MUSINGS FROM PRIYADARSHINI KARVE: Environment Vs Development!

अपोलो ८ या नासाच्या चांद्रयानाने काढलेलं हे पृथ्वीचं छायाचित्र १९६८ साली प्रसिध्द झालं, आणि लोकांना अचानक पृथ्वीवासी असण्याचं महत्त्व जाणवलं. १९७०च्या दशकात पर्यावरण चळवळींना चालना मिळण्यामागे हे छायाचित्र हे एक महत्त्वाचं प्रेरणास्थान होतं. 

पर्यावरण की विकास, विकास की पर्यावरण, अशा प्रकारचे वाद अधून मधून डोकं वर काढतच असतात. पण मला वाटतं, हा वाद पर्यावरण की विकास असा नसतोच खरंतर. कारण पर्यावरण आणि विकास तुल्यबळ असतील, तर वादाला काहीतरी अर्थ आहे. मानवी जीवनाला अनुकूल पर्यावरण रहाणार नसेल, तर कोणत्याच तथाकथित विकासाला काही अर्थ रहाणार नसतो. त्यामुळे ज्या वादाला पर्यावरण विरुध्द विकास असं नाव दिलं जातं, तो बहुतेकवेळा सर्व माणसांचा सार्वकालिक विकास विरुध्द माझा तात्कालिक विकास असा वाद असतो.

एक साधं उदाहरण देते. मला माझ्या इच्छित आरंभस्थानापासून माझ्या इच्छित अंतिमस्थानापर्यंत माझ्या वाहनातून कमीत कमी वेळात, कमीत कमी खर्चात, व कमीत कमी कष्टात कसं जायचं, असा प्रश्न पडलेला असेल, तर मी कसा विचार करते? तर माझ्या प्रवासाच्या वेळेला माझ्या मार्गात असलेली वहातूक कोंडी कमीत कमी कशी होईल, मला प्रशस्त, मोकळा व रूंद रस्ता कसा मिळेल, या गोष्टी मला सर्वात महत्त्वाच्या वाटतात. माझ्या वाहनात एसी असल्यामुळे रस्त्यावर सावलीचा गारवा असणं-नसणं, चालणाऱ्यांना वगैरे आरामदायक वाटणं-न वाटणं, हे माझ्यासाठी गौण असतं. मला टेकडीला वळसा घालून जावं लागतंय, यात माझं पेट्रोल आणि वेळ खर्च होतोय, हे मला खुपत असतं. मला फक्त त्या रस्त्यावरून झूममम जायचंय, मग रस्त्याच्या कडेला दुकानं, फेरीवाले, विक्रेते यांच्या व्यवसायासाठी जागा आहे की नाही, किंवा तिथे रहाणाऱ्या लोकांना एकत्र येता येईल अशा मोकळ्या सार्वजनिक जागा आहेत का नाहीत, याच्याशी तर मला अजिबातच देणंघेणं नसतं. मग मला झाडं तोडून रस्ता रुंदीकरण, उड्डाणपूल, टेकडी फोडून बोगदे, इ. पर्याय आकर्षकच नाही तर तर्कशुध्द वाटू लागतात. पूर्वीच्या अनुभवातून मला हेही माहित असतं की हे सगळे उपाय केल्यानंतर मिळणारं सुख फार फार तर दोन-चार वर्षंच टिकेल, कारण इतर रस्त्यांवरची गर्दी या रस्त्यावर ओसंडून पुन्हा वहातूक कोंडी व्हायला लागेल. पण पुढचं पुढे, माझा आत्ताचा तर प्रश्न सुटेल, असा मी विचार करते. कोण जाणे, कदाचित आणखी दोन वर्षांनी मी वेगळ्या ठिकाणच्या वातानुकुलित काचेच्या इमारतीत चाकरी धरलेली असेल, किंवा मी शहराच्या आणखी उच्चभ्रू भागात घर घेतलेलं असेल, मग या रस्त्याशी माझा संबंधच रहाणार नाही, असाही कदाचित मी विचार केलेला असू शकतो.

