MUSINGS FROM PRIYADARSHINI KARVE: We need a 360 Degree Vision!

We are currently living through a critical period in the history of human civilisation. The decisions that we make and the actions that we take today, will decide the form of human society in the future. What will humans be doing at the end of this century? Different people have come up with different scenarios based on various assumptions, and there is a range of possibilities. At one end of the spectrum, the end of 2100 may see about a couple of billion humans trying to rebuild a new civilisation. At the other end of the spectrum, there is a more positive outlook of about 10 billion people already well on the way to a sustainable, equitable, climate friendly civilisation. Ironically, the people who are living today and will be deciding the outcome for 2100 will not be around to see the consequences of their actions. It will be their children and grandchildren who will live through those consequences. So can we be the responsible ancestors that our future generations deserve?

Our decisions and actions are generally guided more by the collective knowledge of the past generations and our own past experiences, than by any considerations of the future. In order to forecast into the future, we do need to 'backcast' into the past, but with a critical and unprejudiced perspective. We need to look at the past through the lens of the future. 

I tried to do that a bit for an input I was invited to present at a discussion meeting organised by the Climate Collective Pune, on the occassion of the Earth Day 2020. Here I am putting forth some of my musings that fed into my input. 

Just as our actions today will decide the future reality for the next generation, in a way our predicament of today was decided by a decision of our ancestors nearly a couple of centuries ago. The decisive moment was in the middle of the 19th century. The Europeans discovered coal and petroleum and realised that these high energy density fuels can really accelerate the engine of industrialisation. The availability of this tremendously powerful energy allowed the European industries to suddenly increase their manufacturing capacities to a huge scale. This meant that there was a suddenly escalated demand for raw materials and labour, and a sudden need to expand the market base. This was the trigger for imperialism, which then spread the model of industry powered economic development across the world. Two world wars in succession through the 20th century killed the ability of the European nations to maintain the political empires, but they certainly did not give up on their economic and industrial empires. From imperialism, the world just transitioned to globalisation. 

The Roots of Global Crises lie in the fossil fuel powered Industrial Revolution of 1850s

The process of ramping up of industrialisation in Europe caused exploitation of natural resources as well as people in Europe. It also triggered massive land use change and polluted the air and water sources around the industrial areas. Climate change was also triggered the moment we started using fossil energy. Collectively, the exploitation, land use change and pollution lead to increasing inequity, disease epidemics, industrialisation of food production systems, degradation of natural ecosystems, and loss of biodiversity. First with imperialism and later with globalisation, through the last century, the erstwhile problems of Europe became global crises. Post 1980s, climate change also showed its impacts across the world, leading to additional crises. 

The Minefield of Global Crises in the Path of Human Civilisation in 21st Century

This is not to say that industrialisation, technology, science, etc., did not bring benefits! But in a way, the cost for those benefits is now being paid by us and our future generations. We are facing across the world today, a minefield of various crises, all rooted in this historical context. 

Furthermore, there are strong interlinkages and feedback loops between these crises. For example, land use change and pollution is increasing the contact between humans and wild species, leading to new diseases jumping from animals to humans. This causes epidemics and pandemics. The waves of diseases generally have tragic consequences because socio-economic inequity and climate change are collectively leading to poor nutrition and therefore lowered immunity. At the same time, because of climate change, existing diseases are now entering new areas with the changing weather patterns, and causing more epidemics and pandemics. All of this means that contrary to our past experience, COVID19 is not a one off disaster, but we are going to see more and more pandemics in the coming years! When we are looking for solutions therefore, we must understand these linkages. This will allow us to address the root causes of the crises more effectively while also trying to find solutions to the immediate effects of the crises.

Interlinked Causes of Global Crises: An Example

This also means that we can no longer afford to focus on the global crises in isolation. Since the causes are interlinked, the solutions also must be interlinked. This is why we should not simply 'restart' the economy! We need to create a new socio-politico-economic model that will simultaneously push back against the three major triggers of current global crises - Exploitation, Land use change and Pollution, and Climate Change. 

One promising approach in this context is the Doughnut Economics. It is interesting that several city and country leaders in Europe are actually trying to figure out how this framework can guide them in the post-COVID19 recovery. As India debates on how to ease out of the lockdown, it would be worthwhile to adopt a similar 360 degree vision! 

