Environment Archives - Page 2 of 2 - DU Beat - Delhi University's Independent Student Newspaper

DUB Speak

The mountains are calling, but are we listening?

By Niharika Dabral December 11, 2017

The entire year is dotted with an array of International days dedicated to valid and important causes. In this list, 11th December is considered the International Mountain by the United Nations General Assembly, since 2003. According to the UN website, International Mountain Day is “observed every year with a different theme relevant to sustainable mountain development. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) is the U.N. organisation mandated to lead observance of all related festivities.

The theme for 2017 is Mountain under Pressure: climate, hunger, migration. The present facts presented by the FAO say that ninety percent of the world’s mountain dwellers live in developing countries, where a vast majority lives below the poverty line and one out of three faces the threat of food insecurity.

India’s wide landscape is dotted with mountain ranges that hold breathtaking landscapes, diversity of flora and fauna, and native communities. We also have the youngest and the oldest mountains in the world – the Himalayas and the Aravalli Range. While both Himalayas and the Aravallis are very different, there is one commonality they share: both mighty ranges face acute indifference in terms of state conservation efforts.
Mountains provide about 60 to 80 percent of the world’s freshwater. This freshwater, which is under threat from overpopulation and encroachment, is stored in glaciers and lakes. As water tables in hills are depleting, the migration is increasing. According to Down to Earth, the three districts of Uttrakhand that have registered the highest migration rates are also the districts that have witnessed maximum depletion in water sources.

This year’s theme highlights the issue of migration in the mountains. In India, Uttrakhand is seeing the worse cases of migration from hills to plain. As per Census 2011, of Uttarakhand’s 16,793 villages, 1,053 have no inhabitants, and another 405 have a population of less than 10. There are many reasons why relocation is on the rise. The reasons range from lack of better opportunities, unemployment, climate change, and government’s apathy towards hill folks.

Old and quaint villages, immortalised by the works of writers like Ruskin Bond, are dying a slow death. The picturesque places are silently fading into an oblivion as their inhabitants move to the cities. However, a few brave individual and organisations like Sushil Ramola, Pratibha Krishnaiah, and Divya Rawat are trying to infuse life back in our ghost villages. As responsible citizens, we must do our best to support their efforts.

Feature Image Credits: Niharika Dabral

Niharika Dabral

[email protected]

Keep Reading

Arts & Culture

DU research team identifies trees for air purification

By Saumya Kalia June 5, 2017

If the multi-spheres of pollution are humanity’s most significant survival battle today, then the planting of trees is claimed to be the biggest contributor in cleaning the air which serves as the life valve of every species. Daily reports allude to the deteriorating air, aquatic, and land quality owing to a multitude of reasons. Luckily, this World Environment Day, new research about countering air pollution has been discovered.

A team of researchers from the University of Delhi has identified five trees which might be instrumental in tackling the plight of the degraded quality of air. Plants are known to act as air purifiers by sucking up and trapping harmful gases and particulate matter. The team comprises of 16 members – three assistant professors and 13 students – who collected data on air pollution and the dominant tree colonies from five areas – Mandir Marg, Civil Lines, Anand Vihar, RK Puram, and Punjabi Bagh – over a period of a year from September 2015 to September 2016.

According to their research, certain trees with inherent qualities contribute in cleaning the city’s air more than others. Dr. Vijay Thakur, Assistant Professor of Botany at Shivaji College, comments, “But not all plants have the same ability to bring down pollution and clean the air. Our research shows that there are some trees such as peepal, saptaparni, and jamun which help to clean the city’s air more than others.”

“We compared the levels of five pollutants — PM2.5, PM10, NOx, SOx, and ozone — in these areas as measured by the monitoring stations and then studied the dominant tree colonies,” he added, when speaking to a popular national daily. The parameters considered for the study included the tree’s height, canopy size, leaf size, shape and orientation of leaves, leaf characteristics, dust accumulation, and other factors that were studied in the laboratories.

The results found that areas such as Mandir Marg and RK Puram have lower pollution levels as compared to Anand Vihar and Civil Lines, which are highly polluted areas. These findings conformed to their hypothesis wherein areas which were dominated by trees such as peepal, jamun, devdar, champa, and saptaparni registered lower levels of pollution. Civil Lines, which has trees such as Vilayti Kikar, on the other hand, observed high pollution levels.

“We found that these five trees were able to trap more pollutants, including PM2.5 and PM10, than others. Their leaf structures were such that they helped to trap more dust and other pollutants,” said Dr. Kumar.

Concretisation, infrastructural toll, falling groundwater, termites, bugs, and ageing continue to be the biggest threats to the health of trees occupying the Delhi region. According to statistics, 15,000 trees were felled in Delhi in the last three years for development projects, and there is currently 299.77 sq. kms. of green cover in the national capital.

