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SERIKALI INATAKA KUONA HALI YA USAFI KATIKA ZIWA VICTORIA INAKUWA ENDELEVU-WAZIRI JAFO

Mkurugenzi wa CSE, Dkt. Sunita Narain akizungumza katika uzinduzi wa Mpango Mkakati wa kusimamia Mazingira katika Ziwa Victoria. Uzinduzi huo umefanyika leo Julai 13,2022 Jijini Dar es Salaam. ************************** NA EMMANUEL MBATILO, DAR ES SALAAM Waziri wa Nchi Ofisi ya Makamu wa Rais (Muungano na Mazingira), Mhe. Dkt. Selemani Jafo amesema kuimirika kwa usafi wa mazingira kunapunguza kwa kiasi kikubwa mlipuko wa magonjwa mbalimbali hivyo wananchi kwa ujumla wanajukumu la kulinda na kutunza mazingira katika maeneo yanayowazunguka. Ameyasema hayo leo Julai 13,2022 Jijini Dar es Salaam wakati akizindua Mpango Mkakati wa kusimamia Mazingira katika Ziwa Victoria. Mpango huo unaratibiwa na Kituo cha Sayansi ya Mazingira Center for Science Environment (CSE) cha nchini India ambacho kimekuwa kikitafiti chanzo cha uchafuzi wa ziwa hilo na kutafuta majibu yake. Amesema Serikali inataka kuona hali ya usafi katika ziwa victoria inakuwa endelevu katika kipindi chote hata katika kipindi cha msimu wa mvua na kuwafanya wadau kuvutika zaidi. Aidha Waziri Jafo amesema ziwa Victoria limekuwa chanzo kikubwa cha maji ya Mto Nile ambao unategemewa na zaidi ya watu milioni 40 kwa shughuli mbalimbali za kiuchumi kwa kilimo na uvuvi. “Hili ziwa ni kubwa sana na linategemewa zaidi duniani kwasababu maji yake ndiyo uchumi wa wenzetu kwa hiyo ninapoona wadau kama nyinyi mnajitokeza kulilinda inanipa moyo sana, wenzetu Misri wanategemea sana mto Nile ambao unapata maji kupitia ziwa Victoria, ” Amesema Waziri Jafo. Pamoja na hayo Waziri Jafo amepongeza ushirikiano mwema uliopo baina ya serikali ya Tanzania na India ambayo alisema kwa sasa inafadhili miradi 28 ya maji yenye thamani ya zaidi ya trilioni moja kwenye mikoa mbalimbali nchini na tayari imeshaanza kujengwa. “Serikali ya India inatusaidia sana kwenye mambo mengi sasa ninapoona na nyinyi mmekuja kutusaidia kulinda ziwa Victoria dhidi ya uchafuzi wa mazingira yake inazidi kunipa amani ya moyo kwamba nyinyi ni ndugu zetu na mnapenda maendeleo yetu,” Amesema Kwa upande wake Mkurugenzi Mkuu wa Baraza la Taifa la Usimamizi na Uhifadhi wa Mazingira (NEMC), Dkt. Samuel Gwamaka, amesema Baraza lipo tayari kushirikiana na wadau mbalimbali katika shughuli za uhifadhi wa mazingira nchini. Amesema wanashirikiana katika kuandaa shughuli mbalimbali za kimazingira ikiwa ni pamoja na uandaaji wa Mpango Mkakati wa Usimamizi wa Mazingira kwa Ziwa Victoria na kwamba uandaaji wa mpango huo umezingatia miongozo mbalimbali ya nchi. “Uanzishaji wa mkakati huu ni jitihada za Baraza katika utekelezaji wa Mkakati Kabambe wa Mazingira wa Taifa wa Mwaka 2022/32 uliozinduliwa rasmi mwezi Juni 2022 na pia Ajenda ya Taifa ya Tafiti za Mazingira (2017/22),” Amesema Dkt.Gwamaka. Kwa upande wake, Mkurugenzi wa CSE, Dkt. Sunita Narain, alipongeza jitihada zinazofanywa na serikali kulinda na kuhifadhi mazingira na kwa namna ambavyo kituo hicho kimepata mapokezi mazuri. “Tunaishukuru serikali ya Tanzania kwa kutupokea vizuri tangu tulipofika nchini mwezi uliopita, tumetembelea ziwa Victoria kujionea hali ilivyo na tumeridhika kwa namna mikakati inavyowekwa kulilinda dhidi ya uchafuzi,” Amesema Dkt. Suniti.

WAZIRI JAFO AHIMIZA UTUNZAJI WA MAZINGIRA KATIKA ZIWA VICTORIA

NA EMMANUEL MBATILO, DAR ES SALAAM Waziri wa Nchi Ofisi ya Makamu wa Rais (Muungano na Mazingira), Mhe. Dkt. Selemani Jafo amesema kuimirika kwa usafi wa mazingira kunapunguza kwa kiasi kikubwa mlipuko wa magonjwa mbalimbali hivyo wananchi kwa ujumla wanajukumu la kulinda na kutunza mazingira katika maeneo yanayowazunguka. Ameyasema hayo leo Julai 13,2022 Jijini Dar es Salaam wakati akizindua Mpango Mkakati wa kusimamia Mazingira katika Ziwa Victoria. Mpango huo unaratibiwa na Kituo cha Sayansi ya Mazingira Center for Science Environment (CSE) cha nchini India ambacho kimekuwa kikitafiti chanzo cha uchafuzi wa ziwa hilo na kutafuta majibu yake. Amesema Serikali inataka kuona hali ya usafi katika ziwa victoria inakuwa endelevu katika kipindi chote hata katika kipindi cha msimu wa mvua na kuwafanya wadau kuvutika zaidi. Aidha Waziri Jafo amesema ziwa Victoria limekuwa chanzo kikubwa cha maji ya Mto Nile ambao unategemewa na zaidi ya watu milioni 40 kwa shughuli mbalimbali za kiuchumi kwa kilimo na uvuvi. “Hili ziwa ni kubwa sana na linategemewa zaidi duniani kwasababu maji yake ndiyo uchumi wa wenzetu kwa hiyo ninapoona wadau kama nyinyi mnajitokeza kulilinda inanipa moyo sana, wenzetu Misri wanategemea sana mto Nile ambao unapata maji kupitia ziwa Victoria, ” Amesema Waziri Jafo. Pamoja na hayo Waziri Jafo amepongeza ushirikiano mwema uliopo baina ya serikali ya Tanzania na India ambayo alisema kwa sasa inafadhili miradi 28 ya maji yenye thamani ya zaidi ya trilioni moja kwenye mikoa mbalimbali nchini na tayari imeshaanza kujengwa. “Serikali ya India inatusaidia sana kwenye mambo mengi sasa ninapoona na nyinyi mmekuja kutusaidia kulinda ziwa Victoria dhidi ya uchafuzi wa mazingira yake inazidi kunipa amani ya moyo kwamba nyinyi ni ndugu zetu na mnapenda maendeleo yetu,” Amesema Kwa upande wake Mkurugenzi Mkuu wa Baraza la Taifa la Usimamizi na Uhifadhi wa Mazingira (NEMC), Dkt. Samuel Gwamaka, amesema Baraza lipo tayari kushirikiana na wadau mbalimbali katika shughuli za uhifadhi wa mazingira nchini. Amesema wanashirikiana katika kuandaa shughuli mbalimbali za kimazingira ikiwa ni pamoja na uandaaji wa Mpango Mkakati wa Usimamizi wa Mazingira kwa Ziwa Victoria na kwamba uandaaji wa mpango huo umezingatia miongozo mbalimbali ya nchi. “Uanzishaji wa mkakati huu ni jitihada za Baraza katika utekelezaji wa Mkakati Kabambe wa Mazingira wa Taifa wa Mwaka 2022/32 uliozinduliwa rasmi mwezi Juni 2022 na pia Ajenda ya Taifa ya Tafiti za Mazingira (2017/22),” Amesema Dkt.Gwamaka. Kwa upande wake, Mkurugenzi wa CSE, Dkt. Sunita Narain, alipongeza jitihada zinazofanywa na serikali kulinda na kuhifadhi mazingira na kwa namna ambavyo kituo hicho kimepata mapokezi mazuri. “Tunaishukuru serikali ya Tanzania kwa kutupokea vizuri tangu tulipofika nchini mwezi uliopita, tumetembelea ziwa Victoria kujionea hali ilivyo na tumeridhika kwa namna mikakati inavyowekwa kulilinda dhidi ya uchafuzi,” Amesema Dkt. Suniti.

