02 Mohith Agadi - Amazon Web...
1
ECO TIP OF THE WEEK Pop Quiz ANSWERS IDENTIFY THESE SPECIES 1 2 4 5 3 1. White lioness 2. Oryx 3. Knobbed Hornbill 4. European cat 5. Asiatic black bear “Environment is no one’s property to destroy; it’s everyone’s responsibility to protect.” Mohith Agadi ENVIRONMENT 02 Do you plant the wrong kind of greens? If you live in a dry and arid region, planting green- ery that requires large quanti- ties of water can be a major waste of money and natural resources. According to the gardening website GrowVeg, using grey water — i e water that has already been used in your washing machine, showers, and sinks — is one way to cut down your water waste. Got an idea to conserve the environment? Mail us at [email protected] HAVE CUTTING WATER: Instead of filling a full glass of water, drink in half measures. Even the UP assembly announced this measure to save drinking water. And if you cannot finish a glass of water, pour it all into a nearby plant. REUSE AIR CONDITIONER WATER: Place a bucket under your aircon- ditioner outlet to collect the water that escapes, and use it for mop- ping or watering plants. Do the same to your RO outlet. In fact, rethink ROs as they waste water. You can also fix all the leaky pipes at the home. DON’T WASTE WATER HAND WASH SOME OF YOUR CLOTHES: Every time we machine wash, an average of nine million [plastic] microfibres are released into the environment. If you use a machine, use a low temperature setting, a liquid detergent and don’t overload. TIMESLIFE WASH BY HAND REUSE WASTE WATER YOUR GREEN CHECKLIST CARING ABOUT TOMORROW I t’s midday and Edward Kean, a Canadi- an fisherman who now scours the North Atlantic for icebergs that have broken off from Greenland’s glaciers, is positively beaming. Using his binoculars, the rotund, 60-year- old captain of the fishing boat ‘Green Wa- ters’ has spotted his next prize — it’s sever- al dozen meters tall and floating just off the coast of Newfoundland. “It’s a fine piece of ice,” Kean proclaims. Every morning, Kean sails out with three other crew members to hunt what has be- come his personal white gold: Icebergs. For more than 20 years, he has been hauling ice giants. He then sells the water for a profit to local companies, which then bottle it, mix it into beverages or use it to make cosmetics. The business of iceberg harvesting has soared in tandem with the warming of the planet Race against time As summer gets underway, time is of the essence in harvesting the icebergs. “They come here, and they melt so fast,” noted the captain, adding that once they are float- ing off the coast of Newfoundland, it is a real race against the clock. “In New- foundland, it’s like a fallen leaf. They are going to die in a couple of weeks,” he said. “So, we’re not here hurting the environment, we’re not taking nothing away — we’re just utilising the purest water we can get.” No easy harvest Armed with a pole and net, crew members laboriously wrap up the precious fragments of a floating iceberg, each one weighing a ton or two, and fasten them to a hook at the end of a crane, which winches them aboard the boat. Kean then hacks the blocks up with an axe and puts the pieces into containers to melt over the coming days. They sell to local mer- chants for a dollar a litre. ‘Pure’ business Those businesses in turn market the iceberg prod- ucts as made from some of the purest water mon- ey can buy. Dyna Pro, one of Kean’s clients, sells the water $ 12 each. They are targeting a wealthy clientele and have hopes to expand their business abroad. The popular Auk Island Winery, in the tourist vil- lage of Twillingate, makes wine from wild berries and ice- berg water — and sells it for $10-90 a bottle. ET Are you ready to go plogging? Plogging – the fitness craze from Sweden that combines running with garbage collection – is all set to hit India on October 2 T he India Plog Run is be- ing organised in Delhi and 49 other cities to make garbage collection fun, healthy and to create a plas- tic-free environment. The two hour event will be held as part of October 2 (Gand- hi Jayanti) events. The rundown According to Ramakrishna Ganesh, convener of India Plog Run, the idea is to con- vey the mes- sage to a larg- er audience on how sin- gle-use plastic affects us, and the importance of disposing it properly. The organisers of the Plog run are taking on board waste manage- ment partners in each city, who will be recycling and re-processing the plastic col- lected during the drive. What is plogging Plogging