Building Green in Pakistan & India

Building green is definitely important.

But equally important is to know how green is a green building.

Take the glitzy, glass-enveloped buildings popping up across the country. It does not matter if you are in the mild but wet and windy climate or in the extreme hot and dry climate, glass is the in-thing.

One wonders how buildings extensively using glass could work in such varied climatic zones, where one needs ventilation. Some say that glass is green. Buildings liberally using glass were being certified green. How come?

Here the story becomes interesting.

The Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC) has specified prescriptive parameters for constructing an energy-efficient building envelope—the exterior façade of a building. The façade, based on the insulation abilities of the material used for roof and wall construction, will reduce heat loss. It will also reduce energy use if it allows daylight in. It is, therefore, important for any green building to have the right material for its exterior.

But this is not all that ECBC specifies. It goes on to set a wallwindow ratio and fixes the area of the building envelope that can be covered with glass at 60 per cent. This implies that a building can be green and energy-efficient if it is covered by glass. The code then goes on to define the insulation and energy-efficiency specifications of glass that should be used. In this way, double-glazed or triple-glazed glass, which is solar reflective, is preferred as it provides superior thermal erformance. In other words, glass built on certain superior and high specifications can reduce the heat gain of a building. ECBC, thus, endorses the extensive use of glass and promotes high-performance and expensive glass, which is manufactured by a few high-end companies.

Small wonder glass manufacturers are making hay in this sunshine. Saint-Gobain Glass incidentally (or not) is also the founding member of the Indian Green Building Council, promoted by industry association CII. The green code is built for their business to thrive.

This would still have been acceptable had this prescription worked. But first, builders cut corners in the use of expensive reflective material. Glass traps heat, therefore, buildings require more air-conditioning. Energy requirement goes up. Secondly, even when double- or triple-glazed glass is used there is evidence that in India’s extremely hot climate it does not work so well. A recent study by IIT-Delhi in Jodhpur, Delhi and Chennai found that energy use increased with increase in glazed area, irrespective of the glass type used in the building. The conclusion was that the glass curtain wall made of expensive reflective glass did nothing to cut energy costs as compared to ordinary glass.

We also forget that natural light in India is a glare, unlike in parts of the western world where glass is used to reduce energy use for lighting. So, even if theoretically the use of glass optimises daylight use, it remains a function of how much is used, where and how. For instance, the use of glass—of whatever glazing—in the south and west facades of a building will be bad in terms of thermal transfer. Then, even if you use glazed or tinted glass, where 50 per cent of solar heat gets reflected off the surface, 65 per cent of the visible light is transmitted into the building. Heat transfer may be reduced but the harsh light filters through. Buildings then need blinds to cut glare, again adding to the use of artificial light and consequently raising energy cost.

What would work better is building protection against direct glare. Go back to the old fashioned methods of providing shades on windows. And do not build tight and sealed buildings, which do not optimise use of natural ventilation and breeze to reduce air-conditioning needs in certain periods of the year. In fact, glass necessitates air-conditioning, and buildings become energy guzzlers. The irony is that these buildings still qualify for a green tag when the air-conditioning system used in glass-cased constructions is more efficient. Build badly and then sugarcoat it, is the principle. Clearly, we need more appropriate and inventive  architecture.

What is worse, these codes are being pushed through government and municipal schemes without any evidence that green-certified buildings are actually working. Noida awards a 5 per cent extra floor area for green-certified buildings; MoEF provides fast-track clearance to such buildings. But the two main certificates—LEED and GRIHA, by IGBC and TERI respectively—do not disclose data on the performance of the green buildings after they have been commissioned. So, even though rating agencies say that green-certified buildings save between 30 per cent and 50 per cent of the energy and reduce water consumption by 20-30 per cent, they do not have corroborating data to verify the claim.

In this way we make sure that green is not so green. But it is definitely good for business, if not for the planet.

Chemicals in Personal Care Products Harm Us & The Environment

Q: I recently switched to a new brand of deodorant and broke out in a rash. When I stopped using it, the rash went away. Do you think I was simply allergic to it or could there be harmful materials in it? I couldn’t find anything on the label. And that got me wondering about any potential environmental issues as well.

A: Your concern is well-placed.

There are no health studies required for cosmetic and personal care products.

And since we use an average of 10 such products per day, possibly involving over 100 chemical ingredients, they are cause for concern in terms of both human health and the environment, whether they are absorbed through our skin, rinsed down the drain or flushed down the toilet after working their way through our bodies.

Studies finding disruption in the hormone systems of wildlife due to common water pollutants usually include personal care products, rinsed down drains and into rivers, as a major cause.

As for personal health, the experts say that the amount of chemical found in any one consumer product is unlikely to cause harm when used once, except to the most sensitive individuals.

In fact, that’s the argument used by the cosmetic industry to justify chemical ingredients in their products. But we use personal care products daily, often without much thought, and are repeatedly and regularly exposed to industrial chemicals from many other different sources.

Some chemicals found in a variety of cosmetics – including phthalates, acrylamide, formaldehyde and ethylene oxide – are listed by EPA and the state of California as carcinogens or reproductive toxins.

More than one-third of all personal care products contain at least one ingredient linked to cancer, that 57 percent of all products contain “penetration enhancer” chemicals that can drive other ingredients faster and deeper into the skin to the blood vessels below and that 79 percent of all products contain ingredients that may contain harmful impurities like known human carcinogens. Impurities are legal and unrestricted for the personal care product industry.