WAZIRI JAFO-KUIMARIKA KWA USAFI WA MAZINGIRA KUNAPUNGUZA KWA KIASI KIKUBWA MLIPUKO WA MAGONJWA

NA EMMANUEL MBATILO, DAR ES SALAAM Waziri wa Nchi Ofisi ya Makamu wa Rais (Muungano na Mazingira), Mhe. Dkt. Selemani Jafo amesema kuimirika kwa usafi wa mazingira kunapunguza kwa kiasi kikubwa mlipuko wa magonjwa mbalimbali hivyo wananchi kwa ujumla wanajukumu la kulinda na kutunza mazingira katika maeneo yanayowazunguka. Ameyasema hayo leo Julai 13,2022 Jijini Dar es Salaam wakati akizindua Mpango Mkakati wa kusimamia Mazingira katika Ziwa Victoria. Mpango huo unaratibiwa na Kituo cha Sayansi ya Mazingira Center for Science Environment (CSE) cha nchini India ambacho kimekuwa kikitafiti chanzo cha uchafuzi wa ziwa hilo na kutafuta majibu yake. Amesema Serikali inataka kuona hali ya usafi katika ziwa victoria inakuwa endelevu katika kipindi chote hata katika kipindi cha msimu wa mvua na kuwafanya wadau kuvutika zaidi. Aidha Waziri Jafo amesema ziwa Victoria limekuwa chanzo kikubwa cha maji ya Mto Nile ambao unategemewa na zaidi ya watu milioni 40 kwa shughuli mbalimbali za kiuchumi kwa kilimo na uvuvi. “Hili ziwa ni kubwa sana na linategemewa zaidi duniani kwasababu maji yake ndiyo uchumi wa wenzetu kwa hiyo ninapoona wadau kama nyinyi mnajitokeza kulilinda inanipa moyo sana, wenzetu Misri wanategemea sana mto Nile ambao unapata maji kupitia ziwa Victoria, ” Amesema Waziri Jafo. Pamoja na hayo Waziri Jafo amepongeza ushirikiano mwema uliopo baina ya serikali ya Tanzania na India ambayo alisema kwa sasa inafadhili miradi 28 ya maji yenye thamani ya zaidi ya trilioni moja kwenye mikoa mbalimbali nchini na tayari imeshaanza kujengwa. “Serikali ya India inatusaidia sana kwenye mambo mengi sasa ninapoona na nyinyi mmekuja kutusaidia kulinda ziwa Victoria dhidi ya uchafuzi wa mazingira yake inazidi kunipa amani ya moyo kwamba nyinyi ni ndugu zetu na mnapenda maendeleo yetu,” Amesema Kwa upande wake Mkurugenzi Mkuu wa Baraza la Taifa la Usimamizi na Uhifadhi wa Mazingira (NEMC), Dkt. Samuel Gwamaka, amesema Baraza lipo tayari kushirikiana na wadau mbalimbali katika shughuli za uhifadhi wa mazingira nchini. Amesema wanashirikiana katika kuandaa shughuli mbalimbali za kimazingira ikiwa ni pamoja na uandaaji wa Mpango Mkakati wa Usimamizi wa Mazingira kwa Ziwa Victoria na kwamba uandaaji wa mpango huo umezingatia miongozo mbalimbali ya nchi. “Uanzishaji wa mkakati huu ni jitihada za Baraza katika utekelezaji wa Mkakati Kabambe wa Mazingira wa Taifa wa Mwaka 2022/32 uliozinduliwa rasmi mwezi Juni 2022 na pia Ajenda ya Taifa ya Tafiti za Mazingira (2017/22),” Amesema Dkt.Gwamaka. Kwa upande wake, Mkurugenzi wa CSE, Dkt. Sunita Narain, alipongeza jitihada zinazofanywa na serikali kulinda na kuhifadhi mazingira na kwa namna ambavyo kituo hicho kimepata mapokezi mazuri. “Tunaishukuru serikali ya Tanzania kwa kutupokea vizuri tangu tulipofika nchini mwezi uliopita, tumetembelea ziwa Victoria kujionea hali ilivyo na tumeridhika kwa namna mikakati inavyowekwa kulilinda dhidi ya uchafuzi,” Amesema Dkt. Suniti.

WAZIRI JAFO AHIMIZA UTUNZAJI WA MAZINGIRA KATIKA ZIWA VICTORIA

NA EMMANUEL MBATILO, DAR ES SALAAM Waziri wa Nchi Ofisi ya Makamu wa Rais (Muungano na Mazingira), Mhe. Dkt. Selemani Jafo amesema kuimirika kwa usafi wa mazingira kunapunguza kwa kiasi kikubwa mlipuko wa magonjwa mbalimbali hivyo wananchi kwa ujumla wanajukumu la kulinda na kutunza mazingira katika maeneo yanayowazunguka. Ameyasema hayo leo Julai 13,2022 Jijini Dar es Salaam wakati akizindua Mpango Mkakati wa kusimamia Mazingira katika Ziwa Victoria. Mpango huo unaratibiwa na Kituo cha Sayansi ya Mazingira Center for Science Environment (CSE) cha nchini India ambacho kimekuwa kikitafiti chanzo cha uchafuzi wa ziwa hilo na kutafuta majibu yake. Amesema Serikali inataka kuona hali ya usafi katika ziwa victoria inakuwa endelevu katika kipindi chote hata katika kipindi cha msimu wa mvua na kuwafanya wadau kuvutika zaidi. Aidha Waziri Jafo amesema ziwa Victoria limekuwa chanzo kikubwa cha maji ya Mto Nile ambao unategemewa na zaidi ya watu milioni 40 kwa shughuli mbalimbali za kiuchumi kwa kilimo na uvuvi. “Hili ziwa ni kubwa sana na linategemewa zaidi duniani kwasababu maji yake ndiyo uchumi wa wenzetu kwa hiyo ninapoona wadau kama nyinyi mnajitokeza kulilinda inanipa moyo sana, wenzetu Misri wanategemea sana mto Nile ambao unapata maji kupitia ziwa Victoria, ” Amesema Waziri Jafo. Pamoja na hayo Waziri Jafo amepongeza ushirikiano mwema uliopo baina ya serikali ya Tanzania na India ambayo alisema kwa sasa inafadhili miradi 28 ya maji yenye thamani ya zaidi ya trilioni moja kwenye mikoa mbalimbali nchini na tayari imeshaanza kujengwa. “Serikali ya India inatusaidia sana kwenye mambo mengi sasa ninapoona na nyinyi mmekuja kutusaidia kulinda ziwa Victoria dhidi ya uchafuzi wa mazingira yake inazidi kunipa amani ya moyo kwamba nyinyi ni ndugu zetu na mnapenda maendeleo yetu,” Amesema Kwa upande wake Mkurugenzi Mkuu wa Baraza la Taifa la Usimamizi na Uhifadhi wa Mazingira (NEMC), Dkt. Samuel Gwamaka, amesema Baraza lipo tayari kushirikiana na wadau mbalimbali katika shughuli za uhifadhi wa mazingira nchini. Amesema wanashirikiana katika kuandaa shughuli mbalimbali za kimazingira ikiwa ni pamoja na uandaaji wa Mpango Mkakati wa Usimamizi wa Mazingira kwa Ziwa Victoria na kwamba uandaaji wa mpango huo umezingatia miongozo mbalimbali ya nchi. “Uanzishaji wa mkakati huu ni jitihada za Baraza katika utekelezaji wa Mkakati Kabambe wa Mazingira wa Taifa wa Mwaka 2022/32 uliozinduliwa rasmi mwezi Juni 2022 na pia Ajenda ya Taifa ya Tafiti za Mazingira (2017/22),” Amesema Dkt.Gwamaka. Kwa upande wake, Mkurugenzi wa CSE, Dkt. Sunita Narain, alipongeza jitihada zinazofanywa na serikali kulinda na kuhifadhi mazingira na kwa namna ambavyo kituo hicho kimepata mapokezi mazuri. “Tunaishukuru serikali ya Tanzania kwa kutupokea vizuri tangu tulipofika nchini mwezi uliopita, tumetembelea ziwa Victoria kujionea hali ilivyo na tumeridhika kwa namna mikakati inavyowekwa kulilinda dhidi ya uchafuzi,” Amesema Dkt. Suniti.

WAZIRI JAFO AZINDUA MPANGO MKAKATI WA KUSIMAMIA MAZINGIRA KATIKA ZIWA VICTORIA

NA EMMANUEL MBATILO, DAR ES SALAAM Waziri wa Nchi Ofisi ya Makamu wa Rais (Muungano na Mazingira), Mhe. Dkt. Selemani Jafo amesema kuimirika kwa usafi wa mazingira kunapunguza kwa kiasi kikubwa mlipuko wa magonjwa mbalimbali hivyo wananchi kwa ujumla wanajukumu la kulinda na kutunza mazingira katika maeneo yanayowazunguka. Ameyasema hayo leo Julai 13,2022 Jijini Dar es Salaam wakati akizindua Mpango Mkakati wa kusimamia Mazingira katika Ziwa Victoria. Mpango huo unaratibiwa na Kituo cha Sayansi ya Mazingira Center for Science Environment (CSE) cha nchini India ambacho kimekuwa kikitafiti chanzo cha uchafuzi wa ziwa hilo na kutafuta majibu yake. Amesema Serikali inataka kuona hali ya usafi katika ziwa victoria inakuwa endelevu katika kipindi chote hata katika kipindi cha msimu wa mvua na kuwafanya wadau kuvutika zaidi. Aidha Waziri Jafo amesema ziwa Victoria limekuwa chanzo kikubwa cha maji ya Mto Nile ambao unategemewa na zaidi ya watu milioni 40 kwa shughuli mbalimbali za kiuchumi kwa kilimo na uvuvi. “Hili ziwa ni kubwa sana na linategemewa zaidi duniani kwasababu maji yake ndiyo uchumi wa wenzetu kwa hiyo ninapoona wadau kama nyinyi mnajitokeza kulilinda inanipa moyo sana, wenzetu Misri wanategemea sana mto Nile ambao unapata maji kupitia ziwa Victoria, ” Amesema Waziri Jafo. Pamoja na hayo Waziri Jafo amepongeza ushirikiano mwema uliopo baina ya serikali ya Tanzania na India ambayo alisema kwa sasa inafadhili miradi 28 ya maji yenye thamani ya zaidi ya trilioni moja kwenye mikoa mbalimbali nchini na tayari imeshaanza kujengwa. “Serikali ya India inatusaidia sana kwenye mambo mengi sasa ninapoona na nyinyi mmekuja kutusaidia kulinda ziwa Victoria dhidi ya uchafuzi wa mazingira yake inazidi kunipa amani ya moyo kwamba nyinyi ni ndugu zetu na mnapenda maendeleo yetu,” Amesema Kwa upande wake Mkurugenzi Mkuu wa Baraza la Taifa la Usimamizi na Uhifadhi wa Mazingira (NEMC), Dkt. Samuel Gwamaka, amesema Baraza lipo tayari kushirikiana na wadau mbalimbali katika shughuli za uhifadhi wa mazingira nchini. Amesema wanashirikiana katika kuandaa shughuli mbalimbali za kimazingira ikiwa ni pamoja na uandaaji wa Mpango Mkakati wa Usimamizi wa Mazingira kwa Ziwa Victoria na kwamba uandaaji wa mpango huo umezingatia miongozo mbalimbali ya nchi. “Uanzishaji wa mkakati huu ni jitihada za Baraza katika utekelezaji wa Mkakati Kabambe wa Mazingira wa Taifa wa Mwaka 2022/32 uliozinduliwa rasmi mwezi Juni 2022 na pia Ajenda ya Taifa ya Tafiti za Mazingira (2017/22),” Amesema Dkt.Gwamaka. Kwa upande wake, Mkurugenzi wa CSE, Dkt. Sunita Narain, alipongeza jitihada zinazofanywa na serikali kulinda na kuhifadhi mazingira na kwa namna ambavyo kituo hicho kimepata mapokezi mazuri. “Tunaishukuru serikali ya Tanzania kwa kutupokea vizuri tangu tulipofika nchini mwezi uliopita, tumetembelea ziwa Victoria kujionea hali ilivyo na tumeridhika kwa namna mikakati inavyowekwa kulilinda dhidi ya uchafuzi,” Amesema Dkt. Suniti.

