Agriculture for food:missing link

Agriculture production surpasses current demand as much as twice the population can be feed,ie current world's population is 7 billion but can meet the food demand of 14 billion population.The greatest irony is that 1 billion population (100 crore) are going hungry because of various reasons.
Some stats on food security:

1.Currently they are 150 crore obese people in world.
2.industrial agriculture system use 10 kilo calories to produce 1 kilo calories of food.
3.industrial agriculture emptied rural population leads to urban population explosion.
4.india produces excess in food yet it has the largest number of hungry in the world.

Industrial Agriculture which uses fertilizers ,pesticides and machinaries in excess destroys  soil fertility,water quality ,less nutritious food as well as unhealthy .

Myth One: Industrial Agriculture Will Feed the World
World hunger is not created by a lack of food but by poverty and landlessness, which deny people access to food. Industrial agriculture actually increases hunger by raising the cost of farming, by forcing tens of millions of farmers off the land, and by growing primarily high-profit export and luxury crops.

Myth Two: Industrial Food is Safe, Healthy, Nutritious
Industial agriculture contaminates our vegetables and fruit with pesticides, slips dangerous bacteria into our lettuce, and puts genetically engineered growth hormones into our milk. It is not surprising that cancer, food-borne illnesses, and obesity are at an all-time high.

Myth Three: Industrial Food is Cheap
If you added the real cost of industrial food - it's health, environmental, and social costs - to the current supermarket price, not even our wealthiest citizens could afford to buy it.

Myth Four: Industrial Agriculture is Efficient
Small farms produce more agricultural output per area than large farms. Moreover, larger, less diverse farms require far more mechanical and chemical inputs. These ever increasing inputs are devastating to the environment and make these farms far less efficient than smaller, more sustainable farms.

Myth Five: Industrial Food Offers More Choice
What the consumer actually gets in the supermarket is an illusion of choice. Food labelling does not even tell us what pesticides are on our food or what products have been genetically engineered. Most importantly, the myth of choice masks the tragic loss of tens of thousands of crop varieties caused by industrial agriculture.

Myth Six: Industrial Agriculture Benefits the Environment and Wildlife
Industrial agriculture is the largest single threat to the earth's biodiversity. Fence-to-fence ploughing, planting and harvesting techniques decimate wildlife habitats, while massive chemical use poisons the soil and water, and kills off countless plant and animal communities.

Myth Seven: Biotechnology Will Solve the Problems of Industrial Agriculture
New biotech crops will not solve industrial agriculture's problems, but will compound them and consolidate control of the world's food supply in the hands of a few large corporations. Biotechnology will destroy biodiversity and food security, and drive self-sufficient farmers off their land.

A Picture is more powerful than thousand words

Glass buildings:Not for India

Construction  of buildings using the glass is fantasy rather than the ease of construction or efficiency associated with it.There is a wide spread  notion that glass is energy efficient ,reduces the construction materials but apart from the cosmetic look to the building it does less behalf of efficiency or material.For the cold countries its suit on the front of climate scenario.The very nature of the glass is trapping of the heat there by  reduces the electricity bill for warming up of building in cold countries.Countries like India which are in tropics gets maximum amount of sunlight in a year are not suitable for glass used structures as it traps the sunlight and heats up the interior structure as well as electricity bill go up for the cooling the building.Delhi for example receives 2668 hours of sunlight against London that receives only 1480 hours of sunlight in a year.


Glass companies often argues that they are using double glazing with air gap in between to insulate but still far from the required standards.single glazing material allows 90% of heat ,double glazing glass 80% of the heat where as costly triple glazing glass allows 50 % of heat.Glass  is not a environmental friendly material as it consumes average 20 MJ per Kg where as brick consumes 1Mj per kg.

Recycling is also a wary  and huge transportation cost unlike bricks which can be procured locally .Glass is expensive compare to other building material, A square meter of glass cost 1200 to 7000 depending on technology whereas a good quality brick per square meter costs less than 1000rs.


Glass used construction also has serious security issue in the incidents of  fire(Easily melting phenomenon) and  very prone in the case of explosions .
A lay man expects security,comfortable environment ,cost effectiveness from a building but glass fails in all these fronts .Might be rich ,technocrat and intellectual people are not expecting this as  they have high affinity towards glass used buildings .

Bilingual field guide on dryland trees published

Have you ever wonder by seeing a tree and inquired about name ,its characteristics  .If yes a book has been released on various trees in karnataka which you come across day to day life.

The Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment  has published a bilingual field guide  on trees in the State. 

The pictorial field guide, written in both Kannada and English, costs Rs 500 and helps laypersons identify common tree species growing in farmlands in the semi-arid regions of Karnataka. Students can purchase the book for Rs 250.

Book requests can be sent to ramesh@atree.org.

Car Sharing:New path to conserve fuel

For many cities, car sharing has presented a compelling solution to public transit crowding and traffic snarls (see related story: “Car Sharing Widens the Lanes of Access for City Drivers“). Services such as Zipcar and Car2go offer the opportunity to cut the number of cars on city streets, but a price for hosting those services’ fleets is paid in the loss of precious, centrally located parking spots.

The potential impact of car-sharing fleets on parking availability for car owners was enough to make the community of Manhattan Beach, California, pause this week before approving a deal with the Daimler-owned Car2go. City council members said that a parking study was needed before they could support Car2go’s proposal to bring the service into nine cities in the South Bay area of Los Angeles.