पण समजा माझ्या मनात थोडा वेगळा प्रश्न आहे. मला असं वाटतंय की पुणे शहरात रहाणाऱ्या कोणत्याही व्यक्तीला आपापल्या इच्छित आरंभस्थानापासून इच्छित अंतिमस्थानापर्यंत कमीत कमी खर्चात, कमीत कमी वेळेत, आणि कमीत कमी कष्टात जाता आलं पाहिजे. आणि हे केवळ आत्ताच नाही, तर कायमस्वरूपी घडावं अशीही माझी इच्छा असेल, तर मी कसा विचार करीन? मग माझ्या चटकन लक्षात येईल की, सार्वत्रिक व सार्वकालिक असा एकमेव उपाय म्हणजे शास्त्रीय दृष्ट्‍या शहरातील सध्याच्या चलनवलनाचा आणि भविष्यातील संभाव्य बदलांच्या शक्यतांचा अभ्यास करून तयार केलेला आराखडा, आणि त्याची शास्त्रशुध्द व तंत्रशु्ध्द अंमलबजावणी. यामध्ये रस्त्यांवर पादचारी, स्वचलित वाहने, विविध प्रकारच्या सार्वजनिक वाहनांचे परस्परपूरक जाळे यांना प्राधान्य असेल. रस्त्याचे जे इतर वापर माणसे करत असतात - उदा. व्यवसायाच्या व विपणनाच्या जागा म्हणून - त्यांचाही सहानुभूतीपूर्वक विचार केलेला असेल. खाजगी गाडी रस्त्यावर आणावी लागणार नाही, आणि तरीही कोणाचीही गैरसोय होणार नाही, अशी वाहतूक व्यवस्था माझा आणि सर्व समाजाचा सर्वाधिक फायदा करून देणारी असेल, या निष्कर्षाला मी येऊन पोहोचेन.

आपल्या मनातला नेमका विचार काय आहे, हे आपण प्रत्येकाने आत्मपरीक्षण करून पहावे. सर्वांनी सर्व काळ सर्व समाजाचा विचार केला पाहिजे, स्वार्थीपणा वाईट, इ. असा काहीही उपदेश मला करायचा नाही. शेवटी माझं भलं मी नाही पाहिलं, तर दुसरं कोण पहाणार आहे, हे मला पूर्णपणे पटतं. माझा मुद्दा इतकाच आहे, की दोन प्रकारच्या मानवी स्वार्थांमधल्या या आणि अशा प्रकारच्या इतर वादांत कोणती बाजू घ्यावी, हे ज्याने त्याने स्वतःच्या सदसद्विवेकबुध्दीच्या आधारे ठरवावे.

प्रियदर्शिनी कर्वे

समुचित एन्व्हायरो टेक

#BeModernBeResponsibleBeRespectful

   

Samuchit Enviro Tech.     samuchit@samuchit.com     www.samuchit.com 

My City My Responsibility - Development versus Environment

Sustainable Development

Dear All, 

Our city is witnessing varied developmental challenges that threaten the very environment of the city both socially as well as ecologically. Few of the development issues that we are facing today is the construction along the riverside and dumping debris and untreated sewage into the river. Allowing construction in the Green and no development zones, de-reserving plots from a bird sanctuary and opening it up for construction and illegally shifting the blue and red flood lines of our river to allow construction etc. This is indeed a threat to our natural resources i.e land, rivers and biodiversity. 

I am seriously worried about our development that doesn't account for our environment. I am not against any new development in our city. I mean that we are in an era of Sustainable Development, where Environment and Development should go hand in hand. For the same, a lot of thought has to be put from social, environment & climate change and economic perspective, while considering any development in the city. With Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that we have in front of us to be met by 2030. We as citizens need to understand what is sustainability and act as watch dogs to see that our government is indeed adhering to it. We as citizens have the right to ask our developers about their decisions time and again. 

However this is one side of the coin on the other hand its time that our bureaucrats understand sustainability and start incorporating it. They should take conscious efforts to study the area before undertaking any sorts of development in that area. A lot of brainstorming needs to happen in order to understand the socio-economic inequities, ecological and climatic conditions of that area. Meanwhile it is important to maintain transparency as well by publishing the information online for local and national level experts and scientists for scrutiny. With the smart technology that we have today its very handy to share information and make right use of the same. Its quite feasible to accelerate this process through the use of technology even though it is time consuming. Since today's development projects are not full proof, it activates the environmental enthusiasts opposing the same which results in delay of the project as well as enormous financial losses. Ultimately its the common man who has to bear the burden through price hikes or taxes. 

As citizens its in our hands to be the guardians of our city and accordingly envision our city. We have the right to ask our local authorities about our surrounding development. 

Pournima Agarkar.

MUSINGS FROM PRIYADARSHINI KARVE: Sustainable Cities and Clean Cooking

As many of you who follow Samuchit Enviro Tech would know, the company started off as a distribution company for clean biomass based cooking energy devices. Over the years, we diversified into other products and services focused on sustainable lifestyle for rural and urban Indians. It is the diversification that has brought us to now working on the Sustainably SMART Pune 2030 study project. #SustainablySMARTPune2030

The entire last week, I was multitasking to meet two deadlines - one related to the cooking energy work that I do, and the other related to kickstarting the Study Project from 1 Oct. Throughout the week I kept reflecting on how vastly different these two topics are. This week I am at the India Clean Cooking Forum, and came across information that I was not fully aware of. It turns out that systematic studies across the world have shown that cooking on traditional biomass fueled cookstoves in urban poor households is one of the major contributors to air pollution in the cities of the developing world. The contribution is significant enough that researchers emphasise on the need to specially address this source of air pollution. 

