175 Countries Sign Landmark Climate Deal At United Nations

April 23, 2016 Staff ReporterEnvironment 0

UNITED NATIONS: While there is so much uncertainty, misunderstanding, differences of opinions, ideologies, and tensions around the world between the nations, there was one solemn moment today that brought nearly all the nations and almost the entire humanity together for a common goal: to preserve the Earth for future generations.

The Climate Summit at the world headquarters of the United Nations was symbolic of the urgency felt by the entire world to address the rapidly changing climate, and to recognize the need to stop the degradation of the resources and the Earth itself we have been blessed to have.

Leaders from at least 175 countries signed the Paris Agreement on climate change on Friday, April 22, 2016 as the landmark deal took a key step forward, potentially entering into force years ahead of schedule. “We are in a race against time,” U.N. secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the gathering. “The era of consumption without consequences is over.”

As many as 175 countries, including India, China and the US, signed the Paris Agreement on climate change at the UN headquarters in New York on Friday, to coincide with ‘International Mother Earth Day’. This was the first day of the signing ceremony of the historic global deal. That such a large number of countries signed the agreement in a single day is significant. The previous record for the most countries to sign an international agreement on one day was set in 1982, when 119 countries signed the ‘Law of the Sea Convention’.

The Paris Agreement, the world’s response to hotter temperatures, rising seas and other impacts of climate change, was reached in December as a major breakthrough in U.N. climate negotiations, which for years were slowed by disputes between rich and poor countries over who should do what. Under the agreement, countries set their own targets for reducing emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The targets are not legally binding, but countries must update them every five years. The agreement aims to take multiple measures to save the world from disastrous consequences of climate change and was adopted by 195 countries in Paris

The agreement will be open for signature for one year – till April 21, 2017. However, merely signing the agreement will not make it operational. The United Nations says 15 countries, several of them small island states under threat from rising seas, did that on April 22nd by depositing their instruments of ratification. The agreement will enter into force once 55 countries representing at least 55 percent of global emissions have formally joined it. Many now expect the climate agreement to enter into force long before the original deadline of 2020. Some say it could happen this year. After signing, countries must formally approve the Paris Agreement through their domestic procedures.

India’s Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar signed the agreement on behalf of India. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and some heads of state and government, including French President Francois Hollande addressed the gathering. Also on the list of speakers was Mahindra Group chairman and managing director Anand Mahindra, as a representative of the business and corporate world.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry holds his granddaughter as he signs the Paris Agreement on climate change, Friday, April 22, 2016 at U.N. headquarters. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

India has maintained that the burden of fighting climate change cannot be put on the shoulders of the poor after decades of industrial development by the rich nations. It has announced plans to quadruple its renewable power capacity to 175 gigawatts by 2022 as part of the government’s plan to supply electricity to every household. However, India has so far not indicated when it would ratify it.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, holding his young granddaughter, joined dozens of world leaders for a signing ceremony that set a record for international diplomacy: Never have so many countries signed an agreement on the first available day. States that don’t sign Friday have a year to do so.

The United States has said it intends to join the agreement this year. The world is watching anxiously: Analysts say that if the agreement enters into force before President Barack Obama leaves office in January, it would be more complicated for his successor to withdraw from the deal because it would take four years to do so under the agreement’s rules. The United States put the deal into economic terms. “The power of this agreement is what it is going to do to unleash the private sector,” Kerry told the gathering, noting that this year is again shaping up to be the hottest year on record.

“The world must work together to ensure that the goals of the Paris Agreement are realized. US commitment to leadership in this arena has helped start a process that must last beyond your presidency,” a group of 145 US lawmakers said in a letter to US President Barack Obama.

China, the world’s top carbon emitter, announced it will “finalize domestic procedures” to ratify the Paris Agreement before the G-20 summit in China in September. Ban immediately welcomed the pledge. Maros Sefcovic, the energy chief for another top emitter, the 28-nation European Union, has said the EU wants to be in the “first wave” of ratifying countries.

French President Francois Hollande, the first to sign the agreement, said Friday he will ask parliament to ratify it by this summer. France’s environment minister is in charge of global climate negotiations. “There is no turning back now,” Hollande told the gathering. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also announced that his country would ratify the agreement this year.

Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe brought applause when he declared, “Life itself is at stake in this combat. We have the power to win it.” Countries that had not yet indicated they would sign the agreement Friday include some of the world’s largest oil producers, including Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Nigeria and Kazakhstan, the World Resources Institute said.

Scientific analyses show the initial set of targets that countries pledged before Paris don’t match the agreement’s long-term goal to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), compared with pre-industrial times. Global average temperatures have already climbed by almost 1 degree Celsius. Last year was the hottest on record. The latest analysis by the Climate Interactive research group shows the Paris pledges put the world on track for 3.5 degrees Celsius of warming. A separate analysis by Climate Action Tracker, a European group, projected warming of 2.7 degrees Celsius. Either way, scientists say the consequences could be catastrophic in some places, wiping out crops, flooding coastal areas and melting Arctic sea ice.

According to reports, as the Paris Agreement moves forward, there is some good news. Global energy emissions, the biggest source of man-made greenhouse gases, were flat last year even though the global economy grew, according to the International Energy Agency. Still, fossil fuels are used much more widely than renewable sources like wind and solar power.

Under Article 21 of the Agreement, the Paris accord will enter into force on the 30th day after the date on which at least 55 parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) deposit their “instruments of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession” with the depositary at UN headquarters.

The Paris deal is the most ambitious climate change agreement in history. It established a long term, durable global framework to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions where 195 countries will work together to put the world on a path to keeping global temperature rise well below 2 degrees Celsius. These countries had also agreed to pursue efforts to limit the increase in temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Human Activity Makes Terrestrial Biosphere Contribute to Climate Change

April 6, 2016 Staff ReporterEnvironment 0

Methane and nitrous oxide emissions that result from human activity make the terrestrial biosphere a net contributor of greenhouse gas emissions, according to a new study published in Nature.

The findings reverse the commonly held view among climate scientists that the terrestrial biosphere, a term used to refer to all land-based ecosystems on the planet, slows climate change by acting as a carbon dioxide sink, or a reservoir that absorbs carbon dioxide and temporarily takes it out of circulation.

Instead, the methane and nitrous oxide released from the terrestrial biosphere is roughly two times larger than the cooling effect of the biospheric carbon dioxide sink, said Chaoqun Lu, an ISU assistant professor of ecology, evolution and organismal biology and co-author of the study.

“Without human activity, the terrestrial biosphere would be neutral,” Lu said. “But we found that the terrestrial biosphere emits enough greenhouse gases to become a net contributor to global climate change.”

Put another way, what was once thought to be a helpful pit stop for carbon dioxide to accumulate harmlessly without contributing to global warming actually isn’t as helpful as scientists had hoped. On balance, the climate warming capacity of the terrestrial biosphere’s emissions surpasses its ability to slow climate change by sequestering carbon.

Lu said human activity connected to agriculture, waste management and other practices has transformed the terrestrial biosphere. Those changes lead to emissions of greenhouse gases such as methane and nitrous oxide.

Lu said human-caused fluxes of greenhouse gases in southern Asia, a region including China and India, led to larger net climate warming effects compared to other regions of the globe. Rice cultivation and livestock production likely drove much of those emissions, she said. Fertilizers account for another manmade contributor, according to the paper.

The study, published in the journal Nature this week, is the first to look at the net human-induced balance of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide from the terrestrial biosphere on a global scale. Lu was one of 23 scientists at 16 institutions to contribute to the international project. Hanqin Tian, director of Auburn University’s International Center for Climate and Global Change Research, is the lead author of the paper.

Nuclear Weapons: Greatest Threat To Global Security

April 6, 2016 Staff ReporterCommunity, Environment 0

More than 50 world leaders attend Nuclear Security Summit 2016, commit to pledged to boost communal efforts to secure nuclear materials

“Of all the threats to global security and peace, the most dangerous is the proliferation and potential use of nuclear weapons,” wrote President Barack Obama in an article he wrote for The Washington Post. Obama inaugurated the first Nuclear Security Summit nearly six years ago, after a landmark speech in Prague in 2009 laying out the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons.

More than 50 world leaders along with international organizations like the United Nations and INTERPOL attended the fourth and final Nuclear Security Summit 2016 of Obama’s presidency, March 31st – April 1st in Washington, DC, focusing on efforts to lock down vulnerable atomic materials to prevent nuclear terrorism, which he had called “one of the greatest threats to global security” in the 21st century. In his address, Obama said, the world faced a persistent and evolving threat of nuclear terrorism despite progress in reducing such risks. But he insisted: “We cannot be complacent.

These biannual nuclear summits, aimed at locking down fissile material worldwide that could be used for doomsday weapons, were proposed by President Obama back in 2009, barely two months into his presidency. “We must insure that terrorists never acquire a nuclear weapon,” he declared, calling such a scenario “the most immediate and extreme threat to global security.” In that same April 2009 speech, Obama challenged the world’s keepers of some 2,000 tons of highly enriched uranium and plutonium to “secure all vulnerable nuclear material around the world within four years.”

Since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, proliferation of nuclear weapons has increased tremendously. During the Cold War, much of the debate centered on the U.S.-Soviet nuclear balance. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, nuclear weapons have continued to be a major preoccupation of America, with more nations acquiring the nuclear weapons and many more trying to build nuclear arsenals. But, the most dangerous threat has been from the terrorist and rogue groups that have been stealing and making all out efforts to get hold of enriched uranium, a component that is used to build nuclear weapons.

Deadly bomb attacks in Brussels last month have fueled concern that Islamic State could eventually target nuclear plants, steal material and develop radioactive “dirty bombs”. Obama said the required 102 countries had now ratified an amendment to a nuclear security treaty that would tighten protections against nuclear theft and smuggling.

President Barack Obama urged world leaders on April 1st to do more to safeguard vulnerable nuclear facilities to prevent “madmen” from groups like Islamic State from getting their hands on a nuclear weapon or a radioactive “dirty bomb.” There is no doubt that if these madmen ever got their hands on a nuclear bomb or nuclear material, they would certainly use it to kill as many innocent people as possible,” he said. “It would change our world.”

Nine countries together possess more than 15,000 nuclear weapons. The United States and Russia maintain roughly 1,800 of their nuclear weapons on high-alert status – ready to be launched within minutes of a warning. Most are many times more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945. A single nuclear warhead, if detonated on a large city, could kill millions of people, with the effects persisting for decades

Southern Asia is home to three nuclear powers—China, India, and Pakistan—that continue to expand and modernize their arms programs. Such nuclear competition is dangerous given mounting mistrust and a dearth of diplomatic measures in place to reduce risk of confrontation. China is seeking to soon achieve a nuclear triad (land, air, and sea-based nuclear delivery capabilities). Analysts estimate that China’s inventory is close to two hundred and fifty warheads. North Korea’s quest to acquire nuclear weapons has been never ending.

Experts estimate that Pakistan has 110 to 130 warheads and two types of delivery vehicles (PDF): aircraft and surface-to-surface missiles. Pakistan’s chronic political instability, spotty nonproliferation record, and ongoing threats posed by militant forces have focused special concern on the safety of its nuclear materials.

India possesses a developed strategic nuclear program and currently fields nuclear-capable aircraft and ballistic missiles controlled by a civilian command structure, theNuclear Command Authority. New Delhi has an estimated stockpile of 110 to 120 warheads and is expanding its military nuclear capabilities. In 2011, New Delhi spent approximately $4.9 billion (PDF) on nuclear weapons, up from $4.1 billion the previous year, according to Global Zero, a nongovernmental disarmament movement.

The United States and India negotiated a landmark civil nuclear deal beginning in 2005, which was later signed into U.S. law in 2008. Washington saw the deal as a practical way to overcome barriers to cooperation and also because it believed “it would be better to have India inside the international nonproliferation tent than outside,” says CFR’s Alyssa Ayres.

World leaders and international organizations pledged to boost communal efforts to secure nuclear materials. But there won’t be any more global summits on the issue in the near future. The leaders said in a joint communique at the summit’s close that the broad goal of the summit process has been to address the threat of nuclear terrorism by minimizing and securing weapons-usable nuclear materials, enhancing international cooperation to prevent the illicit acquisition of nuclear material by non-state actors such as terrorist groups and smugglers, and taking steps to strengthen the global nuclear security system.

The world leaders acknowledged that there’s more work to prevent nuclear terrorism and promote disarmament, which requires further international cooperation President Barack Obama says there’s a persistent and evolving threat of terrorists conducting a nuclear attack.

While addressing the Summit leaders, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India pledged to accord a high national priority to nuclear security through strong institutional framework, independent regulatory agency and trained and specialized manpower, while developing and deploying technology to deter and defend against nuclear terrorism, by making efforts to stop nuclear smuggling and strengthen the national detection architecture for nuclear and radioactive material.

While gains have been made, arms-control advocates say the diplomatic process – which Obama conceived and championed – has lost momentum and could slow further once he leaves the White House in January, next year. Moscow, which holds the world’s largest nuclear weapons stockpiles, ended virtually all its nuclear cooperation with the U.S. more than two years ago as part of the political fallout from tensions over Ukraine.

The failure of the nuclear powers to disarm has heightened the risk that other countries will acquire nuclear weapons. The only guarantee against the spread and use of nuclear weapons is to eliminate them without delay. Although the leaders of some nuclear-armed nations have expressed their vision for a nuclear-weapon-free world, they have failed to develop any detailed plans to eliminate their arsenals and are modernizing them.

According to analysts, nuclear safeguards like those that have emerged from previous Nuclear Security Summits are playing an increasingly important role in protecting the world from security threats. White House Deputy National Security Advisor Benjamin Rhodes all but declares that goal accomplished, pointing to the achievements of the previous three summits. “Because of these efforts, it is harder than ever before for terrorists or bad actors to acquire nuclear materials,” Rhodes told reporters in a conference call prior to this week’s summit. “That, of course, makes all of our people more secure.”

According to Sharon Squassoni, a non-proliferation expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington defense think tank, the job isn’t finished, warning that the political pressure to get it done is waning. “We know what to do,” she says. “The question is, do we have enough willpower and money and attention to do it.”

India Could Be A Global Change Agent For Renewable Energy: U.S.

March 29, 2016 Ajay GhoshEnvironment 0

WASHINGTON: With India setting an ambitious target of generating 175 gigawatts (Gw) of clean energy by 2022, a top US official said that India has the potential to be “a change agent” for the rest of the world in the renewable sector though the transformation process is going to be tough.

“India could really be a change agent for the rest of the world in the renewable energy sector if they get it right. So we have a vested interest in helping them get that right,” Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Energy Transformation Melanie Nakagawa said.