Ironically, taking curbside parking spots out of the general pool and dedicating them to shared vehicles is seen as part of the solution to the parking and congestion problem. It’s an idea that has met some success—as well as some complaints from residents—in Hoboken, New Jersey, one of the most densely populated areas in the United States.

Located just across the Hudson River from Manhattan, Hoboken has dedicated more than 40 of its 9,000 on-street parking spaces to a car-share program known as Corner Cars. Hertz operates the program and pays the city $100 per spot each month, while charging members $5 to $16 an hour for the cars. Bright green paint marks off pairs of spots reserved for Corner Cars every few blocks.

Two years after the program’s launch, about a quarter of Corner Cars’ 3,000 members have reportedly given up their own cars or put off buying a new one because of access to the shared wheels. (See related story: “To Curb Driving, Cities Cut Down on Car Parking“)

Of course, some residents complain that they would gladly pay $100 to rent a prime parking spot—never mind the city’s argument that one spot can provide convenience to many more residents if it is occupied by a shared vehicle instead of a private car.

Some cities, on the other hand, are capitalizing on the high value of convenient city parking. Washington, D.C. has opted to auction off dozens of spots formerly awarded for free to Zipcar. Last year, the District set a minimum bid price of $3,600 per space, and drew offers from three car sharing companies. Zipcar went from having 86 parking spots to only 12 spots in the slightly smaller pool of 84 spots now dedicated to shared cars.

In San Francisco, meanwhile, securing on-street parking and charging locations remains one of the challenges for BMW DriveNow electric fleet, which launched in the city this past August. For now, says DriveNow CEO Richard Steinberg, the solution is to seek private parking locations.

On the other side of the globe, in a country with one of the highest car ownership rates of all the advanced nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Sydney, Australia, is now home to more than 9,000 car-sharing members. That’s up from 4,000 members two years ago, and by 2016 the city aims to boost car-sharing among its residents to 10 percent of all households for an estimated 15,000 members in all.

Among other forms of support for the shift, the city provides parking at curbside and in city car parks while integrating car sharing into urban renewal areas. Viewing car sharing as a “crucial complement to a sustainable transport system,” the city writes that “The availability of shared cars provides the peace-of-mind and flexibility needed for residents who have chosen to base their travel predominantly on public transport, walking and cycling.”

ROPEWAYS not for fun but for everyday city commute

Ropeways and the city. This may sound like a strange combination to many, but makes sense upon closer examination. Modern ropeway systems are able to solve various urban transport problems in a sustainable way. They can help residents and visitors to improve their quality of life in cities. Currently, LEITNER ropeways has more than 2,000 kilometers of ropeways operating in 50 countries. Some of them are already fulfilling their mission in urban areas.

More comfort and safety, less costs – ropeways offer many benefits

People attach more and more importance to a stress-free and environmentally-friendly transport system. Ropeways' technical advantages can meet these expectations perfectly. They require little space, do not conflict with other traffic, and can cross over any obstacle. In addition, they are able to handle steep roads better than other means of transport. Investment and operating costs are lower than with other traffic systems. These lower costs are due, among other things, to lower staff needs, as cabins can carry up to 50 passengers without a driver in the cabin. In comparison with other transport systems, ropeways have a very low energy consumption. Ropeways can, in contrast to most other traffic systems, move several vehicles with one motor and adjust energy use to the number of passengers carried. Therefore, ropeways are particularly suitable for the connection of sensitive recreation areas. And what passengers especially like: Ropeways offer unrivaled views during the ride.

Faster in the city – millions of passengers travel with ropeways every year

The Tricable gondola lift from Bolzano, Italy to the high plateau of Renon, near the city, shows how advantageous ropeways can be for the traffic and the quality of life.  If one travels by ropeway, he avoids traffic jams and the long search for a parking spot in Bolzano. This results in significant time savings. While the ropeways journey takes only 12 minutes, driving takes at least twice the time. These advantages are in favor of the ropeways: in 2011, close to one million passengers chose this transport system. It has resulted in an improved quality of life, and even higher real estate prices on Renon.

In 2009, LEITNER ropeways installed a 10-passenger gondola lift along the main streets of Manizales , Colombia. It can transport up to 2,400 passengers per hour, along a 2-kilometer route from the regional bus terminal to the city center. The sometimes chaotic street traffic situation has been significantly improved. With its success, the ropeway is now being extended with a new line to Villamaria, neighbouring suburb.

In Ordu, on the Turkish Black Sea coast, an 8-passenger gondola lift has been constructed which brings passengers from the beach to the nearby Boztepe recreation area, which is
300 meters higher. Not only this ropeway has an impressive 900 meters long span between towers, but it also has considerably reduced road traffic in the lively commercial city.

The medieval fortress of Narikala over the old city of Tbilisi is one of the most popular destinations in the capital of the Georgian Republic. In the past, one had to take a long walk up to the fortress. A new, 8-passenger gondola lift was installed in 2012, which makes the climb comfortably. Visitors and locals can now easily reach the famous castle.

Elephant Slaughter

Elephant Slaughter - Cameroon from Green Renaissance on Vimeo.

