Earth is the mother of all. If we had understood the earth as the mother of all, even of great values, we would have treated the earth in a different way. We have destroyed it. We have almost poisoned it. We have broken its ecological unity. We have disturbed its environment. And now with nuclear weapons we are ready to destroy it. And it is the source of all that is beautiful, and all that is great.
The earth is sacred.
Man has lived in dependence, and man has desired and fought for independence, but nobody looks into the reality -- that dependence and independence both are extremes.
Reality is exactly in the middle; it is interdependence. Everything is interdependent. The smallest blade of grass and the biggest star both are interdependent. This is the whole foundation of ecology. Because man has behaved without understanding the reality of interdependence. He has destroyed so much of the organic unity of life. He has been cutting his own hands, his own legs, without knowing.
Forests have disappeared, millions of trees are being cut every day. Just now scientists are giving warnings -- but nobody is ready to listen -- that if all trees disappear from the earth, man cannot live. We are in a deep inter-exchange. Man goes on breathing in oxygen, and throwing out carbon dioxide; trees go on inhaling carbon dioxide and exhaling oxygen. Neither you can exist without the trees, nor can the trees exist without you.
This is a simple example; otherwise life is interwoven in a thousand and one ways.... Because many trees have disappeared, so much carbon dioxide has gathered in the atmosphere, that it has raised the temperature on the whole earth by four degrees. To you it may seem insignificant -- four degrees -- but it is not insignificant. By the end of this century, this temperature will be enough to melt so much ice that every ocean will rise four feet higher. One degree of temperature more means the ocean rises one foot higher. So the cities which are on the coast of the oceans -- and all the great cities are there -- will be flooded with water.
If the temperature goes on increasing, as is the possibility, because nobody is listening.... Trees are being cut, without any understanding, for useless things; for third rate newspapers you need newsprint, and you are destroying life. There is a possibility that if the eternal ice of the Himalayas starts melting, which has never happened in the whole past, then all the oceans will rise twenty feet higher, and will drown almost the whole earth. They will destroy all your cities -- Bombay and Calcutta, New York,London, and San Francisco. Perhaps a few primitive people who live high in the mountains may survive.
Electronic waste, e-waste, e-scrap, or Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) describes loosely discarded, surplus, obsolete, broken, electrical or electronic devices. The processing of electronic waste in developing countries causes serious health and pollution problems due to the fact that electronic equipment contains some very serious contaminants such as lead, cadmium, beryllium and brominated flame retardants. Even in developed countries recycling and disposal of e-waste involves significant risk for examples to workers and communities and great care must be taken to avoid unsafe exposure in recycling operations and leaching of materials such as heavy metals from landfills and incinerator ashes.
"Electronic waste" may be defined as all secondary computers, entertainment device electronics, mobile phones, and other items such as television sets and refrigerators, whether sold, donated, or discarded by their original owners. This definition includes used electronics which are destined for reuse, resale, salvage, recycling, or disposal. Others define the reusables (working and repairable electronics) and secondary scrap (copper, steel, plastic, etc.) to be "commodities", and reserve the term "waste" for residue or material which was represented as working or repairable but which is dumped or disposed or discarded by the buyer rather than recycled, including residue from reuse and recycling operations. Because loads of surplus electronics are frequently commingled (good, recyclable, and nonrecyclable), several public policy advocates apply the term "e-waste" broadly to all surplus electronics. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) includes to discarded CRT monitors in its category of "hazardous household waste". But considers CRTs set aside for testing to be commodities if they are not discarded, speculatively accumulated, or left unprotected from weather and other damage.
Debate continues over the distinction between "commodity" and "waste" electronics definitions. Some exporters may deliberately leave difficult-to-spot obsolete or non-working equipment mixed in loads of working equipment (through ignorance, or to avoid more costly treatment processes). Protectionists may broaden the definition of "waste" electronics. The high value of the computer recycling subset of electronic waste (working and reusable laptops, computers, and components like RAM) can help pay the cost of transportation for a large number of worthless "commodities".
When materials cannot or will not be reused, conventional recycling or disposal via landfill often follow. Standards for both approaches vary widely by jurisdiction, whether in developed or developing countries. The complexity of the various items to be disposed of, the cost of environmentally approved recycling systems, and the need for concerned and concerted action to collect and systematically process equipment are challenges. One study indicates that two thirds of executives are unaware of fines related to environmental regulations.
VARANASI: Will the high concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere bring about a catastrophe on the Earth?
