the world), still can’t connect between the falling apart of the man-made infrastructure and chopping down and denudation of the ecosystem in the most unsustainable manner possible; can be gauged by the news below on the decision taken  by the Assembly ( which is but a manifestation of the same collective )  to continue with GHG intensive Thermal power, instead of finding long term solution of balancing the Eco-system which loses its forest cover  vital for the monsoon cycle to both open cast coal mines and hydro-dams which completely submerges the forest cover;  to sustain completely unsustainable present day Urban sprawl!

Scant rain may cut Tata’s power output: If the monsoon’s scanty performance continues without indicating any possibility of a turnaround in the near future, the Tata Power Company (TPC) will be forced to stop the power generation. Announcing the government decision in the state assembly on Tuesday, deputy chief and energy minister Ajit Pawar said, “While Pune may be hit by the decision, Mumbai won’t face any power shortage as its supply is sourced from power generated by thermal plants.

Nowhere, the  confused nature of mankind is more prominent than in an advertisement by a pump making company; which thinks it’s environmental friendly to shift complete lakes and drown nearby forest which have taken aeons to develop; to sell its product. And make its mark in the sands of time, it would be most happy to help link rivers; without even understanding the ecological impact it would have.  And many such corporation, either without meaning to or knowingly join hands with Politicians to seed the minds of the Citizens in accepting the idea that their owes can be solved by linking of rivers and there arguments would be that they have been following the experts.  An ‘expert’ in a single subject can not understand the complexity of the Ecosystem. Therefore such decisions should have a cross-section of experts from all related fields. The same idea has been run down by many and mentioned by me in this article India to connect all its Rivers

Without the citizens understanding the true meaning of sustainable living and practicing and preaching it, the World which we know and love, the life-style we live in and want to bequeath to our children would be lost.

We must understand the markers of decay and destruction, our unsustainable life-style is causing. And for that, not all need to attend the expert meet at the various United Nation forum but make the effort to change, from being just a literate who can read a News paper to educated who can deduce the situation from the facts drawn out in them.

Each of the News articles show, the dire situation and the almost bursting at the seams situation of Megalopolises in our Country and perhaps similar would be the tales around the World.

Yet we are refusing to learn, to correct past errors. We continue to develop in a lopsided manner, while there is an urgent need  for a thorough study to understand what would be the actual impact of the said “development” holistically. Here we must bring in the thoughts enshrined in the 2012 Inclusive Wealth Report and the Sustainable Development Goals. One must also bear in mind that while we have divided the World into multiple Nations, the Earth is just one globe. So cause in one end would in time show its effect in another. Therefore when we develop  fragile ecosystem we must understand what would that development bring. “Prosperity” can not be in isolation – say   a polythene bag manufacturer may prosper when newer areas are touched by rail, but the resultant discarding of these non bio-degradable product can have a telling effect on the Ecosystem, which was pristine before the rail road was built on it.

Environmental rules are not being used, where it is needed most and in the proper spirit. So that development happens with least harm to the Ecosystem. Man has not learnt to live a Zero-Carbon foot print; perhaps this is to do with our being more intelligent than the other species which inhabit this Earth and have naturally perfected it ! Therefore one must be careful in developing newer areas when existing facilities can always be upgraded thus limiting the harm to the Environment. Cost must be measured as a sum -total of all, here again the need of a panel of experts from diverse field who can see matters from a completely different perspective is most important.

Citizens of the World have been led mostly by a few. The Orator & the Warrior both these breed rose into prominence because they almost always had the most to lose, an orator also would be a Merchant and a warrior could be a King! That they would put self before others is but good business & politics. To be led by a group of few, would always remain true for mankind, but for its very survival its time to look beyond the obvious, lest we are led downhill by those who lead.

Once one of our honorable Chief Minister of the state of Maharashtra had famously said that his governance would change the City of Mumbai to another Shanghai.

The wind smells of change and more …: Shanghai: When the wind blows in one Shanghai suburb, residents can smell the stench rising from a towering garbage dump, feared to be so harmful it can make people vomit and cause birth defects. Now residents of Songjiang district are raising a stink about the future of the landfill, one of a series of recent protests across China as people hold the government more accountable for health and environmental problems…..

The World is indeed a small place and the problems of the modern man is the same everywhere. Therefore its time we connect and be the change.

Courtesy: DNA http://www.dnaindia.com

Related articles

• Indian scientists try to crack monsoon source code (reuters.com)
• How the Changing Monsoon Is Changing India (world.time.com)
• Mumbai roads, trains hit by heavy rain, more to come says met dept (ndtv.com)
• Sanjay Gandhi National Park (cybertravelinc.wordpress.com)
• Drought Causing Home Foundations To Crack (fox2now.com)
• Tree Commission urges care for trees during drought (galesburg.com)

 

Millennium Development Goals – towards Sustainable Living

The UNFCCC Rio+20; is over. We all must look towards the next one. And while we do, it is our duty to make the common person understand in as simple term as possible the agenda of the Millennium Development and how it is related to their every day life.

