World Environment Day: A Retrospective

It was an important day in my newly started schedule of life; just two days before I have joined a new assignment which had given me the opportunity to be a part of the state’s WED celebration. The theme as you know is THINK EAT SAVE. That was interesting because right from my childhood I have learnt only not to waste food. It was my parents, and my grand mom who always said that Laxmi (Hindu Goddess of Wealth) lies in food so we should not disgrace her by wasting food. Sometimes, when we had left a considerable quantity of food on the plate because it didn’t tasted that good as always, mom used to scold us by saying that there were many people around who are lying hungry. Gradually, when we grew up and experienced lives out of our mom-shielded homes, we have started realizing the facts of hunger, starvation and inequality in food distribution. Again, it was Rathaya Yella sir, who in our college days, always told us about the pain of a farmer in producing a single grain of rice; which was an another teaching on reducing food wastage! With all these background and hailing from a lower middle class family, the theme obviously was a matter of interest.

What I am going to write here is not particularly about the celebration of world environment day, but about how we feel about the theme. With deep pain, I have noticed that some people along with one of our state ministry of Assam celebrated it in some posh locations, far away from people, far away from the needy. Those celebrations, ornamented with high quality food that too in abundant quantity is nothing but a mockery to the theme itself. At the time when such celebrations were laden with intellectual lectures on saving food and reducing hunger, there may have been lots of hungry people outside searching for food! So, what is the use of such lectures which does not have any action in reality? May be that is the case with many such events across the world.

What I am trying to say is that in most of the issues, we just concentrate on speaking, not on action. On issues particularly like this, action should be more than the words. Our parents may not have any recognition for being intellectuals, but what they have taught us in our childhood is relevant not only to the home but to the world as well. Now when I look back to my parent’s advice, I find that there may not be goddess Laxmi in the food as appeared to a science believer like me, but those were the keys for a better future. But as we have ignored those golden sayings, sufferings have begun. Another interesting fact about those old goodies was that my grand parents and their fore parents believed in keeping food for the birds and animals, for the hungry who may come in suddenly; a thought that is of high environmental importance now a days. So that is the fact, what we celebrate and focus as environmental concern and environmental activism, was there in our parents and their fore fathers in a much more inherent way; but they never boasted about it, nor there was any public recognition!

So, before making artificial and so called intellectuality laden celebration on food conservation, we must stick to the basics of our lives; reducing food wastage at home and workplace, saving food for ourselves and for the others lying hungry in and around us and making an honest and sincere effort on our part. Unless we do that, nothing is going to save our food, wherever we celebrate, whatever we celebrate and whoever we heard of!

Elevated Atmospheric Carbon-Di-Oxide Level in the atmosphere: The Hidden Challenges

A recent report on global atmospheric carbon-di-oxide level has created a concern among the scientific community associated with global warming and climate change research. The report released by National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on 9^th of this month has stated that the daily average carbon-di-oxide concentration has surpassed the level of 400 ppm as observed in the Mauna Loa Observatory at Hawaii Islands. As stated by NOAA, such a higher level has been reached for the first time in the last 800,000 years. The same has also been reported by another climate research group ‘Scripps Institute of Oceanography’ who has also added that similar concentration of the green house gas was present during  the Pilocene Age, 3-5 million years ago.

The most significant aspect of this finding is that it depicts two important facts; firstly, the possible menace of global warming and associated climate change is on an increasing trend and secondly the global emission reduction is yet a long distance goal. Without a doubt, the continuous and ever increasing burning of fossil fuels like coal, petroleum and natural gas across the world is the largest contributor towards increased carbon-di-oxide in earth’s gaseous blanket. NOAA report also includes that the decadal growth rate of carbon-di-oxide concentration has risen to 2.1 ppm from a mere 0.7 ppm reported during the 1950s. Being a green house gas, the elevated level of carbon-di-oxide is necessarily a cause of concern if we talk in terms of global warming. Simultaneously, we can also expect more and more climatic anomalies in terms of altered pattern of rainfall, wind, higher numbers of cyclones, cloud burst, hailstorms, drought, flood etc. Similarly, warming will also have an impact on our sea level through the melting of glaciers and polar ice caps thereby affecting the low lying areas. Such anomalies in the weather pattern are feared to increase the challenge lying ahead of the world community with respect to food security. That is because, the sole food producing activity, agriculture is largely dependant on climate. This is more than a reality for a country like India, where more than seventy percent of the agriculture is rainfed or climate dependant. Not only that, the same will also have a negative impact on allied activities like fish rearing, marine food industries and so on. So, a probable increase of climate change events will directly put a question on the equation of feeding the 7 billion stomach of the world. Another worth mentionable concern related to these issues is that of environmental migration. It has been discussed in different climate change talks that submergence of low lying nations may lead to international conflicts as it will increase the number of environmental refugees migrating from one nation to another. This particular challenge has made emission reduction a much aspired goal for the global community in this 21^st century.

