CSE's Fortnightly News Bulletin (February 18, 2011) ===================================================
The focus this fortnight remains on village commons. A landmark Supreme Court ruling comes as a bugbear for all who illegally occupy village commons. At the same time, an unclean, not-so-white tale is emerging from rural Gujarat -- Nirma, the detergent major, is in the dock. A POSCO update is included as well. We also bring you our regular bouquet of training courses, workshops and everything else that is new in CSE. ==================================== Sign up to receive this e-newsletter http://equitywatch.org/phplist/?p=subscribe&id=6 To unsubscribe, just click http://www.cseindia.org/content/please-enter-your-email-id-unsubscribe-cse-newsletter ==================================== FROM DOWN TO EARTH ==================================== FRONTPAGE: Return of village land Common property resources, which constitute 15 per cent of the country's total area, are shrinking at a rate of 1.9 per cent every five years due to encroachment. In January, a Supreme Court judgment decided to put a stop to it: it asked states to evict all illegal occupants of village commons, and restore them to the community. Activists hailed the ruling, which has huge implications, countrywide. To read more, go to http://downtoearth.org.in/content/common-assets-given-exclusive-use SPECIAL REPORT: Nirma whitewash A new battleground is emerging in Gujarat. The Gujarat Government brought respite to the farmers in coastal Saurashtra by building a reservior in 2000 for irrigation. However, within a decade the lifeline of the farmers was snatched away. A part of the reservior was given by the government to the detergent major Nirma for its cement factory. The region's residents are clamoring for justice, and the environment ministry is gearing up to inspect the site and report to the Supreme Court. Read the investigation http://downtoearth.org.in/content/nirma-whitewash FRONTPAGE: Posco gets green signal The conditional clearance of POSCO, a package of information on it, and a Reporter's Diary. Read on at http://downtoearth.org.in/content/posco-gets-green-signal http://www.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/indepth/term/325 http://downtoearth.org.in/content/posco-unplugged ==================================== EDITORIAL Fatal disconnect (by Sunita Narain) ==================================== The World Economic Forum — the gathering of power glitterati each year in Davos — has assessed the top risks the world faces in 2011. According to this analysis, climate change is the highest-ranking risk the world will face in the coming years, when its likelihood and impact are combined. What’s even more important is the interconnections between climate change and the other top risks: economic disparity (ranked 3), extreme weather events (ranked 5), extreme energy price volatility (ranked 6), geopolitical conflict (ranked 7), flooding and water security (9 and 10). The world — even according to the richest men — is in deep and desperate trouble. This is not a past or future scenario. This is the present. The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) says world food prices this January hit a “historic peak”. The food price index, collated by FAO, averaged 231 points in January, which is the highest since 1990, when it started measuring food prices globally. The reasons for the spike are not just the traditional, ranging from greedy speculators to faulty future markets and rising demand. They are newer: extreme weather events, floods and droughts, heat and frost waves. And they suggest a threat even more difficult to contain. Just consider the year gone by. In August and September, two separate grain-growing regions of the world were being impacted by extreme weather—bitter cold and frost in Canada and searing heat, fires and drought in Russia. Add to this the floods in Australia and now winter drought in China’s main wheat-growing northern regions. All this has meant global wheat production is down and prices are high. Bad weather has taken its toll on crops across the world. In India over the past two months, paddy ready to be harvested was damaged because of unseasonal rain in Andhra Pradesh and Odisha;chilli crop was hit in Tamil Nadu; frost and extreme cold destroyed crops in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Punjab. Farmers have committed suicide over crop failures. There are many more cases of damage to crops because of changing weather. Last year several parts of India witnessed floods. This year vast parts of Africa are facing floods. Droughts and floods add to the cycle of destitution because they destroy the gains of development. We know no single weather event is because of climate change. But their growing intensity and frequency certainly is. We must begin to understand the connection between bad weather, increased food prices that add to poverty, and the spilling global unrest. It was the spike in food prices that led to the first spark of protest in Tunisia and has now spread across Egypt and other parts of the Arab world. Clearly, increasing food demand driven by growing population, combined with crop losses because of weather-related events and exacerbated by poor governance, will be the tinderbox of the future. These will add to the destitution of the poorestand make global disparity starker. Then why do rich men still have their head (and heart) buried in the sand as