Green revolution over, agri yields staring at dead end?

The monsoon bounty this year is expected to put the smiley back on the agriculture output graph. The government has quickly announced a target food grain production of 244.5 million tonnes for 2010-11, 10mt more than the highest till date – 234.47mt achieved in 2008-09. Even in the wake of last year's monsoon failure, wheat production in the rabi cycle breached the 80mt mark for the first time ever.

But are these recent successes signs of a much-needed turnaround or are they temporarily masking a larger crisis in Indian agriculture that has been limiting growth in the medium term and threatening our food security?

A revealing international study that used US satellite data to track year-on-year changes in yields, warns that environmental drivers could be pushing agriculture towards stagnation. The findings indicate that India's Green Revolution may have reached unsustainable levels, at least in some parts of the country, and may hit a wall unless massive policy interventions address the situation.

The paper, Decadal Variations in NDVI and Food Production in India, published earlier this year in the open-access Remote Sensing journal, compares agriculture production in two decades – 1982-92 and 1996-06 – and finds a distinct slowdown in growth rates in the latter decade for both kharif and rabi crops. The study points to two worrying environmental factors, among others, that may explain the low growth during 1996 to 2006 – increasing pressure on groundwater due to unsustainable use and rising temperatures in the subcontinent.

The authors, researchers mostly based in the US, used a measure known as Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), which calculates crop yields using satellite data. For the study, year-on-year data from the US meteorological sensor, the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer, was used.

As compared to the previous decade, the study found a 50% drop in growth rates in the kharif season during 1996-2006 and, more alarmingly, almost zero growth in the winter crop (rabi). The slowdown was more pronounced in the main foodgrain producing states in north India and in the central portion of the country.

"Around 30% of the total cropland area of India showed a statistically significant decline in growth rate of greenness index during the rabi season," lead author Cristina Milesi from California State University, Monterey Bay, told TOI.

The rabi slowdown is significant because it's primarily dependent on irrigation, increasingly, groundwater. Not surprisingly, states such as Punjab and Haryana where rabi yields are stagnating, also overlap with regions where groundwater use has reached critical levels. The paper estimates that in the absence of any irrigation, it would require 30% to 150% increase in local annual rainfall to sustain the rate of growth in rabi crops seen during 1982-2002 in large portions of peninsular India.

"Our calculations of increase in crop water demand are greatest over the northwest and central-southern peninsula and coincide to a good approximation with areas mapped as suffering from groundwater overexploitation," the paper notes.

Says K Krishna Kumar, climate scientist at Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology and one of the authors, "What could also be contributing to the fall in growth is accelerated warming since the mid-1990s. Our paper notes that over the past decade, average temperatures have increased by 0.25 degrees Celsius during the kharif season and by 0.6 degrees during rabi. We cite other studies which have linked the recent warming to a potentially reduced rabi crop yield by 6%."

Source: Times of India, 26-11-2010

India climate meet ahead of Mexico to push tech deal

NEW DELHI: India will try to push climate talks forward at a two-day ministerial meeting in November by focusing on winning agreement on sharing clean technologies, a sticky issue that divides rich and poor countries.

The Nov 8-9 talks are aimed at clarifying rules on sharing future innovations and existing technologies involving contentious intellectual property rights (IPR) issues.

The talks will come just weeks before a major UN climate meeting in Mexico and are an attempt to breathe new life into global climate negotiations after last December's Copenhagen summit fell short of agreeing a treaty.

Brazil, South Africa, India and China -- dubbed the BASIC group -- were among more than 120 nations that agreed a non-binding deal in Copenhagen to limit a rise in average world temperatures to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F) over pre-industrial times.

But the accord lacked details of how to reach this goal. Several poor countries said the rich industrialised world was not offering to cut emissions enough and they expressed fears they would not receive sufficient technology and funding to deal with global warming.

Indian officials said environment minister Jairam Ramesh made the offer to host the November talks at a meeting of the Major Economies Forum (MEF) countries in Rome last month.

The MEF, which helped nudge big emitters to support a goal of limiting global warming to less than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) above pre-industrial levels, groups 17 nations that account for roughly 80% of the world's emissions.

"We want a common position on technology transfer through partnerships in which poor countries are given access to technology and that they can get help with applying it as well," a senior government official said.

The BASIC countries say countries such as Australia, Canada, and the United States should immediately provide countries like China and India technology to store carbon dioxide emissions underground.