Incredibly, it is estimated that the industry has publicly assessed only 11 percent of the 10,500 ingredients which are documented in personal care products.

Phthalates – a group of industrial chemical plasticizers linked to birth defects that are used in many cosmetic products from nail polish to deodorant – are of particular concern. Last summer, when scientists published a study finding a relationship between phthalates and feminization of U.S. male babies, they named fragrance as a possible culprit. Phthalates are not listed as ingredients on product labels; they can only be detected through laboratory analysis.

The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics (CSC) – a coalition of environmental, social justice, and consumer groups – has found that two-thirds of health and beauty products recently analyzed by the FDA contained phthalates. Two of the most toxic phthalates, DBP and DEHP, have been banned from cosmetics products sold in the European Union (EU) but remain unregulated in the US.

Another class of harmful chemicals commonly found in cosmetics is parabens, short for “para hydroxy-benzoate.” Parabens have been identified as estrogenic and disruptive of normal hormone function. These preservatives are widely used in cosmetics, particularly nail polish. Estrogenic chemicals mimic the function of the naturally occurring hormone estrogen and exposure to external estrogens has been shown to increase the risk of breast cancer. When parabens were found in human breast tumor tissue recently, researchers questioned if deodorant was the source.

Fragrance is another big problem. Almost 50 percent of all products on the market contain added fragrance – complex mixtures of chemicals, some persistent, some neurotoxic and some newly found to harm wildlife.

Researchers at Stanford University published work in 2004 showing that mussels lost their ability to clear their bodies of poisons when exposed to parts-per-billion levels of common fragrance musks.

The American Academy of Dermatology says that more than 5,000 different fragrances are used in perfumes and skin products, in hundreds of chemical combinations. But because the chemical formulas of fragrances are considered trade secrets, companies aren’t required to list their ingredients. Twenty years ago, the National Academy of Sciences targeted fragrances as one of the six categories of chemicals that should be given high priority for neurotoxicity testing. Their report states that 95 percent of chemicals used in fragrances are synthetic compounds derived from petroleum.

They include benzene derivatives, aldehydes, and many other known toxics and sensitizers. Propylene glycol is a common ingredient in fragrances and is considered an immunotoxic chemical. Others include cyclohexanol, which has a depressive action on the central nervous system; linalool, which has been shown to provoke ataxic gait, depression and respiratory disturbances; methyl ethyl ketone, which can induce unconsciousness, emphysema, congestion of the liver and kidneys, eye, nose and throat irritation, and numbness of the extremities; and formaldehyde, which is a known carcinogen with many other damaging traits.

Although the U.S. FDA does not require safety testing on cosmetics, they do require companies to post a warning label on personal care products that have not been safety tested. After pressure from the EWG, the EPA warned companies to comply with the law or face persecution. Should companies comply, EWG estimates that over 99 percent of cosmetic products would have to be labeled.

According to Health Canada’s Cosmetics Programme, “only ingredients that do not pose an unreasonable health and safety risk to the Canadian public, when used according to directions, are allowed in cosmetic products.” Like the U.S., cosmetic companies are not required to submit information on the safety of their products or ingredients, but merely to notify Health Canada of the ingredients. To help cosmetic manufacturers satisfy this requirement, Health Canada has developed the Cosmetic Ingredient Hotlist – a list of substances that are restricted and prohibited in cosmetics. Changes are underway to Canada’s Cosmetics Regulation that will require companies to notify consumers of the full ingredients of cosmetic products.

Under pressure from lobby groups (including cancer prevention organizations, which are, ironically, often supported by cosmetic companies), the industry seems to be cleaning up its act voluntarily. L’Oréal, Revlon, Unilever, Avon, Procter and Gamble and Estée Lauder have said they have removed phthalates from their products.

In 2003, the European Union passed an amendment to its Cosmetics Directive, which requires companies doing business in Europe to eliminate chemicals that are known or strongly suspected of being carcinogens, mutagens or reproductive toxins. Of the thousands of questionable chemicals in these products, the directive targets about 450. (Compare that to the nine chemicals the FDA has banned or restricted in personal care products.)

In the face of no federal regulation of cosmetic ingredients, California followed the EU’s lead and passed the California Safe Cosmetic Act of 2005. This bill requires manufacturers selling cosmetic products in California to provide the state Department of Health Services with a list of their products and to identify products that contain chemicals identified as carcinogens or reproductive toxins. The bill faced tough opposition from major cosmetics companies, including Mary Kay.

You might be able to avoid harmful ingredients in cosmetics and other personal care products used by your family by choosing brands that are certified organic. However, be cautious because nowhere does the idea of “natural” or “organic” take a more gratuitous bruising than in the skin care industry. A product is not guaranteed to be nature just because the label contains the phrase “derived from …(some natural substance).”

Learn More

There’s Lead in Your Lipstick by Gillian Deacon (Penguin Canada, 2011)

Not Just a Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry by Stacy Malkan (New Society Publishers, 2007)

A Consumer’s Dictionary of Cosmetic Ingredients by Ruth Winter (Three Rivers Press, 1999)

Don’t Go to the Cosmetics Counter Without Me by Paula Begoun (Beginning Press, 2003)

Don’t Go Shopping for Hair Care Products Without Me by Paula Begoun (Beginning Press, 1995)

Skin Deep – Environmental Working Group 1436 U St. N.W., Suite 100, Washington DC 20009 www.ewg.org

Think Before You Pink – Breast Cancer Action 55 New Montgomery St., Suite 323, San Francisco CA 94105www.thinkbeforeyoupink.org

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What To Do About Chemicals in Cosmetics

Here are some things you can do to protect you and your family from ingredients in cosmetics and personal care products that may pose risks:

Use fewer products. Is there something you can cut from your daily routine, or a product you can use less often? By cutting down on the number of chemicals contacting your skin every day, you will reduce any potential health risks associated with your products.