Priyadarshini Karve
Director
Samuchit Enviro Tech

#BeModernBeResponsibleBeRespectful

   

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

MUSINGS FROM PRIYADARSHINI KARVE: What Is Your Idea Of Sustainability?

Migration - Birds and People

I hope everyone is staying home and following all precautions as we are in the grips of COVID-19 pandemic. One outcome of the lockdown is that people are more than usual active on social media. A lot of the social media traffic is fake news or rants... but in between some interesting thoughts, data, news items, opinions, etc., are also getting shared. 

There is one class of social media posts that caught my attention. Several people are posting their own observations, other people's observations, pieces of prose and poetry, photographs, videos, memes, etc., echoing one thought: The withdrawal of humans and human activities is giving nature a breather and helping it recover. This is a true observation. But then many people are going a few steps ahead and projecting this as 'a positive outcome' of the pandemic. Some people are thinking that this is the way forward to a solution to climate change. 

So let's think about the cost of this so-called 'positive outcome'. 

As per today's (28 March) available data (check this for updates): Today there are 436,715 active cases of COVID-19, out of which about 5% people are critically ill, and already 27,370 people have died worldwide.

The numbers are still rising daily, and the pandemic is likely to continue for a few months. I should also mention that this is the data of 'detected' cases only. There may be an even larger number of people who are infected with either no or mild symptoms worldwide, spreading the infection to others. Also, there will be a lot of deaths across the world that may be caused by this infection but will not be recorded as such due to a variety of reasons.

The only way to deal with the pandemic is to try and minimise the death toll. This will be possible if all the patients with high risk get proper treatment on a priority basis. This will in turn be possible if the number of people needing treatment do not overwhelm the health systems available in a country.

From this viewpoint, a two-pronged strategy is being employed across the world: 

(a) lockdown - minimising the contact between people (almost every country including India is doing this in varying degrees), and 

(b) widespread testing to detect carriers of the virus - so that they can be further isolated and treated (not all countries including India are as yet doing this, but this too is an essential step without which the first step will not be hugely effective)

However, the lockdown is causing huge economic impacts. All economic activity has come to a standstill. I am not refering to loss of GDPs and fall in share markets and what not. Those are only notional losses. Because both 'corporations' and 'money' after all are just figments of human imagination, as pointed out by Yuval Noah Harari in his world famous book 'Sapiens'. So these imaginary losses of the imaginary entities can be overcome through policies, mutual agreements, bailouts, etc. The hardest hit by the halt of economic activities are the marginal populations - those who typically depend on daily earnings to meet their survival needs. This is a worldwide tragedy for all those who eke out a hand to mouth existence, with no savings and social security support systems to fall back on.

In the Indian context, the migrant workers, who as it is live very precariously in most cities, are the worst affected. It is really tragic to see hoards of people walking away from the cities that were shut down with a single television announcement, leaving them uninformed and unprotected. No amount of economic packages declared subsequently can help them HERE and NOW. The only option they see is to follow the ancient natural instinct of the human species - if things get tough at a location, pick up and leave! Start walking and hope to find a better place to live in!

THIS is the price we are paying for the so-called 'positive outcomes', my dear friends!

If you are a true believer in sustainability you will not rejoice over this. Because sustainability is NOT about sacrificing humans for the sake of the planet. Yes, sustainability opposes destruction of the planetary ecosystems for the sake of human civilisation, but the opposite is not desirable either!

We seek sustainability FOR human species. This means social and economic wellbeing for ALL humans through judicious use of natural resources. We want to protect the planet so that it will continue to sustain humans on it - not at the expense of human lives and wellbeing! The fight for sustainability is the fight against inequality in human society and the destruction of planetary ecosystems, simultaneously - not just the one or the other.

So what this is showing you is not the way forward to solve the climate crisis. What this is showing you is how we DO NOT want to attempt to solve the climate crisis! We do not want to be pushed into a situation where we have our backs to the wall and drastically shutting down everything is the only option left to us. We need to start changing our social, political and economic systems today in the direction of going low carbon without losing sight of the goal of universal human wellbeing.