The project, in addition to testing the ability of a tree to absorb pollution, also studied the presence of birds as bio-indicators of a healthy tree. “It was found that some trees, such as the peepal, not just helped to bring down pollution levels but also supported a wide range of bird species. The grey hornbill and brown-headed barbet were found in large numbers in areas which were dominated by trees such as peepal,” said Dr. Virat Jolli, Assistant Professor of Zoology at Shivaji College.

The project titled “Amelioration of Air Quality in Urban Ecosystem of Delhi – Role of Avenue Trees” was mentored by the ecologist and emeritus professor of Centre for Environmental Management of Degraded Ecosystems, CR Babu. Funded by the University of Delhi, the findings will soon be published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Feature Image Credits: TheHealthSite

Saumya Kalia
[email protected]

Keep Reading

DUB Speak

The Earth will survive, but we won’t

By Niharika Dabral June 5, 2017

5 June 2017 marks the 43^rd World Environment Day (WED). Yes, that day when everyone advocates green energy, abhors plastic, and plants trees. First held in 1974, nothing (except the themes) has changed in terms of how this day is celebrated. More or less throughout the years, the same things have been repeated. Yet each year the records of “highest temperature” are being broken and glaciers keep on melting. I don’t know if it is worth saying what’s been said before, but I do know that there is no other way round it.

As writer Arundhati Roy writes in The End Of Imagination, “There can be nothing more humiliating for a writer of fiction to have to do than restate a case that has, over the years, already been made by other people in other parts of the world, and made passionately, eloquently and knowledgeably. I am prepared to humiliate myself abjectly, because, in the circumstances, silence would be indefensible. So those of you who are willing: let’s pick our parts, put on these discarded costumes and speak our second-hand lines in this sad second-hand play. But let’s not forget that the stakes we’re playing for are huge and our fatigue and our shame could mean the end of us.”

The theme for 2017 is ‘Connecting People to Nature – in the city and on the land, from the poles to the equator’. The host nation this year is Canada. As part of the occasion, Canada has offered free passes for its national parks throughout 2017. In an age when the world is subjected to the crass ignorance of Trump, Canada under Justin Trudeau seems like a reassuring presence. But the rosy words and promises are rendered meaningless if you keep siphoning more and more carbon for people to burn and sadly that’s exactly what Canada is planning to do after they discovered 173 billion barrels of oil in the ground at Alberta’s tar sands in northeastern Alberta. (Yes, Trudeau is indeed charming, and also deceiving.)

These days when the world is either freezing or melting, and with growing acceptance of conspiracy theories that claim that climate change is a hoax, the situation does look bleak, but there is hope. Evidence includes Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement being met with Michael Bloomberg’s offer of up to $15 million to implement the agreement.

In our own rapidly industrialising country where the cost of development is often the environment, Kerala has planted one crore saplings today. It is important that we do our part by implementing things that we were taught since a young age. It’s important that we limit driving, conserve energy, reduce the use of packaging material and use environmentally safe products, and educate ourselves, so as to see through the pretense of policies. We can’t really afford any lethargy or indifference because as Neil deGrasse Tyson puts it, “The Earth will survive climate change… we won’t.”

Feature Image Credits: Egeturk

Niharika Dabral
[email protected]

Keep Reading

Uncategorized

What does a Trump Presidency entail for the Environment?

By DU Beat November 11, 2016

While the issue of climate change was treated as real and dangerous by President Obama, the same cannot be said for the new President – elect Donald Trump who believes that climate change is a hoax perpetuated by the Chinese. Studies show that poor countries like India, Pakistan, Vietnam and others would bear the brunt of climate change mostly because of their tropical location but also due to their greater reliance on agriculture, lower income of people, and less resilient infrastructure.

The current situation in India is smoggy, with four out of the ten most polluted cities being Indian, and the capital city’s poisonous air. In the past, US and India have shown commitment towards energy security and fighting climate change. USA joined the Paris Agreement and India followed.

Donald Trump has been adamant about scrapping off the Clean Power Plan and removing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). While the EPA doesn’t handle all of the environment related issues (some of which are covered by other federal, tribal, state or local agencies), it does have a major role in the protection of environment. The EPA has been hit again and again by budget cuts and any further cuts would make it impossible to enforce laws like the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act. Shutting down the agency isn’t the answer either.

The transition team of Donald Trump, according to Politico, has recruited GOP energy lobbyist Mike McKenna , who has ties to the industry backed American Energy Alliance, and vocal climate skeptic Myron Ebell, the director of Energy and Environment at the Competitive Energy Institution (which is funded by Koach brothers, and oil & gas companies). According to Ebell ‘any small increase in the global temperature is nothing to worry about’.