U.N. climate talks are said to have made progress on sharing green technologies, but differences remain.

Developing nations want new technology and billions of dollars in aid to help them move away from fossil fuels, the main source of mankind's planet-warming greenhouse gases, as part of a deal at the year-end UN talks in the Mexican resort of Cancun.

"There is probably no problems with future technologies, but it is the sharing of existing technologies that involves looking at issues of IPR," said K. Srinivas, a New Delhi-based independent climate change expert.

Source:Decan Herald 13 July2010

Pay attention to green issues, says Binoy Viswam

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, April 23 -- Forest Minister Binoy Viswam has said that all political parties will have to formulate an unambiguous policy on issues related to environment. He was speaking at the World Earth Day 2010 observance organised by the Kerala State Council for Science, Technology and Environment (KSCSTE) at the Sasthra Bhavan here on Thursday.

"A time will come in the near future when all political parties will be forced to take a clear stand on issues relating to relating to relating to environment. When it comes to protecting the environment, the Left parties should take the initiative. They should take greater responsibility and promote accountability in working out solutions to environmental problems. Only then would Left would really become Left,'' he said.

The Minister said that there was a trend to ridicule those who talk of earth, environment, flora and fauna as being 'anti-developmental'. "They are not against development, they just insist that we should consider environment and people at large before taking decisions. They also want development, but development should be for the benefit of society,'' he said. A nation cannot be termed as developed when 70 percent of the population earns less than Rs 20 per day, he said.

Echoing the Minister's view, KSCSTE executive vice-president C T S Nair said that GDP alone cannot be a scale for measuring development. "It will be just like looking at the speed of a car and not the fuel efficiency or stock of resources. We need to produce more goods to meet the basic needs and we really need to move towards a green economy,'' said Nair.

Energy Management director S.K. Khanduri talked of the importance of observing 'Earth Day' in sensitising society on issues like global warming global warming, the gradual increase of the temperature of the earth's lower atmosphere as a result of the increase in greenhouse gases since the Industrial Revolution and energy conservation. He was quick to point out the unnecessary use of electrical lights in the Sasthra Bhavan Auditorium which had quite a lot of daylight coming in through the windows. "The behaviour of society should change to promote sustainable living Sustainable living might be defined as a lifestyle that could, hypothetically, be sustained without exhausting any natural resources. The term can be applied to individuals or societies. ,'' he said.

KSCSTE Member Secretary in-charge in his talk said that while air-conditioners were used to fight heat, this itself contributes to global warming and thus the vicious cycle continues.

The highlight of the technical session was the talk by Dr Thamban Meloth on his experiences in Antarctica. A scientist with the National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research, Goa, he focused his talk on 'Climate Change in Antarctica and its Global Implications'. C. Jayakumar of the Marine and Coastal Survey Division of the Geological Survey of India Geological Survey of India (GSI), established in 1851 is a government organization in India for conducting geological surveys and studies. It is one of the oldest of such organizations in the world. , Mangalore, also gave an interesting presentation on 'Earth and Climate Change'.

There was a group discussion for students in the afternoon co-ordinated by Ajith Venniyoor of the Kerala Sustainable Urban Development Project (KSUDP).

Source: New Indian Express, 23rd April 2010

Sensor devices to predict freak weather

When the town of Cockermouth, Cumbria, northern England, was hit by floods late last year, the freak weather led to deaths and serious injuries, and caused huge damage to thousands of homes and businesses. People from all around the U.K. watched the disaster and called for greater prioritisation of flood defences.

Now, a team of scientists from Southampton University has stepped up to the challenge. Led by Dr Kirk Martinez, a senior lecturer at the university's school of electronics and computer science, the group has created a new sensor device that can help to reduce the unpredictable factor of flash flooding, as well as making other geographical phenomena such as landslides much easier to forecast.

Under glaciers

The technology was developed in 2003, when Martinez began working on a sensor probe that was placed under glaciers to measure climate change. Scientists, Martinez says, “weren't making the most of all the newly available technology”. He adds: “Most research involved trying to insert sensors on a long wire into the ice. The wires tended to break a lot and the researchers had to regularly go out to the site with a laptop to download all the data. I thought there had to be a way of using wireless technology to develop a new measuring technique.” There was: Martinez was able to design small, fist-sized wireless glacier probes, which have a small, low-power computer and radio inside that enables them to regularly take, store and send measurements to a web server accessible from anywhere in the world.