And there is some good news now that says that this is indeed possible. A recently published paper shows that contrary to popular belief the link between energy use and quality of life is much weaker than previously supposed. More specifically the contribution of increase in the use of fossil fuels to increasing the life expectancy of people is only about 25%. This means that use of fossil energy can be reduced without harming the wellbeing of people. The only change that needs to happen is shift in the priorities of the national governments and global decision making bodies.

This fits very well in my idea of sustainability. What about you?

Priyadarshini Karve
Director
Samuchit Enviro Tech

#BeModernBeResponsibleBeRespectful

   

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

My City My Responsibility - Win over COVID-19 and more!

Dear All, 

In my last blog I did mention that COVID-19 the pandemic is in a way helping us realize that coming together for working towards a cause can actually help us WIN over other existential threats too as human beings! This also reminds me about THANOS - my favorite character and the super villain from the sci-fi movie AVENGERS. Favorite because somehow he felt the need to attain sustainability unlike the so called superheroes. He however chose a wrong path - to wipe out people the way COVID-19 affects. All the superheroes formed an alliance and came together to put an end to THANOS on seeing a threat of human extinction. I feel a similar situation has been happening around us, where we see how all national and international governments and local bodies, companies private and public, researchers, celebrities, education systems, transport systems, medical systems, supply chains etc and not to mention us, the Citizens are coming together towards tackling this super villain and trying to save humanity. It is indeed commendable, however the way we behave or take actions now at various levels of operation (individual, community and governance) has a solution to a bigger problem. 

Why I feel so is because a LOCKDOWN helped reduce China's pollution though temporary but at drastic levels just within two month's time. China has been reportedly been the biggest air polluter taking thousands of lives especially kids and older people. But the lockdown and slowed economic activity led the reduction of pollution and saved lives to almost 20 times than the pandemic as per this source http://www.g-feed.com/2020/03/covid-19-reduces-economic-activity.html 

Here, I don't mean pandemics are good, but we can learn something from such a situation. 

Global emissions scoreboard

From my area of work (as climate researcher), the point that I want to make here is if we are to achieve the goal of 1.5 deg C temperature rise instead of 4.2 deg C by the end of the century, it seems to be easily achievable. Imagine each country taking turns to even partially lockdown (not because of some pandemic but voluntarily) and slowing down economic activity, transport especially with personal cars and stop flying for conferences and events just for a period of say 3 months or so...may be more or less depends, need to research..., we can tackle the bigger challenge of climate change. Can we look at the lockdown situation as a way to reduce our carbon footprints and also ecological footprints? Italy's water canals have reported the come back of dolphins and swans due to no human activity over just a few weeks! We can definitely give our life supporting systems some breather to restore and meanwhile decide the further course of action.

In one of our river restoration studies that we conducted last year as an alternative to the riverfront development plan, we did suggest a temporary period of 'No Access' to the river in order to restore the river, of course we cannot ban the access completely but in a situation like a lockdown this can be easily accomplished temporarily. 

Now that our lives are at stake, we are mandated to take drastic actions, lets not wait till such a situation arises through climate change. Just read recently, we need to stop human DOING for some time and start BEING human. 

Last but not the least, I am sure all of us have enough information on where India and Pune stands with the number of people affected and all....however in order to limit ourselves to get into the stage III mode we better quarantine ourselves completely and help each other. But more urgent and important - we need TESTING facilities for ALL since that will be one of the key ways to manage this chaos. South Korea has shown the way in this. On the other hand, India is one of the countries conducting the LEAST number of tests per million citizens! This is totally unacceptable and needs to change! The government has started expanding the testing capacity since this week, but it is not moving fast enough. We the Citizens need to start demanding more urgency on this! 

Safe Sanitizing!!!

Pournima Agarkar. 

www.samuchit.com

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My City My Responsibility - Is Coronavirus an Alarm call!

Dear All, 

With all the hype and rapid spread of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the city made me realize that though the infection is similar to a flu it can get serious if proper sanitation and medication is not undertaken. So first things first - be alert, don't panic and get proper treatment ASAP if required!

However, I am curious if  the virus is such an evil or not! Since the virus has stepped in suddenly all the news in the country is zoomed in this issue. While all other blood boiling issues happening around the country like Delhi riots, JNU attacks, NRC and CAA, war like situation, all has taken a back seat. Everyone is sanitizing their lives, right from the corporate businesses, industrialists, governments, individuals, schools, colleges, organizations and especially media channels and newspaper agencies everyone is busy fighting this so called EVIL virus in some way or the other!

