Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Monday, December 20, 2010
Contentment is natural wealth; luxury, artificial poverty
These are the words on which the TEEN CONSUMER CLUB OF BAL BHARTI PUBLIC SCHOOL has been working readily for the past five years since its establishment in the year 2005.
In association with VOLUNTARY ORGANISATION IN INTEREST OF CONSUMER EDUCATION(VOICE),the teachers and the club members have been striving for the augmentation of CONSUMER AWARENESS in the society.The club aims at preparing better consumers in future by sensitizing them towards the various consumer issues prevailing in the society.
The club has been motivating the students and their parents too to become consumer conscious and be vigilant and wide awake on all such consumer products that are detrimental and unsafe. In this regard every year at the school annual function the TCC has been distributing hand outs to teachers and parents that make them aware of their rights as consumers and enthuse them to be a part of this HEALTHY CONSUMERISM.
The club has been inspiring the students not only through speeches and discussions but has provided them a platform to showcase their own views and ideas on consumer issues. Each year the club organizes various fun activities like POSTER MAKING,POWER POINT PRESENTATION,SLOGAN WRITING,QUIZES AND VARIOUS OTHER COMPETETIONS to generate consumer awareness.
Most recently the club has initiated a GO GREEN MOVEMENT that has austerely banned polythene bags in the school premises, the club members monitor this on a regular basis and the club itself provides paper bags in place of poly bags to the students. Under the GO GREEN DRIVE, teachers and students of the school have also started CAR POOLS that saves a lot of fuel because We at the TCC believe that in a consumer society there are inevitably two kinds of slaves: the prisoners of addiction and the prisoners of envy, what we require to be better and green consumers is to move above both.
The club has been a regular witness each year at the IIPM Auditorium for the celebration of NATIONAL CONSUMER DAY ON 24th DEC. The club members were also appreciated for their constant efforts regarding consumer issues by a famous news daily THE TELEGRAPH.
The TCC supported incalculably by the NGO VOICE has appealed to the rationales of its members and has been sufficiently victorious in gathering support from teachers, students and their parents in carrying forward our legacy MOTHER EARTH WITH DUE CARE.
TCC has constantly been shaping GREEN CONSUMERISM in the minds of its followers to have a better TOMORROW…It frequently reminds its members that it require more sense to spend than to earn it.
TCC’s firm belief is that when the awareness of environmental problems penetrates deeply enough into the community consciousness the purchasing power of the mass market will force all manufacturers to green both their products and their manufacturing processes -- on pain of being rejected in the market-place by green-leaning consumers.
With this the TEEN CONSUMER CLUB continues with the slogan WE CARE SO, WE DARE….!!!
Monday, August 9, 2010
Helplessness of anti-ragging Helpline number (1800-180-5522)
Harsh Agarwal
It will be shocking to know that there are perhaps more digits (11 in total) in this national anti-ragging helpline number than the number of ragging complaints on which helpline system has achieved any success in last thirteen months. And if we talk of the colossal publicity that this helpline received and the tremendous hope it generated then there is no comparison with the little or no utility that this number has shown so far. Or this may be my illusion. But what can I do, I have read so many media stories on how this helpline would help eradicate ragging, but I am yet to come across even a single success story. And on top of it helpline people never share their internal information with us citing confidentiality as the reason. Confidentiality in helpline- Strange isn’t? If everything is going well as it was anticipated, then I don’t understand the reason to hide anything especially from a voluntary group which is pioneer in anti-ragging campaign in India and running it for almost 10 years now.
Just to make things clear, I am not opposed to the idea of running an anti-ragging helpline. Anti-ragging helpline is indeed important for students who wish to report the incident but do not know where to complain. However I am vehemently against excessive expectation from this helpline number. We are treating helpline number as if it is elixir to the problem of ragging. I wonder if social problems could be solved so easily by starting helpline numbers then India would have got rid of dowry, caste discrimination, and several other social maladies long ago simply by starting helpline numbers.
What is disappointing is that we have suddenly transferred the entire burden of the anti-ragging campaign on this helpline number. We don’t see it as merely one of the ways of lodging complaint against ragging but as a cure to ragging. Our too much optimism from this helpline would only lead us to disappointment. And I am saying this because our hope is based on a fundamentally flawed assumption that ragging victims have the courage to register complaint Here we are ignoring the immense role of fear involved in ragging and the pressure on students to anyhow survive in college as the stakes are very high- in term of getting admission and money and hard work invested on it.