The Mysteriously Low Death Toll of the Heat Waves in India and Pakistan

It’s the monsoon now in India, which means it is possible to look back on the extraordinary succession of heat waves that swept across South Asia starting this spring — and begin, at least, to take stock of their impact. From late March through the end of June, a period of almost 100 days, high temperatures in Delhi were above 100 degrees Fahrenheit on all but 15 of them, with many days breaking 110 degrees. For large parts of those months, the punishing heat stretched over much of the subcontinent, often blanketing more than a billion people and in certain places crossing 122 degrees. In May, the World Weather Attribution initiative, a research alliance connecting extreme events to global warming in real time, declared that the initial wave had been made 30 times more likely by climate change. And the heat kept coming. For more than a decade, scientists have talked about an “upper limit” of human survivability, reached when the combination of heat and humidity produces what’s called a “wet-bulb temperature” of 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit) for six hours — above that level, it is believed that exposure would kill even young, healthy people. But at lower wet-bulb readings, and even in low-humidity extreme heat, health suffers too, especially among those with other vulnerabilities, exacerbating all kinds of conditions (not to mention damaging infrastructure, driving power outages, and limiting labor productivity). A more recent set of studies even suggested the maximum wet-bulb threshold might be lower for humans — as low as 31 degrees Celsius (88 degrees Fahrenheit) at 100 percent humidity or 38 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit) at 60 percent humidity. For the vulnerable, of course, the effects hit much sooner. The monthslong heat in South Asia breached these levels at several points. In Jacobabad, Pakistan, a small city of less than 200,000, wet-bulb temperatures briefly hit 91.4 in May. Late last month, with the monsoon bringing humidity with them, the wet-bulb in Delhi, where almost 20 million people live, reportedly reached as high as 92.7. The readings produced a wave of climate panic: Berkeley Earth’s Robert Rohde warned “this heat wave is likely to kill thousands,” and The Washington Post reported “India’s heat waves are testing the limits of human survival.” (I had the same worry, as did others at The Times, The Economist, the World Economic Forum and elsewhere.) And yet while there have been casualties and brutal effects, these events do not yet appear to have caused mass death. An early estimate of the death toll was just 90 across India and Pakistan, a fraction of the more than 1,000 killed by the heat dome that struck the Pacific Northwest (including western Canada) last summer, where lower temperatures hit millions for a much shorter period of time. (In Seattle, it was above 100 for only three days, with a peak of 108; in Portland, it reached 116.) It’s an even smaller fraction of the number who died in the 2003 and 2010 heat waves in Europe and Russia, which killed 70,000 and 55,000. In those heat waves, only a handful of places crossed 104 degrees Fahrenheit. According to Dr. Chandni Singh, a senior researcher at the Indian Institute for Human Settlements and a lead author of the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change chapter on adaptation, it’s likely that this year’s heat event in India will not even be as lethal as one there in 2015 when high temperatures across the country killed several thousand. When I spoke to the Indian climate activist Disha Ravi, she described recent floods — which have killed more than 100 across India and Bangladesh, and displaced many millions — as a more pressing climate matter locally and the one that had been preoccupying her much more, recently, than the heat. What explains the relatively low death toll in India and Pakistan from the recent heat? It is still too early to say definitively. That goes double given the limited data about all the impacts of the heat wave — not just on human health, but also on agriculture, labor and economic activity, and more. But the question is a hugely consequential one: About a fifth of the human population was just subjected to almost unimaginably long-lasting extreme heat, and the ultimate toll, if we can accurately assess it, will tell us quite a lot about how some of us might suffer through the future climate. If the current pattern continues to hold, with fuller calculations showing a still relatively limited impact, five hypotheses provide at least partial explanations: problems with data; the dryness of the heat wave; local adaptation and response; that the hottest parts of the world may already be relatively acclimated to extreme heat; and that our casual use of “wet-bulb” readings may be misleading about actual mortality risk. (The brutal, long-duration experience also suggests some important caveats.) First, the official death count is an undercount. This was the interpretation offered to me by Dr. Friederike Otto, of World Weather Attribution, in May; by Kathy Baughman-McLeod, director of the Atlantic Council’s Arsht-Rockefeller Resilience Center, in June; and by Avikal Somvanshi, of India’s Center for Science and the Environment, in July. In fact, it was the first thing mentioned by everyone I spoke to, in India and Pakistan and elsewhere, when discussing the toll of the heat wave. Heat is something of an epistemological and epidemiological challenge to doctors and coroners, even in places most conscientious about data collection. That’s because few deaths even under the most extreme temperature conditions present obviously as heat stress; mostly, fatalities accrue when underlying conditions are exacerbated or made worse by the additional strain. Aditya Valiathan Pillai, an associate fellow at India’s Center for Policy Research, went to emergency rooms “just to see if the fact that nothing was popping up in the media about people dying was true or whether it was sort of a mortality whitewash, the way we saw with Covid,” he said. “And universally, I went to government hospitals and they said, we did see a steady uptake in the number of people showing up, but very few deaths. Then again, all of them raised their hands and said, we don’t really actually know how to count a heat death. And so we’re not entirely sure.” A full accounting of the toll of any heat wave requires “excess mortality data” — overall accounting of how many people died in a given period above a baseline average — but compiling that can take months, wherever the extreme event hits. Without it, Baughman-McLeod said, “we don’t know how many, because we don’t count properly. The data collection isn’t there — whether in India or in the U.S.” For his part, Somvanshi estimates that the ultimate toll of these heat waves will be “at least twice than what is officially reported. But based on the available information, it will most probably be much more than twice.” A simple doubling of data still yields a relatively low estimate; getting even to the 2015 toll in India would require something like a 20-fold adjustment. To get to the mortality levels of the European heat waves, a much larger adjustment still. Second, for mortality, humidity matters enormously. “Humid heat is more dangerous to human health and well-being than dry heat,” Somvanshi said. Through much of the heat wave, the temperatures were alarmingly high but humidity relatively low — making those truly concerning wet-bulb readings relatively rare and brief, even through the oppressively hot spring. And when temperatures are high but humidity is low, the burden is more manageable — in part because it is, in certain ways, familiar. In India and Pakistan, the temperatures of the past few months were record-breaking when they happened, for the late spring, but not unheard-of in a typical Indian summer. That made them, for Somvanshi, “unusual from the climate perspective, but from people’s perspective, in Delhi and even most of northern India, we are used to having 40-plus during the summer. It’s just that for us, it happened a little earlier. So, as people, we were kind of surprised, but not very much concerned or disturbed by it.” But he noted that the traditionally drier parts of the country are increasingly getting more humid, and the traditionally humid parts of the country are getting hotter — and this year’s monsoon has not brought all that much relief. In Delhi, he said, “If you take the combined impact of humidity and heat of temperature, then it’s much worse conditions right now than it was in March and April or even May. And that’s something which doesn’t capture the media attention.” Third, cultural practices and adaptation are playing a role — though there is still a long way to go. When projecting heat impacts, both immediate and longer term, it is easy enough to assume an essentially passive population: You take what you know the future holds and calculate the impact that would have on the world as it is today. The result is an intuitive picture of climate horror that has informed both some scientific projections of the next decades and popular dramatizations like the one that opens Kim Stanley Robinson’s novel “The Ministry for the Future.” But while visions of quasi-apocalypse often center on India, where climate impacts are projected to be especially intense, that conceptual modeling is both patronizing and “fatalistic,” said Tim Sahay, a Mumbai-born climate policy expert. He pointed me to research showing a shrinking number of deaths due to heat on the subcontinent and a number of interventions that could further reduce vulnerability. “We’re not going to die for your narrative,” he said. And if your conception of adaptation is just air-conditioning, with all the energy complications that brings, the South Asia heat wave suggests a broader spectrum of response, beginning with simple awareness. “The most obvious thing apart from the heat itself has been the reaction to the heat, which is quite unprecedented,” Pillai said. “It was a media maelstrom, in the sense that every newspaper had at least a couple of op-eds. The TV news picked it up.” “I think in terms of providing some kind of warning of heat and just public awareness and messaging around that from the government — that’s improved,” Dr. Singh agreed, referring to “people going to specifically low-income settlements and telling them that you need to stay out of the heat and all of that.” “The public conversation around heat — typically, in India, at least earlier years and even earlier decades — used to be that we are Indians, we know heat, we know how to deal with heat,” she said. “But that kind of bravado — false bravado, I think — has changed this year. The problem is, that only gets you so far. You can cope with it. You can maybe protect yourself, if you have the means to. But if you are living in a house that has no cooling and you have to go outdoors to work, there’s not much that warning can do.” The available tools are familiar across the subcontinent: schedule shifting for those who can do so; different diet and drinks and, of course, regular hydration; lighter clothing; simple ways of cooling the home with wet sheets. But at the scale of policy intervention, the response is still lacking, said Dr. Singh, who mentioned both short-term interventions, like widespread behavioral and labor changes during episodes of extreme heat, and longer-term ones, like revisions to building codes and urban planning. After the 2015 heat waves, India embraced the goal of what are called heat action plans, at both the national and local levels. But many of those remain unenforced or undeveloped, depending on the region and municipality. “The country currently has no adaptation or resilience plan for heat right now. There is nothing on paper,” Somvanshi said. “We have a document which talks about emergency response, which is very different than trying to adapt and become resilient.” Fourth, the world’s hottest countries may be less vulnerable to heat, relatively speaking, than simple heuristics suggest. In recent decades, the deadliest heat waves have been not in the hottest countries but those less familiar with heat — those 2003 and 2010 heat waves in Europe, for instance, where extreme temperatures met populations unaccustomed to dealing with them. This is probably not a coincidence. Matthew Huber at Purdue is among the world’s leading authorities on heat stress and heat mortality — it was his 2010 paper, co-authored with Steven Sherwood, that introduced the idea of that upper limit of human survivability. But in thinking about heat vulnerability, he said, it is a mistake to assume that all places are equally at risk in the face of equal temperatures. That’s because much of the equatorial band of the planet is already “acclimatized” — both culturally and, to some degree, physically — to temperatures that would in the northern latitudes produce widespread heat mortality. Unfortunately, he said, much of the scientific literature on these questions doesn’t deal with acclimatization sufficiently, drawing on research conducted in places without much experience of extreme heat. “The problem is, when you go and look at the database, it’s Northern Europe, Canada,” he said. “In Africa, it’s just South Africa. Nothing in China. Nothing in India, I don’t think. Most of the places that actually experience heat stress aren’t in the heat database. There’s a lot of studies that are using this database and the correlations that come out of it to generalize. And those are almost certainly very wrong, because none of these are people who are acclimated to heat stress.” That means we can’t make easy generalizations about how people in different places with different levels of experience with heat will handle an extreme event — and we probably underestimate resilience in the hottest parts of the world. And fifth, heat beyond the limit of human survivability may be farther off than headlines have suggested. The wet-bulb temperatures in South Asia this spring have been called “unsurvivable.” But in a lot of coverage, the complexities and nuances of wet-bulb measures are lost, Huber said. To begin with, there are two ways of calculating those figures, yielding slightly different figures and implying somewhat different warning points. More significantly, those calculating wet-bulb temperatures using simplified calculators often input daily averages for both heat and humidity, though averages misrepresent the way each changes over the course of the day, in part in response to each other, since variations in heat and humidity typically counteract each other over the course of the day. The result is wet-bulb figures that seem scarier than conditions on the ground really warrant. Sometimes, the daily maximums are used to make a calculation, which yields an especially extreme and misleading picture: Since heat and humidity counteract each other, it is almost never the case that peaks will be reached simultaneously, and simply inaccurate to use a calculation based on maximum readings to suggest a continuous wet-bulb level for any period. And while media reports may take a brief wet-bulb peak and compare it with a six-hour threshold, the length of time truly matters. “If it’s just an hour or two or three, the effects on people are not going to be particularly big,” Huber said. “I mean, you can hang out in an oven for 15 minutes without dying.” Which brings us to the caveats: Death is not the only measure of suffering when it comes to heat, and mortality data, while important, tells only a partial story. This spring, wheat yields were reduced in India between 10 percent and 15 percent, according to official estimates; in Pakistan, the effect was similar. In certain regions, the impact was as big as 30 percent. Livestock died. Infrastructure suffered, including a bridge in Pakistan that collapsed when heat caused glacial melt that caused a flood. There were widespread blackouts and electricity shortages across the subcontinent, triggered in part by the additional demand from those privileged enough to afford some kind of cooling. School days were shortened and in some places, schools closed. “We are witnessing something that people cannot cope with, even at the present level of global warming,” said Fahad Saeed of Climate Analytics, who is based in Islamabad, Pakistan. He mentioned the scrambled weather patterns: One year heat and drought, and the next, flooding. In some years there were even biblical locust swarms, as in the summer of 2020, with 10 billion locusts descending on South Asia and eating up its cropland, 8,000 times more locusts than normal. He mentioned people he’d seen abandon their fast during Ramadan because the practice was too difficult to sustain in periods of such intense heat. And he mentioned a farmer he’d visited recently, who’d decided to not even bother to plant three-quarters of his land, given the weather conditions. What would happen if the world crossed the 1.5 degree Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) global warming threshold, Saeed asked, shaking his head. “Anything beyond that? It would even be more devastating.”