Amazing facts about Ants

Ants are ancient ,they have been on the earth much before we arrived.They constitute  nearly 25% of total animal  weight in the tropics.Inch Ants of Australia and Jumping Ants of India qualify as some of largest ants in the world.Ants are  seasoned architects ,the design and architecture of their nest is distinctly purposeful and constructed  with patience.Ants not only care for their offsprings but also for distant relatives of colony.

Amazing facts about Ants

Communication by touch:

Morphological communication is not very well  understood. Antennating (Tapping each others antennae) is the most commonly seen form of tactile communication.Ants also tap the gaster of their nest mates  as well.The physical contact could be made to request for food or checking if ant belongs to same nest  and many times just for nothing .

Recognizing Nest mates from non-nest mates:

A unique odour  is present in each  ant’s nest.The source of the odour  is from the founder of the  colony the queen.Hence the odour differs from one colony to the other.

It is always “us” not “I”:

Cooperation coupled with an  unselfish behavior in ants .Numerous ants  have given up their ability to reproduce  only to help one or few  reproductive individuals highlights the  organization  and evolution of social life in an ant society.

No  Scanning  to identify gender of offspring like Us  :

Sex of each of the offspring  to take birth in the colony is decided and then  regulated by the queen depending  on the stage of the colony’s life cycle.

So much to learn from Ants :

Mathematical modeling inspired by ant colonies has been used in various   subjects ,for example in traffic  management .Army ants  are  amazing animals where 2.5 lakh  individuals moves   thirty  thousand  bits of food per hour without collisions .

 

Waste segregation and management

Namma Cycle - Bicycle Sharing

Indian monsoon could fail more often as climate changes

A large share of the world's population depends on Indian summer-monsoon rainfall to grow food. But it is hard to predict how the phenomenon will respond to climate change. Now German researchers have found that the Indian monsoon is likely to fail much more frequently under future warming.

"As India's economy today relies heavily on rainfed agriculture, more frequent and severe monsoon failure would be an immediate danger to the livelihoods of a large share of its population," said Jabob Schewe of Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany. "Note, however, that in our model study, monsoon failure gets more frequent only in the more distant future; such a scenario, if deemed realistic, would probably rather have implications for long-term adaptation planning."

Together with Anders Levermann from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Potsdam University, Germany, Schewe used the MPI-ESM climate model to simulate the years 800–2200. The researchers used the IPCC SRES A1B scenario for carbon emissions from 2005 until 2100 and constant carbon-dioxide concentrations up to 2200.

Rainfall in South Asia is likely to be strengthened during much of the 21st century because atmospheric warming will enable more moisture to be held in the atmosphere, they found. But once the Walker circulation weakens, rainfall will drop off rapidly, falling short of the pre-industrial long-term mean roughly by the turn of the 22nd century. And from 2150 to 2200, dry years will be much more frequent than wet.

"In a nutshell, our results indicate that the response of monsoon rainfall to global warming can be complex, including periods of both strengthening and rapid weakening; and that nonlinear internal dynamics of the monsoon system may play an important role in its response to external changes," said Schewe.

Typically, summer-monsoon rain occurs in South Asia from June until September, when winds blow from the southwest Indian Ocean onto the continent. From about October the wind direction reverses. By modelling past data, the researchers found that there are two monsoon modes.

In the first, spring sees the troposphere over land being warmer than that above the ocean. Moist air moves over the continent and the resulting rainfall releases latent heat. This reinforces the tropospheric temperature contrast, and stabilizes the air circulation, in what the team dubbed the wet moisture-advection feedback.

In dry years, in contrast, less humid air in the upper troposphere tends to sink over both land and the Arabian Sea. This suppresses rainfall and keeps sea-level pressure anomalously high throughout the summer. As a result, the direction of the monsoon flow in the upper troposphere tends to change from generally westward to northward or even eastward. In the same way that rainfall sustains a wet monsoon regime, the team believes this anomalous circulation pattern may be a self-amplifying feedback that can sustain a dry-monsoon regime – the "dry-subsidence" feedback.

Incorporating these two feedbacks into a model enabled the team to statistically predict changes in the frequency distribution of seasonal mean all-Indian rainfall. The model was forced only by global mean temperature and the strength of the Pacific Walker circulation in spring.

The Walker circulation is a large overturning circulation in the atmosphere, oriented along the equator and spanning the Pacific and Indian Oceans, explained Schewe. Its interannual variations form the atmospheric part of the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon. As temperatures rise, the Walker circulation will, on average, bring more high pressure over India, suppressing the monsoon, as happens today in El Niño years.

"We plan to take the work forward by considering other climate models in order to test the robustness of the monsoon response found in our study, and also the applicability of the statistically predictive model," said Schewe. "Should it turn out that a nonlinear response of monsoon rainfall to global warming is indeed a robust feature of climate-change simulations, and that monsoon failure of the order of magnitude that we find in our study cannot be excluded in the future, then of course that would have far-reaching implications for adaptation strategies in India and other monsoon regions."

The team reported the study in Environmental Research Letters.

About the author

Liz Kalaugher is editor of environmentalresearchweb.

Trees in Urban

“U.S Forest Service facts and figures  and new traffic safety studies detail many urban street tree benefits. Once seen   problematic for many reasons, street trees are proving to be a great value to people living, working, shopping, sharing, walking and motoring in and through urban places.

