18 days – 1800 Kms, 130 climate leaders, 5 theatre productions, 2 videos, 20 photography journalists, 2 Pothochitros.. Vinay Jahu, 25, and Hubb Dekkers, 22, took bicycled from Calcutta to New Delhi with a mission to save the planet. TCP India speaks to the man behind this crazy plan, to find out where he gets his inspiration. TCP India: First off, can you give our readers a little background about yourself? How did you get so passionate about the environment? Vinay: I grew up in Calcutta but have travelled all over from Bombay to Jaipur and recently Australia. I went on to Australia after graduation to work as a Financial Analyst for GE. This is when I got into Climate Change. They have many organizations there that are focused on the environment. I became quite active with a community group and we worked with organizations like Greenpeace Australia and Climate Action Kugi. We used to organise actions and events and I started travelling around the country to help organise movements and attend conferences. TCP India: Where did the idea for a cross country cycle ride come from? Vinay: My group in Australia tried to put together a Climate Action cycle ride from Sydney to Canberra, but it didn't work out because of safety issues etc. This is where I got the inspiration for the cycle ride in India. I knew here security constrains would not be as strict! I had focused most of my action work on the coal industry in Australia and was frustrated there was no talk about coal in India. When I came back home I decided I wanted to focus on this. TCP India: So your Climate Ride was to focus on the coal industry in India?
Vinay: Yes, recently I started an organization called Why New Coal. It stemmed from an earlier organization I put together with my friends Ektha Kothari and Hubb Dekkers called Switch On. We would go around to schools and communities and make presentations about Climate Change. India's social cost for coal is probably the most massive in the world. The government line is that coal resources will be around for the next 150-200 years. But this is not true because the extractable coal is really not that much. Much of our coal is under dense forests or residential places, so you can't get to it and it is very deep. The extractable coal will really only last 30-40 years. We are already importing a great deal of coal from abroad (mainly Australia), and soon we will have to import even more. Energy from coal is said to cost around Rs. 7 a kilowatt. However, if you look at the real price to coal it would be closer to Rs. 11-14 per kilowat, which is comparable to renewable. This includes the social cost of coal- health and land. That is just today, not including when we really have to import all of it. If we start pricing it correctly than renewable energy will really get a boost. TCP India: On your Climate Ride, I know that you were visiting coal plants, meeting with members of government, and basically looking into alternatives. What did you learn? Vinay: When we were looking at alternatives, we saw the efficiency that India can achieve is incredible. Our main problem with coal plants is that they are inefficient. We can increase efficiency by 25%. That is just using the same coal and not building new plants or digging up more. Solar is really the solution. With the current technology we can achieve 700,000 MW - the planning commission has asked for 8% of energy to come from solar sources by 2031, meaning we will have to increase by 5 times. 800 can be achieved with our current solar technologies. The initial cost
of solar is what is pushing people back, but this is because we don't look at the true cost of coal. TCP India: Did you learn anything that really surprised you? Vinay: I was surprised that most of the experts and politicians I met understand the climate urgency. These people really understand that India has an energy crisis and although they may say that India must depend on coal, they actually really know that it is not possible. They are very disillusioned and confused. TCP India: How about the cycle ride? It must have been very challenging! Vinay: It was amazing! It was just me and Hubb. We would cycle about 6-7 hours a day, starting at 6 am and finish by 6pm, with loads of breaks in the middle. We stopped in coal rich states and visited all these coal communities. We documented everything through film because Ekta is a film maker. We are working on the documentary now. We slept in dhabars and chatted with truck drivers in the evenings. None of them could understand what we were doing and what climate change was. Most of them thought I was a tour guide for Hubb since he is from the Netherlands. TCP India: Any special adversity on the trip? Vinay: One day we had a press conference in Varanasi that ran super late. We still had to get to Lucknow that night and it was 150 km away. We really didn't think we could make. We went through roads which were full of craters with lots of trucks and people shouting and screaming. We had to ride on that road for 3 hours with a massive head wind coming our way! That was definitely the toughest day.
