The • Urge

Incredible India 2

abhishek.bindal — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 16:59:52 +0000

Incredible India

abhishek.bindal — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 16:52:34 +0000

water water everywhere, not a drop to utilize

abhishek.bindal — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 16:21:58 +0000

Lakhimpur districts of Assam wore a ghastly sight as heavy monsoon rains triggered flash floods in Assam, Yamuna level crosses danger mark, flood fear in Delhi, Yamuna level crosses danger mark, flood fear in Delhi, The Sarayu River burst its banks, Gomti water level fears flood in Lucknow.

These are just a few of the headlines that have come across us through various newspapers and news channels.

Flooding of all major rivers has occurred in past few days in-spite of the fact that rainfall for the month of August has exceeded the mean rainfall (for August) record by a mere 3%.

The flooding of rivers has not only devastated millions of hectares of crop lands but also led to the displacement of humans to safe areas, loss of cattle life , immense destruction of property and land.

But who is to blame??

Nature?? Developed nations?? Our mismanagement?? Or what??

I think each of the above has its own share of pie but mismanagement tops the list, we always talk about development, we curse, we blame, we strive, we do every possible thing to develop better living conditions but we quite often miss the essence of development i.e. “SUSTAINABLE”.

In the race to attain quick development we tend to forget its consequences. We just move ahead with what we have created.

In order to achieve rapid development we have built buildings, roads, pavements, chopped trees etc without even thinking of their consequences.

I believe that all this flooding is a result of our concrete obsessed mind, we have concreted everything, we are actually surviving in concrete jungle, just take a look around and you will find ample of concrete structures. We haven’t spared enough space for water to percolate down into ground; as a result water collects and drains out into rivers through various channels and drains leading to flooding of rivers.

It’s high time that we think about rain water harvesting and encourage it on a mass scale. Rain water harvesting will not only prevent flooding and destruction but also recharge ground water table thus maintaining proper balance. It will also act as a reservoir thus providing water security for future generations.

Govt. of India should set a limit for the newly constructed buildings to have rain water harvesting facility, it should also provide installation facility at subsidised rates to encourage it in wide spread manner.

By
Ankit Maheshwari
Alumni, AIIMS

Wanna go hybrid???

anand — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 20:07:56 +0000

Hawaii goes green!!!

anand — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 20:07:25 +0000

Hawaii is green, or so its boosters tell you incessantly. Of course, you have to ignore the thick smoke from the sugarcane-field-burning operations and the runoff chemicals used to control roadside plants, mountains of tourism-generated waste, plus a huge complement of invasive species.

An encouraging sign is the 30-megawatt wind farm visible from most parts of Maui, providing 10% of the island’s electricity. Unfortunately, most of the rest is from diesel oil.

There is a lt of evidence now though that the islands are starting to really go green, especially when it comes to transportation.

There’s not much public transit in Hawaii (a light rail system is still stuck in the planning stage), but there is the Bio Beetle company, which rents a fleet of 20 biodiesel VWs and other cars in Maui. Also on Hawaii’s second biggest island, the rapidly growing Maui EVs converts trucks and cars to batteries — and has a backlog of orders.

The Korean EV company CT&T recently met with Governor Linda Lingle about opening a battery car assembly plant in Hawaii that could put 10,000 cars on the road annually, for local use and export. It’s not clear where that plant would be located.

Since August 1, Hawaiian residents have been able to tap into a $4 million state-administered pot of stimulus funds for buying EVs ($4,500 maximum) or installing an EV charging station ($500). Bio Beetle is one of the applicants, hoping to add cars such as the Nissan Leaf to its fleet as soon as that car is available (expected to be at the end of this year).

A word about David Noon. David Noon of Maui EV works on converting a Ford Ranger XLT into an electric car. He was converting a Ford Ranger XLT to run on 23 Optima marine batteries. Another is waiting for conversion, and there’s a customer backlog that includes a Hummer H2, Mini and 1950s Studebaker.

Noon also operates Internet-based TV and radio businesses, but he thinks EV conversions are likely to be more lucrative.

Bio Beetle near Maui’s main airport, President Shaun Stenshol alternately takes care of stray cats, running a recycling business (Maui’s only curbside program) and renting out Jettas, Beetles, and other biodiesel cars.