comes from the Swedish phrase ‘ploc- ka upp’, which means ‘pick up’. It was start- ed in 2016 and has since spread to other countries. In 2018, the Ben- galuru Plog Run led to collection of 33.4 tonnes of plastic waste by more than 7,000 partici- pants in under 12 hours. Why plastic Data from Cen- tral Pollution Control Board states that India produces 25,940 tonnes of plastic waste dai- ly, out of which 10,000 tonnes remain uncollected. The plas- tic materials choke landfills, drains and rivers, gradual- ly flowing into the sea af- fecting the marine life. It also percolates into the soil, infecting the natural envi- ronment with poison- ous chemicals. These harmful chemicals are also found inside hu- man blood and tis- sue, exposing people to dead- ly diseases like cancer, birth defects, im- paired immu- nity and other ailments. How to participate Enthusiasts can register at a point nearest to their lo- cality or by logging onto www.indiaplog.run. TNN India plog run will happen in 50 cities and 500 locations 150 HILL FISH SPECIES ARE FEELING THE HEAT, POLLUTION A n internal study of the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) has re- vealed that climate change will adversely affect around 150 na- tive fish species of Himalayan states, including Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kash- mir and Arunachal Pradesh. Common snow trout in danger Of the 150 hill fish species, the com- mon snow trout is said to be most threatened, and in danger of going extinct. This fish, high- ly sought after as a food source, is likely to lose around 21 percent of its existing space of 16,251 square kilometres in the region. The WII sci- entists indicated that “continuous stalking of natural habi- tat by human being” coupled with pollution, glob- al warming and damming of rivers (there are over 200 major dams in the region) are some of the factors that pose a grave risk to the habitat of these native fish species. How dams pose a threat According to the scientists, the common snow trout lives in the cold Himalayan water and tends to swim upstream, to the higher reach- es of the river during summer, to escape warm waters. The WII report found that the presence of dams on almost all the Himalayan rivers hin- ders this process. Aashna Sharma, senior research fellow at WII, said, “Our study found the native high-altitude fish species survive in their natural habitat in the ar- eas where dams have not been built, like Himachal’s Tirthan river.” Similarly, another fish species, Mah- seer, is also thriving in the undammed Nayaar river in Uttarakhand’s Pauri Garhwal. Sharma added, “Our research work indicates that, by 2050, the snow trout will vanish from 400 sq kilometre of its habitat – from Jammu and Kashmir, to Arunachal Pradesh.” The scientists said they took climate models from developed countries to predict the impact of climate change on the future. Vineet Dubey, project scientist (WII) also said that the exotic, highly invasive brown trout species is also a threat to the survival of the Himalayan freshwater fish. TNN Brown trout, a carnivorous invasive fish species, introduced in the Himalayas in 1860 by the British, has also emerged as a major threat to native fish species in Himalayan region CORALS UNDER THERMAL STRESS IN THE ARABIAN SEA C oral reefs — the marine won- ders that leave us awestruck by their rockpools of colour — are under climate threat. A recent study, published in the reputed science journal ‘Current Science’, shows that they are slowly bleaching away on Gujarat’s Gulf of Kutch shores. A major reason is the fre- quent ‘ocean heat waves’ or thermal stress owing to climate change, coupled with anthropological issues. What is bleaching Bleaching means the change in colour of the corals because of the decay in al- gae living in their tissues as symbiotic partners. The algae is also the reason that gives the corals their distinct colour. As sea temperature rises above normal summer maxima the corals are forced to expel the algae and turn white. These bleached corals thereafter get prone to disease and ultimately die. What the study found A study undertaken by Isro’s Space Applications Centre (SAC) research team and the department of geo- physics, Kurukshetra University analysed sea surface temperatures (SST) from 1982 has reported increased number of heat stress days. The study includes three distinct years of ‘Mass Coral Bleaching’ (MCB) instances of 1998, 2010 and 2016 recorded during the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) that