How single-use plastics ban in India will impact health, environment

On the first day of July India’s nationwide ban on single-use plastics comes into effect. The move is aimed at combating the worsening environmental pollution in the country of 1.39 billion people. With the order, 19 items of single-use plastics that have low utility and a high potential to become litter will be phased out. These items include earbuds with plastic sticks, plastic sticks for balloons, plastic flags, candy sticks, ice-cream sticks, polystyrene (Thermocol) for decoration, plastic plates, cups, glasses, cutlery such as forks, spoons, knives, straws, trays, wrapping or packing films around sweet boxes, invitation cards, cigarette packets, plastic or PVC banners less than 100 micron, stirrers. The ban makes these items illegal to sell, produce, import, stock or distribute. Thousands of other plastic products such as plastic bottles, are not covered by the ban. Plastic manufacturers had appealed to the Indian government to delay the ban, citing inflation and potential job losses. Even firms dealing with food and beverages had lobbied for straws to be exempted from the ban arguing they did not get adequate time to prepare for the restriction. PLASTIC WASTE In India, the world’s second-most populous country, plastic waste has become a significant source of pollution. The rapid economic growth and the increasing demand for goods that come with single-use plastic products are making things worse. According to India’s federal environment minister Bhupender Yadav, India is generating 3.5 million tonnes of plastic waste annually and the per capita plastic waste generation has almost doubled over the last five years. India lacks an organised system for managing plastic waste, which is precisely the reason behind widespread littering across the country’s villages, towns and cities. Heaps of plastic goods eventually choke drains and rivers and often find their way into the oceans. It has also become a reason for animal deaths across the country. Some estimates say almost 15 percent of plastic is burnt, which emits hazardous chemicals such as dioxins, furans, mercury and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) into the atmosphere, thus endangering the lives of animals and plants. Apart from this, the burning of plastic contributes significantly to air pollution and primarily exposes residents living close to the dumpsites to a greater risk of getting respiratory ailments and cancer. DOUBTS OVER IMPLEMENTATION Though people hail the government’s move and say the ban is a definite boost, enforcing it across the country is a real challenge for authorities. Rouf Ahmad, a resident of the northern Indian city of Chandigarh said the ban is a “good beginning, but its success will depend much on how perfectly it is implemented.” “Even in the past, we have seen the employees from the local municipal bodies doing the market checks and then seizing the polythene bags occasionally. But that proved less effective as vendors and shopkeepers continued to sell their commodities in the new polythene bags procured freely from the market,” Ahmad said. The government this time has decided to set up control rooms to check any illegal use, sale and distribution of single-use plastic products. In the Indian capital city, the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) has set up a control room for the implementation of the ban on single-use plastic items and has said that it will shut down units violating the ban. The Delhi government has constituted at least 48 teams who will ensure the enforcement of the ban on plastic products by conducting surprise inspections across the city. National and state-level control rooms will also be set up and special enforcement teams will be formed for checking the illegal manufacture, import, stocking, distribution, sale and use of banned plastic items. States have been asked to set up border checkpoints to stop the interstate movement of any banned items. IMPACT OF PLASTIC ON HEALTH, ENVIRONMENT According to the United Nations, plastic waste is at epidemic proportions in the world’s oceans, with an estimated 100 million tonnes dumped in the large bodies of water on earth. Scientists studying the marine water bodies have found huge amounts of microplastic in the intestines of deep-dwelling ocean mammals like whales. According to India’s federal ministry of environment the adverse impacts of littered single-use plastic items on both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, including in the marine environment, is globally recognized. The ministry says addressing pollution due to single-use plastic items has become an important environmental challenge confronting all countries. “Only a minuscule amount of plastics is recycled or destroyed in waste-to-energy facilities. Most end up in landfills, where they can take up to 1,000-plus years to decompose,” argues Bhupender Yadav. “Worse, plastics release toxic substances that leach into the soil and water. As they decompose, plastic breaks down into tiny pieces that eventually become microplastics. Newer research shows the presence of microplastics in soils, freshwater, and even the air we breathe. This is a matter of grave concern.” Scientists are still trying to assess the risks posed by the tiny bits of broken-down plastic, known as microplastics. The almost nonexistent waste management system across India’s burgeoning cities and villages means that much of this waste is not treated and is dumped in landfill sites. It ends up polluting the environment. In addition, thousands of other plastic products like bottles for water or carbonated drinks and juices or bags of chips are not encompassed in the ban. “The fact is that the current ban on single-use plastics is too limited, though it is a critical step to control the menace. We do not need to be warned about the problem. We live it every day,” writes Sunita Narain, a Delhi-based environmentalist and editor of the environmental magazine Down to Earth. “Our cities are littered with non-biodegradable plastic material, and it is greatly adding to environmental stress and degradation. The way ahead is to ensure that ubiquitous plastic items in our daily lives are recycled or disposed of safely.” INNOVATION TO FIND ALTERNATIVES The ban on single-use plastic will encourage ways for innovations to find alternatives. The alternatives will be explored to come up with products that are plant-based and rapidly biodegradable. The need to find replacements is expected to encourage the use of bamboo, paper, or metal straws to replace plastic straws. Even edible straws and spoons such as pasta straws or rice straws or spoons made from multi-grain flour can be used. Plastic shopping bags can be replaced with reusable cloth bags in a bid to cut down on the usage of plastics to improve the earth’s sustainability and public health, experts said.

