Business As Usual – a sure-fire guide to kill Sustainable Development Goals.

“Only Rupees Two ?. What about the rent of my roof ? With Mumbai realty prices starting at Rupees 6000/ feet square, I only get to save Rs.2 per KW on my electrical consumption and that too for a measly 20years ? A minimum of Rs 4 should be considered. After all it will be installed on my roof and it makes perfect business sense to bargain for more. After all the investor is doing this for profit and not for charity. It must be business as usual for him.”

With EPC for solar hovering at 8.5 Crore  shaving Rs. 4 out of 10 left us with a number which no investor who is not a buccaneer would touch and no banker would believe in. Especially when the user, does not have to pay a single Paise for the Engineering – Procurement – Construction (EPC) or pay for its Operation & Maintenance (O&M)  of the Solar power plant, but just consume the power produced for the full period of 20 years. And the Return on Investment comes via the tariff the user pays monthly, adjusted over the length of the contract.

In my effort to save the planet from global warming, I was pleasantly surprised when a few RESCO ( renewable energy service company ) approached me with the idea of applying Solar Photovoltaic as an alternate day-time energy source for large commercial establishments. It was like manna from heaven. What more could a practising LEED / GRIHA consultant want ? It would make all my buildings much more “greener” than the other green buildings. It was like a dream come true. Thus I ventured out to increase the ambition of my clients to go for Green Building certification, comforted by the fact that I would accrue more points on the certification scale with use of all that is possible with Solar Power.

Little did I know, that no one would be interested in utilizing such opportunity unless they could bargain for more. It is a typical tendency of all Human today. We always seek more. Even in death we seek more. While our ashes would hardly fill a small Urn, we like to have a few hectare of land as memorial. Everybody wants to build the Taj Mahal; the largest tomb-stone of this planet.

Capitalism and Greed ruled then. It rules now. The only difference is that the Emperor did not have to worry about Global Warming and sinking of the landmass under the sea !

It is therefore imperative that the Business As Usual model changes. Nations must act in unison to delete the present Capitalist meaning of Business as Usual. Simply because we are living in unusual times. This trend is evident even at the UNFCCC meets, which have now become more of a tour operators delight and the host country which wins the next round of meeting, prepares like one does after winning the Olympics, to rake in the moolah that would come from packed hotels; a sure-fire way to end the lean seasons of a city. And the repeated failure to come into concrete agreements since the Copenhagen Summit only lays credence to the alleged fact.

People follow the path shown by their leaders. When industry captains and world leaders apply the fundamentals of capitalism and have through that applications benefited self and the Nation in the past, it is hard for the common man not to practice it in one form or the other. In India, since Independence we have followed and still follow the L1 format. Everything has to be sasta-sunder-majboot ( cheap & best ). That we have a major scam a day and still considered 3rd world proves that we are wrong and horribly so. A few shiny glass buildings in 4 metropolis does not change the facts. All an unbeliever needs to do, is come to Mumbai and while staying in any tall-building wish not to spot slum & squalor. His/her prayers would not be answered.

It is therefore necessary for the leaders to take the responsibility of preaching the SREX Report and also the (IWR) Inclusive Wealth Report in our collective bid to forward the Sustainable Development Goals. (SDG)

Millennium Development Goals Postcards (Photo credit: US Mission Geneva)

The Eight paths towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDG)

1. Eradicating extreme poverty and hunger,
2. Achieving universal primary education,
3. Promoting gender equality and empowering women,
4. Reducing child mortality rates,
5. Improving maternal health,
6. Combating HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases,
7. Ensuring environmental sustainability, and
8. Developing a global partnership for development

Which one can achieve by applying the SDG’s charter

• Action-oriented
• Concise
• Easy to communicate
• Limited in number
• Aspirational
• Global in nature
• Universally applicable to all countries while taking into account different national realities, capacities and levels of development and respecting national policies and priorities.

Till now MDG has hardly percolated to the leaves just below the bud, forget reaching the grass-root.

The way I understand it, the Goal – Ensuring Environmental Sustainability should be the first and foremost focus. It needs to be action oriented and not conference oriented. Because conference by default don’t help in communicating easily. It is meant for the class not mass. And the class already aware of the subject are achieving almost everything as envisioned as long as it serves their narrow interest . It is the pace which is hardly comforting even if one accounts for the narrow interest oriented improvements the agenda of the rich promote.

How difficult would it be for the United Nations, to communicate directly to millions of internet users on a sustained basis and engage them on an one-to-one conversation to partake in Sustainable practice? Which directly benefit them, and thus allow them to make informed choices. How difficult is it that the World leaders come together and de-link the process of sustainable living and its practical methods from the BAU model as practised in the present flawed market system ? Why should the IRR (internal rate of return) and RoI (return on investment) be calculated based on a flawed capitalist system where profit always means self aggrandisement?

Why cant the World Bank and Economists innovate the datum through which sustainable tools and its products get measured for its RoI against the IWR ?

The logic is as follows. Should say, the Government of India decide that following MDG goal # 7 – all Buildings, Factories and Commercial  establishments opt for Renewable energy, as viable depending on the location, these are perhaps a few things that is bound to happen.

A) As the power consumption through fossil fuel would reduce, the pressure on the exchequer too would reduce. This is because we can import less oil. Now with the saved petro-dollars the government can implement all the social up-liftment programmes namely MDG goal 1; 2; 4; 5 & 6.

B) Large Hydle-powered dams would not be needed to be built any more and the lush green ecosystem which along with a few hundred villages, and with it the future of villagers would not have to sink into oblivion. This would directly save many from abject poverty and migration to cities to increase the size of slums. In fact the villagers could benefit by having some electricity themselves and improve their lot as mentioned in my earlier article Green Building Ideas:Using Solar panels as roofing sheet instead of asbestos. while the government benefits further.

C) While promoting gender equality requires the discipline and sobriety fast disappearing from our political class, as evident from the comments they have given on media in recent and not so recent incidents of crime against women. Empowering women can also be possible through use of RE, a few ideas on them can be found in my article Renewable Energy – Empowering Women & Saving Forests.And through this too, as explained in the article the government can save on cross-subsidy and full-fill its promises for uplifting its countrymen.

It is business as usual for one political party not to allow an individual politician form a competing party to implement a good idea, which has mass appeal. Simply because in the next round of election the statesman may win against the politician.

Perhaps at the end of 1000 days in 2015, we will know whether we really achieved what was envisaged in the MDG or we still have to look beyond for the Future We Want.

Related articles

• The Post-2015 Development Agenda (eastasiaforum.org)
• ‘Guide to Sustainia’ Shows How to Achieve Sustainable Living in a Decade (justmeans.com)
• Goals: They work! (one.org)
• February 2013 (felixdodds.net)

 

Green Business Idea : Using Manpower & Ox-power to generate rural electricity

Green Business Ideas needn’t be about multimillion dollars of earnings. Although that kind of money does impact lives and can bring in sea-change in thoughts and actions much faster; simple things which look towards the rural landscape should also matter where the earning may be more if the latent advantages are explored. It is also important to indigenise them to the local needs. We would discuss  ideas which belong to different countries but each can work in various Nations. Perhaps it would be the best BASIC country collaboration ever towards sustainable living.

Beginning by mentioning the superlative program hosted by CNN on sustainable living especially the Eco-Solutions  program where it was shown that, water hyacinth a bane for Africa ( & Asia) could be exploited to created products one would usually associate with bamboo or jute. Although weaving with water hyacinth would be natural in the South American countries, attempting to find its commercial use in Africa is indeed wonderful. While the botanists and environmentalist may not agree, citing the commercialization as a bane to their effort to eliminate the evasive weed; one while agreeing to their line of thought could differ in the approach.

Water hyacinth (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The reason water hyacinth does not grow uncontrolled in the South American continent is because it has natural enemies which keeps it in check. Without such natural control available in the Asian & African continent the water hyacinth has wrecked havoc to the water-bodies. But now the biggest “natural” enemy to everything natural in this planet the honourable homo sapien; once they taste the commercial possibilities of any living or non-living material on Earth, one can bet their last dime that ‘extinction’ is not far away. Therefore one should not worry too much in supporting the poor African women in their attempt to commercialize the water hyacinth. Given the right incentive within a span of 10 years it would become less of a menace; not requiring grants from the UN to keep it under control and more of an opportunity to uplift the poor. If we attempt to think out of the box, sustainable solutions would be easier to come by. And the much needed grants could then go into attempt to rectify wrongs for which easier answer are yet to be found. It is therefore encouraging to see the USA come up with a process to produce Ethanol form water hyacinth at Lake Victoria in East Africa ( vindicating my article -The USA has given some of the top inventions to abate Climate Change.)

It is known to very few that Water Hyacinth can be used to produce Bio-fuel, which can then run a generator to produce electricity. Research on this has been happening across Nations including India, yet not enough media focus and awareness is created to bring it to the grass root level, where it would start to make a difference.

Recently, Oxfam has claimed that the lifestyle of the Maasai tribe in Africa should be embraced as a response to climate change because of their ability to farm in deserts and scrublands.Many Maasai tribes throughout Tanzania and Kenya welcome visits to their village to experience their culture, traditions, and lifestyle. In these tribe cattle plays a very important role too.

There is a great debate in the west about GHG emission form cattle, which is mostly reared for production of beef. With many becoming vegetarians and vegans the debate on consumption and rearing of cattle is still on with respect to their contribution to Global Warming. Those who may not know, in India  practising Hindus consider cattle as sacred. The word “Panjerpol” means an old home for cattle. While the word “Gaushala” denotes a dairy farm. Panjerpol is where devout Hindu’s like to see the cows to go, when their useful life as a milch cow or an Oxen ends, so that they can spend the remainder years in comfort. The charitable trust which I visited is run by some of the most successful businessmen in Pune, Maharashtra,India whose vision is exemplary. Considering every cow as Kamdhenu and all bulls as Nandi the teachings of sustainable living is practised even now.

In the day and age of increased awareness of the benefits of natural fertilizers,using  Cow Manure Fertilizer For
Growing Vegetables, – supply the best bulk form of organic matter to the garden. The fantastic soil conditioning ability of cow manure due to the amount of quality organic matter, that no processed fertilizer can match, is reason enough to use cow manure fertilizer whenever possible to the garden. The soil amending properties of this really great natural fertilizer has to be used to be properly appreciated. In another article Cow Urine Can Cure Many Diseases, the author an Ayurvedic Physician, from Gujrat goes on to say – …The analysis of cow urine has shown that it contains nitrogen, sulphur, phosphate, sodium, manganese, carbolic acid, iron, silicon, chlorine, magnesium, melci, citric, titric, succenic, calcium salts, vitamin a, b, c, d, e, minerals, lactose, enzymes, creatinine, hormones and gold acids.…Cow urine treatment and research centre, in Indore (Madhyapradesh, India) has conducted a lot of research in the past few years and reached at the conclusion that it is capable of curing diabetes, blood pressure, asthma, psoriasis, eczema, heart attack, blockage in arteries, fits, cancer, aids, piles, prostrate, arthritis, migraine, thyroid, ulcer, acidity, constipation, gynecological problems, ear and nose problems, abortion and several other diseases. Cow is a mobile dispensary. It is the treasure of medicines. The cow urine therapy is capable of curing several curable and incurable diseases. The holy texts, like atharva veda, charak samhita, rajni ghuntu, vridhabhagabhatt, amritasagar, bhavprakash, sushrut samhita contain beautiful description about these things. It must be noted the late Prime Minister of India Shri Morarji Desai advocated Ayurvedic treatment similar to the one mentioned.

The above sets the stage across two continents on the importance of cattle and hyacinth as two factors which can play an important role in sustainable living in rural areas and thus advocates one of the agendas of the UNFCCC charter.

OX-Driven Electric Generator

The same amount of difference it would make, should the poor and marginalised farmer in India use his oxen to produce electricity. This is yet another aspect I understood on my visit to the Panjerpol near Pune. The article Ox-driven generators set to solve power crisis- BIT Mesra’s non-conventional energy gadget promises to steal show at Udyog Mela reads – An oxen-driven generator set, developed by BIT Mesra’s mechanical engineering department, is set to draw crowds to the forthcoming Jharkhand Udyog Mela 2008 at Morabadi grounds.BIT Mesra has booked a stall in the 11-day fair slated to start from November 15. The fair promises to be a good platform to inform the rural masses, NGOs and, most importantly, agencies working in the field of non-conventional energy about the importance of pollution-free power generating machines. A single unit of such a machine would be able to provide power to at least eight households.

This actually complements an article in another blog Engineering for Change which has devised the same idea by using bicycles -This innovation is one of our Promising Prototypes of IEEE’s Global Humanitarian Technology Conference in Seattle. Bike-powered electricity generators are a practical solution for Indian households. Surveying the country’s energy landscape, with its tight living spaces, expensive land, and far too many people for the power the country produces, bike generators make sense. Venkat Natarajan and his team at Intel Technology India in Bangalore came to that conclusion and they are testing their own low-cost designs.

ISCKON ideas

Developing Green Business Ideas which actually impact the lives of the Undeveloped or the Least Developed Nations must be given priority and WRI, CAN-International, Greenpeace and the likes  should try to make this as an agenda to be showcased at the next UNFCCC meet in Europe. As I have advocated always, it is not important whether we are aware of the possibilities, it is important that the poor and the needy are given the opportunity to exploit so. Water hyacinth covers the serene Vembanad Lake,is as recent a news as October 2012 whereas Biotech Students to Produce Alternate Source of Energy in Surat, published in June 1, 2011 pre-dates the problem taken up by the Times of India news. While BIT Mesra’s Ox-power electricity was showcased in 2008. Actually if one researches further this concept was already in place way back in 1985 and finds mention in Prabhupada News. Had it been encouraged and popularised by the Union and State governments in India, THE GREAT INDIAN BLACKOUT OF 2012 might have been averted. But sensible thinking and foresight is not an Indian thing. We are conditioned for lethargic and knee-jerk administrative reactions.

It is important for the UN to seriously consider taking up a dedicated media space to beam down relevant news and information, as mentioned above on a  24x7x365 basis around the world much like the popular Discovery or National Geographic TV programs. This would at least enable a ground-swell which may see some change for the better in the Developing and Under-developed countries where administrative apathy is rife.

How difficult is it for the media moguls to partner with the UN to launch such ground breaking idea? Something that would benefit the world and encourage people to people contact, thus bringing unto fore new ideas which could perhaps have commercial value? In many of the You Tube links attached to this article one can see so many home-grown ideas which can not get much traction due to want of audience. Some die out simply because the immediate society has no need of it, while it could have been a game changer a continent across; it may perhaps save lives. It can happen even now, in fact it must.

