The World Environment Day is around again and back come the cries for conservation of environment. Initiatives attempting the reversal of global warming, slogans against the deforestation, alarm bells of water conservation etc. become the order of the day once again. But alas, we fail to retain the very essence of environmental protection other than few days in the year. It is still to be discovered whether our memory is poor or our personal preferences coerce us to put the public interest on the back burner during our normal course of life.
While the world is mounting pressure on the underdeveloped and developing nations to limit their meagre proportions of ecological damage, the developed nations are practically leading in polluting the planet Earth.
The over exploitation of natural resources by the Gen Next has opened up multiple fronts of environmental crisis. Addressing each one of these fronts simultaneously has become so critical that an environmentalist can’t afford to turn an eye from one front to focus on another.
Few aspects of environment related issues are as below. The purpose of these paragraphs is not to give the statistics, which could be easily obtained by little surfing the internet, but to make the reader understand the gravity of the environmental damage we are doing.
SCORCHING SUMMERS
With meteorological and weather experts warning well ahead of summer that India is likely to undergo hottest summers ever, it was only the mercy of Almighty that He spared us from such suffering. This is also an indicator to realise that our experts with their technology and expertise could only forecast, but have no control over natural processes, which happens with the Will of Almighty.
However, many parts of our country have experienced extreme maximum temperatures during pre-summer this year itself. Mercury soared above whopping 45ºC across many cities in the southern states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. Amid the high temperature, the water scarcity in Hyderabad, with all its four reservoirs running out of stock, only deepened the gravity of problem.
Vidarbha region of Maharashtra too is not spared with temperatures crossing 45ºC in many towns and cities; here too adding to the woes of water scarcity in the region.
Phalodi in Rajasthan broke the record of Alwar by reaching searing 51ºC this year and got into the records as the city with the highest recorded temperature in South Asia.
These temperatures put the lives of our fellow human beings at stake, particularly people moving outdoors in the search of their livelihood. They are vulnerably exposed to the risks of heat stroke and dehydration. People who are located at cooler or air conditioned spaces also are not spared, which is thought otherwise. They are exposed to severe thermal shocks with the temperature around them varying from cold to extremely hot conditions, due to their routine movements into and away from their habitations.
ULTRAVIOLET RAYS EXPOSURE
Inundated usage of air conditioning units, in spite of awareness among our masses that Freon refrigerant causes damage to ozone layer, has not only converted our cities to the similitude of ovens during summers, but also have exposed us to elevated levels of ultraviolet rays. With few exceptions, almost all our cities are showing ultraviolet index (UVI) of above 10, with almost all capitals showing alarmingly high UVI close to 12. The safe UVI is less than 5 for a typical average Indian complexion. We are simply forgetting that we are buying our today’s luxury (air conditioning units) at the expense of disastrous living conditions of our future generations. Alas, we could realise the fate of our children and grandchildren, who may not be able to get away from the odds of extreme weathers, in spite of their ability to buy anything.
WATER SCARCITY
Inaccessibility of our major chunk of population to potable water has many dimensions. Disproportionate distribution of potable water by civic authorities (owing to political reasons), criminal wastage of water where it is easily available, wrong choice of our farmers to cultivate water thirsty crops, sparse piping network between the sources of water to the points of normally less rainfall are the reasons to name a few. There is an immense need to manage water from spread over sources and distribute proportionately across the country. Failing to do so, as of now, has brought famines in some regions while flooding some parts of the country every year.
An important figure in this regard which need to be kept in consideration is global per capita water consumption. While our country’s standard defines this to be 135 litres per person per day, many countries are using much above this. For instance, this consumption is 575 in the USA, 493 in Australia and 200-400 as average in Europe.
The above figures are adequate for any person with little intelligence to understand what the western world is doing with the natural resources and how they are compelling under developed and developing nations for commitment towards contribution in ecological improvement.
But, water management in our country, with adequate sources of natural spring water, is our own problem which we alone have to solve.
DEFORESTATION
A single liner in this regard is adequate for any serious person to tumble. According to a study conducted by NRSC officials, if the rate of deforestation in the world continues, which is at 1.2% of the total forest cover each year, it does not require any specialization to understand that the forest cover would vanish in less than 100 years. This invites serious attention of the governments and environmentalists to prevent this deforestation, if we are concerned about future human race, a slightest bit, even if we are not bothered about the future of other species.
But if we would like to take honour, Bharat houses about 17,000 different species of animals and birds, which makes it one of twelve centres of origin and diversity of several plants in the world. Our immense variety in climatic and altitudinal variations coupled with varied ecological habitats gives us this privilege.
