Pollution, Global warming, Acid Rain, Ozone hole, Climatic change ........What term would you associate with these? It is nothing but Environmental Degradation.
In the name of development we have polluted our environment.Go to a city....there you find innumerable posh multi-storeyed buildings [with refrigerators and AC's] in place of small houses, parks, lakes, streams,trees,open space......
Instead of cloth or paper bags,plastics invade the shops.
Walk down the streets and roads [i.e., if you have footpaths otherwise don't take the risk].....you will find it difficult to breathe...coz you will be inhaling a wee bit too much of carbon-di & monoxide,sulphur-di-oxide ....from the evergrowing vehicular traffic.
Ok then....Will go to the outskirts for cleaner and pollution free environment.
Oh My God!There again we find many new factories,leather tanneries to add to the pollution level.
So what happens?
Due to the trees being cut,level of Carbon-di-oxide goes up.....SO2 and CO add to the confusion....
CO2 increase brings in Global warming where the earth gets heated up...icebergs melts,sea level rises....
There is a decrease in rain due to the reduction in the number of trees
Even if it rains an increase in SO2 and SO4 from the vehicular traffic and industries brings in Acidrain....ie., rain water which is acidic instead of basic or neutral.
Use of Refrigerators and AC's release Chloro fluoro carbons which create a hole in the ozone layer.....this layer protects us from the harmful UV radiations....so a hole in the ozone layer is going to be harmful to all the living beings.
In short,We are going to leave behind an environment which will be unfit to live for the future generations.
What is the Solution?
Lots of policies have been framed and implemented,lots of conventions and conferences have been held.....people are made aware of the situation ...with plenty of help from the voluntary organisations.
Awareness among the people and their effort towards environment protection will go a long way in providing us with a friendly environment.This will include adopting age old practices like using cloth bags instead of plastic ones, using chulhas and renewable energy sources,travelling by public transport system, using car sparingly, growing more trees, avoid cutting of trees ......the list goes on...but
Can we do it?
4 comments:
I guess we can, but will we, that is a bigger question. Maybe if there is a big enough incentive...
That's correct...it is difficult to follow all that.But I did not like people carrying the "Manja pai" for buying vegetables before but now even big shops choose to give their products in a paper or cloth bag.I too like it and now even manja pai seems perfect.:)
hi, nice one.
may be a mixture of incentives to use cleaner technologies and disincentives not to use the existing polluting tech can do justice.
already, countries like sweden have longterm plans by which they will not be dependent on non-renewable energy sources.
sudden blanket bans, like the one on plastic in chennai a few years back, are not advisable, as it puts a whole industry out of gear at an instant. long term strategies are better for the health of the economy, as the accent should be on sustainable development (both ways).
going back to the first point, disincentives are very difficult to enforce as there are huge lobbies against it. for eg, if a govt were to think of imposing additional duties on cars, the auto lobby would see to it that that doesn't happen.
probably, auto sector can invest in r&d and invent cleaner technologies. toyota has already done that in japan.
the suggestion abt improved public transport is welcome. a superb public transport along with disincentives to use our private transport can work wonders - singapore is one eg, i guess (not sure, though).
actually, a single decision will make many of us opt for public transport! Which is, pegging the petrol and diesel prices to the market. This is heavily subsidised in the country now, which means we use more and more of it without thinking much about costs.
That attitude would change if we pay the market price for our fuel!
Nice analysis sriram,
I have a suggestion on public transport ...why not have local buses like the moffusil ones....i.e., have a normal bus,a superfast,deluxe [with ac,nice cushion chairs bus which does not allow standing...that way even the upper middle class will opt for public transport.
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