 

Generally planted from 4 feet to 8 feet from curbs, they provide many benefits to those streets they occupy. These trees provide so many benefits that they should always be considered as an urban area default street making feature.re well on the way to recognizing the

The many identified problems of street trees are overcome with care by designers. Generally street trees are placed each 15-30 feet. These trees are carefully positioned to allow adequate sight triangles at intersections and driveways, to not block street luminaries, not impact utility lines above or below ground. Properly placed and spaced urban street trees provide a number of benefits.”

Full PDF: http://www.michigan.gov/documents/dnr/22_benefits_208084_7.pdf

Some interesting facts on urbanization

1.The city of New York  has plans to buy USD 300 million worth of land upstate to protect the  watersheds that are used for producing city’s drinking water.This is part of a watershed protection strategy that will cost USD 1.4 Billion,but is  estimated to save the city from having to spend USD 3.8 Billion for new filtration system  to clean increasingly polluted water.

The city of  Phoenix ,USA ,has found  it cheaper to create wetlands around the city than to further invest in additional wastewater treatment facility which would cost USD 625Million.

2.The London Trust co founder,Herbert Girardet ,has tried to estimate the ecological footprint of the city of London.With 12% of the UK Population and covering 170000 hectares has a footprint of of approximately 21 million hectares equivalent to all productive land in the united kingdom so obviously London is relying on outside UK  to be able to sustain itself.aaa

3. Often ecosystem provide products to both cities and rural areas,and also impact on cities and rural areas.A good example is the Aberdares Mountain range in Kenya,just north of Nairobi.One of the major threats of the Aberdares forest is the cutting of trees for production of charcoal.Most of the charcoal is transported to the urban and peri-urban centers of Nairobi to be used for cooking .At the same time ,due to disappearing forest the provision of water to Nairobi is being threatened.

4.    Air pollution in cities in developing countries is not only a health hazard for the urban residents,but it also contributes to transboudary air pollution.Air pollutants can travel over long distances often more than 1000 kilometers.Air pollution in cities has impact at the local level as well as rural areas around the cities.

5. Acid rain that is affecting the Scandivian forests is caused by emissions of pollutants from the industrial sites in central Europe.Coal fired energy plants in Canada emit pollutants that contribute to health problems over the border in the US.On the other hand air pollution from the united states contributes to about half of the ground level  Ozone in southern Ontario and Quebec in Canada.

6. Although  sewage system in cities,especially in developed countries,have been successful in preventing the transmission of sewage –related diseases,in some cases the sewage is not treated sufficiently causing severe damage to ecosystem and water resources.This impacts not only the environment and availability of water resources for humans but it also causes diseases in rural side people .

Terrace farming:Organic vegetables

Bangaloreans realizes the necessity of producing food self for their family. More and more people are finding time to maintain their vegetable garden no matter how busy they are. Majority of the people agree that working in the vegetable garden is a relief from all tensions. It is not only a stress buster but also gives safe and healthy food, you get fresh vegetable from your gardens. Directly pluck the fruits from the plants and eat or cook without loosing its freshness, avoid vegetables comes with pesticide residues you buy from the market, reduce buying from out side and save money. Many organizations are taking initiative to help people for starting vegetable gardens. Conducting organic terrace gardening workshops are one of the examples for that.

Mrs. Rama Rao from Bangalore a professional from the development sector who believes in a greener future produces vegetables on her own on her terrace top. She finds time to look after her plants even in her busy life. And importantly she teaches her 3 year old son about vegetable gardening and farming. This is what more parents don’t  care about. Below are some points from the conversation.

