Winston Churchill's Souvenir

Recently I came across a news item that Winston Churchill was a member of the Banglore club from 1896 to 1899 when he was in the army in India.When he left the club he is reported to have given them a parting souvenir - a debt of Rs.13

So much for his integrity

Stress -1

Why Do Yoga ?

It is reported from research studies that yoga helps manage or control anxiety, arthritis, asthma, back pain, blood pressure, carpal tunnel syndrome, chronic fatigue, depression, diabetes, epilepsy, headaches, heart disease, multiple sclerosis, stress and other conditions and diseases. It helps to improve muscle tone, flexibility, strength and stamina, reduces stress and tension ,boosts self esteem, improves concentration and creativity , Lowers fat , Improves circulation , Stimulates the immune system, Creates sense of well being and calm.

Developed in India, yoga is a spiritual practice that has been evolving for the last 5,000 years or so. The original yogis were reacting, in part, to India's ancient Vedic religion, which emphasized rituals. According to the yogis, true happiness, liberation and enlightenment comes from union with the divine consciousness known as Brahman, or with Atman, the transcendent Self. Pranayama breathing exercises help clear the nadis, or channels, that carry prana the universal life force, allowing prana to flow freely. When the channels are clear and the last block at the base of the spine has been opened, Kundalini rises through the spine, through the central channel called the sushumna-nadi, and joins the crown chakra. According to the tradition, the release of Kundalini leads to enlightenment and union.

Between work, home and all of the demands and stresses in between, it's easy to lose touch with who we are, that core essence with which we were born. Rushing around all day it sometimes feels like the "I" inside is simply the result of the things we do all day -- or the effects those things have on our minds, bodies and spirits. When we say "I am hungry" or "I am stressed"? We identify with our conditions. It's like "hungry" or "stressed" is a name ( What's your name? Hi. I'm Stressed ) As a result, our identities shift with our moods and conditions.

In truth, however, we are not the conditions we experience or things we do. We are not our jobs or the thousands of tasks that make up our jobs. We are not the sensations or emotions we feel. We are not the car we drive or the house we live in. We are not "S/he Who Must Pay Bills." We are not Mr. and Ms.Stressed. Strip away the emotions, sensations and conditions and somewhere deep down inside you are still there. Strip it all away and you find out who you really are.

The techniques developed by the yogis to transcend also help us strip away the things that try to mis-define us -- the emotions, sensations, desires, achievements and failures of daily life. Through yoga we learn to develop a greater awareness of our physical and psychological states. As a result, we're in a position to better manage our reactions to the thoughts, feelings and responses we have to the various situations we deal with every day.

With greater awareness comes the sensitivity and skill to find and remove the physical and psychological blocks that often keep us from our true selves. We no longer identify with our conditions. Instead of saying, "I am stressed," we begin to say, "I feel stress," or "stress is present." It's a subtle but powerful difference.

Or better yet, we say "I feel anxiety and fear, and that's causing stress and in particular it's causing tension in my neck and shoulder." So we breathe deeply to soothe the anxiety. We review the events that led to the onset of those feelings, and in the process they lose their grip on our nervous system. We intentionally relax our shoulder and neck to prevent the stress and tension from building into a permanent condition.

Yoga gives us control of ourselves. It helps cut through the layers of mis-identities that arise in response to our actions, experiences and feelings. It calms the frenzy, clears the clutter and allows us to get back in touch with ourselves. Yoga is union with self. Or, as Patanjali, one of the great yoga sages, said: Yogashcittavrittinirodhah (Yoga stills the fluctuations of the mind). Tada drashthuh svarupe' vasthanam (Then the true self appears.)

However, yoga is not about self-absorption. Yoga is about being in the world. Although most books, videos and websites focus on yoga postures, breathing and meditation, the tradition also emphasizes love, compassion, knowledge and right action as paths toward union. Whether you pursue yoga as a spiritual path or for its psycho-physiological benefits, yoga is a methodology for developing a deeper experience of your self and the world.And it makes you feel really good.