Most of India’s 20 nuclear reactors are on the list of the most unreliable 50 in the world, and villagers near the Tarapur plant have been bearing the brunt of after-effects of radiation. In spite of their complaints, all they’ve got from the govt is assurance of reduced exposure, which is no less risky, finds Dilnaz Boga. Poonam Hambire, a resident of Ghivali village, 12km from Boisar in Thane district, is at the forefront of the anti-nuclear agitation against the Tarapur Atomic Power Station (TAPS). “Women have to come forward as false cases are slapped against the male protesters in Tarapur,” she alleges. Her village lies within the 1.6km radius around one the country’s oldest nuclear reactors built by General Electric in the 1960s. It’s the same model as Japan’s Fukushima reactor. The effects of radiation are obvious in every home not only in Ghivali but also in the neighbouring villages.At Hambire’s home, her eight-year-old nephew’s garlanded photo adorns the wall. “He died of lung cancer, but we couldn’t get his medical reports from the government heath centre. It’s hard to talk about it as his father who is employed at the plant will lose his job. None of the sick villagers get their medical papers,” she claims.

The very argument that India needs to develop and maintain costly Nuclear plants, pales in comparison to the fact that using simple tools, the country under its NEREGA mission can utilize only a fraction of the allocated Nuclear development money and yet bring about enormous social benefit. The most telling; India has unemployed youth in villages who could if given a chance, pedal for 24 hours a day in shifts to continuously produce electricity. Which not only could then be stored and then evacuated into the grid for transmission and distribution but the labour could be paid for by the power companies.

As per the survey conducted by Labour Bureau of the Government of India, 40 Million are unemployed with an Unemployment Rate of 9.4%. The survey was conducted in 28 States/UTs spread across the country in which about 99 per cent of the country’s population reside. It estimates that the population of the country is 1182 million with 63.5% in the working age of 15 – 59 years, however, not everyone who is in the working age is interested in joining the work force, so the worker population ratio is much lower. There are an estimated 238 million households, of which 172 million are rural and 66 million are urban. Out of the total population of the States/UTs covered, 872 million persons (73.8 per cent) live in rural areas and 310 million persons (26.2 per cent) live in urban areas.As per The-Pedal-A-Watt-Bicycle-Generator an average rider will produce between 125 and 300 watts. So even if we consider one-third of 872 million people, the mathematics works out to be a decent amount of power generation + employment scheme wrapped into one. Will the Governments listen ?

 

Related articles

• Trash to Cash: Water Hyacinth (ireport.cnn.com)
• Flowers in the News: Water Hyacinth Plants take over Africa’s Largest Lake (funflowerfacts.com)

 

Green Business Ideas – Banking on World Banks dire warnings!

As always, my limited knowledge in all things makes me strive for simple solutions to vexing problems. In this article too, I would try to wake the powers that be to start a movement of the masses, and not publishing reports which only the educated ( markedly different from the literate ) read.

World Bank fears devastating 4.0 degree warming – By Shaun Tandon (AFP)

WASHINGTON — The World Bank warned last Sunday that global temperatures could rise by four degrees this century without immediate action, with potentially devastating consequences for coastal cities and the poor.

Issuing a call for action, the World Bank tied the future wealth of the planet — and especially developing regions — to immediate efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions from sources such as energy production.

“The time is very, very short. The world has to tackle the problem of climate change more aggressively,” World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said on a conference call as he launched a report conducted for the global lender.

Even if nations fulfil current pledges, the study gave a 20 percent likelihood of a four-degree rise by 2100 and said that a three-degree rise appeared likely. UN-led climate negotiations have vowed to limit the rise of temperatures to no more than two degrees.

The dire warnings were designed to encourage bolder action, but the report did not focus on potential steps.

Identifying one area, Kim called for less reliance on coal, which is the dirtiest major form of energy but is politically sensitive in the United States and China due to industry jobs.

The report was carried out by German-based Climate Analytics and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. The World Bank said it did not consider the study a substitute for next UN-backed scientific assessment on climate change expected in 2014.

In another related article – Forest Conservation is Key to Food Security Terry Sunderland, senior researcher with the Center for International Forestry Research, CIFOR, based in Bogor, Indonesia said biodiversity contributes to food security on many levels.

“We are now dependent on only 20 crops for our food security.  At any one time, it is estimated that over 2,000 crop species contribute towards human food security, and 95 percent of food consumed is based on only 20 of those.  A few of those–rice, wheat, and maize–contribute to more than 50 percent of global food consumption. By narrowing our genetic base in terms of food, we are exposing ourselves to enormous risks, particularly with climate change.  He said widening our bio-resources not only provides nutritional benefits to humans but also provides more resilience to the dramatic effects of climate change.”

The U.N. estimates the world population will reach 9 billion by 2050, bringing with it a greater demand for food. Growing appetites could lead to greater deforestation as more trees are felled to make room for agriculture. The report recommended smarter agricultural practices to bring greater productivity on existing agricultural land.

There is a proposed U.N. mechanism to protect forests and ease climate change. It’s called REDD, which stands for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation in developing countries. The U.N. says REDD relies on the technical expertise of the Food and Agriculture Organization, the U.N. Development Program and the U.N. Environment Program. One of the goals is to include indigenous peoples and forest-dependent communities in policy making.

I waited these 6 days since Sunday last, to see the effect of the dire warnings! It did not even find a mention in the so called best News Channels ( which is watched by the “aam admi” = common man; also called the mango people by the rich & corrupt). Climate change report is too boring. Unless it changes into a deadly storm killing and damaging millions !

Digressing a little from the subject of my article, but perhaps equally pertinent, I could not help but notice that most News channels carried the recent escalation between Hamas & Israeli army. Each bombing the other, and having the potential of creating another War in the region, already strife – torn.

I wrote an article long back, asking the UN a simple question Will UNEP lose to UNSC to avert Global Warming? The way things are, I don’t think we have any statesmen left in the UNSC to join the dots which would lead them to the concerns of UNEP. My request to the readers is that when s/he reads the contents of the crackers which is the subject of this article, to pause and take the effort to browse the internet on what would be the contents of a real bomb, which are being dropped by all the Peace loving Nations, some at the behest of Noble Peace Prize winners in the bid to keep peace in this World.

While the Environment effects of War are well known by the UN and in a bid to curb this it has printed on quality paper many a resolutions, distributing multiple copies; I present two of them in a little more greener format. The first link from the UNHCHR and the  second link from an article named Environmental effects of Warfare by Lenntech, which is a must read shows how almost all of us know the misery War brings to the environment. The effect, War has over Water – Air – Soil are mind boggling. Yet, Nations after Nation amass Weapons of mass destruction and in the event of a conflict, destroy standing crop which could feed millions.

What is the cost of War to Sustainable Living ? The Avaaz Foundation, has raised some of the most pertinent questions  through “Six shocking facts of everyday life” on one particular place/region; however it is true in some form or other all around us. Although we don’t have the luxury of time and must tackle all problems pertaining to environmental degradation at once, we still need to educate the common person. The final architect of change. Because, sustainable living is a little more complicated than walking on a Green Carpet instead of a Red one to collect the best motion picture award for an environment documentary.

I would use the warning from the World Bank, to focus on the trade and business of Fire Crackers,( the demo version of the trade and business of armaments) . As it is the concern of loss of trade & business (on a more permanent basis, should the world sink underwater)  which has made the World Bank say what it has.

This image is as published in a DNA article  which the Avaaz Foundation released during “Diwali” or Deepawali (festival of lamps) a Hindu festival which once meant celebrating the conquest of good over evil and symbolically lighting a lamp to dispel darkness. And so it was celebrated till China invented the Firecrackers !

Now, each year thousands of Indians burn huge amount of money with determined purpose and glee to pollute the environment in every imaginable way possible. And although sporadic, but consistently beat up any Non – Avaaz  ( Avaaz in Hindi means Noise ) lovers who dare to protest. After all according to firecracker industry sources the high-street value of the industry should be over Rs 8,000 crore.

So every year India in the matter of just 2 days burns up Rs 8,000 crore to create pollution which directly and indirectly affect the life and limb of People and Planet. The article Risks in organised fireworks sector,  although sombre is just a tip of the ice-berg of problems associated with manufacture and use of firecrackers. Quoting a paragraph from the article -

Sadly, while in the past firecrackers were used mainly during Diwali it has now become de rigueur for almost every festival that is celebrated across the country. Even weddings, birthdays and other social events see the bursting of noisy firecrackers.
Successful candidates in elections — to parliament, state assemblies, local bodies, or even university and college posts — also believe in ‘celebrating’ their victories by bursting firecrackers. They are also burst by fans to celebrate the Indian cricket team’s victories both at home and abroad.

Courts in India have directed the authorities to impose a ban on the lighting of firecrackers after 10 pm, but these are observed more in the breach. Since the bursting of firecrackers has now become a national pastime, the police simply ignore the violations.

It becomes clear, that when money comes into play law is the first causality. Next, comes ignorance. With literacy being the main focus and not education, we have many literate buffoons sadly elected to legislate laws which they hardly themselves understand.

So how do we address this challenge? As usual, we convert it into a Green Business Idea. While I am not surprised that India does not have any calculation on the GHG emission caused by Firecrackers, and as bursting of fire-crackers is a World phenomenon ( Chinese are indeed the best businessmen); I found in an article posted in TreeHugger the annual U.S. emissions from fireworks: 60,340 tons!

If we assume this as India’s emission and bring into perspective Rs 8000 crore. We have an idea to propagate. Say we divide 60,340 / 8000 = 7.5 crore per tonne.We have the potential to earn Rupees 7.5 crore per tonne in abatement of bursting fire-crackers. I have deliberately not used the CDM method of calculating GHG emission  because it is so complex that the common man would simply give up and never would agree to “pay” the DOE. And why should they? In fact we can activate the miners club for mineral management and insist that better money be paid to those mine owners who do not allow the precious minerals dug up at the cost to the ecosystem be blown up thus. ( enlarge image to read the contents of a fire-cracker, its amazing what we do to our planets resources)

What if the concerned World Bank devices an instrument based on the assumed business worth of the fire-cracker industry; to measure the impact of GHG city wise in India and grants the Municipal organisation money each year for every GHG producing fire-cracker not burst? And also create a cess of say 20% to rehabilitate the workers and the industry owners towards sustainable business practice? Maybe the dire consequences of a 4°C could just be averted.

Sustainable Business is the best business. What we need is a Green Business Idea for every environmental problem present. Hope someone would draw the attention to my idea to World Bank President Jim Yong Kim. It could just have a chance to become a real tool perhaps, in the hands of better men.

Related articles

• Climate Scientists Applaud Dire World Bank Report (livescience.com)
• All nations will suffer effects of climate change, warns World Bank (guardian.co.uk)
• World Bank: Climate change could cause massive damage (usatoday.com)
• World Bank fears 4.0 degree warming (bigpondnews.com)
• Globe Risks ‘Cataclysmic Changes’ From Warming, World Bank Says (bloomberg.com)
• World Bank president invokes ‘moral responsibility’ to act on global warming (summitcountyvoice.com)

 

Hurricane Sandy & Cyclone Nilam – “Our cousins would be visiting soon”.

In the video section of my blog you will find a time lapse video of Hurricane Sandy. Around 2:14 minutes into the video, the lights of New York go out. Till then it is business as usual. Single mindedly producing GHG by consuming humongous amount of electricity produced by coal / oil fired thermal plants.

An Article by Ryan Patterson, USCAN Operations Director says -Both Presidential campaigns were put on pause this week as Hurricane Sandy converged with extraneous weather patterns and battered the East Coast with unprecedented force, prompting National Wildlife Federation climate scientist Amanda Staudt to describe the effects of climate change as akin to ‘putting hurricanes on steroids.’ This fatal event contributes even more evidence to the annals of climate change data, and some media have connected the storm to climate disruption, such as Bloomberg Businessweek, which ran a front page article titled It’s Global Warming, Stupid and CNN, which ran a story called Experts Warn of Superstorm Era to Come. Unfortunately, top politicians have not followed suit and have failed to publically connect the dots to climate change, which is dispiriting at best and unethical at worst.

With less than a week to Election Day, it is important to think about how we found ourselves in the position where key decision-makers are not substantially addressing climate, despite broad efforts by climate change activists. I will argue here that a band of carbon billionaires have effectively influenced public opinion and national and state legislation on climate change using a three-pronged strategy that funds think tanks, Astroturf campaigns, and legislative outreach…..(Source: Climate Action Network).

In 1988, UNEP and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) came together to create the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which has become the pre-eminent global source for scientific information relating to climate change.  The main international instrument on this subject, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was adopted in 1992.  And its Kyoto Protocol, which sets binding targets for 37 industrialized countries and the European community for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, was adopted in 1997. In 2002, the World Summit on Sustainable Development was held in Johannesburg, South Africa, from 26 August to 4 September 2002, to take stock of achievements, challenges and new issues arising since the 1992 Earth Summit. It was an “implementation” Summit, designed to turn the goals, promises and commitments of Agenda 21 into concrete, tangible actions. 2005 – 2014 is  the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development  and Agenda 21 is a comprehensive plan of action to be taken globally, nationally and locally by organizations of the United Nations System, Governments, and Major Groups in every area in which human impacts on the environment.

In 2012 with only 1 year 2 months to 2014, my Blog article What is Agenda 21 written to help propagate the great UN vision got a sum total of 5 HITS between 12th November 2011 to 6th March 2012.

Not that I did not try pasting the link to the article in my other blogs, especially the ones I title as Green Business Ideas. I doubt if even the kith and kin of CM Sheila Dikshit of New Delhi and Ex Mayor Shraddha Yadav of Mumbai, who were the signatories of the C40 Cities ( Urban Development Rules: How C40 -City rules can make a difference for India.) have even heard of these wonderful United Nations driven goals, leave alone the common people in my Country.

I have a decent 99 HITS to the C40 article, taking my efforts to spread sensible living to a mere 104 persons in total of 6 Billion people in this planet. I hope the UNFCCC has been doing better. Given it has been at it since 1988.

While Noble Rabindra Nath Tagore wrote – Jodi tor dak sune ….( A superb poem which tells you to walk alone towards the path of truth, irrespective of the following you get ). Unfortunately the time of the Mahathma Gandhi; who did walk alone; has changed.

Truth is what the Corporates tell you, through their selected mouth piece Politicians and media Barons. But Mother Nature has this silly habit of knocking down the tall claims made by tiny self-centred human. Every time. So when both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama chose not to mention the “C” word, Hurricane Sandy felt offended and came visiting and sent cousin Hurricane Nilam to India, to remind the Annex II countries not to feel to smug about the disaster hitting the most uncooperative Annex I country in the Kyoto Protocol.

