Towards environmental sustainability

BY UBA ABDULLAHI
DESPITE calls and appeals by both government and concerned groups (non governmental organizations) to enlighten and sensitize the public on the importance of managing and sustaining our environment for a better society, yet the calls and appeals seem to fall on deaf ears.
One thing to notice is that environment is a life partner of human and other species, and its management is compulsory, as such human beings needs to maintain a mutual and reciprocal relationship with the environment.
Basically, we know that environment is the major resources that sustain both human and other species life for development. Environment naturally has effects on our lives, whether positive or negative. A proper managed environment promotes good health and leads to societal progress, whereas on the other hand, improper usage of environment lead to high morbidity and high mortality rates as observed in densely populated areas with poor environmental management.
In essence, the sustainability of environment depends largely on government in partnership with non-governmental organizations(NGOs) to achieve a common goal. Partnership is referred to as a mutual benefit and relationship entered into by two or more organizations for the purpose of attaining a specific or general objective, which is achievable together (in partnership) than individually.
Ordinarily, when we talk of environmental sustainability in this West African sub-Sahara, what readily comes to mind is the negative concept of rampant felling of trees as fire woods, but far more than that, this is just one aspect of human factor of environmental degradation.
Environmental sustainability starts from a single household, and the way environment is properly managed, to a great extent determine the well being of a society.
As such cleared and cleaned environment with potable drinking water would ensure a healthy environment, which in turn ensures healthy family/society.
There is need for the three tiers of governments to engage in partnership with other non-governmental organizations to sensitize the public on the dangers of environmental abuse and suggest the way forward.
Also, there is need to re-define the forest law which prohibits rampant felling of trees, indiscriminately and viz-a-viz help to provide kerosene at affordable rate for the common man, which will reduce high dependence on firewood for cooking.
Factors of environmental degradation
In general phenomenon there are two factors that lead to environmental degradation, they are natural and human factors.
Natural Factor:
Natural factor includes drought, storms on sea, land, deserts such as hurricane, catrina, tornadoes etc, other natural factors are earth movement as a result of faulting and folding of earth, volcanic eruption due to compression and contorted molten magma which force its way out through crater to the mouth of volcano where it erupt violently and spread its lava over the plain at the foot of the volcano and the ashes travel on air into far distance which is harmful to both human being and plants.
Human factor:
Other factor is human factor which causes environmental degradation, this includes; deforestation, which is rampant felling of trees indiscriminately thereby extending an invitation for the desert to take over, then industrialization which is the setting up of industries in a specific area where it will be close to source of raw materials.A s a result of industrial waste and air pollution, it causes environmental degradation which is so toxic and harmful to human existence.
Similarly, urbanization as one of human factor that causes environmental degradation, especially where there is high population density, there is the tendency of violation of environmental laws and this consequently lead to out break of certain communicable disease such as Cholera, Malaria, Gastroenteritis, Anemia etc. Also war and conflict plays a vital role towards environmental degradation as human factor.
Both natural and human environmental degradation factors has side effects to our environment which includes; land degradation i.e erosion; mass movement, desertification or encroachment, pollution i.e land, water, air, noise, high rate of morbidity and mortality, famine and food insecurity, climatic change, bio- diversity as well as population displacement.
To check the aforementioned environmental problems we have to be environmentally friendly and support efforts by the government, NGOs, civil society, press etc.
Also on the part of the three tiers of governments there has to be an accelerated budgetary allocation to environmental sector, for the sustainability of the environment. There has to be a series of sequential mobilization in the media for proper enlightenment.
On the part of tree planting campaign ( TPC) , it has to go beyond federal, state andlocal governments; it has to be taken seriosly all stakeholders like the public and private educational institutions, farmers, traditional title holders were to borrow a leaf from Kano state where the ministry of environment actively collaborates with the emirate council in the tree planting campaign, based on the important role the emirate is playing towards socio-economic and political development of the state. In fact, if possible, every Nigerian should plant and nurse a seedling at least once a year.
Also, timely distribution of seedlings at the on set of rainy season would definitely help towards the up bringing of the seedlings as rain water would help in providing of water to the infant seedlings.
In conclusion, it is high time to join hands on deck to ensure the sustainability of our environment. The challenge is enormous but, by working together as a team, proper utilization and sustainable development can be achieved. To help achieve the (MDG) millennium declaration of the seven point agenda of Mr. President to ensure environmental sustainability a rigorous team work is the only alternative with a full slogan thus: “our environment is our wealth and our health”.
Uba Abdullahi is the information officer, Dambatta local government, Kano state.

Environmental Pollution

The environmental problems in India are growing rapidly. The increasing economic development and a rapidly growing population that has taken the country from 300 million people in 1947 to over one billion people today is putting a strain on the environment, infrastructure, and the country’s natural resources. Industrial pollution, soil erosion, deforestation, rapid industrialization, urbanization, and land degradation are all worsening problems. Overexploitation of the country's resources be it land or water and the industrialization process has resulted in considerable environmental degradation of resources.

The skies over North India are seasonally filled with a thick soup of aerosol particles all along the southern edge of the Himalayas, streaming southward over Bangladesh and the Bay of Bengal. - NASA research findings.
The cost of environmental damage in India would shave 4 percent off of the country's gross domestic product. Lost productivity from death and disease due to environmental pollution are the primary culprits.
The government agency responsible for environmental affairs is the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF). Coping with India’s industrial pollution is perhaps the agency’s top priority. MoEF recognizes the need to strike a balance between development and protecting the environment in administering and enforcing the country’s environmental laws and policies. The government heightened the Ministry’s powers with the passage of the 1986 Environment Protection Act. This act built on the 42nd amendment to India's constitution in 1976 that gave the government the right to step in and protect public health, forests, and wildlife. This amendment however had little power as it contained a clause that stated it was not enforceable by any court. India is the first country in the world to pass an amendment to its constitution ostensibly protecting the environment.
Industrial pollution

Fog due to air pollution Air Pollution
There are four reasons of air pollution are - emissions from vehicles, thermal power plants, industries and refineries. The problem of indoor air pollution in rural areas and urban slums has assumed significant attention lately.
India’s environmental problems are exacerbated by its heavy reliance on coal for power generation. Coal supplies more than half of the country’s energy needs and is used for nearly three-quarters of electricity generation. While India is fortunate to have abundant reserves of coal to power economic development, the burning of this resource, especially given the high ash content of India’s coal, has come at a cost in terms of heightened public risk and environmental degradation. Reliance on coal as the major energy source has led to a nine-fold jump in carbon emissions over the past forty years. The government estimates the cost of environmental degradation has been running at 4.5% of GDP in recent years.
The low energy efficiency of power plants that burn coal is a contributing factor. India's coal plants are old and are not outfitted with the most modern pollution controls. Given the shortage of generating capacity and scarcity of public funds, these old coal-fired plants will remain in operation for sometime. Power plant modernization to improve the plant load factor, improvements in sub-transmission and distribution to cut distribution losses, and new legislation to encourage end user energy conservation were all mentioned as part of the energy efficiency effort. The government has taken steps to address its environmental problems. As of now the use of washed coal is required for all power plants.
Vehicle emissions are responsible for 70% of the country’s air pollution. The major problem with government efforts to safeguard the environment has been enforcement at the local level, not with a lack of laws. Air pollution from vehicle exhaust and industry is a worsening problem for India. Exhaust from vehicles has increased eight-fold over levels of twenty years ago; industrial pollution has risen four times over the same period. The economy has grown two and a half times over the past two decades but pollution control and civil services have not kept pace. Air quality is worst in the big cities like Kolkata, Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, etc.
Bangalore holds the title of being the asthma capital of the country. Studies estimate that 10 per cent of Bangalore’s 60 lakh population and over 50 per cent of its children below 18 years suffer from air pollution-related ailments.
CHENNAI: Exhaust from vehicles, dust from construction debris, industrial waste, burning of municipal and garden waste are all on the rise in the city. So are respiratory diseases, including asthma. At least six of the 10 top causes of death are related to respiratory disease, says Dr D Ranganathan, director (in-charge), Institute of Thoracic Medicine.
Mumbai: Not only are levels of Suspended Particulate Matter above permissible limits in Mumbai, but the worst pollutant after vehicular emissions has grown at an alarming rate. The levels of Respirable Suspended Particulate Matter (RSPM), or dust, in Mumbai’s air have continued to increase over the past three years.
These cities are on the World Health Organization's list of top most polluted cities. Vehicle exhaust, untreated smoke, and untreated water all contribute to the problem. Continued economic growth, urbanization, and an increase in the number of vehicles, together with lax enforcement of environmental laws, will result in further increases in pollution levels. Concern with New Delhi's air quality got so bad that the Supreme Court recently stepped in and placed a limit on the number of new car registrations in the capital.
The effects of air pollution are obvious: rice crop yields in southern India are falling as brown clouds block out more and more sunlight. And the brilliant white of the famous Taj Mahal is slowly fading to a sickly yellow.
In India, air pollution is estimated to cause, at the very minimum, 1 lakh excess deaths and 25 million excesses illnesses every year. Poison in the air due to Power plants. Poison in the air due to vehicle emissions

The brilliant white of the famous Taj Mahal is slowly fading to a sickly yellow.