Apart from the environmental concern, it is already a well established fact that access to clean cooking has a direct positive impact for women's health, and quality of life. 

Providing clean AND affordable household cooking options to the urban poor thus fits very well into the concept of sustainability. It addresses a need of a socio-economic weaker section of the urban society, and it also addresses the environmental concern of air pollution. 

So, it seems like there is a natural link between working on clean cooking and sustainable cities! 

For those interested to know more: http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/1206340/#tab1

                Priyadarshini Karve

Director

                 Samuchit Enviro Tech

#BeModernBeResponsibleBeRespectful

    Samuchit Enviro Tech     samuchit@samuchit.com     www.samuchit.com 

MUSINGS FROM PRIYADARSHINI KARVE: The earth has overshot... how do we survive?

On 13 August, I read several news reports that this was Earth Overshoot Day for 2015. What this meant is that the resources that were supposed to be used over the entire year of 2015, were finished up in less than 8 months. So for the next four months of the year, we will be using resources that are meant for the next year. As a result, the resources for 2016, will be finished a bit earlier.. This is a direct consequence of humanity's ecological footprint being more than the total area of the earth. I talked about this in the very first MUSINGS way back in March. 

If we do not take these global warnings seriously, by the middle of the century, we would be starting a new year with zero balance of resources! In practice, what this means is that scarcities of all natural resources will all the time be hitting us! For some time, the rich and powerful will be able to hoard resources and somehow continue to live a better life, but even that will soon be difficult to sustain. At that point then irrespective of our monetary bank balance, we will all be forced to live frugally, because there will be nothing left to purchase using the pieces of paper called currency! 

Let's forget about the world, and focus on our own country! 

India's ecological footprint has always been greater than our ability to regenerate resources. In recent years, our ecological footprint has been shooting up as we have prospered economically. Part of the reason for these shortfalls is our high population density - number of people dependent per unit area of land and water is high. But we are still 'managing' in spite of the shortfalls because we can still import resources from elsewhere in the world, and fill the deficit. 

Our sense that we are self sufficient in something or other is often a false sense of security. Take the example of what was once lauded as our biggest success story - the green revolution which allowed us to successfully feed our entire population without food imports. However, in order to increase the farm productivity to that level we had to import petroleum (to make the chemical fertilizers) and pesticides and hybrid seeds, which cost us much more than direct import of food! As the cost of agricultural inputs shot up, in spite of the increase in yields, farmers' profit margins disappeared, pushing farmers into debt and despair. And in spite of all this, for the last few years, we are again having to import food grains, because the artificially pumped up agricultural yields have now started dropping due to loss of soil fertility! This was indeed a path of development that was non equitable as it enriched the traders at the cost of the farmers, and it has now proved to be unsustainable too! 

So, we will have to import one or the other of the resources, because our consumption as a nation is more than what we can generate on land and water within our political boundary. In fact the more we prosper economically, the better equipped we will be to keep filling the shortfall with imports... never mind that the shortfall will continue to grow the more we prosper! But import will solve our problems, as long as there are resources somewhere to import from! As the entire world starts running out of resources, where does that leave us??

There is another aspect to this problem. Last week I talked about the Gini Coefficient, which clearly shows that while the economy has boomed, the economic inequality has also increased. This means that the additional burden on the ecological resources in recent years is mostly due to the increased consumption of the richer sections of our society, while the poorer sections are not getting opportunities to come out of poverty. As resource scarcities are mounting, the first hit will also be the poor, rather than the rich. 

The pursuit of development thus can create islands of prosperity, but how are we going to sustain them? The social tensions arising out of the ire of the deprived will increasingly threaten the security of these islands. At the same time, as the resources on which these islands depend dwindle, the cost of the prosperity will keep on escalating. How long can we then maintain this facade of prosperity?

It would indeed be wise, if we choose a path of development that may be slow, but is equitable. I saw a beautiful cartoon a few years ago that very well explains what 'true' equity means, so I would rather reproduce that here, than use words! 

Along with true equity, we will also have to seek true sustainability - a path that will not depend heavily on non-renewable resources, AND will keep our rate of consumption in resonance with the rate of regeneration of resources. 

The earlier we make this transition voluntarily, the better equipped we will be to live in a warmer and a relatively barren world! 

#BeModernBeResponsibleBeRespectful

    Samuchit Enviro Tech.     samuchit@samuchit.com     www.samuchit.com