In my (4 HITS received till date, clearly underscores how unimportant a news it is compared to Hollywood / Bollywood actors affairs, which get a media frenzy) article Sustainable Development is urgent : IPCC’s special report on Climate risks I presented the SEREX report a few points I would highlight below -

EXPOSURE AND VULNERABILITY

1.Exposure and vulnerability are dynamic, varying across temporal and spatial scales, and depend on economic, social, geographic, demographic, cultural, institutional, governance, and environmental factors (high confidence).

2.Settlement patterns, urbanization, and changes in socio-economic conditions have all influenced observed trends in exposure and vulnerability to climate extremes (high confidence).

DISASTER LOSSES
1.Economic losses from weather and climate-related disasters have increased, but with large spatial and inter-annual variability (high confidence, based on high agreement, medium evidence).

2.Economic, including insured, disaster losses associated with weather, climate, and geophysical events are higher in developed countries. Fatality rates and economic losses expressed as a proportion of GDP are higher in developing countries (high confidence).

3.Increasing exposure of people and economic assets has been the major cause of the long-term increases in economic losses from weather and climate-related disasters (high confidence).

4.Long-term trends in economic disaster losses adjusted for wealth and
population increases have not been attributed to climate change, but a role for climate change has not been excluded (medium evidence, high agreement).

The report touches on many aspects in great detail and was published as the 4th Assessment Report of IPCC last year. I would want people to pause at the digit 4th. The 5th report is on its way.

Wonder how much that would help the common persons who are lead as sheep to the slaughter house by the willy Politician – Corporate out to make a quick buck. After all disasters do help in the business of rebuilding. What fun! Too bad, loss of life and limb happens. But statistics show far greater people die in their sleep don’t they?

Exposure and Vulnerability; Disaster losses. one can almost feel the despair and frustration of all those who have burnt the proverbial mid-night oil to compile a Report, detailed and accurate as humanly possible to help the Leaders of this World to address Climate change with Vision and Statesmanship.

$1 trillion in infra at any cost, Singh tells his 77: Prime minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday told the 77 ministers in his cabinet the government’s target of $1 trillion investments in infrastructure over the next five years “must be met at any cost”.That translates into Rs53.71 lakh crore, or more than Rs10 lakh crore a year, over the 12th Plan period of 2012-17…….“To do so, we will have to overcome the constraints that currently deter or slow down this investment.” The prime minister listed fuel supply arrangements, security and environmental clearances and financing difficulties among the constraints and said the growing gap between demand and supply of energy had emerged as a major roadblock to development.
I can almost hear the chain saws gnawing at the last remaining forest cover, to reach for the coal beneath. “Development at any cost” the new Indian Mantra.

The Stern Review states that climate change is the greatest and widest-ranging market failure ever seen, presenting a unique challenge for economics.The Review provides prescriptions including environmental taxes to minimise the economic and social disruptions. The Stern Review’s main conclusion is that the benefits of strong, early action on climate change far outweigh the costs of not acting.The Review points to the potential impacts of climate change on water resources, food production, health, and the environment. According to the Review, without action, the overall costs of climate change will be equivalent to losing at least 5% of global gross domestic product (GDP) each year, now and forever. Including a wider range of risks and impacts could increase this to 20% of GDP or more. The Review proposes that one percent of global GDP per annum is required to be invested in order to avoid the worst effects of climate change. In June 2008, Stern increased the estimate for the annual cost of achieving stabilisation between 500 and 550 ppm CO₂e to 2% of GDP to account for faster than expected climate change.

It is said that unless we stop and reverse the Global temperature rise by 2017, we shall be locked into a high carbon growth for the next 50 years with Climate related disasters and its related abatement cost dogging the civilization, with millions in life and property is lost.

Yet, the World Leaders blinded by myopic vision, site economic gurus who unfortunately are born of a flawed economic system, who go back to the time when that flawed system was in its nascent stage and showed false growth and prosperity. By this I mean the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. The vast untapped resources were not yet exploited and thus the impact of “pollution” an unknown term then. And it had not manifested itself with the terrible consequences which we see now. While the Revolution is singularly responsible for the growth of Human understanding in every field, including the impacts of human induced climate change, applying the same economic measures and datum now is nothing short of foolhardy in the present circumstances.

Now is the time for us to search for leaders who would be able to stand tall and proud as Gandhi. Leaders not afraid to walk the path away from the beaten track. And should that be a problem then we still can walk the path  the Mahatma showed in his concept of a Sustainable Village or Gram Swaraj.

Visionaries are not born every day and civilization which forget the thoughts of visionaries do so at their own peril. While it is easy to catalogue the devastation of a Katrina or a Sandy or a Nilam, what is of profound importance now is that the United Nations must through its good offices bring around the USA, Canada, Japan and others who talk of not ratifying the KP-2 or any similar or better economic idea which might just be able to hold off the cousins of Sandy & Katrina from visiting too soon.

Perhaps UNFCCC-Doha may after all see the birth of a new Economic order born out of respect for the Ecology.

Related articles

• VIDEO: Cyclone Nilam hits Indian coast (bbc.co.uk)
• Sandy and Nilam: Why do these names stand for! (arindammohapatra.wordpress.com)
• Global Warming Meme Powers Hurricane Coverage (weeklyintercept.blogspot.com)

 

Sustainable Mining should be The BASICs agenda at UNFCCC-Doha.

One of the most vexing questions which need to be tackled in the run-up to UNFCCC -Doha is the agenda of discussion here. The issue of Economically Sustainable Development vs Ecologically Sustainable Development, and how to really boost the RET’s. And how the people must manoeuvre the thought of the leaders towards concrete results.

BRASILIA, Brazil — Brazil, South Africa, India and China are urging developed countries to adopt more ambitious goals to reduce global warming.The four countries form the bloc known as BASIC and representatives on Friday ended a two-day meeting to define a common position ahead of November’s United Nations’ climate change conference in Doha. BASIC acts jointly in international climate change meetings.They say developed nations must assume stronger emission reduction commitments under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol that is aimed at stemming pollution and global warming. It has been opposed by the United States. (The Associated Press Published: Friday, Sep. 21, 2012)

Was this ambition to do more about Global Warming anything to do with the report below ? For Politicians too can be affected by death and disease ? Will the world leaders finally wake up to doing something concrete at the grass root level or still devise methods of corporate enrichment, using the bogey of Climate change abatement?

Global warming may be spurring the spread of Cyanobacteria, one of the most primitive of bugs, while causing them to produce greater amounts of toxins, which may affect liver, nervous system and eyes, according to a study. “These toxins may affect the liver and other organs (hepatotoxins), the nervous system (neurotoxins), different cells (cytotoxins), the eyes and mucous membranes, as well as causing dermatitis and allergies,” explains Francisca F. del Campo, study co-author and researcher at the Autonomous University of Madrid. (IANS : Jul 4, 2012,)

MUMBAI: Global warming is expected to intensify extreme precipitation, but the rate at which it does so in the tropics has remained unclear. Now an MIT study has given an estimate based on model simulations and observations: With every 1 degree Celsius rise in temperature, the study finds, tropical regions will see 10 percent heavier rainfall extremes, with possible impacts for flooding in populous regions.”The study includes some populous countries that are vulnerable to climate change,” says Paul O’Gorman, the Victor P. Starr Career Development Assistant Professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT, “and impacts of changes in rainfall could be important there.” ( read rest if of article in Global warming to affect rainfall)

But, when one reads it again, one tends to wonder as to why India which is an equal partner in the fight for Climate change hardly takes centre stage in innovating any movement. That Dr. R.K.Pachauri sits at the top in the UNFCCC, seems to be the only achievement way back in the past when India mattered. Even when the TOI report states below that Mumbai would surely see another flood, sooner than later not a ripple is created in the Media or social circle. Should one read the C40 program, one would understand why such a thing is important. Although India was not the innovator of this program, both Mumbai and New Delhi are signatories. Yet I can bet my last inflation effected Rupee that not many a Citizen in both the Megalopolis know about it. Forget C40 program, I would not know how many in the administration know that you don’t cross the Zebra line, when you stop at a traffic signal. Or for that matter drive in lane.

As alien a concept to the leaders as to the public, the simple fact of driving in lane, can cut a better percentage of fuel consumption in a vehicle, simply because if one can cruise at a standard speed, instead of snaking between vehicles and pedestrians; the clutch and gears are less used. Which saves fuel.  It saves – Money! It also allows for less wear & tear of the roads and the citizens, who having more energy to work and not negotiate roads give that much more to Nation building. And as we well know by now “money does not grow on trees“. the dialogue made famous by our head of Government. It was only during the first Iraq conflict - The Desert Storm; that the PCRA had come up with sustained campaign to save fuel. But now our leaders are happy by simply increasing the fossil fuel cost, without an attempt to innovation. Forget innovation, our leaders do not even have the gumption to in-force the laws as simple as road discipline which can save so much of the exchequer. It is a telling commentary on their “ability to govern”.

The reason is simple. While the World is moving towards creating The CEO as statesman; some are more focussed in creating Politicians as CEO’s,  which in the process would be harmful to the Ecosystem as personal profit would become more supreme than National good. In the Essay by Ethical Corporation; The CEO as statesman  – The reach and impacts of today’s global corporations mean that, like it or loathe it, business leaders cannot ignore international relations, and global issues such as sustainable development.

Frankly, I would prefer a Politician to be a CEO, should s/he be able to rise above partisan thinking and innovate methods & laws to develop both business and the ecosystem in a balanced way. I do concede it’s a utopian thought, but wishful thinking is not yet a crime.

Therefore the CEO it would seem, is moving towards actual sensible approach to the problems vexing the planet. Or rather, to do plane speak; that would be the ideal solution. Because, all said and done; barring a very few, most are still applying the same hackneyed idea of business and hoping to succeed in fooling the people all over again. Any business is being sold by using the adage, green without actually understanding the core meaning in it.  By just using the adage, Green to everything that they are doing both the Politician and the CEO is playing with fire.

Reading another report in the DNA newspaper on the recent coal scam; a cold sweat broke when I thought how even this could be turned into a Green agenda! How long would it take for the spin-doctors to say, that the inquiry which has led to de-allocation of coal blocks, has saved huge tracts of virgin forest, while at the same time make a windfall profit by importing Coal ? From whichever Nation it be imported; most presumably another of the BASIC Nation or perhaps Australia. But how does this abate GHG ? It is just transfer of one’s dirt to another country. The faulty basis on which the Koyto Protocol began in the first place; even though the intent behind is was, and still is greater good. So, why not change the datum on the approach to CDM ?

For example,a report suggest; the energy derived from coal in India is about twice that of energy derived from oil, as against the world, where energy derived from coal is about 30% lower than energy derived from oil.

Thus Coal would always stay in the near future as India’s most important energy source. Therefore what must be done to balance the requirement of legitimate human developmental needs, against the odds stacked heavily against use of high GHG producing energy source ? The Green idea I propose here is simple. Declare Coal as the most lucrative CDM revenue earner and open the purse strings of the GCF on this regard. But only one rider must stay. Limit the destructions of life-forms. And have a MRV in place. Be it a rodent, a bird or a tree, document the destruction and make it public.

It is time that the BASIC countries, especially India while raising the issue at UNFCCC- Doha its right to develop; also propose the idea to ban open-cast mining! So, what is the option as opposed to open-cast mining ? The traditional methods off-course! BUT with a difference. Let most of the mining done be robotic. Not only it would save life & limb of humans it would also limit the other collateral destruction related to mining.

The technology is already there to go deep underground,without disturbing what is above. Be it creating the tunnel for the Higgs-Boson experiment in the Large Hadron Collider;  creating underground experiment to find Dark matter or the English Channel Tunnel which not only vindicates my argument but also shows how Public-Private partnership works; extraction of Coal with limited destruction to the ecosystem above must become mandatory. Until we do find the solution to endless clean energy. The balanced approach which India did take  while constructing India-based Neutrino Observatory, which looked into the various aspect of Environment; must also become norm for mining of minerals including coal via underground shafts only. Therefore, I repeat that we know the technology, we have the funds to conduct experiment which are extremely costly; the same approach must be adopted with creating innovative clauses in the existing CDM mandate; and let the balance between Economy Vs Ecology for future growth be the focus agenda at UNFCCC – Doha.

And what could be the real icing on the cake is, the energy which would be required to power these machines can come from CSP installed in close vicinity. Thus large amount of diesel which is required to fire the generators to turn the conveyors would be limited. And the site-offices can easily work with day-time solar power. This would not only encourage responsible eco-system management, but also boots various business opportunities in the nascent RET industry. Adding some more comments I had mentioned in my previous article Green Business Ideas – Abandoned coalfields can boost RE and save forest in India. We the environmentally concious can really make a case to the business viability of the suggestions.

For, without business interest, none would be interested. Even the die-hard activist needs money to buy bread, and for that there has to be a source of income. Let’s not become rebels without a cause, but rebel for the cause of Nature and change the datum of development.

In-fact, it is my direct appeal to WRI, Greenpeace -International; CAN – International and UNEP / UNDP that they support such an initiative. It is time humans start respecting life especially at the UNFCC level. In my article Killing is not a crime,only Murder is; The difficulty of preaching Sustainable Living.; I’ve tried to show how we narrow our focus, while talking of right to live. Unless this changes, real progress towards sustainable economy will  take longer time than we presently have. To save this planet from climate change due to human intervention.

Related articles

• 4 nations wants global warming commitments (sacbee.com)
• Brazil, South Africa, India and China want stronger commitments to reduce global warming (vancouverdesi.com)
• BASIC group calls for adoption of ‘Kyoto 2′ in Doha (vancouverdesi.com)
• UNFCCC Newsletter #31 (junkscience.com)
• Kyoto Protocol: How is the UN’s flagship climate project faring ahead of COP18? (rtcc.org)
• Rockefeller and UN join forces to highlight women’s climate role (rtcc.org)
• Vulnerable islands call for urgent action ahead of Doha climate talks (rtcc.org)
• Action on climate change crucial to water and food security (bikyamasr.com)
• UN Climate Scientists Plead for Immunity from Criminal Prosecution..WTF? (seeker401.wordpress.com)
• Climate change finance promises not being kept, says new DARA report (rtcc.org)

 

Will religion succeed in averting Global Warming ?

 

As recent reports  are confirming that the Arctic Ice is melting to unprecedented levels. Nations are rubbing their hands in glee as they wait to capture large tracts of hereto untouched and unreachable areas for commercial exploitations of oil, gas and minerals. That overt War is a possibility and the covert war must have already started, can not be overlooked.

And all these while odes are being sung on the dangers of Global Warming and Climate Change at the UN level !

The day the first drill for gas exploration touches the Arctic, its would be time to pack up the UNFCCC. There would be no need for such an organization which can not do what it was set up for. But the failure would not be of that organization alone. It would be of the total human race, which would have allowed such a thing to happen.

