Three Things Indians Need Urgently

1    Energy solutions. Huge number of people waiting to sell their food fraction to buy energy. How are we going to deal with this? The market will rise. We can either militarily kill the demand (why will any capitalist or ethical democratic government do that?) or embrace the economic opportunity.

If you want to know how there is the possibility that people below poverty lines who are not getting sufficient daily meals will demand energy then I would like to quote these lines from Poor Economics by Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo:

“We asked Ouch Mbarbk, a man we met in a remote village in Morocco, what he would do if he had more money. He said he would buy more food…We were starting to feel very bad for him and his family, when we noticed a television, a parabolic antenna, and a DVD player in the room where we were sitting. We asked him why he had bought all these things if he felt the family did not have enough to eat. He laughed, and said, “Oh, but television is more important than food!”

 

2    Transport. “Use public transport” is believed to be the key to save expenditure, promote savings, reduce emissions and do our part in halting climate change.

But only big Indian metros have reliable public transport which, in turn, is extremely cranky and suffocating during office hours. Okay, even Paris metro has the same problem but what about traveling on late running train rooftops for an hour in Mumbai? In my home town, Bhubaneswar, a million+ populated city, had no public transport system until two years back.

Then we got other cities which are yet to propose, plan and build the systems. But they will take at least a decade. Mumbai metro system will not be completed till 2018 since it started in 2010. Till then private transport system is the only option for middle class. It would be shocking that on an average 15-20% of the monthly household budget is spent on transport fuels and no matter how much tax you burden them with they will not inch out from consumption. Because there is no goddamn alternative.

3      Microeconomic collaboration. Heard of car pooling, community freezers/grillers, waste-to-energy systems? Great! Indians already have great incentives to adopt them. But somehow these are seldom happening. May be a bit more traffic congestion and harsh civic rules can help.

What’s Up with my Petrol Price?

Oh, I will be extremely brief here. Let’s see what we are paying when we pay INR 80/Litre.

There are two things: Base Price and Tax!

1: Base Price: This actually has a few components.

The Cost Price which includes the crude oil price, refining and marketing/transporting costs. In the crude oil bracket, from the perspective of India, 70-80% of the fraction is imported while rest is mined locally by Indian upstream oil companies like ONGC, OIL etc.

It is interesting to know that the locally harnessed oil is sold to petroleum marketing companies which are again majorly government owned. It is the imported oil which ranges 2-3 times the price (given international taxes, government policies and other geopolitical factors) of the locally mined oil which averagely brings the price a little low. The base price kind of comprises 40-45% of the petrol cost.

2: Tax: Rest is, yes baby, tax. Excise tax, education tax, state tax, VAT, custom duties, service tax, environmental charges etc. On a rough account despite the cheaper refining cost in India due to heavy tax burden the total shoots up way more than the prices in other countries.

Why so much tax then?

• A good fraction of government revenue comes from these taxes. Cutting this may directly affect the economy.
• In a country like India it is just believed that middle and upper class should bear the public burden.
• It is better than putting taxes on kerosene and diesel which can lead to imbalance of food and transport prices affecting the lower sections of population pyramid.
• Also lowering the price may lead to use of subsidies only to increase the petrol demand which will force India to multiply its petroleum imports which is already pocketing a big chunk of our import economy.
• No way will it lower the carbon emissions. With taxes there is a fair window for the carbon budgets to be transferred within the other government sectors and help buy international carbon credits.

Now why we don’t have any alternative clean solution or reliable public transport system is just another thing.

Why should Indians’ care?

 

One day while I was pulling a serious talk on climate change during an extra period in the high school of Ghatau. Now it’s not a big thing that such topics fit nowhere in the school curriculum and you may get teachers skeptical of your efforts of helping education. I was making sea level rise a big deal. Coming from a coastal state near Bay of Bengal, educated in Mumbai near Arabian Sea and being aware of islands countries future concerns I, for a moment, went blank when I realized I was able to connect with my little listeners. How should I explain these school kids who live in the barren hills, wheat valleys and have never been to the next stop town? If I talk of sea…they have never been to sea…if I talk of international concern…you are kidding there right…if I talk of pollution…mother nature so far has been kind to them keeping them unaware of pollution. I took a couple of minutes before pulling myself up and explain.