Its human nature to respond to anything that is in front of us rather than being prepared well in advance for an upcoming situation. That's also one of the reasons why our disaster management plans (DMP) and policies are reactive rather than proactive. The virus outbreak just makes it evident how we wait until a crisis hits us that badly from economic, social and physical aspect to undertake the required action.

I feel sad to say this, that unfortunately the impacts of climate change have not yet reached the mark where we faced catastrophic economic, social and physical losses that it urges all of us to come together and take the appropriate action on ground!!! We still don't realize how crucial  it is for us to gear up ourselves and fight the bigger evil of Climate Change which is probably going to wipe out humanity completely in no time! However, in a way this outbreak will help save some of the carbon emissions especially the ones caused due to the aviation industry which are almost double compared to transport via road and waterways. A lot of business/work related meetings, conferences/seminars or events are happening online which in turn will help reduce the emissions from flying, though temporary but still will have an impact! And who knows - may be people will see what is possible to achieve using the cyber space and by not traveling too much, some of these measures will stick around long term! 

But closer home - by the time we get over the virus, we are going to almost get into the monsoon season in India. The coming monsoons may be far more worse than last year. It is time we ask ourselves, are we really prepared for these situations, are we equipped to face the bigger challenges? What all we need to do well in advance to foolproof ourselves! What if we are faced with a catastrophic flood like situation devastating our lives, leaving us no where to go. What if our nearest coastal city and the economic hub like Mumbai gets submerged! Think over it. We need to have effective solutions for the long term impacts that will occur due to climate change!    

Monkey giving an alarm call when a predator is nearby

Lets take this outbreak as an Alarm call for all of us to look at the bigger crisis that we will be facing. Lets get alert and gear up ourselves not only to fight the short term crisis like Coronavirus but also the long term crisis of rapidly changing climate!!!

Any suggestions are welcome!

In order to create more awareness about climate change and its impacts we are conducting monthly workshops titled #ChallengingThanos - Countdown to Monsoon 2020. Check out our social media handles for the upcoming activities and help us build a resilient community!

Pournima Agarkar. 

www.samuchit.com

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My City My Responsibility - Sustainable 2020 in the making!!!

Dear All,

In my last blog, I mentioned about all our initiatives that enabled us to have a Sustainable 2019. Taking this forward, we are heading towards a more action oriented Sustainable 2020. Here's a quick review of a smashing start of year, full of new ventures!!!

Firstly I would like to mention our collaboration with Sahapedia a Delhi based organisation, involved in mapping Pune's Cultural and Natural Heritage. We host them in our office :) On 28th January 2020 we conducted our #ChallengingThanos event in collaboration with Sahapedia and Lokshahi Utsav Samiti during the Lokshahi Utsav that takes place every year in the week of 26 Jan. In this event we spoke about how Pune can challenge Climate change - both in terms of addressing climate vulnerabilities and going carbon-neutral. We received an overwhelming response, more than 100 people turned up for the event. I am glad to be part of the Lokshahi Utsav, thank you very much for hosting us! Not only this, post event our studies got highlighted in several local newspapers both English and Marathi. Check out the compilation of all the news coverage! Thanks a ton to all the newspaper agencies (Lokmat, Maharashtra Times, Times of India and Sakal) and the reporters for covering this issue extensively. Reaching to the larger audience on the seriousness of how climate change is impacting us is crucial and indeed all the reporters did a great job!!! Thank you to all the corresponding media persons and the editors! 

Another highlight of the month was the publishing of the Policy paper on Carbon Neutral PMR by 2030 by Pune International Centre (PIC) and Climate Collective Pune (CCP) through the hands of our young Environment and Tourism Minister Aaditya Thackeray, on the 29th Jan, 2020. The inputs presented by Dr Gurudas Nulkar, Dr Priyadarshini Karve and Dr Nitant Mate, were very well taken by our minister. He calmly listened and commented on the inputs and suggestions given by the experts in the round table discussion. This is first time ever any minister/bureaucrat has given so much time for this alarming issue and yes it had to be a young politician :) I was glad to be part of this round table and witnessing these discussions. Aaditya Thackeray suggested monthly follow up meets on the Carbon
Neutral planning and development of PMR and intends to make the entire Maharashtra Carbon Neutral! Hope this to be the beginning of a new era!!!