After developing the probes, the researchers used a jet-powered steam “drill” to position the sensors 70 metres deep at various positions in the Skalafellsjokull glacier in Iceland — part of the largest ice cap in Europe.

They were set to record temperature, pressure, movement and the quantity of water in their surroundings to help scientists get an accurate picture of glacial behaviour and predict future movements.

Now, the probes are still in place and able to “talk” to each other, so if a range of readings have been the same for a period of time, some of the devices hibernate to save power. If conditions begin to change, one of the probes “wakes up” the rest of them.

The success of the pilot led Martinez to think bigger. “Initially, it was very difficult to develop the probes,” he explains. “No one had done it before, so we had to design several versions of everything, from the programmes and electronics to the waterproof cases, before we perfected them enough to venture out to other areas. But once they were in place and working, they sent through data reliably and usefully.

“In Iceland, they have already shown us interesting things, like the fact that the glacier began to warm up in February, even though the land on top of it was still very wintry. So we thought there would be other uses for these sensors.” Martinez took the Southampton-designed probes to the Los Laureles Canyon in Mexico, to see if they would collect data that could help to understand landslides as well as studying melting ice caps.

“The canyon area has no proper drainage system, and very poor-quality housing that faces massive flooding problems,” he says. “The streets are not paved and when water flows, it picks up sediment and becomes quite aggressive. So we put our probes in place to measure the ground's tilt, how moist it is, the temperature, and the crushing pressure, to help local scientists prevent landslides.

The probes measure every 10 minutes. Put together with meteorological predictions for rainfall and storms, the data can show how and why things are moving, and indicate the start of a landslide.

It means that the local experts are receiving regular, accurate data and are working on preventative slope management.”

Martinez and his fellow researchers are now looking at ways to make the sensors cheap and easy to install. “At the moment, the probes are handmade so they cost up to GBP200 each, but this could be cut a lot with mass production,” Martinez says.

Non-profit basis

“We're producing them on a non-profit basis right now, but we see environmental monitoring companies buying them to help with their contracts, as well as researchers who want to measure things in remote areas.”

Anticipating floods In the future, Martinez believes the sensors could be used around the world, from flood - monitoring in Cockermouth to landslide — prediction in South America and Asia. “In Britain, they could have a huge impact on how we anticipate flooding.

The sensors' data could not only be used by local environment agencies to trigger an evacuation, but also be directed to a website, so people facing coastal erosion or flooding could check the safety of their homes.

“The exciting thing is that the probes don't need a huge chunk of concrete or a power station to get them to run, they're small, and contain batteries that run for many years.”

Common man benefits

Although they were conceived to fulfil a need of recording data in hard-to-reach environments, Martinez believes one day individual homeowners could buy the sensors to check things such as how fast cliffs are receding, as well as water-monitoring to help people in places like Cockermouth to prepare in advance for flash floods.

“Climate change is happening and we need the combined efforts of measuring what's happening with efforts to prevent it,” Martinez says.

“It's a great time to be working in this field — the technology is ripe to make a huge difference.” — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2010

Source: Thursday, Apr 22, 2010

Pattern in Earth's long-term climate record found

In an analysis of the past 1.2 million years, University of California, Santa Barbara, geologist Lorraine Lisiecki discovered a pattern that connects the regular changes of the Earth's orbital cycle to changes in the Earth's climate. The finding is reported in Nature Geoscience. Lisiecki performed her analysis of climate by examining ocean sediment cores. These cores come from 57 locations around the world.

By analyzing sediments, scientists are able to chart the Earth's climate for millions of years in the past. Lisiecki's contribution is the linking of the climate record to the history of the Earth's orbit.

It is known that the Earth's orbit around the sun changes shape every 100,000 years. The orbit becomes either more round or more elliptical at these intervals.

The shape of the orbit is known as its “eccentricity.” A related aspect is the 41,000-year cycle in the tilt of the Earth's axis.

Glaciation of the Earth also occurs every 100,000 years. Lisiecki found that the timing of changes in climate and eccentricity coincided, according to a University of California, Santa Barbara, press release. “The clear correlation between the timing of the change in orbit and the change in the Earth's climate is strong evidence of a link between the two," said Lisiecki. “It is unlikely that these events would not be related to one another.”

Besides finding a link between change in the shape of the orbit and the onset of glaciation, Lisiecki found a surprising correlation.