The burden of Climate Change is a classic example of “her/his responsibility but not my job.” The village folks will say: we are fine with our agriculture, we are not sure of our urban brothers. Youths unless motivated and rightly educated will be very unlikely to take care of waste reduction and energy wastage. The daily worker will blame the two wheelers for burning petrol. The two wheelers will point out to the four wheelers with AC. Indian corporate giants will throw big words like “generating employment for India” and will pass the ball to American corporate who in turn will either feel alone and left out in this global responsibility or will smirk remembering Professor Henry Miller: like the sinking of the Titanic, catastrophes are not democratic, a much higher percentage of passengers from the cheaper decks will suffer.

So cutting long story short, why should Indians care?

• Climate change has direct, and of course adverse impact, on ecosystems and agriculture on which 58 per cent of the population still depends for livelihood and contributing a quarter to the nation’s economy
• water storage in the Himalayan glaciers which are the source of major rivers and groundwater recharge will decrease
• sea-level rise threatening the habitations and civilizations on coastline
• Rise in frequency of extreme events such as floods, and droughts which in turn will impact India‟s

1. Food security
2. Water security
3. Economic and livelihood issues
4. Desertification, biodiversity and arable land loss
5. Refugee issue since the demographic units of neighboring nations are quite similar

Talking in plain simple words and breaking it down in more simplicity:

The islands and coastal population will suffer.

The population based on river basins will suffer.

The agriculture based on monsoon will suffer.

The tribal population amongst the jungle will suffer.

The urban population heavily depends on agricultural output. Eg Mumbai, one of the largest commercial hubs in South Asia, will starve after running out of its storage in flat two days if food supply from outside stops. So they will, undoubtedly, suffer.

So my little village where I taught will go into major crisis if its monsoon pattern changes, crop fails, has nothing to export and slowly biodiversity will begin to die out. They, despite being far far away from the seas, will become the beloved victims of climate change.

Behind Kedarnath Flashfloods?

A couple of months ago a news piece was rigorously shared on many environmental websites claiming how climate change is seeking revenge on mankind by endowing us with disasters! The news piece, interestingly, happened to have originated in the regions of Indian Himalayas. There have been flash floods in the high altitudes regions of Himachal Pradesh after hours of unusual heavy rainfall. This was seen as one of the consequences of the changing patterns in global climate. Local activists also blamed the hydropower projects being constructed in the Ganga basin to have triggered such disasters. But since the nearest project site is located 10 km downstream from the flash flood location so this is not the reason behind those flash floods. This article is meant to give the events behind those flash floods, which is home to some of the poorest human populations in the world and is in some way not on the top priority of the government until now.

Dehra Dun on 16^th June received 220 mm of rainfall followed by 370 mm the next day. On the same day Mukteshwar received 237 mm of rainfall and 207 mm on 18^th June. The nearby areas received similar heavy rainfall in the range of 100-200 mm. The higher altitude regions of Kedarnath, Gangotri and Badrinath received unusually heavy rainfall which cannot be definitely said since these places are located above 3000 mt altitude where no rain gauge station of Indian Meteorological Department is located, owing to the past practice in these regions where snowfall data is seen as more important than rainfall’s.

Let us try to know a little more about the events which lead to such sudden downpour. A couple of days before the disaster, on June 14^th, the monsoon front was located in Eastern India. Then all of a sudden the next day it crossed Uttar Pradesh for the first time against its usual date of 15^th July. Simultaneously there was the Westerly winds from the Arabian Sea which was active in Pakistan and Northwest India, which together lead to cloud outburst in the regions near Kedarnath.