Governments Were Given Credible Warnings about Lockdown Harms but Didn’t Listen

As countries emerge from the Dystopia of lockdown restrictions, there’s growing awareness of the phenomenon of excess deaths, for example in the UK and Australia. On July 8, The Daily Mail (UK) reported that collateral damage of lockdowns is killing 1,000 people per week in England and Wales. There is also rising awareness of government excesses in violating freedoms and liberties. In a global survey of 52,000 people by the Democracy Perceptions Index, in 50 of the 53 countries surveyed, people expressed net agreement (that is, agreement minus disagreement) with the proposition: “their government has gone too far in limiting people’s freedoms.” Authorities and lockdown advocates accuse critics of 20/20 hindsight and insist they did the best they could with limited information in the midst of a once-in-a-century pandemic. Such a revisionist narrative must not be allowed to take hold. The remarkable thing is how much of the collateral damage was predicted quite early into the lockdowns. One can understand why the lockdown, mask and vaccine fanatics want everyone to forget their hatred and demonization of all dissenting voices and demand that the sceptics be removed from the public square. But both in the interests of justice and to avoid a repetition of the criminal mistakes, they must not be allowed to whitewash the past and rewrite history. Existing Scientific Consensus Trashed The belief in public health experts and authorities in their ability to halt a pandemic, and eradicate a respiratory virus through societal interventions defied historical experience, scientific consensus as summarized in a WHO report in October 2019, and existing national pandemic plans in most countries that had taken the trouble to prepare one in advance. The WHO report was foreshadowed in a 2006 study by a Johns Hopkins University team whose final paragraph concluded with this “overriding principle:” “Experience has shown that communities faced with epidemics… respond best and with the least anxiety when the normal social functioning of the community is least disrupted.” Deferred Screening and Cancelled Operations Instead lockdowns ensured that normal social functioning was maximally disrupted. Their net benefits remain debatable but their massive harms, starting with adverse health outcomes, are the more easily documented. With elective surgeries and routine screenings suspended, many diseases like cancer, diabetes and heart disease that are treatable if caught in time stayed undetected, dramatically escalating the death toll from non-Covid cases. In the UK, 117,000 people on the National Health Service’s (NHS) multi-million-long waiting lists had died by July 2022, almost two-thirds the total Covid toll of 180,000 dead. Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter of Cambridge University said the UK’s weekly toll of 1,000 non-Covid excess deaths could be the “impact of measures against the pandemic and the disruption in healthcare.” Paul Hunter, an infectious disease expert at the University of East Anglia, blamed it on the backlogs for routine treatment and soaring A&E waits. Early in the pandemic, reports from reputable bodies contained graphic and mutually reinforcing warnings about the deadly consequences of severe lockdown measures. On May 29, 2020, Zaria Gorvett reported for the BBC Future program that most Covid deaths would be not from the virus but from the collateral damage inflicted by the various lockdown measures. “Across the globe, patients have reported being denied cancer care, kidney dialysis and urgent transplant surgeries, with sometimes fatal results,” she said. How many of the nearly two million new cancers each year in the US, as also heart, kidney, liver, and pulmonary illnesses, would go undetected for months because routine screenings and appointments were put on hold? Americans at risk from these illnesses numbered 70-80 million. At 1% excess fatality in this group caused by shortages in personnel, supply and equipment resulting from the economic shutdowns, Rob Arnott warned in a RealClearPolitics commentary on March 24, 2020, another 750,000 Americans would die from a policy that was meant to shield the health system but instead had partially crippled it. A report in The Financial Times on April 26, 2020 referenced an internal British government estimate that ultimately, without mitigation, up to 150,000 people in the UK could die prematurely from other conditions because of the Covid-induced lockdown that put on hold huge numbers of screenings and operations. Professor Karol Sikora, a consultant oncologist with the NHS, estimated up to 50,000 more UK deaths from cancer with a six-month lockdown, owing to the pause in health screenings. To add to the public policy insanity, the anti-scientific lockdowns barred people from some healthy lifestyle options like strolling and exercising in open air parks and beaches and instead cooped them up in high-risk environments like homes in high-density living complexes. The Guardian reported on May 9, 2020 that there had been 6,546 more non-Covid-19 deaths at homes across Britain compared with the seasonal five-year average. Mental Health Several early warnings were issued also about the mental health costs of lockdown measures with increased loneliness, mental anxiety and emotional distress at job losses, financial stress and forced family separations. A 2014 study in Social Science and Medicine by Timothy J. Halliday showed that a 1% rise in the unemployment rate raises the risk of dying by 6% over the following year. According to the Federal Reserve’s James Bullard, who supports the Covid-19 shutdown measures as an investment in public health and survival, unemployment could climb to 30%. (US unemployment during the Great Depression was around 25%.) An article published in Lancet Psychiatry on April 15, 2020 cautioned of profound and pervasive fallout on mental health caused by loneliness and anxiety during lockdowns. The Washington Post reported on May 4 warnings from US authorities and experts of an approaching “historic wave” of mental health problems caused by the months-long Covid-19-related “daily doses of death, isolation and fear.” Dr. Mike deBoisblanc from the John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek, California said on May 22: “we’ve seen a year’s worth of suicide attempts in the last four weeks.” Four in 10 British psychiatrists reported “an increase in people needing urgent and emergency mental healthcare – including new patients – in the wake of the lockdown,” with 18-25-year old men having been badly affected by first-time mental health issues. The Royal College of Psychiatrists reported a sixfold increase in suicide attempts by the elderly because of depression and anxiety caused by social isolation during the lockdown. Still in May 2020, Australia’s top mental health experts warned that a lockdown-induced 50 percent jump in suicides could kill ten times as many as the virus. Global Poverty, Hunger, and Starvation A spate of reports from Goldman Sachs, the International Labour Organization, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and the World Trade Organization warned of dramatic decelerations and contractions in GDP and trade from the pre-pandemic forecasts, with a resulting ballooning of poverty, job losses, and income falls. Of course, from the start it was known that the impact of global shutdowns would be particularly devastating on the poorer countries. On April 9, 2020, Oxfam warned that the lockdown-induced economic crisis could push an extra 400-600 million people into poverty, the first rise in poverty in 30 years. A UN report warned that economic hardship caused by pandemic mitigation measures could cause “hundreds of thousands of additional child deaths in 2020, reversing the last 2 to 3 years of progress in reducing infant mortality.” Across 143 low-income countries, for example, 369 million children who normally relied on school meals for their daily nutritional needs had to find substitutes with schools closed. In the same month, the UN’s World Food Programme warned that disruptions to crop production and food distribution risked famines of “biblical proportions” with the number of people suffering from acute hunger nearly doubling from 135 million to 250 million. A study by the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health warned that infant mortality could increase by 1.2 million, and maternal mortality by 56,700, because of disrupted health services. In May, Professors Jay Bhattacharya and Mikko Packalen estimated the lockdowns’ enduring global economic impact could “end up taking nearly six million young lives in the coming decade” in developing countries. A study in South Africa in the same month feared the lockdowns could kill 29 times more people than it saves. There was a sharp surge in child trafficking in India following lockdowns. Westerners have largely forgotten what “hand-to-mouth” existence means, when the sole breadwinner must earn daily wages to buy food for the family, including young children and elderly parents. With lockdowns for months without end, children were inevitably put at risk of being trafficked into labour bondage, street begging and sexual slavery. Widespread poverty diminishes the state’s capacity to provide adequate nutrition needs of its people and being malnourished makes people more vulnerable to diseases. The lockdowns had the potential to cripple India’s already struggling economy, a BBC report warned on April 3, 2020, ballooning the unemployment crisis, destroying the livelihoods of daily wage workers, forcing thousands of inter-state migrant workers to return home under highly stressful conditions, distressing the agricultural sector, and causing massive food wastage with broken supply lines. With less than 10% of India’s workforce in regular, salaried employment, millions feared that “hunger may kill us before coronavirus.” How exactly, for example, was a manual (non-motorized) rickshawallah meant to earn his daily money to feed his family during a 21-day shutdown? The lockdowns also put women at elevated risk of domestic violence. With two years of lost schooling, children were left unsocialized and far more exposed to viruses against which most would in normal years have acquired immunity. Lockdowns forced 500 million children around the world out of school and more than half of them are in India. Pointing this out on the release of a new report, Dr. Sunita Narain, Director General of the Centre for Science and Environment, said that more than half the world’s additional 115 million people pushed back into extreme poverty live in South Asia. India, she said, was all set to usher in a 375 million-strong “pandemic generation” of children up to age 14 who are likely to suffer long-lasting impacts like increased child mortality, being underweight and stunted, and educational and work-productivity reversals. The last report was dated February 2021 but covered what had happened over 2020. The other reports are mostly from March–May 2020. Furthermore, they are all from reputable institutions, organizations and experts. There is simply no excuse for authorities to have turned a blind eye to this wealth of urgent warnings on the dangers on the lockdown paths. Instead of conducting and publishing rigorous cost-benefit analyses, departments and ministries of health turned into Covid-only bureaus, health ministers acted like Covid ministers, and governments were almost corrupted into single-purpose organizations pursuing Zero Covid. For that monomaniacal devotion to a policy that has brought little lasting health benefit but caused massive health, mental health, civil liberties, social and economic damage, the authors and enforcers of the policy of interventions must be held to account.