For more information about Vinay and his work check out: www.whynewcoal.com
Synergies between Climate Change and Air Pollution: Impacts on Forest Ecosystems The impacts of air pollution and climate change on forest ecosystems have traditionally been dealt with separately. However, recently, there has been an emergent understanding that climate change and air pollution are interlinked and that they interact with one another. Effects of air pollution and climate change on forest ecosystems are of a diverse kind and vary from physiological to morphological and phenological. Also, depending on the interacting components and the nature of interaction, the impacts can be additive, synergistic, or antagonistic. (Likely Impacts of air pollution and climate change on forests)
Parameters Increased CO2 concentration
Likely Impacts •
Less stomatal conductance leading to less pollutant influx
•
Increase in carbon reserve (due to increase in biomass) for defense and repair leading to less impact of air pollutant injury
•
Increase in leaf area canopy leading to increased exposure to pollutants like nitric acid (Climate change can exacerbate the problem of acidification)
Chronic exposure to pollutants
Decrease in stress tolerance ability of the plant
Increase in temperature Pollutant interactions
Increase in carbon assimilation capacity
Tropospheric Ozone (pollutant; contributes to climate change)
Increase in CO2 promotes growth while increase in SO2 prevents growth Increase in N-deposition increases the carbon sequestration ability Increased ozone levels tend to suppress the carbon sequestration process Phytotoxicity to plants, suppression of carbon sequestration
The table illustrates the possible impacts of interaction between air pollutants and climate change associated phenomena and there are still many other impacts which are not fully documented like effect on soil dynamics, the hydrological and carbon cycle; which are often exacerbated by climate change phenomena. In India, there is a diversity of forest ecosystems found in differing soil and climatic conditions. The interactions between the pollutants and the likely effect of global warming and climate change are very complex and there are a number of gaps in the understanding of the subject matter. Firstly, it is very difficult to assess and quantify the relationships due to complexity in synergy and interactions. Secondly, any results, even if indirectly computed will be highly location specific and with a lot of uncertainty. The theoretical framework with the likely synergy between impact of air pollution and climate change has been described above with a mention of the likely questions that need focused research. What remains to be seen is whether such a study is reasonable in Indian scenario and how the results can be incorporated in the policy or legal framework to ensure reduced impacts on the much diverse forest ecosystems of India. REFERENCES: Bytnerowicz, A, Omasa, K and Paoletti, E (2007), ‘Integrated effects of air pollution and climate change on forests: A northern hemisphere perspective’, Environmental Pollution, 147, 438-445. Ravindranathan, NH, Joshi, NV, Sukumar, R & Saxena, A (2006), ‘Impact of climate change on forests in India’, Current Science, 90(3), 354-360.
The Tech Corner will be written by Pallavi Pant every month. Pallavi is a Masters Students at TERI University.
Mumbai Marooned An Enquiry into Mumbai Floods 2005 Below is an excerpt from the executive summary ofa 1800 publication about the Mumbai Floods in 2005. Stories from affected Mumbaikars were meticuously recorded by volunteer groups organized by CAT (Conservation Action Trust, www.cat.org.in ). CAT convened the CCC ('Concerned Citizens Commmission') which published this report after reading the accounts.
July 26, 2005 has gone down as a day no Mumbaikar will forget. A record 994 mm. (37.2 inches) of rain within 24 hours (75% of the downpour– 709 mm. — fell in a five-hour period between 2.30 p.m. and 7.30 p.m.), widespread flooding and the loss of lives and property, the virtual shutdown of the ‘city that never sleeps’ for two days (more in some areas) all ensured that all residents will forever remember the Mumbai Floods of July 2005. Starting at about 12.30 p.m. on the 26th till 5:30 a.m. on the 27th (earlier in the northern suburbs), the torrential rain caught residents unawares. A peculiar feature of the rain was that the southern island city received just 73.4 mm. (2.89 inches) in the same period. Within a few hours of the rain, areas like Kurla, Kalina, Andheri, Saki Naka, Chembur, Govandi, Malad were reported flooded. At least one-third of the surface area of the city is believed to have been flooded. Most phone lines were lost or severely disrupted, for periods ranging from a few hours to, in some cases, weeks. Electricity supply was cut. The city’s cell phone network also faltered, leaving families with no way of verifying the whereabouts of their loved ones. Mumbai airport was closed, with water flowing over the runway and even through the terminal buildings. Public transport came to a grinding halt, marooning lakhs of people at different points in the city. It was only by the afternoon of July 27, 2005 that some sectors of the suburban rail system partly commenced operations. For 18 hours, Mumbai’s lifeline, its suburban rail system, was completely inoperable. With the airport closed and flooding and landslides affecting rail and road links, India’s financial capital was literally cut off from the rest of the country for a day.In some low-lying areas, the water was 10 to 15 ft. deep. Open gutters and nallahs turned into raging
rivers. Thousands of homes in the Mumbai’s sprawling slums were either washed away or damaged beyond repair. The middle and upper class were not spared either, with floodwaters entering and even completely submerging ground floor apartments in many areas. As can be imagined, the loss to life and property was considerable. The fact that the floodwaters did not recede for days in some areas compounded the situation and led to outbreaks of diseases such as leptospirosis,diarrhoea, malaria, dengue etc. A reason given by most government and administration officials for the breakdown of systems on July 26 was that this rainfall was unprecedented. There is enough evidence to suggest that the deluge was definitely not a ‘once in a 100 year’ event and that the intensity of such events will only increase with increased human activity. Moreover, this should definitely not be used to excuse shortcomings and incompetence on the part of the administration. The complete breakdown caused by the deluge led to a lot of soul-searching amongst civil society and led to the formation of the Concerned Citizen’s Commission (CCC), an independent body comprising of prominent citizens to enquire into the floods. Over the period of the next few months, the commission held several public hearings, met up with government officials and experts from different fields to get a sense of what went wrong, the people responsible for it and what could be done to avoid/ mitigate such a disaster in the future. And finally what emerged was a tale of complete apathy, corruption and collusion by different government agencies, developers, politicians and other vested interests that are out to plunder Mumbai in every possible way. However the deluge is also a salute to the spirit of Mumbaikars who risked their lives and belongings to help fellow citizens, people of different communities in their hour of need. Please see our online resources section for full version.