English: A 2005 photograph of James Lovelock, scientist and author best known for the Gaia hypothesis. Photograph taken by Bruno Comby of Association of Environmentalists For Nuclear Energy. Original at http://www.ecolo.org/lovelock/. Released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license versions 2.5, 2.0, and 1.0. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The eminent British scientist James Lovelock, back in the 1970s, formulated his theory of Gaia, which held that the Earth was a kind of super organism. It had a self-regulating quality that would keep everything within that narrow band that made life possible. If things got too warm or too cold—if sunlight varied, or volcanoes caused a fall in temperatures, and so forth—Gaia would eventually compensate.This was a comforting notion to many. Later, he said he was wrong, “I have to tell you, as members of the Earth’s family and an intimate part of it, that you and especially civilization are in grave danger,” he wrote in the Independent in 2006. .

The world has warmed since those heady days of Gaia, and scientists have grown gloomier in their assessment of the state of the world’s climate. NASA climate scientist James Hanson has warned of a “Venus effect,” in which runaway warming turns Earth into an uninhabitable desert, with a surface temperature high enough to melt lead, sometime in the next few centuries.

pleistocene extinction (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In a provocative, gripping book, Scientific American editor Fred Guterl says – The sixth “mass extinction event” in the history of planet Earth is currently under way, with over two hundred species dying off every day. The cause of this seismic event is also the source of the single biggest threat to human life: our own inventions. But for all our talk about sea levels and biotechnology, do we really know what our future will actually look like? Will our immune systems be attacked by so-called super bugs, always evolving, and more easily spread than ever? Will the disappearance of numerous species cripple the biosphere? And if it does, what happens then? We find ourselves in a trap: Technology got us into this mess, and it’s also the only thing that can help us survive it.

So, what must be done ? Elinor Ostrom winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics says -  The good news is that evolutionary policymaking is already happening organically. In the absence of effective national and international legislation to curb greenhouse gases, a growing number of city leaders are acting to protect their citizens and economies.

This is hardly surprising – indeed, it should be encouraged. This grassroots diversity in ‘green policy making’ makes economic sense. ‘Sustainable cities’ attract the creative, educated people who want to live in a pollution-free, modern, urban environment that suits their lifestyles. This is where future growth lies. Like upgrading a mobile phone, when people see the benefits, they will discard old models in a flash. Most major cities sit on coasts, straddle rivers, or lie on vulnerable deltas, putting them on the front line of rising sea levels and flooding in the coming decades. Adaptation is a necessity. But, with cities responsible for 70 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, mitigation is better. Of course, true sustainability goes further than pollution control. City planners must look beyond municipal limits and analyse flows of resources – energy, food, water, and people – into and out of their cities. Setting goals can overcome inertia, but everyone must have a stake in establishing them: countries, states, cities, organisations, companies, and people everywhere. Success will hinge on developing many overlapping policies to achieve the goals.

If one reads into the Euro Zone crisis, all that is being debated is whether there should be austerity or business as usual. And in this whatever the European Union has gained and trying to gain in the area of Climate Change abatement, would be the first casualty. Because those who advocate austerity would find sustainable development “costly” to implement and those who oppose it would consider sustainable development as barrier to growth, the high carbon growth which did bring the Nations to their prime but at the cost of the environment; which would be glossed over by impassioned speech more or less with the justification that they are doing this for the benefit of the people. And Peoples and Sheep from time of Anthony when he buried Cesar, get easily swayed in not recognizing the actual ambition of the Orator. And Europe is not alone in this, there are already grumblings on the Bunker fuel tax, Euro Zone has levied from January 2012; with even India along with China and Russia of the BRICS  group opposing it.

Capitalism, the form which is practiced today, measures profit by monetary gain only. It has so dis-oriented  the “experts” and “leaders” that it is difficult for them to come out of it. The system has trained Law & Business Graduates to distrust, mistrust, lie and intimidate at every turn. And when this is topped with greed and avarice, the heady mix is a dangerous concoction of disastrous results, which at times just needs a small nudge from Nature to implode/explode into a catastrophe – the most recent example is Fukushima, Lehman Brother episode. The Indian list is endless, so I best leave it for now by just saying; it is being mentioned that, should we be able to repatriate the money parked in off-shore accounts, India can have the 5 year plan of  Sustainable Growth covered in one go.

Although among climate experts, there’s an extraordinary level of agreement with 97 out of 100 climate scientists agreeing that humans are causing global warming. Action taken on the ground are far from satisfactory.

English: Inaugural Ministerial Meeting of the Asia-Pacific Partnership for Clean Development and Climate in Sydney, Australia (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Why is this happening? It is because the mandarins in power are straight jacketed in their thoughts vis-a-vis international commerce & trade as well as Geo-politics. Habits die hard and the more seasoned the diplomat, the more suspicious s/he would be of every proposal; even if it were for Climate change abatement and Sustainable Development. It came to as no surprise, when just post the failure of Copenhagen UNFCCC COP15 summit, a very high up in the Indian delegation said that, the failure is not because no one understood the grim reality of climate change; but inherently all consider it just another gathering of World Economic Forum in disguise. So each Nation / Group look at maximizing their economic benefit.