• How did you start terrace gardening?
  I already had a small front yard garden in front of my house. But I always wished to grow plants in my terrace too. However, I was not sure how to go about it. So I wrote to Dr. Vishwanath, a well known exponent of organic terrace gardening in Bangalore. He mentioned about the workshops he regularly conducts in various parts of Bangalore, and thus I attended one of them at the next instance. It was really nice experience of knowing in detail about the way to proceed ahead. Thus, in last October, immediately after that one day workshop, I started my activities on my rooftop
• Since how long are you doing terrace gardening?
  Its been about 6 months now.
• How do you find time to look after your plants?
  Actually this has been my only problem. I am a regular 9 - 5 person and additionally a mother of a super active 3 year old kid. Hence time is a very precious commodity. But since Gardening is something that I always liked and also that I have a reasonably good green thumbs, I make time for it. So I devote lot of my time for that during the weekends. Initially, it was a bit difficult since I had to scour around for pots, soil, manure, seeds, saplings and other things. Also, I had to watch on a daily basis about how the plants were germinating, which saplings needed to be transplanted etc. But slowly it became organized and now I keep my garden small enough to manage things the way I want.
• What are the plants or crops you cultivate?
  I have grown quite successfully herbs like Methi, Coriander, Palak, Mint, Colocasia and such. I have also grown vegetables like Beans, Brinjal, Ladies Finger, Cow pea, Chow chow, Malabar cucumber, Potatoes, Raddish, Beetroot, Sponge Gourd, Bitter Gourds, Green chillies etc. I also grow flowering plants like chrysanthemum, marigold, hibiscus, periwinkle, Four 'o' clock flower plants and few more whose English names I am not familiar with.
• Explain Method of cultivation, bio fertilizers whether you make your own or buy from outside etc.
  I usually use pots, old plastic cans, crates, even polythene sacks or any other such discarded materials for containers. I make my own potting mixture of 1:1:1 ratio of red sand, soil and manure. Sometimes in place of soil I use cocopeat and in place of manure I use vermicompost. I also compost my organic waste, however, since the quantity is small, I either buy organic manure and/or vermicompost from outside. For pest control however, I only use home remedies like sprinkling turmeric/ chilli powder, spraying affected parts with dilute non-detergent soap solution, sprinkling wood ash etc.
• How many plants do you have?
  The number of plants in my garden vary from 25 - 50 at any given time. Depending on how much time I am able to give, I add or minus plants from my collection. So on an average, I tend to somewhere between 30 plants a day.
• What is the area approximately used for vegetable garden?
  About 100 sq feet area only. So there is huge potential if I plan to upscale my garden since I have a terrace of about 600 sq.ft free area.
• Any other hobbies other than terrace gardening? -
  I am an avid reader and a hobby writer. I regularly review books and publish them online for a book library. I also publish my other writings on some interesting websites.
• What is the advantage of terrace or roof top farming in your opinion? -
  Green is very soothing. I find it really stress busting when I am between the plants on my terrace. Also its a great feeling to see a seed germinate, become seedling and then grow into a full fetched plant to produce yield all under your tender care. Its also nice to grow a small portion of your daily nourishment that is organically grown with lots of loving care and personal interest. My son who is just 3 years old takes keen interest and daily spends some time on the terrace helping me water these plants etc. It is good to inculcate such good habits from an early age. He is also happy to see and recognise a tomato or a bitter gourd directly on the plant which otherwise he has seen in pictures and books.
• What about buying food and vegetable from outside? -
  I still buy vegetables from outside since my garden cannot fully supply for all our daily needs. But I am happy to reduce by whatever little percentage that I have. The main issue of outside stuff is that we are not aware in what conditions they are grown. Also, with all the harmful pesticidal residue, sooner or later our health will slowly take a beating. Nothing beats freshly harvesting your vegetables from rooftop and directly using them in your kitchen. How much better it is to use cold storage, refrigerated or not so fresh supply from outside.
• How the current young generation go about producing food self?
  If we let go of our "I don't care" attitude, we will certainly be able to bring the change that we seek in the society. Small little steps like just being aware of environmental issues, food inflation rates, climate change patterns, possible interventions etc will sooner or later inspire you to grow your own food. All of us have an innate green thumb and definitely growing plants is NOT difficult nor demanding on your time. Take it up as a hobby in the beginning. Start with something small and which you like, may be some coriander or mint. See how good you feel when you see your plants sprouting. That will be the beginning which will further lead your way to bigger things.

Google server in Finland

Renewable energy

Google  promoting cleaner energy for a better future.

Across Google, we're currently using renewable energy to power over 30% of our operations. We're committed to using renewable energy like wind and solar as much as possible. So why don't we build clean energy sources right on our data centers? Unfortunately, the places with the best renewable power potential are generally not the same places where a data center can most efficiently and reliably serve its users. While our data centers operate 24/7, most renewable energy sources don’t—yet.

So we need to plug in to the electricity grid, and the grid isn’t currently very green. That's why we're working to green the electricity supply as a whole—not just for us, but for everyone.

Google  added renewable energy to our communities.

We’ve purchased renewable energy from wind farms, adding new clean power near our data centers and the communities around us. We found an opportunity in Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs)—long-term contracts (typically 20 years) to buy clean energy from a particular producer.

When we enter into a PPA, we choose projects that add new renewable energy sources to the market. By providing developers with a solid commitment, we help them get the money they need to finance new clean energy facilities. In exchange, we get clean energy at competitive prices as well as the renewable energy certificates (RECs) to help reduce our carbon footprint. Together, we make the grid a little bit greener.

Here’s how a PPA works:

1. We purchase energy from a renewable project developer.
2. We then sell that energy right back into the grid at a wholesale price.
3. We apply the RECs to the non-renewable or "brown" energy used at our data centers.

Until renewable energy is readily and constantly available in the areas where we have data centers, we'll continue to find creative ways to supply our data centers with clean energy. We're also in regular communication with our utility providers about how best to deliver renewable energy directly to our facilities.

Google  investing in a brighter future for the whole industry.

We’re going beyond investing in renewable energy for our own operations. We’re also investing in renewable energy projects to grow the industry as a whole. Specifically, we've invested hundreds of millions of dollars in renewable energy projects such as large-scale wind and rooftop solar. These projects represent a total capacity of over 1.8 GW, which is far more electricity than we use for our own operations. To put this in context, these projects will generate the same amount of energy used to power over 350,000 homes.

From Hindu daily

Efforts towards conserving the country’s biodiversity are hobbled by the frightening insistence that development cannot be held up

Who knew the term biodiversity 20 years ago? Hardly anyone. The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) was opened for signature at the now famous “Earth Summit” at Rio de Janeiro in 1992. For the first time, world leaders acknowledged that biodiversity was a valuable asset for both present and future generations, while also recognising the increasing threat of human induced extinction of species and destruction of biodiversity. “Biological diversity,” or the more commonly used biodiversity, was arguably first defined in the text of the CBD, having a very broad and all encompassing meaning, that includes all life forms and ecosystems. It is one of the most widely accepted international treaties, with 193 nations being a party to it. India ratified the CBD in 1994, and is now the host nation for the 11th Conference of Parties (COP 11), currently underway in Hyderabad. The “high level segment” is on the last two days.