She discovered that the largest glacial cycles occurred during the weakest changes in the eccentricity of Earth's orbit –– and vice versa. She found that the stronger changes in the Earth's orbit correlated to weaker changes in climate. “This may mean that the Earth's climate has internal instability in addition to sensitivity to changes in the orbit,” said Lisiecki.

The pattern of climate change over the past million years involves complicated interactions between different parts of the climate system, as well as three different orbital systems.

The first two orbital systems are the orbit's eccentricity, and tilt. The third is “precession,” or a change in the orientation of the rotation axis. — Our Bureau

Source: The Hindu, 8th April 2010

How do we go for Power Management of Desktop Computer System

The Climate Savers Computing Initiative (CSCD), is a non-profit group dedicated to reducing energy consumption of computers. Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has joined hands with CSCI and requested NIC to issue direction to all NIC units to enable power management settings in the computer systems. See details in this regard.

To calculate your power savings, click here

What exactly is the Climate Savers Computing Initiative?

Started by Google and Intel in 2007, the Climate Savers Computing Initiative is a nonprofit group of eco-conscious consumers, businesses and conservation organizations. The Initiative was started in the spirit of WWF’s Climate Savers program which has mobilized over a dozen companies since 1999 to cut carbon dioxide emissions, demonstrating that reducing emissions is good business. Our goal is to promote development, deployment and adoption of smart technologies that can both improve the efficiency of a computer’s power delivery and reduce the energy consumed when the computer is in an inactive state. Find more...

Eco concerns raised at Maramon Convention

PATHANAMTHITTA: The week-long Maramon Convention, organised by the Mar Thoma Evangelistic Association (MTEA) attached to the Mar Thoma Syrian Church of Malabar on the riverbed of the Pampa at Maramon near Kozhencherry, began on Sunday afternoon with a fervent plea to conserve environment. Inaugurating the meet, Joseph Mar Thoma Metropolitan, head of the church, laid emphasis on the grave need to protect environment at a time when climate change was causing grave concerns. He said nature had been exposed to the worst kind of exploitation in the modern times.

Global warming and frequent earthquakes were the resultant ill effects of man’s excessive exploitation of nature, he added. The Metropolitan called upon the faithful to practice evangelism in life. Philipose Mar Chrysostum, Senior Metropolitan, led the prayers. Presiding over the inaugural function, MTEA president Zacharias Mar Theophilus Suffragan Metropolitan said turning to the gospel of Jesus Christ was the need of the hour. He said society should wake up to stop violence and the church was willing to work for the deliverance of those addicted to liquor. He added that the government too should make necessary intervention in this regard. Rev Martin Alphons, an evangelist from the U.S., delivered the religious discourse. The week-long convention concludes on February 21. The annual Christian religious congregation is billed as the largest Christian congregation in Asia.

Source: The Hindu, Dated: 15.02.2010

Endosulfan: plea to pay compensation

KANNUR: The Indian Lawyers Congress (ILC) State unit demanded at a press conference in Kasaragod on Sunday that a Bhopal-model compensation claims commissioner be appointed for paying compensation to the victims of Endosulfan exposure in Kasaragod. ILC State president T. Asaf Ali said the State government and government-owned Kerala Plantation Corporation that had led the aerial spraying of the pesticide over its cashew plantations in Kasaragod should pay compensation to the victims of the Endosulfan tragedy. He demanded compensation for people suffering from physical and mental abnormalities and the families of the 486 victims, whose deaths were officially confirmed to have been due to health hazards caused by the pesticide. The government should either appoint the claims commissioner or utilise the services of the Kerala State Legal Services Authority to identify the victims of the Endosulfan tragedy, he said. He said that if the State government was not willing to initiate payment of compensation, the ILC would approach the High Court seeking justice for the victims of the tragedy.