And as India embarks on the $1 trillion project to build its infrastructure from road to ports, she said it is a great opportunity for the world, “to showcase” India as a country that gets the sustainability future right. But at the same time, she acknowledged that it is going to be tough.

“I think that there’s a story to be written there as they get closer to it but it’s going to be tough.I mean it’s going to take not just the political will, but it’s going to take the reforms and the policies needed to actually see this possible future happen,” she said.

Noting that Indian government needs $100 billion in investment including $70 billion of debt financing to meet their 175 gigawatt target by 2022, the US official said those numbers can’t be met with public finance alone. And necessary reforms are needed to attract private investment.

“India’s commitments on the 175 gigawatt renewable energy target by 2022, their commitments on solar, their commitments also in the finance infrastructure space, this all makes it a really impressive political will, signal and political will,” Nakagawa said.

India has set itself an ambitious target of generating 175 gigawatt of power by 2022 from renewable sources that includes 100 Gw from solar, 60 Gw from wind, 10 Gw from biomass and 5 Gw from small hydroelectric project.

India and the US are working closely together in this field. The US-India Clean Energy Finance Task Force which was established in September 2015 has had three meetings so far.

This is a government-to-government task force focused on clean energy investment and finance.It’s complimented by a private sector led task force called a Clean Energy Finance Forum, the which is led by Uday Kemkha and SunEdison.

The task force, she said, has proposed three recommendations for how the US can work with India on getting to scale clean energy projects. The three proposals on the table include standardizing power purchase agreements; first loss facility and looking at the idea of warehousing and securitization for renewable energy projects.

“This is all about reducing project risk in the renewable energy space; different ways you can reduce project risk,” the US official said. The first loss facility helps get at reducing that risk, she observed. The idea of warehousing and securitization of renewable energy project assets is sort of bundling smaller scale projects into a larger project.

“This is a government-to-government dialogue on a pretty technical issue, but one that is really fundamental to how you would actually see scalable investment happen in India in the renewable energy space. Because these are some of the most systemic and problematic barriers to the larger scale investments that are needed to hit the renewable energy targets,” she said.

According to Nakagawa, the Task Force is discussing just the enabling environment from a finance perspective. “What we’re looking at is the specific window of project based investment for the renewable energy sector and what are the impediments to that,” she said.

U.S. Trade Body Seeks Clean Technology Collaboration With India

March 29, 2016 Ajay GhoshEnvironment, Science & Technology 0

WASHINGTON: The U.S.-India Business Council (USIBC) led a mission on exploring avenues for joint collaboration and investment in clean technology across three Indian cities — New Delhi, Ahmedabad and Hyderabad.

The trade body comprised of 350 top-tier U.S. and Indian companies advancing U.S.-India commercial ties led talks to grow bilateral cooperation in innovation, protecting the environment and meeting the country’s ambitious clean energy targets.

The delegation included USIBC members working in the US-India energy corridor, presenting a board range of opportunity in the renewable energy space such as GE, AES, 8minutenergy, First Solar, Applied Materials, CH2M among others, it said last week.

The Indian government has augmented its solar target fivefold to 100 GW and wind target to 60 GW by 2022, representing a $125 billion investment opportunity, USIBC noted. The objective of the meetings was to create sustained engagement on national and state-level policies and regulatory frameworks, such as the National Solar Mission and state solar policies, and thereby, ensure a level playing field for all participants, it said.

There has been considerable progress in transmission, but the problem of congestion remains, both at the interstate and intra-state levels, USIBC said. Through its meetings with senior Government of India officials, the delegation explored avenues for joint collaboration and technical exchanges in areas such as energy storage and transmission infrastructure, wind and solar power generation, energy efficiency technology and services.

It also articulated how investors can work in stride with both state and central governments to meet the country’s ambitious clean energy targets of installing 175 GW by 2022. “The strong focus on renewable energy will help increasing access to energy for all Indian citizens as part of Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi’s ambitious reform agenda,” USIBC president Mukesh Aghi said.

“There is also an urgent need for long-term financial solutions in the clean energy economy. American enterprise is eager to help in all ways possible,” he said. The delegation engaged with senior Government of India leaders to develop an action plan for a regulatory and infrastructure environment that will further foster innovation, attract investment, create jobs and fulfil initiatives such as Make in India, Innovate in India,” Aghi said. The delegation met among others officials in key central ministries and Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh Chief Ministers Anandiben Patel and N. Chandrababu Naidu.

Indian-American Starrer ‘The Jungle Book’ To Open In April

February 29, 2016 Ajay GhoshEnvironment 0

Disney’s “The Jungle Book”, starring 12-year-old Indian-American Neel Sethi as Mowgli, has a special treat in store for Indian fans of the timeless tale. The film will come out in the Indian theaters on April 8, a week before it releases in the US.

“We are thrilled to confirm that Disney’s all-new live-action epic, ‘The Jungle Book’, will be out in Indian theatres a week prior to the US release. We have a few more surprises in store for ‘The Jungle Book’ fans in India,” Amrita Pandey — vice president, Studios, Disney India, said in a statement.

Directed by “Iron Man” fame Jon Favreau, and featuring voices by iconic actors like Ben Kingsley, Bill Murray, Scarlett Johansson, Idris Elba and Christopher Walken, “The Jungle Book” is an all-new live-action epic adventure about Mowgli, a man-cub raised in the jungle by a family of wolves.

Mowgli embarks on a captivating journey of self-discovery when he is forced to abandon the only home he has ever known. It is based on the adventure stories penned by Rudyard Kipling and inspired by Disney’s animated adaptation.

The movie blends live-action with photorealistic CGI animals and environments, using high-end technology and storytelling techniques to immerse audiences. “Tales of ‘The Jungle Book’ have been an intrinsic part of most of our growing up years. Adventurous stories of Mowgli, Baloo, Bagheera, Kaa and Shere Khan are so beloved by the Indian audience,” Pandey added.

India’s Solar Import Rules Discriminate Against U.S., Rules World Trade Organization

February 29, 2016 Ajay GhoshEnvironment 0

WASHINGTON – In a setback to India, a World Trade Organization dispute settlement panel has ruled in favor of the U.S. in its challenge to India’s alleged discrimination against U.S. solar exports.

The panel agreed with the U.S. that India’s “localization” rules discriminated against imported solar cells and modules under India’s National Solar Mission, according to an official news release citing U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman. The USTR initiated the dispute.

India’s domestic content requirements, it agreed, discriminate against U.S. solar cells and modules by requiring solar power developers to use Indian-manufactured cells and modules rather than U.S. or other imported solar technology, in breach of international trade rules.

The panel also rejected India’s defensive arguments and determined that India’s local content requirements are inconsistent with the national treatment obligations in Article 2.1 of the Agreement on Trade-related Investment Measures (TRIMs Agreement) and Article III:4 of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1994.

The USTR said it initiated this dispute in February, 2013 because it considered that India’s domestic content requirements are inconsistent with WTO rules which prohibit discrimination against imported products.

The U.S., it said, has consistently made the case that India can achieve its clean energy goals faster and more cost-effectively by allowing solar technologies to be imported from the US and other solar producers.

“The WTO panel agreed with the United States that India’s ‘localization’ measures discriminate against US manufacturers and are against WTO rules,” Froman said.

The US and India “are strong supporters of the multilateral, rules-based trading system and take our WTO obligations seriously,” he said.

“This is an important outcome, not just as it applies to this case, but for the message it sends to other countries considering discriminatory ‘localization’ policies.”

“The United States strongly supports the rapid deployment of solar energy around the world, including in India,” Froman said.

“But discriminatory policies in the clean energy space in fact undermine our efforts to promote clean energy by requiring the use of more expensive and less efficient equipment, raising the cost of generating clean energy and making it more difficult for clean energy sources to be competitive,” he said.

Creating a 25,000 foot ‘Vertical University’ in Nepal

February 15, 2016 Ajay GhoshEnvironment 0

In the years between 1990 and 2005, Nepal lost 4,500 square miles of forest — 25 percent of the country’s overall forest cover — through a combination of haphazard urbanization, a lack of sustainable economic alternatives, inadequate support to organic farmers, and the adverse impacts of climate change. This change has worsened Nepal’s natural springs systems and, in turn, the livelihoods of the country’s farmers.

Asia 21 Young Leader Rajeev Goyal first started working in Nepal more than a decade ago as a Peace Corps volunteer in 2001. An activist, lawyer, and rural-development worker, Goyal started monitoring Nepal’s environmental issues early on and, over the next decade, frequently found himself in the country working on a variety of projects.

In 2013, Goyal teamed up with the Canadian architect and planner Priyanka Bista and a local teacher and conservationist named Kumar Bishwakarma to create the Koshi Tappu Kanchenjunga Biodiversity Education Livelihood Terra-Studio (KTK-BELT), an organization seeking to educate people about conservation and Himalayan biodiversity while creating ecologically-sensitive livelihood opportunities.

Goyal and KTK-BELT have now undertaken a massive project to build a “vertical university” from Koshi Tappu, Nepal’s largest aquatic bird reserve, to Mount Kanchenjunga, the third tallest peak in the world. We reached out to Goyal via email to find out what a vertical university is and how it will conserve Nepal’s environment and biodiversity.

Can you describe what a “vertical university” is?

The idea of the vertical university is actually quite simple. It is to create a sort of “living classroom” in the form of an 25,000 foot continuous vertical forest corridor stretching from Koshi Tappu (220 feet), Nepal’s largest aquatic bird sanctuary, to Mt. Kanchenjunga (28,169 feet), the world’s third tallest peak, as a vessel to teach and conserve the 6,600 flowering plant species, 800 bird species and 180 mammals that are found in eastern Nepal. In a mountainous country like Nepal, where there is exceptional biological, climatic, and cultural diversity from the tropical plains to the alpine Himalayas, conventional education paradigms where students sit in a stationary classroom, divorced from their surroundings, make little sense.

The “professors” of the vertical university may not have a Ph.D. and in fact may never have set foot in school, but as indigenous farmers, they possess intricate, intergenerational knowledge about local fauna and flora which is critical for Nepal’s youth to attain. The vertical university will deepen place-based skills in sustainable technology, craft, and medicinal plants, and seeks to conserve and activate local knowledge while also creating sustainable livelihood opportunities. It does this through establishing “learning grounds,” which are micro-conservation hubs — the “classrooms” of the university throughout different locations across the landscape.

The objective is that one day, a Nepali student could walk from Koshi Tappu to Kanchenjunga, across 118 different forest types, and learn from local farmers about the deep physical and biological diversity of the landscape through place-based education. The objective is not to radically alter the existing government curriculum, which is actually quite comprehensive, but to enrich it with pragmatic, sensory learning opportunities that integrate hundreds of villages across a vertical gradient.

In the last few decades, deforestation, loss of natural habitats and the impacts of urbanization have affected many nations around the world. Why did you choose to focus your attention on Nepal?

Deforestation, degradation of biological diversity, and loss of the “wild” are challenges not unique to Nepal, but rather imperil all of Asia. The predominant trend is that forests are being converted into monocultures to grow palm oil or other bio-fuels and cash crops. Old growth forest, wetlands, and other fragile ecosystems which took millennia to evolve and mature are being hacked down and converted into monocultures or urbanized settlements without a second thought. Those that stand the most to lose, in terms of ecosystem services, livelihood opportunities, and educational possibilities, are rural youth, and yet no one is really asking what the role of government schools should be in conserving these resources.

Land use conversion and habitat degradation in Indonesia and Malaysia may actually be occurring at an even quicker and more destructive pace than in Nepal. China has less than one percent of its original forest cover under protected status. Many of these “forests” are simply wood lots for commercial purposes. Cambodia has experienced huge amounts of deforestation in the Cardamom Mountains. The challenges are everywhere. I have chosen to work in Nepal because, having been a Peace Corps volunteer here and worked on various types of projects for a number of years, this is the context that I know and have monitored and where I feel I can help. I have met extraordinary people in Nepal such as Kumar Bishwakarma, a local teacher and conservationist, who helped safeguard 100 acres of biodiversity-rich land to build the first prototype of the vertical university in Yangshila, Morang, within the Siwalik foothills of eastern Nepal. As a post-disaster and post-conflict country facing increasing threats from climate change disasters, it’s also the ideal place to pilot the university.

Another reason our team is so focused here is that Nepal is experiencing an environmental emergency. Between 1990 and 2005, Nepal lost over 4,500 square miles of forest, or 25 percent of its total forest cover in just 15 years. The annual rate of deforestation continues to be 1.7 percent, which means that if nothing is done the forests will continue to decline by one-quarter every 15 years or so until it is gone. Eastern Nepal is one of the world’s 34 biodiversity “hotspots” which has more endemic and rare species that most places on earth, including many that are listed on the IUCN Red List as under critical threat. New species continue to be discovered in the Himalayas each year. With much of the attention focused on the April 2015 earthquake, it is easy to overlook that there is a silent crisis occurring with the nation’s habitats and biological diversity.

Nepal is a paradoxical country. Everywhere there are shortages of energy, water, fuel, and supplies. Yet few places in the world are endowed with more natural resources, physical diversity, and diversity of culture and languages. It’s also a country where schools and education are deeply valued. Putting all of this together, we feel it is the perfect melting pot to realize an idea like this.

Your organization, KTK-BELT, has launched a very ambitious project in Nepal to conserve and teach people about biodiversity. Can you describe the project and the steps you are taking to to achieve this? What have been some of your greatest challenges so far?

KTK-BELT, which I helped co-found with Priyanka Bista, an architect from Canada, works very closely with local communities to help establish learning grounds at the village level, as conservation associations to safeguard threatened habitats. We establish these land plots at different elevations, in different micro-habitats, which in the aggregate help restore habitat connectivity. The learning grounds are plots organized around principles of agro-forestry and permaculture design, where trees cannot be cut down and only organic inputs are permissible.

Currently, we are working in a Village Development Council (VDC) called Yangshila, where we have established 28 learning grounds. Each plot responds to a different conservation need. For example, a plot in a tropical village called Rangcha is focused on the conservation of tropical fruit diversity. In Dahar, a bird-rich area with more than 100 species including the Great Indian Hornbill and Himalayan Vulture, the plot will be designed to deepen this bird diversity. In another plot in Chiuri Bhanjhyang, the aim is to conserve wild ornamental plants.

Bista, who oversees the design and planning arm of the project, is training rural youth in biodiversity mapping, sustainable design, construction methods, and other skills, so that each learning ground is designed by local youth and indigenous farmers and bridges traditional knowledge and modern attributes. This work is challenging because it requires training and capacity building and takes a great deal of time and exposure to change mindsets.