caused abrupt rise in sea temperature. The study revealed normally corals can re-establish themselves (or return to their pre-bleaching state) in a decade or two. But the quick fre- quency and intensity of MCB over- whelms the coral reefs ability to re- cover from heat stress episodes. TNN Globally, the corals upon which half-a-bil- lion people depend for food and protection are unlikely to survive surface warming of two degrees Celsius above pre-indus- trial levels. AFP The frequency, intensity and extent of marine heatwaves like those that devastated Australia’s Great Barrier Reef have all increased, with ocean hot spells twice as likely today as during the 1980s. IN THE NEWS Scientists fertilise seven northern white rhino eggs W ildlife experts and veterinarians have announced that there is hope to prevent the extinction of the northern white rhino as they successfully extracted eggs from the last two remaining females of the species. The eggs will be used to reproduce the species through a surrogate. The groundbreaking procedure was carried out recently on the northern white rhinos known as Najin and Fatu who can- not carry a pregnancy. The eggs are to be artificially inseminated with frozen sperm from a northern white rhino bull and then transferred to a southern white rhino surrogate mother. AP A n Indonesian man completed an incredible feat of walking backwards nearly 800 kilome- tres from his village in eastern Java to capi- tal Jakarta to raise awareness about deforestation and seek the government’s help in saving a forest in his home province. Surrounded by curious onlookers and members of the volunteer group Indonesian Escorting Ambulance, which has helped him during parts of his journey, 43-year-old Medi Bastoni, appeared indefatigable and happy with the attention he received after completing the arduous walk that took him about a month. AGENCIES Man completes 800 kilometre backwards walking to save forest QUICK NOTES 1 Plogging comes from the swedish phrase ‘plocka upp,’ which means pick up. 2 Plogging started in Sweden in 2016 and has since then spread to other countries. 3 Joggers pick up garbage as they run, to reduce damage caused by single-plastic in their environment. Photo: Getty Images
Transcript of 02 Mohith Agadi - Amazon Web...
ECO TIP OF THE WEEK
Pop Quiz
ANSWERS
IDENTIFY THESESPECIES
1 2
4 5
3
1. White lioness2. Oryx 3. Knobbed Hornbill 4. European cat5. Asiatic black bear
“Environment is no one’s property to destroy; it’s everyone’s responsibility to protect.”
Mohith Agadi ENVIRONMENT02
Do you plant the wrongkind of greens?If you live in a dry and arid region, planting green-
ery that requires large quanti-ties of water can be a major
waste of money and naturalresources.According tothe gardening
websiteGrowVeg, using
grey water — i e waterthat has already been
used in your washingmachine, showers, and sinks
— is one way to cut down your water waste.
Got an idea to conserve the environment?Mail us at [email protected]
HAVE CUTTING WATER:Instead of filling a fullglass of water, drink inhalf measures. Even theUP assembly announcedthis measure to savedrinking water. And if youcannot finish a glass ofwater, pour it all into anearby plant.
REUSE AIR CONDITIONER WATER: Place a bucket under your aircon-ditioner outlet to collect the waterthat escapes, and use it for mop-ping or watering plants. Do thesame to your RO outlet. In fact,rethink ROs as they waste water.You can also fix all the leaky pipesat the home.
DON’T WASTE WATER
HAND WASH SOME OF YOURCLOTHES: Every time wemachine wash, an averageof nine million [plastic]microfibres are releasedinto the environment. Ifyou use a machine, use alow temperature setting, aliquid detergent and don’toverload. TIMESLIFE
WASH BY HAND
REUSE WASTE WATER
YOUR GREEN CHECKLIST
CARING ABOUT TOMORROW
I t’s midday and Edward Kean, a Canadi-an fisherman who now scours the NorthAtlantic for icebergs that have broken
off from Greenland’s glaciers, is positivelybeaming.
Using his binoculars, the rotund, 60-year-old captain of the fishing boat ‘Green Wa-ters’ has spotted his next prize — it’s sever-al dozen meters tall and floating just off thecoast of Newfoundland. “It’s a fine piece ofice,” Kean proclaims.
Every morning, Kean sails out with threeother crew members to hunt what has be-come his personal white gold: Icebergs. Formore than 20 years, he has been hauling icegiants. He then sells the water for a profit tolocal companies, which then bottle it, mix itinto beverages or use it to make cosmetics.