Soutce: The Hindu, Dated: 15.02.2010

Sea level rise a threat: expert

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The coastal belt of Kerala, along with island groups like Lakshadweep and Maldives, will become vulnerable to rise in sea level caused by climate change, former Executive Director of the Centre for Water Resources Development and Management (CWRDM), E.J. James, said here on Tuesday. He was speaking on the topic ‘Caring for Wetlands: An answer to Climate Change’ at a seminar organised by the Kerala State Council for Science Technology and Environment (KSCSTE) and CWRDM to mark the World Wetlands Day.
Wetland’s import

“Wetland conservation and climate change are closely linked. The disappearance of wetlands in Kerala, especially coastal wetlands, will lead to climate change, which will in turn lead to temperature rise and submersion due to rise in sea level. The intensification of hydrological cycle caused by temperature rise will lead to the dangerous scenarios of intermittent floods and droughts,” Mr. James said. He said that disappearance of wetlands would also lead to salinity intrusion into rivers, extinction of a number of species and adverse impact on biodiversity and aqua tourism. Mr. James said that though the three wetlands in Kerala, Shasthamcotta, Ashtamudi and Vembanad, have been declared as internationally important under the Ramsar convention, no significant action had taken so far to protect them.

More serious issue
CSIR emeritus scientist Jose Kallarackal said that the disappearance of wetlands was a more serious issue in Kerala than climate change. “In the past 60 years, the total area of wetlands in our State has been reduced to one fourth,” he said. Poet and environmental activist Sugathakumari exhorted the scientific community to fight strongly for the cause of wetland conservation and environment. “The scientific community should be able to guide the government authorities and tell them boldly if a project will adversely affect the environment,” she said.

Source: the Hindu, Dated: 4.02.2010

Copenhagen Accord not legally binding: UNFCC

NEW DELHI: Seeking to put at rest doubts over the status of the Copenhagen Accord agreed upon at the 15th meeting of the Conference of Parties (COP) in the Danish capital last year, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has issued a clarification saying that the agreement was not a legally binding document but merely a political one. In a notification addressed to the Parties, Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UNFCCC, said that since the COP neither adopted nor endorsed the Accord, but merely took note of it, its provisions do not have any legal standing with the UNFCCC process even if some Parties decide to associate themselves with it. Secondly, since the Accord is a political agreement, rather than a treaty instrument subject to signature, a note verbale to the secretariat from an appropriate authority in the government concerned was sufficient to communicate the intention of a party to associate itself with the accord.

Source: The Hindu, Dated: 28.01.2010

Pachauri rules out resignation, says IPCC expressed regret

NEW DELHI: Chairman of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) R.K. Pachauri on Saturday ruled out his resignation in the wake of the controversy over the inclusion of unsubstantiated data in the Fourth Assessment Report, which said the Himalayan glaciers would vanish by 2035, an error for which the IPCC had to express regret. He said he was elected by all countries in the world and had a task to complete. “My job is to complete the Fifth Assessment Report. It is an unfortunate error, but this one error, which is regrettable, will in no way detract us from finishing our job,” he said at a press conference here. Admitting there were more mistakes in the section, Mr. Pachauri said the IPCC had expressed regret. “In the future, the performance of every lead author will be under scrutiny. We will exercise a higher level of surveillance to ensure that such human errors do not creep into the fifth report,” he said. Mr. Pachauri said no action could be taken against the lead authors as they were not IPCC employees. “The Nobel Prize-winning IPCC’s credibility was established over the last 21 years and got strengthened as we accepted the mistake,” Mr. Pachauri said, asserting that its image would not be shaken by the incident. He also ruled out a review of the remaining chapters of the Fourth Assessment report. “Our procedures are robust and solid. We only have to adhere to implementing the procedure. In this case, it was a failure on the part of the authors. We will be particular in avoiding slip-ups in the next report.”

‘Experts needed’
Mr. Pachauri admitted that not much research was done on the Himalayan glaciers. “There should be a dedicated programme to monitor and measure these glaciers. The entire field of glacier dynamics need experts and India is short of such experts.” Taking on climate sceptics, Mr. Pachauri said they were out to demolish the entire science of climate change. “There are 1200 lobbyists in Washington DC paid by 770 companies to stop anything related to climate change policies proposed by the United States. An enormous amount of resources is in the sceptics’ hands because climate change is a threat to convenient profit,” he alleged. The poorest regions of the world were the victims of climate change and those giving money to the sceptics were not concerned about these areas, he said. On V.K. Raina’s report on the health of the Himalayan glaciers that challenged the IPCC claim, Mr. Pachauri said that if some Indian glaciologist found something, he could have informed him. “I would have investigated it. The report made by Raina is broad and raises more questions on glacier melting and global warming. But it is not peer reviewed and there is hardly any citation in the report,” he said.