It is therefore imperative for the common person to understand the reasons and patterns behind the hardships they are facing and what their children would face; they need to understand that many are out of work because the corporates did not factor in the climate risks when polluting the earth endlessly, and being part of the employee pool we to have our fair share in it. This has to led to food crises in many Nations, drought & famine in other. This  desperate atmosphere at times creates situation for war & piracy at high-seas. It also encourages impressionable minds to dream of “paradise” when they willingly explode having nothing to lose.

When all the chips are down the only thing a human needs is -FOOD & SHELTER just like all other animals in this eco-system and Climate change is leading the world towards that disaster. The evidence of impending Armageddon is all around us to see, the trick is to abate it in time. Adaptation is a stop-gap option not the solution. Sustainable practice is all encompassing. It can not be seen in isolation. This I could learn over time through experience. From looking at sustainability through the narrow prism of Energy Efficient Building Design, it slowly dawned unto me that the buildings I think of designing and the Renewable Energy I love to promote can not exist in vacuum. They are but an infrastructure service for betterment of Humanity, and if modern Civilization gets devoid of mankind due to Climate change  what purpose would the buildings serve?

As the 8 Millennium Development Goals suggests – 1. Eradication of Extreme Poverty & Hunger. – talk to a hungry person of not cutting down a tree for sale as fire-wood so that s/he can feed the family, it just won’t work.

2. Achieve Universal Primary Education.-how else would the citizens understand and adapt to the various programs for betterment of the under privileged, who are fooled at every turn by the unscrupulous and thus face the brunt of any natural or man-made calamity.

3. Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women. – it is a fact that women have better intuition, more caring, perceive more colors  , can identify more through  smell, have a better memory power than men and have Emotional intelligence  far better then men. The list is endless. In India as in the rest of the world “Mother Goddess” was supreme. Today in India the worship of the female power as Goddess Shakti is only but a lip service, without understanding why our ancient ancestors put so much currency on the empowerment of women. For without having the Mother teaching a child to nurture how can Nature sustain itself ?

4. Reduce Child Mortality. Although India has the highest “youth capital”; it also has a dismal record of child mortality. A Country prospers on the back of the people – the farmer, the solider, the mason, the weaver; without able body to shoulder the burden, there would neither be food, shelter or clothing and none to protect the Nations wealth. 

5.Improve Maternal Health.- If the wealth of a Nation is its able citizens, then the continuity can only be maintained through sustained efforts to keep the mother of the child, who is the future of the Nation, healthy.

6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other disease. -Without education, gender equality and eradication of poverty; the complete physical, physiological and ecological balance suffers leading to disease and destruction.

Only by achieving the desired result in the above six can we complete the other two

7. Ensure Environment Sustainability- Reduction of Green House Gases and other forms of pollution is the only way to stop the Extinction of the modern Civilization.

8. Develop a Global Partnership for Development. – Sustained efforts in global partnership on Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) which
“serve as a crucial enabler for territorial development, accelerating progress in poverty reduction, while promoting inclusive growth.” By sharing knowledge of sustainable development practice Nations can learn from each other and create better job opportunities while veering away form the disastrous High Carbon Economy of today.

Courtesy:amazon.com/The-Fate-Species; scientific american.com/The Fate of the Species.;  abc.net.au/environment.

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• Climate Live: Deforestation in Amazon driving species to extinction, Australian bush town could be wiped out and Antarctica under threat from climate change (rtcc.org)
• Stupid claim du jour: Scientists attribute extreme weather to man-made climate change (junkscience.com)
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• Rio+20 Earth Summit: campaigners decry final document (guardian.co.uk)
• Water Securitization, Agenda 21 and the Right to Life (theaveragejoenewsblogg.com)

 

Sustainable Living : How to read the seemingly unrelated dots which coalesce together to create disasters

In the long forgotten text-books, it was written that the Earth is a hospitable planet and various types of flora and fauna are found such as – trees, shrubs, insects, fish, birds, tigers, elephants, humans, chimpanzee  etc. And the animal known as human are the most intelligent among all (?). However, the actions of Human today puts some serious doubts on this self-professed claim.It is only through sustained campaign to create awareness among the primary stake holder – the human, that reversing the dangerous Climate Change phenomenon is possible.

With the tags like – Government, Politicians, Corporate and Citizen, the populace of all Nations confuse themselves and rarely do we use the tag -Human on ourselves, which otherwise would help connect us directly to the Ecosystem and help in addressing the problem of Global Warming & Climate Change as a collective.

Continuing the thoughts in  my articles on sustainable development especially the last ; Sustainable Development Goals: The dangers of Urban Sprawl and its long term effects on the National Growth I would once again reiterate my appeal that common person must associate in understanding the development rules and identify their actions as part of the problem. The markers of the impending problems are seen in bits and pieces, but by joining these dots one can trace the history of the reason of the problems and learning from them similar problems can be averted.

So let us see once again how seemingly unrelated events are part of the same issue, the subject here again being  Sustainable Urban Development. The image by alongside, is of the article published in today’s DNA Newspaper. The tag says – “two motorcycle-borne youths carrying a plastic drum to store scarce drinking water negotiate a huge rain-inflicted crater… ” in the one of the suburban roads of Mumbai City.