Use the “Custom Shopping List” feature of the Skin Deep websitewww.ewg.org/reports/skindeep2/index.php to find products that have fewer potential health issues.

Read labels. Marketing claims on personal care products are not defined under the law, and can mean anything or nothing at all, including claims like organic, natural, hypoallergenic, animal cruelty free and fragrance free. Read the ingredient label carefully to find evidence that the claims are true.

Use milder soaps. Soap removes dirt and grease from the surface of your skin, but also strips away your body’s own natural skin oils. Choosing a milder soap may reduce skin dryness and your need for moisturizers to replace oils your skin can provide naturally.

Minimize or eliminate your use of dark hair dyes. Many contain coal tar ingredients that have been linked to cancer in some studies.

Cut down on your use of powders; avoid the use of baby powder on newborns and infants. A number of ingredients common in powder have been linked to cancer and other lung problems when they are inhaled. FDA warns that powders may cause lung damage if inhaled regularly.

Choose products that are fragrance free. Fragrances can cause allergic reactions. Products that claim to be “fragrance free” on the packaging may not be. They could contain masking fragrances that give off a neutral odor. Read the ingredient label – in products truly free of fragrance, the word “fragrance” will not appear there.

Reduce or eliminate your use of nail polish. It’s one of the few types of products that routinely contains ingredients linked to birth defects. Paint your toenails and skip the fingernails. Paint nails in a well-ventilated room, or outside, or avoid using nail polish altogether, particularly when you are pregnant. Browse the Skin Deep custom shopping guide for advice on nail polishes that contain fewer ingredients of concern.

Join the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics (www.safecosmetics.org), a broad coalition of environmental and public health groups that is working with manufacturers to encourage reformulations and safer ingredients.

Information provided by the Environmental Working Group

  Wendy Priesnitz is the Editor of Natural Life Magazine and a journalist with over 35 years of experience. She has also authored ten books. Visit her website.

Air in India is the Dirtiest in the World

Of 132 countries whose environments were surveyed, India ranks dead last in the ‘Air (effects on human health)’ ranking.

The annual study, the Environmental Performance Index, is conducted and written byenvironmental research centers at Yale and Columbia universities with assistance from dozens of outside scientists. The study uses satellite data to measure air pollution concentrations.

India’s high levels of fine particulate matter are one of the major factors contributing to the country’s abysmal air quality.

Levels of so-called PM 2.5, for the 2.5 micron size of the particulates, are nearly five times the threshold where they become unsafe for human beings.

Particulate matter is one of the leading causes of acute lower respiratory infections and cancer.

The WHO found that Acute Respiratory Infections were one of the most common causes of deaths in children under 5 in India, and contributed to 13% of in-patient deaths in paediatric wards in India.

When it comes to overall environment, India ranked among the world’s “Worst Performers,” at No. 125 out of the 132 nations, beating only Kuwait, Yemen, South Africa, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Iraq. Neighboring Pakistan, in contrast, ranked 120th and Bangladesh was listed as No. 115 on overall environment.

http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/01/indias-air-the-worlds-unhealthiest-study-says/

 

Planting Trees Can Reduce Effect of Climate Change

It is commonly believed that destroying trees will influence the climate of a region. But scientific evidence to support that deforestation and afforestation influence local climate – affecting temperature and rainfall – has only just started emerging.

A new study, led by Borbála Gálos of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, found that planting trees – or afforestation – in areas in Europe where there have previously been no trees can reduce the effect of climate change by cooling temperate regions. Using a computer-generated regional climate model, the study showed that afforestation in the northern part of central Europe and Ukraine could reduce temperatures by 0.3-0.5C and increase rainfall by 10 to 15 percent during summers by 2071-2090.

While the study was specific to the temperate regions, Gálos said that, in some regions, forests could be effectively used for climate-change mitigation. These studies gain more importance as drought-affected countries like Niger plan a massive afforestation campaign that will regenerate five million hectares of dry degraded land. Additionally, the UNFAO recently published a policy guide to show that combining tree planting with crop or livestock production could not only stem climate change but also create incomes.

Senior scientist Gordon Bonan of the US-based National Center for Atmospheric Research, a leading authority on the influence of forests on climate change and a contributing author to Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessments, talked about the status of the research in this area.

Q: What is the scientific history of linking climate and forests? There are studies that show conserving our existing forest cover is imperative for keeping carbon emissions low, but the impact of reforestation/afforestation on local climate has not been studied at length or at a regional scale, right? 

A: Scientific interest in this problem goes back several centuries, with the European settlement of North America, India and Australia and subsequent widespread deforestation during land clearing.

There was a common view that deforestation was altering climate – primarily temperature and rainfall.

For more than 60 percent of the tropical land surface, air that has passed over extensive vegetation in the preceding few days produces at least twice as much rain as air that has passed over little vegetation.