Source: The Hindu, Dated: 24.01.2010

No clearance to 88 polluting industrial clusters: Jairam

MUMBAI: Union Minister of State for Environment and Forest Jairam Ramesh on Sunday said a nation-wide Comprehensive Environmental Assessment found that 88 industrial clusters were critically polluted. Out of these 88 clusters, 8 are in Maharashtra including Tarapur and Chembur. The environment Ministry will not give clearance to any industry in these 88 clusters unless Action Plan is prepared and implemented to improve the environment in these areas, said Mr. Ramesh, while dedicating HPCL’s EURO-4 Petrol Production Facilities to the Nation here. Speaking on this occasion Environment Minister said that “we have to be tough in matters related to environment.” Drastic and tough measures are to be taken to save the environment. Elaborating further, he said environment and public health are inter-dependent. In a place like Bhatinda where there is a critically polluted industrial cluster, the number of Cancer patients is very high. Where the environment is polluted beyond a certain level, it has caused health hazards for the inhabitants of the area. Although, in India, transport emission forms 7 to 8 per cent of the Green House Gases (GHS), but keeping in view the rapid growth in transport sector, there is urgent need to provide clean fuel at affordable price, the Minister added.

Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Murali Deora in his address said EURO-4 petrol would be introduced in 13 mega cities including Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkatta, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore etc. by April 2010 where as EURO-3 petrol would be available in rest of country by October 2010. In order to meet the objective of a greener environment as envisaged in auto Fuel Policy, HPCL’s Mumbai Refinery undertook, “Green Fuel and Emission Control Project”. The total cost of the project is Rs. 1731 crore for upgradation of petrol quality to meet Euro-4 specifications, Mr. Deora added.

“Petroleum products will continue to occupy a dominant position in meeting the energy requirements of our country before we switch to alternative sources of energy,” said Mr. Deora. It is, therefore, important that appropriate regulations be put in place for ensuring that India meets globally accepted environment norms. At the same time, it is incumbent upon the oil industry to keep upgrading their technology and processes so as to provide the nation the cleanest possible sources of energy.

Source: The Hindu, Dated: 18.01.2010

Ban on new units in highly polluted areas

NEW DELHI: The Centre has imposed temporary restrictions on new development projects in industrial clusters that score more than 70 points on the Comprehensive Environmental Pollution Index (CEPI) issued by the Ministry of Environment and Forests. The restrictions on projects from critically polluted industrial clusters will be applicable for eight months during which time the Central Pollution Control Board along with the respective State Pollution Control Boards will finalise a time-bound action plan for improving the environmental quality of these areas.

The situation will be reviewed subsequently and further instructions issued accordingly. According to a notification by the Ministry, projects from industrial clusters with CEPI score above 70 received for grant of environmental clearance will be returned to the project proponents. The most affected industrial areas, as a result of this notification, would be Ankleswar, Vapi, Ghaziabad, Chandrapur, Korba, Bhiwadi, Angul Talcher, Vellore, Singrauli, Ludhiana, Najafgarh drain and surrounding areas in Delhi, Noida, Dhanbabd, Kanpur, Cuddalore, Agra, Haldia, Ahmedabad, Navi Mumbai, Mangalore, Coimbatore, Visakhapatnam, and Patancheru-Bollaram.

Source: The Hindu, Dated: 16.01.2010

‘Utilise solar energy for society’

KOCHI: The scientific community should take up the challenge of coming up with photovoltaic materials that could effectively utilise the solar energy for the welfare of the society, Zhores I. Alferov, Nobel Prize winner in Physics (2000), has said. He was delivering the inaugural address at the conference on materials for the millennium organised by the Department of Applied Chemistry at Cusat here on Monday.

Source: The Hindu, Dated: 12.01.2010

Climate change action should transcend divides: Minister

Thrissur: Forest Minister Benoy Viswam has said that action against climate change should rise above political divides. He was addressing a seminar on ‘Climate change: science, politics and resistance’, organised by Costford, here on Thursday. “Debates on climate change will point the finger at the U.S., which is the biggest polluter in the world. The anti-U.S. stand in such discussions should not give the impression that climate change is a concern of the Left alone. Political parties should rise above ideologies to tackle the issue,” he said.He said that developing countries need not bear the brunt of the excesses perpetrated by the developed countries. “The global legal doctrine maintains that the polluter must pay.” The Minister said that the State government took an important step in the campaign against climate change by planting 1.5 crore saplings under a social forestry project.