River water Pollution
Fully 80 percent of urban waste in India ends up in the country's rivers, and unchecked urban growth across the country combined with poor government oversight means the problem is only getting worse. A growing number of bodies of water in India are unfit for human use, and in the River Ganga, holy to the country's 82 percent Hindu majority, is dying slowly due to unchecked pollution.
New Delhi's body of water is little more than a flowing garbage dump, with fully 57 percent of the city's waste finding its way to the Yamuna. It is that three billion liters of waste are pumped into Delhi's Yamuna (River Yamuna) each day. Only 55 percent of the 15 million Delhi residents are connected to the city's sewage system. The remainder flush their bath water, waste water and just about everything else down pipes and into drains, most of them empty into the Yamuna. According to the Centre for Science and Environment, between 75 and 80 percent of the river's pollution is the result of raw sewage. Combined with industrial runoff, the garbage thrown into the river and it totals over 3 billion liters of waste per day. Nearly 20 billion rupees, or almost US $500 million, has been spent on various clean up efforts.
The frothy brew is so glaring that it can be viewed on Google Earth.
Much of the river pollution problem in India comes from untreated sewage. Samples taken recently from the Ganges River near Varanasi show that levels of fecal coliform, a dangerous bacterium that comes from untreated sewage, were some 3,000 percent higher than what is considered safe for bathing.

Groundwater exploitation
Groundwater exploitation is a serious matter of concern today and legislations and policy measures taken till date, by the state governments (water is a state subject) have not had the desired effect on the situation.
Plastic Pollution
Plastic bags, plastic thin sheets and plastic waste is also a major source of pollution.
See in detail: Plastic Bag Pollution in the country
Municipal solid waste
Municipal solid waste is solid waste generated by households, commercial establishments and offices and does not include the industrial or agricultural waste. Municipal solid waste management is more of an administrative and institutional mechanism failure problem rather than a technological one.

Pollution due to Mining
New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) on December 29, 2007 said mining was causing displacement, pollution, forest degradation and social unrest. The CSE released its 356-page sixth State of India’s Environment report, ‘Rich Lands Poor People, is sustainable mining possible?’ According to the Centre for Science and Environment ( CSE) report the top 50 mineral producing districts, as many as 34 fall under the 150 most backward districts identified in the country.
The CSE report has made extensive analysis of environment degradation and pollution due to mining, wherein it has said, in 2005-06 alone 1.6 billion tonnes of waste and overburden from coal, iron ore, limestone and bauxite have added to environment pollution. With the annual growth of mining at 10.7 per cent and 500-odd mines awaiting approval of the Centre, the pollution would increase manifold in the coming years.

Delhi's air is choking with pollutant PM 2.5
PM 2.5 is only 2.5 microns in diameter is very very small particle. The diameter of a human hair strand is around 40-120. Being so small, it escapes emission apparatus prescribed by Euro II and III. Any kind of combustion, especially of vehicular origin, contains this particle. If PM 2.5 is not regulated it will ensure major health hazards. The number of Asthma patients will rise and in future there may huge rise of lung cancer cases also. The toxic value of PM 2.5 is such that metals like lead present in the PM 2.5 get inhaled deeper into lungs which deposits there. The children are most affected by depositing lead due to inhaling the poisonous air. The increasing amount of PM 2.5 is like a poison in the air we breathe. Researchers believe particulates, or tiny particles of soot, interfere with the respiratory system because they are so small they can be breathed deeply into the lungs.
Toxic smog is set to engulf New Delhi once again this winter after a six-year respite because of the huge number of new cars clogging the roads. New Delhi adds nearly 1,000 new cars a day to the existing four million registered in the city, almost twice as many as before 2000. Pollution levels are up to 350 micrograms per cubic metre in 2006-2007 and the levels of nitrogen oxides have been increasing in the city to dangerous levels, which is a clear sign of pollution from vehicles. Of these it is the diesel cars that are responsible for the pollution. Diesel- run vehicles constituted just two percent of the total number of cars on Delhi's roads seven years ago compared to more than 30 percent today and a projected 50 percent by 2010.Diesel is being increasingly used because it is a cheaper fuel. Diesel emissions can trigger asthma and in the long run even cause lung cancer.
A survey by the Central Pollution Control Board and the All India Institute of Medical Sciences survey showed that a majority of people living in Delhi suffered from eye irritation, cough, sore throat, shortness of breath and poor lung functioning. One in 10 people have asthma in Delhi. Worse, the winter months bring respiratory attacks and wheezing to many non-asthmatics who are old, who smoke, have respiratory infections or chronic bronchitis. Across the national capital and its suburbs, polluted air is killing people, bringing down the quality of life, and leaving people feeling ill and tired.
Some studies show children are among the worst-affected by the dense haze that often shrouds the city, and doctors frequently tell parents to keep their children indoors when smog levels are particularly high. In a survey of almost 12,000 city schoolchildren late last year, 17 percent reported coughing, wheezing or breathlessness, compared to just eight percent of children in a rural area.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions
India emits the fifth most carbon of any country in the world. At 253 million metric tons, only the U.S., China, Russia, and Japan surpassed its level of carbon emissions in 1998. Carbon emissions have grown nine-fold over the past forty years. In this Industrial Age, with the ever-expanding consumption of hydrocarbon fuels and the resultant increase in carbon dioxide emissions, that greenhouse gas concentrations have reached levels causing climate change. Going forward, carbon emissions are forecast to grow 3.2% per annum until 2020. To put this in perspective, carbon emissions levels are estimated to increase by 3.9% for China and by 1.3% for the United States. India is a non-Annex I country under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and as such, is not required to reduce its carbon emissions. An historical summary of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fuel use in India is increasing rapidly and causes global warming.
All inhabitants of our planet have an equal right to the atmosphere, but the industrialized countries have greatly exceeded their fair, per-capita share of the planet’s atmospheric resources and have induced climate change. The most developed countries possess the capital, technological and human resources required for successful adaptation, while in the developing countries, a large proportion of the population is engaged in traditional farming, that is particularly vulnerable to the changes in temperature, rainfall and extreme weather events associated with climate change.
According to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol , the most industrialized countries are mainly responsible for causing climate change. Thus equity requires that they should sharply reduce their emissions in order to arrest further climate change and allow other countries access to their fair share of atmospheric resources in order to develop.

Pollution of Indian Seas
The first sophisticated Pollution Control Vessel to patrol the seas for oil spills and other environmental exigencies is likely to be ready by October, 2008, Vice Admiral Rusi Contractor, Director-General, Indian
Coast Guard, said in the 11th National Oil Spill Disaster Contingency Plan (NOSDCP) preparedness meeting on April 23, 2008. Mr. Contractor said the proposed induction of at least three specialised vessels by mid- 2009 would shorten the response time to an emergency. The Coast Guard chief highlighted the importance of enforcement of maritime laws. He said 90 per cent of trade was essentially sea-borne and substantial numbers of vessels were old and un-seaworthy or single-hull vessels and raised the risk of significant pollution of Indian waters.
He said pollution remedy measures were being thought of following the various international conventions on environmental pollution that would also include exhaust and greenhouse gas emissions from ships and energy efficiency certification. He pointed out that none of 10 accidents involving vessels during 2007 in Indian waters had resulted in an oil spill.
NASA research findings
Latest research findings by NASA and Stanford University indicate that aerosol pollution will slow down winds, impacting normal rainfall pattern in tropical countries. The unique combination of meteorology, landscape (relatively flat plains framed by the Himalayas to the north and open ocean to the south), and the large population maximize the effects of aerosol pollution in India. The skies over North India are seasonally filled with a thick soup of aerosol particles all along the southern edge of the Himalayas, streaming southward over Bangladesh and the Bay of Bengal. Most of this air pollution comes from human activities.
Accumulation of aerosol particles in the atmosphere also makes clouds last longer without releasing rain. This is because atmospheric water forms deposits on naturally occurring particles, like dust, to form clouds. But if there is pollution in the atmosphere, the water has to deposit on more particles. Thus it causes lesser rain.

The most polluted places in India
Vapi in Gujarat and Sukinda in Orrisa is among the world's top 10 most polluted places, according to the Blacksmith Institute, a New York-based nonprofit group.
Vapi : Potentially affected people: 71,000 -Pollutants: Chemicals and heavy metals due to its Industrial estates.
Sukinda: Potentially affected people: 2,600,000. -Pollutants: Hexavalent chromium due to its Chromite mines.
The most polluted cities in India
As many as 51 Indian cities have extremely high air pollution, Lucknow, Raipur, Faridabad and Ahmedabad topping the list. An environment and forest ministry report, released on September 14, 2007 has identified 51 cities that do not meet the prescribed Respirable Particulate Matter (RSPM) levels, specified under the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS). In 2005, an Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI) placed India at 101st position among 146 countries.
Taking a cue from the finding, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) formulated NAAQS and checked the air quality, which led to the revelation about air quality in leading cities.
According to the report, Gobindgarh in Punjab is the most polluted city, and Ludhiana, Raipur and Lucknow hold the next three positions. Faridabad on the outskirt of Delhi is the 10th most polluted city, followed by Agra, the city of Taj Mahal. Ahmedabad is placed 12th, Indore 16th, Delhi 22nd, Kolkata 25th, Mumbai 40th, Hyderabad 44th and Bangalore stands at 46th in the list. The Orissa town of Angul, home to National Aluminium Company (NALCO), is the 50th polluted city of the country.
Emissions of gaseous pollutants: satellite data
Scientists and researchers from around the world gathered at ESRIN, ESA’s Earth Observation Centre in Frascati, Italy, recently to discuss the contribution of satellite data in monitoring nitrogen dioxide in the atmosphere. Using nitrogen dioxide (NO2) data acquired from 1996 to 2006 by the Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment (GOME) instrument aboard ESA’s ERS-2 satellite, Nitrous oxide emissions over India is growing at an annual rate of 5.5 percent/year. The location of emission hot spots correlates well with the location of mega thermal power plants, mega cities, urban and industrial regions.
Emissions of gaseous pollutants have increased in India over the past two decades. According to Dr Sachin Ghude of the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), rapid industrialization, urbanization and traffic growth are most likely responsible for the increase. Because of varying consumption patterns and growth rates, the distribution of emissions vary widely across India.
Reduce pollutions: suggestions
Reduce tax on incomes and institute a tax on pollution was a suggestion environmental crusader Al Gore had for India to tackle the issue of global warming effectively. "Reduce tax on employees and employers and put a tax on pollution.
The more carbon dioxide one emits the more he pays in taxes," said Gore in an interactive session at the India Today Conclave here on March 16, 2008. Replying to a question by Minister of State for External Affairs Anand Sharma, Gore also suggested subsidising clean energy generation instead of carbon fuels like kerosene.