The most prominent example has been studies of tropical deforestation in the Amazon. Most climate model simulations show that large-scale conversion of tropical rainforest to pastureland creates a warmer, drier climate. This model result is generally accepted. However, the observational evidence for this is lacking, primarily because the model simulations cut down all the rainforest while the observational record is based on much less extensive deforestation.

There was an interesting observational study [Spracklen et al 2012 Nature 489:282-286] that analysed satellite remote-sensing data of tropical precipitation and vegetation. They found that for more than 60 percent of the tropical land surface, air that has passed over extensive vegetation in the preceding few days produces at least twice as much rain as air that has passed over little vegetation.

Another region of extensive research is the Sahel of northern Africa: Most modeling studies show a warmer, drier climate because of loss of vegetation.

Northern Africa was much wetter and supported lush vegetation 6,000 years ago. Studies find that the more productive vegetation at that time led to enhanced rainfall.

This work is still uncertain, and one can find modelling studies showing cooling because of deforestation or warming because of deforestation. The response depends on the simulated change in surface albedo [the fraction of solar energy reflected back from the Earth]: Do forests reflect less solar radiation than cropland or grassland? If so, the greater absorption of solar radiation by forests heats the land surface. [Response also depends on] the hydrologic cycle: Do forests evaporate more water than cropland or grassland? If so, greater evaporation by forests cools the surface.

Q: When considering afforestation to mitigate climate change, what should one take into account? The growth period of the trees, the height, the area covered? What kind of difference it would make to temperatures? 

A: Deforestation, afforestation, reforestation and other land-use practices are regional in scale. The affect that they have on temperature and precipitation is seen in regional climate. Greenhouse gas warming is a global phenomenon, well seen in the global temperature record and also in regional temperature records. When one compares the simulated regional effects of land use on climate with the simulated regional greenhouse gas effect, one can find that the land use signal is of similar magnitude.

There is much scientific uncertainty in how afforestation affects climate – again related to albedo and evaporation. Different types of trees or other vegetation do differ in growth rates, height, etc., all of which affect albedo and evaporation.

A big research question is the net effect of afforestation on climate. Forest ecosystems store carbon [reducing greenhouse gas warming], but do they warm or cool climate because of changes in albedo and evaporation? And how do these compare with the climate [influences] from carbon storage?

Catch Water Where It Falls – Toolkit on Urban Rainwater Harvesting

This is a hands-on book with exhaustive case studies on how rainwater harvesting (RWH) is being implemented, right across India – in residential, institutional, and industrial/ commercial segments. You will find cases that you can relate to with all the details you would need, to implement RWH in your premises – right from preparing your water budget, harvesting for storage/recharge to maintenance and beyond.

Water is what urban India is fighting for today. Cities across the country are facing the crippling effects of acute water scarcity. There is hardly any city that can boast of a 24-hour water supply. Groundwater tables are falling rapidly, centuries-old water bodies have disappeared or are severely polluted. Urban floods are becoming a regular phenomenon during monsoons. In addition to this, most of our rivers have become carriers of urban filth.

This is giving rise to a nightmarish scenario in which urban populations – mainly the urban poor – are at the receiving end. Our effort in publishing this toolkit is to re-train and re-skill a generation of Indians who have lost touch with nature’s most precious gift – rain.

The book documents the experiences of diverse segments, and most importantly, the new innovations adopted – from the design of filters to rainwater harvesting sumps etc. This innovation is what the society needs as it rebuilds its knowledge of living with nature.

The best part is there are easy solutions out there to address this serious issue, and many are already implementing them. And we owe it to ourselves and the coming generations to implement them, before it is too late.

Avoiding Wastage of Food

The companies that produced the world’s supply of loose-leaf tea had a problem: nearly one-quarter of their product was being thrown out.

Customers, who preferred whole tea leaves to make the perfect cuppa, had no use for the dust or the small bits of leaves known as fannings that came with their purchase.

So engineers came up with a solution: tea bags, which contained the fannings, dust and residue.

That’s the kind of ingenuity the world needs today to avoid food wastage because roughly half of the four billion tonnes of food produced in the world each year ends up as waste.

The U.K.-based Institution of Mechanical Engineers said that everyone from farmers to supermarket chains to finicky consumers is to blame for all the waste.

“We wanted to recognize this as a problem both in the developed and the developing world and point out that maybe engineers can help reduce the waste, perhaps with better storage and crop-production systems,” said the organization’s director of engineering.

In developed countries, roughly one-third of vegetable crops are rejected because they don’t look appealing enough for supermarket chains, and nearly half of the food purchased is ultimately tossed in the garbage.

In developing countries in South Asia and Africa, acute food-related problems can be seen in the fields and in the markets.

In India, for instance, as much as 40 per cent of all the fruits, vegetables and food grains never make it to the market. The country wastes more grain each year than Australia produces, and more fruits and vegetables than the U.K. consumes.

Inefficient harvesting, inadequate local transportation and poor infrastructure mean that produce is frequently handled inappropriately and stored under unsuitable farm site conditions.

The main food terminal in New Delhi, for example, is a bustle of activity. On any given day, transport trucks with produce arrive from southern India following a 2,500-kilometre trip. With temperatures approaching 50 C, many of the pineapples, mangoes and other fruits and vegetables tucked into piles of straw in the backs of trucks are tossed aside.

While a better refrigerated transport service would help reduce that spoilage, few companies are willing to invest because of India’s unreliable power supply.

There’s no question improving things will take capital investment.