"Unless we reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million (ppm), we will cause huge and irreversible damage to the Earth," says Bill McKibben, an American environmentalist and author. "Currently, we are breathing in an atmosphere with about 390 ppm CO2, which is alarming for the living beings on the Earth," he points out.
The alarming concentration of CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere if not stopped immediately will bring disastrous impacts on people and places all over the world, he informs TOI. McKibben, the author of books like 'Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities' and 'The Durable Future and The End of Nature', was in the city on Sunday. He also took part in a seminar on 'Climate Change: A Global Concern' organised by the Sankat Mochan Foundation (SMF) on Tulsi Ghat on Sunday evening.
Referring to the drought-like situation due to scant rain in UP and other places, he says the disastrous impact of high concentration of CO2 are being seen across the world. Drought is becoming much more common, making food harder to grow in many places. It is estimated that there will be a reduction of 30-40 per cent in the production of major crops, he says and informs that glaciers, the source of drinking water, are melting and disappearing fast. Mosquitoes, who like a warmer world, are spreading and bringing malaria and dengue fever. Sea levels have begun to rise and scientists warn that they may go up as much as several metres this century. If that happens, many of the world's cities, island nations and farmland will be underwater. Even an increase of one degree C temperature on Earth causes impacts like increasing evaporation and droughts in dry areas. Just a few degrees increase in temperature can completely change the world and threaten the lives of millions of people, he points out.
According to him, the global warming is happening faster than ever and humans are responsible for it. For all of human history until about 200 years ago, the atmosphere contained 275ppm of CO2, which is a useful amount because without some CO2 and other greenhouse gases that trap heat in the atmosphere, the planet will be too cold for humans to inhabit. Beginning in the 18th century, humans began to burn coal and gas and oil to produce energy and goods. The amount of carbon in the atmosphere began to rise. We're taking millions of years worth of carbon, stored beneath the Earth as fossil fuels and releasing it into the atmosphere. The 350ppm, what many scientists and climate experts are now saying, is the safe upper limit for CO2 in our atmosphere. Accelerating arctic warming and other early climate impacts have led scientists to conclude that we are already above the safe zone at our current 390ppm, he says.
According to him, James Hansen of America's National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the scientist who warned about global warming, wrote that if humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilisation developed and to which life on Earth was adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggested that CO2 would need to be reduced to 350ppm.
"It is a hard task, but not impossible. We need to stop taking carbon out of the ground and putting it into the air," he says, adding there is a need to start using solar and wind energy and other such sources of renewable energy. "If we do so, then the Earth's soils and forests will slowly cycle some of that extra carbon out of the atmosphere and eventually CO2 concentrations will return to a safe level." By decreasing use of other fossil fuels and improving agricultural and forestry practices around the world, scientists believe the Earth can get back to 350 by mid-century. But, the longer we remain in the danger zone (above 350ppm) the more likely that we will see disastrous and irreversible climate impacts, he concludes.
Campaign to make a difference
VARANASI: The saying of Mahatma Gandhi- "A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history"- is the driving force of the 350.org, an international campaign dedicated to creating an equitable global climate treaty that lowers carbon dioxide below 350 parts per million. The campaign was launched in March 2008 by Bill McKibben.
A group of such spirited people, both from the US and Varanasi assembled on the Tulsi Ghat on Sunday afternoon, to discuss the environmental issues with a commitment to spearhead the campaign against water and air pollution.
McKibben, who led the largest demonstrations against global warming in American history, was in the city on Sunday wanting a collaboration with the Sankat Mochan Foundation (SMF), a local organisation working for the cleaning of the Ganga for past 27 years, to address this environmental issue. Appreciating McKibben's initiative, the SMF president and retired professor from the Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University (IT-BHU), Prof Veer Bhadra Mishra, said there was a need to rope in more social and voluntary organisations as well as individuals to address the burning issues of air and water pollution.
"While McKibben is advocating for the protection of atmospheric climate, we are working to stop the sewage discharge into the Ganga. Both air and water are the important components of the nature and it is the duty of all to maintain the balance of nature," said Mishra.
Speaking on the occasion, McKibben said the United Nations is working on a treaty, which is supposed to be completed in December this year at a conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. In this meeting, delegates, non-governmental organisations and businesses from every nation will meet to finalise a new global climate change agreement. He also called upon to organise events to celebrate the International Day of Climate Action on October 24.
The seminar was also addressed by IT-BHU director Prof SN Upadhyaya, climate scientist and retired professor from BHU Prof BRD Gupta, Dr Devendra Mohan, Dr TM Mohapatra, Prof SK Mishra, Dr Vishwambhar Nath Mishra and others.
