Enough of us now

People from different walks of life, are increasingly aware about the critical situation called ‘climate change.’The change in the weather patterns, unusual medical perils traced to toxic pollutants and natural calamities world over, echoes the ruthless and immeasurable use of our environment. There could be millions of climate refugees, with the number of people soaring very year. The solution must be addressed in the plural, globally. Paul and Anne Ehrlich reports the issue of population growth on the Earth in the article, ‘Enough of us now’ published recently in the New Scientist science journal.

It is evident that the countries that consume resources at a larger rate as well as those with an appalling population census are more likely to be the worst hit by climate change. Paul and Anne Ehrlich points out that “the US with its population of over 300 million and high per capita consumption should be seen as Earth's most over populated nation.” They added that the estimated 2.3 million people in year 2050 will “have to be supported by scarcer, lower-quality resources imposing ever greater environmental costs,” alerting China and India of their population status.

If the number of people escalates over the next couple of years with poor quality of sustainable programs, a proportional death toll would be imperative. This could be an affect of reoccurring natural calamities, pathogenic out breaks or the lack of sufficient food.

Poorly educated women in the society failing to understand the weight of population on the economy and the environment, would beckon for a better fortified and supportive legislative system. The issue must be addressed observantly by the nation’s government assembly, to assure healthy population census.

In India, young rural women who move into cities in hope to find money, end up bearing a dozen children to add to the hands for begging. Little do they realise that they are as many stomachs to feed and shelter. Ehrlich mentions that if there are “opportunities for women to participate in [their] nations’ economies,” half the problem would be solved. In fact the article mentioned, at “the Grameen Bank offered credit to poor people of Bangladesh, especially women,” which “helped reduce birth rates there, simply by boosting grassroots economic development.”

In conclusion, in order to abate the affects of climate change, the industrial and corporate levels should find the need to cater to an environmentally conscious society. The decisions that are collectively made by the people can mitigate the effects of global warming. “Awareness is half the cure,” they say the rest depends on us and our choices. It’s important to leave a minimal, if not zero, carbon footprint before we welcome our future.

Reference: Paul and Anne Ehrlich (2009) “Enough of us now”, New Scientist, 26th Sept 2009. Page number: 36,37

Salam, Dr. Kalam!

On the dot of 10 am, we met him... The man who enthralled the audience with his very presence as he smiled and waved at everyone with a humble demeanour. I was overwhelmed when I met him face to face. I'm looking at the ex-President of India I reminded myself when his humility presented me with his smile.

"We are honoured to have among us today, Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam..." and that was all it took for the crowd to roar with appreciation! "I know that this college, Mount Carmel College is known for showing their appreciation and happiness (loud cheer from the audience)... in here as well as in the area" he teased while he addressed the gathering.

He spoke of a vision he called 2020. One in which he believes that India would be referred to as a developed country by the year 2020. He said we must take inspiration from the likes of Mother Theresa, Vangari Mathai and Sister Antonia.

He said we must emulate from Mother Theresa for her loving, caring and giving nature, for as she had worded it in her acceptance speech, "when you learn to share with the others, you will learn to love. When you learn to love, you bring peace." Dr. Kalam quoted her and added, making us echo his words,

"When there is righteousness in the heart, There is beauty in the character,
When there is beauty in the character, There is harmony at home,
When there is harmony at home, There is order in the Nation,
When there is order in the Nation, There will be peace in the world"

The second person he referred to was Ms. Vangari Mathai from Kenya. She was an ordinary woman who made an extraordinary change with a simple idea of planting tree saplings. The record for planting close to 41 million tree saplings, through her Green Belt Movement, was felicitated with the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for Intellectual Understanding in 2005. "Planting a tree, is planting an idea" he quoted her saying.

He added that if 300 million youth in our country can plant 2 saplings per person, then 1500 million trees would be of existence... "Even if your generation can not benefit from it, at least the next generation will. "So each one of you will plant trees, OK?"