Corruption also plays a role. In the Indian village of Fazilka, a small community in western Punjab, three-metre-tall mounds of harvested grain sat in a government holding facility last year. The grain had been left rotting outside on pine palettes, uncovered for at least several years.

A local journalist told the Star during a tour of the facility that an elected official owns a nearby brewery and makes bootleg liquor. Once the grain starts rotting and fermenting, he takes it for free, said a reporter with Day and Night, a Punjabi cable news channel.

Meanwhile, in developed countries, retailers generate a collective 1.6 million tonnes of food waste each year because they reject crops of edible fruit and vegetables.

The trend started after World War II when the baby boomer generation emerged from rationing. “We’re used to eating the nicest looking foods, and when visitors come to your house, having more food than you can eat has become the norm.”

Supermarket chains should be working out ways to process unattractive produce like spotty tomatoes or bent cucumbers. For example, imperfect potatoes could be diced before sale.

“We need to look at the way we package. Why do we use plastics to display fruits and vegetables when we know that plastic causes them to go rotten more quickly?”

Many supermarkets want the best looking food “because that’s what customers expect.”

But one encouraging trend we’re seeing is that customers who are sure their fruits and vegetables are certified organic would rather have the odd blemish than one grown with pesticides.

Developing countries are also plagued by poor roads.

As much as half of the food that does reach supermarket shelves is thrown away by customers after the “best before” date is reached, even though the food is often still edible, although it may have lost flavour. Promotional “buy one get one free” offers also encourage consumers to buy more food than they need, which leads to wastage.

Still, with the world’s population expected to grow from seven billion to 9.5 billion by 2075, according to the United Nations, there are some reasons for optimism.

In sub-Saharan Africa, the report says, Columbia University has worked with farmers to triple the yield of cereal grains to three tonnes per hectare through improved seeds and more efficient use of fertilizers.

Innovations in the agricultural sector extend beyond dealing with food waste.

Several professors said more Chinese researchers are also developing innovations to address the food spoilage problem. In August, for instance, a group of Chinese researchers announced a coating for bananas made of crushed shrimp shells. The coating, sprayed on in the form of a thin gel, could keep bananas from ripening for at least two weeks.

Food-saving ideas

• Smaller potatoes: McDonald’s for years has asked its potato producers to grow large tubers for french fries. But that was inefficient because long fries tend to fall apart during processing. “They were getting a lot of waste,” said Ralph Martin of the University of Guelph. McDonald’s has now started accepting more medium-sized tubers.

• Check the back of the fridge: Some waste in Canadian households can be tied to the growing trend of large fridges, Martin said.

“It goes back to the tradition of shopping for food once a week,” he said. “The food gets stuck at the back of the fridge and whatever doesn’t look fresh is tossed. The smaller the fridge, the less waste.”

• Fruit doesn’t have to be perfect: Supermarkets historically place restrictions on tomatoes and other fruits. But a British supermarket chain is experimenting with offering larger and smaller tomatoes for sale at a discount.

“I think the Canadian supermarkets are aware that this may be an area where they might explore but everyone feels a bit vulnerable about being the first,” Martin said.

Why India can’t feed her people

By Rick Westhead

From the moment Mather left the south Indian state of Kerala, heading 2,500 kilometres north to New Delhi, he knew there was no time to waste.

In the back of his faded red transport truck were 27.2 metric tons of pineapple, ripened and ready for sale. With temperatures approaching 50 degrees, the fruit might as well have been ferried in a broiler. More than 20 per cent would be tossed aside by the time he arrived, fought over by cows, dogs and the children from nearby slums.

As much as 40 per cent of all the fruits, vegetables and food grains grown in India never make it to the market. The country wastes more grain each year than Australia produces, and more fruits and vegetables than the U.K. consumes.

Food is an all-consuming crisis here. Waste is only one facet. Agriculture, infrastructure, inflation, innovation and corruption are others. It is a scourge and challenge for this country of 1.2 billion people, which has earned a well-deserved reputation as one of the world’s fastest-growing economies with an 8-per-cent annual growth over the past decade.

And yet, 40 per cent of Indian children remain chronically malnourished. In some areas, the hunger-related statistics are startling.

In the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, for instance, two-thirds of children under five are malnourished — a rate that’s higher than most countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

In April 2010, reports surfaced that some children in Uttar Pradesh, India’s largest state, were eating mud laced with silica, a raw material used to make glass and soap. The children were not officially classified as poor and were ineligible for official help.

Today, there is less food available for each Indian resident that there was 30 years ago. In 2008, the most recent year for which statistics are available, India produced 436 grams of food grains per person per day, a drop from 445.3 in 2006.

An economics professor at the Tata Institute of Social Studies in Bombay, raised an alarm in a January report distributed by the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania: “Before the situation worsens and we witness a civil war, it is better to feed the hungry citizens of this country.”

Agriculture

In many parts of India, the rich loam that once ran 70 metres deep on farm fields is long gone, sapped of its nutrients after years of aggressive farming. As well, groundwater levels in 20 per cent of the country are described by the government as “critical” or “over-exploited.”

For about three decades, starting in the mid-1960s, India enjoyed a “Green Revolution” during which food no longer seemed a problem. In 1999, Indian farmers were growing 70 million tons of wheat, compared to 12 million in the early 1960s.

But the Green Revolution came with a cost: hybrid grains demand relatively huge amounts of water and fertilizers, and plunging groundwater levels and soil erosion are the result.