Another recent initiative of ours is about Cooking for Climate where Samuchit Enviro Tech promoting improved BIOMASS based cookstoves and renewable charcoal, Vaayu Mitra promoting kitchen waste and wastewater based BIOGAS plant systems and OrjaBox promoting SOLAR based cooking have come together to showcase renewable energy based cooking options. We had successfully conducted our first event in December 2019 at Cafe Climate run by Priyadarshan Sahasrabuddhe (VaayuMitra) and another event at AISSMS, Electrical Engineering campus, Pune with the help of Vishaka Chandhere (OrjaBox). Both the events were well received by the audience. Food is the heart of our survival and cooking is an enabler. In this fossil fuel challenged future where reducing our carbon emissions is a must, we need to make the shift to renewable sources of cooking energy. We will conduct these workshops every month, and invite collaborators to host us! Let us know if you are interested, or know of anyone who might be interested! Check out a video of our workshop here!

Being a member of INECC and part of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) agenda we got an opportunity to design a training manual for trainers on some of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) last year for PRATYeK. PRATYeK is a non governmental organization working on child rights and earth rights through various advocacy mediums with technical support from UNICEF. They invited me and my colleague, Myron Mendes, to train their trainers based in Mumbai and Delhi on the manual. Highlight of this visit were the kids from an underprivileged section of the society in Delhi who are now SDG ministers having a ministry for each SDG. The kids aged between 10 to 16 years of age literally taught us a lot, I was amazed with their enthusiasm, charisma, general knowledge, consciousness, ability to grasp the concept and put in action. I learnt a lot more than I thought possible, Thanks to INECC and PRATYeK for a amazing experience. Not to mention I enjoyed every bit of my visit to Delhi with some close friends!
 

As I said 2020 is going to be an action packed year, more such exciting opportunities in the pipeline. Check out our upcoming events on 26th Feb and on 1st March 2020 on our social media handles!

Pournima Agarkar. 

www.samuchit.com

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My City My Responsibility - A look back at Sustainable 2019!!!

Dear All, 

New year pledge for a Carbon Neutral and Climate Resilient Pune

I know its been quite a long time since I last wrote, nevertheless I am glad to be back and want to keep writing more often!!!

Let me just wish everyone a Happy and Sustainable year ahead!!!

For us at Samuchit and Laya resource center 2019 had been an exciting year. We could initiate some new approaches for imparting climate and sustainability literacy programs. We could also take some of our initiatives to other cities apart from Pune which is one of the goals of this entire study. This blog is about a quick flasback of activities conducted in 2019.  

End of the first phase of Sustainably SMART pune study - In December 2018 we completed the first phase of our Sustainably SMART Pune study and published the report which was well received by the Puneites. The softcopy of the report is available online. Let me know if anyone would like to have it.

Citizens charter for Sustainable Pune - In January 2019, as part of the Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) project we could publish a compilation of citizens inputs for making the city sustainable based on Sustainable development goals (SDG) 11 targets. Marathi version of the same will be available soon.

Sustainable initiatives in Thane  - In March 2019, we were invited by a couple of environmental enthusiasts from Thane through Prasad Dandekar who attended our workshops in Pune. We conducted a full day workshop where we presented our work on Sustainably SMART Pune and Climate Friendly Lifestyle. The discussions later rolled on as to how we can make Thane a Sustainably SMART city. As a follow up from this, FERN, an environment focused citizen group in Thane invited Dr Priyadarshini Karve to speak on sustainable urbanisation at their annual Environmental Lecture Series in November 2019. The talk was very well attended. 

National Conference on Urban Sustainability - In April 2019 under the ESD project a national conference was organised by us in order to disseminate the citizens charter for Sustainable Pune across India. I was glad to have a few INECC members from different states coming all the way for this conference. 

Yuvadrishti handbook on Carbon Neutral campus - In June 2019 under the Yiuvadrishti initiative by INECC and in association with Pune Internatinal centre (PIC) and Climate Collective Pune's (CCP) vision of a Carbon Neutral Pune by 2030 we came up with this DIY kind of Handbook for making campuses carbon neutral. In order to make a city carbon neutral we believe the education sector should take the lead. Three colleges of Pune used this handbook under our guidance and also published their strategies to go low carbon. 