President Prathibha Patil pushes for green brigade. . Maharashtra will soon have a green brigade, involving college students across the state. The decision to form the brigade to save environment and mitigate effects of climate change has come after an initiative by Satpuda Foundation, an NGO working for forest and wildlife conservation in central India, supported by president Pratibha Patil. In response to a letter by Kishor Rithe, president of the NGO, Patil has asked the government of Maharashtra to launch the Green Brigade programme involving college students. The president's office has written a letter to the chief secretary of Maharashtra to initiate action in this regard. "I had written to the president on October 1 last year, requesting to start a national green brigade comprising college students to fight the problems of climate change. Youths can play a pivotal role in environment protection," said Rithe. In the letter, Rithe mentioned that the country needs to be more worried about food and water security in the present climate change situation. "Wildlife reserves in the country play an important role to provide food and water security to the nation. These planetary infrastructures also help us fight the climate change situation," said Rithe. State government officials have initiated the process of forming the green brigade and its blue print will be ready soon. "I am in touch with the officials from the department of higher and technical education and helping the government in formulating the green brigadein the state," said Rithe.
TCPI launches the Environment Sustainability Leadership Program for Teachers. On February 28th 2009, TCPI launched the Environment Sustainability Leadership Program at Campion School, Mumbai. This program aims to equip teachers with inspiring and comprehensive tools for the teaching of environmental subjects, especially in relation to climate change. Through inspired teachers we hope to create student leadership on tackling environmental issues. Here’s what some of the participants had to say Ms, Fizza Kachwala of Bombay International School says, “ The entire experience was enriching.” Environmental educator, Sweedle Cerejo from CAT says, “The information provided by the workshop is very precious and valuable.” On April 17 TCPI is launching the program at Delhi in Sanskriti School as well as at Mayo College for Girls at Ajmer on April 20 2009.
Bollywood Bad Man Gulshan Grover and TCPI come together to save water on World Water Day. On the morning of 22nd March'09 on the occasion of World Water Day - Mr. Gulshan Grove visited a residential colony in Mumbai. He addressed the media and a team of volunteers in his typical evergreen baritone and spoke about water wastage, water scarcity & importance of water & tree conservation. Mr. Grover went to people’s homes with a group of plumbers and volunteers rang the bell and then asked ‘‘do you have a leaking tap in your house.'' If the answer was yes, then the plumber fixed the tap while the volunteers educated them about the importance of saving water and trees. Tips were given on how to use water sparsely and how to use the wasted water for watering the plants because plants in the end generate water. The volunteers were child actors from his upcoming movie Zor Lagaa ke Haiya.
Here are some tips on each one of us can try and save water. 1. Wash vegetables in a container instead of under running water.
2. Don't let water run while shaving/ washing your face or brushing your teeth. 3. Water lawns during the early morning hours when temperatures and wind speed are the lowest. This reduces losses from evaporation. 4. Consider buying a front load washing machine. They generally use less water than top loaders. 5. Make sure your hot water system thermostat is not set too high. Adding cold water to cool very hot water is wasteful.
TCP completes one year in India on 15th March 2009. To celebrate TCPI’s one-year anniversary as well as the launch of the Environment Sustainability Leadership Program, presenters, teachers of the workshop to be held at Delhi as well many more people will gather in Delhi to raise a toast on this happy occasion.