35 years of Global Warming

No. Am not saying that the earth has been warming up for 35 years.

Someone used this term in a research paper in 1975. And we have been thinking, talking and debating ever since. Most of us still disagree about the extent to which man is causing climate change and many of us concede that as an individual we cannot make a change.

If we look at our day to day activities, I am sure that we can identify one thing we could change every month that would have a positive impact on the environment.

In unrelated news the Gurgaon Metro line will open in September. Maybe we can ditch our cars each time we have to go mall shopping :)


cartoon: www.zunal.com

Counting crows and exterminating monkeys

Who would worry about crows? They may be a nuisance to some, but with the urban sprawl increasing in cities we have seen a reduction in many of the avian species, crows being no exception.

However in Tokyo people have been obsessed about bringing down the crow population. They were convinced that crows are a nuisance and they needed to be exterminated. So successful has been this campaign that at one point they claimed that 85 percent of the crows had been exterminated using traps.

But they underestimated the intelligence of the birds. They are now back with a vengeance. Older crows have learn to avoid traps and suburban crows, are commuting into the city at mealtimes.

And the costs for extermination - $5.3 million in extermination costs—about $50 per dead crow. WOW ! That's more than double the daily wage of a beneficiary of the NREGA.

Many times cities often indulge in such hair-brained policies when it comes to animals. In Delhi it has been an obsession with monkeys, Banglore is concerned about stray dogs and Mumbai wants to catch every leopard.

Often times there are bigger urban problems and challenges facing our cities, but we pretend that somehow if we get ourselves rid of the “animal” menace we will lead better lives. The media is no less – no sooner is ONE person attacked by a monkey or a dog in Delhi they paint a picture of how we are in DANGER (as if it is a nuclear attack about to happen) of our civilization disappearing.

Remember the animals are just confused. They cannot make head or tail of what is happening around them. One moment there is a forest where they live and the next moment we are telling them to disappear in the name of progress. Much like the American Indian in this story of Tintin whose land is taken away from him.

In the city lies a bamboo forest...

... and behind it are the slums.

Well that seems to be the policy of the Delhi government to hide away the underbelly of the city. Just plant some trees and make all the "poor people" disappear. I hope the bamboos grow tall enough. Riding on the Metro one can see a fair distance.

As with the 1982 Asian Games, many groups have also been relocated to create new infrastructure. Often these groups move to the fringes of the city to settle again. Year later those fringes will come under a NEW MASTER PLAN and they will be forced to move again.

Every big event in the city ends up becoming an excuse to waste money to beautify it. This means that only rich and middle class life should be seen. Driving along the roads you should only see malls and apartments, bungalows etc.

Many centuries ago the Empress of Russia wanted to visit Crimea. Her minister Grigory Potemkin knew that most villages were in a bad shape. Catherine would be horrified with them and heads would roll. He ordered the construction of fake settlements along the river she would travel. As the royal ships floated down, one could see happy villagers enjoying their rural life.

Why not make plastic and woodcut outs of the ideal city images and plant them along the roads leading to the stadiums. These images would have new houses, clean roads and blue skies. Driving past at sixty kilometres an hour no one would notice. In fact we could also leave them in place after the games are over.

Instead of such schemes as planting bamboo (which is not even common in this area) what about building affordable housing for these people? Is that not a better option in the long run?

Last year I had a chance to film such a project in Kolkata. The city administration had finalized a plan to clean the canals and open sewers. However families that were living in slums near them were reluctant to leave. Most of the women worked as house helps in the neigbourhood and did not want to be shifted far away.

What was decided that they would be shifted into low cost apartment blocks a hundred metres away. These houses had bathrooms and a working sewage disposal system - something they never had in their makeshift homes. The houses are owned by the women and they are paying lower interests on the loans provided by the government. Since these are apartment blocks, overall the area occupied by the families has come down.

If this can happen in a city like Kolkata where there is a space crunch, why not Delhi?

The struggle for my Soul...

...is now between CNG and the Metro.

A week back I got my car fitted with CNG and within a day all my apprehensions about this new technology vanished. I mean who can complain if one is getting ONE RUPEE TO A KILOMETRE ??? Already instead of forking out 500 rupees at the station, I end up spending only about 150 rupees since that is how much the gas costs. On top of that my mileage has doubled. The last five days I have been driving all over the city like a pup who has found a ball to play.

I had earlier written about how my car usage had gone down when i was doing a project in CP. Well for now it is the revenge of the 20th century machine! Let us see how long it lasts !

the good old (polluted) winters are back

this is scary stuff

hindustan times reports that
Delhi’s air has been as polluted and lethal over the past fortnight
as it was before the introduction of CNG in 2001

remember the gloomy evenings
and smog that used to hang around the roads
those days

so all struggle to get CNG buses in
was of no use since we were busy buying cars for ourselves
but what is really scary is the steep rise in diesel vehicles
alomost 30 percent of vehicles registered today are diesel
compared to 2 percent in 2001

so what is the solution?
walk
cycle
and use the metro

maybe its time to sell the car

driving in rush hour traffic
it suddenly dawned on me
that i had taken out the car
for the first time in a month

of course i had been traveling
for shoots out of Delhi
but i can recall at least
10 trips to CP
where i never reached for my car keys

now i do not look forward to visiting places
that are not on the metro route

so how much of my carbon footprint have i reduced?
well quite a lot
(for a guy who used to drive at least 500 km every month)
but more importantly
i have been walking a lot
around CP
rediscovering the place
that used to be my haunt many years ago

meeting to south delhi
require a short ride by an auto
and more often i return
with A in the car

how long can i sustain this ?
let me take it one metro ride at a time...

biking down to the metro

last August when I was in Paris
i came across a set of bikes
arranged in order
waiting for people to pick them up
for a ride in the city

my friend told me this was new project
started in July 15
aimed at solving the city's traffic problems
anyone can rent out one
using a credit card
there are 15000 bikes near all the metro stations

while the first half hour is free
the costs go up to 160 rupees (4USD) per half hour
after one and half hours
an average ride costs about 2USD

the bikes themselves are
sturdy
have three speed gears
and have survived uses by thousands of cyclists
according to the official website
the bikes have been rented six million times
and the users have ridden over seven million miles

why can't we have
this kind of options
for Delhi
with bikes lined up at the stations?

in places like Dwarka
or CP
this would work ideally for people
who have to return to the metro station
of course one could also have a monthly pass system
that could tie up with the metro pass

in new colonies in Gurgaon and Vasant Kunj
that will be connected in the future
bikes would work very well
since the metro will not be able to cover
the entire sector or block

this would also mean a reduction
in auto rickshaws (therefore less pollution)


however this would mean
a re-planning of our roads
so that they become more cycle friendly
right now a cyclist has no chance of surviving them...

metro saves (really, i'd like to see the accounts)

its World Environment Day
and the metro is celebrating the fact it has reduced traffic congestion and pollution levels.

according to some calculations metro has saved more than 1500 crore (rupees) in terms of fuel, optimizing travel time and reduction of environmental pollution.

but what about the trees? can we calculate their loss? how should we measure the success of the metro? any ideas?

the trees we will leave behind

ever since the metro project started
the debate about cutting trees to lay lines
has been going on

the DMRC has always maintained that it has tried to minimize the loss of trees
by changing the routes
and tried to plant new trees

as more and more of the city comes under the metro
people are predicting that delhi will loose
a large part of their tree cover
many of them have actually joined hands to
make the government act before
the lines in south delhi and completed

what has been the experience in other places
with this new found
interest in environment (sorry, climate change is the new buzz)
any suggestions on how to avoid this situation?