But the problem does not end here. It was not just the heavy rains which was responsible for the overall disaster. There have been unfortunately few other factors which worked together to make the situation worse. First of all the regions around Kedarnath were geologically prone to landslides. Secondly there are sediments and debris from upper regions which en route from the higher regions were carried down by the flowing volume of water. Then there was fresh and excess snowfall on the upper glacial regions before the rainfall actually hit. And then the warmer rainfall, along with its rainwater, melted the snow which created a wall of flash flood and then boom! We had the disaster claiming thousands of lives.

Initially due to the above reasons scientists classified the disaster as a case of Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF), but experts from National Remote Sensing Center recently cleared out that technically this was slightly different in nature. While GLOF, depending on factors like position of lake, damming materials, nearby glaciers, volume of water enclosed other environmental conditions etc, is mainly caused due to the sheer pressure on the dams or enclosed walls from the contained water and/or ice, this was a case involving sudden increase in pressure on the lakes walls due to excessive rainfalls which acted as a outside factor to have triggered such a disaster.

Now how did the monsoon pattern become so unusual and how such environmental patterns summed up for the first time in history to give such an unpredicted disaster can be truly wondered over if they have to do with the recent changes in the global climate, but we no doubt need to equip ourselves against such kinds of surprise nature furies which presently we have been clearly underestimating or rather are new against the historical patterns. Does it sound alarming enough?

Originally published at Ayyati.com

The Case of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plants

 

I was once discussing solid waste mafia issues in the state of Kerala with one of my colleagues at Center for Technological Alternatives for Rural Areas and then very subtly the topic shifted to how the government largely ignores the environmental issues in pursuit of short term goals and growth in a developing economy like India. My colleague very relevantly stated the example of the recent conflict between the local citizens and the center government plans of the ongoing nuclear reactor plant set ups at Kudankulam, a town in the neighboring state of Tamil Nadu. Back then I was just aware of the news via the daily headlines etc. Recently I caught up with a friend from Indian Institute of Mass Communication and the Kudankulam issue re-surfaced.

The Central Government plans of the upcoming Kudankulam nuclear reactors have been criticized and strongly opposed by the fishermen of the coastal villages from the neighboring districts. Apparently they were alarmed by the ongoing so-called rumors that the government is planning to mass evacuate around 100,000 citizens from the surrounding regions of the nuclear reactors within 30 km radius. But this is not the only thing that took away the peace of the local people. There were added fears that once the water coolant reactors will start to function, they will release enormous amount of hot water into the sea which will have a major impact on the nearby fish and marine life thus directly affecting the livelihood of the local Roman Catholic community constituting of around 7500 fishermen, who has no skills in any alternative professional activity. This piece also attracted the attention of environmentalists further snowballing when the government refused to reveal the exact location of the nuclear waste storage sites in the nearby harbor regions which was earlier planned to dispose off to Russia instead. There were also added rumors by some local ones claiming that the “poisonous gases” from the nuclear plants have already killed fishes in the nearby sea waters.

The locals clearly are seeing themselves as collateral damage in the plans of India to quickly climb into the ranking of an emerging superpower. There have been parked painted boat campaign protests and hunger strike where fishermen and their family members bury themselves waist eep in the beach sands with burning candle in the hands! Even disbelieving the government authorities, they claim that the nuclear reactors have not been commissioned yet since once they start functioning the above mentioned consequences will be inevitable. They even argue of the absence of any movement in the engine of the reactors and thus believe the government is bent on making them a victim without learning from the Fukushima accident early in the year of 2011 when the Kudankulum protests have also been started. So how careless can Indian government get?

Indian government has been giving technical reports from time to time in defense of their move to go with the nuclear reactor projects despite the sharp opposition. Although few things are still guarded fiercely by the state due to some security concern, the reports give relevant security measures that the scientists have considered for the safety of the reactors knowing very well how critical the whole issue has become now. The government had also consulted top scientists from Indian Space Research Organization study the fears raised about the security of the reactors.