Protection Of Planet Earth

International School Science Conference at INSA Conference Detail

Aim:

To disseminate the messages and values of nature conservation to youth and students through innovative approaches and help initiate group action on critical issues of concern to society.

Science is an integral part of our life in the present times so much so that even the food we eat is a product of scientific development that has taken place within the last century. Whether it is commerce or media, manufacturing or agriculture, the advancing globalization of human activity would be unthinkable without the development of science and technology. Man from the earliest times has made use of the regularity in natural events to carve out a living from them. Science as a systemic form of study developed in the 19th Century providing great advances in technology, in healthcare, in food production, understanding of nature – its working and its implications for man etc. ‘Science’ has an all pervading presence in our lives giving new meaning and definitions to our very existence. Science, by definition, “limits itself to what can be observed, measured and verified”.

A timeline of Science shows continuity as scientific knowledge has accumulated through time. It took just 100 years each to the revolutions in chemistry, biology and geology. Science as a field of study includes reasoning and logic that is deductively applied to gain knowledge. Thus it is important to understand the methods, processes, possibilities and limitations of the scientific method. Innovations and discoveries in Science have given us higher scope for development in agriculture and industry.

Man’s activities have given rise to developed societies with a higher degree of comfort and standard of living. Earth’s environment or Nature forms the very basis of our existence where we are directly and indirectly dependent on this Earth for our survival. Numerous changes are taking place in the world environment as well as our immediate environments at a fast pace. This in turn affects the health and social wellbeing of human beings. Issues of Global Warming, Climate change, Biodiversity degradation, Loss of Habitats, etc., have compounded to man’s problems.

The urgency to take action and adaptation is highlighted by projections from the three reports produced by the IPCC in 2007. This report predicts that with a temperature rise of 1-2.5 degrees C there could be serious effects on crop yields in tropical areas, spread of higher number of vectors even in areas that were earlier not suited to them. Millions of people could be at greater risk due to water stress. Closer home with the Himalayan glaciers receding, population of the plains will be greatly affected in turn the economy of the country and livelihoods of millions of people will be at stake.

There is greater evidence now to suggest that global warming is mostly due to man-made emissions of greenhouse gases. Human beings have been greatly adapting to the variable climate around them for centuries. World wide local climate variability can influence people’s decisions with consequences for their social, economic and personal conditions, and effects on their lives and livelihoods. The effects of climate change imply that the local climate variability that people have previously experienced and have adapted to is changing and changing at a greater speed. Most of the above stated problems are anthropogenic in nature and call for a vigilant society in order to preserve the balance of nature in turn saving the human species.

There is an urgent need for concerted action involving various stakeholders in society for conservation of our resources. Students form the backbone of any society as they are the citizens of tomorrow. Therefore, there is a need to identify and nurture the creative potential in every student for a brighter and stronger tomorrow. Students have higher degree of understanding and grasping power, if this is used in a positive manner there can be great benefits to society. Along with the traditional subjects a holistic education on the various issues of environment and their consequences would result in a well-armed generation to spearhead a movement for the conservation of Earth’s finite resources.

Objectives:

This is a unique programme devised for promoting a sense of responsibility and understanding about the ‘PLANET EARTH’ among young students. The aims of the programme are:

To promote ‘Environmental Literacy’ among students and youths on issues of concern to society
To enable students to understand the concepts of conservation and environment protection in view of their local settings and promote a spirit of enquiry among students
To enhance environmental activities while popularizing ‘Scientific Method’ in schools with a scientific spirit
To create an interface/platform between students of different ages and scientists for interaction and free flow of ideas
To bring together leading personalities in the field of science education and communication to discuss and bring forward solutions for problems of the day
To publish papers, journals and transactions on the proceedings, etc
Target Groups:

The primary target groups would consist of:

Students – Students are the citizens of tomorrow and they are the most effective and easily communicable group.
Teachers – Teachers are links/mediums of communication with the students.
Scientists and Experts – They provide the background of our activities providing us with the requisite scientific expertise and guidance on topics and issues of concern.
Media – Involvement of media is important for the successful dissemination of the programme to the general public at large.
Thematic Focus:

An everlasting image of a green neighbourhood remains in the mind’s eye of every urbanite. There is a need to create ‘Science and Environmental Literacy’ among the population in general. The focal theme of the programme would be ‘Environmental Literacy’. This would include:

Water Dynamics – This would focus on awareness generation on conservation methods, better means of water storage, efficiency in water use, etc. through concepts of Water Harvesting, Wetland Conservation, Water Cycle, Effects of pollution, etc.
Biodiversity Conservation – Biodiversity includes the variety in plant and animal life. Knowledge on the same and conservation of the variety of the flora and fauna as well as the agro-biodiversity to meet our requirements in food would also be the focus.
Carbon Cycle – Understanding the changes taking place in our environment due to pollution and other manmade causes that have led to Global Warming, disease and displacement of people. To understand the concepts of carbon credits and carbon foot printing, etc.
Understanding the Local Environment – Every region has its specific weather patterns and biodiversity that is specific to that region only. For example, desert type or alpine type, riverine types, etc. What could be the possible methods that can be adopted for conservation in that particular area?
Activities Planned:

The following activities are planned during the Congress:

Eminent Scientists will be invited to deliver lectures during the Congress, which will also include contributory lectures, and keynote addresses, by well-known speakers.
Exhibition – An exhibition will be organized at the venue where school students will display their exhibits such as hand crafted materials, posters, recycled products, etc.
Poster Session – Poster competition will be held where students from different schools will be able to participate. This will give an opportunity to the students to hone their skills as well as present their creative ideas.
Demonstration – The students will be given an opportunity to present their skills by displaying models/designs on conservation methods that can be easily put to practice in daily life.
Implementing Agency:

Indian Environmental Society has been promoting and implementing Environmental Awareness Programmes since the early 1970’s. Environmental Education based on sound research work has been the centerpiece of its activities. The Ministry of Environment and Forests, Govt. of India has appointed IES as an ENVIS (Environmental Information System) Centre to disseminate information on Panchayati Raj and Environment. IES has also been appointed as a nodal agency for implementing the GLOBE (Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment) and NGC (National Green Corps) Programmes in India.

IES is also active in Biodiversity Conservation, Capacity Building of Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs), Solid Waste Management, Eco-technology, and Heritage Conservation. Environmental Education programs of IES aim at strengthening, both human and institutional capacity in nature conservation and environmental protection on a long term and enduring basis. The organization is meritoriously operating in different States of the Country under various environmental awareness and capacity building projects. IES has expertise from different fields and a country-wide network in implementing environmental programs in India.

The Society has vast experience of working with school children and propagating environmental consciousness among children in schools. IES has been conducting ‘Earth Day’ programmes since 2002 in collaboration with schools from Delhi. IES conducts Campaigns, Rallies and Training programmes with school students on various issues through out the year. The Society has successfully trained people on methods on Solid Waste Management, Water Quality Monitoring, Recycling of Marble Waste Slurry, etc.

Indian Environmental Society keeping the above in perspective proposes to organize the “International School Science Congress” during October 6th-8th, 2008 at Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi. New Delhi. The Society has clear objectives to conduct this programme with maximum involvement from schools and students. We plan to provide a platform for the students to interact with eminent scientists for the protection of Planet Earth.

Registration Details

The registration for the congress is as below:

Indian Overseas
(1) Teachers Rs. 2000/- USD 100

(2)
Students Rs. 1000/- USD 50
(3) NGO’s and General Registration Rs. 2500/- USD 125


The registration fees include the participation at the congress, background documents, lunches and refreshment during the sessions and dinner on October 6, 2008.

Download Programme Details and Registration Form.

Travel and Accommodation:

The participants are requested to make their own travel and accommodation arrangements. The organizers will be happy to help the participants in case informed well in advance.

Visa and Travel Formalities:

The overseas participants require valid passport and visa to attend the congress. In case the help is required in this matter, kindly inform the organizers.

Contact Details

Please feel free if there are any questions. You can reach to IES on phone numbers as below:

Dr. Deshbandhu, President
Indian Environmental Society
U- 112, Vidhata House (3rd floor)
Shakarpur, Vikas Marg, Delhi - 92
Tel: 011-22450749, 22046823/24
Fax: 011- 22523311
Email: deshbandhu@iesglobal.org or iesenro@vsnl.com

Climate Change and Development

OBJECTIVES
Climate change has profound implications for developing countries, and increasingly development professionals and agency staff working in or for developing countries are being asked to integrate climate change management issues into planning, projects and policy. National governments also are increasingly engaged in official communications to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and other initiatives, which require assessment of vulnerability and adaptive capacity.

