Green Options

It’s official, India must work towards the use of biofuels. On September 12th the Indian government announced a new national biofuels policy: By 2017 it will aim to meet 20% of India’s diesel demand with fuel derived from plants rather than fossils.

But where will it come from? According to the National Council of Applied Economic Research, a Delhi think-tank, it means setting aside 14m hectares of land, for the growth of jatropha, a key biofuels raw material.

Does proximity to the sea give a city an advantage when it comes to sustainability rankings?

According to SustainLane who just released their 2008 Sustainable City rankings, city traits that are already set in stone like geography and layout play a huge role. Take the greenest cities in America: Portland, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago and New York. Four out of the five them are situated on the coast and were built before suburbia existed.

In Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace, Indian physicist turned environmental activist Vandana Shiva calls for a radical shift in the values that govern democracies, decrying the role that unrestricted capitalism has played in the destruction of environments and livelihoods.  By no means a new release, Shiva’s book is incredibly timely as skyrocketing fuel costs jeopardize the rationality of globalization.  Through explaining problems with expanding globalization and privatization of public goods and services, then illustrating examples of communities rejecting the intrusion of corporations into communities, Shiva outlines core beliefs that should result in what she deems “earth democracy”, a global community that honors and respects diverse forms of life and their respective cultures.

Baoli - A centuries old step-well in the heart of Delhi city.

The urbanization process in India in the 20th century led to the formation of large city-centers with very high density of population. The urban sprawl also meant an immense pressure on the natural resources of these city-centers thus also affecting, among others, the quality of life of the urbanite. One of the first resource to get impacted was water - that began to both deplete and deteriorate as rapidly as was the pace of urbanization in the respective urban-centers.

Delhi, the capital of India has obviously been one of the cities to have now turned into a mega-city. Delhi faces regular water crisis that only aggravates in summers and all stakeholders agree on the inadequacy of Delhi’s current water supply.

But Delhi is also one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world. It has been the capital of many conquerors who ruled Northern part of present day India from here and has always been a populated center. Water was traditionally harvested in a number of ways to support the population that also comprised large armies; something, the planners of today can and should learn from.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - a scientific body set up by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and UNEP celebrated twenty years of its existence on the 31st of last month. At its 29th session, the IPCC re-elected by acclamation, its Chairman Dr. R.K. Pachauri to a second term. A new IPCC Bureau and Task Force Bureau were also selected in the process.

Last year had been glorious for the IPCC and for climate change research and action.  Especially historical was the 10th of December, 2007 when the IPCC (and Albert Arnold Gore Jr.) were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize “for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change”.

It is thus not too surprising, that the then Chairman has been re-elected, unopposed, for a second term by the IPCC.

India, long isolated from the world’s nuclear power industry, got one more important nod on Saturday September 6, 2008 in its quest to become a more respected member of the nuclear club.

On Saturday, the 6th of September 2008, 34 years of nuclear isolation for India came to an end in the Austrian capital of Vienna. After going into a few extra days of meetings, the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) finally agreed to a nuclear waiver for India, thus giving the country “full civil nuclear cooperation” and complete access to the nuclear market.  The move also allows India to resume civil nuclear cooperation with the world despite possessing nuclear weapons.

After getting the NSG waiver, the next stop for the deal is Washington, where it would be put in front of the US Congress. The Indo-US nuclear pact will then be approved or rejected by an up and down vote. However and irrespective of the decision taken by the US Congress, India can now buy reactors and fuel from countries like Russia and France. India now wakes to a nuclear dawn.

Floods have been a common phenomenon all across the Indian state of Bihar - unfortunately, also the least developed region in the country. So much so that river Kosi, a major river that passes through the state is more popular as the Sorrow of Bihar. Now, this sorrow has turned into grief and a catastrophic one at that, with the river changing its course and inundating a large part of the state. 

Around 15 days ago, river Kosi broke open its embankment in the Northern part of the state (bordering Nepal) to pick up a channel it had abandoned over 200 years ago, drowning towns, numerous villages and rendering over a million homeless in the process.

This is the biggest disaster in the history of independent India and by far the most challenging rescue and relief work ever carried out in the country is now under operation.

By Lester R. Brown

With water shortages emerging as a constraint on food production growth, the world needs an effort to raise water productivity similar to the one that nearly tripled land productivity during the last half of the twentieth century.

Worldwide, average irrigation water productivity is now roughly 1 kilogram of grain per ton of water used. Since it takes 1,000 tons of water to produce 1 ton of

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The most recent scientific research suggests that unless we can reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million, we will cause huge and irreversible damage to the earth. Realizing the urgency to spread this message and to take the word across to each continent and to each country, 350.org took shape as a movement that is now working to spread this most important number on the planet by building a global grassroots climate movement united by a common call to action.

350 is the most important number on the Planet. This number is a safe line for our global climate and a start line for a global movement is how 350.org begins to explain the importance of 350.

IYSoCC Delegates with Mr. Narayana Murthy (Founder, CEO Infosys)

Hosted by Infosys - the biggest IT brand in India and a big IT brand in the world, and organized by the Indian Youth Climate Network (IYCN), the first Indian Youth Summit on Climate Change (IYSoCC) concluded successfully in the cyber-city of Hyderabad last week. The Summit brought together youth delegates from all across the country and also the Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) from across the globe, to discuss, debate, point out regional, national and global problems aiming to come up with workable solutions. Policy level interventions, a youth declaration for a safer and more secure tomorrow and an even greater youth representation was called for in the four day summit.

The summit also saw participation from some key organizations viz., Environmental Defense, Sierra Club, The Climate Project, Greenpeace etc. most of whom have now been showing keen interest in the green developments in India and believe that India can lead, by example, the movement towards a cleaner, greener and more secure tomorrow.