Raiot.in
Bookshelf
If there is one book which speaks of all mining blighted societies, then it’s this one. The book by Hartman de Souza breaks all the boundaries of genres and gets its politics and economics right on. At once travelogue, investigative journalism and family memoir, Eat Dust maps the culture, topography and cultural diversity of Goa….
Read More about New Book: Eat Dust – Mining and Greed in Goa, by Hartman de Souza
The Hindu
GREEN POLITICS
Vasanth Srinivasan of The Hindu quotes former AAP leader Yogendra Yadav as saying, “there is a crying need for environmental politics” in India, but with the following caveat. “If green politics does not restrict itself as urban environmental activism but emerges as a binding agent of various marginalised groups and concerns, it definitely has a future in India.”…
Read More about Yogendra Yadav and Vandana Shiva call for a green party in India
southasia.oneworld.net
Food/Farming
With the formation of WTO, a new international economic world order came into being. This has greatly affected the fate of farmers in developing countries. Writer and policy analyst Devinder Sharma elaborates on the impact of the continuing agrarian crisis in India and calls for a concerted effort in arresting the escalation of the crisis….
Read More about Video: Why are farmers dying?
CLIMATE CRISIS
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…
Read More about NEWS UPDATE #77
Dead mango trees at the author's farm during the drought of 2011-2015
Uma Shankari
CLIMATE CRISIS
Chittoor-based farmer and activist Uma Shankari writes: After the year 2010, for the first time we’ve had good rains; in fact exceptionally good rains, a side effect of the Chennai disaster. My husband used to say, “If Chennai drowns, we’ll be saved”. This time it came true. We’ve not seen such heavy rains in twenty, thirty years….
Read More about Did Marx call the peasant an idiot? He was right, I am an idiot.
Rahul Alvares
GREEN POLITICS
Meet this year’s Earth Heroes, winners of the Sanctuary Wildlife Awards 2015, who form a part of the small tribe of people who keep our planet wonderful. Men and women who work with steadfast passion to protect what remains of wild nature. (Pictured above: Two of the award-winners – Goa-based environmentalists Claude and Norma Alvares)….
Read More about Earth Heroes: The Sanctuary Wildlife Awards 2015
Indianexpress.com
Digests/Specials
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….
Read More about Special: Delhi’s alarming pollution problem
Development/Growth
Columnist Tushar Dhara writes: Environmentalists, urban geographers, social activists and other such critically engaged citizens have consistently been talking about the perils of a development which ignores ecological sustainability and social justice — only to be told that they were against progress. A more damning criticism is “anti-national”, supposedly working on behalf of foreign interests….
Read More about A Message From The Chennai Floods: It’s Not Anti-National To Question ‘Development’
CLIMATE CRISIS
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.”…
Read More about Why India is about to move to the ‘center stage’ of world energy
CLIMATE CRISIS
Lekha Sridhar writes: The picture that emerges is of India demanding climate justice from an unrepentant West, which happily belched out carbon emissions for centuries and now does not want to allow developing countries their fair share of the carbon space. However, the Indian media should steer clear from lionising India’s rhetoric on climate change….
Read More about NEWS UPDATE #76 (Climate special)
CLIMATE CRISIS
Even if all emission pledges are fully implemented, temperature rise by 2100 will exceed 2oC, and may be in the range 3-4oC. The additional carbon space of 1,000 GtCO2 will fill by 2040, just 5 years later than had emissions continued in a business-as-usual manner. Clearly, the pledges are too little and have come too late….
Read More about From Hopelesshagen to Flop21: the shenanigans of climate change negotiations
CLIMATE CRISIS
There is no threat to any society, anywhere, that is remotely comparable to that of climate change. How can people summon so much indignation on so many matters and yet remain indifferent to a process that threatens their very existence? Nowhere is the disjunction more confounding than in India, which will be among the worst-affected….
Read More about Video: The Great Derangement – Amitav Ghosh on climate change
Commuters carry their motorbikes through a waterlogged street in Chennai
AP
CLIMATE CRISIS
“Studies show that with rising global temperatures, the intensity of rain spells is increasing, both in the southwest and northeast monsoons,” says M Rajeevan, director, Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology. While no single weather event can said to be directly affected by global warming, the probability of heavy rain increases in the climate change scenario….
Read More about Update: Chennai floods and climate change
An image from flooded Kotturpuram
PTI
CLIMATE CRISIS
Chennai experienced exceptionally heavy rainfall in 1969, 1976, 1985, 1996, 1998, 2005 and now in 2015. Even a decadal frequency is higher than the occurrence of extreme rain events in the first half of the 20th century. It’s likely that at least some of these six extreme rain events had the fingerprint of climate change….
Read More about Climate Change Brought the Rains, Our ‘Development’ Brought the Chaos
CLIMATE CRISIS
We are already seeing chatter about whether this is our last chance to “save the world” or keep us below 2°C of global warming. But that’s the wrong way to think about Paris. They’re not designed to do that. The actual goal is more modest: to add structure and momentum to efforts that are already underway….
Read More about NEWS UPDATE #75 (Climate special)
EI_EcoPictures/Twitter
CLIMATE CRISIS
As climate risks grow worse, the dynamic adaptation gap for India could grow to $360 billion in finance and much more in technology. Nayantara Narayanan, Scroll.in As the 21st Conference of Parties on Climate Change gets underway in Paris, a major sticking point in the deliberations will be climate finance. India is leading the charge…
Read More about India may need $1 trillion by 2030 to adapt to climate change
CLIMATE CRISIS
(Note: In this series of posts, we take a closer look at India’s Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC), ahead of the Paris climate talks. This concluding post primarily examines trends in India’s energy consumption, which is what will primarily determine whether we can meet our climate targets or not. Also read: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4 of…
Read More about India’s INDCs and the road to Paris – 5CLIMATE CRISIS
Can India modernize its manufacturing economy and supply electricity to its growing population without relying heavily on coal—and quite possibly destroying the global climate? Richard Martin, Technology Review An old man wakes on the floor of a hut in a village in southern India. He is wrapped in a thin cotton blanket. Beside him, music wails…
Read More about India’s Energy Crisis
CLIMATE CRISIS
Climate change makes past five-year period the warmest on record: WMO The Guardian Climate change made 2011-2015 the warmest five-year period on record, according to the World Meteorological Organisation’s (WMO) state of the global climate report. This year is set to be the single hottest ever registered, with planetary temperatures passing the symbolic milestone of 1C…
Read More about NEWS UPDATE #74 (Climate special)
Reuters
CLIMATE CRISIS
(Note: The weather is changing, adding to the woes of the Indian farmer, who is already in a state of crisis. Even as the pundits split hairs over climate change, for the farmer, it seems the writing is on the wall. In Weathering the change, we present a short series presenting the farmer’s perspective on the impact of these changes.)…
Read More about Series: Weathering the change – Part 1