If I recall my days in medical college, which I left 10 years ago because of ragging, I remember I didn’t share my torturous ragging episodes even with my parents for a month. I was afraid if my parents went and complained to the principal, what will be the consequences. And re-imagining the terror that I lived with during ragging day, I can say that 999 out of one thousand freshers in that situation would prefer to endure the torture and take injury on their body than think of lodging any complaint. The terror of ragging is so severe and the fear of consequences of complaining so threatening that the victim doesn’t want to confide the ordeal to anyone. If there is anything that can support my argument then there is nothing better than the revelation made by the government itself. This year in March, government on the floor of the parliament, admitted that helpline received 1.6 lakh calls but could register only 300 complaints. This skewed ratio might be surprising to many. However if we think little practically and understand the fear that a ragging victim has in giving sufficient information (name, name of the college, name of seniors, etc.) to lodge a complaint then we can easily understand why several thousand calls could not be registered as complaints.
The reason for my dissatisfaction is therefore simple. In May 2007 when Raghavan Committee made exhaustive recommendations to address ragging, I was extremely happy. I was full of hope because the committee had recognized all different aspects behind ragging- sociological, psychological and law and order aspect- and suggested appropriate remedies to cure them. But today we don’t know the fate of those 50 odd recommendations that were made in the report after so much deliberation? Today from media reports we hear only about the technical problems that helpline is facing and how we are busy solving them. It seems that our focus on helpline is paramount and we are fighting the entire battle against ragging with this 11 digit number.
Our focus on the real issue of ragging is lost so much so that recently even the news that 19 students died because of ragging in last one year, didn’t make national headlines; Even news of Nayan Adak who 10 months ago tried twice to commit suicide because of ragging and died in the second attempt- the most shocking suicide case I have heard of in my life- didn’t make national headlines. Are we too busy rectifying the helpline? Sigh!
I am deeply saddened. Since my ragging in 2000 till now, 10 years have passed and 2 committees formed, and today we achieved just a defunct anti-ragging helpline! I really don’t know when would we finally dial the right number to solve the menace of ragging? Is there a helpline for that?
(Harsh Agarwal is a Co-founder of Coalition to Uproot Ragging from Education (CURE, Estd in 2001) and a former Consultant to Supreme Court of India –appointed Committee on Ragging)
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Global Carbon Dioxide Emissions Fall in 2009 – Past Decade Still Sees Rapid Emissions Growth
In 2009, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in China—the world’s leading emitter—grew by nearly 9 percent. At the same time, emissions in most industrial countries dropped, bringing global CO2 emissions from fossil fuel use down from a high of 8.5 billion tons of carbon in 2008 to 8.4 billion tons in 2009. Yet this drop follows a decade of rapid growth: over the 10 previous years, global CO2 emissions rose by an average of 2.5 percent a year—nearly four times as fast as in the 1990s. Increasing temperatures and the resulting melting ice sheets and rising sea levels demonstrate the destructive effects of the carbon accumulating in the atmosphere.
Carbon Emissions Falling in Wealthier Countries
Emissions in many wealthier countries fell in 2008 and 2009 as the global recession took hold. In the United States, CO2 emissions shrank by nearly 10 percent from 2007 to 2009, from a high of 1.58 billion tons of carbon to 1.43 billion tons, the lowest level since 1995. Emissions from oil, which is largely used for transportation, declined by nearly 11 percent, while those from coal, which is mainly burned to generate electricity, fell by over 13 percent. The United Kingdom’s CO2 emissions fell by over 10 percent from 2007 to 2009. German emissions dropped by 8 percent, and French emissions dropped by 5 percent. Japan saw its emissions decline nearly 12 percent over the two-year period. (See data.) At the same time, CO2 emissions in the world’s most populous countries, China and India, continued to grow rapidly. China’s emissions rose to 1.86 billion tons of carbon in 2009, representing nearly a quarter of global emissions from fossil fuel burning. With average annual emissions growth of 8 percent over the past decade, China overtook the United States in 2007 as the world’s leading CO2 emitter. India’s emissions grew by close to 5 percent a year over the past decade; the country passed Russia in 2007 to become the world’s third largest emitter.