The other news is an excellent report on the reality of the just received UNSCO status of the “Western Ghats”;

The DNA article by Akshay Deshmane reads “Here,projects pip ecology” – Even after the Western Ghats made it to the World Heritage List, the state is hesitant to use the status to safeguard the fragile ecology. It has raised objections to recommendations of Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel as it would mean stalling major projects. The 160,000sqkm Western Ghats, which are older than the Himalayas, has been included in the prestigious World Heritage List. On July 2, the world heritage committee of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) recognised 39 sites of the Western Ghats as being among the rare natural heritage spots in the world. Of the 39 sites, six are in Maharashtra.

UNESCO noted that the Western Ghats are among the world’s eight hotspots of biological diversity. Its forests include some of the best representatives of non-equatorial tropical evergreen forests anywhere and are home to at least 325 globally threatened flora, fauna, bird, amphibian, reptile and fish species.
But the Maharashtra government is far from happy because now it has to follow the recommendations of the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP). It has raised objection to three-tier eco-sensitive zones (a crucial aspect of the report), the ban on new licences for mining and quarrying, the ban on diversion of forest land and decommissioning of thermal power plants. In other words, the most important recommendations for conservation have been opposed.
Maharashtra, like other states, has tried to delink the Unesco tag from the recommendations made by the WGEEP to save the fragile ecology of the mountain range. The state took this stand a week before the Union environment and forests ministry planned to announce its views on the controversial WGEEP report……

It is really amazing to see that how the consumerist high carbon economy model has completely distorted our thinking. And especially of those who actually wield the power of change. It is really a sobering thought, to know that the future of mankind are in the hands of those who either do not know or care enough about the direct link between prosperity and sustainable economy.

Today, the woe-full image of the common person negotiating a pot-holed road in search of water is a telling warning of the things to come, should we not wake up to reality and look for solutions beyond our narrow immediate needs. The image so vividly showcases multiple problems of  Urban planning gone wrong. When, people do not try to look beyond their narrow needs and allow paving over the catchment areas and most importantly agricultural land which provide us with food and also store ground water; ‘re-claim’ land by filling over lakes and water body, to build ugly and chicken-coop type buildings, which the builders pass off as “dream homes” wherein actuality they become nightmares for the people who spend their life’s saving in buying into them and get trapped in a locality which has bad-roads; as landfill, catchment areas by default will spew groundwater and the soil by default of being soft sink every monsoon thus creating craters and water logging; but there would be no potable water because the  the “Western Ghats” would be decimated alongwith the fragile ecosystem of the rain & “rain-shadow” areas . Thus ending the cycle of natural replenishment of fresh-water bodies, the details explained via this link.

But it would not end there because the unique biodiversity of the western ghats have some of the best herbal medicinal plants which have been recognized by  World Health Organization, which plays an important role in the health care of about 80 percent of World population in developing countries and who depend largely on traditional medicines. This too would be lost. While the ‘developed’ Nations populace shell off million of dollars on herbal heath-care, we are all geared up for ‘development’ by decimating our Natural capital ! It is time we hold up the mirror of truth to one and all and explain that ‘development’ needs ingenuity. Development techniques which has brought the Earth to such a sorry state can not remain the model for growth and prosperity. Its time to pause and understand the Inclusive Wealth Report 2012, Millennium Development Goals and the Sustainable Development Goals.

And to this effect Media, both print and electronic can play a major role. The pen of a seasoned journalist can create the magical revolution which can only be paralleled by an orator. And the Earth needs both !

Related articles

• Western Ghats, India (planetsurprises.wordpress.com)
• Draft note allays fears over heritage tag (thehindu.com)
• Campaign to clear apprehensions about Gadgil panel report (thehindu.com)
• Western Ghat biodiversity to help drive Ayurveda-based tourism (ayurbhishak.wordpress.com)
• “Climate literacy” in the classroom (unesco.org)
• A wake-up call to protect marine life, coastal vegetation (unesco.org)

 

Green Business Ideas: India gives a PAT to Inclusive Wealth Report 2012

Whatever said and done; the Prime Minister of India Dr. Manmohan Singh has the best sense of timing when it  comes to providing impetus to the Economy, launching PAT under NMEEE this week, is one such achievement. Let us look at how such green initiatives are going to be one of the best bet in boosting the Green Economy not only in India but world-wide.

A direct link can easily be established between India’s NAPCC agenda (of which PAT is a part) and IWR’s core thought. I had dealt in greater detail on what is NAPCC in - Green Business Ideas : India should promote NSM & NMSH to make NMEEE a success. So I will only bring out the thought which resonates with the IWR in this article. Below are some of the very recent remarks found on the News, post the culmination of UNFCCC‘s summit at Rio and excerpts from the UNU-IHDP’s & UNEP’s  report IWR 2012 .

guardian.co.uk – The bizarre weather of early summer in the US – from heatwave, wildfires, drought to freak storms – is just a sampling of what is to come for 2012 and a window to the future under climate change…..

green-buzz.net – Global warming will mess up with attempts to save the Amazon rainforest, based on a negative new research that predicts that a third of its trees will be wiped out by even small temperature rises. …

guardian.co.uk – Whenever an episode of extreme weather – heat wave, flood, drought, etc – hits the headlines, someone somewhere is sure to point the finger of blame at human-induced climate change….

bbc.co.uk - Leaves are getting narrower on some plant species as a result of changes to the climate, a study has suggested.