While I have always conceded that the change to more cleaner and sustainable energy is necessary, that it can’t happen overnight is fully understood by any serious environment advocate.

But surely we must have a NO GO ZONE !! All the signatories of the various climate related treaties and those who have acknowledged the UNFCCC’s 4th Assessment report know the dangers of exploiting the polar ice caps. So what is it that there is complete disconnect between action and words ?

Within the limited understanding I have, I would like to delve for once into the mind of the human race and perhaps we may still be able to find the answer we all seek – To live and let live.

Krishna, Jesus, Vardhaman Mahavir, Mohammed, Buddha, Guru Nanak – All taught tolerance and sustainable life style. Take any religious text and the message on Sustainable Living is clear. All faithful would swear that they walk the path of their Lord God. If it was so then where did the message of Sustainable Living go wrong in our quest for modern Civilization ?

Perhaps the root cause of this can be found in the present day economic model we follow. That it was imperfect, is obvious had the grand masters of Economics read the religious texts. But they did not and so here we are with a Warming Globe which is completely man-made instead of the natural cycle the Earth followed for millennia.

Stating from the Hindu religious texts, of which I’m most familiar – Hinduism primarily does not denote a religion… it is always considered a way of life! Hinduism primarily stands for truths of life… the essence of life!

“It is better to strive in one’s own dharma than to succeed in the dharma of another. Nothing is ever lost in following one’s own dharma. But competition in another’s dharma breeds fear and insecurity.” ~ Krishna from The Bhagavad Gita

On a larger scale, dharma means “the essential order of things, an integrity and harmony in the universe and the affairs of life that cannot be disturbed without courting chaos. Thus it means rightness, justice, goodness, purpose rather than chance.”  ( Courtesy – http://personallifemedia.com)

Those who eat too much or eat too little, who sleep too much or sleep too little, will not succeed in meditation. But those who are temperate in eating and sleeping, work and recreation, will come to the end of sorrow through meditation.Still your mind in me, still yourself in me, and without a doubt you shall be united with me,Lord of Love, dwelling in your heart. ~ Krishna from the Bhagavad Gita  ( Courtesy – http://www.scribd.com)

Gandhiji not only gave India its freedom but also gave the world and us a new thought on non-violence and sustainable living. His teachings and experiments are more valid today than ever before, especially when we are trying to find solutions to worldwide greed, violence and runaway consumptive lifestyle which are putting a very heavy burden on the world’s resources. (Courtesy -http://www.nariphaltan.org).

We all need this Earth to survive and thrive. With myopic vision the only thing we shall achieve is our own Extinction.

Related articles

• Climate change expert calls for nuclear power ‘binge’ to avert global warming (guardian.co.uk)
• Reminder: Republican Stance on Global Warming (ireport.cnn.com)
• “Good & Evil Is a Huge Collective Myth” – Says His Holiness Paramahamsa Nithyananda (prweb.com)
• The Bhagavad Gita: Gateway to ineffable peace and bliss (indowaves.wordpress.com)
• mount on the desires (advocatemmmohanaksharaalu.wordpress.com)

 

 

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)

 

The road to Rio+20 – Thoughts to ponder on the way

As the road to Rio+20 nears, there is hope that after 20 long years, may be it is time that the World would listen up and do something about Climate change in a more positive manner than what has been seen in the last UNFCCC meet. By that what we mean is concrete change in the ground, not just resolutions and policies, which doe not get as much ground swell it should get to make an impact.

During the recent World discussion held by Unilever and later the Sustainability 24 on-line conference by Accenture; there are two thing which were the most striking. The first, there are many in this World who have some really meaningful solutions which can be built from ground up to help society make the positive change required and the next; one does not need to travel 1000 miles by Air, rail & road accumulating a massive  Carbon-footprint to talk about Climate Change.

English: Graphic illustrating the percentages of public opinions on the likelihood of some scientists falsifying global warming research. Based on Rasmussen polling of 1,000 American adults conducted July 29-30, 2011. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If one pauses and looks from the perspective of those who deny climate change, and answer their fundamental question about why they should adapt to a reduced carbon life-style; one would be in loss of words to justify the carbon foot print each UNFCCC and its related meet creates when it is the very thing we want to reduce.

English: The carbon footprint as it is understood by people. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Seriously does the UNFCCC even think of mapping its carbon-footprint every-time the UN conducts these meets? The amount of  energy and water that is required by the host Nation to sustain the hundreds to congregate at those summits ? Add the support staff and the other logistics and it is one huge foot-print. And for the last 20 years we are creating this huge Carbon foot-print, to meet up and talk on how to abate Global Warming, and going by what the lead institutions like CAN International, Green Peace International and many more, there is much to be desired.

Let no one for a minute mistake my intention. I would never deride the stupendous work that has been achieved till date by the effort of hundreds of dedicated people, more knowledgeable and sincere;  I’m sure I have not even learnt, heard or thought of, what they may have already chosen to implement. But having said that, 20 years is a long time for the world to take a quantum leap in the way we communicate. What may not have been possible 10 years ago, such as VoIP, has become easy and inexpensive tool to be used even by children.

But, VoIP ( Voice over Internet Protocol), such as Skype, CISCO systems; is not a child’s play but a serious business which has the potential of reducing many ills in the present form of Urban living and reducing the Carbon foot-print. I had covered this in an earlier article in detail, VoIP – “Skype” the new medium to reduce Global Warming ?  Therefore I would like to move to the next existing business, which we can think of “greening” in our present Urban life-style.

And that is – eliminating THRASH.

New and upcoming Urban spaces can if it wants stop generating thrash, for landfills. What is required are zones where all the garbage disposed, especially bio-degradable waste be turned into gas via installing small gasifier. They may be small units but when one evacuates the energy thus developed directly into the grid, the amount of power received is huge.

For the non bio-degradable waste, what one can do is incentivize  the materials.

Say for example a 1lt  plastic water bottle, when one sells to the local “kabaddi wala” ( rag-picker / thrash collector ) in Mumbai, he gives you a mere 0.50 Paisa. For the international readers, let me translate the sum US$ 1 = INR 55 approximate today. We are talking of half of INR 1.  Don’t try and convert in dollars as it would be a decimal amount so small that it is not worth the mental effort. And that is exactly where I want to arrive. Value of the product. The intrinsic value not the face value.

Why would not a common person, without a second thought throw away a plastic wrapper  on the street, unless s/he is sure of two basic things -

a) He will not be punished, as it is culturally accepted. ( with revulsion of many and with resigned fate, as the governance, both self and administrative is lacking in India )

b) He will not get any money worth the mention, to have it sold for re-cycling.

But, Governments and environmentalist know the true value of a plastic bottle. If one just does a life cycle analysis and map the foot-print of a bottle from its manufacture, to its journey to a bottling plant to the retail unit, the value spent on it is huge. And also equally huge are the sum which are allocated, every year to decongest clogged drains, clean up ocean floors which are turning into desert because of the trash. Add to that the perceived economic loss to the fishing industry.

So what are the things one can do?  Let us explore  some Ideas -

1. Collection van to pick up all things made of metal; let’s assume municipal authorities all over the World and hopefully in India wake up to legislate a simple rule.                                                                                                                                               a) Pay the actual value for the metal.This can be easily derived from the cost it takes to do maintenance and upkeep of the Urban space, in absence of a collection program. Help set up recycle plants wherever the need is and issue diktat to existing plants which are the original manufacturers of the product to show use of recycled materials. For example, The Construction Business in India generates a lot of waste metal and has a more or less a well established method of collection of the same. This is because steel/iron rods have been given a value which is  worth the effort to recycle as re-rolled steel has its own market.

b) Sensitize the masses, through sustained advertisement, this too I have touched in more detail in UNFCCC – A Little Advertisement can help save Earth. Very few among us correlate Plastic bottle to petroleum, but that is a fact. Therefore when we do not add value to a plastic bottle, in its scrap form, we are hurtling towards extinction. There are many products which are derived from petroleum some of which I covered in the article Save Petroleum form Extinction – Save Earth !  which we discard without a second thought. It is important that laws be legislated to offer a minimum value to these when they are  discarded so that a scientific method of collection can be applied.

Once this is done, a new Business avenue can open up for those who are enterprising, by collecting and segregating products and perhaps reselling them to the original product manufacturers who thus get to “green” their supply chain.

I have seen and heard many examples of how difficult it is for asking a common person to segregate Wet and Dry waste / bio-degradable and non bio-degradable waste; but limited success is found. I speak especially of India. To all the “Pundits”( wise men) of the trade I put one simple thought -

Give a common person a bag full of Gold, Silver, Copper and Tin coins. Observe the speed and dexterity s/he uses in segregating it.

The day, the UNFCCC declares that the term waste can not be applied on products and the World Bank issues a diktat that a proper value is attached to the scrap, we shall see a sea change in thoughts. And for those who would be thinking, where would we find the fund to apply this thought. I request them to look into the fundamentals of this idea and the problem “waste” creates. They will have their answers. And the best part is, being the leaders in economics they would find the most economical way to address the situation.

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• Live coverage from RTCC at Rio+20 (rtcc.org)
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The World Environment Day!- and the customary Lip service.

The World Environment Day; it really warms my heart to see how the World has geared up to the challenges of Global Warming and Climate Change. In our busy schedule of raping and ripping the World apart and hurtling headlong towards Armageddon, with a 3.5 °C rise in temperature, we have the grace to give one full day in a Year to it. And for those who complain it is not enough we have The Earth Day & The Earth Hour. Come on, you can’t have the same program, agenda or even the same name a full 3 times in a year! Get real, the TRP’s would fall, and the newsprint copies would not sell, because the writers can’t think of saying anything new within such short spell. It needs a full year to put the spin on the same old promises, so that they seem fresh and appealing. So if you pick up any newspaper or watch the News, chances are that a mention on World Environment day, would be on the 10th page or a 90 sec mention would feature in your prime time news. As for an advertisement in your favourite entertainment channel. No chance.

When it comes to informing the uninformed, awaking the populace from slumber, while the juggernaut of catastrophe is hurtling towards us, read the SREX report and Stern Review, for details and understand the seriousness therein. The media, sadly, is still not waking up to the challenge and its duty to spread this information.

Sometime ago the 4th annual Greenathon; a program on spreading the message on Sustainability was conducted by NDTV. It is a hugely popular program and is very successful, at least for us climate lovers. But even in my housing colony, I could not find a single person who had heard of this in the last 4 years. And my housing society has some of the most educated lot of people who watch News regularly. I did not bother to ask the children, the average age being 13. NDTV is a NEWS channel which conducts its program in English, which is not the native tongue for most Indians. However, Greenathon is a popular program and  for most of us who are one way or other been attached with all things Green watch it with dedication. And a lot does get done through this program. Some of our film actors take up villages and donate money to provide it them with Solar lamps and spread knowledge about other things Green.

Satellite image of ship tracks, clouds created by the exhaust of ship smokestacks. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

But what it does for the whole year post the Greenathon ? Well, not much because as I had said earlier, I do not see any programs which are spreading awareness about climate change in a consistent manner in India. And that is unless the 4th Estate makes a determined effort to spread the message in a consistent and continued manner, spread over all the 52 weeks in a year, we shall not be able to make much headway. And NDTV by itself may not be able to spread this message to every nook and corner of this country fast enough, in my opinion. If one logs on to the  NDTV website, it can not find a link named “Green”, and this is the missing link in what should not  have been, especially when there is so much fanfare in showcasing it.

And no you can not find that the link Green in CNN nor in BBC web pages either.

But if one opens the home page of MSN the guys who run the famous “hotmail.com” you would find a link called “Green” in it with very relevant stories.

The Keeling Curve of atmospheric CO 2 concentrations measured at the Mauna Loa Observatory. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Not everyone types green, in the search area to find what both CNN’s Road to Rio or NDTV’s Greenathon is upto. What it shows is, that while there may be some very serious persons who are driving these programs, it is more of a personal agenda than a norm; else why not a direct link in the main ribbon of the home page? And if premier NEWS and information channels, whose opinions are taken very seriously around the World have such half-hearted and almost apologetic approach towards Climate change, how would we be able to make an impact? There is no denying of the Pen is always mightier than the Sword; and the reach and depth of penetration the NEWS channels have, especially the good ones, can not be explained in words. This half hearted approach, is disappointing.  It is not enough to write an article and a TV program once in a while but the World media and press should make a concerted effort in spreading this information daily.

Just as a Horoscope or a Cartoon strip, small news with links for further read should be showcased in every Newsprint in the first page itself  365 days. And most importantly have them translated into regional languages.

It is perhaps only then we may just have a fighting chance before the SREX report and Stern review becomes a frightening reality.

It is time to speak about our planet everyday and help in keeping its heart beating.

 

Green Business Innovation : Offices can now print on a E-paper and save forest.

 

Architects typically work with large-format drawings on 24 by 36-inch or larger paper. Most architectural firms have their own large-format printers or plotters to print and copy computer-generated drawings. Architects and construction houses waste a lot of paper. Even when they design a LEED building. Because the way most of them work is not sustainable at all, this I covered in my earlier article, Green Buildings – How most of them are really made, the inside story.

The reason for this is simple. The corporates which run these architectural houses are mostly developers who have become so callused by the “system” which runs India, that they have lost the perspective of good and bad. For most of them Sustainability is another “task” and “Green norms” are an impediment which they need to give a lip service too. Thus one would see, even for a small correction or revision, entire design sheets are printed, minimum 3 prints of size A -Zero.

Since trees come in all different sizes, it is difficult to estimate how much paper comes from one tree, however according to one paper manufacturer, a cord of wood measuring 4 feet by 4 feet by 8 feet produces nearly 90,000 sheets paper. Taking the last census report, India’s total population was around 1,20,00,00,000. If every Indian save one sheet of paper a day approximately 15,000 Trees can be saved. If 15,000 Trees can be saved just by not wasting one sheet of paper a day, imagine of how many trees can be saved if we become more  prudent in our approach.

Let us consider some interesting facts which I have gathered from various sources -

1. Consider this: according to the state government of Australia, over 600,000 tonnes of paper and cardboard are sent to landfill in NSW every year. Australians as a whole use 210,000 tonnes of office paper each year – and much of this is not from recycled sources but from virgin forests.

2. In the USA The average student uses about 11 sheets of paper per day. The school year goes on average 180 days so this would equal to 23,760 sheets for 12 years.

3. A Seattle based study found that businesses typically throw away about half of all documents within 24 hours of printing. In fact, about 170 tons of paper is sent to Seattle’s landfills each day from Seattle businesses.

For every dollar spent on printing documents, companies typically incur $6 in handling and distribution costs, according to a Xerox study.

Over the course of a year Seattle paper waste contributes about 9,500 metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the same as the emissions from consuming 972,000 gallons of gasoline. 