The last person he spoke of was of a courageous woman. One who walked calmly in the middle of a ferocious prison riot in Mexico, held her hands out while police forces sprayed bullets at the prisoners and yelled for order. And order she got. Sister Antonia was renouned for her work at the prison in Mexico. She devoted her entire live for the betterment of them.

All these woman have done great things and have changed the lives of several lives by simply being compassionate. Dr Kalam quotes from Everyday Greatness(a book he recommends), "Leadership with compassion is required" be it in any field, be it for a teacher, a student...or even a politician.

He concluded by saying that everyone should be proud to be an Indian, must be courageous to forge through life's obstacles and to help the society. After all when you help your society, you've helped several people, including yourself!

Suggested related articles:
www.hindu.com/2009/08/30/stories/2009083052220500.htm
Visit: http://www.indiavision2020.org/
Picture taken from Times of India, Bangalore.

"Pedal towards a better tommorow!"

Sick of the daily traffic pollution in Bengaluru? I know I am! But here's something I'm looking forward to-
Karnataka Chief Secretary, Mr. Sudhakar Rao has roped in TI Cycles of India for a FIRST EVER in India, Cyclothon event. Scheduled tentatively on 11th October, the event marks the 60th anniversary of the cycle company.

The race has been categorized into
50 km Elite race for the professional and competitive athelets
50 km Amateur race
25 km Corporate race
25 km Green race
5 km Teen race (13-17 years of age)
2 km Fun ride (8-12 years of age)

"The races will be flagged off at the Bengaluru International Exhibition Centre (BIEC) and finish at the same spot after a run through the NICE corridor" The Hindu paper stated. A separate lane for the participants would be provided for that day.

Mr. Sudhakar Rao was quoted in The Hindu saying, " Let us hope that it helps us in our drive for a cleanier, greener and healthier Bengaluru." While the TI cycle company hopes to have this as an annual event.
To register please check : http://www.bsaherculescyclothon.in.com/
Cheers! This is for our Earth!

Over-loading or Over-looking?!

The power cuts are a real pain. It puts life into a grinding halt.
No TV.
No computer.
No charging laptop.
No charging phones.
No microwave.
No lightbulbs!
Whoever invented electricity should have known better than to make life dependent on it!

Nonetheless,
think the KEB authorities forget that even the UPS power backing system can't survive long enough without electricity.

It irks me when I notice main roads illuminated with billboards reading RIDICULOUS punch lines near a celeb's silly smile; Bus stops lit with 30 vertically placed lightbulbs! (the same effect can be achieved with 9-12 horizontally placed light bulbs!) And have you noticed that of late, there are more than one bus stop at the same location? Take the Guttahalli bus stop for instance. What's the point in having three bus stops of three different sizes? It just confuses people even more!

Are the concerned authorities so blind? If we stopped using electricity for useless hoardings running all night from 6pm to 7:30 am the next day, and allow only important ones such as hospital numbers, then we'd be saving a lot of energy! Apparently, a source from a newspaper article stated that Bangalore has 25 lakh billboards! (statistics taken from 2008 paper) Most take away the light from the street lamp as they tend to be brighter. This distracts the driver.

The power cuts though are far greater a trouble for students during their exams, for watchmen, for pedistrians and for drivers! Simple measures can do simple wonders. It's time someone shook BESCOM and KEB to the realities. If a 20 yr old can find solutions, so can they!

Your Time Starts Now.