In the last decade, almost one million people have been killed by disasters and more than one trillion dollars have been lost. Yet only 1% of international aid is spent to minimise the impact of these disasters : UNDP

The remark of UNDP simply reinforces the scope and depth of opportunity global business has in extracting itself out of the morass of economic slowdown and begin towards a newer and dynamic economic model based on the lines of a B-Corp, a recent and fast catching phenomenon around the western hemisphere.  And presently the slow down of  world economy is partly due to the slowdown in ideas and direction in the EU and lets not forget the Lehman Brothers very soon, lest the USA makes similar mistake again, in its present climb-up the ladder of economic well-being.

“IWI is among a range of potential replacements which world leaders can consider as a way of bringing great precision to assessing wealth generation in order to realize sustainable development and eradicate poverty,”said UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner, during the launch of the Inclusive Wealth Report 2012 (IWR), a joint initiative launched at Rio+20 by the “International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (UNU-IHDP) hosted by the United Nations University and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

Wealth accounting, the concept behind the IWI, draws up a balance sheet for nations and shows countries where their wealth lies. By taking into account a wide array of capital assets a nation has at its disposal to secure society’s well-being, it presents a more comprehensive picture and informs policy makers on the importance of maintaining their nation’s capital base for future generations. The importance of keeping an eye on the full range of a country’s capital assets becomes particularly evident when population growth is factored in.

Key findings from the report are:

• While 19 out of the 20 countries experienced a decline in natural capital, six also saw a decline in their inclusive wealth, putting them on an unsustainable track, Russia, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Colombia, South Africa and Nigeria were the nations that failed to grow. The remaining 70 per cent of countries show IWI per-capita growth, indicating sustainability.
• High population growth with respect to IWI growth created unsustainable conditions in five of the six countries mentioned above. Russia’s lack of growth was due largely to a drop in manufactured capital
• 25 per cent of countries which showed a positive trend when measured by GDP per capita and HDI were found to have a negative IWI per capita. The primary driver of the difference in performance was the decline in natural capital
• With the exception of France, Germany, Japan, Norway, the United Kingdom and the United States, all countries surveyed have a higher share of natural capital than manufactured capital, highlighting its importance
• Human capital has increased in every country and is the prime capital form that offsets the decline in natural capital in most economies
• There are clear signs of trade-off effects between the different forms of capital
• Technological innovation and/or oil capital gains (due to rising prices) outweigh decline in natural capital and damages from climate change, moving a number of countries – Russia, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela – from an unsustainable to a sustainable trajectory
• Estimates of inclusive wealth can be improved significantly with better data on the stocks of natural, human and social capital and their values for human well-being.

Recommendations

While inclusive wealth has increased for most countries, the report shows that an examination of natural capital is crucial for policy makers.

Even though a reduction in natural capital can be offset by the accumulation of manufactured and human capital, which are reproducible, many natural resources such as oil and minerals cannot be replaced. As a result, a more inclusive definition of wealth that will secure a legacy for future generations is urgently needed in the discussion of sustainable economic and social development.

The report, which will be produced every two years, makes the following specific recommendations:

• Countries witnessing diminishing returns in natural capital should invest in renewable natural capital to improve their IWI and the well-being of their citizens. Example investments include reforestation and agricultural biodiversity
• Nations should incorporate the IWI within planning and development ministries to encourage the creation of sustainable policies
• Countries should speed up the process of moving from an income-based accounting framework to a wealth accounting framework
• Macroeconomic policies should be evaluated on the basis of IWI rather than GDP per capita
• Governments and international organizations should establish research programmes to value key components of natural capital, in particular ecosystems.

UN Under-Secretary General and Rector of the United Nations University, Prof. Konrad Osterwalder, concluded that using the IWI would safeguard the interests of many developing nations.

If one reads the document of NAPCC  and compares it with the MDG’s which reads- “The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have functioned as an important tool to focus international attention and action around key pressing global issues,” he said. “As 2015 fast approaches, the deadline for meeting the MDGs, it is clear that the opportunities for many developing countries to achieve their goals may be compromised if the present rates of decline of various crucial ecosystem services continue.”  – one would find a lot of commonalities.

And in the recently launched PAT document India is moving another step in the right direction towards inclusive wealth generation. – Designated Consumers (DCs) account for 25% of the national gross domestic product (GDP) and about 45% of commercial energy use in India. In order to further accelerate as well as incentivize energy efficiency, the Government of India is designing a Perform Achieve and Trade (PAT) Scheme. PAT is a market based mechanism to enhance cost effectiveness of improvements in energy efficiency in energy intensive large industries and facilities, through certification of energy savings that could be traded. The genesis of the PAT mechanism flows out of the provision of the Energy Conservation Act, 2001.

By this one very act, if implemented properly business all-over the world would get a boost. An an Emerging Economy India needs to develop and for that it has to create capacity in the core fields of – 9 industrial sectors namely Thermal
Power Plants, Fertilizer, Cement, Pulp and Paper, Textiles, Chlor-Alkali, Iron & Steel, Aluminium and Railways.

