Environment Day celebrated at Institution of Engineers

Jamshedpur: World Environment Day was celebrated at the premises of Institution of Engineers (India), Jamshedpur Local Centre in the evening of 5th June 2014. S R Natesh , IFS , DFO , Dhalbhum , Jamshedpur was the Chief Guest for the function.

The Programme started with tree plantation. A No. of trees were planted in the campus of Institution by the dignitaries. Later, the proceedings started in the conference hall. Amitava Bakshi , Chairman of the Institution , welcomed the Chief Guest, and other members and Shri Rajeev Malhotra introduced them to the audience.

Baksi informed the gathering that since past many years Institution of Engineers has been celebrating the World Environment Day based on a theme fixed by The Secretary General of the United Nations. This years theme is �Small Islands and Climate Change�. Natesh delivered the keynote speech.

He said that the world we are living is divided in three parts on grounds of development. The burden of pollution created by the privileged developed world is being paid by one and all including the underdeveloped and developing countries.

The large-scale industrialization/mechanization and careless use of harmful chemicals ultimately discharging the polluting gases, liquids and solid wastes into the environment has seriously impacted the life support system. Rapidly exploding population and growing demand for resources are what I believe has triggered this chain reaction.

The change in lifestyle of people in the modern world has specially impacted the environment to a great extent. The nonrenewable energy resources are depleting and their extensive use at the cost of environment destruction continues to rise day by day.

In the context of our nation which is mainly dependent on agriculture the above causes are more damaging. The India�s population has exceeded 1.25 billion with land mass 1/3rd of Canada or US. The green revolution of1970�s has seen massive emphasis on rising food grain production through uncontrolled and extensive use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides etc.

In 1990�s the Liberalization, Privatization, Globalization (LPG) has opened up the Indian market for large-scale industrialization and competition. In the race to achieve the short-term goals, the sacrifice of maintaining the environmental health was/is being made.

The country has enacted several laws to regulate and monitor the environmental damages. The list includes Air Act, Water Act, Environment Protection Act, Forest Conservation Act, Wildlife Protection Act, etc. The spirit of all these acts is to protect the environment and to regulate the human intervention with nature.

However, the policies enacted should be on firm scientific basis and truly democratic. I would like to tag few concerns relating to environmental policies in force in our country. Firstly, one should not view forest and environment separately. Having two separate acts and different windows for clearances creates opportunity to the violators/polluters.

I would like not to answer this instead shall we question it together? Monitoring of the conditions imposed during such clearance is yet another grey area. The The country has about 23 % of forest cover, which is much below the international average and in terms of per capita forest cover we find ourselves almost at the bottom of the list with only 0.064 ha against world average of 0.64 ha.

The ambitious 33% forest covered to be achieved is still long way to go though the target that was set way back in 1952 (>60 years before). The pressure of achieving developmental target at faster phase is impacting the all important forest cover of the country. As a nation we need to answer what, and how toachieve the balance between development and conservation?

Global warming as a result of increased levels of Green House Gases in the atmosphere is the culprit for raising global temperatures and sea/ocean level. Global sea levels are rising and the world�s land ice is disappearing. Sea levels have risen 6 to 8 inches in the past 100 years, and Antarctica has been losing more than 100 cubic kilometers of ice per year since 2002.

By the year 2100, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that sea levels will rise as much as 20 inches. The Kiribati an island nation of 33 small and medium sized islands is facing threat of being swallowed into the ocean by the end of century if the predictions go right. Maldives located on indian ocean having about 1100 islands is having maximum height of 8 ft raise from sea level.

If the present situation continues one can imagine the future. I would quote what the Maldivian president Mr. Mohamed Nasheed�s expressed at Copenhagen summit in 2009 �if his country cannot be saved from rising sea levels, then there may be no saving Tokyo or Mumbai or New Orleans or New York.� The list goes very long including Fiji, Palau, Micronesia, Cape Verde, so on� I would not elaborate much about this but for sure the world and the nation needs to wake up and adopt such technologies and sustainable means of development which serve the global interest of man, mankind, civilization and culture.

The father of our nation Mahatma Gandhi has truly stated �We need to think globally and act locally�. He also states that �the mother earth has everything to cater the needs of human need but not greed�. What we can extract from points made so far and the visionary statements made Gandhiji and other world leaders is to learn from past mistakes and try to make to difference to the environment in a way to hand over a clean and safe environment to our future generations.

Many things can be done to contribute this noble cause. Change in lifestyle, rain water harvesting and recycling, solid waste minimizing and safe disposal, miser approach to use of natural resources, saving forests and nature, planting more trees, educating people on environment, adhering to environmental laws in the letter and spirit, etc., Without dealing in detail I would leave it to the august gathering to think and work on these.

The function was well attended by distinguished engineers of the city.