The concern raised for the safety of marine life has been quite interesting since reportedly nowhere else in the world nuclear reactors have been known to raise such issues.  There were no such concerns with the older Indian nuclear reactors near the seas at Kalpakkam and Tarapur. Two third of the total energy from the reactors will go unused and has to be discharged by the condenser which in turn has to be cooled by water. This water will be brought in through gravity driven concrete pipes at the temperature of 32 degree Celsius. The outgoing water will have a raised temperature of about 37 degree Celsius, while as per the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board the safety limit is 39 degree Celsius. The pump house also has the mechanism of injecting air bubbles to the incoming water surface which may help the small fishes that may have been sucked in to stay at the upper surface before being safely ejected out into the sea.

The nuclear reactor has been claimed by its makers to be one of the most advanced nuclear reactors with dual dome structure to withstand tsunamis to air crashes. It has mechanisms to tackle hydrogen accumulation, radioactivity leakages and coolant deficiencies.  Unlike the Fukushima sister, this reactor has been built on land about 7.5 meters above mean sea level. The government has also been dismissing the rumors that it has plans to further acquire land for the project and trigger the evacuation of 100,000 citizens as feared by the peace protesters. Overall this case seems to be a classic modern example of clash between the ideas.

We have latest technology and an aspiring government to be at par with their international friends and improve the energy scenario in the nation while the local citizens are refusing to believe any of these explanations and are bend on to eliminate any risks that may pose a threat to their traditional work and environment. One may hope that a sophisticated touch of science education might have helped these people to calm down and understand the situation, but then history has given us enough lessons that things do not go as predicted at times. Overall the situation is interestingly tricky and let’s hope that the fishermen and the fishes stay preserved and flourishing. But the good news is that the government took really big steps in ensuring safety and environmental concerns around the setting up of the nuclear reactors.

Originally published at Ayyati.com

Why yet another climate change blog?

I considered myself a climate change activist during my college days. Started with a bit sensitivity towards the issue, followed a few slogans, decent networking, believed change should begin somewhere so why-not-me, couple of conferences, blogging and an award.

Then one day while walking on the streets of Mumbai I found no garbage bin to dispose off my fruit juice bottle. I walked two kilometers, no luck and had to flip it on the side of the road much like those fellow citizens who I always blamed are not doing anything to save our planet.

Then I joined as a Gandhi Fellow after my graduation where I worked in the tribal communities and hamlets. In the nearer-to-city regions the children and youths are worshipers of sweetened soda drinks (Yes, those most recognized brand rank list they put up every year is true) despite the extra 50% additional charges by the sellers (There there is this wisdom in air that MRP stands for Minimum Retail Price, and it’s serious). Some have access to good schooling systems. Some kids convince their parents to get home a computer to help in studies (but end up gaming and then discarding the system since there is no service centers in our city) and so on. I was in Dungarpur, a district on the border of Gujarat and Rajasthan, and was working with the district government to improve the education sector in whatever way possible. I met some bright kids (every school has some bright kids) who are good with their studies or do some mathematics out of their school syllabus.

And then this came up: Climate Change. None of them had heard the word or any of its variation. My claim that the sea level rising and there is something called global warming put out skeptical looks on their faces. I learned that until they are 15-16 years old (grade 9-10) there is nothing which will tell them all these things (but then environmental studies which has been passed by Supreme Court as a compulsory subject) and then it would be just ignored since not even the teachers and parents will bother to educate these kids.

Hence this blog.

I may not do much for high school kids as for now. But I have decided to create this blog so that those kids looking for extra knowledge or the new college folks can get access to easy wisdom on climate change.

I will try my best that my readers, no matter if they belong to a rural district high school or a top professional college in India (or elsewhere), will always find my blog both graspable and interesting in someway. Rest homework shall be done by me every week for a brand new post 🙂