Afluenza and climate change

Here is a good read by Madhav Mehra President World Council for Corporate Governance

Climate change has suddenly become sexy. With Kyoto protocol being the hottest topic the C-word is what everyone is talking about. Whether you name it carbon dioxide, carbon trading, carbon credit or carbon footprint gas has become gold. Billions of dollars are changing hands to buy and sell carbon credits. CO2 is the hottest commodity being traded today. Brokers and traders and consultants are mushrooming everyday.

Chicago Climate Exchange is the world’s first carbon exchange transacting over 3 million tonnes of CO2 every month. It has launched a futures and options market in carbon and sulphur and owns European Climate Exchange, world’s biggest climate exchange where trading volumes achieved a record of over 3 million metric tones a day in March this year.

China, India and Brazil are major players in the emissions market. For each tonne of carbon dioxide saved, the UN body on climate change gives a certificate called Certified Emissions Reductions(CER). The certificate becomes a tradeable instrument and can be sold to any entity that wishes to offset its carbon emissions. This is what is known as Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). Indian enterprises have already committed investments to generate more than 379 million tonnes of CERs. Worldwide investments aim to generate 2 billion tonnes of CERs by 2012. The main worry is what will happen when the treaty expires in 2012. This has lent uncertainties about carbon trading.

All is not hunky dory with carbon trading. A recent investigation by UK’s Financial Times revealed large scale manipulations under the smoke screen of carbon trading and complete lack of audit and verification.The study has found that while a large number of companies and individuals are rushing to go green spending millions on carbon credits projects, these have resulted in little environmental benefit. Some organisations are paying for emission reductions that do not take place at all . Carbon credit or carbon neutralisation industry is making a bomb from good intentioned companies and the green gold rush sparked by the Kyoto Protocol under the belief that offsetting their own energy use by buying carbon credits can reduce the impact of climate change. Their findings showed:

i. Instances of people and organisations buying worthless credits that do not
yield any reductions in carbon emissions.

ii. Industrial companies profiting from doing very little or from gaining carbon
credits on the basis of efficiency gains from which they have already benefited
substantially.

iii. Brokers providing services of questionable or no value. A shortage of
verification making it difficult for buyers to assess the credits true value.

iv. Companies and individuals being charged over the odds for the private
purchase of the European union carbon permits that have plummeted in value
because they do not result in emissions cuts.

HSBC, the UK’s largest bank that went carbon neutral in 2005, said they found “serious credibility concerns” in offsetting market after evaluating for several months. They urged the government to launch investigation into the system by the police, the fraud squad and trading standards and went on to invent their own scheme thus adding to the existing muddle.

Some companies like DuPont are asking green consumers to pay them for the mess they themselves have created. DuPont asks consumers to pay them $4 a ton to eliminate carbon dioxide from its plant in Kentucky that produces a potential green house gas HFC23. Companies have set up carbon offsetters without any idea as to how the markets operate. Blue Source, a US offsetting company invites consumers to offset carbon emissions by investing in enhanced oil recovery which pumps CO2 into depleted oil wells to bring up the remaining oil. This process was profitable in itself because of the high price of the oil. Operators were making extra revenue from selling “carbon credits” for burying the carbon.

Climate change poses a classic spill over problem. It is not the individuals but the society at large that suffers the full burden of producing emissions. To offset governments can either create markets for carbon by using tradable permits or impose carbon tax. So far, the preferred method has been tradable permits.

But this is now causing problems as markets are not perfect and susceptible to manipulations by the greedy quick rich gangs. We need smart market designs to overcome problems of tradable permits. Besides, carbon markets fix the amount of carbon reduced, not the price. “Excessive volatility or unduly high prices of quotas on carbon emissions might disrupt the economy severely. Taxes create needed certainty about prices while markets and emission quotas create unnecessary certainty about short term quantity of emissions”, says the Financial Times in its editorial of 26 April 2007. Both carbon tax and markets put undue burden on the poor. FT argues that taxes are a better option to set the price of CO2 provided governments can counter the regressive carbon taxes by lowering the levy on labour.