One challenge has been acquiring funding and capital, but we’re starting to get broader support. Recently we turned to crowd funding to share our idea with a global audience and launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise $100,000 before February 24. The idea of the vertical university is also starting to acquire endorsements from the global conservation community, and we recently were awarded the UIAA Mountain Protection Prize in Seoul. If we had major new resources, we could expand the BELT all over eastern Nepal, as we now feel we understand the process and how to go about it.

What are the goals of this vertical university in Nepal?

The goal is ultimately to change perceptions and shift attitudes. We want to make people see that environmental conservation, livelihood, and education are not mutually exclusive, but that each can fortify the other to achieve a much deeper level of sustainability through harnessing diversity. The word “diversity” is overused in our world and often utilized in the context of race, socioeconomic standing, or nationality, but there is a deeper level of diversity, which is the basis of our culture, imagination, and art. We hope that the vertical university will speak for itself and that when people walk in this landscape and see the transitions as they move further up along the BELT, they will realize that any development strategy should emanate from and actually further this mega-diversity.

What can other nations with growing environmental concerns learn from KTK-Belt? Can the methods you’re implementing in Nepal be replicated or adapted elsewhere?

In some ways, a vertical university in a place like Myanmar, for example, where there are snow-capped mountains and a 1,200-mile tropical coastline, could be even more dramatic and more fitting. Bhutan has expressed interest in the idea of creating a “golden walk” themed around birds and bird habitat and modeled on the vertical university concept. We can easily see this being adapted to any country in Asia, including archipelago nations like the Philippines, where the BELT could be oceanic and underwater. The threats, opportunities, issues and challenges are similar across different contexts. The core idea behind the vertical university — the notion of embracing diversity and place-based education — would be relevant throughout Asia.

Our dream is that one day there would be a continuous forest corridor cutting across many countries, going up and down mountains, linking wetlands and rivers. An inspiration for this project was actually the “Re-Wilding Europe” project in the Netherlands, which sought to create a land trust to revive lost species, and which will cut through different countries in Europe. An Asia vertical university could be comprised of thousands of learning grounds, each doing its bit at a local level to conserve species, as well as sub-species agro-biodiversity.

At the same time, having worked on our prototype in Nepal for several years now, it is very hard work and there is no substitute for spending vast amounts of time to map and understand indigenous knowledge. Local people, including women, elders and youth, must be involved at each step so that it has depth and local people feel ownership of it.

Of all the environmental issues that the world is facing, which one, in your opinion, most requires our attention?

That’s an easy question! The disruption of large, intact, undisturbed, wild habitat, whether it be terrestrial or marine.

Raj Parikh of New Jersey Invents Geothermal Snowmelt System

February 1, 2016 Ajay GhoshEnvironment, Science & Technology 0

Tired of snow and the pain and efforts you need to endure while getting the snow of your way. Now, an Indian American home owner’s new invention can help make this process easier and smoother. Raj Parikh has invented a snowmelt system that helps melt snow an inch and half per hour, reported www.nj.com here on January 28.

Raj Parikh, who has lived in his Paramus, New Jersey, house since 1980, has radically redesigned it in accordance with nature, calling it the “Zenesis House,” and hardly had to do any shoveling in last week’s snow blizzard that hit the East Coast. The house has no furnace, no air conditioner and no hot water heater but has the ability to melt the snow right off the driveway,.

Using the powers of nature to fight the snow, the Parikh family developed a geothermal snowmelt system that warms water to about 100 degrees using solar collectors and geothermal pumps. That water is piped underneath the driveway and walkways.

The Parikhs use the sun and the ground to heat and cool the house as well. During the winter, the house intakes air warmed by the sun and carries it 12 feet underground to be heated by the ground before piping it inside. The incoming air is also heated by exhaust air coming from the kitchen and bathroom. To cool the house, the air takes the same route; only it skips the solar collectors.

Heated driveways are widely available, but they usually burn gas or oil, Raj’s son Asit was quoted as saying. “They’re burning fuel,” he said. “There’s no combustion in this system. It’s just the earth and the sun.” The house also has systems to collect rainwater and the very snow it melts during winter storms.

“By capturing the sun’s warmth during the day, and by utilizing 2 ground-source (geothermal) heat pumps and our proprietary heat exchange system, our snowmelt system keeps the driveway shoveled— even on blizzard day,” Asit wrote on Facebook, expressing his happiness over the success of the system.

2015 Was Hottest Year in Historical Record, Scientists Say

January 27, 2016 Ajay GhoshEnvironment 0

New York, NY; January 24, 2016: Scientists reported last week that 2015 was the hottest year in the historical record by far, breaking a mark set only the year before — a burst of heat that has continued into the new year and is roiling weather patterns all over the world. In the contiguous United States, the year was the second-warmest on record, punctuated by a December that was both the hottest and the wettest since record-keeping began. One result has been a wave of unusual winter floods coursing down the Mississippi River watershed.

On Jan. 7, NOAA reported that 2015 was the second-warmest year on record, after 2012, for the lower 48 United States. That land mass covers less than 2 percent of the surface of the Earth, so it is not unusual to have a slight divergence between United States temperatures and those of the planet as a whole. The end of the year was especially remarkable in the United States, with virtually every state east of the Mississippi River having a record warm December, often accompanied by heavy rains.

Scientists started predicting a global temperature record months ago, in part because an El Niño weather pattern, one of the largest in a century, is releasing an immense amount of heat from the Pacific Ocean into the atmosphere. But the bulk of the record-setting heat, they say, is a consequence of the long-term planetary warming caused by human emissions of greenhouse gases.

“The whole system is warming up, relentlessly,” said Gerald A. Meehl, a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. It will take a few more years to know for certain, but the back-to-back records of 2014 and 2015 may have put the world back onto a trajectory of rapid global warming, after a period of relatively slow warming dating to the last powerful El Niño, in 1998.

Politicians attempting to claim that greenhouse gases are not a problem seized on that slow period to argue that “global warming stopped in 1998,” with these claims and similar statements reappearing recently on the Republican presidential campaign trail.

Statistical analysis suggested all along that the claims were false, and that the slowdown was, at most, a minor blip in an inexorable trend, perhaps caused by a temporary increase in the absorption of heat by the Pacific Ocean.

“Is there any evidence for a pause in the long-term global warming rate?” said Gavin A. Schmidt, head of NASA’s climate-science unit, the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, in Manhattan. “The answer is no. That was true before last year, but it’s much more obvious now.”

Michael E. Mann, a climate scientist at Pennsylvania State University, calculated that if the global climate were not warming, the odds of setting two back-to-back record years would be remote, about one chance in every 1,500 pairs of years. Given the reality that the planet is warming, the odds become far higher, about one chance in 10, according to Dr. Mann’s calculations.

Two American government agencies — NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — compile separate analyses of the global temperature, based upon thousands of measurements from weather stations, ships and ocean buoys scattered around the world. Meteorological agencies in Britain and Japan do so, as well. The agencies follow slightly different methods to cope with problems in the data, but obtain similar results.

The American agencies released figures on Wednesday showing that 2015 was the warmest year in a global record that began, in their data, in 1880. British scientists released figures showing 2015 as the warmest in a record dating to 1850. The Japan Meteorological Agency had already released preliminary results showing 2015 as the warmest year in a record beginning in 1891.

A warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapor, and an intensification of rainstorms was one of the fundamental predictions made by climate scientists decades ago as a consequence of human emissions. That prediction has come to pass, with the rains growing more intense across every region of the United States, but especially so in the East.

Some additional measurements, of shorter duration, are available for the ocean depths and the atmosphere above the surface, both generally showing an inexorable long-term warming trend.

Most satellite measurements of the lower and middle layers of the atmosphere show 2015 to have been the third- or fourth-warmest year in a 37-year record, and scientists said it was slightly surprising that the huge El Niño had not produced a greater warming there. They added that this could yet happen in 2016.

When temperatures are averaged at a global scale, the differences between years are usually measured in fractions of a degree. In the NOAA data set, 2015 was 0.29 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than 2014, the largest jump ever over a previous record. NASA calculated a slightly smaller figure, but still described it as an unusual one-year increase.

The intense warmth of 2015 contributed to a heat wave in India last spring that turns out to have been the second-worst in that country’s history, killing an estimated 2,500 people. The long-term global warming trend has exacted a severe toll from extreme heat, with eight of the world’s 10 deadliest heat waves occurring since 1997.

Only rough estimates of heat deaths are available, but according to figures from the Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, in Brussels, the toll over the past two decades is approaching 140,000 people, with most of those deaths occurring during a European heat wave in 2003 and a Russian heat wave in 2010.

The strong El Niño has continued into 2016, raising the possibility that this year will, yet again, set a global temperature record. The El Niño pattern is also disturbing the circulation of the atmosphere, contributing to worldwide weather extremes that include a drought in southern Africa, threatening the food supply of millions.

Record Snow Storm Paralyzes Life In New York

January 27, 2016 Ajay GhoshEnvironment 0

New York, NY; January 24, 2016: A killer snowstorm paralyzed the East Coast on January 23th effectively shutting down New York City and the nation’s capital, while dumping as much as 3 feet of snow in other areas.

New York City recorded its second-largest snowfall since 1869, with Central Park receiving 26.8 inches by midnight — 0.1 inch shy of tying the record 26.9 inches set in 2006, the National Weather Service said. Baltimore got a record 25.5 inches, breaking a daily record set in 1935, and a measurement of 22.3 inches of snow was taken in Washington, D.C. at midnight.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo closed all roads in New York City and Long Island at 2:30 p.m. Saturday as well as tunnels and bridges going to New Jersey. Above-ground sections of the subway and New York City buses stopped running.

The travel ban was lifted at 7 a.m. Sunday, Cuomo said. “We have made very good progress in cleaning the roads,” Cuomo said in a conference call with reporters. While unusual, Cuomo said the shutdown was necessary because “the storm was fast and furious, and we believe that safety is paramount.”

This weekend’s massive winter storm is now the second largest in New York City’s history. Central Park’s weather station recorded 26.8 inches of snow so far for this storm. The storm secured the third slot earlier in the night, surpassing the blizzard of 1888. The record for the top slot is 26.9 inches of snow, which is from February 2006 — so it’s just 1/10 off from breaking the record. “This is a storm of a lifetime,” said Meteorologist Jeff Smith.

There were three shoveling-related deaths in New York City, officials said. Two people also died while apparently using snow blowers on Long Island Saturday, police said. New York City Police said they had responded to 312 car accidents and 343 disabled vehicles across the city.

With travel prohibited, major landmarks and attractions quickly closed their doors. All Broadway matinee and evening performances were canceled, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art shuttered early.

The winter storm resulted in a travel ban across the city and on Long Island, the shutdown of MTA buses and the closure of above-ground subway lines throughout the city. The travel was lifted early Sunday morning, while mass transit was slowly resuming. Three people — one on Staten Island and two in Queens — died while shoveling snow in the city. Staten Island had the most snow in the city, piling up 31.3 inches of snow!

Blizzard strikes East Coast, shuts down travel

January 24, 2016 Ajay GhoshEnvironment 0

Washington, DC; January 24, 2016: A massive winter storm clobbered the East Coast on Saturday, January 23, 2016, dumping more than three feet of snow in parts of West Virginia and Maryland, tying up traffic on highways, grounding thousands of flights and shutting down travel in the nation’s largest city.

From the Carolinas to New York, tens of thousands were without power Saturday night as a result of the storm, which was finally heading out to the Atlantic. Except for some isolated flurries, snowfall in most of the major cities will likely finish early Sunday morning, CNN Meteorologist Sean Morris said.

40 inches of snow was recorded in Glengary, West Virginia; 39 inches fell in Philomont, Virginia; and Redhouse, Maryland, received 38 inches. In Central Park in New York City 25.1 inches of snow fell making it the third-largest snowfall on record. More than 28 inches of snow at Dulles International Airport, the second-largest snowfall recorded there. Baltimore’s BWI notched 29.2 inches.

At least 14 people dead (six in North Carolina, three in Virginia, one in Kentucky, three in New York City and one in Maryland).11 states declared states of emergency: Georgia, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Kentucky, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Delaware, Virginia and West Virginia. Washington, D.C., has declared a “snow emergency.” 8,569 flights canceled for Saturday and Sunday, according to FlightAware.com. More than 74,000 people without power.

East Coast In USA Braces For Snowstorm

January 20, 2016 Ajay GhoshEnvironment 0

Experts are forecasting a potentially major snowstorm that could blanket the Northeast in snow over the weekend for the first time this season. “It now looks increasingly likely a significant winter storm will take shape starting Thursday and lasting through the weekend,” the Weather Channel says.

Most forecasters, though, aren’t ready to sound the major warning sirens for how much snow could potentially fall.

The National Weather Service, which issued a hazardous weather outlook for snowstorms in the Northeast this weekend, said only that the Northeast could get an “inch or greater of liquid equivalent,” meaning “many inches of snow.”

Weather Underground said at least 12.

The Weather Channel was calling for 5 to 8 inches of snow through the weekend in New York City but 22 inches of snow in Fredericksburg, Virginia.

Some experts, though, went with the dire, hunker-down forecast. The so-called Euro Model, for example, called for more than 20 inches of snow in parts of Massachusetts.

The upshot: Nobody really knows just yet how much snow is coming.

“Uncertainties remain with the exact track of the storm and how long it will last,” the Weather Channel said. “It’s looking unlikely that a winter storm will fail to develop at all, but for many locations it’s far from certain what kind of impact this system will have.”

While it’s been bitter cold the last few days in the Northeast — as anyone who’s stepped outside knows all too well — warm temperatures have been the norm for most of the winter so far, and major snowfall has been notably absent.

That looks like it will change this weekend.

A low-pressure system is expected to develop over the Midwest and the South and combining with “upper-level energy” moving in from the Rockies, the Weather Channel said.

The system will gain strength, move Eastward and take aim at coastal cities, the Weather Channel predicts. The full moon this weekend could increase the impact of coastal flooding, the channel said.

“The potential exists for many, many inches of snow,” Accuweather’s Bernie Rayno said in a video forecast.

Here’s a timeline of what was being forecast Tuesday afternoon by the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center:

Thursday, January 21: Snow and rain will fall in the Ohio, Tennessee and Mississippi valleys, moving towards the Atlantic.

Friday, January 22: Parts of the Ohio Valley, Central Appalachians and the Mid-Atlantic will see “heavy snow,” and the system Friday night will turn to the Northeast.

Saturday, January 23: “Heavy snow” and “high winds” will hit the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast.