Sustainable Bhuj - In July 2019 we were invited by Aseem Mishra, Coordinator of Homes in the City (HIC), an initiative in Bhuj that works with citizens, NGOs and CSO's. We met him during our national conference and he wanted us to talk about Pune initiatives at their conference in Bhuj, Gujarat. It was an honor to be there but I felt terrible to see how they are struggling to make their city sustainable amidst all the challenges of cultural diversity, extreme climatic conditions coupled with rapid urbanization.  

Carbon neutral campus at Kopargaon - In August 2019 we were invited by Sanjivani group of Institutes, Kopargaon to undertake the carbon neutral campuses workshop. It was indeed a great step as an institute and good opportunity for us as well. They are already undertaking a lot of initiatives they just need to align them with carbon neutrality and validate the zero carbon character of their institution. 

  

Series of #Challenging Thanos - In September 2019 in order to reach out to those urbanites who would otherwise not talk about climate change and sustainability, we came up with this series of events where we talk about day to day issues in a cafe or a restaurant and then link the issues to the big picture. These events have received good response so far and there has been at least 30-40% of new faces in every Thanos event. However the goal is to reach out to maximum. So we want all of you to spread the word about this series of event among your friends and family. Watch out for the image of Thanos on our social media to know when the next event is happening! 

Vibrant Vizag and TECH conference - In December 2019 I got an opportunity to present our #ChallengingThanos initiative in the UNESCO MGIEP's TECH conference in Visakhapatnam. Though my presentation went well, I was disappointed to see the overwhelming focus given to app-based learning, video games and artificial intelligence (AI) without studying the long term psychological impacts on the youth.

This visit also gave me an opportunity to visit LAYA resource centre headquarters and its operations in the tribal areas of Andhra. I am grateful to LAYA for arranging the site visits at Addetegala and Paderu (formerly naxalite areas). I could not have imagined working in such difficult areas that too at a time when naxalite activities were at peak. The team at LAYA is indeed doing a great job!!!

Carbon Neutral PMRDA initiative - Throughout 2019, we contributed to the Roadmap for Carbon Neutral PMR, an initiative by Climate Collective Pune (CCP) and Pune International Centre (PIC). Today at the end of January 2020, I am glad that the goal to present this report to state government authorities has been fruitful. The Environment and Tourism minister Mr. Aaditya Thackeray gave open, informal and absolutely genuine feedback on the report and has committed to make it a reality. This is indeed a good start for 2020, and we hope to keep the momentum going!

That's all for now, keep checking out this space for more updates and experiences. Also please share your views or opinions with us on our work. Constructive Criticism is welcome too! :) 

Pournima Agarkar. 

www.samuchit.com

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MUSINGS FROM PRIYADARSHINI KARVE: Clean Cooking for All through DRE

I was given the task to set the context for India Clean Cooking Forum 2019 in Delhi on 3 December, which motivated me to pen down some of my thinking around 'clean cooking'.

Setting the Context in Inaugural Session (PC: CLEAN, New Delhi)

The theme for ICCF 2019 was 'Creating Impact through Clean Cooking Applications'.

India Clean Cooking Forum is an annual event organised by Clean Energy Access Network (CLEAN), which is a network of stakeholders engaged with decentralised renewables. Therefore it is a given that when we talk about Clean Cooking, we are specifically referring to those technologies that are based on decentralised renewables (DRE) - which in this context are a variety of solid, liquid, gaseous biofuels, a variety of solar technologies, combinations of these, and even geothermal energy in the places that it makes sense to use it for cooking. Therefore, there is no place in ICCF for challenges or success/failure stories, etc., around use of fossil fuels and grid power for cooking. The focus very specifically and unapologetically is on DRE cooking technologies, being used either in isolation or in combination with fossil fuels and grid power.

This is not just an ideological position!

Most people tend to think that once a household has transitioned to 'cooking gas', that is the end of it - it has reached the top of the cooking energy ladder and will now stay there happily ever after. This cannot be farther from reality.