far as solutions to climate change are concerned? Why is there no progress to reduce emissions? In fact, why in the world is the movement backward when it comes to this top-ranking risk? The world has touched rock bottom as far as progress on an effective agreement on climate change is concerned. In Cancun we know there was a deliberate and successful move to dismantle the agreement to set targets to cut emissions that threaten the world’s present and future. The cost of the agreement, stitched to please the US and its coalition of the willing, is that world leaders are now under no pressure—legal, moral or financial—to take the hard steps needed to reduce emissions. In Cancun every party but one (Bolivia) agreed to do nothing. It is not in the interest of anyone. Worse, since Cancun the world has moved further back on its commitment to limit emissions. Japan has crossed the line saying it will not and cannot do more; US is currently contemplating how it can get rid of the puny little action it was taking to monitor carbon dioxide as a pollutant; Europe and the rest want to find new trade tricks to do little at home. The world is precariously placed: on the one hand, the crisis is growing and becoming evident; on the other hand, the response is weakening and losing urgency. The answer to my question is not far to find. The Davos glitterati’s assessment of global risks contains a fatal error. There is no mention, let alone appreciation, of the role of the same powerful economic game, set and system as the cause of the world’s present danger.The men who run the world (it is now accepted that the club has limited membership) do not even begin to join the dots that point towards their complicity in not addressing the problem. This is the most obvious and fatal disconnect of our times. We will all pay for this. Big time. Post your comments on this editorial online at http://downtoearth.org.in/content/fatal-disconnect ==================================== MORE FROM DOWN TO EARTH ================================== - COVER STORY: Batteries and meters: technologies on a high Two widely used technologies. Down to Earth tries to chart their evolution and analyse their future. The entire story at http://downtoearth.org.in/content/two-technologies-shape-our-future - Budget special: Farmers want support as they claim they are becoming more vulnerable due to erratic weather (http://downtoearth.org.in/content/farmers-want-support), while there is a case for making diesel cars pay for subsidised fuel and pollution (http://downtoearth.org.in/content/remove-perverse-incentive) - Drought hit: Jharkhand’s water table falls three metres in one year http://downtoearth.org.in/content/drought-hit - Victims of vaccination: Vaccine trials in a Madhya Pradesh government hospital are making children sick. Culprit: harmful chemicals in high amounts. http://downtoearth.org.in/content/victims-vaccination - Leopards in our alley: These big cats have lived in human habitations for long http://downtoearth.org.in/content/leopards-our-alley - Kerala gets cautious: Plans to ban extremely and moderately hazardous pesticides in cardamom district, Idukki http://downtoearth.org.in/content/kerala-gets-cautious ================================== WEB EXCLUSIVES ================================== Radio DTE: Public health activist Anand Rai talks about how harmful chemicals are being used in children's vaccines. Hear him http://downtoearth.org.in/node/85/video ==================================== On India Environment Portal ==================================== Blogs: Read views/perspectives of leading environmentalists on the India Environment Portal. Sujit Patwardhan opines about the Urban Mobility Conference held in New Delhi in December 2011 Read him at http://www.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/blog/dialogue-deaf# Access the most comprehensive collection of reports, studies, documents, public hearings, court orders, judicial proceedings ... on environment and development here http://www.environmentportal.in/reports_and_documents_page Subscribe to the Daily News Bulletin on environment http://indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/daily-news-bulletin/rss Be our partner Contribute: Reports/documents on this portal have been found to be very useful and appreciated by the visitors of India environment portal managed by CSE. 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For other details please contact [email protected], [email protected] ==================================== LEARNING WITH CSE ==================================== Courses offered by Anil Agarwal Green Centre - Decentralised Wastewater Treatment & Reuse Policy Workshop Sustainable urban water management - Policies and Practises Date: March 3-4,2011 CSE is organising a two day programme focusing on how urban areas can establish decentralised wastewater treatment system (DWWT) particularly in unsewered areas that would facilitate recycling and reuse of water. For information contact Mirajuddin Ahmad Deputy Coordinator, Urban Water Programme Centre for Science and Environment Phone: 011-29955124/29955125 (Ext. 280) Fax: 011-29955879 Email: [email protected] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - Urban Rainwater Harvesting A course for civil engineers, architects, urban planners, environment consultants and NGOs, students and academicians Date: March 22-25, 2011 Last Date for Applying: March 10, 2011 Course Module: - Overview – Water – yesterday, today and tomorrow - Science of rainwater harvesting - Technology of rainwater harvesting - Harvesting the city’s water endowment - Policy framework for rainwater harvesting - Making water everybody’s business: A primer for action For information contact:[email protected] Debasis Tudu Research Associate, Water Programme Centre for Science and Environment Phone : 91 (011) 29955124 (Ext. 280) Mobile : +91 9013338906 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Urban transportation reforms for clean and liveable cities: An orientation programme for policy makers Date: March 22 – 24, 2011 Course Module: - Challenges of urbanization – especially air pollution, congestion, public health impacts, energy and climate impacts of motorization etc. - Why vehicles are a special challenge? - Challenges of mobility management - Strategies to scale up public transport and design multi-modal integration - Bus sector reforms - Implementation of bus rapid transit system - Making cities walkable - Non-motorised transport - Parking policy as a congestion reduction strategy - Funding mechanism for public transport and rationalisation of transport related taxes to promote public transport usage - Issues for city mobility plan and the reform agenda under the JNNURM programme for effective time bound action For more information, contact Priyanka Chandola Tel: 011 - 29955124 9810414938 (Mobile) Fax: 011 - 29955879 Email: [email protected] --------------------------------------------------------------------------- - Agenda for Survival A month-long summer certificate course on environment and development issues Date: June 1-30, 2011 Last date for applying: April 15, 2011 Course Module: - State of India’s environment: An overview - The environmental movement in India - Poverty and the biomass economy - Ecological rights & natural resource management - Land and its use: Agriculture, food security - Conservation & conflict: wildlife management debate - Urban growth challenges: Water & waste management, air pollution & mobility - Sustainable industrialisation & public health concerns - Climate change & global environmental governance - A week-long field trip to rural India to explore eco-restoration efforts at the grassroots level Contact: Sharmila Sinha Assistant coordinator Anil Agarwal Green Collage Centre for Science and Environment Phone : 91 (011) 29955124 (Ext. 280)Email: [email protected] Mobile: +91 9818482018 ==================================== WHAT MORE ARE WE DOING... Updates from our programme units ==================================== - International Conference on Compliance and Liability in Climate Change Negotiations Delhi - Indian Habitat Centre, Magnolia Hall, March 1, 2011 10:00 to 18:00 Centre for Science and Environment brings experts from across the globe to discuss these challenges and illuminate upon solutions that we must work towards. The panel comprises renowned environmental lawyers, professors and climate negotiators who will be facing NGOs, campaigners,researchers and together will try to find answers to one of the most challenging quandaries that climate change harbingers. For details, contact Adityo Ghosh at [email protected] ---------------------------------------------------------------- - CSE organises a 2 day long media workshop on Forest Rights Act in Bhubaneshwar on March 4-5, 2011 For more information, contact Papia at [email protected] ==================================== Down To Earth magazine – An A-Z Guide on Environment ==================================== If you want to get a better understanding of the environment scene in India, how and why it affects you (and could impact your future generations) and what can be done about it, then you should read on. Environment holds the key to a sustainable and brighter future for all of us if we understand it better and take necessary corrective actions right now. Our popular fortnightly magazine, Down To Earth (DTE), was launched in 1992 and since then has been consistently keeping the subscribers informed on the latest happenings around the world. It has truly lived up to its reputation as an easy to understand A-Z guide on environment, which is topical, trustworthy and comprehensive. We know you are also concerned about the environmental degradation and we request you to get more involved in your personal capacity as well as on behalf of your organization. By subscribing to DTE you would not only be kept updated about the environment scene but also would indirectly help in spreading the environment message among your colleagues and the community, fortnight after fortnight. Click here to subscribe:http://downtoearth.org.in/node/1117 ==================================== About this e-mail ==================================== You are receiving this newsletter because you have asked to be included in our list, attended a CSE event or requested information. Sign up to receive this e-newsletter http://equitywatch.org/phplist/?p=subscribe&id=6 To unsubscribe, just click http://www.cseindia.org/content/please-enter-your-email-id-unsubscribe-cse-newsletter CSE is an independent, public interest organization that was established in 1982 by Anil Agarwal, a pioneer of India's environmental movement. CSE's mandate is to research, communicate and promote sustainable development with equity, participation and democracy. _______________________________________________ _______________________________________________