The agricultural sector, which employs more than half of Indians, lags behind the rest of the economy, growing about 2 per cent a year.

Shrinking too are the country’s farms as inherited land is split and split again among brothers. The average farm in India is now smaller than five acres, 50 per cent less than in 1947, when India gained its independence. Smaller plots — some the size of a basketball court — typically means smaller incomes.

And with meagre earnings, many small farmers can’t afford to invest in new technologies that would increase their productivity.

This year, Indian officials estimate, farmers will grow about 1,798 kilograms of food per hectare of farmed land, down 5 per cent from 2010.

The Peter G. Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington predicts India’s agricultural output will actually fall by 30 per cent by 2080.

“We are at a crossroads,” says M. Hasan, a scientist at the India Agricultural Research Institute in New Delhi. “Farmers are desperate and uneducated and water is so scarce because they have used it faster than it can be replenished. So now, they are using so much more pesticides, fertilizers and insecticides. It’s killing the earth.”

Inflation

Thanks to a surge in oil and petrol prices and the rampant corruption and inefficiencies of the public welfare system, food prices have skyrocketed by 20 per cent, and many of the country’s poorest—the labourers who actually grow the grains — can’t afford to buy them.

Some farmers see no way out. Between 1997 and 2009, an estimated 200,000 Indian farmers committed suicide, buried under mountains of rising debt.

“It’s a double crisis,” said a scholar at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. “There’s both falling food production and people who can’t afford to eat. It’s a tragedy.”

Innovation, Research and Development

India has a well-earned reputation as a breeding ground for innovation. Cities and remote villages teem with tales of ingenuity.

Just recently, Indian media have profiled an inventor who wheeled around Mumbai on a home-made, solar-powered scooter, an entrepreneur who has created a market for expensive writing paper made from elephant poop, and a group of university students who claim to have found a way to use the husks from coconuts to clean industrial spills in open water.

Yet stories about advances in the effort to solve India’s food crisis remain rare.

For one thing, young scientists simply aren’t interested.

“Agricultural research isn’t glamorous,” says Sunil Nath, dean of the biotechnology department at the Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi. “In the summer when it’s so hot, you have to leave that air-conditioned lab and go out into the villages and fields. It takes willpower.”

While China pumps $3.5 billion into agricultural research — Chinese farmers grew 6.2 metric tons of rice per hectare in 2008, double India’s output — India’s spends a fraction of that.

In 2009, India spent about 0.6 per cent of its GDP on agriculture, down from 1.4 per cent in the 1980s. China, by contrast, spends 5 per cent.

“We do this half-hearted,” says a professor at Delhi University. “We have lots of brick and mortar with 46 agricultural universities and 17 national research centres, but how many papers published in top journals? Hardly any.

“There’s an agricultural fatigue,” he continues. “We have nothing new to offer. Look at Canada, where every 100 kilometres there’s a granary. Don’t we know how to make new grain silos?”

Since 1996, India has built seven grain silos for a total of 20, says Sumit Bansal, an official with the Food Corporation of India, which distributes food stocks to regulated shops. Canada has 400 silos.

Infrastructure

Foreign big-box chains including Wal-Mart, U.K.-based Tesco, and France’s Carrefour all covet access to India’s $435-billion retail market and are anxious to expand beyond existing wholesaling practices. This may come with demands that they make investments in infrastructure to shore up electricity supplies and improve local roads.

This is, after all, a country where a 300-kilometre trip on roads near the capital can take eight hours.

And there’s a good chance the drive will be in the dark.

A reliable power supply is partly what is scaring companies from developing improved refrigerated transport services which would help reduce spoilage.

“The lack of power is a huge challenge.

While India currently has about 3,500 cold-storage facilities, it needs many more — enough to store an additional 10 million tons worth of food, according to a recent study by the consulting company KPMG.

Corruption

In October, newspapers reported that in Punjab and Haryana states, India’s traditional breadbasket, auditors had discovered as much as 67,000 tons of grain rotting under the sun. It became a national scandal.

Increasing investment in agriculture is the right thing for the country but they aren’t doing that because it’s not why they are in politics. The average Indian politician is there to milk the system. Even now, at a time when we’re facing a demographic albatross.”

No Drinking Water in Gwadar

Gwadar town and adjoining villages are facing a severe crisis of drinking water.

Due to scanty rainfall, the only dam that supplies water to the area has gone completely dry. Initially water was fetched through Navy ships from Karachi and then through tankers from scattered ponds located in far flung areas. Crisis attained serious turn when district government failed to pay the tanker owners who have now stopped supplies.

District administration owes more than 250 million rupees to the Tanker owners. It requires some 80 million rupees per month to meet expenses of tankers to sustain water supply.

Politically explosive situation of Gwadar has turned into a powder keg. An urban problem is morphing into a conflict that can take an ugly turn any time.

According to the drinking water policy 2009 of Pakistan, access to clean drinking water is a basic human right. Therefore government should take every possible measures to fulfill this obligation.

Timely and reasonable funds should be provided to the district administration to maintain supply of drinking water through tankers as short term measure.

PDMA and NDMA should immediately intervene at this stage to avoid any kind of disaster.

As a long term measure, the government should work on multiple plans instead of relying on a single source. It should include construction and functioning of desalination plants in different areas, construction of small dams, rehabilitation of Sunt-e-sar bore holes to augment supplies through exploiting ground water, functioning  of  Karwat Desalination Plant, completion of Sawarh Kore Dam, construction of Shadi Kore Dam.