He sources the 100% biodiesel locally — Pacific Biodiesel is right down the road. Stenshol’s plan is to expand to the other islands, particularly Oahu and the Big Island.

Maui is a funny place. Stenshol is a vegan, and he’ll find plenty of places to eat around the island, where there’s also a healthy local food movement. But for every green car there’s more than one monster truck, which the locals roar around on off-road mountain paths. This despite some of the highest gasoline prices in the nation, $4 a gallon for premium.

The Honolulu Advertiser predicts that there will be 10,000 EVs on Hawaii’s roads in five years, and 43,000 in 10 years. That’s not a huge dent in the million cars with tailpipes on those roads now, but it’s a start.

The thrilling potential of SixthSense technology

abhishek.bindal — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 19:18:53 +0000

Urban Heating Effect

anwesha — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 10:02:05 +0000

Urban areas are known to warm due to increased area of thermal mass such as concrete buildings, pavements, etc. The increased thermal mass results in increasing temperatures with time since not all of the heat is released. This is known as the urban heat island (UHI) effect. An Urban Heat Island is a metropolitan area which is significantly warmer than its surroundings. As population centers grow in size , they tend to have a corresponding increase in average temperature. There is little controversy in the existence of the UHIE. What is more controversial is whether, and if so how much, this additional warmth affects the (global) temperature record. The current state of the science is that the effect on the global temperature record is small to negligible.
Monthly rainfall is greater downwind of cities, partially due to the UHI. Increases in heat within urban centers increases the length of growing seasons, and decreases the occurrence of weak tornadoes. Increases in the death rate during heat waves have been shown to increase by latitude due to the urban heat island effect. The UHI decreases air quality by increasing the production of pollutants such as ozone, and decreases water quality as warmer waters flow into area streams, which stresses their ecosystems.
Not all cities have a distinct urban heat island. Mitigation of the urban heat island effect can be accomplished through the use of green roofs and the use of lighter-colored surfaces in urban areas, which reflect more sunlight and absorb less heat. Despite concerns raised about its possible contribution to global warming, comparisons between urban and rural areas show that the urban heat island effects have little influence on global mean temperature trends. Recent qualitative speculations indicate that urban thermal plumes may contribute to variation in wind patterns that may influence the melting of arctic ice packs and thereby the cycle of ocean current.

A study published in 2007 (“Recent California climate variability: spatial and temporal patterns in temperature trends”, Ladochy, Medina, Patzert, Climate Research Vol 33, 2007) provides the following figure showing mean temperature change per decade from 1950 to 2000 for California stations. This shows the warming in California to be mainly in the urban areas. Their paper states: “Most regions showed a stronger increase in minimum temperatures than with mean and maximum temperatures. Areas of intensive urbanization showed the largest positive trends, while rural, non-agricultural regions showed the least warming… Southern California had the highest rates of warming, while the NE Interior Basins division experienced cooling. Large urban sites showed rates over twice those for the state, for the mean maximum temperatures, and over 5 times the state’s mean rate for the minimum temperatures”.

Green thrives!!!

anwesha — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 14:41:03 +0000

Corporate environmental activity has survived, even thrived during the recession as companies increasingly turn to environmental actions to cut costs, comply with customer demands, and remain competitive, according to the annual “State of Green Business” report produced by GreenBiz.com.

Launched as a precursor to State of Green Business Forum events, which took place this week in San Francisco and Chicago, the 2010 green business progress report shows that environmental improvements and innovations became a means of surviving lean times, and being more competitive once things rebound.

“Amid the recession has been something notable – something that made this economic downturn distinct from all the others over the past quarter century,” said Joel Makower, executive editor of GreenBiz.com and principal author of the report. “Green professionals weren’t among the first to be thrown overboard. Their budgets were slashed, their headcounts frozen, all while their mandates sometimes increased. But they managed to survive, even thrive, during tough times.”

The free downloadable report, which measures the progress of U.S. business and the economy from an environmental perspective, shows steady improvement in such areas as reducing the environmental impact of information technology, increasing the stock of office space certified to use less energy and improve employee health, reducing paper use and increasing its recycling, and reducing the amount of water used to run the economy.