The purpose of this interactive short course is to equip participants with a comprehensive understanding of what climate change may mean for low-income populations and what the scope and prospects are for adapting to change in a development context. Drawing on staff from some of the world’s leading research institutes on climate change and development (including the School of Development Studies at the University of East Anglia and UK’s The Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research), participants will gain a state-of-the-art knowledge and have the opportunity to develop their analytical skills in this field through project work focussing on their own country context or professional sector.

To ensure participants have a thorough grounding in all aspects of climate change the course incorporates expert sessions on climate science and climate change mitigation. Key emphasis is then placed on vulnerability and adaptation – exploring what climate change implies in terms of impacts/vulnerability, what adaptation means for different sectors, how best to go about building resilience, international mechanisms relating to adaptation, and linkage with other development imperatives such as poverty reduction and disaster risk reduction.


COURSE CONTENTS

Expert inputs to the two-week course will cover:
Climate science
International policy on mitigation and adaptation
Impacts, vulnerability and adaptation in the context of development
Resilience and adaptation: examples and lessons from different sectors
Principles for effective adaptation
Linkages with poverty reduction
Linkages with disaster risk reduction
Linking mitigation and adaptation
International funding and implementation mechanisms
The course is structured throughout to encourage participants to share their ideas through interactive and small-group work. During week 2 participants will spend 50% of time on the preparation and presentation of a project related to their country context or specific professional sector. This will ensure the knowledge and insight gained from the course is immediately grounded in work that has practical relevance for the participant.

The course is supported by visits to, and visitors from, outside organisations with relevant experience and skills.

PARTICIPANTS

This course is designed for people who want to gain a greater understanding of the implications of climate change for developing countries and the potential for adaptation. It is aimed particularly at professional staff from government agencies and NGOs who have responsibility or interest in the integration of climate change management into development planning, projects and policy.



TUTORS

Course tutors will be drawn from leading international researchers on climate change and development associated with the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, the School of Development Studies and the School of Environmental Sciences at University of East Anglia (UEA), including:

Professor Neil Adger, Dr Nick Brooks, Professor Kate Brown, Dr Declan Conway, Dr Roger Few, Professor Mike Hulme, Professor Andrew Watkinson and Professor Robert Watson.



DATES
1 - 12 September 2008 (2 weeks)



NO OF PLACES

20


FEE

£3,200 (inc. accommodation)
LANGUAGE SKILLS

To participate effectively, it is necessary to have full workshop level competence in English

LOCATION

Overseas Development Group, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK

Please also see the MSc in Climate Change and Development:
http://www1.uea.ac.uk/cm/home/schools/ssf/dev/courses/postgrad/master/MScCCID



Overseas Development Group
University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK
Tel: +44 (0)1603 592813 Fax: +44 (0)1603 591170
email: odg.gen@uea.ac.uk

Brief Smog Exposure Linked to Premature Death

A blanket of smog hangs over Los Angeles, California. March 2007 (Photo by Jim Zellmer)

Exposures of less than 24 hours to current levels of ground-level ozone in many areas are likely to contribute to premature deaths, finds a new National Research Council report.
Ozone, a key component of smog, can cause respiratory problems and other health effects. In addition, evidence of a relationship between exposures of less than 24 hours and mortality has been mounting, but interpretations of the evidence have differed, prompting the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, to request the Research Council report.
The committee that wrote the report was not asked to consider how evidence has been used by the EPA to set ozone standards, including the new public health standard set by the agency last month.
But the evidence is strong enough that the EPA should include ozone-related mortality in health-benefit analyses related to future ozone standards, says the committee, which is chaired by John C. Bailar III, professor emeritus, Department of Health Studies at the University of Chicago.
In addition to scientists specializing in environment, public health, and statistics and from across the United States, the committee includes scientists from Canada and Spain.
Based on a review of recent research, the committee found that deaths related to ozone exposure are more likely among people with pre-existing diseases and other factors that could increase their susceptibility. But, the committee said, premature deaths are not limited to people who are already within a few days of dying.
The EPA asked the committee to analyze the ozone-mortality link and assess methods for assigning a monetary value to lives saved for the health-benefits assessments.
Like other federal agencies, the EPA is required to carry out a cost-benefit analysis on mitigation actions that cost more than $100 million per year.
The EPA recently used the results of population studies to estimate the number of premature deaths that would be avoided by expected ozone reductions for different policy choices, and then assigned a monetary value to the avoided deaths by using the value of a statistical life, VSL.
The VSL is derived from studies of adults who indicate the "price" that they would be willing to pay - that is, what benefits or conveniences someone would be willing to forgo - to change their risk of death in a given period by a small amount.
The monetary value of the improved health outcome, or VSL, is based on the value the group places on receiving the health benefit; it is not the value selected by policymakers or experts.
The EPA applies the VSL to all lives saved regardless of the age or health status, so a person who is 80 years old in poor health is estimated to have the same value of a statistical life as a healthy two-year-old.
To determine if an approach that accounts for differences in remaining life expectancy could be supported scientifically, the EPA asked the committee to examine the value of extending life.
For example, EPA could calculate VSL to estimate the value of remaining life, so a two-year-old would have a higher VSL than an 80-year-old.
It is plausible that people with shorter remaining life expectancy would be willing to devote fewer resources to reducing their risk of premature death than those with longer remaining life expectancy.
By contrast, if the condition causing the shortened life expectancy could be improved and an acceptable quality of life can be preserved or restored, people may put a high value on extending life, even if they have other health impairments or are elderly.
The committee concluded that EPA should not adjust the value of a statistical life because current evidence is not sufficient to determine how the value might change according to differences in remaining life expectancy and health status.
However, the committee did not reject the idea that such adjustments may be appropriate in the future.
The committee examined research based on large population groups to find out if there is a threshold - a concentration of ozone below which exposure poses no risk of death. The committee concluded that if a threshold exists, it is probably at a concentration below the current public health standard.
"Even in many areas EPA currently considers safe, the science clearly shows that the air is too often dangerous to breathe, particularly for those with lung disease," said American Lung Association Chair Terri Weaver last May when releasing the association's annual ranking of air pollution in U.S. cities.
"The good news is that there's less ozone everywhere. Yet, we remain concerned because the science shows that millions are still at risk from ozone that exceeds acceptable levels," Dr. Weaver said.
"Breathing ozone smog threatens serious health risks, including new evidence that links it to premature death," she said. "We're calling on EPA to set new standards for ozone at levels that would protect public health as the Clean Air Act requires."
As people have individual susceptibilities to ozone exposure, not everyone may experience an altered risk of death if ozone air concentration changes, the committee said in today's report.
Further research should explore how personal thresholds may vary and the extent to which they depend on a person's frailty, the committee said.
The research on short-term exposure does not account for all ozone-related mortality, and the estimated risk of death may be greater than if based solely on these studies, the committee noted.
To better understand all the possible connections between ozone and mortality, future research should address whether exposure for more than 24 hours and long-term exposure - weeks to years - are associated with mortality, including how ozone exposure could impact life expectancy.
For example, deaths related to short-term exposure may not occur until several days afterward or may be associated with multiple short-term exposures, the committee said.
The EPA was advised to monitor ozone during the winter months when it is low and in communities with warmer and cooler winters to better understand seasonal and regional differences in risk.
The committee said further research also could look at how other pollutants, such as airborne particulate matter, may affect ozone and mortality risk.
The report, "Estimating Mortality Risk Reduction and Economic Benefits from Controlling Ozone Air Pollution," is available from the National Academies Press at: http://www.nap.edu/

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/apr2008/2008-04-22-03.asp

The Seeds of Weed Control

Advice for suppressing the growth of unwelcome plants।

When is a plant a weed? When its undesirable qualities outweigh its good points, say experts at Penn State University.

A farmer in Washington state burns weeds to prepare for the new growing seasonWeeds can take control of productive land. Crops generally produce several hundred seeds per plant. But each weed plant can produce tens or even hundreds of thousands of seeds. And some buried seeds can survive up to forty years, or even longer.
Eradicating weeds means you have to remove all the seeds and roots so the plants will not grow back. But birds or the wind can reintroduce them to the land.
A more common way to deal with weeds is to control them enough so that the land can be used for planting. Experts advise using two or more control methods.
Chemical weed killers or natural treatments like corn gluten can suppress weed growth. Dense planting of a crop can also act as a natural control. Bill Curran is a professor of weed science at Penn State, in University Park, Pennsylvania. He says dense planting is one of the most common methods for suppressing weeds.
He says a dense, competitive crop that quickly shades the soil will help suppress many weeds. The seeds need light to grow, so blocking the sun will reduce weed growth.
Other controls include turning over the soil, pulling the weeds by hand or covering them with mulch made from wood, garden waste or other material. Mulch is widely used, but even mulch has its limits. Natural resource specialists in the Queensland government in Australia note that weeds can be transported in mulch. This is also true of soil, grain, hay and animals.
Yet animals like sheep or goats can provide a biological control by eating weeds. Insects and other organisms can also act as biological controls.
Preventing the spread of weeds is an important part of weed management. Farm vehicles should be kept out of areas with weeds. If that is not possible, then clean off the equipment and your shoes when leaving.
People in Queensland are advised to take weeds and garden waste to a waste center or burn them, bury them deeply or make them into mulch.
Professor Curran says composting weeds is another way to make use of them. The process of making organically rich compost produces heat. This will kill many, though not all, weed seeds. The same is true of seeds that pass through farm animals that graze on weeds.
And that’s the VOA Special English Agriculture Report, written by Jerilyn Watson। For more information about weed control, go to oaspecialenglish।com.