To bring in energy efficiency in these core sectors Indian Industry would be looking at the West which whatever be the current economic scenario, still lead in R&D in many areas and has off-the shelf solutions for most industrial machinery. They have the state of art product design and solution and a need a wider market which can absorb the supply. The BRIC Nations are the ones which can rise up to the occasion and with PAT, India can attain leadership position by 2015, in this space. NMEEE can be divided into   PAT; MTEE; EEFP & FEED  and together they would not only be able to have a positive impact on the GDP but their implementation shall have a direct positive effect on various service sectors  and  create the much needed jobs all around.

Let us take the most important and controversial sector of Thermal Power Plants – it is one of the greatest concern for Environmentalist all over the planet and if this sector itself has to reduce its SEC, serious thought would be applied to overcome the challenges.  And through PAT it shall be addressed because conventional thermal power fuel is coal, which although a natural capital is also a potential GHG hazard and to extract it we need to deplete the most important wealth of any Nation – the forest cover.

The Indian Industry through the CII is already geared up for this challenge and ground work has already started. The CII – Sohrabji Godrej Green Business Centre [CII Godrej GBC] is promoting the concept of ‘Make Indian thermal power plants world class’. The main aim is to bring the industry together to exchange views and meet new technologies, facilitate continuous performance improvement in thermal power plants and thereby achieve world  class standards. I am confident that given the stakes, a green economy with long term wealth generation vs  “gone” ecology, the present Thermal Power plants which are coal fired and GHG intensive would take on the new avatar of  CSP driven thermal power plants.

To the common person who associate Thermal power plants to polluting coal and do not want to see them existing any-more, the coal is just a fuel that is used to boil the water to steam, which runs the turbines and generates electricity. In technical terms all that is required is to switch the fuel from the GHG intensive Coal to Concentrated Solar Power or CSP.  The era of Solar Aided Power Generation from Conventional Fossil Fuelled Power Stations has already arrived.

In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region a great concept towards renewable energy is taking shape The DESERTEC concept which will be an astronomical step towards sustainable supply of green energy at a global dimension. It is estimated that CSP plants in MENA can generate up to 470, 000 MW by 2050. Similarly in the USA, Bright Source Energy’s tower solar collector in the Mojave Desert would supply up to 900 megawatts of clean energy to California in the next decade. The new technology will use several “power towers” at each commercial plant. An array of hundreds of mirrors known as heliostats will reflect sunlight onto a boiler atop each tower, and the resulting steam will power a turbine.

The above illustrates the great changes that are occurring in  the Industry and Economy of the world. And we have in the India context only  touched the first of the 9-DC’s considered under PAT. Rest assured, the green economy model would soon encompass all sectors of industry mentioned. And it would be the best thing than can happen to this planet.

Related articles

• UNU-IHDP and UNEP launch sustainability index that looks beyond GDP (eurekalert.org)
• UN Calls for New Way to Measure Sustainable Wealth (climatecentral.org)
• Move over GDP; there’s a new index in town (and it values the environment, too) (lawprofessors.typepad.com)
• Large Economies Don’t Look So Hot When Forests Are Factored In (huffingtonpost.com)
• Moving Beyond GDP: Valuing Nature (genascihk.com)
• Countries should implement inclusive wealth accounting (eurekalert.org)

 

Sustainable Development Goals: The dangers of Urban Sprawl and its long term affects on the National Growth

The Monsoon in India, is delayed and it is predicted that we shall have scanty rain-fall this year. Every sign of Climate change, which have been predicted are happening. In the USA, the unprecedented power outages and heat wave are prime time News.  Perhaps if in the last 20+ years the World had listened and shifted to a better Economic model, than the “grow quickly rich – and throw everything else into the ditch!” Corny capitalism; things would perhaps be improving by now.

But how does the common person know they are the part of the problem? And how can they help?  Through this article I shall try to weave seemingly different News articles which have been published in various Indian News papers,in the immediate past  and try and show how we still are going horribly wrong at every turn and the efforts of a few, be it in the Governance of the Nation or NGO’s; are not being able to make the desired impact.

English: topographic map of India (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We all know that at long last the “Western Ghats”; have been accorded with UNESCO recognition. It would bring cheer to many environmentalist, who are deeply concerned with the destruction of this fragile eco-system. However, how much it would be able to help in the ground is something we have to wait and see.

The weekend News papers in India‘s, usually carry features on property. Having been caught up to the developments around UNFCCC Rio+20 agenda, I had not been paying too much attention to them. But over the last weekend the barrage of “up coming” once in a life-time bargain ‘second homes” caught my eye. All these projects are beyond the limits of the megalopolis of Mumbai by a minimum of 150 Km. Most are either on or close to hill stations atop the Western Ghats range, or industrial zones, which are situated in the valley of the ghats. The examples I would like to give here are two – one a hill station, Lonavala and the other an Industrial estate area – Roha. Both are close to Mumbai.  Roha is located in Raigad district in the state of Maharashtra(INDIA). Many big companies have their manufacturing plants there like – Pepsi, Clariant, Sudarshan Chemicals, Excel, Unichem Laboratories etc. It is only 120 km south-east of Mumbai, and with a population of over 40,000 it is only natural that in time, the big builder/ developers would like to set up residential townships, the likes which are found in and around Pune and Mumbai.