“Many panchayats have not taken the scheme seriously. The saplings have not been tended well. In contrast, 80 per cent of the saplings planted by school students under the ‘Ente Maram’ scheme are growing well. The interest taken by the students should be appreciated. The government takes pride in the fact that since June 5, 2007, a sapling each has been planted by 25 lakhs students across the State. Long before Maldives sent warnings on climate change at its underwater meeting and Nepal told the world about the impact of the phenomenon on the Himalayas and 193 countries geared up to meet in Copenhagen, the Kerala government had launched an afforestation programme with the motto: climate change: planting trees is the answer,” the Minister added. He observed that trees should be seen in a new light in the background of climate change. He called for initiatives in the State to promote energy efficient building material and new habitat technologies.

Source: The Hindu, Dated: 8.01.2010

National Seminar on Role of Women in Combating Climate Change

A national seminar was organized by Kerala State Council for Science, Technology and Environment (KSCSTE) in association with Department of Science and Technology, Govt of India at Sasthra Bhavan on 'Role of women in combating climate change' during 7th and 8th January 2010. The Seminar was inaugurated by Smt. P.K. Sreemathy Teacher, Hon'ble Minister for Health, Family and Social Welfare, Govt. of Kerala. Dr. E.P. Yesodharan presided over the function and Dr. J. Letha, Principal, College of Engineering, Thiruvananthapuram offered felicitation. Prof. J. Srinivasan, Professor, I.I.Sc. Bangalore delivered the special address on climate change. Eminent personalities will present papers in the technical sessions. The seminar will be concluded on 8th evening with a Panel discussion on the selected topic.

Call to fight for climate justice

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: As many as 97 mango saplings were planted on Tuesday on the Karyavattom campus of the University of Kerala which is hosting the ongoing 97th Indian Science Congress. Education Minister M.A. Baby inaugurated the drive by planting and watering the first sapling along with scientist M.G.K. Menon. In his inaugural address, Mr. Baby said the best way to protect the environment was to ensure that it was not destroyed or altered in the first place. Even though the Copenhagen summit did not work out to India’s satisfaction, the University of Kerala was doing its bit to conserve the environment, he said. There was a need now to fight a war of ideas, to win over Western countries on issues relating to global warming and to counter nations and leaders trying to subvert the Kyoto protocol, Mr. Baby said.
Value system
Addressing those who had gathered on the plot of land identified for planting the first saplings, Dr. Menon said sustainable development was much more than planting trees or even trying to protect the environment. The concept had to do with something deep inside each person. Sustainability had to be understood as the sustainability of the earth’s systems in the face of a burgeoning human population. “This is the age when industries clear vast swathes of land in the name of development so that they can make quick money out of the venture. Such tendencies need to be checked. We can’t destroy our inheritance—physical, culture or linguistic.” Education was the key to the preservation of a value system, Dr. Menon added.
Green lung
A total of 10,000 saplings would be planted as part of this campus beautification drive. These include saplings of mahogany, jackfruit, gooseberry, Sappotta and guava. Hundreds of acacia trees that stood in acres of land on the campus had been cleared prior to the science congress to facilitate the construction of various temporary and semi-permanent structures, including the main venue. In his address, Kerala University Vice-Chancellor A. Jayakrishnan said he hoped that in another 20 years the university campus would become the green lung of the city. Pro Vice-Chancellor J. Prabhash was among those who planted the first few saplings.
Source: The Hindu, Dated: 6.01.2010

Weather forecast to feature monsoon phases

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The India Meteorological Department is set to introduce an additional feature to its forecasts during monsoon. Shailesh Nayak, Secretary, Ministry of Earth Sciences, said here on Tuesday that from this year, farmers would also get forecasts of active and break phases of monsoon 10-15 days in advance. Till now, the Department has been issuing forecasts for five days and an outlook for the next two days. From this year’s monsoon, it will issue forecasts for one week and an outlook for the next. Notes on the possibilities of changes in the monsoon activity — from the active phase to the break phase or from the break phase to the active phase would be part of these advisories.
Scientists of the Meteorological Department have been working on forecasts on the active and break phases for the past three years. The forecasts would primarily be based on Madden Julian Oscillation. This phenomenon is an equatorial travelling pattern of anomalous rainfall that is planetary in scale. It is characterised by an eastward progression of large regions of both enhanced and suppressed tropical rainfall, observed mainly over the Indian and Pacific Oceans. The anomalous rainfall is usually first evident over the western Indian Ocean and remains evident as it spreads over the very warm ocean waters of the western and central tropical Pacific. Speaking at a plenary session of the 97th Indian Science Congress, Dr. Nayak said studies indicated that the level of the Indian Ocean had risen by 9 mm between 2004 and 2009. This was not unusual as a rise of 3 mm a year was observed in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans between 1993 and 2003.
Source: The Hindu, dated: 6.01.2010.