The working groups are discussing various technical issues from the last COP in Aichi, Japan. Civil society groups are organising side events at the venue. One of the most important issues is the operationalisation of the biodiversity targets decided on at Aichi. India is chairing the discussions, and leading the global discussion until the next COP in two years.

Some success stories

Considering India’s role, it is worth examining the efforts at conserving our own biodiversity. There have been some well known success stories for critically endangered species. The only population of Asiatic lions in the world, in the Gir National Park, have more than doubled its numbers, moving from “critically endangered” to “endangered.” The Chambal river Gharials are doing well. The one-horned rhino has made a spectacular comeback, from about 200 to nearly 3,000 today. But, are these stories representative of what is happening in India? The major problem with “biodiversity” is its all encompassing, immeasurable nature, especially with the CBD definition. According to scientist David Takacs, “though it has considerable technical and scientific resonance, it defies precise scientific definition.”

There is the “Linnean shortfall” of knowledge, where we have been able to document only a small proportion — about 1.4 million of the 12-18 million species that exist on the planet. Exciting new species are being identified every day, some even becoming extinct before they are formally named and identified. The Wallacean shortfall refers to the incompleteness of our understanding of geographical distribution of species across the globe. With this huge gap in our knowledge of biodiversity, the approach taken across the world is to identify and protect important landscapes as well as “flagship” or “umbrella” species, covering large home ranges.

This is where things start to go badly wrong. Though the marine realm is the largest repository of biodiversity, far larger than the terrestrial landscape, we barely consider oceans worthy of conservation. All our efforts focus on the terrestrial world.

India is home to three of the world “biodiversity hotspots,” the Western Ghats-Sri Lanka region, the Himalayas and the Indo-Burma region. The Western Ghats are currently being ripped apart by large-scale legal and illegal mining, large development projects and even private hills stations like Lavasa. The hills have recently witnessed a very comprehensive conservation prioritisation and planning exercise by the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP), which suggests an intelligent and democratic zonation plan with varying levels of exploitation. But most politicians object to the recommendations of the panel, arguably driven by kickbacks from the extractive industries or a short-sighted approach to “development.” Vast tracts of the Indo-Burma hotspot will be submerged by a series of dams, supposedly to cater to India’s ever expanding power needs.

Next, is the species based approach. India’s two main flagship programmes — “Project Elephant” and “Project Tiger,” have been in place for a few decades now. Though their success is debated, they have been doing a reasonably good job of protecting these two species. But India Inc is now catching up with our charismatic beasts. Central India, globally recognised as one of India’s best metapopulation of tigers, is being carved up for coal mining. A proposal for an Elephant reserve in Chhattisgarh never saw the light of day since there is coal under the elephant forests. India’s Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) and the Minister of Environment and Forest (MoEF) have been fighting desperately to stop the indiscriminate industrial expansion into India’s natural forests. But both the FAC and MoEF were chastised for “slowing down India’s galloping economy.”

A 1,000-year-old Sal forest in Mahan was denied clearance for a coal plant because of the rich biodiversity and tiger presence. But with industrialists requesting the Prime Minister’s intervention, the clearance is now likely to go through. The needs of biodiversity conservation versus development must be carefully balanced. Especially for India where almost half the population has little access to electricity and lives below the poverty line. But frighteningly, there appears to be no balance. The scale rests firmly on the side of development. From Montek Singh Ahluwalia, to Manmohan Singh, to P. Chidambaram, there is a public proclamation that India’s “development” cannot be held up by the environment. There is no understanding of the CBD’s Aichi mission of “sustaining a healthy planet and delivering benefits essential for all people.” The “National Investment Board” (NIB) proposal, by which the government seeks to bypass laws and constitutional provisions, is an environmental disaster. Projects with large investments of above Rs.1,000 crore will be exempt from social and environmental clearances. This will be decided solely by the head of the NIB.

Rarely alleviate poverty

Ironically, the “development” plans rarely alleviate poverty. The policies cater to the corporates and urban elite, on the assumption that a “trickle-down” will happen to benefit the grassroots, though evidence shows otherwise. Across the country, the masses are at the forefront of the protests against the take over of their forests and livelihoods for “development.” A group of villagers from the 1,000-year-old Sal forest in Mahan are currently at the CBD COP 11. They are trying to tell the world they want to protect their forests from shining India.

Biodiversity is under threat from a range of sources, but the very first Aichi strategic goal is to “address the underlying causes of biodiversity loss by mainstreaming biodiversity across government and society.” The question now is whether India is going to honestly identify what this underlying driver is and make a serious effort to balance the development versus nature battle. Both the Minister for Environment and Minister for Tribal Affairs appear to be making serious efforts to level the battlefield. They have taken strong stands against the NIB proposal. Perhaps there is still hope.

(Tarsh Thekaekara is a biodiversity conservation researcher with The Shola Trust, The Nilgiris.)

Gandhian rules

10 Ways Walmart Fails at Sustainability

Since launching its sustainability program in 2005, Walmart has tried to position itself as a leader on corporate environmental responsibility. In frequent press announcements and annual “Global Responsibility” reports, Walmart touts its activities on renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, waste reduction, and product improvements.

