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ALTERNATIVES

What other cities can learn from Delhi’s experiments with public transport

17th May 2016

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….

NEWS ARCHIVE

NEWS UPDATE #87

17th March 2016

The Guardian reports: According to a new NASA study, the average global surface temperature in February was 1.35C warmer than the average temperature for the month between 1951-1980, a far bigger margin than ever seen before. The unprecedented leap led scientists, usually wary, to label the new record a “shocker” and warn of a “climate emergency”….

CLIMATE CRISIS

NEWS UPDATE #85

3rd March 2016

Sukumar Muralidharan reports on Catch News: This year’s economic survey is a catalogue of crises. For one thing, it records that the situation in agriculture has been dismal on account of two successive years of poor monsoons. This is only the fourth time in 115 years that such a misfortune has hit the Indian economy….

CLIMATE CRISIS

NEWS UPDATE #84

24th February 2016

January was the globe’s most unusually warm month ever recorded, and the past three months have been the most unusually warm three-month period on record as well, according to NASA. It is the combination of manmade global warming and a record strong El Niño that’s bumped up temperatures to never-before-seen levels since at least 1880….

CLIMATE CRISIS

NEWS UPDATE #83

17th February 2016

Common Dreams reports: A new analysis, published in Science Advances journal, reveals that global water scarcity is a far greater problem than previously thought, affecting 4 billion people—two-thirds of the world’s population. Previous analyses looked at water scarcity at an annual scale, and had found that water scarcity affected between 1.7 and 3.1 billion people….

CLIMATE CRISIS

NEWS UPDATE #82

8th February 2016

Decision On GM Mustard Deferred *Mining interests and tribal rights on collision course *Former atomic energy regulator says India needs to pause nuclear plans *Lesser water recorded in Indian reservoirs than last year *Sikkim Organic Mission: We Need To Dig Deeper *Hydro dam boom threatens freshwater fish *Radioactive Water From Fukushima Leaking Into the Pacific…

CLIMATE CRISIS

NEWS UPDATE #81

30th January 2016

India, Colombia and Nigeria have the most cases of conflict caused by climate change and environmental disputes, according to a map of global ecological conflict. The Environmental Justice Atlas, released last month, shows that more than 200 conflicts in India are caused by ecological disputes and scarcities of basic resources such as water and forests….

Frans Lanting

Bookshelf

New book: Elemental India : The Natural World in Crisis

24th January 2016

From the blurb: Around the world, people are increasingly facing a future that is crowded and hot, subject to violent weather extremes and a changing climate, where the rich and poor inhabit separate spheres and governments are unable or unwilling to confront these most vital challenges. For India, this reality is the very tangible present….

CLIMATE CRISIS

NEWS UPDATE #80

22nd January 2016

The Economic Times reports: The Central government has unveiled a new Crop Insurance Scheme with the premium to be paid by farmers as low as 1.5 per cent of the sum assured for all rabi crops and 2 per cent for kharif crops. The scheme comes without any cap on overall premium rate to ensure full claims….

ENERGY

NEWS UPDATE #79

12th January 2016

The Times of India reports: Distress conditions forced about 6 lakh people from Rayalaseema, where the major crop is groundnut, to move to cities in 2015. It works out to migration of around 1,600 persons per day last year. Although the rate dipped in November and December due to the ongoing cultivation, the trend continues….

CLIMATE CRISIS

NEWS UPDATE #77

24th December 2015

As many as 50 million people across the world face potential hunger, disease, and water shortages by early 2016 if countries do not act immediately, declared Oxfam on Monday, addressing those nations predicted to be ravaged by this year’s Super El Niño as well as wealthy governments indebted to those most vulnerable to climate change…

Indianexpress.com

Digests/Specials

Special: Delhi’s alarming pollution problem

19th December 2015

According to a recent survey, air pollution in Delhi is one-and-a-half times worse than in Beijing, which has always been among the world’s most polluted cities. This feature looks at Delhi’s unprecedented air pollution, which is endangering the health of its citizens, especially young children, and making the city a textbook example of urban dysfunction….

CLIMATE CRISIS

Why India is about to move to the ‘center stage’ of world energy

16th December 2015

Chris Mooney reports: “India is moving to the center stage of global energy,” IEA executive director Fatih Birol says. “All the numbers are indicating that India will be the number one country in terms of coal consumption and oil demand growth worldwide. India will also have more than 20 percent of the solar PV worldwide.”…

CLIMATE CRISIS

NEWS UPDATE #73

18th November 2015

Overheated Planet Entering ‘Uncharted Territory at Frightening Speed’ Common Dreams With new evidence that the concentration of greenhouse gases broke yet another record in 2014, the head of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) warned on Monday that the warming planet is hurtling “into uncharted territory at a frightening speed.” The United Nations weather agency’s latest…

CLIMATE CRISIS

News update

21st September 2015

Global Harming: India’s rich have a bigger ecological footprint than the world average Nihar Gokhale, Catch News It is no secret that there’s a growth in luxury goods in India. A 10-minute walk in any big city would attest to this. Over the last few generations, lifestyles have changed significantly, and a culture of consumerism…

CLIMATE CRISIS

News update

13th September 2015

Burning all fossil fuels will melt entire Antarctic ice-sheet, study shows The Guardian, UK Burning all the world’s coal, oil and gas would melt the entire Antarctic ice-sheet and cause the oceans to rise by over 50m, a transformation unprecedented in human history. The conclusion of a new scientific study shows that, over the course…

CLIMATE CRISIS

The IMF’s “shocking” estimate of fossil fuel costs: There’s more to the story

4th June 2015

Sajai Jose Credit: CGP Grey/Flickr, CC-BY 2.0 Recently, when an International Monetary Fund research paper revealed that the actual cost of fossil fuel usage for 2015 was a staggering US$ 5.3 trillion (approx. 340 lakh crore rupees), it made headlines worldwide, though it went largely unreported in India. What accounts for the bulk of this figure are the hidden…

Development/Growth

Letter to concerned ministers on fossil fuel subsidies

31st May 2015

To Sri. Piyush Goyal Union Minister for Coal, Power and Renewable Energy Govt. of India, New Delhi Copy with complements: Sri. Prakash Javadekar Union Minister for Environment, Forests and Climate Change Govt. of India, New Delhi Sri. Arun Jaitely Union Minister for Finance Govt. of India, New Delhi Sri Naredra Modi Prime Minister Govt. of…

CLIMATE CRISIS

News update

19th April 2015

Saudi Arabia’s Plan to Extend the Age of Oil Peter Waldman, Bloomberg.com Last Novemeber, Ali al-Naimi, Saudi Arabia’s petroleum minister and the world’s de facto energy czar, told his OPEC counterparts they should maintain output to protect market share from rising supplies of U.S. shale oil, which costs more to get out of the ground…

Health/Safety

Video: Under the Dome – Investigating China’s Smog

12th March 2015

Abby Zimet, Common Dreams Giving new breadth to the term “viral,” last weekend up to 200 million people in China watched “Under the Dome,” a new, deeply personal, meticulously researched, self-funded for just $160,000 documentary about China’s calamitous pollution problem, which on its worst “airpocalypse” days is said to resemble an airport smoking lounge. The film by…