This is a study by Xerox of one American city, in India and rest of the developing world we do not have such studies done or reports published. Simply because we do not think this as a problem which needs urgent and immediate attention.

But such problems can not be defined locally any more. The devastation in Japan  a year back has come to haunt the American West coast in form of  Billion ton of debris. Similarly the decimation of rain forests for pulp & paper industry would lead to unprecedented challenges more severe than what we have experienced till date and it would not be their locally. This is known to all, yet we fail to arrest easily achievable targets, such as reduction on dependence on Paper. We all know by now that it is somewhere between difficult and impossible to have a paperless office/school . But how much paper do we consume unnecessarily? It is no more possible to contain the problem by raising ones personal bar as to when one needs a paper copy of something from the computer. Strong legislation are required which would make it near mandatory that unless you′re printing something super important,(which can be defined and refined on a weekly/monthly basis by each corporation) one must  save ink and paper by tracking changes in electronic documents.

To make this legislation work, one must however understand the fundamental barrier. We still like to hold up a piece of paper in our hand and look at it from time to time, jot notes directly at the margins, rather than type for every little corrections. Moreover, for architects and other engineering professionals, physically scanning the page from top to bottom, is more sure-fire way to spot  an error than scrolling a large drawing and zooming in and out of it. It simply does not work ! I know that from personal experience. So how does one adhere to reduction of paper use and not face the cumbersome process of electronic tracking on a small computer screen ?

The answer lies in using something with is instantly portable, transferable, editable and yet not a traditional paper. E-Paper ! Yes, something which was born in the 1970′s has matured enough to be taken seriously. The first flexible EPD for consumers could be available in Europe in 2012 itself.

This is one of the spectacular proof that, it is the Business and Industry which will finally be the torch bearers of abatement to Climate Change and Global Warming. And innovation should get support from all quarters to survive the vagaries of market forces. And ones which are as important as Saving forest and whole eco-system the Governments should support it. But before we put some thought as to how we can support and grow such ideas let us understand what it is -

Electronic paper, e-paper and electronic ink are display technologies which are designed to mimic the appearance of ordinary ink on paper. Unlike conventional backlit flat panel displays which emit light, electronic paper displays reflect light like ordinary paper. Many of the technologies can hold static text and images indefinitely without using electricity, while allowing images to be changed later. Flexible electronic paper uses plastic substrates and plastic electronics for the display backplane.

Electronic paper display (EPD) is often considered to be more comfortable to read than conventional displays.This is due to the stable image, which has no need to be refreshed constantly and has a wider viewing angle. An ideal e-paper display can be read in direct sunlight without the image appearing to fade. The contrast ratio in available displays as of 2008 might be described as similar to that of newspaper, though newly-developed displays are slightly better.There is ongoing competition among manufacturers to provide full-color ability.
Applications of electronic visual displays include electronic pricing labels in retail shops, and digital signage,time tables at bus stations,electronic billboards, mobile phone displays, and e-readers able to display digital versions of books and e-paper magazines. Electronic paper should not be confused with digital paper, which is a pad to create handwritten digital documents with a digital pen.

What an innovation. A genius of the human brain which can bring about sea change in the way we work. Tied to a e-book reader, a tablet, a computer and a smart phone, this was perhaps the penultimate tool, which can eliminate maximum use of paper; before we can adopt interactive projections in thin air in front of us, as shown in Sci-fi cinemas and is  some more time in becoming a reality for common persons to have.

So what could be the immediate uses, other than being another TV or a display kiosk? To my mind it can be used for printing architectural drawings, and each of these sheet can be reused till the final design to be produced is readied. And only those need be printed. Sure there would be trials and errors but human always find methods if there is a will. It could also act as submission sheets during class tests which are held with regularity in schools to prepare children for their annual and mid-term exams. The data can always be transferred into flash -drives for storage, thus refreshing the sheets for reuse, while still retaining record of previous data. Perhaps News corporations could devise ways where one could download the “News Paper view” form e-papers which already exist in the web and in fact they can rent out the flex-sheets, and charge as they would for the subscription. It is common knowledge that  amount of pulp that required daily to publish news papers are humongous.

But, as with Renewable Energy, such high technology would come at a price which would not be within reach of the common person. And here the Governments, guided by the UNEP and other responsible organisations like the World Bank, World Resources Institute, Climate Action International, Green Peace, Carbon Disclosure Project etc should come together to focus in finding the right financial instruments which would help scale it and make it affordable. In fact small amounts from those that are pledged under various programs to arrest deforestation and abate climate change could be pooled to make such innovations; I’m sure many more equally important are around the corner; a success.

In fact if the news paper readers from world over could just contribute $1 the amount would be huge, and in the bargain the Earth would gain.

Courtesy: howstuffworks.com, articlecity.com, bloglines.com, ask.com, click4carbon.com, wikipedia

 

 

Save Petroleum form Extinction – Save Earth !

Mean surface temperature change for 1999–2008 relative to the average temperatures from 1940 to 1980 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Petroleum products Nylon zippers, ballet tights,plastic hangers, pantyhose, permanent press clothing, flip flops/thongs, fake fur, polyester clothing, ball point pens ink, computer diskettes, computers copiers, magic markers, telephones, microfilm, cameras, earphones, footballs, knitting needles, tennis racquets, golf balls,  stuffed animals, band aids, Vaseline, rubbing alcohol, Pepto-Bismol hair colouring, soap, cough syrup, hair spray, lipstick, denture, adhesives, egg cartons, candles, wax paper, nylon spatulas, Teflon pans, Formica linoleum, garden hoses, plungers,  floor wax, Plexiglas, balloons, CDROMs, check book covers, video cassettes, credit cards, dice, watch bands, Plastic furniture… If I recycle these and don’t use…Petrol, Diesel, Kerosene, LPG,  Anti-freeze, trash bags, shopping bags, spray paint, freezer bags, plastic bottles (Each year, 1.5 million barrels of oil go to making plastic water bottles used in the United States. Less than 25% are recycled)….I get to save Petroleum. I reduce Global Warming and save the petroleum for more productive use than burning it all up or thrashing it to fill up land-fills.

Climate_Change_Attribution_fr (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So will Rio+20 UNFCCC meet think about these? Create awareness? If it needs to convince the World to turn around and reverse the 3.5°C rise in temperature, it needs to think and think from the view point of how to save our most precious resource, petroleum.

The one and only Petroleum, which helped us move away from wearing the Shakespearian tights to the colourful nylon stockings. Thus heralding the modern era, where we no more die of charcoal fumes but coal, petrol, nuclear etc a whole mix of deadly fumes as it helped in quantum jump of the Industrial revolution. If that is not progress, what is ?

On a more sombre note; More than six billion men, women and children will inhabit urban areas around the world in 2050 when the global population would have surged to nine billion, putting stress on the natural resources that supply energy and food. The Earth resources are finite, be it Land, Potable water or Forest cover and the minerals which are trapped under the forest cover. And it does not take a genius to understand that per capita profit is directly related to the amount of product and produce you have for trade.

Therefore, in the Rio+20 summit, let us not talk about Global Warming and Climate change and how important it is to abate it to ensure survival of civilization. But how profits world over would dip, if resource management is not taken up on an urgent basis.

It would be wise for the OPEC countries to stop selling crude to the Gasoline manufacturers but demand a long-term business relation with Plastic furniture manufacturer, Nylon makers and other petroleum by-product manufacturers and demand a premium. (and a hefty sum from all the air-borne paratroopers who need a plastic cloth to bail them out during emergencies or when they drop down on foreign soil to create an emergency for the ruling dispensation).

OPEC kind of controls the fate of Dell, Apple, Nokia, Victoria Secrets,Vaseline et all; if OPEC does not offer them the plastic they so need how can they profit? Therefore if OPEC ask for guarantees that their crude would not be burnt up into thin smoke but used to create the various by products they would profit more. Once the datum of the raw material changes, its value proposition at source would increase. So it can obviously make more profit and at the same time the OPEC Nations can bask in the glory of creating the Messiah solution for saving Earth from GHG induced Climate change. At least a major part.

And this would automatically give a fillip to renewable energy and bio-fuel industry too; which can finally take up its rightful place as the real energy providers in terms of electrical generation and transportation fuel.

Therefore it is not necessary for climate supporters to fight the coal and petroleum lobby but make popular through sustained information the by-products of petroleum and coal which very few people give a thought to and ask them what they prefer most. To burn up this precious substance or make maximum use of the by-products; many of which have a fair chance of recycle and reuse.

It would be prudent for all to understand that the modern life-style we are so comfortable with would vanish with the depletion of Coal & Petroleum. Products we take for granted would not come by cheap and plenty. It is therefore the need of the hour for the Citizens of every Nation to understand the challenges. Lastly this article only covers just two products which with their finite limit, can cause so much discomfort. We are yet to find out how to feed 9 Billion with food and water and then find them shelter!

All religion says 9 times God came to earth…. will we make it to 10 Billion? Or Extinction stares at the face.

Related articles

Save Petroleum from Extinction – Save your Business with a Green Idea (oyeta936.wordpress.com)

• OPEC ministers signal no change in output targets (utsandiego.com)
• OPEC not concerned about US pickup in oil output (sacbee.com)
• OPEC Uniting to Keep Quota as Oil Heads for Best Year (bloomberg.com)
• North America will be energy independent, refining expert says (fuelfix.com)

 

Killing is not a crime,only Murder is;The difficulty of preaching Sustainable Living.

Ants originated 145 million years ago and were witness to the extinction of dinosaurs.………….

I killed my first Ant when I was five years old. I was called a brave lad and explained that I should not be afraid of Ants, Mosquitoes, Cockroaches; on the 10th year, I learnt not to be afraid of Mouse,stray Cats, stray Dogs, Crow, Pigeon and by year 12 I was pretty much unafraid of any bird or animal be it snakes which we always saw being stoned to death, or Lions and Crocodiles we saw people pelting with stones and sticks in the Indian zoos.

But I was always warned to stay away from strangers, meaning unknown Humans. And be very afraid of them. As a inquisitive child I asked our man-servant,(who was slicing the throat of a few chickens and dropping their head-less body into a big tin box so that they death throes need not bother me) about this being afraid of strangers, he was not able to explain so he asked me to talk to the Gardner who was burning and slashing away wild plants and trees at the edge of our sprawling home to create an English lawn, which my grand-father wanted, as my cousin sister would be married that year and the guests needed to be entertained by the small pond nearby that patch of land. He also had ordered the local fishermen to come and clean up the pond and take away any turtles and  other small fish etc and seed it with a particular type of fish which is very popular among us, from the state Bengal and its a must during weddings.

I’m sure, that many of the readers of this article would find similar tales to tell. The society we live in sadly does not consider the destruction of any other living being other than Man as crime.

Whatever the modern man has touched, it has insured its doom – Terrestrial & Marine life even the Water and Air. It can not manage its food, its either wasted on the table or rots in the ware-house (Indian wheat story is the prime example), Saints die unsung to save the river Ganga, which is the very identity of the concept of being a Hindu. As without its waters no Hindu sacrifice can be considered complete. Man has managed to chop down trees to such an extent that once lush green meadows have become arid or semi -arid regions where the final bell already tolls for man himself, as stories of farmer suicide becomes more of a norm than exception. Yet the modern man refuses to learn. While I do not advocate vegetarianism or any “ism”; totally apolitical in my views, I do believe we must stop being wasteful. We must let go the concept of hoarding and over-producing thus creating a cycle of market forces which makes us destroy more. We must stop the concept of “buy 2 and take 1 free”. Nothing is FREE!! Its ripple effect is felt somewhere along the supply chain.

It is time for the United Nation‘s  condemn and make punitive laws to stop the destruction of the Ecosystem by the actions of Man, especially when through proper review and scientific conclusion, it be proved beyond doubt that the destruction was wilful and for aggrandisement of an individual or a Corporation.

Is it not the failure of the collective intelligence of the most intelligent living being on this planet? Perhaps the self declared ‘most intelligent’ animal Man bestowed upon itself ages back, was nothing but pompous Ego which is getting deflated by each evidence of utter failure in managing its life-style?

Studio Earth – Severn Cullis-Suzuki (Photo credit: JuliannaYY)

Will he then be able to prove his intelligence during the UNFCCC summit. Will after 20 long years the prayers of Severn Suzuki be finally be heard ? Let the collective gauntlet from all the environmentalist be thrown at Rio+20 to make laws which are Earth positive. Its win would be the win for Humankind and Man would survive.

Ants originated 145 million years ago and were witness to the extinction of dinosaurs…..and will survive Man too!

 

The Future of Renewable Energy is secure

Past clean energy growth 1995-2007. Based on information contained in REN21 (2007) Global Status Report. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As time passes by Renewable Energy is becoming common word among communities & business which till now were not much interested in it. The factors are many, proposed increase in grid tariff, uncertainty in coal supply especially in the State Maharashtra, India.
What was most interesting is that people are willing to listen and adapt to alternative energy source. If India wants to capture the full spectrum of alternate / renewable energy, it should explore the opportunities in Geo-thermal as well. I have been fortunate to understand the scope of geo-thermal from an authority in the field and who is also considered as one of the top 10 innovators, Dr. Ritesh Arya. Who earned a place in the Guinness Book of World Records for striking ground water and drilling the highest bore-well in the world in Ladakh.
In my opinion the desolate deserts of Ladakh are ideal for both Geo-thermal and Solar + Wind Hybrid plants. The power generated could well be used for development purpose of this remote region, which can bring in prosperity both to the people of the region as well as to the various companies who would want to set up their power plants there.
According to Dr. Arya places like Manikaran, Tatapani and Vashist (Himachal) and Chumathang, Panamic, Puga Sasoma, Marsmicla and Demchuk (Ladakh), had a history and also acquired religious sanctity which could be exploited to attract tourists. “By setting up of recreational facilities like swimming pools, spas and good hotels and using the green non-polluting geothermal energy, the state could take lead in promoting low-carbon footprint tourism,” he pointed out.