http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/2008-03-17-voa5.cfm

Bageecha Bachao Mumbai Bachao

Open Spaces are not a luxury but a necessity for the physical, mental and social health of a metropolis says Naina Kathpalia
Mumbai's aspirations for becoming a global city are intrinsically linked to maintaining certain international standards. These international guidelines clearly state that there should be four acres for green open spaces in an urban environment per 1000 people - a figure, which most mega cities like Delhi, London and New York exceed. Mumbai, at an abysmal 0.03 acres per 1000 people, is one of the poorest. It is ironical that while Mumbai's policy makers and corporate leaders are exchanging notes and ideas with the Mayor of London and his team towards developing Mumbai as a global city, the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) seems to be working tangentially.
On 21 November 2007, it passed a regressive Caretaker Policy, which if implemented, will deprive the common man access to "Reserved Public Open Spaces". Internationally, parks and gardens are the generic names for public open spaces. They are a bench mark for all good development and considered essential for ensuring a good quality of life. This does not seem to be the case in Mumbai. Money is being poured into Mumbai for developmental needs, but the city is deteriorating. In a marked contrast to cities like Delhi and Hyderabad, Mumbaikars are furiously building with little thought to their environment. If one were to search for the reasons behind this move, one does not have to look very far. Mumbai's sky rocketing land prices, paucity of land and coalition politics leading to insecure politicians looking at making quick gains are some of the reasons why the state government and the MCGM are pursuing policies blatantly anti the common man, making him, with his scant resources and lack of access to places of recreation, the greatest casualty.
Apart from the irreparable loss to the citizens, the physical safety of our city is also at high risk. During the floods of 26 July 2005, over 500 lost their lives, and there was a loss of hundreds of crores worth of property. There have been a number of expert reports holding forth on this issue. Each one, including the Government's Chitale report, stresses the need for open, un-surfaced spaces to act as sponges to absorb excess water in the eventuality of heavy rainfall. Climate change is an undisputed reality. Given that several such catastrophic events have been scientifically foretold, how can Mumbai in all its conscience, actually destroy its own defenses?
Mumbai suffered a body blow last year when the Supreme Court, inexplicably, overturned the Bombay High Court ruling in the mill lands case, and the city lost its chance to have a sizeable green lung. The more recent casualty is the much awaited Eastern Waterfront Project, with its inclusion of promenades, parks, gardens and other public amenities, which seems to have sunk before it started.

Citizen Action
CitiSpace (Citizens' Forum for Protection of Public Spaces) has been working since 1999 to save recreation grounds, playgrounds, parks and gardens, which are designated as "Reserved Open Spaces" in the development plan of greater Mumbai. Established in June 1998, the NGO networks with over 500 resident associations, Community Based Organisations (CBOs), NGOs, trade/commercial establishments and individuals in most of Mumbai's 24 wards. Its creed is the protection of all public and open spaces (footpaths, playgrounds, recreation grounds, beaches and mangroves) and advocacy of their rightful use.
In 2006 the Government of Maharashtra and MCGM came forth with a regressive and anti-citizen policy wherein the attractions of the lucrative "caretaker" route doom the city-friendly "adoption" policy to failure. CitiSpace, was shocked to see this and in response spearheaded the recent movement against it. An open letter addressing the Chief Minister and signed by eminent citizens was published in a leading daily drawing his attention to this bad policy. The resulting public pressure led to the State government directing the MCGM to stay the 2006 RG/PG policy. However, it is early days yet and it is essential to ensure that the Caretaker concept is completely repealed.

The Caretaker Policy
The Caretaker Policy was geared towards handing over large chunks of open space - reserved plots of 5000 sq. meters and over and 15000 sq. meters - for development of private clubs, which include facilities such as sports, restaurants, bars, and so on. These open spaces are held in public trust by the government and are to be looked after by them with public money - taxes.
Since clubs, by their very nature, have restricted membership and thereby closed to the general public, however 'correctly' the contractual agreement between the MCGM and the private party may read, the undeniable fact is that on the ground it has been proved beyond doubt that implementation and enforcement of any such agreement by the MCGM is virtually non-existent, allowing the club authorities to run their facility as a personal fiefdom. Thus to hand over public land in this fashion is immoral.
The oft repeated excuse 'lack of funds' does not hold water. The MCGM has allocated 400 crores in the 2007-20008 Budget, for public open spaces. There are currently 940 acres (information received under Right To Information Act) of such reserved open spaces available for adoption/ caretaker in Greater Mumbai. Looking at the budgets of Oval Maidan (22 acres) and Kridangan Sangopan Samiti Garden (1.35 acres) both public open spaces, one finds that the average capital costs plus maintenance budget for one year comes to an approximate 11 lakhs per acre. This does not account for the skating rink at the Kridangan Garden, as it would not apply to most grounds. Both Oval Maidan and Kridangan Garden are maintained in prime condition under the adoption scheme. At 11 Lakhs an acre, 940 acres would cost the MCGM 103.4 Crores leaving 296.6 Crore for additional facilities!

Defining Adoption and Caretaker Concepts
Adoption
- Reserved land given for 5 years.
- For restoring and maintaining.
- No construction/ building allowed except a 10' x 10' gardener's hut. That is 100 sq. ft. built up.
- Only fencing, landscaping, lighting & security.

Caretaker
- Reserved land given for minimum 10 years, which can extend indefinitely.
- Restricted entry into the facility for members only.
- For restoring and maintaining.
- Construction and building allowed, including bars, gymkhanas, restaurants, and so on.
- 25 percent to 33 percent of the area of the ground allowed for construction and buildings.
- 10 percent of plot area as plinth - 15 percent of the total plot as FSI.
- 25 percent of plot to be used for ancillary structures, that is, 1000 sq. ft. built up on a designated open space is reserved as per D.P Rules!

The Desired Road Map
To remedy this faulty policy in public interest, MCGM must take certain steps supported by the State Government. This should be followed by a public debate.

- The budgeted amount of Rs. 400 crore should be used first to secure all MCGM reserved grounds with fencing and a security arrangement.
- There should be no blanket policy based entirely on the size of the reserved open spaces
- A ward-wise survey of plots of 5000 sq m and above and 15000 sq m and above should be undertaken to assess the requirement of each municipal ward, with regard to the needs of the community for a sports facility.
- Ward-wise suggestion/objection should be conducted in a transparent manner after the survey results are disseminated to the public.
- The sports facility must be such that it serves all members of the community with no restricted membership. There are several models available for this. A hybrid model where the MCGM develops the facility with its own funds and the stakeholders manage it with funds from corporations is one such option.
- Private clubs cannot be built on reserved open spaces. They must be built on land purchased by the promoters.

The conclusion drawn from this discussion is obvious. MCGM must not hand over public land to private interest as land is finite - it cannot be recovered! If it wants its citizens to add their bit and assist them, then they should follow the 'Adoption' Policy. This differs from the Caretaker module in that it is more citizen-friendly, allows neighborhood committees to come forward in the maintenance and upkeep of their open spaces and is more environment sensitive as it does not allow any construction on the adopted space other than a small mali chowky (gardener's hut).
For this policy to succeed, the MCGM must first make the public aware that such a policy exists, and where to find the information. In order to do so, It should use the print media, like major English, Marathi, Hindi and Gujarati newspapers to explain the policy and ensure that a list of all RG/PG Parks and gardens available for adoption are placed simultaneously on the Ward Office Notice Board, at the site, at other public spots in the locality, in the print and electronic media and the MCGM web site. The application system needs to be streamlined. The present time line of 30 days should be extended to enable citizen volunteers who undertake such projects on behalf of MCGM and the city adequate time for funding and planning.
These are some of the best practices that could save Mumbai's open spaces. They need to be laid down by law, and implemented both in letter and spirit by the authorities. Future generations of Mumbaikers will grow up without knowing what it is to run and play in a maidan!
— The author is Co-Convenor, CitiSpace