Goldman Sachs, the investment giant says their research indicates that the impact of NGO pressure or SRI funds or single pollution incidences on shareholder value is much less than government regulation. Self-regulation here does not work. They strongly advocate government regulation to create long term value for greenhouse gas emissions reduction and new technologies.

The business opportunity inherent in climate change is not confined to trading in carbon. Goldman Sachs says, “Money is already flowing to alternative energy sources … markets have to be enhanced to significantly increase these flows globally and reduce our reliance on fossil fuels”.

In November 2005 Goldman Sachs surprised the financial world by announcing an ambitious environmental policy framework. The slew of green measures included commitments to consider environmental and social impacts of investment, encourage the development of markets and reduce investment bank overall climate footprint. On 21 January this year it quietly released its year-end environmental report demonstrating how its environmental commitments were in line with Goldman’sraison d’etre: making money. On the occasion, Sonal Shah, its Vice President Corporate Citizenship, said “We want to show that there is a way to make money on this”. The message is valuing environment can create wealth.

Climate Change is big money. According to Sir Nicholas Stern, former Chief Economist of the World Bank, head of the UK Government Economic Service and the author of Stern Review – Economics of Climate Change, cost of not taking action and allowing unabated climate change could amount to 5% of GDP which could be a staggering figure of $650bn.

As such investors are deciding that successful stock-picking is about more than whether a company meets its quarterly profit target. AXA, the French Insurance Company has become the latest socially responsible investor. It has signed up Enhanced Analytic Initiative (EAI) to reward brokers that publish research on extra-financial issues such as climate change and brand management. The Initiative controls assets in excess of $2.4 trillion. Another initiative called UN Principles for Responsible Investment has come $5 trillion worth of assets with members ranging from ABP, the Dutch Pension Fund to Sumitomo Trust of Japan.

Joachim Faber, Allianz AG board member responsible for asset management, says “As an investor, we are concerned to know whether the companies we are investing in are adequately taking account of climate-related risks. However, the data is often not available, sometimes not comparable or of poor quality. As a part of the Carbon Disclosure Project, we hope to collect more reliable data, so eventually, a common emissions measurement methodology can be developed.”

Companies such as Marks & Spencer have already taken the bull by the horn and put climate change, zero waste and sustainability on top of their business agenda and invested £200 million to go green. BP has attempted to restyle itself with its Beyond Petroleum label. Toyata has made substantial investment in hybrid cars; and Tesco plans to ‘carbon label’ its products, to show how much carbon dioxide is emitted ruing their production, transport and consumption. Richard Branson, chairman of Virgin group claims to have made huge investments to reduce emissions of Virgin airlines by 30%.

Back home ITC Chairman Yogi Deveshwar in his keynote address at the Global Conference on Social Responsibility in Vilamoura (Portugal) in February 2007 claimed “It is matter of pride that ITC became carbon positive during the year on the back of several energy conservation measures, usage of carbon neutral fuels and carbon sequestration through large scale agro-forestry programmes ITC is making rapid strides towards attaining zero waste status”. Tata Steel has also done pioneering work in this.

It is easy to understand the trigger of such investments when one realises that a group representing institutional investors controlling $41 trillion worth of funds are monitoring companies worldwide on the level of their carbon emissions. The group known as Carbon Disclosure Project and launched on 4 December 2000 at 10 Downing Street has recently sent an information request to 2400 world’s large corporations asking them to report on their emissions.

CDP is the world’s largest investor coalition comprising 284 institutional investors. That includes ABN Amro Bank, California Public Employees Retirement System, CIBS, Deutsche Bank, Development Bank of Japan, Goldman Sachs, HSBC Holdings plc, Morgan Stanley, Old Mutual plc, Rabobank, UBS Global Asset Management, Warburg-Henderson and Zurich Cantonal Bank. It is funded by Esmee Fairbairn Foundation, The Nathan Cummings Foundation,Bridge House Trust , Polden Puckhan Charitable Foundation. UK’s Departement of Environment ,Food and Rural Affairs, Oak Foundation,The Marmot Charitable Trust and WWF-UK.