The town is surrounded by natural beauty, as it is part of the western-ghats. When I had gone during my “project manager” days in the early 2000, I had worked on a project there. It is a beautiful place, small industrial town, nestled in the valley of the Ghats, which is more or less self-sufficient, but at one time industrial air-bone pollution was at the extreme. Now, we are going to have another danger, far bigger looming around this area. And that, sadly is “development”.  For, if you type into your computers – “Development rules in the district of Raigarh, Roha taluk”; nothing is found.  A vague Environment & Forest Notification is all you find.

No maps clearly demarcating which are industrial zones, forest areas, residential and commercial zones can be found easily. If you notice, you would rarely find a guide-map of the locality you reside; in New Delhi you have them at the entrance of each residential colony. In Mumbai and rest of India its a rare sight. Even if one types “development rules of Mumbai”; a 1999 pdf is available from MMRDA preceded by many latest news talking about amendments.  Compare this by typing -development rules of New York USA.

A country which prides itself on its IT strength, does not have any information, which the common man can find at a click of a button. To keep abreast or simply familiarize oneself of the laws, so that should one find wrong-doing like finding a park area being constructed /encroached upon or an earmarked residential area  or a natural drain, being paved over for creating a shopping complex ; spot it and make aware the authorities to take action. Of-course we have the Right to Information Act, but I’m sure there is no information available or worthy enough to look into of various places which are not large Cities or Towns of India. And even the large towns and cities do not have at times complete information or information which is easily available. The apathy and incompetence, almost seems like a deliberate act to help in corruption. And the loss is always going to be to the Nation and its people.

Last week, in Mumbai a 24 year old girl died due to tree falling over her during a sudden squall. Today the DNA newspaper carries a statistic under the heading -Tree falls claim 21 since 2005. The other news was -Rain fill lakes with 3 days of water supply for Mumbai. Disjointed as they may seem, these two are interlinked not only to each other, but also the the paragraphs above.

Just as in the beautiful lush-green surroundings of  the hill station of Lonawala, unplanned townships are coming up in many locations. Farmlands are getting changed into residential and commercial areas. While there is planning within the perimeter of the projects, infrastructure is never given precedence. Neither are there any strict laws laid down to deter littering. If one looks at the city of Mumbai, in the early 1980′s the now congested suburbs were farmlands and mangroves. Catchment areas essential for groundwater recharge and prevention of flooding, which slowly started to get converted into township, with scant regard to town-planning in the proper sense. Today we have encroachments, super-bad roads and clogged drains; most of the buildings require high maintenance from water proofing and salt water corrosion.

The common person does not think twice before littering the street or not buying from illegal vendors who occupy most of Mumbai foot-paths and foot-over-bridges. In fact it is a welcome sign, to have the first illegal grocery, tea/cigarette kiosk next to the new building  which comes up in far-off locality. Any architect, who has worked in far-off sites, would empathise with me at the relief one gets when a small tea & cigarette shop opens up opposite the construction site across the road; where one can relax the tired limbs and have a “cutting-chai”. ( chai = tea). This happens because when a developer goes to the Urban fringe and builds a township, the State does not cater to the welcoming opportunity the private developer creates for up-liftment of local business and does not match it in pace with infrastructure and innovative schemes which can create proper commercial zones especially de-marked for the urban poor who find an opportunity to do an honest business. These local semi-urban populace do not have the money to buy into the commercial areas, if built by the developer. Their shops usually come up as shanties while the township is under construction to cater to the labourers and even the engineers. But this relief turns into grief for the citizens in time as no infrastructure, such as roads, drainage systems, waste-disposal or safety measures are built around them.

Similarly the shady-tree which once helped the labourers and engineers to have  a momentary relief while sipping into the tea, soon gets surrounded by shops and most of the ground, right up to the bark gets paved over. The tree starts to die, and then one rainy day it falls, taking along with it life of an innocent bystander. The newly built suburban rail station looks exactly the same as all suburban rail-station around Mumbai, filthy and difficult to negotiate through the illegally constructed shops and haphazardly parked vehicles.

Water supply is scarce and come summer, the citizens of this once new town become desperate for potable water. Ground water gets depleted as most of the catchment areas get paved over and constructed upon much before the “development rules” comes into force.

Farm fresh vegetables and live-stock which were once easily available become a distant dream for most as due to land-use change most fertile land are lost. The word “green” becomes a mockery as maximum one finds in patches atop utterly destroyed local ecosystem are some  “Chinese” grass lawns, bottle palms and a few decorative flowering shrubs.  For a water body, a swimming pool is considered a great gift from the developers and accepted with great pride by the residents. Some standard advertisement goes -  live by the river side with lush greenery and natural surroundings. And should one inspect – 9 out of 10 projects would have no safety features, or advisory of how not to litter or degrade the natural surrounds.

Every-time I see the images of a super expensive and super large hill-station township, which got created in the recent past, breaking almost every environmental law as reported in the news. I feel very disappointed. My fear, is not the development of a hill-station as I’m not against development; but if it is at the cost of the eco-system then we are staring at a lot of trouble. And it is around a fresh water lake. With almost zero civic sense in most of us, imagine what can happen, if strict precautions have not been taken by the developer; as each home owner post the mandatory “Griha Pravesh Pooja” would,  giving scant regard to the environmental hazard, dispose the ritual materials right into the lake, tied in a plastic bag, so that it helps pollute the once pristine lake a little more.