The snowfall would mark the beginning of the unofficial “snow season,” especially in major cities along the East Coast that have so far been deprived of significant winter weather.

In New York City, for example, snowfall was recorded Saturday in Central Park, the sixth-latest first snow on record for the area, according to the channel.

Washington D.C., Boston, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh are also all below average in snowfall so far this year as of January 18, the channel said.

CoP 21: The Start of a Long Journey

January 20, 2016 Staff ReporterEnvironment 0

NEW DELHI, Jan 14 2016 – The agreement reached in December, 2015 at the 21st Conference of the Parties under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is a major step forward in dealing with the challenge of climate change. The very fact that almost every country in the world signed off on this agreement is a major achievement, credit for which must go in substantial measure to the Government of France and its leadership. However, in scientific terms, while this agreement certainly brings all the Parties together in moving ahead, in itself the commitments that have been made under the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) are quite inadequate for limiting temperature increase to 2 degrees Celsius by the end of this century relative to pre-industrial levels.

Any agreement on climate change has to take into account the scientific assessment of the impacts that the world may face and the risks that it would have to bear if adequate efforts are not made to mitigate the emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs). Scientific assessment is also necessary on the level of mitigation that would limit risks from consequential impacts to acceptable levels. The Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has come up with a clear assessment of where the world is going if it moves along business as usual. The AR5 clearly states that without additional mitigation efforts beyond those in place today, and even with adaptation, warming by the end of the 21st Century will lead to high to very high risk of severe, widespread and irreversible impacts globally. Adaptation and mitigation are complementary strategies for reducing and managing the risks of climate change. Correspondingly, substantial emissions reductions over the next few decades can reduce climate risks in the 21st Century and beyond, increase prospects for effective adaptation, reduce the costs and challenges of mitigation in the longer term and contribute to climate-resilient pathways for sustainable development.

Dr. Rajendra Kumar Pachauri, is the Director General of The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), and Former Chairman, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 2002-2015 — Dr. Rajendra Kumar Pachauri

In the AR5, five Reasons For Concern (RFCs) aggregate climate change risks and illustrate the implications of warming and of adaptation limits for people, economies and ecosystems across sectors and regions. The five RFCs are associated with: (1) Unique and threatened systems, (2) Extreme weather events, (3) Distribution of impacts, (4) Global aggregate impacts, and (5) Large scale singular events. These RFCs grow directly in proportion to the extent of warming projected for different scenarios.

Substantial cuts in GHG emissions over the next few decades can substantially reduce risks of climate change by limiting warming in the second half of the 21st century and beyond. Cumulative emissions of CO2 largely determine global mean surface warming by the late 21st century and beyond. Limiting risks across RFCs would imply a limit for cumulative emissions of CO2. Such a limit would require that global net emissions of CO2 eventually decrease to zero and would constrain annual emissions over the next few decades. But some risks from climate damages are unavoidable, even with mitigation and adaptation. This results from the fact that there is inertia in the system whereby the increased concentration of GHGs in the earth’s atmosphere will create impacts which are now inevitable.

The Paris agreement is an extremely significant step taken by the global community, but to deal effectively with the challenge ahead, a much higher level of ambition would be required by all the countries of the world than is currently embodied in the INDCs. A review of the INDCs is due to take place only in 2018 and 2023. This may be too late, because a higher level of ambition will need to be demonstrated urgently, if the world is to reduce emissions significantly before 2030. Delaying additional mitigation to 2030 will substantially increase the challenges associated with limited warming over the 21st century to below 2 degrees Celsius relative to pre-industrial levels. And, if the global community is serious about evaluating the impacts of climate change within a limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, then stringent mitigation actions will have to be taken much earlier than 2030. If early action is not taken, then a much more rapid scale up of low carbon energy over the period 2030 to 2050 would become necessary with a larger reliance on carbon dioxide removal in the long term and higher transitional and long term economic impacts.

In essence, Paris has to be seen as the beginning of a journey. If the world is to minimize the risks from the impacts of climate change adequately, then the public in each country must demand a far more ambitious set of mitigation measures than embedded in the Paris agreement. That clearly is the challenge that the world is facing, and the global community must take in hand urgently the task of informing the public on the scientific facts related to climate change as a follow up to Paris. Then only would we get adequate action for risks being limited to acceptable levels.

World Bank Approves $1.5 Billion Loan to Support ‘Clean India’ Campaign

December 30, 2015 Ajay GhoshEnvironment, Finance/Economy 0

The World Bank reported that it has approved a $1.5 billion loan to India for its ambitious “Clean India” campaign to support the government’s efforts to ensure all citizens in rural areas have access to improved sanitation and end the practice of open defecation by 2019. The loan, disbursed over a five-year period, will be used for the Swachh Bharat Mission Support Operation Project.

As per World Bank statistics, of the 2.4 billion people who lack access to improved sanitation globally, more than 750 million live in India, with 80 percent living in rural areas. More than 500 million of the rural population in India continues to defecate in the open, suffering from preventable deaths, illness, stunting, harassment and economic losses.

“One in every ten deaths in India is linked to poor sanitation. And studies show that low-income households bear the maximum brunt of poor sanitation,” said Onno Ruhl, World Bank country director for India. “This project, aimed at strengthening the implementation of the Swachh Bharat initiative of the government, will result in significant health benefits for the poor and vulnerable, especially those living in rural areas.

“Incentivizing good performance by states and the focus on behavioral changes are two important components of this project,” Ruhl added. The bank said the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation will play the overseeing and coordinating role for the program and support the participating states.

Funds will also be used to develop the capacity of MDWS in program management, advocacy, monitoring and evaluation. “India has demonstrated extraordinary leadership in pursuing the ambitious SBM campaign and embracing the focus on behavior to complement the construction of toilets,” said Annette Dixon, World Bank vice president for the South Asia Region.

The World Bank will also provide a parallel $25 million technical assistance to build the capacity of select state governments in implementing community-led behavioral change programs targeting social norms to help ensure widespread usage of toilets by rural households.

Climate Change Seen as Top Global Threat

December 30, 2015 Staff ReporterEnvironment, Social Media 0

As the world leaders were gathering in for the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris this December, many publics around the world name global climate change as a top threat, according to a new Pew Research Center survey measuring perceptions of international challenges. This is particularly true in Latin America and Africa, where majorities in most countries say they are very concerned about this issue. But as the Islamic militant group ISIS maintains its hold in Iraq and Syria and intensifies its grisly public executions, Europeans and Middle Easterners most frequently cite ISIS as their main concern among international issues.

Global economic instability also figures prominently as the top concern in a number of countries, and it is the second biggest concern in half of the countries surveyed. In contrast, concerns about Iran’s nuclear program as well as cyberattacks on governments, banks or corporations are limited to a few nations. Israelis and Americans are among the most concerned about Iran’s nuclear program, while South Koreans and Americans have the greatest concern about cyberattacks relative to other publics. And apprehension about tensions between Russia and its neighbors, or territorial disputes between China and surrounding countries, largely remain regional concerns.

These are among the findings of a new Pew Research Center survey, conducted in 40 countries among 45,435 respondents from March 25 to May 27, 2015. The report focuses on those who say they are “very concerned” about each issue.

Across the nations surveyed, the level of concern about different international issues varies considerably by region and country, and in some places multiple issues vie for the top spot.

Publics in 19 of 40 nations surveyed cite climate change as their biggest worry, making it the most widespread concern of any issue included in the survey. A median of 61% of Latin Americans say they are very concerned about climate change, the highest share of any region. And more than half in every Latin American nation surveyed report substantial concerns about climate change. In Peru and Brazil, where years of declining deforestation rates have slowly started to climb, fully three-quarters express anxiety about climate change.

Sub-Saharan Africans also voice substantial concerns about climate change. A median of 59% say they are very concerned, including about half or more in all countries surveyed. Climate change is particularly worrying in Burkina Faso (79%), Uganda (74%) and Ghana (71%), while South Africans (47%) and Tanzanians (49%) are the least concerned.

Both regions are especially vulnerable to the effects of climate change, as is Asia, where a median of 41% voice great concern about the issue. Indians (73%) and Filipinos (72%) are particularly worried, but climate change captures the top spot in half of the Asian countries surveyed.

Concern about climate change is relatively low in Europe. While a median of 42% report being very concerned, global climate change is not one of the top two threats in any European country surveyed. Anxiety about this issue is highest in Spain (59%), but just 14% in Poland say the same. In a number of European nations, concern about climate change is more pronounced for those on the left of the political spectrum. Ideological differences are particularly large in the United Kingdom, where about half of those on the left (49%) express serious concerns, compared with 30% of those on the right. Those to the left of the political center are also considerably more concerned about global climate change in Italy, France and Spain.

Global climate change ranks substantially lower as a comparative global threat for Americans, with 42% saying they are very concerned about the issue. The only global issue that is even less worrying to Americans: territorial disputes between China and its neighbors (30%). Much like in Europe, perceptions in the U.S. about the threat of climate change depend on ideology. About six-in-ten Democrats (62%) are very concerned about climate change, while just 20% of

Publics in 14 countries express the greatest concern about ISIS, the militant group seeking to create an Islamic state in Iraq and Syria. In Europe, a median of 70% express serious concerns about the threat posed by the growing organization. Apprehension is greatest in Spain (77%), but anxiety about ISIS is high throughout the continent. Even in Poland, where just 29% voice serious worries, fear of ISIS is second only to worries about tensions between Russia and its neighbors.

As ISIS continues to control territory in Iraq and Syria, concern in neighboring countries is high. More than eight-in-ten in Lebanese (84%) are very concerned about ISIS. Fear is especially high among Muslims in Lebanon, Syria’s western neighbor: 90% of Sunnis and 87% of Shia say they are very concerned, compared with 76% of Christians. More than half in Jordan (62%) and the Palestinian territories (54%) also express substantial worries about ISIS. Compared with other international issues, concern about ISIS also ranks highly in Israel and Turkey, which has seen a flood of refugees across its southern border as violence escalates.

A majority of Americans (68%) and Canadians (58%) are also very concerned about the looming threat of the Islamic State. In both countries, anxiety about ISIS is the top concern of the issues included in the survey. Concern is similarly high in a number of Asian nations, including South Korea (75%), Japan (72%), Australia (69%) and Indonesia (65%). Publics in all four countries cite ISIS as their top concern. Relatively few in Africa and Latin America voice serious concern about the threat of ISIS. Only in Tanzania do roughly half (51%) report substantial concerns, the highest of any country in either region.

While concerns about climate change and ISIS take the top spots in an overwhelming majority of the countries surveyed, the most frequent secondary concern around the world is the instability of the global economy. A top concern in five countries, including Russia, the economy is the second highest concern in 20 countries.

Economic instability is among the top threats in Latin America, where a median of 54% express serious concerns. Six-in-ten in Brazil and Venezuela say they are very concerned about economic issues, the highest in Latin America. Both nations have seen little to no growth in the past year, and their economic woes are expected to deepen in 2015. Economic worries are similarly troubling for countries in Africa. Ghanaians (67%), Ugandans (62%) and Senegalese (59%) are most concerned about the economy, but economic instability is considered one of the top two concerns in every country surveyed in Africa.

Russia and Ukraine, which are facing contracting economies in 2015, consider economic instability a major threat. In Russia, 43% say they are very concerned about the economy, the highest-ranking concern of any issue tested there. About a third of Ukrainians (35%) agree; economic worries are second only to their concerns about tensions with Russia.

The economy is somewhat less concerning in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Still, a third or more in each region say they are very concerned about global economic instability, and the issue still ranks as the second-highest threat in seven countries, including some of the world’s largest economies – China, France, India and Italy all rate economic issues as one of their top two concerns.

Israelis are the only public surveyed to rate Iran as their top concern among the international issues tested. More than half of Israelis (53%) have substantial concerns about the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear program. Israeli Jews (59%) are far more likely than Israeli Arabs (23%) to express anxiety.

Americans also see Iran’s nuclear program as a major issue. Roughly six-in-ten (62%) say they are very concerned, making Iran the second-highest-ranked threat of those included in the poll. While a median of 42% of Europeans express strong concern about Iran, only in the UK is it considered one of the top two dangers. Relatively few in Latin America, Africa, Asia and the Middle East say they are very concerned about Iran’s nuclear program.

Worldwide, the threat of cyberattacks on governments, banking or corporations does not resonate as a top tier worry, though there are pockets of anxiety. In particular, worries about the systematic hacking of computer networks are highest in the U.S. (59%) and South Korea (55%), both of which experienced high profile cyberattacks in recent years. Fewer than half in every other country surveyed express serious concerns about the threat of cyberattacks.

Earth’s Recent History May Predict Global Temperatures

December 22, 2015 Ajay GhoshEnvironment 0

Climate change over the last 150 years may estimate future global temperatures, a NASA study has found. According to a new NASA study published in the journal Nature Climate Change, to quantify climate change, researchers need to know the Transient Climate Response (TCR) and Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS) of Earth.

TCR is characteristic of short-term predictions, up to a century out, while ECS looks centuries further into the future, when the entire climate system has reached equilibrium and temperatures have stabilised. As part of that calculation that depended on the measurements of important climate drivers, such as carbon dioxide, the researchers have relied on simplifying assumptions when accounting for the temperature impacts of climate drivers other than carbon dioxide, such as tiny particles in the atmosphere known as aerosols.

But the assumptions made to account for these drivers are too simplistic and result in incorrect estimates of TCR and ECS, said Gavin Schmidt, a climate scientist and director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York, who is also a co-author of the study.

“The problem with that approach is that it falls way short of capturing the individual regional impacts of each of those variables,” he said. Earlier NASA calculated the temperature impact of each of variables like greenhouse gases, natural and manmade aerosols, ozone concentrations, and land use changes based on historical observations from 1850 to 2005 using a massive ensemble of computer simulations.

However, earlier studies did not account for what amounts to a net cooling effect for parts of the northern hemisphere and the predictions for TCR and ECS were lower than they should have been. “If you’ve got a systematic underestimate of what the greenhouse gas-driven change would be, then you’re systematically underestimating what’s going to happen in the future when greenhouse gases are by far the dominant climate driver,” Schmidt said.

Historic ‘Paris Agreement’ to Address Climate Change

December 21, 2015 Ajay GhoshEnvironment 0

Negotiators from nearly 200 countries reached an agreement Saturday, December 12^th this year on what they say signifies the most important international pact to address climate change since the issue first emerged as a political priority, decades ago. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, who headed up the United Nations conference, commonly known as COP 21, said the final deal successfully resolved points of contention that had taken negotiations into overtime and called the agreement “the best possible text.”