Gwadar Development Authority, Gwadar Port Authority and other federal governmental department should also play their role in provision of clean drinking water to the peoples of Gwadar.

A Water Board should be established in Gwadar immediately to institutionalize long term solutions.

Option of providing drinking water through Mirani dam has already been announced by the government. However social and political issues that may stem from the project should be carefully analyzed and addressed. Some 80 villages at the downstream of the dam would justifiably expect drinking water from the same pipeline which need to be considered at the design stage.

The Political Parties’ Steering Committee of Gwadar should undertake a transparent survey and collect data on the funds spent on water supply through tankers, and facts and figure should be made public. So that any mismanagement of funds and gaps in water distribution may be addressed timely.

MDG Report of Balochistan mentions that overall, 74 percent of the population in the province was using an improved source of drinking water. These figures are unrealistic and indicate to data fudging. Govt. should present right facts before the people of Balochistan.

To avoid any kind of conflict, Political Parties’ Steering Committee-Gwadar along with district administration and civil society should improve coordination and manage the problem in a transparent and prudent manner.

Proposed City Zulfikarabad is a Disaster in the Making

The proposed city of Zulfikarabad in Sindh is impregnated with environmental and social risks

By Naseer Memon

Zulfikarabad, the dream city of the president of Pakistan, has sparked another controversy in Sindh. In spite of tooth and nail opposition, the government seems ready to proceed with its plans. The project, originally named as Jheruk, was first heard of in 2009. The scheme was later relocated to further south of Thatta district in Jati, Shah Bunder, Keti Bunder and Kharo Chaan talukas.

A meeting chaired by President Zardari on January 28, 2011 was told that the project would require some 1.6 million acres of land in the four coastal talukas of Thatta district. More than 1.2 million acres of the earmarked land is presently under sea and would require huge amount of money to reclaim. Sindh Land Management and Development Company has been established to acquire land for the project.

An autonomous body, Zulfikarabad Development Authority (ZDA) has been established to steer the project. The authority enjoys rare powers of approving any scheme even without seeking approval from the provincial Planning and Development Department. A high powered Executive Committee of the Authority has been empowered to take decisions. The chief secretary of the province would be just an ordinary member of the authority, ceremonially chaired by the chief minister and practically operated by the managing director. This is probably the only development scheme of its kind, for which key decisions are taken in meetings chaired by not less than the president of Pakistan.

Coastal strip is globally considered as an enticing location for commercial investments e.g. housing, tourism, industry and trade. Most expensive residential schemes are developed along coastal towns and cities. According to some estimates, approximately three billion people on earth live within 200 kilometres of coast and 14 out of 17 biggest cities of the world are located on coastline. This development is often materialised at the cost of indigenous communities. Against this backdrop, civil society has expressed its serious reservations on social and environmental implications of this scheme. Involuntary displacement of thousands of people from coastal villages is afoot.

China has shown its keen interest in the scheme. Delegations of Chinese investors frequently meet the president to lobby for major contracts in the project. The president has also recently visited China and the two countries have signed MoU to implement the project through Chinese companies.

Such high value projects nest hefty profits and poor communities become their casualty in numerous ways. Pakistan does not have impressive track record in this context. Resettlement of few thousand people of much smaller projects like Chotiari reservoir reeked with massive embezzlements and nepotism. Plight of the would-be displaced communities of Zulfikarabad is a foregone conclusion.

Key reason for Sindhis to oppose this project is lurking fear of being turned into a numeric minority in their own province.

According to the 1998 census, Sindhi speaking population was 60 per cent. Sindhi speaking population in urban areas was 25.8 per cent against 78.75% Punjabi speaking in urban Punjab and 73.55% Pashto speaking in Urban KP.

Demography of Karachi was even worse with Sindhi speaking population standing at 7.7%.

Against this backdrop, any new city of expected population of 10 million would easily convert Sindhis into a minority within a decade. Nationalist parties in Sindh consider Zulfikarabad a tool of demographic genocide of Sindhis.

The project is also impregnated with environmental risks.

Indus Delta is jewel in the crown of Pakistan’s ecological heritage.

For its rich biodiversity, the Delta is declared as a Ramsar site and attains great environmental significance. According to WWF Pakistan, the area where the city is proposed houses about 50 per cent of the country’s remaining mangroves cover most of which is declared as ‘protected’ since 1950s.

Recent studies on the existing land use of the location indicate that mangrove forests, wet mudflats and seawater in various major and minor creeks cover 7.2, 40.2 and 20 per cent of the total area of the site, respectively (WWF Pakistan). The remaining one third is the inland area which comprises agriculture and inland vegetation on about 9 per cent and uncultivated agricultural land and residential areas on 24 per cent of the total area of proposed Zulfikarabad site. More than 50,000 hectors of the proposed site are covered with mangroves forests, most of which are under the administrative jurisdictions of Sindh Forest Departments. Pakistan’s Environmental Protection Act requires an Environmental Impact Assessment (to which Social Impact Assessment is a component) of such projects. Considering the scope of the project, ideally a Strategic Impact Assessment should be conducted. However, all these requirements have been violated flagrantly.