Pollution boards have a different take
VARANASI: While the alarming concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has raised concern of climate experts, the UP Pollution Control Board (UPPCB) and Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) are not monitoring the CO2 level.
However, the CPCB is executing a nation-wide programme of ambient air quality monitoring known as National Air Quality Monitoring Programme (NAMP). The network consists of 332 operating stations covering 121 cities/towns of the country. Under NAMP, four air pollutants including sulphur dioxide (SO2), oxides of nitrogen as NO2, suspended particulate matter (SPM) and respirable suspended particulate matter (RSPM) have been identified for regular monitoring at all the locations. The monitoring of meteorological parameters such as wind speed and wind direction, relative humidity (RH) and temperature were also integrated with the monitoring of air quality.
"The CO2 is not regarded as pollutant like carbon monoxide (CO)," Dr Franklin, the scientist at the regional office of UPPCB, told TOI on Monday. According to him, the CO2 does not cause direct fatal impact on human health. The CO2 is the byproduct of all aerobic decomposition. He, however, admitted that the high concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere was responsible for the global warming and climate change.
Quick Facts
# 350.org is an international campaign dedicated to creating an equitable global climate treaty that lowers carbon dioxide below 350 parts per million.
# 350 is the number that the leading scientists say is the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide measured in "parts per million" in the atmosphere.
# 350ppm: It's the number humanity needs to get back below as soon as possible to avoid runaway climate change.
# 350.org is coordinating an international day of action on October 24, 2009 across the world to unite the public.
Threats of climate change more acute in South Asia: Kerry
July 22, 2009
Washington (PTI): The nexus between today's threats and the climate change is more acute in South Asia than anywhere else, a powerful American senator has said.
"Nowhere is the nexus between today's threats and climate change more acute than in South Asia, the home of al-Qaeda and the center of our terrorist threat," said Senator John Kerry, Chairman of Senate Foreign Relations Committee, comparing the impact of climate change in the region with the threat posed by terrorism.
"Scientists are now warning that the Himalayan glaciers, which supply water to almost a billion people from China to Afghanistan, could disappear completely by 2035.
"Water from the Himalayas flows through India into Pakistan. India's rivers are not only agriculturally vital, they are also central to its religious practice," Mr. Kerry said at a hearing on 'Climate Change and Global Security' by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
"Pakistan, for its part, is heavily dependent on irrigated farming. Even as our government scrambles to ratchet down tensions and prepares to invest billions to strengthen Pakistan's capacity to deliver for its people, climate change is threatening to work powerfully in the opposite direction," Mr. Kerry argued.
"Just as 9/11 taught us the painful lesson that oceans could not protect us from terror, today we are deluding ourselves if we believe that climate change will stop at our borders," he said.
Climate change, Mr. Kerry argued, injects a major new source of chaos, tension, and human insecurity into an already volatile world.
"It threatens to bring more famine and drought, worse pandemics, more natural disasters, more resource scarcity, and human displacement on a staggering scale," he said.
"Places only too familiar with the instability, conflict, and resource competition that often create refugees and IDPs will now confront these same challenges with an ever growing population of EDPs (environmentally displaced people)," Mr. Kerry said.
"We risk fanning the flames of failed-statism, and offering glaring opportunities to the worst actors in our international system. In an interconnected world, that endangers all of us," he added.
G8 leaders 'ignored' UN findings on climate change: Pachauri
The Hindustan Times, July 21, 2009
The world's largest economies have "clearly ignored" the findings of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning UN scientific body that evaluates climate change when formulating their recent proposals on slashing greenhouse gases, a top official said.
It was a "big step" for leaders of over one dozen developed nations attending the Major Economies Forum (MEF) to recognise that the global average temperature should not increase by more than two degrees centigrade, Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), told reporters here Monday.
But they have disregarded the IPCC's findings that emissions will have to reach their pinnacle in 2015 and rapidly decline thereafter, he said, referring to the meeting of MEF, including the Group of Eight (G8) nations and others, in L'Aquila, Italy July 9.
"If the G8 leaders agreed on this two degree increase as being the limit that could be accepted, then I think they should have also accepted the attendant requirement of global emissions peaking by 2015," Pachauri said.
At the very least, he added, the countries should have "categorically" committed to cuts by 2020, the date agreed to at the landmark 2007 UN climate change conference in Bali, Indonesia.
Pachauri also pointed out that despite committing to "deep cuts" in emissions, the leaders of the MEF nations have yet to discuss the substance of the reductions. "The science is getting clear," he said.