“We have come to a defining moment on a long journey that dates back decades,” said UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon before passage of the agreement. “The document with which you have just presented us is historic. It promises to set the world on a new path to a low emissions, climate-resilient future.”

The deal, known as the Paris Agreement, represents remarkable compromise after years of negotiations in which developing countries wrangled with their developed counterparts and failed to come to agreement on several key occasions. Supporters say the agreement will help define the energy landscape for the remainder of the century and signal to markets the beginning of the end of more than one hundred years of dependence on fossil fuels for economic growth

The historic agreement, containing a strong long-term goal to reduce carbon emissions, provisions explaining how developing countries will receive financing for their efforts to adapt to climate change, and a transparency system to ensure that countries meet their promises to reduce greenhouse gas emissions were among those key goals. The agreement includes a long-term goal of holding global temperature rise “well below” 2°C (3.6°F) by 2100 and recognizes a maximum temperature rise of below 1.5°C (2.7°F) as an ideal goal. The 2°C target is needed to avoid the most devastating effects of climate change, according to climate scientists, but it would not be enough to save many of the world’s most vulnerable countries. Those nations, largely small Pacific Island countries, launched a large-scale push for the more aggressive 1.5°C target to be included in the agreement. The draft text also calls for “global peaking of greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible” and for the continued reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in the second half of this century as science allows.

Measures to finance efforts to fight climate change in the developing world had also been a key sticking point in negations. The agreement renews a commitment by developed countries to send $100 billion a year beginning in 2020 to developing countries to support their efforts to fight climate change. The deal describes the sum as a “floor,” which may presumably be increased.

The notion that developed and developing countries should have different responsibilities has been a key principle of climate negotiations since countries first gathered in a large-scale conference to address global warming in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. A gathering that year divided countries into two groupings based on their development status and required vastly different efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from each group.

But as officially “developing” nations like China grew rapidly—with accompanying carbon emissions—the U.S. and other developed countries have not asked to do away with the notion of different responsibilities entirely, but they have called for a less stringent system that takes into account economic growth and other factors that affect their capabilities. Such a system would take into account the evolving capabilities of developing countries.

When the two weeks long Paris Climate talks began, India came to the table walking a tightrope. While wanting to show to the world that the world’s fourth-biggest carbon emitter was ready to play a constructive role in international climate negotiations, India needed to show citizens back home that addressing climate change would not detract from development goals—particularly the need to bring power to the quarter of the population that goes without it.

India needed to sign onto whatever deal negotiators reach in Paris for the agreement to have legitimacy, given its importance in the global economy and its sheer size. India, the country of 1.2 billion people to continue to rise in the rankings of top emitters as its economy grows and as a greater share of its population gains access to electricity. “India is sometimes the man in the middle,” said Anjali ‪Jaiswal, director of the India Initiative at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “India’s role here at the [conference] is often bridging the many nations across the world and also bridging development with climate action.” In the end, India has emerged as a key player in shaping the agreement, leaving observers to hope that it will not play the same role slowing negotiations at the last minute that other key developing countries have played in past conferences.

India’s position has made it a key player in the effort come to an agreement. The U.S. in particular has lobbied hard with Secretary of State John Kerry holding at least two bilateral meetings with Javadekar and Obama speaking by phone with Modi.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has repeatedly said that the country needs to address climate change, not because of pressure from Western countries but because of the potential damage warming could cause worldwide and in India especially. The country set an ambitious goal of receiving 40% of its power from renewable resources by 2030 and in recent weeks launched a solar power alliance aimed at growing solar power production in the developing world. The country also recently set a target to develop 100 GW of solar power capacity by 2022, a huge ramp up from current capacity.

Modi defended a principle that developed countries should have more stringent responsibilities than their developing counterparts—a concept known as “differentiation”—and suggested that the principle should be a bedrock part of nearly every provision of the agreement. “Climate justice demands that, with the little carbon space we still have, developing countries should have enough room to grow,” he said at a speech at the beginning of the Paris summit.

Part of what underlies India’s position on differentiation is the belief that the efforts taken by the country so far outweighs its contribution to climate change. India’s per-capita carbon emissions add up to just 1.7 metric tons, 10 times less than America’s per-capita emissions. Prakash Javadekar, India’s environment minister, told the media in an interview that his country had done four times their fair share to address climate change, based on past carbon emissions, while the developed countries have done far less. “The developed world has done much less than their fair share,” said Javadekar. “Everyone must at least do what their fair share demands. Then it will be a collective action. Then it will be more robust.”

Why Europe Will Soon Be Cold?

December 10, 2015 Ajay GhoshEnvironment 0

What is the climate waiting for Russia and Europe in 15-20 years? Will be there weather abnormalities in the coming decades? Will some areas experience more severe winter, while the others will have hot summer? It all depends on how much the climate will be affected by the dynamics of the possible onset of minimum solar magnetic activity. The Sun’s behaviour in future cycles is the main theme of a publication on the forecast and explanation of the minima of solar activity. The paper was prepared with contributions from Elena Popova from the Skobeltsyn Institute of Nuclear Physics (Lomonosov Moscow State University) and was published in Scientific Reports.

Scientists have studied the evolution of the solar magnetic field and the number of sunspots on the Sun’s surface. The amplitude and the spatial configuration of the magnetic field of our star are changing over the years. Every 11 years the number of sunspots decreases sharply. Every 90 years this reduction (when it coincides with the 11-year cycle) reduces the number of spots by about a half. A 300-400 year lows reduce their numbers almost to zero. Best known minimum is the Maunder minimum, which lasted roughly from 1645 to 1715. During this period, there were about 50 sunspots instead of the usual 40 000-50 000.

Analysis of solar radiation showed that its highs and lows almost coincide with the maxima and minima in the number of spots. By studying changes in the number of sunspots, analyzing the content of isotopes like carbon-14, beryllium-10, and others, in glaciers and trees, the researchers concluded that the solar magnetic activity has a cyclic structure.

A group of scientists – Valentina Tarasova (Northumbria University, England, Space Research Institute, Ukraine), Elena Popova (SINP, MSU), Simon John Shepherd (University of Bradford, England) and Sergei Zharkov (University of Hull, England) – analyzed three solar activity cycles from 1976 to 2009, using the so-called “principal component analysis”, which allows reveal waves of solar magnetic field with the biggest contribution in the observational data. As a result of a new method of analysis, it was found that the magnetic waves in the Sun are generated in pairs, and the main pair is responsible for changes in the dipole field, which is observed when solar activity is changing. Also scientists have managed to obtain analytical formulas describing the evolution of both waves.

Using empirically found two waves of the magnetic field, Elena Popova hypothesized that the minima of solar magnetic activity can be caused by the process of the beating of these two waves. Each wave is generated at different depths in the Sun and the waves have similar frequencies. As a result of ascent of the magnetic field on the surface the waves begin to interact which ends in beating of amplitude of the resulting magnetic field. This leads to a significant decline in the amplitude of the magnetic field for several decades. Comparison of the results of the model was carried out both with an array of observed magnetic field data for cycles 21-23, and with the observed data of solar activity over 1000 years. On this scale the model calculations of Popova were very close to the characteristics of solar magnetic activity.

By highlighting the indicative period of the beats (which is about a few centuries), scientists have reconstructed solar activity since ancient times (starting from the year 1200) and predicted it until the year 3200. The given chart shows that solar activity decreases dramatically about every 350 years. And upcoming decrease in solar activity begins nowadays.

“Studies have shown that over the last 400 000 years there were 5 global warming and 4 ice ages. What caused them? How much can solar activity affect the weather and climate change? This question is still not solved and is extremely relevant and interesting challenge for the various researchers around the world. There are a number of theories that suggest very different degrees of influence of solar activity on weather and climate. In addition to solar activity, climatologists offer other factors that may affect the dynamics of Earth’s climate system.

Such a system is a very complex nonlinear system, and further use of numerical simulation and analysis of paleodata can help in the investigation”, says Elena Popova. “If in the near future there would be a minimum of solar activity, it would give an opportunity to see what happens with the climate dynamics and test existing theories about the influence of solar activity.

Actually, even if we start from the simple knowledge of the cyclicality of the Sun, it can be said that it’s already time for hundred-year-minima – the previous one has happened in the beginning of XX century. Of course, it is necessary to take into account the effect of other factors and processes in the atmosphere; however, the challenges have always intrigued scientists”

5 Facts You Need to Know About the Paris Climate Summit

December 10, 2015 Ajay GhoshEnvironment 0

We live in a G-Zero world, one with a lack of true global leadership. Just consider climate change—the 250 million people set to be displaced by unchecked warming in the next few decades alone will make Syria’s humanitarian crisis look like a blip. And yet the hopes for a unified global response are slim. Still, negotiators at the UN climate change conference in Paris seem likely to find ways to move the needle even in a leadership vacuum. Here’s what you need to know.

The world is now more than halfway toward exceeding the 2 degree Celsius threshold scientists have warned could make global warming catastrophic and irreversible. The World Health Organization estimates that climate change is already responsible for 141,000 deaths annually—by 2050, that number is projected to rise to 250,000. The World Bank expects global warming to push 100 million people into extreme poverty by 2030.

As ocean temperatures rise and glaciers melt, weather-related disasters will grow in both frequency and severity. In the last two decades, floods have hit 2.3 billion people, mostly in Asia. Droughts have affected more than 1 billion people, primarily in Africa. Heat waves have killed nearly 148,000 people, the majority of them in Europe. Wildfires have affected 108,000 people and have cost more than $11 billion dollars in damages to the U.S. No part of the world is immune.

Those are terrifying numbers—terrifying enough to bring the world’s leaders to the negotiating table multiple times before, but not quite bad enough to get them to agree on anything substantial. The push to address climate change at a global level began in the 1990s with the Kyoto Protocol, which aimed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 5 percent below 1990 levels. But without ratification by the U.S., among other problems, Kyoto was dead on arrival. The next serious attempt was the Copenhagen conference in 2009, this time with developing powers China, India, Brazil and South Africa taking lead roles. But talks went nowhere substantial.

It turns out that while plenty of countries want to fix climate change, they don’t want to be legally bound to do so. The Paris conference tries to fix this problem by having each country make its own national pledge rather than sign up to a collectively enforced goal. The current pledges, if fulfilled, would reduce the growth rate of the world’s carbon footprint from 8 percent a year to 5 percent. To have a 50-50 shot at keeping the global temperature below the 2 degree Celsius mark, CO2 levels must stop growing by 2020 and then be halved by 2050. We’re not remotely on track.

But the world has to start somewhere. China overtook the U.S. as the world’s lead carbon polluter in total volume in 2007 and has held the title ever since. In 2013, China churned out 28 percent of the world’s CO2. But where other countries are actively trying to ratchet back their emissions below current levels, China has simply pledged to reach its peak CO2 emissions by “around 2030,” which is when experts predict that China’s emissions would naturally peak anyway thanks to economic and demographic changes. China is also pledging to reduce emissions per unit of GDP by 60-65 percent by 2030 compared to 2005 levels, essentially becoming much more carbon efficient. According to Bloomberg, though, that goal is actually less ambitious just continuing business as usual.

Of course, it makes sense for China to offer such weak pledges. Beijing is busy trying to transition from a manufacturing-based economy to a consumer-oriented one, which will impact economic growth. Meanwhile, China’s growing middle class is demanding basics like clean air and water. It’s easy to see why: air pollution kills 1.4 million Chinese people each year. Beijing needs to show that it’s making progress toward delivering the quality lives it’s promised, without comprising the economic growth that underpins them. It’s a tough needle to thread.

Right behind China comes America, responsible for 14 percent of global CO2 emissions. But on a per capita basis, the U.S. emits far more. Each American produces 17 metric tons of CO2 each year on average, compared to 6 tons for the average Chinese. For the Paris meetings, America has promised to cut its carbon emissions between 26 and 28 percent by 2025 compared to its 2005 baseline. That’s pretty impressive when you consider that a full 25 percent of Americans still don’t believe there’s solid evidence for global warming. Only 42 percent of Americans say they are very concerned about global warming. The only international issue that’s less worrying for Americans is territorial disputes between China and its neighbors, which polls at 30 percent.

And then there’s the matter of a Republican-controlled Congress. Within hours of Barack Obama’s arrival in Paris, Congress passed resolutions gutting EPA rules designed to limit carbon emissions. It’s tough to project solidarity with the world on climate change when you can’t even muster it in your own country.

Europe, which is responsible for 10 percent of global man-made CO2 emissions, has taken a more proactive approach to climate change. European leaders have signed a climate change pact among themselves to cut the E.U.’s greenhouse gases 40 percent by 2030 compared to 1990 levels, mirroring their proposal in Paris. If things break right, Germany may even be able to reduce its own CO2 emissions 40 percent by 2020, 10 years ahead of schedule.
But cracks among the 28-member union are beginning to show. Poland’s new government is pushing back against the pact that was signed by the previous government, arguing that the country’s coal-dependent economy will suffer disproportionately.

Of course, between terrorism, tensions with Russia and a refugee crisis, spats over climate are the least of Europe’s worries at the moment. And that’s the crux of the issue. There’s always a clear and present danger that supersedes climate change concerns. The goal in Paris is not to solve global warming, but to help the world keep its eyes on the prize. Let’s hope these next two weeks can achieve that much.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi Meets With President Obama in Paris

December 8, 2015 Ajay GhoshEnvironment, Politics 0

President Obama met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India to discuss their efforts to put in place a lasting framework to address global climate change. The two leaders discussed the urgent threat posed by climate change and reaffirmed their commitment to a successful agreement in Paris.

According to a White House Press Release, the two leaders agreed that the Paris agreement must drive serious and ambitious action by all nations to curb carbon pollution, while at the same time protecting the ability of countries such as India to pursue their priorities of development, growth, and poverty eradication.

The President and Prime Minister committed their teams to work closely to achieve these objectives. Additionally, the President welcomed Prime Minister Modi’s initiatives to increase renewable energy deployment in India, his leadership to form a solar alliance, and our partnership to launch Mission Innovation, a ground-breaking new initiative that will accelerate the pace at which we can develop and deploy affordable clean energy technology to populations around the world.

In addition to the climate agenda, the two leaders discussed additional steps to deepen their countries’ strategic partnership on bilateral, regional, and global issues.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi Meets With President Obama in Paris — Prime Minister Narendra Modi with President Obama

Meanwhile, the White House heaped high praise on Prime Minister Narendra Modi saying he has a clear understanding of the India-U.S. relationship and a clear vision for where he wants to take his country. President Barack Obama “certainly does respect Prime Minister Modi and has appreciation for his skills and abilities as a politician,” the White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters here Wednesday when asked about the relationship between the two leaders.