Worldwide Renewable energy, existing capacities, at end of 2008, from REN21.http://www.ren21.net/globalstatusreport/g2009.asp Total energy is from BP Statistical Review.http://www.bp.com/statisticalreview (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In his published paper he has, highlighted the importance of developing geothermal sites and has asserted that advanced countries, which has acquired expertise in the field, should provide technical and other required support to the developing countries where the geothermal resource planning and development is still in its infancy. “After all, benefits of geothermal and rock energy has to be shared by all irrespective of the place. Also Clean rock energy should be made available to all at a very low price. Investment opportunities to develop geothermal sources are many but because of lack of initiatives by the successive government and policy makers, geothermal resource is a badly neglected resource.”
Now coming to the Solar Photo Voltaic, although the Government of India has shown great promise in support and development of Renewable Energy, subsidy is not the way forward. What is more required is to make Business aware of the inherent quality of making business sustainable. It is been historically recorded that even those who enter the USA Fortune 500 companies, their life-span is not more than 40 years, in Japan and Europe between 12 -15 years. The reason for this has been many, but most could be attributed to Business Risk. Now, this business risk has become more acute because of the Climate Change that is induced by human activity.
Yet, there are many who do not believe that Human activity has any impact on climate change. My esteemed friend Dr. Arya who I’ve mentioned above has even published a well documented article backed with solid evidence that Climate Change ie; Global Cooling and Global Warming is Cyclic and human have very little role to play in it.
His paper which was showcased in the Lisbon Global Conference on Global Warming: – C – curves and the Global Warming phenomenon. In which he says that – “Climate change happens in a pattern of  four cycles of 1176 years and a half cycle of 588 years. The last Ice Age ended in 10,000 years ago. Presently we are in a half cycle and seeing these signatures at present it seems that we have entered into warming phenomenon and are yet to experience the global maxima in the present C curve which may be around from today. Global Cooling and Global Warming is a Natural phenomenon”
Although it is a phenomenal work, what I humbly suggest is that there is no evidence of Human interference between the last Ice Age which ended 10,000 years ago and the present half –cycle because exponential human induced Green House Gas activity actually began only in the last 100 years and only in the last 60 years it has taken up endemic proportion since Earth became a Global village. Therefore Humankind does not know what would be the effect on the Eco-system which has gone into accelerated mode of Global Warming because of the human induced activity.
So, if we read into what the IPCC presents as a report, we should naturally lean our economy towards a less Carbon emitting system. To do that alternate and renewable energy are the only options.
In alternate energy, we are looking at Methane Hydrates, Shale Gas, and Tar –Sands in one spectrum and bio-fuel in the other. While bio-fuel today is not an alternative which can cater to the humongous energy needs, extraction of methane hydrates to tar-sands have their own share of controversy. This again leads us to the Renewable Energy source like Wave, Geo-thermal, Micro-hydro, and Wind & Solar. The first 3 are let’s say, at the incubation stage, which leaves us with Wind & Solar as the only viable alternative.
The most important factor about Wind& Solar is that the technology does not need any form of extraction, which always will be finite (barring wave & geo-thermal but they have their own engineering challenges) and it can be scaled both at Macro & Micro level, providing ease of use even to the common person. Thus grass root penetration is possible.
While it is a no-brainer to say that Wind & Solar cannot cover the total spectrum of energy needs, a judicious balance between the fossil fuel technology and the RE can act as a bridge for now to takes us into the future, safely enough to devise the best energy source which would help Humankind without the catastrophic dangers associated to GHG induced Climate Change.

Related articles

• Accounting for costs in our Energy choices (panokroko.wordpress.com)
• U.N.: Renewables could be 80 percent of energy by 2050 (news.cnet.com)
• A Watershed Moment: Renewable Energy Projects in Grand Rapids (thewmeacblog.org)
• Renewable Energy: Our Only Way Out? (earthtechling.com)
• Warren Buffet’s Utility Explains Clean Energy Investment: “This Is a Vote for Renewable Energy. It is Not a Bet.” (thinkprogress.org)
• Renewables: The once and future energy source (news.cnet.com)

 

Subsidy on GHG producing products and procedure must stop

Locator map of the state of Maharashtra, India with district boundaries and Admin. divisions (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The State of Maharashtra tabled its annual budget this week. Although on the face of it there is cause for worry, as some measures would bring in more inflationary pressure for the common man; the environmentalist in me was happy. Diesel, Petrol, Plaster of – Paris ( with which large Hindu Deity Idols are cast every year, and immersed into lakes & rivers, polluting them further; thus the idols will be cast with eco-friendly materials now ) have become costly. Electric vehicles have become cheap with no tax applicable. Wow ! Reva electric, I will visit your show-room soon. Yet there are areas which strangely the Government both at the Centre & State, choose to ignore. And that is related directly to our forest cover.

During my recent visit to a food processing factory, for data gathering and understanding the process, (so that I can design a  IGBC  “Green Factory” rated second unit ) I was aghast at seeing tonnes of chopped wood being used to fire up the boiler, which produces hot-water required in drying up the pasta in the moulding machine. Inspecting further I saw them using archaic, bakery kilns which need a lot of wood to produce the heat required, to dry another food product.

I offered to give them a 250KW Solar Photo voltaic pilot under OPEX format, to produce the electricity which would at least reduce the use of wood; it was politely declined. Reason – They presume wood to be cheaper as 1kg is sold to them at a paltry sum of Indian Rupees 2.50 /- , because even if I don’t charge them a dime for the solar panels; instead take a tariff for the electricity generated,  it would work out to be INR 8.50 /- per KW. Which is higher  than the e-DISCOM charging the industries at INR 6.80 /- per KW.

The boiler requires 55 kg per hour x 24 hour x 365 days !

I stood silently looking at the chopped corpses of trees, which were once alive and swaying gently in the breeze while birds and bees sang the welcome song to the newly arriving butterfly, bursting out from the shell of the pupa – hanging under a shady green leaf; and advised, how instead of throwing away the charcoal produced in the process of burning the tree – to use it again; its heat is more intense per Kg/Cal  then the wood.  While silently bowing my head to the trees which even post being killed and burned can help humanity in form of charcoal.

And I was angry. Angry at the system which only gives lip service to the cause of sustainability. Where no real measures are in place to curb the menace of chopping down trees for fire wood ; not for cooking meal of the improvised indigenous people living in the forest { they are persecuted by forest officials, who most ( if not all ) are in cahoots with wood smugglers } but for making pasta for the élite, who live in cities and take out candle light march to make the World aware of “Global Warming” ! Candles by the way is a GHG producing hydro-carbon.  Sad that no real and meaningful progress is being done to educate about  the actual cost of  electricity being provided cheaply by the state through coal-fired Thermal power plants.

While it is true that our modern economy has trapped itself within a vicious circle where we can not find easy answers for achieving a balanced and sustainable growth while maintaining the life-style we have adopted, it is equally true that unless hard measures are taken now,  our life would be styled to that of early cave-men in the near future. And the answer is No, if one is thinking it would be the fate of everyone. It would be only for those who would be unfortunate enough to survive the floods, droughts, famine and War that would be fought between countries for the best water hole !

I grieve,  when our leaders express that they have the mandate of the people towards development  which are inherently high -carbon; and my frustration is directed towards UNEP. Can they not devise a system wherein  they can get the mandate of the grass-root people around the World, which can stand as legitimate in the International court of Law ?  How can we create a sustainable economy when coal fired thermal stations and raw wood is being burnt by million tonnes per day, is considered to be cheaper than renewable or alternate energy ? How difficult is it to get a missed call, a sms and an e-mail endorsement which has some legal standing ? How difficult is it for powerful environmental groups, who have the ears of UNEP, to create an advertisement which all type of media can then carry as their CSR. Can they make more people aware of the thoughts of Buckminster Fuller and many such eminent personalities, who show the way towards transition to sustainable energy management ? thus mobilizing the people in understanding pertinent issues and then conduct a debate as whether the people are ready to burden their shoulders with hard economic choices, for a short term to be able to enjoy sustainable economy forever afterwards. And thus debunk the justification given by the elected representatives, who claim to know what people want ?

I have never for a minute believed that personal prejudice and bias do not creep into policy making. For every Politician & Bureaucrat is human first, not to be affected by the environment s/he must have grown-up in. And most often than not these people have over-riding ambition for self-promotion, before National /International cause, they endorse. And if that self is conditioned to feel comfortable in an environment, hard it is to break away from that familiar life-style which has provided all that they have today. And the familiar life-style sadly is high-carbon economy & the creature comfort it gives us till date.

When people are told that catastrophe would befall in the next 50 to 100 years, they laugh, and say – ‘enough time in hand’. The Taj is 358 years old and every day  hundreds of people travel back in time and come back, when they enter the gates of the Taj Mahal – 300 years is here and present ! So the effects of our inactions today will be felt by our own future generation, not too far in the distant future, for us not to care enough !

Therefore can’t the UNFCCC at the Rio+20, armed with concrete evidence in terms of Peoples endorsement towards a low carbon economy petition the UN to pass a binding resolution for all Nations to comply to green standards ? All  resolutions to bomb a country or pass stringent economic sanctions without a shred of evidence pass smoothly at the UNSC, but when it comes the time for UNFCCC – which has evidence of clear and present danger to the World, no resolution gets passed for economic sanctions on Countries which are doing very little in terms of climate change abatement. The UNEP would always lose out to UNSC in these matters as I had predicted in my previous article. Unless we all join hands, big and small organization, individuals and lay men to lay bare the critical situation we all would face, if lopsided environmental reforms continue deep into 2020, the red-line flagged by the SREX report as point of no return for disastrous Global Warming .

Related articles

• EPA Unveils Carbon Standard for New Power Plants (blogs.berkeley.edu)
• Act Before 7 Billion Crowd Urban Areas (climate-connections.org)
• Regulation Of CO2 And Other Greenhouse Gases By the State Of Colorado (pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com)

 

Green Business Ideas: Carbon Credits opportunities in Green Townships.

Most women & men have an emotional connect with the home they have lived as a child. In India families often live their entire life in one abode for generations. Even as India grows from its rural to more urban setting, the people still like to retain their “ancestral” home while moving into the swanky new home. There are some emotions which no one likes to part with; and childhood memories are perhaps the most important.

Perhaps many around the world  would share similar sentiments. Some want to make a retirement home, some would want a second home. Given a choice nearly every human would want to identify her/himself with something that is familiar.

This gives rise to a super Green Business Idea, which has manifold potential in rescuing Gaia from Global Warming.What if, future towns and cities are made as replicas ? Modern India has done that and, unfortunately forgotten about it. Cities like Rourkela, Bokaro, Durgapur & Bhilai which have almost similar design created by the master architect. If one pauses to think we have in almost all large cities, the state / city development authority housing board, which make ” affordable ” housing blocks. The typology remains the same over different locations. I think its time for a revisit and see it with new light in the context of abatement of climate change. Imagine High rises, commercial districts, row-houses and bungalows all having same or similar design ? Developed by private entities based on market demand, but following Development Rules which have been strictly adhered to. What would be the advantages, lets examine  in brief and re-kindle the thoughts which are perhaps lost in time.

The most exciting part is the CDM ( clean development mechanism ) potential. Every building has potentially two methods for adoption, to earn Carbon Credits. One is to reduce its embodied energy through better management of building materials. And the other is to reduce its Water and Electrical energy consumption. While the latter is comparatively easy and ‘meth’ AMS-III AE is recognised by the CDM Board. It is the embodied energy reduction that  has greater potential in terms of actually reducing GHG  as building related activities account for 40% of the Emission and 60% of waste is construction related.  However it is difficult to map it  and manage the MRV.( Monitoring – Reporting -Verification.) especially in the Building industry within the Construction sector in India. And this is precisely where I see a solution, should we make ‘replica townships’. We already have the datum to compare. The planned steel townships were made just after Indian independence. It has as any township should have – residential blocks, commercial blocks and infrastructural blocks such as schools, hospitals, cinemas,  police station, post-office , bus and railway terminals. So a major portion of the township plans would be available along with records of construction process; which would be archaic as per today’s construction methods (barring the A- centres of India, tier -II & III along with most rural setting still follow the old method of construction) but the layout plan is excellent. So with foresight and statesmanship, ( wishful thinking does not attract punitive punishment under any law ) should the Indian government both at Union and State level want to pursue its own stated Nation Mission for Sustainable Habitat under NAPCC; they should pass laws under Urban Planning which can make this thought into reality. As the Union government has already created the fantastic Mission, all it needs is to rise above political compulsions and address the issues at the Federal level, by becoming the facilitator in creating sound policies for the States, which then follows the path towards sustainable development.  And the benefits would be several.

First the  Urban Planning will be made easy – The biggest challenge the Urban planners face is the assumptions one needs to take into account, while proposing a new township. What would be the population density? What would be  the amount of water and energy requirement ? How will the municipal requirements met?  How best to accurately calculate cost of development. Where-all would the failure of oversight be, causing unplanned growth or breed corruption? Because post the master layout plan, the State development authority has no control { which is correct to an extent } over what would be the look and size of the building which would come up within the designated zone of the master plan. All such issues would become more streamlined and thus decision making more easy as the learning process gets more refined with each replica township coming up every-time.

The master-plan need not be a monotonous one. India has 5 – climatic conditions and design guidelines based on these are already incorporated in the National Green Building certification program – GRIHA. Therefore Master planners can create guidelines which conform to region and state specifically. However, within that area the designs can remain similar. Further, the best practices followed in other climatic zones and states would be available for record to plan better Climate Resilient cities, which is the underlying purpose of this article too. Imagine the potential, should a developer choose three typical design and develop different projects, in 3 different cities within one climatic zone. While the town-planing would differ in layout and scale, the buildings built therein being the same, would reduce cost of construction to a great extent. Design inputs required would reduce, while scope of improvement increase with every project thus designed. As every project has some amount of wastage, knowing the quantity to a more sure approximation, would help in planning for Reduce – Reuse -Recycle as enshrined within the Green Building methods both LEED & GRIHA.

Further a brand identity would be built. A building design can be copy-righted so to speak. And what an emotional connect it would be for the newly wed Bride, who has sadness in her heart for having left her ‘Babul ka aangan’,(fathers home) finds that her ‘Pia’ (husband) has the same bungalow she grew up in. Familiar setting instils confidence and a confident and happy new Bride can do wonders in settling herself well into the new life, she would be beginning.  That it would earn the builder/developer a permanent costumer (extremely difficult in this era of multiple choices), is another happy story. And if we speak of men,  I’m a member of an on-line group which was created by my childhood school mates and friends. We all lived in a gated township of a multinational company, where our fathers worked. Today of the 300 odd members, 51% would surely buy a home, should I design the replica of the town we all grew up in !

And the final winner would be my Countrymen, most are laymen when it comes to understand the importance of town-planning and Sustainable Urban development.  By providing them with standardized product, they would have more informed choice to take the right decision, as they do while buying their refrigerator or car. And most importantly it perhaps would become easier to decongest the future Megalopolis. For why would one not move into a newer town for better prospects while still be able to live within similar surroundings ? And why would people migrate to a particular city when similar ones are next door offering similar opportunities ?

And the final thought would be, the Urban planners should consider bio-mimiciry in their town planning. As technology would allow us to make higher sky-scrapers, rules must define low rise zones to be closer to coast and high rise more inland, this simple thought would allow for more natural wind flow pattern, which will help limiting air  pollution.

While no one can make another New York, Hong Kong  or Mumbai in similar form, potential or opportunities the new ones at least would have a future of their own making and who knows better the best that is in offer today.