Reliance Industries, ICICI Bank, NTPC, Ranbaxy, Infosys are all part of the 2400 companies that have received a questionnaire seeking disclosure on:
(i) regulatory risk/opportunity(eg limits on emissions)
(ii) physical risk opportunity (eg changes in weather patterns impacting
operations)

(iii) consumer sentiment risk/opportunity (eg reputation)

(iv) total company wide global greenhouse gas emissions

(v) steps taken to manage/reduce emissions.

Clearly business is appearing to move faster than the governments in responding to this monumental threat to the survival of business. Al Gore’s persuasive film “An Inconvenient Truth”, The Stern Review and the startling report of IPCC together with daily reminders of impending disaster have finally had their effect in raising the public psyche and busienss awareness of this global crisis of unprecedented proportion. The reality is coming home that if we continue to waste resources and generate green house gases, we will sink without a trace. Yet, the actions are not matching the gravity.

It is the insurance industry and that too in US that is getting its act together. Post-Hurricane Katrina, a report on the insurance industry, commissioned by a national coalition of institutional investors and environmental organisations has found that insurers, government and consumers are all at great risk of rising cost from severe and sudden weather related disasters. Actuaries would simply go bust setting off a domino effect that would adversely impact the business right across the world.

The scenario in India is much worse than it looks. The inequity of climate change is writ large everywhere. The only glacier that feeds our seven rivers first be flooding India’s coast for the next 40 years and then will dry up completely. So our grandchildren will have no fresh water and face severe drought conditions within half a life time. Yet, the action we are taking is nothing more than making a few movies and engaging in symbolic acts. It is an irony that while the world has been polluted by the rich industrialised north, the real sufferers of climate change will be the poor of the east and inhabitants of African continent.

The developing countries are being criticised today for being unmindful of environmental damage caused by the high growth economies like India, China & Brazil. Whilst there can be no mercy for any kind of environmental pollution north have to realise that developing countries have a right to grow and that it is only fair that north meets the costs of South’s growth at least upto a take off stage. In fact it was this moral compulsion that brought the concept
of carbon credits. But over the years the price of these carbon credits has reduced so much that they have lost their shine.

There are already 25 million climate refugees displaced by climate-induced disasters such as those in Papua New Guinean Carteret Islands. They have been forced to relocate because of the rising ocean level. Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable countries in the world. 259 km of river delta islands near the Bay of Bengal have vanished in the last 30 years. The strategy, therefore, to deal with climate change is going to be different for poor countries.

While carbon tax, financial incentives and increased insurance premia can force people to go green in developed countries, the grim poverty of Asia and Africa calls for an integrated action plan where the north implements the polluter-pays-principles and provides scientific and technological know-how as well as infrastructural support and transfer of technology to the south to bring it to a level playing field.

The saving grace of poverty is that the environmental footprint of the poor is a fraction of their rich counterparts. Creating wealth through unbridled consumerism and proliferation of products that create unneeded wants can be disastrous for the ecology. India’s ecological footprint i.e. the natural material used per person per year is one twelfth of US and Europe. If the rapid rate at which the developing economies are growing translates itself into consumerism, our mission of the bridging the gap is going to result in an ecological catastrophe.

We therefore need to change our growth model and move our economy from acquisitional mode to experiential mode. We have to find ways to dematerialise products and opt for minimalist designs. India will thus have an even more legitimate right to demand from the north credits for saving environment & CO2 by adopting a dematerialised, low carbon, experiential model of growth.

Just as it is real that climate has changed due to human activity, humans have the power and technology to reverse the damage. For this to happen business has to be brought to the forefront of the climate change agenda. Never before in human history has the gap between an impending catastrophe and an infinite opportunity been smaller. Hence our focus has to be on galvanising businesses for a robust response to climate change in a way that opens new vistas of growth and development advancing human happiness.