Rainwater harvesting: Delhi’s focus moves from rooftops to public parks and other open spaces

“3424 million litres run-off quantity is the missed potential, which sometimes becomes a liability in the city,” says the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), the Delhi-based pro-environmental think-tank that has long been making a case for rainwater harvesting in parks and open spaces. “If managed efficiently, the run-off can be stored, recharged and moderated during peak rainfall”. Delhi has had a bad water year this summer. Even the “piaos” that many large hearted people set up outside their homes in different parts of the city to distribute water have gone dry this year, The gap between demand and supply has been widening year after year — a fact well known to the Delhi Jal Board. There’s been a continuous war of words over water amongst the states around the national capital, all of which in some way supply water to Delhi. Water from Haryana is carried through two canals, and the water from Uttar Pradesh through the Upper Ganga Canal. The underground water tapped by the DJB is from its Ranney wells and tube wells. Now, as Delhi gets its first drops of rain, there is renewed talk of implementing more rainwater harvesting (RWH) measures and that the government should step in to monitor and evaluate the implementation of the laws and guidelines around rainwater harvesting. (RWH is mandatory for constructions on plots that exceed 100 square meters). But monitoring remains patchy. Many group housing societies and some independent homes are doing it. But many more are not, and have reasons to explain why they feel their investment in RWH systems will only get washed away with the dust that the scanty rain waters take with them. Fortunately, there are diehard fans who strongly believe in RWH. Like Delhi resident Manohar Khushalani, a former director of the National Water Academy at Khadakwasala. Khusalani has installed a water harvesting structure at home, and has been harvesting every drop of rainwater that his house receives for about 20 years now. “I built this in 2003 when my 60 feet deep tube well dried up,” says Prof Khushalani, the author of five books on water and irrigation practices and is now professor at the Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology. “I decided to divert all the rainwater that collects on my terrace into this well”. Rainwater harvesting, he adds, is just one way of conserving water. “It is not very difficult, nor is it expensive to harvest rainwater. It can be done easily in group housing societies as well as individually. We just have to be responsible and think about the next generation that will also need water”. One important element when people use rainwater to recharge underground aquifiers is to ensure it is filtered so that it does not contaminate the ground water. For the same reason, water on the roads during the rains should not be used to recharge ground water, he argues. “If rainwater is allowed into a deep well of about 60 feet or more, the soil will filter it automatically,” says Khushalani. The rainwater collected on his terrace flows down a pipe connected to a bore, where after 60 feet, the soil filters the water. Khushalani’s love affair with water conservation and rainwater harvesting has resulted in him talking on the subject from multiple platforms, for he believes Delhi’s water problem can be solved by scientific planning. Courts intervene Rainwater harvesting is mandatory for all new buildings where the rooftop discharge is 10,000 litres or more per day. According to the Delhi Jal Board, water connection will be granted to new houses only when a zonal engineer certifies that the building plans sanctioned by the Municipal Council or the Delhi Development Authority includes the requisite RWH systems. At a time when independent houses are giving way to apartment complexes of varied sizes, bulk water connection is given only when the builder adduces a certificate by the executive engineer or superintending engineer of the area that the building has a functional rainwater harvesting structure installed. Failure to install an RWH system will invite a penalty of 1.5 times the water bill for all properties on 500 square metres or more. But the capital’s affair with rainwater harvesting has been anything but steady. There is a commitment to RWH, complete with guidelines, but there are also many occasions when the courts have had to step in to seek compliance. On June 27th, the Delhi High Court issued notices to various government departments on the basis of a news report highlighting the lack of rainwater harvesting facilities in the capital. The case was heard on July 4th, when the court granted four weeks time to the Centre, Delhi Government and other authorities for filing status reports in the case which will next be heard on July 29th. In January 2019, the National Green Tribunal imposed a cost of Rs 5 lakh each on educational institutions in Delhi that had not installed rainwater harvesting systems in compliance with a November 2017 order directing that these be installed in two months. They even slapped a fine of Rs 5000 each on three officers of the Education Department for failing to comply with orders regarding installation of RWH system. The NGT had also asked the Registrar of Delhi University, among others, to submit a list of educational institutions where the system was not installed or was not functional. During the 2020 monsoon, the Delhi Jal Board incentivised people to set up RWH systems in their homes. All properties on plots over 100 square metres constructed after 2001 must have a functioning rainwater harvesting system, as per its rule. As an incentive, the government provides a partial one time monetary subsidy for the structure and a 10% rebate on the water bill. Architects empanelled with the state government can certify that RWH systems have been installed and are functional, on behalf of builders and owners of plots up to 500 square metres, after which engineering department staff conduct inspections and certify.

5.29% population in Pune is poor: Multidimensional Poverty Index

Pune has 5.29 per cent of its population below the poverty line after Mumbai at 3.59 per cent, according to CSE report under the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) category Nagpur recorded 6.72 % of its population under the MPI category. According to the report, Pune has shown good progress in terms of reduction of BPL category percentage in terms of population. The report is the annual publication of the Centre for Science and Environment, and Down To Earth (magazine). The report focuses on climate change, migration, health and food systems. It also covers biodiversity, forest and wildlife, energy, industry, habitat, pollution, waste, agriculture and rural development. The data was shared under the section of Multidimensional Poverty Index in the world which looks at three dimensions of health, education and stand of living and twelve indicators comprising nutrition, school attendance, electricity, maternal health, sanitation, assets, child and adolescent mortality, cooking fuel, housing, years of schooling, drinking water and bank account. The state of Kerala is at the top position in the country with 0.71 per cent of its population below the poverty line, which is the baseline of the MPI index. Richard Mahapatra, managing editor, Down To Earth, said, “This report tries to do justice to both: by making an assessment of whether the promised ‘New India’ will come to pass (in the case of the former). And by documenting and analysing (in the case of the latter) how the planet’s environment has been in the last 50 years.”