Moreover Climate Resilient Cities which I am proposing would be offering a more prettier skyline than what any present day modern megalopolis has to offer. To underscore my point, which from all the above images posted in this article would you choose first for a postcard ?

I rest my argument !

 

 

The Gen Next will demand a Green Building

Awareness on Climate change is profound in Urban Indian schools. This I found when, invited by the district Rotary president of the area I live in Mumbai, I gave a lecture on Green Buildings in a school & a law college. During the short question and answer session, I was amazed at the grasp and depth of understanding many possessed about ” Global warming”. It was encouraging.

In my earlier article I had shown that by simply recycling steel jotter pens one can Reduce the impact of mining for iron-ore. ( Green Business Ideas -  CDM methods for Steel Production ) What if we can inculcate the idea of Reduce – Recycle – Reuse to the school children across all schools. Especially in the Urban  areas ? According to the UNICEF data the total number of school children in India were 113.8 million in 2000-01; Which in the last ten years has increased. Say if we just take into account 50% of these schools which would be imparting basic knowledge of Global Warming, we have a huge youth population which by the year 2025 be the next “consumer” of all product and produce the market has to offer.

The World business better gear up for all things green. It is the only alternative they would have especially in the Urban centers of India. Further India along with China are predicted to grow phenomenally, and growth by default means high carbon growth. Actually if you read an article by atradersrant – It is not the CO2, it is the waste heat that goes with every kiloWatt of electricity produced, which is the real cause of global warming. This actually helps rest the climate skeptic arguments that CO2, being a natural gas can not harm Earth, but at the same time proves that because we have not yet perfected the art of energy manufacturing and consumption, the waste heat is in fact coming from inefficient burning of fossil fuel – thus carbon.

Global Warming 1/2 (Photo credit: lamazone)

An article stated – “Asia has been responsible for over two-thirds of the growth in global energy demand over the past two decades. As, above all, China and India race towards prosperity, they will burn coal in huge volumes. The resulting emissions of carbon dioxide will be among the biggest hurdles in the way of a global agreement on limiting climate change …Where China leads, India lumbers behind, also burning an awful lot of coal, and hungry for more electric power. Some 70% of its electricity comes from coal. The national grid has expanded hugely in recent years. But it still leaves about 300m people without a connection. In projections of increased energy demand over the next 25 years, India is second only to China…Like China, it is ploughing resources into nuclear power, oil-and-gas exploration and imports, and renewable energy. Like China, too, however, India finds coal the obvious option. It is something it has plenty of—already the world’s third-largest producer, it has the world’s fifth-biggest coal reserves. But it cannot exploit them fast enough to meet demand. In fact, output has not increased for two years. Coal India, the state monopoly, blames the difficulty of securing mining permits. So India may soon become the world’s biggest coal importer.On current trends, as estimated by McKinsey, India’s carbon emissions will increase by about two-and-a-half times by 2030, by which time its power industry alone will account for about one-tenth of the total rise in global emissions. Like China’s government, India’s points out that, per head, its people will still be producing far less carbon dioxide than Americans or Australians (though China is rapidly catching up with some European countries in pollution per person). And, in India’s case, total emissions (at 5 billion–6.5 billion tonnes) will remain well below China’s. “

Well below China does not mean that we shall be having a pollution free Country. With health -care still out of reach of millions and cultural propensity of not adhering to any civic sense, the massive pollution would only spell disaster for the country if not arrested. Alternative energy sources and energy efficiency  for continued development is the need of the hour. If we do what the article predicts the intense global pressure the UNFCCC members would be bearing upon us, would make trade difficult. And it is the youth of today who would face the hardships of trade embargo, which is sure to follow as man-made related Climate change problems rise.

Yes, while everyone knows that it is the Developed Nations which have created this mess,it does not give sanction to any other Nation to follow the foolish path of high carbon development model.

So coming back to the point, India must follow the full course it has set out under NAPCC and not get derailed by “smart economics” enshrined in crony capitalism. It is a superb Green Business Idea and the coming generation of young Indians will want India to follow this path as it would surely make our Nation First among equals. And it is logical, because the youths are more aware of the problems they would be facing – In 2010, climate-related extreme events and disasters affected some 300 million people, most often in countries which have little capacity to cope.

Young India is aware of this and  the disaster of Fukushima brought home by the TV has left an impression even on the minds of Rural India. Moreover the youth today are connected by social media and many have seen the video which shows how disaster has struck USA in the past year, while this video  was suggested by a young student to me, it is a bit dramatic but overall it has captured some of the worst disasters, which people around the World have faced in 2011. These events coupled with the increased awareness of Climate change, has been shifting the dynamics of thinking. Climate Resilient cities which the UN proposes becomes more and more acceptable idea, then it would have been 25 years ago. And to those youths on whose shoulders the future of this Nation would eventually rest, and are still skeptic about the effect of Humans activities on Climate , below  is a thought to ponder upon -

While it is very common, World over for young people to say ” I can’t live without my – car; dog; cell phone, shoe or fancy clothes etcetera. An Oxfam report suggested that by 2030, climate change could push food prices up by 50-90 percent more than they would otherwise be expected to rise. And then many would just seriously not be able to live. Because if there is one thing Human’s can’t live without – its food & water. It is the way all living things are, all need sustenance. So its time the “intelligent living beings” we like to call ourselves – learn about Sustainable living. And what could be better than “the smarter generation” which youths like to call themselves leading the way!

Related articles

• Are Green Buildings Also Safer Buildings? – GreenBiz.com (blog) (greenbiz.com)
• US Retrofits Worth $1tn Savings Over 10 Years, Report Says (environmentalleader.com)
• Banyan: Old king coal (economist.com)
• Economist Nordhaus Corrects WSJ Global Warming Nonsense (planetsave.com)

 

Gas Hydrates – Will it be safe for India to harvest its alternate energy needs from the deep sea?

Today’s News paper Headline read India gets closer to the Energy of the future.

Gas Hydrates -The gas hydrate are a crystalline solid, similar in appearance to ice, but consists of molecules of gas surrounded by a mesh of water molecules. Although they were discovered experimentally in 1811 by Sir Humphry Davy, it was later in 1970, that they were detected by geophysical methods in marine sediments from the Blake Outer Ridge Foundation (USA).

Buried deep along India’s 7,500 km of coastline is a vast fuel reserve that can meet our needs for several centuries.These hydrates, which some believe could hold the world’s largest supply of carbon — roughly 4,200,000 trillion cubic feet of Methane in some of the fields discovered. According to Edith Allison, the USA’s DoE (department of energy) exploration program manager, replacing coal in power plants with methane extracted from gas hydrates could slash carbon dioxide emissions by up to 50%. The interesting thing is about these hydrates is that at great pressures and low temperatures in the oceans, they are very stable crystals. If mined and brought to atmospheric conditions they produce 160 times their volume of methane. And that is what is seducing energy hunters. Methane is a readily usable fuel.

Earlier Deep sea deposition of carbon dioxide clathrate has been proposed as a method to remove this greenhouse gas from the atmosphere and control climate change! Now we are thinking of extracting it for commercial use, as an alternate energy source.

However there are tremendous risks involved as methane is 21 – 23 times more potent a greenhouse gas than CO2; as per estimates made in the Storegga slide, Norway; a large underwater landslide may cause the output of about 5 gigatons of methane from the seabed to the atmosphere. Given the track record of all deep sea oil exploration, most recent being the BP Oil Spill we must devise foolproof systems and put them in place so that exploring the sea-bed would not cause a underwater landslide. Should that happen the consequences would be extremely detrimental in the efforts to mitigate Global Warming. This is because, although gas hydrates are stable, where they are; once disturbed can be—due to their great expansion ratio—very volatile.

Now, as India too  has joined other countries into research examining the energy potential of gas hydrates, or methane clathrates and it is surely an exciting matter to see our  scientists  form    National  Institute  of   Ocean   Technology      ( NIOT ) are one step away from quantifying and identifying the gas fields , one must bear in mind that  as Indian methane hydrate sediments are close to coastlines; they can be in layers that are 13 kilometres deep; mining for them can set off ‘landslides’ down there. For India, which has a sorry record of land based mining in various states, it is important that such dangerous activity must not be given out to private companies. Unmonitored mining could cause landslides, releasing methane into the atmosphere and accelerate global warming, with consequences that can only be horrific. Thus the potential of the “greenhouse effect” exploding to uncontrollable proportion must be studied in detail and its effective mitigation, prevention and disaster management methods must be debated in open scientific forum and consensus arrived . The total marine ecosystem is dependent on it.

In fact the UNFCCC must add this into their discussion agenda at Rio+20 and should it be the situation where the World leaders agree that gas hydrate extraction is the next alternate energy they all want to tap; a standard world-class regulation should be created for all to follow, under the watchful eyes of the UN. Perhaps an international watchdog body similar to the IAEA be mooted.

But before we go about mining the sea bed, an ecosystem most of us hardly understand, and could become more controversial than Nuclear. Should India not spend its effort and money on alternate energy which are easier to achieve especially  Solar, Wind, Geothermal, Bio-gas, Bio-fuel, Micro-Hydle and even Wave-energy whose potential are immense? And with India having a good Solar insloation and long coast line, Wind & Solar which are already gaining popularity must be made to run its full potential.

Related articles

• Energy For 1000 Years? Gas-Hydrate Tests To Begin In Alaska (junkscience.com)
• Computer Simulations Revealing How Methane and Hydrogen Pack Into Gas Hydrates Could Enlighten Alternative Fuel Production and Carbon Dioxide Storage (artofthestem.com)
• Canada backs off on research into icebound energy reserves (calgaryherald.com)
• Test Will ‘Mine’ Hydrates for Natural Gas in Alaska (scientificamerican.com)
• You: Offshore drilling begins for methane hydrate (japantimes.co.jp)

 

Solar,Wind & Geothermal Energy can bring World Peace

My Evening which I thought would be relaxing, after a hectic inspection on LEED norms being followed in four small-sized projects, I am currently providing consultation on and not succeeding in breaking down the mental barrier of the site engineers & contractors much; was shattered by listening to News about  the West going vitriolic over a West Asian Nuclear program.

Some News channels were also talking of an impending war! I had just spent the afternoon showing my favorite Power point slide of the burning oil field of Kuwait  (The link on Kuwait shows how it could be seen from space.) & Iraq post Operation Desert Storm. Explaining how burning fossil fuel Causes Global Warming ! It always make them sit up and listen. I explain that all that fuel and much more has been burnt any ways. Only we just don’t see them in such dramatic settings, while emitting it out of our fancy cars, yacht &  airplanes.

 I also quote extensively from an article I read on 28th October 2011 -“NRDC Executive Director Peter Lehner and Director of Global Strategy & Advocacy Jacob Scherr joined UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner at the United Nations today to declare victory in the decades-long campaign to eliminate leaded gasoline worldwide At the event, Dr. Thomas Hatfield of California State University, Northridge, released an independent, peer-reviewed study, which found that eliminating leaded gasoline worldwide will avoid 1.2 million premature deaths and $2.4 trillion in health and economic costs every year. This is huge news for children and families worldwide. The dangers of airborne lead are well-known, especially with respect to lead’s impacts on brain and other development in children.”

Moreover I can not fail to recognize the irony which I also read in an article around the same year 25th July 2011, - Germany, which has taken over the presidency of the UNSC, sought a discussion on climate change and security. It also attempted to get a Presidential statement passed, suggesting that the UNSC could play a more pro-active role in climate change talks. Though China and Russia initially opposed the move, they later fell in line. But, like India, both these nations opposed the bid to reduce the role of UNFCCC in climate talks. “Politicians, diplomats and security experts across the board — not only in the Western world — share the assessment that climate change might have a serious impact on international peace and security”, - In an op-ed piece in The Huffington Post, Peter Wettig, Germany’s ambassador to the UN argued.

While the UNSC members are aware of Climate change and willing to discuss measures to prevent Climate refugees I can not fathom the reason as to why the same UNSC can not see another telling aspect on Climate Change?

In my article Will UNEP lose to UNSC to avert Global warming? I had asked a simple question to the powers that be in the Global Warming arena – “I wonder if the upcoming UNFCCC report would contain the effect of War on the Global Climate! All those bunker – busting bombs in Tora-bora mountain in the Afghanistan – Pakistan region, or the burning of oil fields in Kuwait during the Desert storm and later the devastation of Iraq, Libya and …hope there is no more, PLEASE!”

This article is a supplication to all those Organizations and people who do have some influence in World affairs to promote the use of RE much more vigorously than before, for these are unprecedented times. As Countries are grappling for a solution for economic stability which  also comes through having a sustained supply of Energy, the choice of the source has become most important.

As Nuclear and Fossil fuel are the most controversial, now is the time to promote the extensive use of Geothermal instead of Nuclear and supplement it with Solar & Wind.

For what could be more foolish than waging war when Green Business Ideas can solve the issues once and for all ?

Will all due respect to the original photographers, I hope they do understand that the images I have used by them is for a greater cause. I would remove it should they object. I also thankfully acknowledge the published Articles those have been taken from various sources, mentioned as ‘Source’ for reference. I do not claim any Copyright on them  and collected here for Non-Commercial purpose and to generate awareness.

 

Green Business Ideas – Using Solar Panels as Glass Facade can reduce Heat Island Effect in Cities and earn LEED credits

In the past week I was interviewed by two News media both electronic & print which were very excited about a report by scientists from the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) India,  on Glass Façade Buildings in the City of Mumbai, India  and how it is raising the overall temperature by more than 17° C in the surrounding area of the building. Although it could be true, one must explore about how this problem be addressed without making ‘glass’ a bad building material. Things are not always black or white, therefore I would use this as an opportunity to once more showcase how Sustainable Cities  could be planned.

Glass has been a tradition building material for eons now. Colored glass was found from the Babylonian era and some of the most beautiful Churches and Cathedrals draw their prime beauty from the Stained Glass murals. Glass is the only single medium which allows the external environment into the room in a controlled fashion. Which means one can enjoy rain, snow or bellowing wind swaying the tree tops without getting wet or cold and having that curly lock of hair firmly in place.

Yet uncontrolled use of glass can create problems, such as raising the ambient temperature of the city/town and making it warmer. While extensive use of glass in building façade may be considered a good thing to counter the harsh winter experienced in the temperate regions of the World, it is foolish in Hot climes.

The reasons are simple. The word ‘Green House‘ originally meant ( before Global warming became popular) a glass house which kept the temperature warmer than the freezing  European cold and let some plants & vegetables grow. This happens because the heat from the Sunlight gets trapped within the space by the default property of glass.