"The gaps in our knowledge are certainly filling up," he said, stressing the need for "the global community to take action" and ensure that this December's climate change conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, ends with countries wrapping up negotiations on a strong successor pact to the Kyoto Protocol, whose first commitment period ends in 2012.
An IPCC meeting in Venice, Italy, last week drew 200 climate change experts from all over the world to discuss the focus of the body's next assessment report - considered to be the most comprehensive study globally on global warming - due to be released in 2014.
Use Compact Fluorescent Bulbs: Compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) will help increase your energy efficiency.
Use reusable bags.
Up to 20 percent of heating and cooling energy is lost due to poorly sealed or insulated ducts in your home. Make sure your ducts are properly insulated and install weather stripping around windows and doors for a better seal.
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: Reducing your garbage by 25 percent will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 1,000 pounds per year. Recycling aluminum cans, glass bottles, plastic, cardboard and newspapers can reduce your home's impact by 850 pounds of carbon dioxide per year. Decreasing carbon dioxide emissions can help stop global warming.
Conserve Water: Purifying and distributing water takes lots of energy. You can make simple changes to reduce the amount of water you use. Replacing an older toilet can save about 7,500 gallons of water a year. Fixing a leak in a toilet can save as much as 200 gallons a day. Use low-flow shower heads and turn your water heater thermostat down to 120 degrees Fahrenheit. These steps can add up to serious savings on your water and energy bills.
Air Dry Your Clothes: Line-dry your clothes in the spring and summer instead of using the dryer.
Buy Products Locally Buy locally and reduce the amount of energy required to drive your products to your store.
Buy Minimally Packaged Goods: Less packaging could reduce your garbage by about 10%.
Plant a Tree: Trees suck up carbon dioxide and make clean air for us to breathe.
Turn off Your Computer: Shut off your computer when not in use.
Man has lived in dependence, and man has desired and fought for independence, but nobody looks into the reality -- that dependence and independence both are extremes.
Electronic waste, e-waste, e-scrap, or Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) describes loosely discarded, surplus, obsolete, broken, electrical or electronic devices. The processing of electronic waste in developing countries causes serious health and pollution problems due to the fact that electronic equipment contains some very serious contaminants such as lead, cadmium, beryllium and brominated flame retardants. Even in developed countries recycling and disposal of e-waste involves significant risk for examples to workers and communities and great care must be taken to avoid unsafe exposure in recycling operations and leaching of materials such as heavy metals from landfills and incinerator ashes.
Debate continues over the distinction between "commodity" and "waste" electronics definitions. Some exporters may deliberately leave difficult-to-spot obsolete or non-working equipment mixed in loads of working equipment (through ignorance, or to avoid more costly treatment processes). Protectionists may broaden the definition of "waste" electronics. The high value of the computer recycling subset of electronic waste (working and reusable laptops, computers, and components like RAM) can help pay the cost of transportation for a large number of worthless "commodities".
VARANASI: Will the high concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere bring about a catastrophe on the Earth? 
According to him, the global warming is happening faster than ever and humans are responsible for it. For all of human history until about 200 years ago, the atmosphere contained 275ppm of CO2, which is a useful amount because without some CO2 and other greenhouse gases that trap heat in the atmosphere, the planet will be too cold for humans to inhabit. Beginning in the 18th century, humans began to burn coal and gas and oil to produce energy and goods. The amount of carbon in the atmosphere began to rise. We're taking millions of years worth of carbon, stored beneath the Earth as fossil fuels and releasing it into the atmosphere. The 350ppm, what many scientists and climate experts are now saying, is the safe upper limit for CO2 in our atmosphere. Accelerating arctic warming and other early climate impacts have led scientists to conclude that we are already above the safe zone at our current 390ppm, he says. 
VARANASI: The saying of Mahatma Gandhi- "A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history"- is the driving force of the 350.org, an international campaign dedicated to creating an equitable global climate treaty that lowers carbon dioxide below 350 parts per million. The campaign was launched in March 2008 by Bill McKibben. 
VARANASI: While the alarming concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has raised concern of climate experts, the UP Pollution Control Board (UPPCB) and Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) are not monitoring the CO2 level. 
"Pakistan, for its part, is heavily dependent on irrigated farming. Even as our government scrambles to ratchet down tensions and prepares to invest billions to strengthen Pakistan's capacity to deliver for its people, climate change is threatening to work powerfully in the opposite direction," Mr. Kerry argued. 
The world's largest economies have "clearly ignored" the findings of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning UN scientific body that evaluates climate change when formulating their recent proposals on slashing greenhouse gases, a top official said.