The business of icebergharvesting has soared in tandemwith the warming of the planet
Race against timeAs summer gets underway, time is of theessence in harvesting the icebergs. “Theycome here, and they melt so fast,” noted thecaptain, adding that once they are float-ing off the coast of Newfoundland, it isa real race against the clock. “In New-foundland, it’s like a fallen leaf. Theyare going to die in a couple of weeks,”he said. “So, we’re not here hurtingthe environment, we’re not takingnothing away — we’re just utilisingthe purest water we can get.”
No easy harvestArmed with a pole and net, crew memberslaboriously wrap up the precious fragmentsof a floating iceberg, each one weighing aton or two, and fasten them to a hook at theend of a crane, which winches them aboardthe boat. Kean then hacks the blocks up withan axe and puts the pieces into containers tomelt over the coming days. They sell to local mer-chants for a dollar a litre.
‘Pure’ businessThose businesses in turn market the iceberg prod-
ucts as made from some of the purest water mon-ey can buy. Dyna Pro, one of Kean’s clients, sells
the water $ 12 each. They are targeting awealthy clientele and have hopes to expand
their business abroad. The popular AukIsland Winery, in the tourist vil-
lage of Twillingate,makes wine from
wild berries and ice-berg water — and
sells it for $10-90a bottle. ET
Are you ready to goplogging? Plogging – the fitness craze from Sweden thatcombines running with garbage collection – is allset to hit India on October 2
T he India Plog Run is be-ing organised in Delhiand 49 other cities to
make garbage collection fun,healthy and to create a plas-tic-free environment. Thetwo hour event will be heldas part of October 2 (Gand-hi Jayanti) events.
The rundownAccording to Ramakrishna Ganesh,convener of IndiaPlog Run, theidea is to con-vey the mes-sage to a larg-er audienceon how sin-gle-use plasticaffects us, andthe importanceof disposing itproperly. The organisersof the Plog run are takingon board waste manage-ment partners in each city,who will be recycling andre-processing the plastic col-lected during the drive.
What is ploggingPlogging comes from the Swedish phrase ‘ploc-ka upp’, which means‘pick up’. It was start-ed in 2016 and hassince spread to othercountries.
In 2018, the Ben-galuru Plog Run led tocollection of 33.4 tonnesof plastic waste by morethan 7,000 partici-pants in under12 hours.
Why plastic Data from Cen-tral PollutionControl Boardstates that Indiaproduces 25,940
tonnes of plastic waste dai-ly, out of which 10,000 tonnesremain uncollected. The plas-tic materials choke landfills,drains and rivers, gradual-ly flowing into the sea af-fecting the marine life. Italso percolates into the soil,
infecting the natural envi-ronment with poison-ous chemicals. Theseharmful chemicals are
also found inside hu-man blood and tis-
sue, exposingpeople to dead-ly diseases likecancer, birthdefects, im-paired immu-nity and other
ailments.
How toparticipateEnthusiasts can register ata point nearest to their lo-cality or by logging ontowww.indiaplog.run. TNN
Indiaplog run willhappen in 50
cities and 500locations
150 HILL FISH SPECIES ARE FEELING THE HEAT, POLLUTION
A n internal study of the WildlifeInstitute of India (WII) has re-vealed that climate change willadversely affect around 150 na-tive fish species of Himalayan
states, including Uttarakhand, HimachalPradesh, Jammu & Kash-mir and ArunachalPradesh.
Common snowtrout in danger Of the 150 hill fish species, the com-mon snow trout is said to be most threatened,and in danger of going extinct. This fish, high-ly sought after as a food source, is likely to losearound 21 percent of its existing space of 16,251square kilometres in the region. The WII sci-entists indicated that “continuous stalking of
natural habi-tat by human
being” coupledwith pollution, glob-
al warming and dammingof rivers (there are over 200
major dams in the region)are some of the factors that pose a grave risk
to the habitat of these native fish species.
How dams pose a threat According to the scientists, the common snow
trout lives in the cold Himalayan water andtends to swim upstream, to the higher reach-es of the river during summer, to escape warmwaters. The WII report found that the presenceof dams on almost all the Himalayan rivers hin-ders this process.