Experts warn of ‘climate refugees’

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Rise in temperature by 1 to 2 degrees Celsius will result in Kerala witnessing large-scale influx of ‘climate refugees’ from the coastal areas to the hinterlands, say experts. According to the ‘Thiruvananthapuram Declaration’ adopted by the Policy Makers’ Consultation on ‘Effective Community Management of Agro-biodiversity in an Era of Climate Change,’ organised under the aegis of the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) here on Tuesday, any significant rise in temperature will present ‘mega threats’ to Kerala’s food and water security systems and, if the increase in temperature is by 2 degrees Celsius, there will be a one to two metre rise in mean seal level during the current century posing serious threat to the lives and livelihoods of coastal communities.
The declaration pointed out that besides posing serious threats to the coastal ecosystems and mineral wealth, an increase in temperature will affect production and productivity of plantation crops such as coffee, tea, spices and rubber and annual crops such as rice. Change in precipitation will cause drought, flood and soil erosion and result in decrease in soil fertility. It will also affect adversely Kerala’s forest biodiversity and medicinal plant wealth, disrupt ecosystem services and trigger a spurt in vector-borne diseases in plants, animals and humans. The day-long consultation, attended by experts from different parts of India and various major institutions in the State, felt that the State must go in for both anticipatory research using advanced technologies and participatory research involving local communities, including tribal communities. Even as it painted a gloomy picture, the declaration noted that Kerala had what was needed to become a world leader in managing the consequences of rise in sea level as it had experience in cultivating rice in below sea level conditions in the Kuttanad area, a biodiversity paradise in flora and fauna. Inaugurating the consultation chaired by MSSRF chairman M.S. Swaminathan, Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan hoped that the deliberations would help the State find answers to the major challenges arising from climate change.
Source: The Hindu, Dated: 6.01.2010

Greater Cochin area ‘critically polluted’

KOCHI: The Greater Cochin industrial cluster area is critically polluted, according to the Comprehensive Environmental Pollution Index (CEPI) of the Central Pollution Control Board. The area has been ranked as the 24th polluted industrial cluster with an aggregate CEPI score of 75.08 out of 100. The area was also among the “existing critically polluted areas.” The indexing was carried out in association with the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi, and State Pollution Control Boards. The “health dimensions of environment including air, water and land” were considered for indexing. The board selected 88 industrial areas or clusters in consultation with the Ministry of Environment and Forests. The Greater Cochin area was the only industrial cluster considered from the State.The report stated that areas with scores of 70 and above should be considered as critically polluted ones.
Those with the score between 60 and 70 should be considered as severely polluted areas and shall be kept under surveillance and pollution control measures efficiently implemented. In the case of the critically polluted clusters, the report suggested detailed investigations for assessing the environmental damage and formulation of remedial action plans. The water quality of the Cochin area got a CEPI score of 64 and air quality 57. The land component was given a score of 54. “A sub-index score of more than 60 shows a critical level of pollution in the respective environmental component, whereas a score between 50 and 60 shows a severe level of pollution,” the report said. According to the report that was released recently, 43 industrial areas/clusters were critically polluted, with respect to one or more environmental components.
For the Cochin area, ambient air quality parameters like suspended particulate matter, respirable particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide and sulphur dioxide were considered, said M.S. Maithily, chief environmental engineer of the Kerala State Pollution Control Board Ernakulam region. Regarding the water quality, factors like pH, turbidity, presence of nitrates and sulphates and coliform bacteria were taken into account. The factors like population and the number of industrial units with effluent treatment plants were also considered while preparing the index, Ms. Maithily said. Ankleshwar in Gujarat topped the pollution list with a CEPI score of 88.5 followed by Vapi (88.09), Ghaziabad (87.37), Chandrapur (83.88), Korba (83), Bhiwadi Rajasthan (82.91) and Angul Talcher (82.09). The two clusters in Assam—Burnihat and Digboi—with scores of 46.26 and 44.55 were the least polluted clusters in the country.
Source: The Hindu, Dated: 1.1.2010