In the climate crisised world of today, the most important survival strategy is for renewables to replace fossil energy in all energy sectors. The cooking energy sector cannot be an exception to this. As a species, we are fast running out of time to make this global and total energy transition. For India this means that we need to rapidly figure out - what are the current LPG and PNG users going to transition to in a fossil fuel free world. However, the government of India is aggressively pushing more and more households towards fossil energy based cooking! The seriousness of the adverse health impacts associated with smoke in the kitchen from use of traditional biomass fuels in traditional cookstoves is the driver for this, but there are non-polluting cooking technologies based on DRE too! Yes, there are challenges of standardisation, commercialisation, scaling up, etc., but that cannot be an excuse for neglecting 'the best option' in favour of the 'readily available option' by a national government!

It would be much more prudent and beneficial to everyone in the long run to push ALL households - urban as well as rural, rich as well as poor - to DRE based clean cooking. The time, effort, and resources would be better spend in urgently addressing the challenges of the DRE clean cooking sector rather than wasting these on expanding the reach of fossil fuel based cooking.

There is another dimension to this.

India is one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change. This means that we need to invest in climate resilience building too. Localisation of basic resources is an important aspect of resilience building. From that perspective, the 'decentralised' in DRE is the key! Localisation and decentralisation go hand and hand, and provide opportunities for better customisation to meet the users' needs.

On this background, the total neglect of DRE based cooking sector since 2000s shows a remarkable lack of foresight and long term thinking on the part of successive governments over the last twenty years.

There was one more important aspect of the ICCF 2019 theme, that must be highlighted.

The theme for the deliberations was not just 'clean cooking' but 'clean cooking applications'. The devices that are loosely referred to as 'cook stoves' are also used for heating bath water, boiling drinking water, heating the house, drying agricultural produce, etc. It is high time we acknowledge that 'cooking' means everything that actually happens around a 'cook stove' in real kitchens rather than just boiling 5 lit of water in 10 min in a laboratory.

The theme therefore highlighted that the we need to bring the needs of the users - the cooks, who are mostly women - at the focal point of the sector. User-centric DRE based clean cooking not only addresses the thermal energy service requirements at the household level, but may also lead to novel DRE solutions suited to a wide range of thermal energy needs. These encompass solutions for the community (e.g., cooking of mid-day meals) as well as for commercial establishments (e.g., food processing units). This approach has a tremendous potential to create 'impacts' not just for women's health and climate change, but also for widespread livelihood generation, circular economy, sustainable production systems, etc.

Glimpses of ICCF 2019, India Habitat Centre, New Dehi (PC: CLEAN, New Delhi)

The ICCF 2019 had a very packed agenda, and each session was a bit too content-rich. I am afraid that there was a bit of an information overload by the end of the day! However, many interesting threads emerged that can be expanded on and woven into a strong case for the DRE clean cooking sector. I hope that future ICCF events will keep on exploring these, and expanding on the narrative, building on experiences from the field.

We still have a long way to go!  

Priyadarshini Karve
Director
Samuchit Enviro Tech

#BeModernBeResponsibleBeRespectful

   

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

My City My Responsibility - Indian food choices (myths and facts) in a changing Climate!

Dear All, 

Representative image for an Indian dish consisting of veg, non veg and dairy foodstuff.
Source: Tripadvisor.in

Meeting new people is always exciting, recently I got an opportunity to attend a conference on Urban Food systems organised by ICLEI, South Asia in collaboration with Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Bank (WB). I feel that in this rapidly changing climate, fast paced life coupled with work and peer pressure, our health is getting compromised. There are growing concerns over health issues like diabetes, obesity and cancer. 

According to Dr Jayashree Todkar (jayatodkar@gmail.com), a renowned surgeon on Obesity and Diabetes (who spoke at the conference), India has the highest number of diabetic patients in the world and has the second largest population in childhood obesity. Obesity is one of the root causes of many of the diseases that we are facing. We can see that a lot of people are getting conscious about this and are demanding healthy food options. Consequently, we also see advertisements flooding all media, promoting so-called health foods, fitness apps, gadgets, exercises and variety of diet plans etc., that promise to make our lives healthy. Dr Todkar however recommended that eating local foods with nutritional balance is the key to good health, rather than giving up certain foods, or eating only one type of food, etc.

As far as health is concerned, as per Dr Todkar, a much bigger concern is 'nutritional illiteracy' among Indians. We should focus on eating all types of foods that are locally grown using sustainable practices, aiming for a nutritionally balanced diet, in keeping with our physique and our lifestyle. People will be able to make the right choices for their health and the environment if they understood the basics of what different foods 'give' us nutritionally and what are the paths taken and impacts produced by the different foods in reaching our plates.