Coastal cities are no more considered salubrious locations. Environmental hazards and coastal disasters have made such cities more vulnerable. Tsunamis of East-Asian coast in 2004 and of Japan in 2011 provide ample evidence of alarming vulnerability of coastal cities. Tourism, industry, shipping and aqua-culture are some of the prime areas of interest for investors. Natural ecosystem is gradually encroached and eventually replaced by concrete and steel in such areas.

Tsunami hit East-Asian countries developed shrimp farming into a $9 billion industry by erasing mangroves forests in vast swathes. The massive wave of destruction caused by the 2004 tsunami dwarfed all economic gain that the shrimp industry claimed. According to some reports, Sindh coast witnessed an average of four cyclones in a century. However, the frequency and intensity has increased manifold and the period of 1971-2001 records 14 cyclones. From 2001 to 2010, two high intensity cyclones i.e. cyclone Yemyin and cyclone Phet narrowly missed Sindh coast. Thus, Zulfikarabad would be exposed to serious potential hazards.

The proposed city is located in an active seismic zone, where exists Allah Band Fault, a potential threat of severe earthquake. In its southeast lies Gujarat Seismic Zone (GSZ) and in north-west Makran Subduction Zone (MSZ) that pose serious threat to the proposed city. Bhuj earthquake of 2001 caused devastation in the adjoining areas across the border.

Looking at shambolic infrastructure and substandard quality of services in Sindh, one wonders why these resources cannot be veered to improve the existing system. Most of the province is devoid of vehicle-worthy highways, link roads and basic infrastructure in secondary cities. Housing, drinking water and sanitation facilities are not available in large parts of big cities and secondary towns of Sindh. Thousands of schools and health facilities are without basic facilities. According to official data, 10,722 schools are without building and 24,559 are without drinking water facility in the province (Sindh Economic Survey 2009-2011). The same document acknowledges that provision of health facilities in Sindh is grossly inadequate. The province has only 3.5 doctors per 10,000 people and only 1.1 nurses against the same number of people. Against this backdrop, the decision to pour billions of dollars to build another big city lacks prescience.

 

Is Lahore’s Future a Dream or a Nightmare?

Lahore is developing but mostly its posh locations.

But there are a few common distinctions: piles of garbage and glitzy new shopping malls.

Is this our vision of urban development? There is no question that cities are imploding; growth is happening faster than we ever imagined.

Construction is booming and expansion is gobbling agricultural land.

But the quality of life is no better.

In most parts there is traffic, dust, air pollution and most of all the chaos of unplanned growth.

Road expansion is eating up lines of shady trees—in Lahore, the most majestic trees are being hacked down mercilessly.

The city’s lungs are going, and so are its sponges, as waterbodies are making way for buildings.

Lahore suffers from acute water shortage, even as rain leads to swamping of its roads, disrupting life and destroying property. The city has no water culture. Both are drowning in their waste.

Over 50 per cent of the filtered water per day is lost in distribution, which means there is far more costs but far less water to supply.

The city water utility has no money to repair and extend its water system. It spends all it has and more in just electricity costs of bringing the water.

The power elite never demands systems to deal with the sewage they flush out of their homes. Most of the sewage system was constructed in the pre-partition days. Independent Lahore has added to it insignificantly. The bulk of the sewage pours into the Ravi river.

Floods still ravage the city. Residents explain that the intensity and duration of floods has made life impossibly difficult. They also spoke of desperate water shortages in this region of plenty.

Worse, life-giving water is now the cause of diseases.

This is when Lahore can do things differently. It can execute a plan, which allows it to modernise but with quality of life intact and even better. This requires not to want to grow in the way other cities in the Third World have.

For instance, it should not repeat the mistake of allowing fleets of cars to take over its roads which is already happening. The plan to introduce a bus-based future is good. There is a need to invest in new buses, rationalise routes, create systems for efficient operation and put GPS in place to track and inform customers. Now cost of bus fuel is up, fares have not been revised and buses are losers. Still the majority of the city population rides or walks, even though the city’s footpaths are long gone.

Whatever footpaths are left are taken over by mounds of garbage. The city has taken the route of its bigger cousins. It has put the task of garbage disposal out perhaps to Allah.

Schemes should be introduced to collect, segregate and compost garbage at the household level. It could reserve areas in colonies for environmental services. This way it would not have to first collect and then transport the waste. It would not have to live in filth.

In the end, Lahore and other cities of Pakistan will be the creations of its people. The only question is whether they will be dreams or nightmares.

The holy Ganga is a poisonous river today

Ganga river in India is so full of killer pollutants that those living along its banks in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Bengal are more prone to cancer than anywhere else in the country.

A study conducted by the National Cancer Registry Program (NCRP) under the Indian Council of Medical Research shows that the river is thick with heavy metals and lethal chemicals that cause cancer.

“We know that the incidence of cancer was highest in the country in areas drained by the Ganga. We also know why. Now, we are going deeper into the problem. Hopefully, we’ll be able to present a report to the Union health ministry in a month or two,” NCRP head said.

The worst-hit stretches are east Uttar Pradesh, the flood plains of Bengal and Bihar.

Cancer of the gall bladder, kidneys, food pipe, prostate, liver, kidneys, urinary bladder and skin are common in these parts. These cases are far more common and frequently found here than elsewhere in the country, the study says.

What’s more frightening is the finding that gall bladder cancer cases along the river course are the second highest in the world and prostate cancer highest in the country.

The survey throws up more scary findings: Of every 10,000 people surveyed, 450 men and 1,000 women were gall bladder cancer patients.