India's climate change policy a hot topic

Carbon footprints trifling, but energy demand is immense

It is Friday night in the center of new Indian ambition. The air is thick with the construction dust of new glass-fronted high-rise buildings. The traffic moves so slowly that commuters can gape all they want at the Burberry advertisement that lights up the facade of a shopping mall. In the din of car horns and cranes, Sucharita Rastogi, 27, a business school graduate, waits wearily for her office van to pull up and take her home; it will be at least a 90-minute crawl. "Mind-wise," she says, "we are exhausted, sitting, waiting."
A beacon of India's red-hot economy, this new suburb on the edge of the capital, New Delhi, is also a symbol of India's fast-growing hunger for energy. By the government's own estimates, energy consumption in this country of 1.1 billion is expected to quadruple over the next 25 years, inevitably expanding India's emissions of greenhouse gases.
At the moment, it is a mixed blessing that Gurgaon remains an island of air-conditioned malls and roaring, round-the-clock office towers, and that behind this brightly lighted boomtown lies a vast nation of darkness and cow-dung-fueled stoves.
Almost half of India's population has no access to the electricity grid, and many more people suffer hours without power. Nearly 700,000 Indians rely on animal waste and firewood as fuel for cooking. As a result, India's per capita carbon footprint remains a small fraction of that of the industrialized world - the average American produces 16 times the emissions of the average Indian - and in turn empowers the central Indian argument for its right to consume more, not less, energy in the future.
India has consistently bucked pressures to set targets for reducing emissions, arguing that it has neither been a significant polluter nor yet able to spread modern energy to millions of its poor. Instead, it has pledged to ensure that its per capita emissions never exceed those of the developed world.
"It's not logical to talk of emissions cuts without reference to per capita emission levels," Montek Singh Ahluwalia, the deputy chairman of India's Planning Commission, said. "It's logical to talk about burden-sharing in terms of per capita emissions entitlements, or some other principle. The main point is that we must first agree on a principle that is felt to be fair."
India points out that it contributes only 4.6 percent of the world's greenhouse gases although its people represent 17 percent of the world's population.
Even so, how India will contend with its expanding carbon footprint is under growing scrutiny from abroad.
The U.N. climate chief, Yvo de Boer, while acknowledging India's resistance to mandatory emissions cuts as "a fair position," said on a recent visit that the ball was in India's court to offer alternatives. "It's clear to me that developing countries don't want binding targets," de Boer said. "Now I want to hear what they do want."
The Indian government has yet to unveil its long-awaited climate change policy.
India's total emissions are the fourth-largest in the world, after the United States, China and Russia, though its per capita footprint remains as low as anywhere in the developing world: 1.2 tons annually, compared with 20 tons in the United States and the world average of 4 tons. The International Energy Agency, a policy and research group in Paris, forecast in November that India's energy demand would more than double by 2030. In turn, if policies remain unchanged, per capita emissions will double, it said, but will remain well below the level of industrialized countries today.
The agency also forecast that the transportation sector was likely to drive up energy demand the fastest, as prosperity brought more cars on the road. Coal imports alone could rise sevenfold, the report added. Construction is also hugely energy intensive.
Gurgaon illustrates the peculiar asymmetry of the Indian energy pie and the difficult challenge that it creates: how to balance the cravings of India's citizens with its obligations to the environment.
As it happens, cravings run deep in the India of darkness and dung. You can hear it in the talk at the tea shop in Chakai Haat, an unremarkable village in eastern Bihar state, from which armies of working men travel to boomtowns like Gurgaon. Chakai Haat has no access to the electricity grid, cooking stoves are fueled by animal waste and bicycles are the main mode of transportation on rutted country roads. Three diesel-powered generators hum a few hours each night so the village bazaar can be lighted and cell phones recharged.
For the most part, the people of Chakai Haat live in the dark.
Lakhan Lal Biswas minds his provisions shop by the dim light of a kerosene lamp. Gita Devi buys enough twigs and straw to cook one meal a day; on a recent night it was rice, with eggplant and potato, and it would have to last through the next morning.
Shamshuddin Sadiruddin Shah, who lives in Mumbai most of the year running a private telephone booth, misses the hot showers he grew accustomed to there; no one has water heaters in Chakai Haat.
The men of this village straddle the two Indias. In the New India, they watch television after a day's work and sleep under fans on hot nights. In the Old India, they while away evenings at the tea shop until the generator goes down for the night, and then they walk home with flashlights.
Muhammad Mumtaz Alam, who works in a garment factory in Gurgaon, put it bluntly. "There, we live in light," he said. "Here, we live in darkness."
Chakai Haat once had power at least a few hours each day, and it changed the rhythm of life. Petty thefts dropped because the village was lighted up. The government installed wells to irrigate the fields. Rice mills opened, offering jobs.
The boon did not last long. Strong rains knocked down the power lines. The rice mills closed. Darkness swathed the village once more.
The Planning Commission estimates Bihar to have India's lowest rates of energy use, in contrast with the National Capital Region, which includes Gurgaon.
Power generation across India has been stepped up, with the government promising to extend electricity across rural India over the next five years, but that, too, is a mixed blessing. India's old-fashioned coal-fired power plants are among the country's biggest polluters, according to a survey released recently by an American environmental group, Carbon Monitoring for Action.
In India's growth story, many environmentalists see opportunity for energy efficiency. The Center for Science and Environment, an advocacy group in New Delhi, has called on the government to remove excise duties on buses and increase them on diesel cars. It has had mixed success: On Friday the government announced tax cuts on buses, as well as on small cars and motorcycles.
Others have called for stepped-up government investment in urban rail lines and for tighter energy-saving building codes in new construction. India, they argue, cannot fritter away energy as the West has done all these years.
"It causes me deep anguish," said Rajendra K। Pachauri, the chairman of the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a U.N. group. "India cannot emulate developed countries. We have to find a path that is distinctly different."

Somini Sengupta, New York Times

Effects of Climate change

"Imagine a world where the water that runs from your tap is no longer safe to drink, and recreational areas like beaches are swallowed by rising sea levels. Visualise a period where electricity bills of over hundreds of dollars each month is used to run air-conditioners to battle the searing heat from the Sun. These are in fact, spine-chilling thoughts. The threat of climate change is becoming reality, and world leaders are now scrambling for solutions to tackle this petrifying phenomenon, and avoid feeling the wrath of nature.Globalisation is blamed by environmental activists for being the main cause of climate change through global warming. Natural resources are being used up at a faster rate like never before, and many countries are far more concerned with economic growth than protecting the environment. Rainforests in places like the Amazon Basin are being cleared to make way for economic activities such as mining and cattle ranching. Indeed, deforestation would lead to more economic growth, but at the expense of allowing global temperatures to rise, and the loss of flora and fauna which may be beneficial in medical science?Climate change is eminently driven by the increasing rate of global warming, which may lead to more natural disasters. With global warming, global temperature is expected to increase by about 5 degrees Celsius by the end of the twenty-first century. Polar ice shelves in the arctic and antarctic regions will melt off, and increase in global temperatures would also result in thermal expansion of sea waters, resulting in escalating sea levels. This may eventually lead to more wide-scale catastrophes, such as floods, hurricanes or even severe droughts in dryer regions. The result of this devastation is definitely beyond words, as millions of people eventually become homeless and forced into poverty with destruction of their property and belongings.At present, we are already lamenting about the sizzling heat from the Sun. The effects of global warming can be felt all around us.
Take for an example, restaurants all over the world are now equipped with air conditioners, which seem to be losing the battle against the blistering heat. The city of Tokyo in Japan has recently experienced almost a snow-free winter as well. Can we imagine developing countries like India, where people die of dehydration and intense sunburn as they have no access to water and even basic electrical equipment such as fans? The impact of climate change is calamitous, and the quality of life all across the globe will be greatly diminished, without facilities such as ski resorts to cater to our wants during the winter vacation.The effects of climate change not only affects people, but wildlife as well. Some plants and animals may die as they are unable to adapt to the change in temperatures quickly. This affects other organisms down food chains, and threaten their survival. Eventually, man will be affected as well, as we depend on nature for our food. Food prices will be likely to increase, as the demand for food surpasses the food supply. Lower income groups of people all over the world will be badly affected by the inflation, as they can no longer afford basic necessities like bread. Middle income groups will be hit as well, as inflation causes them to see their savings wiped out and becoming valueless.Animals are able to adapt to changes in global temperature by migrating to cooler regions of this planet, although this has major side effects. For example, sharks move south to Antarctica allow themselves to adapt to the surrounding water temperatures, but at the expense of seals and crabs who become prey of these sharks. This causes wildlife to be endangered and eventually extinct, due to long term effects of human activity. These animals are unblemished, but yet we are indirectly taking their lives just to make our life more convenient and comfortable.
Have we ever stopped to think of the aftermath resulting from switching on the air-conditioner whenever we go to bed on a tepid night?Environmentalists already have the scientific proof of our ailing Earth. Why not we start now and begin in our campaign to save the earth? Saving the earth is a pressing matter that should not be disregarded. Fortunately, we still have some time before the effects of climate change become totally unalterable.Firstly, more needs to be done to generate public awareness on the global problem, and that everyone can play a part to put a stop to this. For a start, we can help to save electricity at home. Simple steps such as setting the temperature of an air-conditioner at 25 degrees Celsius when in use, switching off household appliances instead of leaving them on standby mode, and even watching less television can help conserve resources. Less usage of electricity means less requirement of power stations to burn fossil fuels, and hence lower emissions of carbon dioxide gas into our atmosphere. If everyone can play a part to do these simple things, we can go a long way to help reverse climate change.
Secondly, the authorities can also promote the use of public transport, over owning a vehicle. As people become more well to do, they are more inclined to get a car of their own to show that they are of greater financial status. This leads to more vehicles on the road, contributing to more traffic congestions, and hence the burning of petrol in a stationary car, which releases unnecessary amounts of greenhouse gases. Taking public transport not only promotes ease of traffic on the roads, but also goes a long way to help prevent the Earth from “eventual overheating” and help to conserve the environment for many generations to come.
Thirdly, we could encourage the use of renewable energy. Although this has been seen as expensive to maintain and be used widely, more people and governments are beginning to invest in 'green' energy, such as solar energy, nuclear energy and hydroelectric energy. We are already able to convert energy from the sun to electrical energy to heat up water for our daily baths. Hence, by doing so, we are able to reduce our carbon footprint and release less greenhouse gases during the course of our daily activity.Fourthly, we can further advocate the recycling of materials and reducing the use of raw materials. Materials such as steel and plastic have to go through prolonged periods of refining and mining, which releases exorbitant amounts of carbon dioxide into our atmosphere. If we can do simple things like saying no to plastic bags whenever we shop for grocery items, it would mean less demand for it, and less need for factories to produce them. In a year, the average human would be able to cut back on two hundred plastic bags, and a small country like Singapore would be able to make use of 1 billion plastic bags less if every one plays his part to save the environment!Climate change is not something new to us. After all, in recent months, newspapers across the globe report on the danger the world is headed to. It is imperative that each and every individual knows that he has a part to play to protect the environment, and not only their governments.
We need to spread the word through the media and education that saving the environment begins with each and every person. Hence, in conclusion, it is paramount that we now begin to do our part to save the environment, lest we want future generations suffer the result of our folly."
Kenneth