‘Transition Elements’, I think that’s what I would call us. The generation of people who live life the 21st century way with all the technology and ease it has to offer, knowing fully well how life used to be as recent as a decade ago, simple yet content.
Personally I miss the days when I was restricted to just one hour of television a day, the Internet was a fascinating world that was yet to be explored and ‘the outdoors’ was my best friend.
I once had an interesting conversation with a kid, probably ten years old, talkative and brilliant. He knew exactly how to sneak into the heavily guarded palatial residence of the Brazilian President, assassinate him and walk out without a trace, thanks to his xbox 360. This same boy however didn’t have a clue of what his neighborhood looked like or worse, if there were any other boys his age living close by. There could be many reasons for this innocent yet strange ignorance and I am quite certain that he is just one of many such kids. Children today are born into a manmade world almost completely cut off from the natural one. They would rather choose to play virtual tennis and hack animated bad guys to death rather than go out and actually get bruised and dirty.
The definition of ‘socializing’, to a large population of teenagers wouldn’t exactly mean to mingle and get to know one another but instead it is most likely to be something on the lines of ‘lets shop all day, dress up and club all night!’
The point I am trying to make here is that most young people today have priorities spread across varied wavelengths. While ‘A’ might want to dedicate his life to prepare for higher studies, ‘B’ might want to be a little more laid back and spend his summers at home watching reality Television. But no matter where you go and what you do, the environment and its pathetic shape will most definitely affect you.
Yes, Global Warming is an enormous crisis that’s posing a threat to our planet, but if you break it down to smaller bits, it equates to something far more difficult to digest and simply put, REAL. People in the coasts being washed away by floods, people in bustling cities having to breathe hot air and drink rationed amounts of water while going through weeks without even so much as having a bath!
That is probably something you would call –The worst-case scenario. But strangely enough we seem to be inviting it with open (and careless!) arms.
The Green House Emissions of India have been found to be 1.1 tonnes per annum making us the third largest contributor to Global Warming, after the States and China. The margin by which they lead however is pretty huge, the US releasing approximately 20 tonnes. Yet, efforts are being made by our country to reduce the numbers further alongside making sure its economic progress isn’t affected. The area of Climate Change brings in new avenues for people from all walks of life because we NEED man power at every level!

That is the precise reason why the youth of today has to wake up and start becoming responsible for their future. Yes, we have reached a point where we need to think of our immediate future, not even that of our children’s.

No one is asking for people to quit what they are doing ,walk onto the streets, plant trees and eat berries! Not even close.
Climate change requires the convergence of every stream of Science, Arts and Commerce. Use the knowledge that you have spent your whole life trying gain, do your bit and Affect Change!

"Time, our most precious currency, is the most valuable thing we humans can spend"....so spend it well.

My parting words for every youngster who reads this would be, don’t let the water run, try the bus and yes, Vote!

Paper Pile!

At the MCC cultural fest- Cul Ah! '09, we the members of greenShield held a sale of books which we made with our own hands, all the way from the coverpage right down to stitching it together. It was a hit where people appreciated our effort, the creativity of the cover pagee and the 50 books that we made were sold out within the first four hours. :)
Every semester, the unused pages of our science record books get waster because only 3/4th of the book , (or sometimes even lesser!)is used. Keerti & Madhu suggested that we collect those pages from our classmates and put it to use by showcaseing the ability to reuse paper and make usable books. At the end of the day, we had about 1700 sheets of paper.
In all the tasks of making the books, we were helped by greenShield volunteers and friends, Arunima, Rashmi , Spikey (vinay) and ( Sanchi to name a few) whose work was commendable.
The coverpages were designed by all involved, unique to their style. The pages were counted and separated into piles of 50 & 100 . Aishwarya & Rosh took over the task of punching in the holes using Aishwarya's punching machine. After everything was punched and piled up , we started stitching the books together and one by one everything fell into place.After a long, hardworking day, our books were ready with the greenShield message inside and only one thing kept us from finishing up.....That was the peak of it all, when we gathered around to perform the long awaited 'sticker placing ceremony'** even after a very long day's work, turned out to be fulled with laughter and screams!
**(Aishwarya's father very graciously agreed to print us exclusive greenShield stickers for our Paper Pile Project)

The paper pile was ready to be displayed and sold the next day at Cul Ah!'09. The books were priced between Rs35 and Rs 40 depending on the size & number of pages and also the effort that went into a particular book :P We also made bookmarks out of the papers we had remaining after the cutting process. Those were a hit too! as most people wanted a matching bookmark to go with their book. ha!