Of the 20 measures of progress assessed by the annual GreenBiz Index, six were shown to be making significant progress and three were determined to be losing ground; the remaining 11 indicators were deemed to be “treading water” – that is, holding steady or making incremental progress, insufficient to the scale of the problems that need to be addressed.

Among the other key trends noted in this year’s report is the notion of “Radical transparency – the virtuous circle that develops when detailed information about companies, products and ingredients is instantly available, enabling consumers to make smarter choices, thereby moving markets toward less-harmful products.” The report points to a wide range of efforts by independent Web sites, major retailers like Walmart, non-profit environmental groups, and the mainstream media that are divulging detailed information about products’ environmental attributes being made available as never before.

The growth of green automobiles was another positive sign. While individual car buyers stayed out of showrooms during 2009, pushing the world’s automakers to the brink, corporate and institutional buyers proved a bright spot for the industry. Fleet buyers ramped up their purchases of hybrid-electric, diesel, biodiesel, electric and other so-called alternative-fueled vehicles, from taxis to trucks. These buyers continued leadership role will be critical to electric-vehicle manufacturers’ hopes of growing sales and lowering costs.

Disposal of electronic waste was seen as a trend that is doing poorly, when measured by the amount of waste being recycled compared to the amount coming into the waste stream each year. According to the report, only about one-seventh of the nearly 3 million tons of e-waste disposed of in the U.S. is being recycled, an amount that hasn’t grown much over the past few years.

On the other hand, the amount of water needed to produce each dollar of U.S. gross domestic product has dropped steadily over the past decade, and about 30 percent over the past 25 years. The improvements come largely from industrial use, energy companies and utilities, and manufacturing and mining processes.

In perhaps the most encouraging sign that green business has become embedded in corporations, the report cites research conducted by GreenBiz.com showing that investments in green product development continue to show growth, especially in companies with revenues greater than $1 billion. When these big companies were asked about investment in green product development, 86 percent said it would be equal to or greater in 2010 than last year.

“The green economy is alive and well, even during tough times,” says Makower, who has been covering green business since the 1980s. “There are encouraging signs that innovation and clean technologies, as well as more efficient business operations, can help the U.S. emerge more competitive as the economy recovers.”

Ignorance of the Ability brings Disability.

anand — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 19:47:02 +0000

State of fear: The truth behind the facts

anwesha — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 15:36:26 +0000

What exactly is the scientific scenario behind global warming? Hard core environmentalists and us who can see pollution and GHGs being emitted will say that there is every causative agent of global warming. But is it really happening? Crichton states that the cause, extent, and threat of climate change is largely unknown and unknowable. He finishes by endorsing the management of wilderness and the continuation of research into all aspects of the Earth’s environment.
This novel received criticism from some climate scientists, science journalists and environmental groups for inaccuracies and misleading information. Sixteen of 18 top U.S. climate scientists interviewed by Knight Ridder said the author was bending scientific data and distorting research. One of those in disagreement was MIT meteorology professor Richard Lindzen, who expressed the minority viewpoint by saying “the science was handled intelligently and responsibly.”
Several scientists whose research had been referenced in the novel stated that Crichton had distorted it in the novel. Peter Doran, leading author of the Nature paper, wrote in the New York Times stating that”… our results have been misused as “evidence” against global warming by Michael Crichton in his novel “State of Fear”

Myles Allen, Head of the Climate Dynamics Group, Department of Physics, University of Oxford, wrote in Nature in 2005:
“Michael Crichton’s latest blockbuster, State of Fear, is also on the theme of global warming and is likely to mislead the unwary. . . Although this is a work of fiction, Crichton’s use of footnotes and appendices is clearly intended to give an impression of scientific authority.”
The American Geophysical Union, consisting of over 50,000 members from over 135 countries, states in their newspaper Eos in 2006:
“We have seen from encounters with the public how the political use of State of Fear has changed public perception of scientists, especially researchers in global warming, toward suspicion and hostility.”
James E. Hansen, head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies wrote: He (Michael Crichton) doesn’t seem to have the foggiest notion about the science that he writes about. Jeffrey Masters, Chief meteorologist for Weather Underground, writes: “Crichton presents an error-filled and distorted version of the Global Warming science, favoring views of the handful of contrarians that attack the consensus science of the IPCC.”
The Union of Concerned Scientists devote a section of their website to what they describe as misconceptions readers may take away from the book.