How Himachal Is Paying The Price For Ignoring Climate Change Warnings

Overexploitation and tourism, among other factors, have begun to take a toll on the hill states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, as a full-blown climate crisis stares in the face of their residents. The years of dire warnings about an impending climate crisis are past. The unabated heatwave leaving the hills singed, along with 2,760 cases of forest fires – said to be the highest ever in Himachal Pradesh, an unprecedented dry spell and 92.4 per cent rain deficiency are not just indicators. Climate change is happening, that too at a scary rate and scale. The severity of the shift in weather in the mountainous regions of Himachal is highlighted by the 21 days of a severe heatwave in the state this year, a record in recent history. The state stood at number three after Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh in the number of heatwave days in March-April 2022. Total heatwave days in both Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh were 25. In comparison, Punjab had just seven severe heatwave days while Uttarakhand had three, Bihar two and Odisha only one. Thousands of tourists driving up to Shimla and hill destinations to escape the heat of the North Indian plains encountered warm weather with the water crisis, while long traffic jams and high vehicular emissions they caused only compounded the woes for locals. Conditions were no different for those rushing to Nainital, Rishikesh and Mussoorie in the neighbouring hill state of Uttarakhand, whose vulnerability to climate-induced disasters, like the Kedarnath tragedy in 2013 and the Chamoli disaster in 2021, is already widely known. The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) defines a heatwave as an unusually high temperature or hot weather. For the hills, temperature exceeding 30°C and for the plains, a recording crossing 40°C is described as a heatwave. Environmental scientist Chander Bhushan, CEO, iForest, admits that there has been an increase in the global average temperature. Changes of 1-2°C in average temperature can cause potentially dangerous shifts in climate. This year, coupled with the severity, the timing of the heat wave –it happened in the early months of summer between March and April– is being considered more worrying for the mountain states. He says, “We have entered a new age of hot extremes that will get worse with increasing global warming. We need a heat code and an action plan.” On Himachal, he feels one of the long-term impacts of the heatwaves will be a steady jump in the state's energy bill due to rising dependency on air conditioners and fans. Besides, agriculture and horticulture are already showing effects of this change in terms of productivity. In the British-era hill station of Shimla, the use of electric fans and ACs was unheard of till some years back. The demand has grown by 70-80 per cent this summer. Most aged residents of Shimla recall that till the 1980s, a recording of 24°C would make a big headline in newspapers. But gradually the town started getting warmer. Snowfall pattern has changed over the years. The state capital's forest cover got replaced by a concrete jungle, even in the banned areas. “After 2000, Shimla has become a hothouse, with temperature extremes of 32°C, water shortage and vehicular pollution, even as greenery disappeared to make spaces for buildings and roads,” says Dr Ramesh Chauhan, vice-chancellor at APG Shimla University. Says Kunal Satyarathi, joint secretary at National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), “This is the first time when the hill state recorded so many heatwave days, that too in March-April. The impact of heat, the dry spells and global warming is already visible in the form of forest fires, water crisis and drying-up of the rivers in Himachal Pradesh." Apart from Shimla – where low water supply during summers has become regular, rural populations in several districts are also facing water scarcity due to drought conditions. More than 1,150 water supply schemes in the state have become defunct due to the drying-up of rivulets and streams, their perennial sources. The impact of the heat wave is conspicuously high in the state’s fruit belt. A third of the apple crop –mostly older varieties like Red Royal and Delicious– are severely impacted. The flowering in the orchards started much before usual. This left apple producers in utter panic, who resorted to measures like sprays to protect the plants against diseases, premature bud break, etc. State capital Shimla – which had witnessed the worst ever water crisis in its post-Independence history in 2018, was revisited by an acute water shortage. Due to the dry spell, most natural sources upstream in rural settings hit their lowest bottoms, having no water to be lifted for supply in the town. Rationing was frequent as the total availability of water with the supply agency –Shimla Jal Prabandhan Nigam– came down to 33-35 MLD against the requirement of 42 MLD. Shimla has begun water rationing to meet the drinking water demand. Hoteliers hired water tenders to meet high water demand because of the heavy influx of tourists. Environmentalist Sunita Narain shared her concern about Shimla’s worst water crisis in 2018 when she drew a parallel with Cape Town in South Africa. Her fears are coming true within three years of 2018, when Shimla's water crisis made headlines in the Washington Post and New York Times, when not a drop of water was available for eight consecutive days, exacerbated by the non-availability of water at the source of Shimla's supply — perennial rivers and streams that had dried up. Last week, massive protests over water shortage began afresh at Theog, after dozens of villagers blocked the Shimla-Rampur National Highway. The police registered an FIR against the state's lone CPI(M) MLA Rakesh Singha and nine others. “The villagers were not receiving water for five-six days. The source had dried up and whatever water was available was being supplied to Shimla town. The women, who had to walk 6-7 km to fetch water on foot, threatened to block the supply of water to Shimla if their demand for regular supply was not met. There is a serious conflict brewing," warns Kuldeep Tanwar, a Himachal Kisan Sabha leader and retired Indian Forest Services officer (IFS). Climate change has not only created a serious shortage in drinking water but has also left the state's hydro-power sector reeling. There is a substantial fall in the water inflow of the Satluj – a glacier- and snow-fed river. This is a clear sign of the adverse impact of receding glaciers and the decline in snowfall in high-altitude mountains. “Results of our study this year, on changes in snowfall, are shocking. There is a 19-27 per cent reduction in the snowfall in the catchment areas of the three perennial rivers viz Ravi, Beas and Satluj. The highest variation among these rivers in terms of loss of snow is 27 per cent in Ravi, followed by Beas is 26 per cent," informs SS Randhawa, a senior scientist who was part of the study jointly done by the state council of Science Technology and Environment; and Indian Space Applications Centre, ISRO, Ahmedabad. The data available with Satluj Jal Vidyut Nigam (SJVN) Ltd –the country’s highest profit-making power PSU– shows a massive shortfall in power generation this year. This is mainly due to low discharge in the Satluj river, which is feeding several mega hydel projects including the 1,500 MW Nathpa Jhakri Hydel project and 412 MW Rampur project. The total power generated in June 2022 was 884.28 MW, against 1,033.384 MW in June 2021 at the Nathpa Jhakri project. A similar disappointing trend is seen at Rampur hydel project further downstream. There was a clear shortfall of 39.10 MW in June 2022 as the project generated only 246 MW against 285 MW in June 2021. There is also data available showing reduced water discharge in the river in the summers due to less snow cover and no rain in the high mountains. Nand Lal Sharma, chairman and MD at SJNL Ltd, says, "The shortfall in energy generation is quite unusual during the peak summers. Melting of the snow in the high mountains has always been sustaining the water discharge at the projects. The unfavourable climatic conditions, receding of glaciers and lack of snowfall are glaring factors impacting the run of the river projects in Himalayan basins in Himachal and Uttarakhand.” Glacier Outburst Floods (GLOFs) are yet another phenomenon in high-altitude regions linked to global warming and climate crisis. Himachal Pradesh has 958 glacial lakes of size 500 sq. metres, according to a report by the State Council of Science and Technology. Of these, 109 were formed in the last few years, while 352 exist in the Satluj Basin. The damage which GLOFs can cause in the state and all projects is unimaginable. Anand Sharma, a former director of the meteorological centre at Dehradun, who had correctly forecast the excess rainfall that led to the Kedarnath disaster, stressed the need for setting up an early warning system to forecast disasters in view of climate changes happening in the mountain ecosystem. He says policy planners must make vulnerability studies before building infrastructures like dams, roads, and bridges. He adds, “This is the basic reason for massive destruction and deaths in any flash flood, cloudbursts or lake bursts, like the Kedarnath tragedy of 2013 in Uttarakhand or the Beas and Satluj river floods in Himachal in 2005.” In 1995, massive flash floods in the Beas resulted in the deaths of 35 persons. In 2000, the Satluj flooded, leaving 135 persons dead and loss of property worth Rs 1,455 crore. Again in 2005, there were flash floods in the Satluj, caused by the bursting of the Pareechu lake in the Tibetan region, and Garsa valley floods in Kullu. Forty-six persons got buried and killed in a massive landslide at Cotrupi in Mandi in August 2017, following heavy rains, again raising the demand for an early warning system in the state that is prone to calamities and climate change. Data from the State Disaster Management Authority shows the deaths of 4,306 persons in calamities like landslides, flash floods, house collapse and monsoon rains between January 1, 2019, and June 18, 2022. The loss to infrastructures like bridges, highways and property was more than Rs 1,722 crore. There were 42 cases of landslides alone in 2021, of which two happened in Kinnaur, claiming 49 lives. On July 28, 2021, nine people died and seven went missing after flash floods ripped through Lahaul-Spiti – a district that had till then never seen monsoon rains. Earlier, nine tourists died when hit by a boulder racing down a mountain at Batseri near Chitkul in Kinnaur. Forty others were buried in a major landslide after rains in Kinnaur on August 11, 2022. Kinn¬¬aur, a high-altitude district bordering Tibet, witnessed the outbreak of a devastating wildfire that burnt down Himachal's precious chilgoza forests. The fire continued for almost 72 hours, leaving a trail of destruction. More than 40 bighas of chilgoza forests were reduced to ashes. The temperature at Kalpa, a high-altitude mountain valley, reached 19°C in February 2021, a record. There is already a decline in winter snowfall there. The pattern of rainfall has completely changed, and so have snow and temperature. The winter snowfall cycle is completely disturbed, impacting the horticulture economy and availability of water in towns and villages earlier having abandoned water discharge in rivers, streams, rivulets and perennial springs. Rohan Lal Negi, a noted environmentalist and orchard owner, says, “Extreme weather events have caused multiple impacts on land, crops, fruits, and water sources. My own orchard has dried up. It has stopped bearing fruits. The soil looks like a desert. In fact, every third or fourth orchard in Kinnaur is showing signs of withering, battered by heat and dry conditions. Some farmers have abandoned lands and orchards. They are no longer productive and economical, except those growing new varieties in the upper ranges." Negi says it's the first time in 65 years that he has noticed such a devastating impact of heatwaves in this highly fertile land, where water, snow and forests have been the best companions of farmers. Forests, which used to be the source of food, fodder, water and wood, are vanishing, with mega hydel projects and dams built in Kinnaur. This year, the water in the Satluj – one of Himachal's most water-laden rivers, has touched the lowest bottom. This is a highly worrying sign. Lahaul-Spiti, another ecologically fragile district, is notable for the negative effects of climate change over the past 15 years. The district remains under snow for six to seven months and is also cut off from the rest of the world due to the closure of Rohtang Pass (13,059 ft). It’s only after the new road across Rohtang Pass was completed in 2020 that the valley got its all-weather connectivity. But there are new worries among locals. The new road means higher tourist influx, movement of vehicles, fast-food eateries, plastic waste and garbage, which are wreaking havoc on the environment. More than 10,000 tourists and other vehicles entering Lahual during peak summer are bound to accelerate the melting of glaciers, which are the source of water for the local ecosystem. “For almost 15 years, I have been carrying out a consistent campaign to adopt the Bhutan model in Lahaul-Spiti, to save this high-altitude region from an unnatural death. There is hardly anyone in the government that's listening. If Lahaul-Spiti goes, an entire ancient civilisation, centuries-old glaciers –our heritage– will get lost," he warns, recalling how the intervention of the National Green Tribunal in 2015 saved Rohtang Pass from environmental disaster. Dr Suresh Attri, Principal Scientific Officer (Environment), Department of Environment Science and Technology, says, "Himachal Pradesh is one of the pioneering states to have prepared a climate action plan (Level-II). There are the latest technological tools available for analysis, and future projections on climate behaviour. The department is making effective interventions in the planning process and also mitigations. “What is still alarming is that not only is Shimla becoming hotter, but the rise in humidity. Last week, after the arrival of monsoons, the town witnessed an unusual rise in humidity. We can find its direct link with heatwave days. It needs more studies on the impact of such changes in the climate.” Shimla witnessed the hottest day on May 27, 2010, with 32.4°C, 8°C higher than normal. It surpassed the earlier record of 31.7°C on May 20, 2004.