“He also is somebody who is given the very difficult challenge of sitting atop the world’s largest democracy — that’s not easy work, and the President of the United States has special insight into how difficult it is.”

Obama has found “Modi to be somebody who is honest and direct,” he said. He is “somebody who has good command of the facts; somebody who has a clear understanding of the issues that confront his country and our relationship,” Earnest said. “He is also somebody that has a clear vision for where he wants to take his country. And that makes him not just an effective politician but an effective Prime Minister.”

Earnest noted that Obama “has had the opportunity to consult with Prime Minister Modi on a number of occasions. And I think that isn’t just a testament to their good working relationship — it actually is a testament to the important issues that are at stake between our two countries.”

“And the ability of the leaders of our two countries to work through those issues and to advance our shared interests is a good thing — it’s a good thing for the world, it’s also a good thing for the citizens of our two countries,” Earnest said.

Asked if Obama had invited Modi for a seventh meeting early next year at the White House, the spokesman said he was not “aware of any meetings that are on the agenda at this point, but I certainly wouldn’t rule out another visit by Prime Minister Modi before the end of next year.”

People worldwide support a global emissions agreement

December 8, 2015 Staff ReporterEnvironment 0

As world leaders gather and debate in Paris this week to fashion a global climate change accord, their citizens are sending them two different but not necessarily contradictory messages.
People in both rich and poor nations broadly favor their government signing an international agreement limiting greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of coal, natural gas and petroleum. But the degree of concern about climate change varies markedly from country to country.

A new Pew Research Center survey finds there is a global consensus that climate change is a significant challenge. Globally, a median of 78% of people surveyed across 40 nations say they support their country signing an international agreement limiting greenhouse gas emissions. But a global median of just 54% consider climate change to be a very serious problem (a median of 85% say it is at least somewhat serious).

Nowhere is this differential between concern about the climate and support for action more striking than in China, the nation responsible for the greatest annual release of CO2 into the atmosphere. About seven-in-ten Chinese (71%) support an international treaty to curtail emissions, yet just 18% of the public expresses intense concern about climate conditions – a 53-percentage-point differential. These results suggest the Chinese government has general public support for its recent initiatives to deal with global warming even though the Chinese people are not intensely concerned about global warming.

The same pattern holds true for a number of other major carbon-emitting countries. This action-versus-concern gap is 38 percentage points in Japan and 32 points in Russia. In the U.S., just 45% think climate change is a very serious problem, but 69% back government action to curb emissions – a 24-point difference.

The differences between a relatively low perception of the climate challenge and public willingness to do something about it are even greater in other nations, of which some are big CO2 emitters and others are not. Israel (56 points) and Ukraine (48 points) are countries that are not among the top 20 CO2 emitters. But Poland (44 points) and South Korea (41 points) are. Perhaps when it comes to climate change, people around the world are opting for the well-known principle: “Better safe than sorry.”

Indian-Origin Engineer Discovers New Green Power Source

December 4, 2015 Ajay GhoshEnvironment, Science & Technology 0

Even as the world is looking for ways to save energy and protect the world from the ongoing ecological degradation, an Indian-origin engineer and his team from Concordia University have created a technology to harness the electrical energy from blue-green algae.

“By trapping the electrons released by blue-green algae during photosynthesis and respiration, we can harness the electrical energy they produce naturally,” said engineering professor Muthukumaran Packirisamy who did his MS in Mechanical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras.

Both photosynthesis and respiration, which take place in plants cells, involve electron transfer chains. Also known as cyanobacteria, blue-green algae are the most prosperous microorganisms on earth. “By taking advantage of a process that is constantly occurring all over the world, we have created a new and scalable technology that could lead to cheaper ways of generating carbon-free energy,” said Packirisamy who is member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

The invention, however, is still in its early stages. “We have a lot of work to do in terms of scaling the power cell to make the project commercial,” he said. Currently, the photosynthetic power cell exists on a small scale and consists of an anode, cathode and proton exchange membrane.

The cyanobacteria or blue green algae are placed in the anode chamber. As they undergo photosynthesis, the cyanobacteria release electrons to the electrode surface. An external load is connected to the device to extract the electrons and harness power. Packirisamy hopes that the micro-photosynthetic power cells will soon be used in various applications, such as powering cell phones and computers. “And maybe one day, they will power the world,” he added in a paper published in the journal Technology.

Government Clears $1 Billion Project to Train 5 Million People with World Bank Support

December 4, 2015 Ajay GhoshEnvironment, Science & Technology 0

The government of India has approved a project entailing World Bank assistance worth $1 billion to provide skill training to over 5 million people. Skill Training for Employability Leveraging Public Private Partnership (STEPPP) project was cleared by the Department of Economic Affairs, the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) said in a release.

“The project will see a World Bank assistance of $1 billion and is expected to provide skill training to over 5 million people in addition to strengthening the skill training infrastructure in underserved geographies and sectors”, the release said.

Welcoming the partnership with the World Bank, Union Minister for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Rajiv Pratap Rudy highlighted the importance for an integrated approach towards Skill India. “The target for skill development in India is huge and requires a partnered effort by the centre, states, industry, PSUs, and trainers. The association with the World Bank is of strategic importance to achieve the Prime Minister’s vision to make India the skill capital of the world”, said Rudy.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had launched the National Skill Development Mission (NSDM) on July 15 this year. The skill training project aims to implement the mandate of the NSDM through its core sub-missions, among other objectives. The STEPPP project will be implemented in mission mode through World Bank support and is aligned with the overall objectives of the NSDM.

Pope Francis Warns Against Special Interests Derailing Climate Talks

December 4, 2015 Ajay GhoshEnvironment 0

Pope Francis has warned that it would be “catastrophic” for world leaders to let special interest groups get in the way of a global agreement to curb fossil fuel emissions on the eve of make-or-break climate change talks in Paris.

Francis issued the pointed warning in a speech to the U.N.’s regional office here on Thursday after celebrating his first public Mass on the continent: A joyous, rain-soaked ceremony before 300,000 faithful that saw the Argentine pope being serenaded by ululating Swahili singers, swaying nuns, Maasai tribesmen and dancing children dressed in the colors of Kenya’s flag.

rancis has made ecological concerns a hallmark of his nearly 3-year-old papacy, issuing a landmark encyclical earlier this year that paired the need to care for the environment with the need to care for humanity’s most vulnerable.

Francis argues the two are interconnected since the poor often suffer the most from the effects of global warming, and are largely excluded from today’s fossil-fuel based global economy that is heating up the planet.

On Thursday last week, Francis repeated that message but took particular aim at those who reject the science behind global warming. In the United States, that accounts for several Republican presidential candidates and lawmakers, who have opposed steps President Barack Obama has taken on his own to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

“It would be sad, and dare I say even catastrophic, were special interests to prevail over the common good and lead to manipulating information in order to protect their own plans and interests,” Francis said.

Francis’ environmental entreaty followed a call for inter-religious dialogue and cooperation to guard against “barbarous” Islamist extremist attacks that have struck the country.

Children bear brunt of climate change: UNICEF

December 4, 2015 Ajay GhoshEnvironment 0

A UNICEF report has pointed out that “of those living in high drought severity areas, 50 million are in countries where more than half the population lives in poverty”. More than half a billion children live in areas with extremely high flood occurrence and 160 million in high drought zones, leaving them exposed to the impacts of climate change, UNICEF has said.

Of the 530 million children in the flood-prone zones, some 300 million live in countries where more than half the population lives in poverty — on less than $3.10 a day, Xinhua cited the UNICEF report last week.

The report pointed out that “of those living in high drought severity areas, 50 million are in countries where more than half the population lives in poverty”.

“The sheer numbers underline the urgency of acting now,” UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake said. “Today’s children are the least responsible for climate change, but they, and their children, are the ones who will live with its consequences. And, as is so often the case, disadvantaged communities face the gravest threat,” he said.

Climate change means more droughts, floods, heatwaves and other severe weather conditions.
These events can cause death and devastation, and can also contribute to the increased spread of major killers of children, such as malnutrition, malaria and diarrhoea, according to the report.

The vast majority of the children living in areas at extremely high risk of floods are in Asia, and the majority of those in areas at risk of drought are in Africa, said the report.

In the ongoing 21st UN climate change conference, known as COP21, world leaders gathering in Paris from November 30 to December 11 will seek to reach agreement on cutting greenhouse gas emissions, which is critical to limiting potentially catastrophic rises in temperature.

“We know what has to be done to prevent the devastation climate change can inflict. Failing to act would be unconscionable,” said Lake. “We owe it to our children — and to the planet — to make the right decisions at COP21.

Kumar Barve Emphasizes Need For All To Work Together For Clean Energy

December 4, 2015 Ajay GhoshEnvironment 0

“Political leaders, faith leaders and scientists from around the nation and the world need to come together to combat climate disruption,” Kumar Barve, Chairman of the Maryland House Environment and Transportation Committee, said, ahead of the crucial Paris climate summit,. “We must work globally for strong carbon reductions goals in the near term and toward total carbon neutrality for future generations,” he said.

Kumar Barve was the first Indian American elected to serve in a state legislature in United States history. He has represented a Montgomery County district in the Maryland House of Delegates since 1990. He is now running for the U.S. House of Representatives in Maryland’s 8th Congressional district which encompasses parts of Montgomery, Frederick and Carroll Counties.

Barve has been in legislative leadership for much of his career, serving as House Majority Leader from 2003-2014 and now as Chairman of the House Environment and Transportation Committee. His committee has oversight of the environment, land use, state ethics and transportation policy.

As Majority Leader, Barve was the floor leader for the Democratic Party and a senior member of the fiscal leadership in the House. He helped guide policies that resulted in balanced budgets and the maintenance of the state’s Triple-A bond rating.

Kumar Barve Emphasizes Need For All To Work Together For Clean Energy — Kumar Barve

Barve, who represents Rockville and Gaithersburg in the House of Delegates, told two basic stories, one as an immigrant and the other as “a liberal accountant,” reflecting his private-sector career as chief financial officer for an environmental cleanup company and two decades in Annapolis. As head of the Environment and Transportation Committee, he shepherded a moratorium on fracking to approval.

Several Hindu organizations have joined Barve and issued a joint climate change declaration, calling for a complete transition to clean energy as rapidly as possible. “A transition towards using 100 percent clean energy is desperately needed as rapidly as is possible in every nation,” the declaration, signed by over 60 Hindu organizations and spiritual leaders, including head of Art of Living Foundation Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, said.

The ‘Hindu Declaration on Climate Change’ was authored by the Bhumi Project and the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies, with support from the Hindu American Foundation. Making the transition to clean energy provides the only basis for sustainable, continued human development and is the best hope for billions of people without electricity or clean cooking facilities to live better lives and reduce poverty, the declaration said.

“Such action must be scientifically credible and historically fair, based on deep reductions in greenhouse gas emissions through a transition away from polluting technologies, especially away from fossil fuels,” it said. “We must consider the effects of our actions not just on ourselves and those humans around us, but also on all beings. We have a dharmic duty for each of us to do our part in ensuring that we have a functioning, abundant, and bountiful planet,” the declaration said.

Issued in Boston, ahead of the Paris Summit on Climate Change beginning Nov. 30, the declaration said strong, meaningful action must be taken, at both the international and national level to prevent climate change.

India Warms Up to Climate Action

December 4, 2015 Ajay GhoshEnvironment 0

In October 2015, India unveiled a comprehensive strategy to curb its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and reduce its vulnerability to a changing climate. Climate advocacy groups hailed the document—which in the parlance of international climate negotiations is known as India’s Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC)—because it signaled a historic shift in India’s stance on climate action. Altogether, 185 countries have now submitted INDCs, accounting for nearly 90 percent of global GHG emissions and raising hopes for a successful accord at the UN climate talks being held in Paris at the end of 2015.

Varun Sivaram, Douglas Dillon Fellow, and Annushka Shivnani in an essay quoting some analysts caution that such optimism is unfounded. The pessimist’s take is that India, the world’s third-largest GHG emitter behind China and the United States, has committed to little more than business as usual. Despite ambitious commitments, for example to rapidly deploy renewable energy sources, India’s emissions are set to more than double by 2030 as the country burns more coal to fuel a growing economy. Left unchecked, India’s annual GHG emissions could be the highest in the world by 2050, both Varun Sivaram and Annushka Shivnani say.

“It is still too early to tell which story—the optimist’s or the pessimist’s—is right,” Sivaram and Shivani write. “Prime Minister Narendra Modi, now in his second year in office, has clearly signaled a break from India’s prior hardline stance against taking responsibility for mitigating climate change, recognizing that India itself could suffer acutely from its effects. But he has also stressed that India’s ability to act on climate is constrained by its needs as a developing country seeking to industrialize and expand affordable energy access.”

They have appealed to the developed countries like the United States to welcome India’s progress in submitting an INDC and seek ways to help it ratchet up its efforts. “For their part, Indian policymakers must understand that renewables like solar and wind are not a silver bullet for climate policy, and that it will take a broader portfolio of reforms to successfully transition to a low-carbon economy,” Sivaram and Shivani say.

According to them, India’s climate policy is beset by an apparent paradox. India is starting from a relatively low point: today, its per capita emissions are only one-third the global average. As its economy expands by more than 7 percent a year, India’s emissions will quickly grow and soon approach the global per capita average. Because carbon emissions from developed countries have historically increased as their economies industrialized, international pressure on India to cap and ultimately reduce total emissions can appear to Indian policymakers as a threat to its pursuit of affordable energy, and thus its economic development.

This dynamic explains India’s historical resistance to reducing its own GHG emissions, especially on a unilateral basis. When it ratified the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty mandating that developed countries reduce their GHG emissions, India embraced the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities,” arguing that developed countries should bear most of the burden of combating climate change. And the Modi administration continues to stress that more than 400 million citizens are underserved by, or lack access to, the electricity grid. As the government contends in the INDC, increasing per capita energy consumption is crucial “to provide a dignified life to its population and meet their rightful aspirations.”

In its INDC, India outlines a suite of actions related to curbing the growth of its emissions (known as climate change “mitigation”) and to preparing for the likely effects of climate change (or “adaptation”). The Modi administration has called its commitment “ambitious but achievable,” but it cautions that the price tag of the entire INDC—including public and private sector investment—could be $2.5 trillion by 2030, far exceeding the resources of India’s government and domestic investors. As a result, India contends that successfully achieving its goals will require financial assistance and technology transfer from developed countries.