Mr Trump has offered his support to the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, protested against wind turbines (because the wind farms were visible from his golf course in Scotland), has close financial ties to the Energy Transfer Partner – the operators of the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline (according to his financial disclosure) that will lead to potential harm to the environment, effects on climate change, and the destruction of sacred Native American sites.

The 45^th president of the United States of America has signalled his opposition to any restrictions on the development of oil, coal, or gas, making it clear that he doesn’t have plans to go green anytime soon and instead believes in reviving the coal industry, which according to experts won’t work due to tough competition from declining priced alternatives like natural gas and renewable energy sources. This, in fact, moves the attention away from the real proposal that is the transition of coal workers into new jobs in a new industry. While Trump’s call to ‘back out’ of the Paris deal won’t be possible, Lux Research modelled the impact that Trump’s policies would have, and it leads to an extra 3.4 billion tons of CO2 emission when compared to Hillary Clinton’s proposal.

Clearly, Donald Trump’s presidency would be a setback on the environment front unless he decides to change his proposal, which is unlikely to happen.

Feature Image: Chicago Tribunal

Adarsh Yadav

[email protected]

Keep Reading

DUB Speak

CVS organised ‘Sanrakshan’ on the theme of Heritage Preservation

By DU Beat September 26, 2016

Green Brigade, the Environment society of CVS organised “Sanrakshan” in association with Zephyr, Criador and Explore.Excavate.Enjoy on the 21st of September, 2016.

Following the theme of Heritage Preservation, so much for our future lies in the past. Well known Heritage activist, Founder of India’s largest heritage hobby club, Vikramjit Singh Rooprai enlightened the audience with his Talk on Delhi’s History and Heritage.

Some of the main highlights of the talk were The Seven Cities of Delhi, Religious Beliefs and Myths, The Water Bodies of Delhi, and The different Languages and their origin. He also spoke about the Sufi poet Bulle Shah. He brought out various incidents from History, in context with the history of the necropolis, Delhi. His self written poem on Delhi’s History left everyone speechless.

A photo booth was setup by Zephyr following the green theme. Props such as Leaves, Flowers, Banners, tags were made by the students of Criador. A large number of students came to the Photo booth.

Following next was the Heritage walk to Satpula, a 14th Century dam, where themes like Heritage conservation and the cultural history were discussed. The sad state of our neglected monuments were seen. Hardly any participation knew about Satpula which stands right in front of the famous Select Citywalk and is centuries older than the Mall. The ecstasy and excitement was seen on their faces. The students and teachers thoroughly enjoyed the Heritage walk.

The last event for the day was The Treasure hunt, which started from Satpula and finished at College.

The event was a great success, promoting themes such as heritage preservation and awareness. Water Crisis was also discussed in context to Satpula and the 22 Baolis of Delhi. The neglect of our monuments and environment is a major concern and we all should look forward in the enrichment of our society.

Image Credits: Zephyr, the Photography Society of CVS

Keep Reading

Kamala Nehru College

A day for Flora and Fauna: KNC celebrates World Habitat Day

By DU Beat October 6, 2015

With the first Monday of October every year being designated as the World Habitat Day by the United Nations, Green Beans- The Environment Society of Kamala Nehru College recognised the undeniable significance of flora and fauna by celebrating the same on 5 October 2015.

Headed by teacher convenor- Dr. Sarita Ghai Kumar, Student Advisor- Dr.Chetan Chauhan and Head Representative- Supriya Nayak, with 6 convenors, the event intended to remind of the fact that we all have the power and the responsibility to shape the future of our cities and towns and keep our environment healthy to make for a nurturing habitat for flora and fauna.

With a turnout of more than 200 students from various colleges across DU and Delhi in general,the event garnered good response for various competitions like – Rangoli Making, Face Painting, Quiz, and and Extempore, which guided the participants and the audience to spread awareness about the importance of our environment.

“All I believe is: one spark starts a fire, and if we join our hands we can do our bit to replenish our habitats like never before,” remarked Supriya, a Green Beans representative.

After a day full of interesting events, Abhinay and Amit from Shaheed Bhagat Singh emerged as the winners of the Quiz, Anushka from Dyal Singh College took the top prize in the Extempore, Iepsita, Sagrika and Bharti from Kamala Nehru College won the Face Painting competition, and Shatabdi and Sreedevi from Kamala Nehru College shared the first position for Rangoli Making.

Image Credits: Green Beans Society, Kamala Nehru College

Riya Chhibber

[email protected]

Keep Reading