The 8th Environment Conference in Palampur brought to the fore an eleven point plan called PROACTIVATE. The acronym denotes the action required for regeneration of the planet. It calls upon businesses to Price natural capital; Radically increase energy efficiency; Opt for minimalist lifetyles that emphasise the value of experiences as opposed to acquisitions; Adopt zero waste and closed loop systems Capture CO2 through forestation; Turn to renewables; Invest in green issues; Vigorously pursue market mechanism to punish polluters; Activate women and children to drive the change; Train staff to eco-innovate and focus on Execution by example than exhortation.

Climate change calls for a holistic and approach designed to reduce the human footprint on the planet by committing to make a 180 degree shift in lifestyles. It challenges our current paradigms of wealth and prosperity. Who would prefer to be a billionaire with a parched throat in the arid world of 2050? It is time we started recognising the price of natural capital, of greens, rivers, mountains, oceans, glaciers and moved our natural assets way above the financial capital in the balance sheets.

The pendulum of asset valuation has moved beyond tangibles. People have begun to question the very purpose of work and wealth creation.In 1930 John Maynard Keynes imagined that richer societies would become more leisured ones, liberated from toil to enjoy the finer things in life. Yet, most people today work harder, have less leisure and less happiness. In his recent book on happiness LSE economist Lord Layard reveals –

(i) money does not make people happier;

(ii) middle class people who become upper class do not report feelings of happiness;

Richard Farleigh, the Australian tycoon, says “You see all these boats [in Monaco] and think, well, actually I’m not that rich at all. If I’d stayed in hedge-fund game in 1995, I’d be a multi-billionaire by now. However, the billionaires I’ve met are some of the unhappiest people I know.”
The psychologist Oliver James has written a new book, Afluenza. In this he describes afluenza as an obsessive, envious addiction to consumerism that “increases our vulnerability to emotional disorders and causes high levels of anxiety and sleeplessness.” Psychologists like Daniel Kahneman of Princeton University recommend ‘experiences’ over ‘commodities’, pastimes over knick-knacks, doing over having as happiness giving. With all this evidence why should business not adopt policies and processes that make people happier rather than overload them with proliferations of products that create unneeded wants and disastrous for the ecology? As for capitalism’s wasteful materialism, even Adam Smith had a problem with it. “How many people ruin themselves by laying out money on trinkets of frivolous utility?”

On 8th December 1927, Mahatma Gandhi wrote in Young India “A time is coming when those who are in the mad rush today of multiplying their wants vainly thinking that they add to the real substance, real knowledge of the world, will retrace their steps and say: ‘What have we done?’These words have a rug of truth even after 80 years.

Is it not the time business considered a growth model that focused on ensuring happiness not acquiring goodies? That would make some virtue climate change.
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A trap called THE HUMAN BODY

In the recent days , two events have actively engaged my attention to dwell on the miracle and tragedy of the human body. A package of billions of cells of different combinations holding the crucible of thought , storing attitude, character, and a myriad of other qualities. One was about Lakshmi. I have attached below a news item


Girl born with 8 limbs regains consciousness following surgery

Lakshmi , a 2-year-old Indian girl was born joined at the pelvis to a "parasitic twin" that stopped developing in her mother's womb. The surviving fetus absorbed the limbs, kidneys and other body parts of the undeveloped fetus . She was born with four arms and four legs. On Wednesday, a team of more than 30 surgeons concluded the 24-hour operation, removing the extra limbs, transplanting a kidney from the twin and reconstructing Lakshmi's pelvic area. She regained consciousness on Friday, wiggled her toes and smiled at her parents, 48 hours after massive surgery removed the extra limbs.Doctors said the complicated surgery was a great success, meaning she would not need further major reconstructive surgery. However, Lakshmi will need further treatments and possible surgery for clubbed feet before she will be able to walk.Children born with deformities in deeply traditional rural parts of India such as the remote village in the northern state of Bihar that Lakshmi hails from are often viewed as reincarnated gods. But some had sought to make money from Lakshmi. Her parents kept her in hiding after a circus apparently tried to buy the girl, they said.Her father, Shambhu, who only goes by one name, had told reporters that her family had been worried for her future before the operation and he was looking forward to seeing her with "a normal body."