The vast majority—80 percent—of the projected expenses arise from the plan’s mitigation commitments. To curb India’s GHG emission growth, the Modi administration has committed to reduce its emissions intensity by 33–35 percent below 2005 levels—principally through deploying renewable energy and also by improving the energy efficiency of its industrial sector. The INDC also sets a target for a carbon dioxide “sink,” or capture through additional forest and tree cover.

According to the authors, India is particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, which include extreme heat, prolonged drought, and changing rainfall patterns that could disrupt agriculture, spread disease, and lead to climate refugees. In response, the INDC outlines a series of investments to prepare for disasters and improve the resilience of agriculture, water resources, glacier and coastal regions, and human health systems.

“India’s INDC submission is, properly understood, just a starting point for future progress,” Sivaram and Shivani say. “India will need a broad portfolio of new energy technologies to transition to a low-carbon economy. The Modi administration is right to insist that India cannot accomplish a low-carbon transition alone, especially given the urgency of improving energy access and maintaining breakneck economic growth. International actors can support India’s transition in several ways.”

The submission of an INDC is a major step forward for both India and global climate efforts, but these difficult decisions await beyond this year’s Paris conference. Achieving effective climate policy in India is a global challenge—and one that, if surmounted, could bring global benefits. India’s initial commitment to the climate talks should raise hopes that more progress, domestic and international, is on the horizon.

India is the fourth most vacation-deprived nation globally

December 4, 2015 Ajay GhoshEnvironment 0

India is the fourth most vacation-deprived nation globally, with 65 percent saying they feel very or somewhat vacation-deprived, according to a survey. About 65 percent of Indians feel they feel very or somewhat vacation-deprived, and 20 per cent said they are very vacation-deprived, full service online travel site Expedia’s ’2015 Vacation Deprivation’ survey has revealed.

UAE topped the list of most vacation-deprived countries in 2015 (76 percent), followed by Malaysia (73 percent) and Singapore (71 percent). If they had more vacation days, most Indians (67 percent) would travel to new places (rather than favourite or usual ones), it revealed.

The annual 2015 Vacation Deprivation survey is about vacation habits across multiple countries and continents. It was conducted on behalf of Expedia by Northstar, a globally—integrated strategic insights consulting firm.

This survey was conducted online from October 6—22, 2015 across 26 countries of North America, Europe, South America and Asia Pacific among 9,273 employed adults aged 18 years and older. Globally, Indians are the most likely (61 percent) to associate vacationing a great deal with their overall happiness, followed by Thailand (56 percent) and UAE (55 percent), the survey revealed.

“Vacations play a critical role in creating a work—life balance as it reenergises people to be more focused at work (53 per cent Indians agree). According to the survey, 54 per cent of Indians would prefer more vacation days over a pay rise, the highest globally. About 61 per cent associate vacations a great deal with their overall happiness,” Expedia India’s Manmeet Ahluwalia said.

The survey found that vacations continue to outrank happiness derived from finding money, getting a tax refund, celebrating a birthday and even being told they look younger than they are.

Ahluwalia said, 94 percent are ready to make sacrifices for just an extra day of vacation. “The deprivation Indians are feeling may stem from the fact that 68 per cent of Indians have cancelled or postponed their vacation due to work commitments,” he added.

The interesting fact, he said, is that while Indians are receiving on an average one additional vacation day this year (from 20 days last year to 21 days this year) and are more likely to say their bosses are supportive of them availing their vacation time than they were last year, they continue to avail fewer days than they receive (an average of 16 days this year and last year).

“This clearly shows that Indians are addicted to their work so much that they often choose to work even when they have earned their time off,” he added. Despite not availing all the vacation days they receive, 73 percent Indians feel they deserve more vacation than they currently get, and that they should receive on an average 15 extra days, according to the survey.

Further, the survey noted that vacations are considered important to travellers’ relationships with their significant others. This is particularly true in India (71 percent strongly agree), Brazil (66 percent) and Mexico (65 percent).

What Winter Will Be Like Where You Live

October 29, 2015 Ajay GhoshEnvironment 0

Weather across the U.S. this past year has been one for the record books, from an historic drought in California to extreme snow in New England region. Now, as October nears its end, TIME looked at what the forecasts show for the coming winter. The forecast brings both welcome and unwelcome news. New Englanders and Mid-Atlantic residents, for instance, should be happy that they’ll avoid some of the icy cold that froze the region last winter. Californians are likely to receive heavy rain but not enough to resolve the state’s drought.

Across the country, El Niño is driving much of this year’s weather patterns. The climate phenomenon raises temperatures across the globe and changes the way air circulates. In the U.S., this typically means heavy rain in the south and lower temperatures across much of the country.

81 companies sign pledge on climate change: US

October 26, 2015 Ajay GhoshBusiness, Environment 0

The White House said that a total of 81 companies have signed a pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as part of the country’s efforts to combat climate change. Among the companies signing the American Business Act on Climate Pledge are Coca-Cola, Apple, Intel, IBM and Walmart, Xinhua reported.

The White House said in a statement last week that these companies have operations in all 50 US states, employing more than nine million people and representing more than $3 trillion in annual revenue, with a combined market capitalisation of over $5 trillion.

While voicing expectation for a strong outcome from the upcoming UN climate talks in Paris in December, the companies agree to reduce their emissions, increase low-carbon investments, deploy more clean energy, in addition to other actions.

The White House launched the American Business Act on Climate Pledge in July, with 13 US companies such as Microsoft committing a total of $140 billion in new low-carbon investments and more than 1,600 megawatts of new renewable energy at that time.

An independent consortium of long-term investors, created in a White House clean energy investment summit in June, on Monday, also announced its first round of investments totalling $1.2 billion through an “aligned intermediary”, which will be formally launched and branded in mid-2016.

US cancels plans to allow Arctic oil drilling

October 26, 2015 Ajay GhoshBusiness, Environment 0

The US government has cancelled plans to allow oil drilling along the Arctic coasts of Alaska for the next two years, the interior department announced. The decision signifies the elimination of offshore lease sales for oil drilling rights in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas, and comes less than a month after the Shell oil company decided to suspend its exploration for crude and natural gas on the Alaska coast, EFE reported on Saturday.

On September 28, the Anglo-Dutch oil company announced the suspension of its plans in Alaska due to some “disappointing” results from an important oil well in the sea off Chukotka, that unfortunately coincided with a time when the price of crude was at its lowest in recent years.

“Shell will now cease further exploration activity in offshore Alaska for the foreseeable future,” the oil company said at the time. “This decision reflects both the Burger J well result, the high costs associated with the project, and the challenging and unpredictable federal regulatory environment in offshore Alaska.”

“In light of Shell’s announcement, the amount of acreage already under lease and current market conditions, it does not make sense to prepare for lease sales in the Arctic in the next year and a half,” interior secretary Sally Jewell said.

The Barack Obama administration also decided to refuse the requests of Shell and Norway’s Statoil to move to a later date the lease contracts in the Arctic they obtained from the government of George W. Bush.

The two offshore lease sales that the US had planned for the next two years were the one in 2016 for drilling rights in the Chukchi Sea and the other in 2017 for the Beaufort Sea. Despite the hold on bidding during the next two years, the interior department still has plans for possible lease sales for drilling rights in the Arctic for the years 2020 and 2022. The final decision in those two cases will be up to the US president elected in 2016. Meanwhile, environmentalists have opposed all plans to drill for oil in the Arctic, warning that such operations could harm polar bears and seals.

Study Ranks U.S. Cities Based on the Urban Heat Island Effect on Temperatures

September 30, 2015 Ajay GhoshEnvironment 0

Athens, Ga. – Inner cities as well as suburbs show distinctly warmer temperatures—known as the urban heat island effect—than rural areas as a result of land use and human activities, which can affect rainfall, air quality and public health. A University of Georgia study using a new method for calculating urban heat island intensities clarifies the conflict on whether urban density or sprawl amplify these effects more. It also provides a ranking of the top urban heat island cities among the 50 largest metropolitan statistical areas.

The urban heat island effect describes how the spatial configuration of cities, the materials in them (such as asphalt), lack of vegetation and waste heat can modify temperature. The study, published in the journal Computers, Environment and Urban Systems, identifies Salt Lake City, Miami and Louisville as the top three urban heat island cities in the U.S.

Urban morphology—the patterns of a city’s physical configuration and the process of its development—has long been associated with the formation of urban heat islands. By examining the UHI intensities of 50 cities with various urban morphologies, the researchers evaluated the degree to which city configuration influences the UHI effect.

“The overall goal of our study was to clarify which urban form—sprawl or more-dense development—is most appropriate for UHI mitigation,” said the study’s lead author Neil Debbage, doctoral student in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences’ department of geography.

The study establishes a method for estimating UHI intensities using PRISM—Parameter-elevation Relationships on Independent Slopes Model—climate data, an analytical model that creates gridded estimates by incorporating climatic variables (temperature and precipitation), expert knowledge of climatic events (rain shadows, temperature inversions and coastal regimes) and digital elevation.

The use of spatially gridded temperature data, rather than urban versus rural point comparisons, represents a new method for calculating a city’s canopy heat island intensity. The results identify the spatial contiguity of developed areas as a significant factor influencing the magnitude of the heat island effect.

“Not just whether cities have high-density development, but how the built infrastructure is connected—and disconnected by green spaces—has a great impact on heat island intensity,” said study co-author Marshall Shepherd, the UGA Athletic Association Distinguished Professor of Geography and Atmospheric Sciences.

“We found that more contiguous sprawling and dense urban development both enhanced UHI intensities. In other words, it does not appear to be a simplistic either-or situation regarding sprawl or density,” Debbage said.

The researchers hope the results can help influence local governments and city planners in the formulation of effective codes and policies to mitigate the urban heat island effect.

“It’s crucial to work toward a better understanding of the complex processes at the intersection of urbanization, climate and human health,” Shepherd said. “Current and future cities will be modified or designed with weather and climate in mind, and research at UGA will play a key role.

The study on “The Urban Heat Island Effect and City Contiguity” is available at www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0198971515300089.

Humankind Has Halved the Number of Trees on the Planet

September 14, 2015 Ajay GhoshEnvironment 0

Trees ‘store huge amounts of carbon, are essential for the cycling of nutrients, for water and air quality, and for countless human services’. The good news: there are over 3 trillion trees covering the Earth—that’s far higher than the 4 billion estimated just two years ago, a team of international researchers has found . But here’s the bad news: there were far more trees—46 percent more—before human civilization got hold, with an estimated 15 billion trees being lost own each year, with just 5 billion replanted.

“Trees are among the most prominent and critical organisms on Earth, yet we are only recently beginning to comprehend their global extent and distribution,” said Thomas Crowther, a Yale Climate & Energy Institute post-doctoral fellow at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and lead author of the study, in a press statement.

The statement also described the findings as “the most comprehensive assessment of tree populations ever produced,” and the researchers say that, as forests function as carbon sinks, their new map provides important information for climate change models.

The total number they tallied, adding up to about 422 trees per person, suprised even Crowther. “They store huge amounts of carbon, are essential for the cycling of nutrients, for water and air quality, and for countless human services,” he stated. “Yet you ask people to estimate, within an order of magnitude, how many trees there are and they don’t know where to begin. I don’t know what I would have guessed, but I was certainly surprised to find that we were talking about trillions.”

Using data from forest inventories, satellite imagery, and computer technology, they assessed over global 400,000 forest plots, defining “tree” as any plant with woody stems larger than 10 centimeters in diameter at breast level. The tropics have the largest area of trees, housing 43 percent of the over 3 trillion, while the boreal forests in the sub-arctic regions house the largest densities of trees. Tropical regions are also facing the greatest rates of deforestation, yet no region has been spared this negative human effect, they write.

Along with deforestation, humans are causing the dramatic tree loss through land-use changes and forest management. The researchers write: “the scale and consistency of this negative human effect across all forested biomes highlights how historical land use decisions have shaped natural ecosystems on a global scale.”

“We’ve nearly halved the number of trees on the planet, and we’ve seen the impacts on climate and human health as a result,” Crowther adds in his statement. “This study highlights how much more effort is needed if we are to restore healthy forests worldwide.” The journal Nature, where the study was published, has this video to accompany the new findings

CRY America’s 12th Walk for Child Rights and help bring children’s dreams to life

September 13, 2015 Ajay GhoshEnvironment 0

CRY, Child Rights and You America Inc. (CRY America), a 501(c)(3) non- profit that works towards ensuring children their basic rights to live, learn, grow and play is hosting the 12th annual CRY Walk for Child Rights across 20 cities. The CRY Walk is an opportunity for people to demonstrate that the responsibility for changing children’s lives lies with us all.

Walkers and runners across New York, New Jersey, Bay Area, Los Angeles, San Diego, Seattle, Boston, Atlanta, Houston, among other cities are invited to participate in 5k non-competitive walks, competitive runs and activities for children. It is a space for the entire family to have a fun outing together and simultaneously help build a better world for children. CRY Walk 2015 commenced on August 23 at Riverside Park, New York and concludes on November 8 at Santa Monica Beach, LA.

CRY Walk 2015 is sponsored by Star TV, TV Asia, Air India, Stratus, Vapor Source, Shani International, India Abroad and Mera Sangeet. We thank all our event sponsors, media sponsors and donors for their generous support. Our special thanks goes out to our volunteers, fundraisers and team leaders across 20 cities for organizing this event in aid of underprivileged children.

Speaking about the event, Shefali Sunderlal, President, CRY America said, “We know that children dream big and all they need are the right opportunities to realize their dreams. By participating in the CRY Walk, you help raise awareness on children’s issues and precious funds that ensure children’s dreams come true.”

CRY America has thus far ensured that 600,558 children living across 2,726 villages and slums have access to education, healthcare and are protected from violations through support to 70 Projects in India and the USA. “This impact has been possible because of the support we have received from 20,885 donors and 2,000 volunteers. Your support will allow us to ensure many more children are educated, healthy and protected from child labor, child marriage, malnutrition and discrimination”, Sunderlal concluded.

CRY, Child Rights and You America Inc. (CRY America) is a 501c3 non profit that is driven by its vision of a just world in which all children have equal opportunities to develop to their full potential and realize their dreams. With the support of over 20,885 donors and 2,000 volunteers, CRY America has impacted the lives of 600,558 children living across 2,726 villages and slums through support to 70 Projects in India and USA.

For more information about CRY America or CRY Walk 2015, visit www.america.cry.org, email support@cryamerica.org or call (617)959-1273.