One very interesting thing, which we do, different from all others in the world, is over reporting our afforestation. A study of forest researchers at IISc reported that our definition of forest itself is so ambiguous that it becomes cumbersome to understand whether our green cover is increasing or decreasing. As for our Forest Survey of India (FSI) is concerned, it defines any plantation under forest cover. This blanket definition includes plantations for agro-commercial and parks, etc., which is generally very thin and does not serve the purpose of natural forests. Moreover, these plantations, in many cases, may be an outcome of deforestation itself and shields the same. This leaves an ecologist very concerned about the loss of benefits of forest, without getting the same on records of the State. Forest authorities need to take a serious note of this.
Being environmentalist citizens, we can always contribute to the green cover of the country by putting more and more trees, in the vicinity we live. A resolution to plant one tree per family member per year by select citizens would be a great initiative and would change the scenario of our nation’s green cover in few years.
WASTE GENERATION AND DISPOSAL
Surprisingly, we are one of the leaders in waste generation (ranked 3) in the world. We are at 630 grams per day of waste generated by each of us in Metros and if we do not put a cap on our waste generation, it is likely that we would soon land up in yet another crisis-like front of waste handling in Metro cities.
For instance, Mumbai, with its daily generation of waste at 11000 tons, tops the metros in this aspect. To put in simpler terms, Mumbai is heading towards the dead end towards its waste management, unless it takes corrective actions, on a war footing basis. In addition to its three saturating dump yards, the dumping of waste in open drains and naalaas is a pretty common scene in the financial capital. Reckless throw of waste anywhere and everywhere by the population is something which BMC could not find any solution of. It becomes nightmare for the municipal workers who clean the trenches and water escape routes before each monsoon.
Nothing is new in Delhi. While Ghazipur site to the east of our country’s capital is known to be producing inflammable and highly toxic methane, the other three sites are no different. Circling birds of prey, and the rising smoke from the invisible piles of waste, alarm a passer-by from a good distance, before he actually gets the sight of the dump yard and gets assaulted by its stench.
Other Metros are relatively much better than Mumbai. There are certain aspects within our own Metros, wherefrom both Mumbaikars and its municipal authorities can take quick learning. While from corporation perspective Mumbai could learn how Delhi is able to treat about half of its waste and Bengaluru could do it to two-thirds; from the civic sense side, the people should know and segregate waste as per the classification laid down by corporation and should thus play their role, which is equally critical.
While the central government gives a call for Swachh Bharat and cuts its masses’ pocket @ 0.5% cess on all services they avail, there are plenty of areas which the government needs to focus, rather than on advertising. Sweden, which is not only a zero waste country, but also absorbs waste of few other neighbouring countries, shall be visited and their methods shall be copied. From the public perspective, we need to take heed from the people of tiny neighbours like Bhutan and Sri Lanka, whose populace consciously contribute to the waste management by not only segregating the waste produced but attempting to waste as less as possible.
AIR POLLUTION
Air pollution in our urban parts has emerged as a grave ecological concern and serious threat to public health. A report of WHO reveals that air pollution causes 6.6 lakh deaths in our country each year. WHO enlists 13 Indian cities among top 20 most polluted cities across the globe.
The spread of cancer in India in the last two decades owes its roots to the extensive exposure of its population to PM2.5 (which is a measure of particulate matter present in air). Though many Indian cities are in the list of most polluted cities, we do not have the air pollution measurement system with proper network in place.
It is prima facie government’s responsibility to ensure compliance of state wise pollution control board norms. Our records of AQI monitoring reveals that there is very poor database management and collation, though there is good connectivity of monitoring stations put across the cities. The administration shall educate the citizens about the pollution levels in cities through regular and spread over monitoring systems and communicate the alerts during higher recorded Air Quality Index (AQI) values, so that the citizens could take preventive action to protect themselves against the odds of pollution effects on their health.
At the same time, it is also the citizens’ responsibility to take the needful corrective action on their end to prevent the AQI levels from rising above the prescribed limits.
In a nutshell, though our government shoulder a greater responsibility on account of environmental protection, the role of citizens could not be overlooked. Only upon our positive role, we’d be in a better position to demand the government to play theirs. Following are few indicators, which we could look into.
a. While we buy any air conditioning unit, we should ensure that it uses eco-friendly refrigerant with zero ODP (ozone depletion potential) and shall have reasonably low GWP (global warming potential).
b. We should use public transportation instead of traveling with our private vehicles to the possible extent. We should always keep our private vehicles PUC compliant.
c. We should minimise our waste generation by using more and more recyclable products, rather than plastics.
d. We should have to target plantation of trees at individual levels, in order to contribute to the country’s target afforestation levels.
One thing, but not the least. One’s sense of accountability after his life for the resources he is blessed with in this world and how he exploited them is the prime motivator to keep us all environment conscious and eco-friendly.