Aashna Sharma, senior research fellow at WII,said, “Our study found the native high-altitude fishspecies survive in their natural habitat in the ar-eas where dams have not been built, like Himachal’sTirthan river.” Similarly, another fish species, Mah-seer, is also thriving in the undammed Nayaar riverin Uttarakhand’s Pauri Garhwal.
Sharma added, “Our research work indicates that, by2050, the snow trout will vanish from 400 sq kilometre ofits habitat – from Jammu and Kashmir, to ArunachalPradesh.” The scientists said they took climate models fromdeveloped countries to predict the impact of climate changeon the future. Vineet Dubey, project scientist (WII) also saidthat the exotic, highly invasive brown trout species is also athreat to the survival of the Himalayan freshwater fish. TNN
Brown trout, a carnivorous invasivefish species, introduced in theHimalayas in 1860 by the British, hasalso emerged as a major threat to nativefish species in Himalayan region
CORALS UNDER THERMAL STRESS IN THE ARABIAN SEA
C oral reefs — the marine won-ders that leave us awestruckby their rockpools of colour— are under climate threat.A recent study, published in
the reputed science journal ‘CurrentScience’, shows that they are slowlybleaching away on Gujarat’s Gulf ofKutch shores. A major reason is the fre-quent ‘ocean heat waves’ or thermalstress owing to climate change, coupledwith anthropological issues.
What is bleachingBleaching means the change in colourof the corals because of the decay in al-
gae living in their tissues as symbioticpartners. The algae is also the reasonthat gives the corals their distinctcolour. As sea temperature rises abovenormal summer maxima the corals areforced to expel the algae and turn white.These bleached corals thereafter get
prone to disease and ultimately die.
What the study foundA study undertaken by Isro’s SpaceApplications Centre (SAC) researchteam and the department of geo-
physics, Kurukshetra Universityanalysed sea surface temperatures(SST) from 1982 has reportedincreased number of heat stress days.The study includes three distinctyears of ‘Mass Coral Bleaching’(MCB) instances of 1998, 2010 and 2016recorded during the El Nino SouthernOscillation (ENSO) that causedabrupt rise in sea temperature.
The study revealed normallycorals can re-establish themselves (orreturn to their pre-bleaching state) ina decade or two. But the quick fre-quency and intensity of MCB over-whelms the coral reefs ability to re-cover from heat stress episodes. TNN
Globally,the corals uponwhich half-a-bil-lion peopledepend for foodand protectionare unlikely tosurvive surfacewarming of twodegrees Celsiusabove pre-indus-trial levels. AFP
The frequency, intensity and extentof marine heatwaves like those thatdevastated Australia’s Great BarrierReef have all increased, with oceanhot spells twice as likely today asduring the 1980s.
IN THE NEWS
Scientists fertilise seven northernwhite rhino eggs
Wildlife experts and veterinarians have announced that there ishope to prevent the extinction of the northern white rhino asthey successfully extracted eggs from the last two remaining
females of the species. The eggs will be used to reproduce the speciesthrough a surrogate. The groundbreaking procedure was carried outrecently on the northern white rhinos known as Najin and Fatu who can-not carry a pregnancy. The eggs are to be artificially inseminated withfrozen sperm from a northern white rhino bull and then transferred to asouthern white rhino surrogate mother. AP
A n Indonesian man completed an incrediblefeat of walking backwards nearly 800 kilome-tres from his village in eastern Java to capi-
tal Jakarta to raise awareness about deforestationand seek the government’s help in saving a forest inhis home province. Surrounded by curious onlookersand members of the volunteer group IndonesianEscorting Ambulance, which has helped him duringparts of his journey, 43-year-old Medi Bastoni,appeared indefatigable and happy with the attentionhe received after completing the arduous walk thattook him about a month. AGENCIES
Man completes 800 kilometrebackwards walking to save forest
QUICK NOTES
1Plogging comes from the swedish phrase ‘plockaupp,’ which means pick up.
2Plogging started in Sweden in 2016 and has sincethen spread to other countries.
3Joggers pick up garbage as they run, to reduce damage caused by single-plastic in
their environment.
Photo: Getty Images