Nearly thirty pairs of hands and thirty pairs of eyes volunteered to repair the body of Lakshmi . Imagine what would have happened to the girl if she had had to live with her deformity. And the cold-bloodedness of a world that tries to make money out of somebody else's misfortune. The circus guys attempting to buy her and perhaps trying to teach her a trick or two such as cooking as well as washing at the same time.
Ive heard that once in a while such children are born in this world . Such a sad thing to happen. Ive heard of a young man who carried an extra face behind his head. It used to always be grinning. The sorrow and disappointment killed him. In carnivals in the US such specimens are shown packed in glass jars.

Another recent event was that of a known person getting bedridden suddenly with stroke. He could not speak or move his right limbs. He lay watching people who came to see him. Doctors pumped in some medicines which just stabilized his condition but did not cure him. When I tried to take leave of him he tried to say something but only gurgling sounds came from his mouth like he was a month old baby. It was such an agony to watch another person’s debilitating handicap.A learned mind trapped in a body that will not vocalize the thoughts and needs of a person.

Why there is Immense disappointment and utter helplessness in life is confounding and beyond the realm of human understanding.

Environment-2

Konrad Lorenz the Nobel prize winning ethologist, says in his essay

"On Life and Living”

One of the problems with people today is that most of them deal only with lifeless, artificial objects in their daily work, with objects that are not particularly beautiful and that are by no means appropriate to inspire awe and respect. That's why most people have forgotten how to live with living creatures, with living systems.

Konrad Lorenz, says that it can be demonstrated easily that any one who is bereft of genuine values spent his/her childhood far removed from nature. He goes on to add that any one who has spent time in the countryside — snorkelled in a coral reef or wandered in a forest is unlikely to be a slave to money and social positions. He advocates a process of de-urbanisation to counter this effect and regain emotional well-being.
Educators have recognised the importance of this link. In the wake of the awakening on environmental issues that swept across the world in 1972, Environmental Science was included in school curricula with an idea to sensitise kids. Unfortunately it has degenerated into one more examination, another classroom subject. Children are rarely taken out of the classroom to see things, not even to observe a tree.

Should we care about global warming?

Almost 15 years after the 1992 U.N. Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro and the Framework Convention on Climate Change, and nine years after the Kyoto Protocol that set targets for 35 industrialised countries to reduce emissions of GHGs, the world is much clearer about both the science and the economics of global warming.

There are still some doubters; there are also countries like the United States, one of the biggest contributors to GHGs, which refuse to accept externally set targets or timetables for GHG reduction. But, by and large, industrialised and developing countries now accept that the accumulation of carbon dioxide (CO2), one of the chief greenhouse gases, has already begun the process of global warming as evident in rising temperatures. Most countries are clear that we need action now to stem the deterioration even if it is too late to reverse the process.
Only a few countries, principally in Europe, have taken the issue seriously and have made a genuine attempt to reduce emissions of GHGs. The U.S., on the other hand, continues to follow its own agenda. The response that the former U.S. Vice President, Al Gore, is getting to his film on global warming, An Inconvenient Truth, holds out a slim hope that ordinary people in the U.S. will finally get the message about what "the American way of life" has done to the world. California, the most populous American State, seems to have understood that and is the first to put a cap on GHG emissions for utilities, refineries, and manufacturing plants despite having a Governor who belongs to same party as President George W. Bush.