भले देर पर सही फैसला

अगर हम हर तरह के सिंगल यूज प्लास्टिक पर पाबंदी लगाना चाहते हैं तो इस सूची में चिप्स, गुटखा और शैंपू की बहुपरतीय पैकेजिंग भी शामिल करनी होगी सिंगल यूज प्लास्टिक पर 1 जुलाई से प्रभावी भारत की पाबंदी पर विचार करते हुए यह जानना जरूरी है कि हम किस चीज के खिलाफ खड़े हैं—हमारे सामने चुनौती कितनी विकट है. कोई भी जो समुद्रतट पर गया है और जिसे बोतल में संदेश मिला है, वह जानता है यह कठोर चुनौती है. बोतल प्लास्टिक से बनी है. पानी भी तकरीबन ऐसा ही है. यही संदेश है. बोतल विशाल समुद्र के मुकाबले बहुत नन्ही मालूम देती है, पर आपने कचरे के भंवरों के बारे में सुना है? सबसे बड़ा भंवर द ग्रेट पैसिफिक गार्बेज पैच यानी प्रशांत महासागर में कूड़े-करकट का विशाल खंड करीब 16 लाख वर्ग किमी इलाके में फैला है—कैलिफोर्निया और जापान के बीच अर्ध-घुलित कचरे का तैरता हुआ पुल. हिंद महासागर में हमारा भी ऐसा ही एक कचरे का खंड है, जो दक्षिण अफ्रीका और ऑस्ट्रेलिया के बीच नीले समुद्र में जहर घोल रहा है. वैज्ञानिकों ने इसे 'महीन प्लास्टिक का सूप' कहा है.</p> पहली चीजें पहले. यह पाबंदी भारत के लिए छोटा, दरअसल बहुत छोटा, पर बेहद आगे का कदम है. अपने इस सीमित रूप में भी यह पाबंदी हमें कम से कम सोचने और आगे बढऩे को मजबूर कर सकती है. हम दैनिक उपयोग की जो चीजें एक बार इस्तेमाल करके फेंक देते हैं, यह उनकी सूची देती और रोकती है. अफसोस कि यह अधूरी सूची है, पर जिन्हें नहीं पता, उनके लिए इसमें प्लास्टिक के हल्के कप हैं जो आपको सड़क किनारे दुकानों में मिलते हैं, स्ट्रॉ जिन्हें आप ठंडे पेय खत्म करने के बाद दोबारा सोचे बगैर फेंक देते हैं—और हां, हर जगह मौजूद प्लास्टिक की थैलियां, 120 माइक्रॉन मोटाई से कम कुछ भी, दिसंबर, 2022 तक. हमारे हाथों से निकलते ही वे यहां-वहां उड़ जाती हैं, सड़कों पर प्रेतों की तरह मंडराती हैं, कचरे के पहाड़ों से मिट्टी में पहुंच जाती हैं, या नालियां बंद कर देती हैं और अंतत: हमारी नदियों में बहकर समुद्रों में चली जाती हैं—जिसे छूती हैं, उसमें जहर घोल देती हैं. समुद्रों में प्लास्टिक डालने वाली दुनिया की नदियों में गंगा छठे पायदान पर है. सिंधु दूसरे नंबर पर है. समुद्रों में उन्हें अक्सर सदियों पुराने टूथब्रश मिलते हैं, पर ज्यादातर प्लास्टिक का रूप-रंग बरकरार नहीं रहता. यह टूटता है और इसके पॉलीमर बिखर जाते हैं. यही प्लास्टिक का वह सूप है जो मछलियों के भीतर, आपके भीतर, हर चीज के भीतर पहुंच जाता है. दूसरे, हमें स्वीकार करना होगा कि उद्योग की तरफ से भविष्य के पूर्वाभास और प्रतिरोध के समूचे एहसास के बावजूद प्रतिबंधित चीजों की यह फेहरिस्त उतनी पर्याप्त व्यापक नहीं है. अगर हमारा मकसद वाकई सिंगल-यूज प्लास्टिक से निजात पाना है तो इसमें बहु-परतीय पैकेजिंग बेशक होनी ही चाहिए. यह वह सर्वव्यापी शैतान है जिसमें लिपटकर तेजी से बढ़ रही तमाम उपभोक्ता वस्तुएं—चिप्स से लेकर शैंपू और गुटके पाउच तक—हमारे पास आती हैं. गफलत में न रहें, प्लास्टिक से होने वाले दूषण के मामले में ये असली खतरा हैं. इसे इकट्ठा करना लगभग असंभव है और फिर इसे संसाधित करना बिल्कुल नामुमकिन है. बस इतना किया जा सकता है कि इसे सीमेंट संयंत्रों में भस्म कर दिया जाए, जो तकरीबन कभी होता नहीं. हमें कैसे पता? कचरों के जिन विशाल ढेरों पर इन्हें फेंक दिया जाता है, उन पर मिलने वाली प्लास्टिक की किस्म के विरले और व्यापक अध्ययन की बदौलत. इसे तब याद रखें जब आप प्लास्टिक की रंगीन पीली पन्नी के भीतर से मसालेदार आलू की कुछ फांकें निकालते हैं.</p><div id="shoppingWidget_mobile"></div> <p class="text-align-justify">करना क्या होगा? दो आसान कदम, जिनमें यूं ही इस्तेमाल किए गए गैर-विशेष प्लास्टिक के विविध रूप—जो निर्मित प्लास्टिक के तकरीबन आधे हैं—शामिल हों. सबसे पहले एक-एक प्लास्टिक की थैली और ईयरबड और चिप्स के पैकेट बीनने होंगे. दूसरे, प्लास्टिक के इन बेकार सामान को इकट्ठा करके रिसाइकल या भस्म करना होगा—किसी भी हालत में इसे कचरे के पहाड़ों या जलाशयों में नहीं जाने देना है. इन्हें भस्म भी पर्यावरण के अनुकूल तरीके से करना होगा, ताकि इसका हश्र कामगारों के लिए और ज्यादा प्रदूषण या स्वास्थ्य के खतरे पैदा करने में न हो. कोविड ने पहले ही हमारे ऊपर बहुत बोझ डाल दिया है, जिससे हमारे बीच प्लास्टिक का एक विस्फोट हो चुका है, भले ही जिसे टाला नहीं जा सकता था और जो दस्तानों से लेकर बॉडी सूट तक बचाव के पहनावों की शक्ल में सामान्य हो चुका है.</p>प्लास्टिक के कचरे को इकट्ठा करना खुले तौर पर अपने आप में मुश्किल काम है. मसलन, प्लास्टिक की थैलियों को ही लीजिए. उन पर पाबंदी नई बात नहीं. करीब 25 राज्य और केंद्र शासित प्रदेश उन पर पहले ही पूर्ण पाबंदी लगा चुके हैं. मगर हम जानते हैं कि व्यवहार में क्या होता है. मोटाई को लेकर खास तौर पर चिंता है—सरकारें और नियामक आसान रास्ता अपनाते हुए कह देते हैं कि निर्णय करना और नियम लागू करना मुश्किल है. इसे पूरे प्राणपण से लागू करना हमारी सबसे बड़ी चुनौती और इस लड़ाई में जीत या हार तय करने वाला तत्व है. एक और चुनौती जिम्मेदारी तय करना है. सरकार अच्छी नीयत से शोर-शराबा करती है—2019 के स्वतंत्रता दिवस के दौरान प्रधानमंत्री नरेंद्र मोदी के उस आह्वान को देखिए जिसमें उन्होंने भारतीयों से ''प्लास्टिक की आदत'' छोड़ने को कहा था. अब विभिन्न पैकेजिंग सामग्री को 'उत्पादकों की बढ़ी हुई जिम्मेदारी' का हिस्सा माना जाता है, जिसमें बनाने (या खपत करने) वाली कंपनियों के लिए बेकार प्लास्टिक को इकट्ठा करके पुन: संसाधन के लिए भेजना जरूरी है. सालाना लक्ष्य हैं. घड़ी की तरह काम करना मालूम देता है... सैद्धांतिक तौर पर ही. हकीकत में बनाई या खपत की गई प्लास्टिक की मात्रा का हिसाब-किताब केवल उद्योग ही रखता है. जगजाहिर कुछ भी नहीं है जिससे हम उनकी घोषणाओं की सटीकता का आकलन कर सकें. इस तरह ईपीआर व्यवस्था खोखली है.</p> <p class="text-align-justify">इस बीच क्या हो रहा है? आधे-अधूरे समाधान जो महज सत्य छिपाने के काम आते हैं. अपने ईपीआर लक्ष्य पूरे करने के वास्ते अपनी ओर से कचरा इकट्ठा करने के लिए कंपनियां जिन एजेंसियों को ठेके देती हैं, उन्हीं में से एक के दौरे में मैंने देखा कि नगर निकायों के ट्रकों से लाए गए कचरे को कनवेयर बेल्टों पर रखा और छांटा जा रहा था. दोबारा इस्तेमाल किया जा सकने वाला सामान, एल्यूमिनियम वगैरह, वापस बाजार में जा रहा था. आखिर में उनके पास साफ-सुथरे ढंग से छांटे गए प्लास्टिक के पहाड़ जमा हो गए जो कहीं नहीं जा सकते थे—जलाने वाले सीमेंट संयंत्रों तक इन्हें ले जाना उनके लिए बहुत महंगा था. इनमें बड़ा हिस्सा बहु-परतीय पैकेजिंग और पाउचों का था.</p> बड़े कारोबार—और ज्यादातर मध्यम वर्ग—के लिए वैल्यू चेन में और नीचे अनौपचारिक क्षेत्र के लाखों लोग हैं जो प्लास्टिक के पुन: इस्तेमाल के लिए विकल्प खोज ही लेते हैं. ये हमारे कचरे के असल योद्धा हैं, जो पृथ्वी पर पड़ने वाला बोझ कम से कम टाल तो देते ही हैं. इसके आगे, रिसाइकल करने वाली 'फैक्ट्रियां' हैं, जो चार्ल्स डिकेंस के उपन्यासों सरीखी दुनिया हैं, जिसमें और ज्यादा गरीब लोग हमारे पापों का प्रायश्चित करने के लिए भयावह स्थितियों में काम करते हैं. दिल्ली के औद्योगिक इलाके बवाना में ऐसी ही एक फैक्ट्री में छांटी गई विभिन्न प्लास्टिक को टंकियों में साफ किया, उबाला, तपाया और कुंडलियों से निकाला जाता है, जब तक कि वे तार की तरह नहीं बन जाती. फिर इनके टुकड़े कर प्लास्टिक के दाने बनाए जाते हैं जो नई शक्ल लेकर पुन: आपके पास पहुंचते हैं.</p> सख्त नीति के तौर पर हम रिसाइकल की गई प्लास्टिक पर जोर देना पक्का करें. यह उस मोलभाव का एक हिस्सा है जो हमें अपने भविष्य की खातिर करना ही चाहिए. दूसरा है स्थानीय सोचना—अमीर देश अपने कचरे की गाड़ियां गरीब दक्षिण के सिर पर डालते रहे हैं और 2018 में प्लास्टिक कचरे के आयात पर चीन की पाबंदी के बाद हर कोई 'मेरे पिछवाड़े नहीं-की भावना' में जकड़ा है. भारत की प्लास्टिक के कचरे की समस्या उतनी बड़ी नहीं है जितनी पश्चिम की है, पर हम भी वहीं पहुंच रहे हैं. गोवा सरीखे समृद्ध राज्य प्रति प्रति व्यक्ति 60 ग्राम से ज्यादा उत्पन्न करते हैं; 37 ग्राम प्रति व्यक्ति के साथ दिल्ली भी तेजी से आगे आ रही है. भारत का प्रति व्यक्ति औसत, जो करीब 8 ग्राम है, निचले पायदान पर है, पर हमारी आबादी का मतलब है कि हम दुनिया के नंबर 2 उत्पादक हैं. दुनिया भर में 1950 के बाद जितनी भी प्लास्टिक का उत्पादन हुआ, उसका आधे से ज्यादा बीते करीब 12 साल में हुआ है. अब जब हम 5 ट्रिलियन डॉलर की अर्थव्यवस्था बनने के इच्छुक हैं, हमें इस खतरे को खत्म करना ही होगा. लेखिका सेंटर फॉर साइंस ऐंड एनवायरनमेंट, नई दिल्ली की महानिदेशक हैं