To summarise those three fun filled and rather hectic no to mention strenous days ended up with eleven highly satisfied greenShield members.

The most exciting part of it all was to have so many people (including our Principal and teachers) come back and ask for more of our books.

In addition , we invited the people of the Belaku Foundation* which employs village women in making paper and cloth ecofriendly products. We also invited the Kanyakumari Kalai Koodam (K4 -a women's self help groups which deas with articles made out of palm fibres), to come and sell their items.
It was exciting to watch gilrs walk around with chopsticks and earrings K4 and pretty stoles from Belaku.
Driven by the unexpected support from highly satisfied customers and our Principal, we are motivated to go on and go far with all that we have to do to " gaurd today for Tomorrow"!

-Nuts.

JUNKCART

Cul-ah'09 "Spell Bound" ended the month of January with style, fun and a world of imagination imagination. Junkcart, for instance was an event Environmental Science students (especially Green Shield members), were actively a part of.

Praapti, "our resource personelle cum coordinator" as well as Shreya, our Science Association secretary, along with a few other volunteers, went junk scouting the previous week. They managed to get hold of plastic bottles, shampoo bottles, old newspapers, old mementos, nonsense CDs, straws, twine, paper cartons and what not!

With a generous amount of junk at our disposal, each college team of 3 to 4, competed to come up with an innovative, functional or/and decorative accessory within a time frame of 2 hours.

The teams came up with out-of-the-world articles! The Trojan helmet cum drinking bottle cum eye wear, made by St.Joseph's Commerce students, zapped us with amusement!Their technical details and functionality caught the Judges- Noireeta and Rashmi attention. And yes, they certainly liked it, for they unanimously declared this team as winners!

( Team :in no particular order- Alster, Bhushan, Shreya, Smita)

(Judges: Rashmi and Noireeta)

The stationary cum mobile stand from St. Joseph's Arts and Science was extremely innovative and commendable, and won second prize!

The Ramaiah college of Arts and Science grabbed third prize for a creative ensemble- a jewellary stand and a fancy folder.

The effort put into making these articles and advertising them left us "Spell Bound!"

We hope to see our participants for our upcoming events ! :) Congrats you guys! Cheers!

Indian Youth Climate Network

"OOO It's gettin' HAWT in here,

There's-too-much-CARBON in the atmosphere,

Take action, Take action,

And get some SATISFACTION."

That was the jingle that was stunk in our heads after the 3-day workshop IYCN conducted in the beginning of the month (from 4th -6th January).

The Indian Youth Climate Network has the same vision as the Inconvenient Youth (a US of A based international student network, spreading Al Gore's anthem- The Inconvenient Truth.)They are driven to empower the young generation (that's US) to stand up to fight global warming in our country.

The event conducted in Infosys, on the 5th, comprised of highly interactive sessions with fellow college students. First, a presentation was done by Caroline (active and supportive member of IYCN) and Kartikeya Singh (executive director). It had excerps from The Inconvenient truth and facts about the current scenario in India.

Most facts were alarming such as, India being the FOURTH largest carbon emitting country and China overtaking US at prime spot. But we were also awed at the fact that a small district in Rajasthan filled with solar panels, could potentially run current all over India, for FIFTY YEARS!

The documentary prompted a round of discussion among the audience. We discussed how India has the solutions to crack the climate change problem - well, we enacted them out in mime and had people guessing. (That was a total ice breaker!) we had no difficulty making fools of ourselves, but hey the audience loved it, and most importantly, we had ALOT of fun! :)

We broke for lunch and had gathered to listen to the Solar Punch. They're musicians who run all instruments with solar energy! Can you believe that?! Unfortunately, we couldn't grab that gig, for technical reasons.