Latest climate negotiations, ranged from Kyoto Protocol, 1997 to the latest Doha agreement, 2012 are the representations of notably failed attempts on the part of the nations towards global carbon-di-oxide emission reduction in reality. While Kyoto Protocol has failed to bind the countries into a legal agreement towards emission reduction, its success lied in identifying the contribution of industrialized countries towards global warming. On the other hand, the latest Doha conference was also unable to suggest some kind of solid, legally binding solutions to cut off the emission from the countries. It significantly brought out two real facts of the scenario - the developed countries are unwilling to curtail their emission and the developing or under developed countries lack sufficient fund to invest in emission reduction technologies. However, Doha’s success lies in the fact that it opened a ‘gateway’ to investments by the richer countries on poorer ones to reduce the emission.

So, the new report of NOAA will certainly increase the pressure on the global community to achieve a modest reduction in their green house gas emission rate, either individually i.e. country wise or internationally.  But, till date all these international climate discussions and negotiations have come under the scanner due to the differences among the countries in terms of their ideologies and policies, be it a political or economic one. However, the latest findings have emphasized one particular point. The point is that we need a global cooperative and cumulative effort to reduce atmospheric carbon-di-oxide level irrespective of our political and economic ideology, if at all we are interested in keeping the increment of global temperature below 2⁰ Celsius. Other wise, not much time is left for the globe to be a heart-wracked witness of an impending doom symbolized with its degenerated biodiversity, degraded ecological systems, reduced food availability, increased disease incidence and a dead environment.

The Green Miracle

Northeast India being situated in the transition zone of Indian, Indo-Malayan and Indo-Chinese biogeographic regions harbour a rich biological diversity, which is a well known fact. This is also a transition zone between the low lying Indian Peninsula and highlands of Himalayan Mountain which also makes it an abode of diverse flora and fauna. Wide range of physiographic and ecoclimatic conditions have contributed to the region being recognized as an integral part of the Indo-Myanmar biodiversity hotspot.

Bamboo is a dominant species among the spectacular floral diversity of the region and also is a part and parcel of the region’s culture. Out of 136 species of bamboos found in India, 63 species in 22 genera are found in Northeast India of which 25 species of bamboo are considered to be rare. The different species of bamboo available in the region are mainly from the genera Bambusa, Dendrocalamus, Dinocloa, Phyllostachys, Schizostachyum etc. The most familiar species includes – Bhaluka, Jati, Kolia, Mokal, Nol, Dolo, Bijuli, Deo, Betua, Nangal, Bhaluki Mokal, Betua, Beji, Kako, Rupahi, Bajal, Lota and many others.

Bamboo is known to have an unrivaled utility with its use in more than hundreds of different purposes. People in the region heavily depend on bamboos for various domestic and agricultural purposes.  A range of handicraft materials are prepared from specific bamboos usually cultivated by the people In recent times bamboos have been identified as a valuable industrial raw material substituting wood products and having potential for augmenting the economy. Their utility as edible shoots is also being exploited for setting up of industrial ventures. But, what is most important about this species is its environmental benignness, being a potentially renewable resource. This species can rightly be termed as ‘green gold’ owing to some tremendous potential of this species which is yet to be discovered completely and used.

Being one of the most productive and fastest growing species, Bamboo can grow sometimes up to 1.2 m a day and thus is a good storage of carbon dioxide. Its biomass production and carbon assimilation may be 7-30% higher than that of fast growing woody species according to researches conducted. This fast growing character can also be exploited to a large extent by using the species for re-greening of degradable lands. The typical root system of the plant also makes it an agent of erosion control and watershed protection. It also reduces heavy run off of rain water via its high litter fall and thus add to recharge of ground water table. Extensive use of bamboo for construction purposes may result in saving our gradually declining forest resources which is of utmost importance.

Climate change being the most talked over subject of the present century across the world, certainly needs particular attention for its mitigation. One of the basic causes of increasing atmospheric temperature of the globe is the ever rising concentration of green house gases of which carbon dioxide is an important one. A world-wide campaign has been started off late after the ‘Kyoto Protocol’ to reduce the emission of this gas in order to reduce the global warming and associated climate change. And the astonishing and yet less discussed fact is that bamboo is a good sink of this gas. It can also release 35% more oxygen than equivalent stands of trees. Reports have also been there that bamboo can sequester up to 12 tons of carbon from air per hectare which is definitely a huge potential. Again, more than 90% of Bamboo carbon can be sequestered in a range of durable products which are obviously long lasting and can store carbon for a long term. It can also be used as an alternative of fossil fuel which is another ‘green factor’ associated with this miracle plant.

With the concept of ‘Carbon Credit’ getting importance across the world day by day, it has become important that we discover newer means of reducing carbon dioxide emission. And in this case, north east has a good potential to earn carbon credit, if at all we can utilize the underlying ability of species like bamboo in order to sequester carbon. However, research is yet to gain momentum to discover ways of using the species for the same. So, a great responsibility lies on the part of the scientific community of the region as well as the government in this regard so that our green gold can be converted to a more golden resource for the region.