The concept of dust-bins, public urinals and civic sense advisory board, along with clean-up marshals or policemen to penalize offenders, is alien in most areas of India.  Therefore if anyone has visited the lake city of Udaipur in the state of Rajasthan or other tourist destinations in India which has a water body, would appreciate what I mean to imply here. And this is also true in the megalopolis like Mumbai, which is also a tourist destination & has a large water body, the legendary Ban-ganga and the Arabian sea; both choking with refuse.

While there is an urgent need for India to “develop”, and we have the right to do so; we as Peoples need to understand the dangers of unsustainable urban living. It is for us to decide the course of growth. With unplanned and unsustainable urban sprawl which would seem as “growth” in economic sense for a short while would actually deplete our resources and would not improve the quality of living. And this in the long run would weaken the Country from all indices of growth. We must adhere to and understand about Sustainable Cities – Why town planning is important.

The World’s Best Places to Live  according to human resources consulting firm Mercer’s, 2011 quality of living survey report looks at living conditions such as economy, socio-cultural environment, politics, education, and the health sector. Rediff.com also did a survey of 15 Best cities of India, but as per world standards - Mumbai is ranked a dismal 117th, New Delhi is ahead at 113th scoring 56.5 and 58.6 per cent, respectively.

And among all the areas of development, I consider Urban development as most important  because without the proper standards of living; which directly affects the overall well-being of the citizens,  the country can not prosper and today  the Indian economic health has not much to cheer about, due to various internal and external factors. Therefore it is imperative we learn our lessons and follow into the path of overall Sustainable Development.

To prove my point (it almost seems to be written in 2012)  below are excerpts from an article published in The South Asian Voice in 2001 -

As economic growth rates have plummeted throughout the world, India (like the rest of South East Asia) has not escaped the impact. Growth rates have been reluctantly pruned to about 5% for the year, and may have to be revised further downwards if an anticipated post-monsoon pick-up in consumer consumption and industrial manufacturing fails to materialize. While, booms and busts are endemic to “free-market” or capitalistic economies, sections of the Indian media had sought to convey the impression that the switch to greater “market freedom” would result in a continuous economic boom. …..However, it is doubtful if these factors will continue to play as important a role in propelling the Indian economy forward.….There are also several structural impediments to increases in rural incomes. Already India is one of the most densely populated nations in the world. Pressure on land is already very high and existing water resources have been depleting at an alarming rate. Even with a switch to more sustainable agriculture and water-management policies, it is unlikely that improvements in agricultural productivity can take place at previously seen rates.….However, so far, there has not been any serious analysis of the trajectory of the Indian economy or on the policy direction taken by the government. Neither has there been any comprehensive look at the relationship between economic growth rates and improvements in living standards….Consider an article by Jonathon Rowe titled “A misguided quest for ‘productivity’” that appeared in the Christian Science Monitor (June 28, 2001). In this essay, the author bemoans the American obsession with “productivity” without regard for the value of what is produced and whether it contributes to human happiness. “We Americans are not lacking for products. Our basements and garages are groaning. A warehouse industry has arisen to hold all our stuff. Yet they tell us that the benchmark of our economy remains whether we can turn out still more stuff per hour. Is that scientific principle, or fetish?” …….Take the recent fascination with cars. For people to really enjoy the use of a personal car, a country must have enough land for wide roads and large parking lots. And that’s exactly how every automobile ad in India shows off new cars. Cars for the Indian market are shown scurrying along wide and vacant highways in dreamy countryside settings, completely unrelated to the actual Indian reality or experience. After all, some of India’s most scenic destinations aren’t even connected by motorable roads, and virtually all Indian cities are so densely populated that even newer residential and commercial areas are planned with narrow roads and limited parking facilities. There is thus something very surreal about the Indian media’s glamorization of the car……But imagine, if the country produced better means of public transportation. Assuming that a mini-bus costs only three times as much to produce as a car, and assuming that the average mini-bus seats about 30 people (or more) comfortably, there is a ten-fold increase in transportation options…..And this is just one example of a glaring disconnect between economic growth and it’s linkage to all-round social well-being and the overall quality of life. We can also find examples that illustrate the reverse case where an activity may have a low price tag but significant long term social value….Consider how this decade of “liberalization” has marginalized cultural activities that may have a much more profound impact on human happiness, quality of life and social harmony……. – each of these activities may potentially be of much greater value to human health and happiness than their calculation in the country’s GDP….The liberalization decade has not only failed to make such contributions, it has also created an environment where people have stopped appreciating cultural activities. They have also been trained to devalue those activities that can only bring about gains after long gestation periods such as activities in scientific and social research. It is often forgotten that India’s present strength is in no small measure a result of the many direct and indirect benefits of earlier investment in public institutions of higher learning and advanced scientific and technological research.

Related articles

• Western Ghats makes it to World Heritage List (thehindu.com)
• Expert panel for curtailing commercial plantations in Western Ghats (thehindu.com)
• To know, is to protect (thehindu.com)
• Infrastructure for Transportation: The Mumbai Experience (infrastructuredevelopment.wordpress.com)