The "what can YOU do to over come climate change" session was next on the menu. Like the previous sessions, groups of 5 to 6, ran through a 5 min Plan of action and presented it.

The day ended with a group singing the IYCN jingle and a picture of all of us chiming in to Caroline's cue "Who is the solution?"

- "WE ARE THE SOLUTION!"

The following day, we visited The Energy Resource Institute(TERI). The architectural design and concept of using purely renewable sources left us speechless; Utilising wind in maintaining pleasant temperature in the office and solar energy for lighting and electrifying purposes, is just a tip of the iceberg.

All in all, our workshop was WELL WORTH! we were inspired by people from different walks of life, concerned about the environment. oh i forgot to add that we met Mr. Syed, the only autodriver in Bangalore who owns a solar powered engine! "It runs for about 70 km a day and I can save about 400 rupees a day if I use it." he adds confidently, in English. :)

Get in touch:

IYCN network: http://iycn.in/

IYCN blog: http://www.whatswiththeclimate.org/

TERI: http://www.teriin.org/

Solar auto: http://jace.seacrow.com/archive/2006/12/08/solar-powered-autorickshaw

Yes, il have 2 shots of Coffee , extra stripes and spots please

{Note : All photographs are google Borrowed. and not stolen or taken by me or any of the people who work at the CWS.
Danke` }
Roar.

More than sounding scary , a Feline Roar sounds so enigmatic and powerful that if i were to ever encounter a tiger i would just freeze in awe.

I spent my December vacation volunteering at the Centre For Wildlife Studies, Bangalore.
If someone asked me to rate my vacations based on how the learning:enjoying quotient fared, id say 'o8 would ...and by a mile! stands Numero Uno.

I approached them in Late november in hope of interning either in the Field or at the office for desk-based research. After going through my CV they requested that i head over to their office for a chat. Turns out two weeks in their opinion was too short a time to go to any of the sites if i wanted to get any learning done. So it was settled, that id be 'stuck with them' with a 9am-5pm slot for two weeks at the office. But nah! to me, i struck Christmas Gold.

okay just to warm you up a bit, the Center for Wildlife ( CWS) initiated by Mr Ullas Karanth is the Indian wing of the Wildlife Conservation Society. They dedicate their lives to protect the 'charismatic' endangered megafauna in the protected Reserves of our country and in doing so , preserving the rich biodiversity that we have been blessed with.

During my time there i worked under Mr Samba Kumar , who has been instrumental in the implementation of Project Tiger in India. However, i worked more closely with two very brilliant and down right FUN people, Pallavi and Mr Patil. The office was very nice and the least bit...office like! Despite the line of computers sitting in each room, the fact that there would almost always be an oriole , a bulbul or a warbler sitting outside my window could make me smile like sheep all day. Just like Pallavi. i began to look forward to our daily rounds of coffee, turns out it really gives you the Kick that you need!

The work i had to do was pretty monotonous...is what i WOULD have said , had i been a painful MCC noob. I totally freaked out with joy each day like i was eating a heap full of Mousse and pretzels.

Well, one of the projects they undertake is Predator and Prey census, following camera trap methods or simply by conducting line transect surveys respectively. By predators typically that would include tigers and leopards. Since each of them have unique patterns on their skin , comparing them using photographs makes it easy and greatly accurate in terms of figuring out how many of the species are currently surviving and thriving (Our forests are simply exceptional) if i might add. The catch here however is that, to manually compare the stripe/spot patterns taken in that year with those that had been, in the previous years can be quite tedious. ha! But yes, that has been the protocol over the past years.
Until ofcourse, this year ..when the CWS has begun to use a software which uses a database that records, extracts and gives a unique identity to each stripe pattern thus making the whole differentiating process automated.