While health is one's major concern, we also should think about a few other things in relation with food. There are clear linkages between our food production and distribution systems and the climate crisis. Feeding 7 billion (and eventually 10 billion) people to provide adequate nutrition in a world where food production systems everywhere are increasingly threatened by climate change impacts is the biggest challenge that the humanity is facing today.

So how do we make the right food choices that will help ourselves as well as help address the climate crisis? Many people are touting veganism as the answer to this question.

During the conference I had a brief discussion with Dr Todkar on veganism and its implications for nutrition as well as its relevance to climate change. She was deeply concerned on this issue and responded promptly to me. According to her, it is not right to promote vegetarianism i.e. having plant based diet or veganism which is a strict plant based diet that excludes all animal products i.e dairy as well as meat, as the only 'healthy' option. There can be some serious nutritional deficiencies in shifting to these food choices and these can adversely affect our health.

As per evolutionary evidence, human beings are herbivorous as well as carnivorous. Let's leave food habits associated with caste and religion out of this discussion. As per science a plant based/vegan diet is rich in fiber, full of antioxidants and multiple vitamins and minerals but lacks in rich source of protein and essential amino acids which are the building blocks of our body. These important building blocks can be sourced only through food stuffs that are originating from animals - milk, eggs, meat, etc.

According to Dr Priyadarshini Karve, the proponents of veganism dismiss the nutrition-related concerns saying that even the animals we eat are getting the proteins from plants, and therefore plants are the ultimate source of protein. This reasoning actually shows a total lack of understanding of biochemistry. It cannot however be denied that there are many diseases that are linked with meat-centric diets. However, our concerns should be focused on Indian food habits.

She further added, traditional Indian non-vegetarians do not have a 'meat-centric' diet. A traditional Indian nonvegetarian's annual meat intake is negligible compared to that of say an American meat eater. Dairy is a big component of a vegetarian diet, but most adults consume very little milk. They consume more processed milk products like curds and buttermilk and there are a number of health benefits associated with 'fermented' foods. Indians also tend to eat a lot of milk-based sweets and these should indeed by avoided due to ill-effects of sugar.

Dr Karve explained that as far as the link of meat and dairy based diets with climate change is concerned, yes, indeed it is true that the energy spend and productive land engaged in producing 1 kg of animal-based food is much more than 1 kg of plant-based food. However, this in itself is a 'false' comparison, especially in the context of traditional Indian diets. A traditional non-vegetarian may be consuming say 200-250 g of rice daily, but the consumption of dairy and meat together may be just about 500-700 g per week! So the right question to ask then is what is the carbon emission associated with my annual intake of rice Vs my annual intake of meat and dairy products. To find this answer, I need to look at not just the quantities but also the production and distribution processes of the various food items in my typical food platter. If you started doing this kind of an analysis, you will realise that one cannot generalise that plant based foods are low carbon! What if sitting in Pune, a person is daily eating basmati rice cultivated in energy and fertilizer intensive farms of Punjab, but the milk supply is coming from a traditional dairy farmer about 20 km away, who owns 2 buffalos that are 'free-range' (i.e., not being fed any industrially produced cattle feed)? 

According to Dr Karve, the culprit in the contribution of both agriculture and animal husbandry to climate change is 'industrialisation' of food production systems in general, and this definitely needs to be addressed on a war footing. This requires focusing on 'HOW' various food items reach our dinner plates rather than 'WHAT' are the food items on the dinner plate. You need to treat the disease, not kill the patient!

All this discussion made us realise that a lot of the statistics that is presented about health as well as climate impacts of meat and dairy based diets have emerged from the Western world. This statistics cannot be applied blindly to Asians in general, and Indians in particular, whose eating patterns are quite different. Of course, the data can be used as a cautionary signal against the increasingly westernised eating habits being acquired by urban Indians. 

In short, keeping an open mind about food, educating ourselves about our health and food production and distribution systems will serve us far better than putting blanket bans on some food types or jumping into the latest diet fads!

Pournima Agarkar. 

Also see: MUSINGS FROM PRIYADARSHINI KARVE: One and Only Solution to Climate Change?

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