Mark Ruffalo Goes Green, Supports Bihar’s Solar Energy Project

September 13, 2015 Ajay GhoshEnvironment 0

Mark Ruffalo, “The Hulk” star from New York has called himself “100% Bihar” in a recent Twitter post expressing his support for the Indian state’s clean energy project. Bihar is aiming to become the first state to run completely on solar energy and a lot of folk from the Hindi film industry like Manoj Bajpayee, Swara Bhaskar, Shilpa Rao, Prakash Jha and Sanjay Mishra have already shown their support for the project by joining the “I am 100% Bihar” campaign.

This came as a part of a celebrity-endorsed campaign which is aiming to make Bihar a state run entirely from clean energy. Others like Sanjai Mishra, Swara Bhaskar and Manoj Bajpai also feature in a video for the campaign: The plan gained impetus from an accomplishment earlier this month, when Dharnai in Jehanabad district of Bihar, became the first Indian state to be fully solar powered. Though the task of making Bihar 100% green is completely achievable, there are many obstructions. Getting land is one major concern as farmers won’t just give up their land. Regulatory changes as well as infrastructure issues have slowed down growth.

Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had launched a project in 2011 with an aim to generate 20,000 mega watt solar energy for sustaining power requirement of the country. Narendra Modi took that forward and has raised the bar to 1 lakh MW, which, though ambitious, is achievable if obstacles are overcome. 2400 villagers will get electricity in houses as well as 30 kw to run water pumps, thanks to efforts of Centre for Environment and Energy Development and Greenpeace, which faced trouble from authorities earlier this year.

Ruffalo, who portrays the green Hulk on silver screen, is going green in his real life too. The Hollywood star recently took to Twitter to show his support to Bihar government’s endeavor to run on clean energy.

NRI Leaders In New York Interact With E. P. Menon

August 31, 2015 Ajay GhoshEnvironment, Social Media 0

New York: Indo-American organization leaders in New York met E.P. Menon, the visionary and pioneer of world peace mission, in a gathering in Santoor Indian Restaurant in Glen Oaks, New York. The reception and dinner honoring Mr. E. P. Menon was attended by several members of Global Organizations of People of Indian Origin (GOPIO-NY), World Malayalee Council, National Federation of Indian Americans Associations (NFIA), Malayalee Hindu Mandalam, Sree Narayana World Council, Indian National Overseas Congress Kerala Chapter, Kerala Samajam of Greater New York and friends of Mr. Menon from New York City.

The leaders of organizations shared his vision and path he chose to serve humanity, congratulated him, and wished further success in his mission. The speakers shared their concerns and Mr. Menon explained several solutions to face them. Menon explained unrest persist around the world, United Nations failing to recognize the changing world. Future strategies of the UN must be reviewed and make its service useful to the humanity around the world. The countries around the world need to reset its strategies to face the future and protect the universe.

The threat of the nuclear arms has not yet been contained in the world said Dr Sreedhar Kavil, Chairman, Global Advisory Board, World Malayalee Council (WMC). However much we democratize the world, the structural conflicts among world leaders can any time trigger a nuclear disaster, Dr. Kavil explained.

What was declared most recently by Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan is very significant in this contest. He said nuclear arms are not meant for a marriage party. It is for a purpose. Dr Sreedhar Kavil applauded the service, dedication and simple life of Mr. E.P. Menon and said he is a role model to young and all.

Lal K. Motwani, Ex-Chairman of NFIA, Anand Ahuja Esq, and President of GOPIO-NY congratulated Mr. E.P. Menon and presented him NFIA & GOPIO anniversary books with information on Indo-American cultural and social events and programs to unite Pravasi Indians in the United State.

Menon presented “Foot Prints on Friendly Roads” , the story of the Global peace march written by him to Mr. Lal K Motwani as a token of appreciation to Lal for his 30 plus years of service to Indian American community in the United State.

For more than half a century Mr. E P Menon, an everlasting crusader of peace, nuclear disarmament and social justice has persistently worked for a fearless, prosperous world. Occasionally he travels to many destinations in the world to meet with young talents and share his vision and mission to protect all of us from manly-created disasters. Menon is one among very few who still around as from the era of Jawaharlal Nehru, Vinoba Bave, Jayaprakash Narayan, Thakkar Bapa and K Kelappan (Kerala Gandhi).

His first mission around the world on foot caught the attention of the world leaders and public where ever he and fellow traveler Sathish Kumar went in 1962-64. Kumar and Menon along with many supporting democratic fearless fellow walkers crossed many countries and travelled 8000 miles on foot and boat from New Delhi to Kabul, Tehran, Moscow, Warsaw, Bonn, Berlin, Brussels, Paris, London, Washington DC, California, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Saigon, Singapore, Colombo, Bombay and back to New Delhi.

The then U.N Secretary General U. Thant wrote: “ I am happy to hear all about your magnificent work for world peace. Wish you the best of luck”. Vinoba Bave inspired them and said, “Have absolute faith in humanity you will succeed. All best wishes”.

The dedication and work of E.P. Menon and Sathish Kumar in the 1960’s turned the world leaders to rethink their mad race for nuclear arms. Since then through continued negotiations and deals by world leaders, world super powers reduced their nuclear weaponry and end producing new nuclear arms? The modern world owes to and credit Mr. E.P. Menon and Mr. Sathish Kumar for pioneering to reduce/end nuclear arms and establish world peace through popular support.

Fifty three years ago in 1962, two young men in their twenties set out from Mahatma Gandhi Samadhi in New Delhi to conquer the iron minds of world leaders and gather the support of the suffering world. They had no passport, no visa and no money in their pockets; and they achieved what they determined for in the name of peace and humanity. Until now, it is a world record in serving the humanity with no penny in the pocket. Even today, Mr. Menon lives with no means and follows his masters (Vinoba Bave) advice; “Go with no money, people will support your mission”, and he did that throughout his life to serve and protect you and me; Menon a silent warier with no weapons and protector of unknown.

Menon arrived at the venue accompanied by Mr. David Goldman, Singer, songwriter and music producer and many members of the global community from Manhattan. Mrs. Leela Maret, (FOKANA) welcomed Mr. E.P. Menon and David Goldman with bouquet.

Aravindakshan introduced Menon to the audience and explained since he met him forty eight years ago in April 1967 at the home of Survodaya Leader Sri K Kelappan, (popularly known as Kerala Gandhi) tried to follow his path in life and Mr. Menon is one of his role models. Organizers and organizations can lean from Menon how to manage and provide relentless service to the community, said Aravindakshan.

Anand Ahuja Esq – President GOPIO-NY , Dr. Unnikrishnan Thampi – President MAHIMA, Dr. Rohini B. Ramanathan-Secretary GOPIO-NY , K. G. Janardhanan, and S. K. Sreekumar – SNW Council, Varughese Thekkekara- WMC USA Vice Chairman, David Goldman, Susie Daniel, Pat La Mariana, Mimi Gussow, Mrs. Katy Casey, Jayachandran Ramakrishnan (President, INOC, Kerala Chapter) and Dr. Jose Kanatt (Kerala Samajam of Greater New York) were among few who made congratulatory remarks and applauded the service of Mr. Menon. Anand Ahuja Esq, President of GOPIO-NY made vote of thanks.

E.P. Menon (epmbangalore@gmail.com) is also the Executive Trustee of the India Development Foundation, an NGO in Bangalore, India that provides help and service to the needy while actively involving to defying unrest around the world.

70 Years After Hiroshima

August 31, 2015 Ajay GhoshEditorial, Environment 0

70 years ago, on August 6th, 1945 the city of Hiroshima in Japan was destroyed with an atomic bomb. In a few minutes, thousands of people lost their lives in the attack. Three days later the city of Nagasaki, also in Japan met the same fate. The Second World War ended six days later. Our world changed forever.

Within a single flash of light, Hiroshima, a city with a population of 360,000 — largely non-combatant women, children and elderly became a place of desolation, with heaps of skeletons and blackened corpses everywhere. As of now, over 250,000 victims have perished in Hiroshima from the effects of the blast, heat and radiation. 70 years later, people are still dying from the delayed effects of one atomic bomb, considered crude by today’s standard for mass destruction.

According to the Red Cross, nearly two-thirds (63 per cent) of atomic bomb survivor deaths in the Hiroshima Red Cross hospital until March 2014 were caused by cancers. The most deadly cancers were lung (20 per cent), stomach (18 per cent), liver (14 per cent), leukaemia (eight per cent), intestinal (seven per cent) and malignant lymphoma (six per cent). Over this period, more than half of all deaths at the Nagasaki Red Cross hospital (56 per cent) were due to cancer.

As many believed, Hiroshima was targeted because of its strategic significance as a military headquarters, a major trading port and one of the main supply depots for the Japanese army. It was also largely untouched by previous bombings. However, the Stop the War Coalition points out that over 95 per cent of the combined casualties of the two cities were civilian. As the first country to use nuclear weapons against civilian populations, the US was in direct violation of internationally agreed principles of war, writes Professor Rodrigue Tremblay for the Global Research Centre. “Thus, August 1945 is a most dangerous and ominous precedent that marked a new dismal beginning in the history of humanity, a big moral step backward.”

After the first bomb fell, co-pilot Captain Robert Lewis said: “My God, what have we done? How many did we kill?” The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki also changed the course of history by launching the global race for nuclear proliferation. Today, there are more than 16,000 nuclear weapons around the globe with landmines, biological and chemical weapons threatening the very existence of humanity.

Currently, just nine countries are known to possess nuclear weapons: the US, the UK, France, Israel, Russia, China, India, Pakistan and North Korea. The recently completed negotiations with Iran are only the latest attempt to keep the list at nine, says author and historian James Kunetka. “But realistically, the fight to halt the further spread of weapons will no doubt continue far into the future.”

These nine nations believe strongly in nuclear deterrence, arguing that by possessing a range of weapons, foreign states will refrain from attacking due to the fear of retaliation and “mutually assured destruction”. “In a world in which a rogue state like North Korea, a dysfunctional state like Pakistan and an increasingly bellicose state like Russia all possess the bomb, what major power is going to lead the way and unilaterally disarm?,” asks The Guardian‘s Andrew Anthony.

American journalist Eric Schlosser, says,”The problem with nuclear deterrence is that it requires secular rational thought on both sides of the equation,” he said adding that there are now groups like Islamic State with ideologies that glorify and celebrate the slaughter of civilians as well as militants who are not fearful of death. “That makes this technology even more dangerous.”

Most experts agree that nuclear weapons are more dangerous now than at any point in our history. The risks are too many and too huge. “Geopolitical saber rattling, human error, computer failure, complex systems failure, increasing radioactive contamination in the environment and its toll on public and environmental health, as well as the global famine and climate chaos that would ensue should a limited use of nuclear weapons occur by accident or design. Yet few people truly grasp the meaning of living in the nuclear age.”

The death of innocents that has been the driving force for millions of people around the world continues to inspire the struggle against the ultimate evil of nuclear weapons. In a speech at a Washington DC university President Obama said the agreement is publically supported by every country in the world, except for Israel. Obama described it as the “strongest non-proliferation agreement ever negotiated”. President John F Kennedy in 1963, spoke at the same Washington DC area university in support of diplomacy with the Soviet Union.

The Iran deal is considered a signature achievement of Obama’s foreign policy legacy. The nuclear deal calls for Iran to reduce its enrichment in exchange for the releasing of millions of dollars in frozen assets. Unfortunately, today, 70 years after the world witnessed the most horrific event in human history, humanity continues to live with the daily threat of nuclear weapons.

It’s time for action to establish a legally binding framework to ban nuclear weapons as a first step in their total abolition. Every peace loving citizen of the world must urge and work to join the growing global movement. And let us make the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki the appropriate milestone to achieve our goal: to abolish nuclear weapons, and safeguard the future of our one shared planet earth. It’s time to rid the globe of the most destructive weapons of all and make sure there’s never another humanitarian tragedy like Hiroshima.’

You may send in your comments to the Editor at: ajayghosh1@aol.com

Sunita Viswanath Honored As ‘Champion of Change’

August 2, 2015 Ajay GhoshEnvironment, Women 0

Sunita Viswanath was among 12 faith leaders who was honored as “Champion of Change” on July 20 for their continuous efforts towards climate change. Viswanath, who has worked in women’s and human rights organisations for almost three decades, “is being honored for her work to encourage Hindus in protecting environment and communities from the effects of climate change,” the White House said in a statement.

Viswanath is co-founder and active board member of the 14-year old women’s human rights organisation Women for Afghan Women (WAW).

“Sunita is also co-founder and board member of Sadhana: Coalition of Progressive Hindus, living and building a Hinduism that prioritises social justice, and upholding the Hindu principles of ekatva (oneness), ahimsa (non-violence) and sadhana (faith in action).”

Through our grassroots green project, Project Prithvi, we mobilize Hindus, especially the youth, to live out the principle of ahimsa by taking care of the environment. We have adopted a beach in Jamaica Bay, New York, where Hindus worship almost every day. Devotees place their offerings into the bay, but the offerings wash up on shore and become entangled with all the other litter lining the beach – beer bottles, Styrofoam containers, used condoms. It is deeply painful to see our religious offerings, broken idols, trays of flowers and fruits, fabrics that had adorned the deities, washed up on the beach as garbage. We reach out to local Hindu temples, and we enlist priests to help us advocate to devotees that it is important to worship in more environmentally friendly ways. We mobilize temple-goers to come to the beach with us on a monthly basis, and together we clean up the beach. At every beach cleanup, devotees tell us how hurt they are to see broken idols of Ganesha and Lakshmi lying face down in the dirt. Rivers and oceans are considered sacred by Hindus, as are trees, all life forms, and the Earth herself.

“I have always been secure in my identity as a Hindu,” she told the media. “Growing up, I thought a lot about faith and religion, but I also had a very strong sense of social justice, what was fair. I imbibed profound lessons of love and justice from my religious upbringing, from the stories we were told, the prayers we learned, the texts we read. I went on as an adult to devote my life to advancing social justice causes, particularly women’s human rights. If Hinduism cares deeply about all people and all living beings, then there must be an active, vocal Hindu movement for social justice and human rights today.”

A central component of Sadhana is Project Prithvi, which is an environmental initiative.

As part of Project Prithvi, Sadhana is involved with cleaning up a beach in Jamaica Bay, Queens which is a place of worship for Hindus.

Sadhana has officially adopted this beach, conducts regular clean-ups, and also does outreach through Hindu temples to advocate that Hindus worship in environmentally conscious ways, said the interfaithcenter.org. Viswanath was a 2011 recipient of the “Feminist Majority Foundation’s Global Women’s Rights Award” for her work with WAW.

She lives in Brooklyn in New York with her husband Stephan Shaw and their three sons — Gautama, Akash and Satya.

TheUNN Corporation

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