While this is good for designing a building in say Norway or Alaska, where every drop of Sunlight would bring in the warmth and perhaps help save in reduction of energy consumption required for district heating, the same principle would require enormous amount of  district cooling which otherwise would have been normal in case of a hot and humid city like Mumbai or any other city with similar climatic conditions. And those large  water-cooled Air-conditioning plants placed on the roof tops to cool the buildings do so by pumping cool air inside the buildings while sucking the hot air away and out into the surrounding atmosphere. So a total glass building would not only throw more hot air out into the cityscape it would also use more water to cool itself. Yes, there is air cooled A/c plants too and high-efficiency COP’s have the ‘Green’ label attached but it too consumes energy and heats the sorrounding it however saves on water. Only the most well designed and high-end commercial glass façade buildings conform to all Sustainability criteria. But it does not hold true for all.

Therefore while the building may look swanky and very western, I would caution the tenant in buying space there as their energy bills could shoot up. Moreover by default of design constrains, its cheaper to make the Glass Facade buildings near hermetically sealed. Further no one would want the Air conditioned space to get warm because of a leak in the window casing.

Now the above observations lead to some unique problems for India or for any Emerging Economy in the Third World with similar climatic conditions.

First is the heat & dust. Not only does glass buildings get warmer inside it turns ugly on the outside too because of the perpetual dust. And once the commercial buildings are sold it becomes the building owner association responsibility to take care of maintenance. Maintaining tall glass façade building does not come cheap. It requires a whole new engineering solution, such as façade cleaning lifts and trained people to do it.

Second, we are a ‘emerging economy’. Which means only a few rich & super rich have the luxury of having uninterrupted power. Rest are routinely treated with planned load shedding / power cuts and have to generate their own power through fossil fuel smoke belching  Diesel generators. In case of longer duration of power failure, rationing is done to cut cost and even the generators are shut down. And in this case one has no choice but to sit in airless rooms breathing Carbon –Di– Oxide exhaled by the neighboring colleague and hoping to survive the day.

Third, in smaller Tier -II & III towns and even the cheaper business districts within the megalopolis  the buildings only ape the Glass Facade exterior with no  Fire Safety Norms as a priority, and are built by unscrupulous Builder developers who themselves are an ignorant lot along with little or no understanding of EHS ( Environment – Health – Safety ) nor it is understood by the general public. ( the whole of India has only 2-3 dedicated burns center, one in Mumbai. New Delhi has none. However thousands die each year through burn related accidents) . So Glass buildings which are not designed well may lead to catastrophe in case of fire. Further as some are built right upon the road-side in high density areas, during Earthquake or other calamities, it may only compound the problems further with razor-sharp glass falling all over. True the glass have built-in safety feature to shatter into small bits but bad fixing and poor quality glass do not perform as intended.

Business and Scientific report do not go hand in hand. But  Science must be heeded if Business is to thrive. Global warming and its associated risks are too well documented to be ignored.  ( read my article for details:  Climate change – the most significant emerging risks facing the world today ) If the City of Mumbai or any city with similar climatic conditions continues to grow in this fashion and Glass façade buildings become norm and not exception, we are looking at a serious problem.

So we come to the question of what would the Developers and the Public do post reading the NEERI report ? Will tall glass façade building vanish from the cityscape? No chance.

But saving Mumbai ( and other cities ) is a must. Therefore here I will present an alternate thought which the Glass manufactures like ASAI, MODI etc along with the Solar PV manufacturers would I hope discuss over cocktail & dinner and come back with great Eco Ideas which would at least help reduce the problem of Heat Island Effect. And for this we must look at BIPV.

Image via Wikipedia

Building Integrated Photo voltaic (BIPV) has been around for sometime. It produces electricity and can also act as a Glass Facade. (As the image to the right shows, the dark blue glazing with a logo on top )  Now this is an option which has not been explored to its full potential in India and the rest of the World because of the cost verses production of electricity. It is generally understood that BIPV which is still in its nascent stage needs to develop further to truly become the choice for Architects and Builders to consider using it as an alternative to Glazed Building. This can happen only when the cost of the product becomes near equal to that of conventional Double Glazing Unit ( DGU ) which we see all around the city of Mumbai. However we can speed up this process by simply bringing in the economy of scale.

So how does one bring about this economy of scale? Simple, by introducing the Green building concepts which require the use of Solar Power or Green Energy. Both in the TERI – GRIHA  and IGBC -LEED certification process require  to bring energy efficiency of about 14% to the Building Envelope ( skin of the building; the outermost wall /glass surface ) which  at times design constrain and economic factors make  very difficult to deliver. Further Green Building Norms also ask for 10% of the total building energy be drawn from Solar Power. This too, is difficult due to unavailability of required roof-top space in certain cases.

BIPV

Now BIPV  are SPV  (solar photo voltaic) patches of  modules which is sandwiched  between glass.  It not only produces electricity but also reduces the amount of Sunlight from entering the building which is known as the SHG factor for glass ( Solar Heat Gain). So this can act like ceramic frit-glass, which too is an architectural favorite as it has lower SHG factor  and yet have dual function. Further in the Green Building rating system one looks for high SRI  (surface reflective index) content to reduce the heat island effect. Glass has high SRI index. So it reflects more sunlight away and what could have entered the building unhindered gets caught and converted into energy by the SPV cells. So another LEED credit point, credit interpretation could be sought jointly by the SPV as well as the Glass manufacturers.

Now as more and more buildings all around the world are opting for LEED Certification ( Leadership in Energy and Environment Design ), the above two credit points would fit well into the scheme of things. But this may not be enough to reduce the cost of  BIPV. Therefore we can adapt the idea which I have explained (in the article – Green Business Ideas : Cheap Solar Power is possible  ) earlier to manufacture cheaper BIPV’s  and yet creating space for newer research & development. Therefore what NEERI published as a problem can be solved by scientific ways and high-end engineering which follows the basic principles of Sustainable Building Design. And who knows one day we may have enough BIPV clad Green Buildings just as the above French building ( click on image ) which would help further reduce the enormous Carbon Footprint each City has, to make a safer Earth with better business ideas.

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Green House Gases: Reduce it to earn Carbon Credits

Clean Development Mechanism, earn you Carbon Credits. It also helps reduce the pollution which is an invisible killer. And no, the earth dust & wood smoke we all see in films on African & Indian documentaries don’t kill. The killer gases are slick city dwellers.

Having said that, let us understand what is “pollution” to appreciate the immediate and urgent need for each one of us to act to reduce it in every sphere of our life-style.

Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into a natural environment that causes instability, disorder, harm or discomfort to the ecosystem i.e. physical systems or living organisms. Pollution became a popular issue after World War II, due to radioactive fallout from atomic warfare and testing.Till then a non-nuclear event, “The Great Smog” of 1952 in London, killed at least 4000 people. (which is a very small number in todays unprecedented and urgent situation, hurtling headlong towards us and expected to hit by 2017, as per the SREX report.)

Pollution control is a term used in environmental management. In the hierarchy of controls, pollution prevention and waste minimization are more desirable than pollution control. In the field of land development, low impact development is a similar technique for the prevention of urban run-off.

Let us examine in brief the top 5 GHG : 1.CO2 :Carbon Dioxide. 2.CH4 :Methane. 3. N2O: Nitrous Oxide. 4. O3: Ozone 5. SP: Suspended Particles . A detailed report of the effects of these can be found in the internet, should one chooses to read. The chart shows how much GHG is emitted sector wise. However I think SO2F2: Sulfuryl Fluoride should also be included in the top 5 as its more harmful than CO2.

Now there are also Naturally occurring greenhouse gases. They include water vapour, carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), and ozone (O3). Several classes of halogenated substances that contain fluorine, chlorine, or bromine are also greenhouse gases, but they are, for the most part, solely a product of industrial activities. Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) are halocarbons that contain chlorine, while halocarbons that contain bromine are referred toas bromofluorocarbons (i.e., halons). Some other fluorine containing halogenated substances—hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6)—do not deplete stratospheric ozone but are potent greenhouse gases.There are also several gases that, although they do not have a commonly agreed upon direct radiative forcing effect, do influence the global radiation budget. These tropospheric gases— referred to as ambient air pollutants—include carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), sulfur dioxide (SO2), and tropospheric (ground level) ozone (O3). Tropospheric ozone is formed by two precursor pollutants, volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) in the presence of ultraviolet light (sunlight). Aerosols—extremely small particles or liquid droplets—often composed of sulfur compounds, carbonaceous combustion products, crustal materials and other human induced pollutants— can affect the absorptive characteristics of the atmosphere.

We live in and work in buildings which use various types of building materials most of them are cause of Environmental degradation which the average person is not aware of.  About 40% of the Global Green House Gas (GHG) is emitted through building related activities and 60% of this pollution occur post occupancy in form of municipal waste etcetera to indirect pollution via consumption of electricity, which generally coming from Thermal Power plants which burn coal & is high on emission of pollution .

There is an immediate and urgent need to reduce this pollution to keep our health and comfort to the optimum. To do this we must design Energy Efficient Buildings (EEB) which is low on pollution. Let us see what are the types of material we use in buildings.

 If we just take one example SF6;Now other than SF6 being 4,800 times worse than CO2 in the global warming scale, Sulfur fluoride is a gas fumigate that has been used — since the 1950s — to kill bugs and rodents in indoor structures, such as homes, warehouses, and railroad cars. It is also used in the Electricity sector, the magnesium industry, the electronic industry even as an adiabatic property applications, notably in tennis balls, shoe soles and other applications, such gas-air tracer in research and leak detectors, for medical purposes, electronic applications, sound proof windows ( Double Glazed), de-gassing aluminum specialties etc.

 If we look more closely at global industrial emissions of CO2, CH4, N2O, and the ‘new’ gases HFCs, PFCs and SF6, then it shows that about half of them stem from CO2 emissions related to cement – clinker – production, ( a major product required for the building industry) about one-fifth can be attributed to adipic   acid (CH2)4(COOH)2  and nitric acid production and one-third stem from the three new gases, each with approximately equal contribution of about 10%.

The building industry is perhaps the biggest consumer of all that is produced in all other industrial sector, be it steel, cement, stone, wood, leather, paper, paint, ceramic, glass, plastic, electrical & electronics; think of a product either in finished good or raw material, the building industry more often than not has a use for it. Thus emitting some form of pollution in the process.

Purely from a Building Industry perspective without Sustainable Building design practice however high we build, we will fall prey to the catastrophe the GHG will bring in its wake in form of Global Warming & Climate Change.

 To do this we need to develop life-style which is sustainable. Act without weighing the “additional cost factor” of going Green, which actually is very nominal and becomes Zero Sum within a very short time span. Internationally we have Green Building programs such as LEED, BREEAM and GRIHA which is the Indian National rating system. India also has a Confederation of Indian Industries driven – Indian Green Building Council which is doing spectacular work.

With the new Global Climate Fund (GCF) more or less operationalized to a decent sum this year at the UNFCCC  COP17 at Durban, South Africa. Reducing pollution would be a Bankable word.

Some of the references   has  been condensed for easy read and adapted from Source(s):Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia; Observations of CAPIEL-UNIPEDE concerning the Revised IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories ; IPCC ; the U.S. EPA’s Global Warming web; Fluoride Action Network and others.

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Urban Development Rules: How C40 -City rules can make a difference for India.

The C40 Cities( http://live.c40cities.org/about-us/ )Climate Leadership Group (C40) is a network of large and engaged cities from around the world committed to implementing meaningful and sustainable climate-related actions locally that will help address climate change globally. The C40 was created in 2005 by former Mayor of London Ken Livingstone, and forged a partnership in 2006 with the Cities program of President Clinton’s Climate Initiative (CCI) to reduce carbon emissions and increase energy efficiency in large cities across the world.

While in most Indian cities and perhaps the surrounding South Asian countries, due to various socio-economic situation City centers have become congested and un-livable, the problem in the City of Mumbai, lies more with a lackadaisical approach of the authorities for this mess. Let us see through the example of Mumbai City, what are the basic problems which most of the Cities in India face and as Tier-II & Tier-III Cities start making their presence felt, how the same very mistakes the big Metros like Mumbai & Delhi have made keeps getting replicated. Far flung villages as far as 80KM become part of the growing new “suburbs” of the City. In Architectural terms we call it the Urban Sprawl. The historic Mumbai city limits was earlier about 25 -30 KM, then in the 1980′s-2000 A.D  we were measuring the distance around 60KM ( via local suburban train – Churchgate to Virar). Now we are looking at places like Panvel in the main land ( for those who are unfamiliar with the Geography of Mumbai; it’s an Island city) as part of Navi (New) Mumbai (Bombay). Now, if one cares to travel to the far-flung suburbs of Mumbai, one would see how these new townships are mushrooming up.  Getting down on most of these suburban station, you would be surrounded by filth; Polythene bags, empty satchel of tobacco, extremely narrow road leading to a bus-stop. The foot-over bridge are already captured by illegal hawkers. Moving into the town one would notice how fertile agricultural land are getting filled with construction waste, leveled and ugly, poorly constructed buildings are mushrooming. The word town-planning is alien, as in almost all suburbs you can see violations of every town-planning law ever legislated.

 I have dealt in detail on the importance of Urban Planning and Sustainable Cities, in my article “Sustainable Cities- Why town planning is important.” I would not dwell in detail on that subject here. I would rather like to point out that as India starts making its presence felt as an Emerging economy, the traditional business center, Mumbai,  attracts more business and thereby provides more work opportunity. This in turn would (rather is ) begin the growth of a city beyond its traditional municipal boundaries. And extend the problems of urban disease, pollution and destruction of natural habitat. With the World in tether hooks, in terms of Global Warming and its resultant Climate Change, can the people of India and its administration continue to build cities in the same foolish way ? Or should we at least adopt the C-40 Cities program? Which our city leaders have avoided till date? While Mumbai & New Delhi, under Mayor Shraddha Jhadav and Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit are shown as participating Cities, I am ready to wager that not one man in the street would be aware of this program.

 Further, almost all the member cities have begun one program or another we do not find any mention of India. It is time that the people of the Cities are made aware and enough pressure created to the administration, to implement laws for a sustainable city and stringent action taken against violators. Following the C40 Program would provide untold benefits to the Citizens of this cities and the program must get carried and replicated on other up-coming and growing towns & cities before the disaster of Climate Change strikes; the world has only till 2017 AD to move away and roll back the trend of Global Warming ! The details of it have been mentioned in my article – IPCC’s special report on Climate risks -IMPLICATIONS FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT.

Following a sustainable approach is the only way to avert not only personal & physical loss but also avoiding the impending Business risks which climate change entails, such as Tsunami & Hurricanes. With the government of Maharashtra predicting that by A.D 2026, the present suburbs would grow and become town and cities we have very less time to act. Lets not read in the future a headline in the news papers -Indian Urban Planning and Development Rules led to  loss of CDM opportunities and is  the recipe for future Misery.

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