The three main sites that they focus on are the Nagarhole, Bandipur and Bhadra reserves. Of the three mentioned, the first two had been added to the database earlier and is now fully functioning. However adding to the database for the third remained pending. And thats when yours truly comes into the picture.

According to Pallavi, everything in an area like this is greatly connected and correlated, that my friend sometimes can really test your patience.For instance if you encounter a problem while calculating One parameter, it is most likely that someone entered it in wrong, which in a way could be because the values fed wrong in the first place, which means the raw data must be checked , subsequently the original datasheets must not be ignored either..... and all this just because you wanted to see if the animal was male or female.

I encountered that problem in the very first minute of my job which pretty much changed my job description completely. I focused mostly on the Bhadra reserve data. i had to update their original records starting from the year 1997. Then i had to work on their raw data spreadsheets and photo albums. I had to prepare material for a leopard comparison software test run (which was seriously Cool)

The concept of camera trapping is very interesting. It seems easy when looked at superficially but once you sink in , even ankle deep into the whole method one will begin to see how there really is NO room for error. Go two paragraphs up to know what happens when errors decide to crop up.
CWS currently uses Roll based active infrared cameras, that have both pros and cons. Pros being the Active nature of the camera almost always gaurantees a picture of the animal being taken. It is cost effective as these cameras are placed at the risk of being stolen or sometimes trampled by our Jumbo friends when they feel like it. On the other hand , the fact that the camera is not digital makes the process of acquiring the photographs tiresome and highly multi-staged. what with the click + develop roll + print roll + scan (each photograph) + coding for each roll of each block in each site , each year. And not always does a tiger or a leopard get captured. there are so many amusing pictures of procupines, rabbits, wild board, sloth bears, poachers inquistive villagers and sometimes even A leaf.

One might wonder, WHY? why go through all of this drama only to count tigers? Well to answer your question, look at a picture of a full grown lean female tiger (okay say with her cubs) resting cosily in the brilliant greens and browns of our Western Ghats, she looks so majestic, she leaves you in a trance. Then check her stripe pattern with those in the confiscated tiger skin records. I did that, and i found a match.


www.wcsindia.org

Notice board

One of the main objectives when we started with green shield was to enlighten the students of MCC about the presence and working of the Dept. EN Sci , yeah most of them were ignorant of its existence.
Once we got the authorization to make use of the notice board not a minute was wasted,
"THE DEPT. OF ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE" caption was put up barely 24 hrs after sister (principal) gave us her consent to utilize the board.
The very first information we put up was the "save the turtles" issue which was captioned as "Don’t say TATA to the turtles". Our creative team (comprising of katya, meghna and keerti) did an impressive job for our opening. Amidst the major issue were the minor snippets such as kick the habit where info about replacing daily habits with eco-friendly means was put up and SUP? This essentially was the recent newspaper clippings of environmental issues.
The next issue addressed was "PLANTATHON", structured by an organization called TREES FOR FREE. Green Shield members actively took part in this sapling planting spree in Devanahalli. The date and timing for the next plantathon was also put up incase students were interested and wanted to join in.
The most hazardous product in nature-plastic was the topic for the next board. Katya along with keerti did an inconceivable job. Since "no plastic" issue was being addressed in college at that point the timing was just perfect. This issue also appeared in a newspaper with Katya commenting about the current no plastic drive in college.
The present political scenario about NUCLEAR ENERGY paved the way for our next issue, ALTERNATE ENERGY- NUCLEAR POWER. Meghna single-handedly (i.e. apart from the nuclear reactor which Madhu drew) handled this issue and did some commendable job.
Our next board was captioned as "The E-Waste time line". A serious brainstorming session lead us to make a graphical representation of the amount of electronic waste produced over the years. This was our last board for the year 2008.
The next issue we plan to address in going to be put up when college reopens. Since it is a time when resolutions are made. We decided to use this as our theme.save the earth in 2009 for 3009!!!