While Walmart’s sustainability campaign has done wonders for its public image, it has done little for the environment. In fact, Walmart’s environmental impact has only grown over the last seven years. Its business practices remain highly polluting, while its relentless expansion and consolidation of the market have come at the expense of more sustainable enterprises and systems of production and distribution. Here are 10 ways Walmart is failing on sustainability:

1. Selling Shoddy Products

By demanding ever-lower prices from its suppliers, Walmart drives down the quality and durability of consumer goods. Clothing, appliances, electronics, and other products now wear out faster than ever before. This has sped up the flow of goods from factory to landfill, vastly expanding the amount of stuff Americans buy and discard.

Take clothing, for example. In the mid-1990s, the average American bought 28 items of clothing a year. Today, we buy 59 items. We also throw away an average of 83 pounds of textiles per person, mostly discarded apparel, each year.

2. Reducing Waste According to Who?

Walmart’s sustainability program does not address the issue of short-lived products and the resulting increase in landfill waste. The gains made by the company’s much-publicized store waste reduction program and its initiative to reduce energy use in its supply chain — a program in only 1% of the Chinese factories that supply Walmart’s stores — are miniscule compared to the volume of pollution and trash created by the expanded pace of consumption that Walmart fosters.

 3. Lagging on Renewable Energy

Despite six years of heavily promoting its renewable energy initiatives, in 2011, Walmart derived less than 4% of the electricity it used from its renewable power purchases and solar power projects. At its current pace, it will take Walmart many decades to reach its stated goal of 100% renewable power. Some of its competitors are already there. Kohl’s and Whole Foods have fully converted to renewable power, as have many independent retailers.

What’s holding Walmart up? It’s unwilling to make the investment. In its 2012 Global Responsibility Report, Walmart, which reported operating profits of $26.6 billion last year, explained its slow progress on renewable power by noting, “it has sometimes been difficult to find and fund low-carbon technologies that meet out ROI [return-on-investment] requirements.”

4. Increasing Greenhouse Gases

Walmart’s greenhouse gas emissions have been rising steadily. Between 2005 and 2010, Walmart’s reported emissions grew by 14%. The company says its operations now produce 22 million metric tons of greenhouse gases a year and it expects its emissions to continue to expand.

In particular, Walmart promised to improve energy efficiency and cut greenhouse gas emissions at its 2005 base of stores and distribution centers by 20% by the end of 2012. So far, however, it has cut emissions by less than 13%. Meanwhile, the energy used by new stores built since 2005 is contributing twice as much CO2 to the atmosphere each year as Walmart’s store improvements have saved.

In 2009, Walmart said, “Every company has a responsibility to reduce greenhouse gases as quickly as it can.” Yet Walmart itself has refused to make the investment and take the steps necessary to cut its own emissions.

5. Voraciously Consuming Land

Despite its public embrace of sustainability, Walmart continues to maximize its land consumption by building vast, low-rise supercenters. . Since 2005, Walmart has added more than 1,100 supercenters in the US, expanding its store footprint by one-third. Most of these stores were built on land that hadn’t been developed before, including, in some cases, critical habitat for threatened and endangered species.

In many communities, Walmart has chosen to build on virgin land rather than redevelop vacant “greyfield” retail properties. Walmart itself routinely abandons its stores. The US is currently home to about 150 empty Walmart stores, many vacated when the chain opened a newer supercenter nearby.

Walmart’s development practices have a major impact on the environment, causing problems such as habitat loss, water pollution from parking lot runoff, sprawl, increased driving, and air pollution. Between 1990 and 2009 — a period when Walmart grew from a regional chain to a national juggernaut — the number of miles the average US household logged each year for shopping increased by nearly 1,000 miles. For the country as a whole, that’s an extra 149 billion miles on the road each year and about 50 million metric tons of added CO2 emissions.

Yet Walmart’s sustainability program does not address land use at all. Its 2012 Global Responsibility Report doesn’t even mention these very significant environmental issues.

6. Financing Anti-Environmental Candidates

While Walmart has publicly expressed support for addressing urgent environmental issues like climate change, its campaign donations reveal a very different agenda. Walmart is one of the largest corporate campaign contributors in the country. Its dollars skew heavily in favor of candidates who consistently vote against the environment, including many leading climate change deniers.

Since 2005, nearly 60% of the $3.9 million Walmart has given to members of Congress went to lawmakers whose lifetime scores on the League of Conservation Voters’ National Environmental Scorecard indicate they vote against the environment most of the time. More than 40% of its donations went to lawmakers who vote against the environment at least 80% of the time.

7. Consolidating and Industrializing Food Production

Walmart’s growth as a grocer — the company had 2010 grocery sales of $140 billion and the company controls more than 50% of sales in 29 metro markets — has triggered a wave of mergers among meat-packers, dairies, and other food processors. Although Walmart claims to support “sustainable agriculture,” it has used its market power to usher in a larger-scale, more industrialized food system.

This, in turn, has squeezed farmers. With fewer retailers and processors to compete for their output, farmers have seen their share of the food dollar shrink. Between 1990 and 2009, the farmers’ share of each dollar consumers spent on pork, for example, fell from 46 to 25 cents, while the share going to Walmart and other retailers rose from 45 to 62 cents. A similar shift has occurred in beef, dairy, and produce.

