The World Meteorological Organization’s State of the Climate in Asia 2024 report warns that the region is warming nearly twice as fast as the global average, driving more extreme weather and posing serious threats to lives, ecosystems, and economies. In 2024, Asia experienced its warmest or second warmest year on …
On the role of the industry in environmental issues: The industry's only concern is with products and profits. By not involving people, environmental goals cannot be achieved. At the epa, I realised that the industry knows much more about production than government officials. Companies, when directed to comply with prescriptives, …
THE social forestry programme (SFP) initiated by N M Sadguru Water and Development Foundation (NMSWDF), an NGO working in Panch Mahals district in Gujarat, has empowered a large number of tribal women in the district by involving them in the management of nurseries and plantations. The programme, which began in …
"The world has enough for every man's need, but not for any man's greed" - Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi AS THE world enters the twenty-first century in less than three years, the assumption that technology can provide easy solutions to all problems that face humankind, including environmental ones, is coming under …
Question: What is the cost of the ecosystem services which nature offers us? Answer: A whopping us $16-54 trillion! This figure has been arrived at with the concerted efforts of 13 ecologists, economists and geographers who reported their finding in a recent issue of Nature. Remarked Robert Costanza, an ecological …
IN A bid to reverse the ongoing degradation of the Doon valley's environment and preserve its watershed, the Uttar Pradesh government initiated a project in 1993 which seeks to involve the locals in a watershed management scheme. This participatory management programme has not come a day sooner for if the …
The country is planning to re-target its family planning programme in the rural areas to stem population growth and reduce the wide economic chasm between urban and rural citizens, announced Premier Li Peng recently. In an address to the national People's Congress, Li said that the government's one-child policy, which …
people call this phenomenon by different names. Some call it India-1 and India-2. Others, one-third India and two-thirds India. Now that economic liberalisation is boosting wealth generation, many fear that this process will exacerbate economic inequalities, which are pretty bad already. The poor may grow somewhat richer but the gap …
After several years of hostile talks and skirmishes, the cold and quiet expanse of the Arctic has become an area of joint concern by the nations bordering it - Canada, Denmark (it owns Greenland), Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia and United States. These countries signed an agreement recently at Ottawa, …
in 1993 , Manmohan Singh, India’s then finance minister, had proudly proclaimed that the country’s economic growth rate over the last year was around four per cent. India’s minister of state for environment and forests in the same government, Kamal Nath, could have easily pointed out to his ministerial colleague …
To estimate the health costs arising out of air or water pollution, economists calculate the costs of increased mortality (valuing premature deaths resulting from pollution) and increased morbidity (estimating the medical expenses incurred and wages lost due to sickness). Epidemiological studies carried out in cities in developed countries have revealed …
The major environmental costs that have not been calculated by Brandon and Hommann (B&H;) are those arising out of biodiversity loss, pollution due to hazardous wastes and the rapidly rising costs of providing clean water as a result of growing pollution of surface and groundwater sources. No attempt has also …
Delhi, the proud capital of India, is today being blasted by the severest health effects of air pollution amongst the country's cities, according to the Brandon and Hommann (B&H;) study carried out for the World Bank. The study concludes that some 7,500 people die a premature death every year in …
"We need high growth, but not at the cost of the environment or health. We have sufficient laws to ensure a cleaner industrial development. But do the entrusted agencies do their jobs? Industry says its purpose is creation of wealth; environmental damage depletes this wealth. What we need is an …
a mega eco-development project in seven protected areas of the country funded by the World Bank ( wb ) has come under fire from environmentalists. The wb had recently approved a us $28 million-loan and a us $20 million-grant from the Global Environment Facility for the project. It aims at …
scores of books have been penned on sustainable development, but David Wallace's study provides a short and critical appraisal of global approaches to sustainable development. The structure of industrialisation lies at the root of sustainability. Without finding new modes of industrial organisation, it would be impossible to bring about a …
the ultimate goal of economic development is to improve human welfare by raising living standards, enriching education, bettering health systems and providing equal opportunities for all. This process is crucially dependent on the environment and natural resources to provide the goods and services which directly and indirectly generate socio-economic benefits. …
If producing cultural products, such as books, newspapers, movies or radios, reflects a nation's degree of progress, then the developing world trails far behind. And the gap has decreased only marginally over the last two decades. The South-Northratio of book titles published for every million individuals was 1:10 in 1991, …
On his role as an economist serving the UN set-up which helped developing economies in Asia: I joined the UN in 1963 as an international civil servant with the Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East (ECAFE, which later became ESCAp}. I was first attached to the cen- tral …
IT is the era of knowledge revolution. And we are living in a 'knowledge society' ever since we learned how to make a fire and where to find food. The values of competition and materialism mostly dominate the human society today. In my mind, a future cannot be built on …
THERE appears to exist today a 'consensus' that industrialisation is the solution for our economic woes. This simple statement actually hides a deep philosophical standpoint. The question that is needed to be asked is, whether consumption alone is sufficient to ensure the welfare of an individual or is it equally …
