Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Climate change - India - We no longer have any choice

How has climate change manifested itself in India? Such phenomena as floods in Rajasthan, drought in Assam are all evidence of climate change that is already upon us - global warming's local effects. We have no more time for discussions and debates, conjectures and arguments.
True, officials from 180 countries are going to sit in AC rooms and consume UN's and nations' resources in Bali (see Ban Ki-moon's write-up), as they haggle over who is responsible for what % of carbon emissions.
We Indians can no longer afford to say that "we are developing, so don't expect us to cut down on energy consumption. You have polluted more than us, so you do your bit first".
(see Climate Change - should India Change?)
Immediate drastic steps that we can take provided political and corporate will permit:
1. Use of only public transport / company buses for commuting to work. (We missed the opportunity to car-pool, didn't we?)
2. Use of bicycles by willing / able-bodied employees, for reasonably short commuting distances.
3. Where possible, telecommute. Surely hi-tech companies employ personnel of sufficient integrity?
4. Use of railway freight services for transportation of goods, with adequate logistic support at origin and destination.
5. Drastic curbs in domestic flights, especially those that do not fly full capacity.
Even more drastic steps:
1. Regulated fuel issue through distribution systems with daily limits strictly implemented
2. An embargo on non-emergency air travel by top executives as well as elected representatives. (Ironically excellent web-conferencing facilities are operational but do not translate meaningfully into less shuttling).
Such a sky-scraping order!
Sounds far-fetched? Wake up, the costs of not acting now are beyond even our nation's collective resilience.

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