The Recession's Human And Environmental Impacts

By Emily Spence/ Countercurrents.org
Too often news coverage focuses on discreet current events at the expense of a more synthetic approach to notable happenings. While it is important that the public learns of major incidents in the world as they take place, sometimes this can lead to some observers "not seeing the forest for the trees."On account, it might be easy to miss the connection between the global recession (and possible future depression) with the ongoing decline of environmental well-being and increase in human population. All the same, these three areas are deeply intertwined. Here are a few details concerning the relationship.Let's start with the present economic decline: Part of the reasons that there are global jitters involving the weakening of the $ USD is that it provides a means to assess worth of other holdings. In short, many countries and individuals, directly and indirectly, assign their own fiscal strength based on the dollar's standard. This is especially the case when they are carrying the US public debt, which is currently well over $9 Trillion dollars. In addition, practically all of the US national debt owned by foreigners is held by private investors except for central banks, which hold 64%. Further, the size of the foreign-owned portion of this amount owed is practically three times the total amount of currency in circulation! Indeed, the numbers given by the Federal Reserve for June 2007 put its amount at US $755 billion. In tandem, the average US family's credit card balance is now almost 5% of its annual income (with a median U.S. household income presently at $43,200), more that 40 % of American families spend more than they earn, personal bankruptcies in US have doubled in the last decade and the overall consumer debt has reached $2.46 Trillion as of June 2007 (excluding the $440 billion of revolving home equity loans, $600 Billion owed for second mortgages and an overall $9 Trillion in mortgage debt).
As such, the total US consumer revolving debt grew to $904 Billion last summer. Why has this happened? In part, it is because real wages of most workers languished or declined since 1975. So, many Americans reacted by taking on loans to maintain or raise their living standards. As Polonius, Shakespeare character in Hamlet cautioned, "neither a borrower, nor a lender be" and, certainly, there is trouble with being either. However, everyone, even an individual with neither role, can be in trouble when the value of the currency that he maintains plummets.

So, why is the American money losing clout? The answer is partly dependent upon the way that it gained worth in the first place and, indeed, its relative merit is created by any number of factors. These include the country issuing it having a robust economy (a trade surplus rather than being a debtor nation), having something of universal worth tied to it for which it stands, such as precious metal from which the $ USD was effectively severed in 1971 when the US government refused to exchange a relative small sum of dollars held by several other governments for gold, or some other coveted resource for which the currency alone must be traded, something like OPEC petroleum.
(The latter contingency is the reason that some dollar holders find the Iran Bourse, with its plans to reject the $ USD as payment for oil, threatening and suspect that the recent cable failures were a deliberate attempt to postpone its arrangements being set in place.) In short, without a monetary standard having it’s worth assigned by being attached to something deemed of unquestionable worth, it tends to have uncertain value.Meanwhile, the US economy, itself, can't grow. Partly, this is due to globalization of industry, which has created jobs in second and third world countries by taking many of them away from Americans, who cannot continue their high rates of consumption of products due to the increasing deficit of employment opportunities, diminished fiscal returns, raising prices for goods (including staples) and advancing inflation. So, it is no wonder that, while oil and food prices are rising, so are the number of home foreclosures while home worth, in general, is depreciating across the board. Simultaneously, it is no surprise that US wages are kept depressed by the existence of a proliferation of out-of-work laborers relative to the smaller amount of jobs in existence. At the same time, the already huge homeless population, as would be expected, is skyrocketing. In fact, the number of persistently homeless Americans, ones with repeated episodes or who have been homeless for long periods, involves between 847,000 to 3,470,000 individuals, many of whom are children and unemployed veterans. Posed another way, close to 3.5 million people, of whom roughly 1.35 million are minors, are likely to experience homelessness in any given year in the US (National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, 2007).At the same time, further outsourcing of labor guarantees that more jobs will be cut with the outcome that US citizens will possess even less money to buy either locally manufactured or imported goods. In relation, economic growth in other countries is, also, due to slow down, as exports are no longer quickly snapped up in the US. However, this consequence was long set to develop, given that, since 2000, a total of 3.2 million — one in six factory jobs — have disappeared from the American shores and the lowest rate of US job growth in four years occurred as recently as December 2007 when, simultaneously, the unemployment rate shot up 0.3 percentage points to almost 5 %. By factoring in huge losses in other work positions -- such as the ones related to construction, fiscal services and retail sales -- it is easy to see that American spending, even for relatively inexpensive foreign made goods, was bound to take a nosedive. How could it not do so when adequate job provision and reasonable salaries have, in effect, largely disappeared? All the same, this overall arrangement has not been bad for those in the top economic tier as their capacity to pay meager second and third world wages, coupled with receipt of high income from finished products acquired by first world customers, has created an economic boon. Indeed, by mechanisms such as these, the ranks of millionaires and billionaires, during the past few years, has greatly expanded. (The number of millionaires in the world swelled to 8.7 million and the number of billionaires around the world rose to a record 793, the latter of which hold $2.6 trillion in assets and personally garner an extraordinary amount of resources.) So have the overall profit margins of many transnational companies, such as the pharmaceutical, oil and other industrial giants. All considered, there is no way that many Americans, even with the minimum wage set at a measly $5.85/ hour, can compete with overseas $1/ day wages, nor subsume the fundamental costs associated with their rents, mortgages, the increase in food and oil prices, rising medical insurance payments and other basic expenses. On account, an overall decline in purchases has, recently, taken place in the US and, while this is not good for suppliers, it does give the environment a break.The reason that it does is that the slow down in business, while ominous from an economic standpoint, is good for the environment, that cannot continue to be assaulted at an ever higher level in order to make an ever higher financial gain off of its largely finite resources. As it is, ecologists anticipate that, if present rates of deforestation continue, rainforests will disappear from the planet within this century, which would kill off an inordinate amount of the world's animal and plant species while effecting global climate in unpredictable ways. (Presently, the global annual rate of deforestation is .8 percent.)
The outlook for the ocean life is just as grim with currently 71-78 % of it being 'fully exploited', 'over exploited' or 'significantly depleted' according to the United Nations. In addition, many types of aquatic plants and animals are on the verge of total extermination and 90 % of all big fish are already gone.

Add to this that, according to recent UN studies, arid lands prone to desertification cover more than one third of the planet's landmass, which supports more than twenty percent of the human population. While requirements from these delicate environments grow, they increasingly become incapable of supporting life. As such, the global rate of desertification is rapidly escalating, although the actual rates vary by locality.All of this in mind, we cannot keep expecting ever greater economic growth, nor an ever enlarging human population. Instead, we collectively need to drastically cut back on personal resource use, curtail manufacturing (due to stresses on the environment caused by global warming and other industrial impingements) and face a world that is likely to provide a dwindling supply of jobs. In actuality, we cannot even endure a 5.5 to 7 degree F. (3 to four degree C.) rise in temperature due to carbon loading from industry and transportation of goods. This is because our doing so would all but ensure that human life would be unsupportable over much of the globe and likely prevent pollination for many major crops. Along with the resultant changed rainfall patterns, the lack of pollination would prompt a tremendous decrease in food production.Regardless of whether this extreme heat occurs or not, the global population, according to the International Data Base, is expected to increase from 6 billion in 1999 to 9 billion by 2042, an increase of 50 percent that will require a mere 43 years. This, of course, has alarming implications for the maxed out natural world (including its water supplies), the labor market, food availability, product price and ever higher global warming.So, just how are we to cope with these assorted dismal factors? First, we need to recognize the absolute need to stymie growth of GDP in every country, proactively delimit population and reduce general consumption. Put another way, we cannot have any positive outcomes from expecting myriad environments to yield up an unlimited cornucopia of goods, especially as our very lives depend on our severely lowering greenhouse gases and maintaining a large diversity of healthy intact natural environments. Second, we must, quickly, develop a wide array of "green jobs" to make up for the scarcity of ones that will come to pass on account of policies mandating deliberate curtailment of energy intensive manufacturing. Third, we need to quickly create business capable of providing, on an extensive basis, electricity derived from benign alternatives to fossil fuels. Further, it would be helpful for people to form into small scale, self-sustaining communities to ride through the recession. Indeed, their establishment would, without doubt, help with the transition away from transnational sweatshops, provide regional employment and curb reliance on oil as less goods, including necessities, would require extensive transportation if produced locally.The coalescence of a recession, mounting population, peak oil, mass extinction, urgent water shortages, climate change and other disastrous environmental impacts challenge us to take immediate action. Our doing so need not be disastrous if we collectively begin to make the essential changes on the scale needed. If we do not, the results could likely be catastrophic on a scope barely imagined by any of us. With firm resolve, let us all begin to undertake the critical modifications at once.
Emily Spence is a progressive living in Massachusetts. She has spent many years involved with assorted types of human rights, environmental and social service efforts.

