Jayanta Bandopadhya writes: We no longer need meteorologists to tell us that the average temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere is growing steadily. Our most urgent task will be to take action towards reduction and reversal of global warming and consequent climate change, and thus, avoid a great threat to the survival of all life forms….
Read More about Time to wake up and smell the climate change coffee
Bhaskar Vira writes: Water is an issue that cuts across all aspects of social and economic life in India. Compartmentalised responses are unlikely to adequately address the current crises. There is a need for an integrated approach, which addresses source sustainability, land use management, agricultural strategies, demand management and the distribution and pricing of water….
Read More about Droughts and floods: India’s water crises demand more than grand projects
Mayank Ale writes: There is an acute shortage of water in Hyderabad. Today Hyderabad receives water from 4 rivers – Musi, Krishna, Godavari and Manjeera. With 2 of the 4 rivers, Manjeera and Musi, drying up due to over usage, the city is facing acute water shortage and are getting water from farther and farther away….
Read More about How Rain Water Harvesting can stem Hyderabad’s water crisis
Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell, said the author Edward Abbey. This quote provides perspective into the human paradigm responsible for our current ecological crises, including climate change. These multiple indications should be enough to stimulate our common sense into believing that immediate actions are to be taken….
Read More about Red alert: Why we need to act now to counter climate change
Frances Moore Lappé writes: The primary obstacle to sustainable food security is an economic model and thought system, embodied in industrial agriculture, that views life in disassociated parts, obscuring the destructive impact this has on humans, natural resources, and the environment. The emerging alternative, relational approach —agroecology— has already shown promising success on the ground….
Read More about Farming for a small planet: Agroecology now!In Defence of Life follows the struggles and triumphs of four rural communities resisting large-scale mining projects in Colombia, Philippines, South Africa and Romania. Courageous environmental and human rights defenders from these communities describe how they have suffered and why they are standing firm to protect their families, land, water and life from destruction by mining….
Read More about Video: In Defence of Life: Stories of community resistance to mining
Shonali Muthalaly writes: After all, ‘natural’ is an easy term to manipulate — bio-fertilisers and bio pesticides are technically natural too. When the farmer controls the entire process, using dung from village cattle, neem cakes and local earthworms, it’s a simpler, cleaner, and more straightforward process. It also means that the farmer has full control….
Read More about Does buying organic food also mean you are eating responsibly?
India is reeling under a back-to-back drought, with 10 states declared affected and nearly 2,00,000 villages affected, and shredding the social fabric in affected areas. In this concluding part of our series on combating drought, we present examples where traditional methods for water harvesting have been successfully put to use by communities to drought-proof themselves….
Read More about Series: Combating drought – 3: Traditional methods to the rescue
If you’ve experienced the so-called impossible, then the impossibility of humanity making the transition is no longer so clear. If someone can recover from “incurable” stage 4 pancreatic cancer, what else is possible? What is the correlate of that on the level of politics or ecology? Many young people are beginning to explore this question….
Read More about Charles Eisenstein: By their fruits ye shall know them
Ugo Bardi writes: I am reporting the results of a small survey that I carried out last week among members of a discussion forum; mainly experts in renewable energy. The question was about the possibility of obtaining a society 100% based on renewable energy sources, before it is too late to avoid the climate disaster….
Read More about Is a 100% renewable world possible? An informal poll among experts“Life in Syntropy” is a short film that was screened at the Paris climate talks. It tells the story of Brazilian farmer Ernst Gotsch, who bought 1,200 acres of completely deforested land on the edge of the rainforest in 1984 and transformed it into a remarkably biodiverse farm that reverses climate change by sequestering carbon….
Read More about Life in Syntropy: The story of a transformation
As India reels under a back-to-back drought, with 10 states declared affected and nearly 2,00,000 villages affected, it’s time to ask whether the present situation could’ve been avoided. And yet, here are examples from across India where, armed with little more than determination and imagination, ordinary people have turned things around to create little oases….
Read More about Series: Combating drought – 2: Success stories
The Indian Express reports: Last week, a Solar Pump Irrigators’ Cooperative Enterprise (SPICE) was up and running in Dhundi, a village in Gujarat’s Anand district. Members of this cooperative —the first of its kind in the world— are using solar power not only to run pumps, but also sell their surplus energy to the grid….
Read More about SPICE: The world’s first solar farming cooperative
Madhu Ramnath reports: Unknown to the rest of the country, a small group of adivasis from the forested villages in central Bastar have been busy doing work that would make conservationists proud. People from Sandh Karmari, Kakalgur, Kangoli and nearby villages have been gathering native seeds and raising them in nurseries in fairly large numbers….
Read More about Bastar: Conservation in the time of conflict
Peter Smetacek writes: The question, naturally, is: What are we hoping to achieve by the process of planting forests? Because we don’t have a clear answer, it is no surprise that there is not a single success story in all the “watershed management” and “afforestation” drives that the public has paid for throughout the country….
Read More about How India’s forests have been lost in translation – in plantations
Sonal Shah writes: Cities have concentrated on bettering vehicle and fuel technologies and building bus rapid transit or metro rail systems. However, they need to focus on managing demand, augmenting their bus transport systems, improving last mile connectivity and enabling compact development. This will shift people towards non-motorised and public transport and avoid motorised trips….
Read More about What other cities can learn from Delhi’s experiments with public transportRina Saeed Khan reports: Under its “Green Growth Initiative”, the Imran Khan-led Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party has begun a number of activities to reverse sixty years of deforestation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Along with a crackdown on the timber mafias, they have started a large scale afforestation project called “The Billion Tree Tsunami” to reverse this trend….
Read More about Pakistan’s ‘Billion Tree Tsunami’ takes hold
It is a peculiar combination of technological, economic and geopolitical factors that has led to the present crash in oil prices, lulling many observers into dismissing peak oil. Through it all, the fact remains that the production of ‘conventional oil’, drawn mostly from established oil wells, has not gone up since its peak in 2008….
Read More about Peak Oil returns to haunt the global economyIndia in its INDC pledged to achieve 40% cumulative electric power installed capacity from non-fossil fuel based energy resources by 2030. The carbon cess will help provide a clear and direct indication to the market of rising regulatory risks that hover over the fossil fuel industry and build business confidence in the non-fossil fuel industry….
Read More about Will doubling India’s coal tax boost the clean energy sector?
Alberto Acosta writes: Mainstream thinking – embedded within capitalist globalisation – makes us accept the impossibility of imagining an economy that does not promote economic growth, as much as a world without oil, mining and agribusiness is impossible. Within this mainstream thinking, we can find people from every political and ideological stance, from neoliberals to socialists….
Read More about The only sustainable growth is de-growth!