The 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which came into effect in February 2005, only set targets for reductions in emissions of GHGs. It did not envisage a phasing out or substitution of fossil fuels. There has also been considerable debate about whether one of the mechanisms devised as part of the effort to reduce global warming, namely the Clean Development Mechanism, is effective. Despite several billion dollars being spent by industrialised countries to provide clean technology to developing countries to compensate for their contribution to global warming, the results are disappointing. The switch to cleaner technologies is not on a scale to make a difference. Meanwhile, industrialised countries continue on their old path with only minor adjustments. In the long run, such small steps will not stave off what could be a big disaster in the decades to come. This is one of the many reasons that there has been a demand to review the Kyoto Protocol. However, there was no agreement on this in Nairobi. All that was agreed upon was to meet again in 2008.

Unfortunately, conferences and negotiations do not stop a process like global warming. The latest document to add to the mounting evidence that things are going very wrong in the world was the report by a former Chief Economist of the World Bank, Sir Nicholas Stern, to the British government. The Stern Review stated that global temperatures have risen by half a degree Celsius as a result of carbon emissions and that if nothing is done, there is a 75 per cent chance that temperatures will rise by two to three degrees Celsius over the next 50 years. This will have a devastating effect on weather patterns resulting in floods, droughts, melting ice caps, and rising sea levels. The countries that will bear the brunt of this are the poorest. The Stern report estimated that there would be a loss of one per cent of the global gross domestic product caused by extreme weather.

Such a loss will affect everyone, including the fast growing economies of India and China. Inevitably, one of the issues that came up in Nairobi was whether India and China, because of the size of their economies, should also take some steps to limit greenhouse gas emissions. In 1992, when the problem was first addressed, there was an agreement that poorer and developing countries should not be penalised for a problem that had been created largely by the industrialised countries and their burning of fossil fuels to power their economies. The concept of "common but differentiated responsibility" was accepted. It was also argued that to ensure that the developing countries adopt cleaner technologies, the industrialised world needed to finance their efforts to "decarbonise" energy systems by providing them with the latest clean technologies.
Alternative forms
Energy is central to that growth and the cheapest form of energy is coal-based. More coal-based plants necessarily mean we are adding to the carbon dioxide accumulation in the atmosphere. Are efforts to promote alternative energy forms even as we use the cheapest forms of energy, such as coal, necessarily mutually exclusive? Is enough being done in this country to promote energy saving and efficiency as well as clean energy? It is interesting how wind energy is only just being recognised as a viable option in India when it has been promoted and used in several European countries for some years now. An Indian company producing wind turbines has shown spectacular growth because of this global demand. India comes fourth among countries using wind energy.

Our current pattern of development is already making the air in our cities unfit to breathe. Our water sources are polluted, our fields are laden with chemicals that travel through the food chain into our bodies, and our forests, the lungs of this country, are disappearing faster than any effort to plant more trees. Is there any point in rapid economic growth if people have to drink, eat, and breathe poisons? In the long run we damage not just the global environment but ourselves too. A tough negotiating position in international meets need not detract from policies at home that contribute to an environmentally benign pattern of development. If there is one thing the debate on global warming should teach us it is that, ultimately, if you treat your environment carelessly in one part of the world, the consequences will catch up with you in another.

ENVIRONMENT - 1

I begin this series with a poem The Future by Andrew Hobbs

We must preserve the environment for future generations.


What does the future hold for us?
Smog-filled skies and poison cars
And broken land with useless dust
And Nature's beauty behind bars.


Can I ever show my children
(If they ever come my way)
The beauty of a sunset
At the ending of the day?

Can I walk into a forest
And surround myself with trees
Yet know that it will remain
For me to visit as I please?

Can I sit upon the seashore
And breathe in salty air,
Or will it be so dirty
That it is unsafe to be there?

1 know that I can today
Do all the things I've said
But when today is yesterday
Will all these things be dead?

This problem is enormous
As we gradually take heed,
So we must fix it quickly,
Using words and thoughts and deeds.

Write a letter, start a group
Or do something that seems small
For whatever is done to aid the Earth
Is fantastic for us all.

If we save what's there before us
So it'll be there when we go,
Then we'll leave a gift more precious
Than our kids will ever know.