8. Redefining Local

Walmart claims to be increasing the amount of locally produced food it sells. But the company’s distribution model favors the use of very few large suppliers, not the small farms most consumers think of when they seek out local produce. The company’s goal is not to increase the amount of local products sold in each store, but across all stores and the company’s definition of local is obtained within the same state as the store. This means that stores already located in major agricultural states like California, Texas or Florida can easily make up for the lack of same-state produce in other states.

9. Degrading Organic

Although Walmart pledged five years ago to expand organic food, what Walmart means by organic is different from what many consumers expect. When Walmart talks about organic, it includes big food companies making organic versions of the processed foods that are already on Walmart’s shelves — like Rice Krispies and Kraft macaroni and cheese.

Walmart’s own private-label organic milk brand has been harshly criticized. The dairy cows are raised in factory-farm conditions, with thousands of cows housed in a single facility. The cows eat predominately grain and are grass-fed only while they are not being milked — about two to three months out of the yea

10. Spreading Poverty

In its bid to expand into cities, Walmart is promising to bring healthier foods to “food deserts,” neighborhoods that are underserved by grocery stores. While cheap fruits and vegetables might look good on paper, it is not so simple when costs to employees, workers throughout the food supply chain, and the environment are left out of the equation.

The main underlying cause of poor diet and diet-related health issues is poverty, according to a 15-year study recently published in the Archives of Internal Medicine. Rather than improving the economic health of families, which would enable them to buy healthier food, Walmart has the opposite effect. When Walmart comes into a community, incomes decline and poverty increases. According to a study published in Social Science Quarterly, neighborhoods that gain Walmart stores end up with more poverty and food-stamp usage than communities where the retailer does not open.

When it comes to the food system, Walmart is part of the problem, not the solution.

courtesy:http://www.care2.com

Foreign Direct investment in retail:from environmental view

Foreign Direct Investment in multibrand retailing.

 

Retailing as we know selling goods directly to customer for his personnel use.Government of India  recently allowed foreign direct investment in retail sector.In India nearly 10-15 crore people are in retail business starts from small grocery shops to vegetables sellers on the footpaths.

Few facts about Indian Retail Industry.

1.Retailing accounts to 14-15% of India’s GDP.

2.Indian retail market estimated to 22 lack crores.

3.India is the one of the top 5 retail market in the world.

4.Retail giant like Wall mart turnover globally is approximately equal to  india’s retail turnover.

There is a direct connection between the environment and the economy ,the economical steps  which were   not cared for environment have not helped human beings in the history neither socially nor economically .

Many are in the side of FDI and many are not because of the intricacies involved in the issue but to resolve this, environment impact is just a  tool to understand whole issue logically as well as radically .

Some of the Major claims that government proving FDI is worth but

1.Government claiming Efficient supply system.

Yes in India due to lack of efficient end to end cold supply system 25% of the food produce going waste at the stage of  harvesting and consumption.Retail giants come up with high end infrastructure like cold storage ,cold transportation.But country like India which is not providing electricity for its maximum percentage of people how can one ensure that it will provide electricity to large number of Cold storage units which are high electricity consuming .

To support this argument Indian telecom companies currently self generating 60% of the electricity because of acute shortage of the electricity from govt maintained electric grids.The generation involves diesel generators thus polluting the environment by burning diesel accounts to 6 million tones of CO2 annually as well as enjoying subsidized diesel.

2.Government claims FDI can reduce food wastage.

Majority of the retail giants like spencer,wallmart,tesco are wasting the food produce by 20-30%  .Retail giants are rejecting food produce by its appearances like shape and color though quality ,nutrition meeting the standards.

3.Packaging  Problem.

 As retail giant always tries to mesmerize the customer by lucrative packaging .They  use 75% more material compare to conventional retail system adding substantial amount of solid waste .A study conducted by the Waste & Resources Action Programme estimates that the food and drinks supply chain in the UK generates 5.3 million tonnes of waste in the form of packaging materials only. The total amount of waste generated when both rejected food and packaging materials are considered is a colossal amount and is responsible for serious environmental problems. In UK an estimated emission of 10 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent greenhouse gases can be attributed to the waste generated by the food and drinks supply chain .

4.Government claims Farming technology improvisation.

The days are coming where farmers wants to even drop minimum technology like using the fertilizers and to follow organic farming .In India day to day there is vast interest building  in organic farming  where the organic farming  technique good for well being of human being and also for the environment  .Retail giants which always look on profit never think of well being  which  proved in the history.

In US and UK retail industry forcing farmers to use more chemical fertilizers,insecticides,ripening agents,artificial colors and growth harmones (oxytocin)to achieve cosmetic looks for food produce like vegetables and fruits.

5.Government claims 10million  employment and profit for farmers.

All over the world wall mart employs just  2 million people .It is far from the truth that in India retail giants like wall mart ,spencer creats 10 million job but significant number of jobs will be created but at the cost of  small retailers income and their reducing job security because of competition.Coming to increase in profit  for farmers, the study conducted by UK Competion commission claims that as retail giants achieve monopoly in market they will start to force the farmers to reduce price and follow ill procedures in procuring food produce and also clearing bills.

Verdict:With the entry of  retail giants like wall mart,Tesco,spencer can bring large investment in tandem they bring tools to create social inequality,economical imbalance and great ill-impact on India's rich biodiversity.India need bottom up approach than top down approach .

source:Wikipedia,http://www.legalindia.in, research papers