The Global Water Crisis And The Coming Battle For The Right To Water

By Maude Barlow
Fpif.org
The following is an excerpt of Chapter 5 in Maude Barlow's latest book, Blue Covenant
The Future of Water
The three water crises – dwindling freshwater supplies, inequitable access to water and the corporate control of water – pose the greatest threat of our time to the planet and to our survival. Together with impending climate change from fossil fuel emissions, the water crises impose some life-or-death decisions on us all. Unless we collectively change our behavior, we are heading toward a world of deepening conflict and potential wars over the dwindling supplies of freshwater – between nations, between rich and poor, between the public and the private interest, between rural and urban populations, and between the competing needs of the natural world and industrialized humans.
Water Is Becoming a Growing Source of Conflict Between Countries
Around the world, more that 215 major rivers and 300 groundwater basins and aquifers are shared by two or more countries, creating tensions over ownership and use of the precious waters they contain. Growing shortages and unequal distribution of water are causing disagreements, sometimes violent, and becoming a security risk in many regions. Britain’s former defense secretary, John Reid, warns of coming “water wars.” In a public statement on the eve of a 2006 summit on climate change, Reid predicted that violence and political conflict would become more likely as watersheds turn to deserts, glaciers melt and water supplies are poisoned. He went so far as to say that the global water crisis was becoming a global security issue and that Britain’s armed forces should be prepared to tackle conflicts, including warfare, over dwindling water sources. “Such changes make the emergence of violent conflict more, rather than less, likely,” former British prime minister Tony Blair told The Independent. “The blunt truth is that the lack of water and agricultural land is a significant contributory factor to the tragic conflict we see unfolding in Darfur. We should see this as a warning sign.”

The Independent gave several other examples of regions of potential conflict. These include Israel, Jordan and Palestine, who all rely on the Jordan River, which is controlled by Israel; Turkey and Syria, where Turkish plans to build dams on the Euphrates River brought the country to the brink of war with Syria in 1998, and where Syria now accuses Turkey of deliberately meddling with its water supply; China and India, where the Brahmaputra River has caused tension between the two countries in the past, and where China’s proposal to divert the river is re-igniting the divisions; Angola, Botswana and Namibia, where disputes over the Okavango water basin that have flared in the past are now threatening to re-ignite as Namibia is proposing to build a threehundred- kilometer pipeline that will drain the delta; Ethiopia and Egypt, where population growth is threatening conflict along the Nile; and Bangladesh and India, where flooding in the Ganges caused by melting glaciers in the Himalayas is wreaking havoc in Bangladesh, leading to a rise in illegal, and unpopular, migration to India.

While not likely to lead to armed conflict, stresses are growing along the U.S.-Canadian border over shared boundary waters. In particular, concerns are growing over the future of the Great Lakes, whose waters are becoming increasingly polluted and whose water tables are being steadily drawn down by the huge buildup of population and industry around the basin. A joint commission set up to oversee these waters was recently bypassed by the governors of the American states bordering the Great Lakes, who passed an amendment to the treaty governing the lakes that allows for water diversions to new communities off the basin on the American side. Canadian protests fell on deaf ears in Washington. In 2006, the U.S. government announced plans to have the U.S. coast guard patrol the Great Lakes using machine guns mounted on their vessels and revealed that it had created thirty-four permanent live-fire training zones along the Great Lakes from where it had already conducted a number of automatic weapons drills due to fierce opposition, firing three thousand lead bullets each time into the lakes. The Bush administration has temporarily called off these drills but is clearly asserting U.S. authority over what has in the past been considered joint waters.

Similar trouble is brewing on the U.S.-Mexican border, where a private group of U.S.–based water rights holders is using the North American Free Trade Agreement to challenge the long-term practice by Mexican farmers to divert water from the Rio Grande before it reaches the United States.

Water Is Becoming a Global Security Issue:
The United States
Water has recently (and suddenly) become a key strategic security and foreign policy priority for the United States. In the wake of the terrorist attacks of 9-11, protection of U.S. waterways and drinking water supplies from terrorist attack became vitally important to the White House. When Congress created the Department of Homeland Security in 2002, it gave the department responsibility for securing the nation’s water infrastructure and allocated us$548 million in appropriations for security of water infrastructure facilities, funding that was increased in subsequent years. The Environmental Protection Agency created a National Homeland Security Research Center to develop the scientific foundations and tools to be used in the event of an attack on the nation’s water systems, and a Water Security Division was established to train water utility personnel on security issues. It also created a Water Information Sharing and Analysis Center for dissemination of alerts about potential threats to drinking water and, with the American Water Works Association, a rapid e-mail notification system for professionals called the Water Security Channel. Ever true to market economy ideology, the Department of Homeland Security’s mandate includes promoting publicprivate partnerships in protecting the nation’s water security.

But the interest in water did not stop there. Water is becoming as important a strategic issue as energy in Washington. In an August 2004 briefing note for the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, a think tank that focuses on the link between energy and security, Dr. Allan R. Hoffman, a senior analyst for the U.S. Department of Energy, declared that the energy security of the United States actually depends on the state of its water resources and warns of a growing water-security crisis worldwide. “Just as energy security became a national priority in the period following the Arab Oil Embargo of 1973–74, water security is destined to become a national and global priority in the decades ahead,” says Hoffman. He notes that central to addressing water security issues is finding the energy to extract water from underground aquifers, transport water through pipelines and canals, manage and treat water for reuse and desalinate brackish and sea water – all technologies now being promoted by U.S. government partnerships with American companies. He also points out that the U.S. energy interests in the Middle East could be threatened by water conflicts in the region: “Water conflicts add to the instability of a region on which the U.S. depends heavily for oil.

Continuation or inflammation of these conflicts could subject U.S. energy supplies to blackmail again, as occurred in the 1970s.” Water shortages and global warning pose a “serious threat” to America’s national security, top retired military leaders told the president in an April 2007 report published by the national security think tank cna Corporation. Six retired admirals and five retired generals warned of a future of rampant water wars into which the United States will be dragged. Erik Peterson, director of the Global Strategy Institute of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a research organization in Washington that calls itself a “strategic planning partner for the government,” says that the United States must make water a top priority in foreign policy. “There is a very, very critical dimension to all these global water problems here at home,” he told Voice of America News. “The first is that it’s in our national interest to see stability and security and economic development in key areas of the world, and water is a big factor with that whole set of challenges.” His center has joined forces with itt Industries, the giant water technology company; Proctor & Gamble, which has created a home water purifier called pur and is working with the un in a joint publicprivate venture in developing countries; Coca-Cola; and Sandia National Laboratories to launch a joint-research institute called Global Water Futures (gwf). Sandia, whose motto is “securing a peaceful and free world through technology” and that works to “maintain U.S. military and nuclear superiority,” is contracted out to weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin by the U.S. government, to operate, thus linking water security to military security in a direct way.

The mandate of Global Water Futures is twofold: to affect U.S. strategy and policy regarding the global water crisis and to develop the technology necessary to advance the solution. In a September 2005 report, Global Water Futures warned that the global water crisis is driving the world toward “a tipping point in human history,” and elaborated on the need for the United States to start taking water security more seriously: “In light of the global trends in water, it is clear that water quality and water management will affect almost every major U.S. strategic priority in every key region of the world. Addressing the world’s water needs will go well beyond humanitarian and economic development interests. . . . Policies focused on water in regions across the planet must be regarded as a critical element in U.S. national security strategy. Such policies should be part of a broader, comprehensive, and integrated U.S. strategy toward the global water challenges.”
Innovations in policy and technology must be tightly linked, says the report, no doubt music to the ears of the corporations that sponsored it. gwf calls for closer innovation and cooperation between governments and the private sector and “redoubled” efforts to mobilize public-private partnerships in the development of technological solutions. And, in language that will be familiar to critics of the Bush administration who argue that the United States is not in Iraq to promote democracy, but rather to secure oil resources and make huge profits for American companies in the “rebuilding” effort, the report links upholding American values of democracy with the profit to be gained in the process: “Water issues are critical to U.S. national security and integral to upholding American values of humanitarianism and democratic development. Moreover, engagement with international water issues guarantees business opportunity for the U.S. private sector, which is well positioned to contribute to development and reap economic reward.” Listed among the U.S. government agencies engaged in water issues in the report is the Department of Commerce, which “facilitates U.S. water businesses and market research, and improves U.S. competitiveness in the international water market.”

Blue Covenant: The Alternative Water Future
Humanity still has a chance to head off these scenarios of conflict and war. We could start with a global covenant on water. The Blue Covenant should have three components: a water conservation covenant from people and their governments that recognizes the right of the Earth and of other species to clean water, and pledges to protect and conserve the world’s water supplies; a water justice covenant between those in the global North who have water and resources and those in the global South who do not, to work in solidarity for water justice, water for all and local control of water; and a water democracy covenant among all governments acknowledging that water is a fundamental human right for all. Therefore, governments are required not only to provide clean water to their citizens as a public service, but they must also recognize that citizens of other countries have the right to water as well and to find peaceful solutions to water disputes between states.
A good example of this is the Good Water Makes Good Neighbors project of Friends of the Earth Middle East, which seeks to use shared water and the notion of water justice to negotiate a wider peace accord in the region. Another example is the successful restoration of the beautiful Lake Constance by Germany, Austria, Lichtenstein and Switzerland, the four countries that share it.

The Blue Covenant should also form the heart of a new covenant on the right to water to be adopted both in nation-state constitutions and in international law at the United Nations. To create the conditions for this covenant will require a concerted and collective international collaboration and will have to tackle all three water crises together with the alternatives: Water Conservation, Water Justice, and Water Democracy.
(For more on these concepts, order Barlow's latest book, Blue Covenant.)
Maude Barlow is the national chairperson of the Council of Canadians, chairperson of Food and Water Watch in the U.S., and co-founder of the Blue Planet Project, which is instrumental in the international community in working for the right to water for all people.