How green was my home, once upon a time

Yet another Environment Day comes and goes. This time the theme was forests. There is no need to reiterate the role of forests in sustaining life on the planet. But let us see what is happening there.

While rate of forest loss is claimed to have reduced in this last decade, there is no place for complacency. Most surveys include plantations that can hardly compete with natural forests in the diversity they hold. In Indonesia, for instance, forests have been decimated for cultivation of palm oil crops, and an expected 70 percent increase in the demand for food worldwide by 2050 will add an enormous strain on the remaining tropical forests.

Estimates from the International Energy Agency (IEA)show a record rise in carbon emissions from energy last year. If that pattern were to continue, the world would be on course for at least 3C to 4C of warming, according to scientific advice.

Extreme weather events triggered by climate change threaten to disrupt crop production and drive up global food prices over the next decade, a top UN climate official says. According to climate projections, extreme heat waves will become more common and more intense.

Lack of land use planning in cities is leading to increasing carbon footprints. For instance in Bangalore, according to a study by Energy and Wetland Research Centre and the Centre for Ecological Sciences attached to the Indian Institute of Science, increasing use of electricity by high-rise buildings in Bangalore that rely on wrong architecture, lack of a proper public transport system, depleting green cover and mismanagement of the City’s waste is leading the city to a rising carbon footprint.

While open dumping of waste has contributed to the release of green house gases like methane which is 21 times more than GHG potential of CO2, decrease in vegetation has also led to the increase in carbon emission as the city’s vegetation has declined to 12 per cent (in 2010) from 71 per cent (in 1973).

The human race now consumes nearly 60 billion metric tons of minerals, ores, fossil fuels and plant materials, such as crop plants and trees for timber or paper. We need to remember this is limited even as our population continues to skyrocket unlimited.

If only we can learn to consume a little less, waste even lesser, things would be manageable. But are we willing to?