Plastic Overshoot Day marks the point when the amount of plastic waste generated exceeds the world’s capacity to manage it, resulting in environmental pollution. In 2024, the global Plastic Overshoot Day is projected to occur on September 5th. Each country has its own Plastic Overshoot Day, which is determined by …
Nearly a decade after N C Mehta filed a public interest petition for the closure of industrial units in Agra, whose atmospheric pollutants he alleged were damaging the Taj Mahal, the Supreme Court (SC) has ruled in his favour. This is Mehta's second victory in less than six months -- …
CAVIAR, the ultimate synonym for luxurious living and a major Russian export, is facing a triple threat of poaching, pollution and petroleum. Female sturgeon swim down the Volga river to the Caspian sea with their bodies heavy with the eggs that are pickled to form caviar. But with poachers flourishing, …
WITH THE collapse of the Soviet Union and the ongoing changes in communist China and Vietnam, the market today rules supreme. Entrepreneurs mobilise resources -- finance, raw materials, knowledge and labour -- to make products that cater to market demand. Whether they are farmers, miners, industrialists or providers of services, …
THE TITLE of Frederique Apffel Marglin and Tariq Banuri's book, Who will Save the Forests?, sounds more like a rhetorical question or an impassioned plea than the launch of a sophisticated academic enquiry. One reason for this is perhaps that the forests of the world face such a bleak future …
ALTHOUGH the tulip originated in southeast Asia, the tiny European nation of Holland has transformed the flower into both a national symbol and a major foreign exchange-earner. Between March and May every year, when the tulips bloom, thousands of tourists rush to take in the sight of the rainbow colours …
THOUGH Singrauli's thermal power plants have affected the availability of potable water in the area, studies show they have contributed only marginally to the high levels of dust and gaseous effluents there. None of the wells in the area supply potable water that meets official Indian standards. Water from wells …
AN ENVIRONMENTAL and socioeconomic survey of Singrauli was commissioned in May 1988 by the National Thermal Power Corp (NTPC) and executed by the French public sector corporation, Electricite de France International. Indian voluntary and environmental groups working in the area protested against being left out from the assessment team and …
WITH THE World Bank sanctioning a $400 million loan to the National Thermal Power Corp (NTPC), the Singrauli Super Thermal Power Station (SSTPS) has received a fresh lease on life -- but only just. USA, Germany and Belgium abstained from voting at the bank's June 29 meeting, citing environmental reasons. …
AS ONE of the most ambitious blueprints for energy and industrial development takes shape in Singrauli, the inhabitants of the region are sinking deeper into misery for they know a new project always means another displacement for them. In 1960, when the Rihand dam was built on the Son river, …
Why have some World Bank members opposed the NTPC loan on environmental grounds? Our plants meet almost every Indian emission standard, which was a bank conditionality. If we can be trusted with projects worth $9 billion, we can be trusted to look after the environment, too. The Environment Defense Fund …
Human-induced changes in the composition of the atmosphere has lent urgency to the task of understanding their effect on the earth's climate, which is crucial to life on the planet. Atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas found in abundance on earth, has increased by more than 25 per …
PALAEOCLIMATIC data -- geological evidence of climatic change contained in fossils, rocks, sediments and ice -- play a crucial role in studies of atmospheric changes and their effect on climate because it is the only empirical evidence of what happened in the past. Such data serve as a yardstick to …
COMPARISONS between planets in the Solar System, which have distinct atmospheres, especially Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, cast light on the massive interactions that determine the evolution of climates. Mercury, the planet closest to the Sun, has an extremely tenuous atmosphere, consisting mainly of hydrogen, helium and nitrogen, which are …
ENVIRONMENTAL planning, generally considered a luxury for developing countries, is becoming an integral part of Egypt's economic strategies. The country's parliament has been debating a comprehensive environment protection law in which stiff prison sentences have been urged for polluters -- even if they are heads of state-owned industries. Egypt's environment …
Environmentalists and voluntary organisations from all over the country plan to get together in the near future to protest against lacunae in the National Environment Tribunal Bill, which will be tabled in the monsoon session of Parliament. This decision was taken at the National Workshop on Human Rights, Environment and …
ELECTRICITY may soon be used to clean up chemical-contaminated soils using a new technology, which has been developed by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The technology, which is expected to be put on trial by the end of next year, will cost about $25 per tonne. Current …
EVEN AS the world prepared to celebrate Environment Day on June 5, environmentalists in Karnataka filed a complaint against the state pollution control board (SPCB) for failing to discharge their duties under the Water Act, 1974, and the Air Act, 1981. On May 11, Ram M Apte, an advocate and …
WHEN STATE governor B R Bhagat cancelled plans for two major cement plants and banned limestone mining near main roads and tourist sites, he warned, "No one will be allowed to play with the ecology of the environmentally fragile state of Himachal Pradesh." Now, the environment has become a political …
IN 1987 Chet Singh Chauhan and a group of residents from Sangraha, a village in Sirmaur district, filed suit demanding the closure of the V K Walia limestone mines near the village. They accused of Walia of causing severe environmental damage because of unscientific mining operations: "Haphazard mining was not …
"MARBLE, no; water, yes," shouted demonstrators at a recent rally in Kathmandu, demanding an immediate end to quarrying in the Godavari hills of the picturesque valley in which the capital nestles. The rally organised by Kathmandu Upatyaka Batabaran Bachau Andolan, warned the agitation would intensify if the government did not …