Causes of Carbon Dioxide Emissions
While fossil fuel use is responsible for the majority of carbon dioxide emissions, changes in land use, such as clearing forests for cropland, also emit a substantial amount of CO2. In 2008, the most recent year for which data are available, global emissions from land use change were estimated at 1.2 billion tons of carbon. The vast majority of these emissions were from deforestation in the tropics; Indonesia and Brazil alone represent over 60 percent of land use change emissions.
Slash and burn deforestation in the Amazon
More than half of the carbon dioxide emitted annually is absorbed by oceans, soils, and trees. The rapid rate at which carbon dioxide is pouring into the atmosphere is overwhelming these natural systems, posing a particular threat to ocean ecosystems. The large amounts of dissolved CO2 alter ocean chemistry, making seawater more acidic, which makes it more difficult for organisms such as reef-building corals or shellfish to form their skeletons or shells. The world’s oceans are now more acidic than they have been at any time in the past 20 million years. Experts have estimated that if CO2 emissions continue to rise on their long-term trajectory, coral reefs around the world may be dying off by 2050.
Recent research has also indicated that the oceans’ capacity to absorb carbon dioxide may be unable to keep up with the rising level of emissions. The CO2-absorption ability of both the Southern Ocean, which surrounds Antarctica, and the North Atlantic Ocean has decreased in recent decades.
Carbon Emissions and Climate Change
The carbon dioxide that is not absorbed by these natural sinks remains in the atmosphere, where it traps heat. The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which stood between 260 and 285 parts per million (ppm) from the beginning of agriculture until the Industrial Revolution, has risen rapidly in the last two-and-a-half centuries, to over 387 ppm today. The last time carbon dioxide levels were this high was roughly 15 million years ago, when sea level was 25-40 meters (80-130 feet) higher and global temperatures were 3-6 degrees Celsius (5-11 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer.
The increase in atmospheric CO2 has driven a rapid rise in global temperature: each decade over the past half-century has been hotter than the last. Responses to these rising temperatures have already been documented in melting glaciers and ice sheets, shifting weather patterns, and changes in the timing of seasonal events.
While much of the global emissions drop in 2009 was due to declining fossil fuel use associated with the recession, the past year also saw strong growth in the use of renewable energy. Installed wind capacity alone grew by over 30 percent worldwide. In the United States, where coal use dropped by more than 13 percent from 2007 to 2009, over 200 new wind farms came online during the same period, adding more than 18,000 megawatts of capacity. With hundreds of billions of dollars in stimulus funds allocated for clean energy and energy efficiency projects worldwide, this growth will continue in the years ahead.
However, evidence is mounting that faster, more substantial action is needed. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an international body of over 2,500 scientists, has modeled a number of scenarios for possible emissions growth in the coming decades. The likely rise in temperature projected in these scenarios ranges from 1.1 to 6.4 degrees Celsius (2-11 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century. Even with the recent drop, carbon dioxide emissions continue to track some of the worst-case IPCC scenarios. Increasing numbers of scientists agree that atmospheric CO2 must be stabilized at 350 ppm or less; in order to achieve this goal, a fundamental shift in course is needed—and quickly.
The question going forward, then, is whether the international community can move carbon dioxide emissions onto a rapid downward trend by decoupling economic growth from fossil fuel emissions. Otherwise, it is likely that emissions will rise again as the global economy recovers, further destabilizing the earth’s natural systems. Only by shifting to a new energy economy, one that relies on carbon-free sources of energy such as wind, solar, and geothermal instead of climate-threatening fossil fuels, can we avoid the worst effects of climate change.
http://blog.sustainablog.org/causes-of-climate-change-carbon-dioxide-emissions/
Eating food in groups is a vital social experience. To share in the joys of a good meal, cooked with care and skill, and garnished with loving attention brings people together. It’s a great excuse to get your friends and family together, too. What social event is really complete without a hearty meal? Well, here’s a suggestion to spruce up your next get-together, with an eco twist. Throw a local foods potluck!
Perhaps you’ve never had the fortune to attend a potluck before. Basically, it’s an event where each person brings a dish to contribute to the whole group. It’s usually unplanned, so you never know what the full meal will entail. It’s a great way to get people involved in contributing to an event. But instead of just any old potluck, why not make it interesting?
Think Local for Your Next Potluck Meal
Challenge your friends and families to a local food potluck. Encourage that all guests bring a dish that features local, seasonal foods, with as few imported ingredients as possible. Inspire your friends to be creative: suggest that guests peruse farmers markets for fresh organic ingredients. What would a menu look like that only featured local, seasonal produce, cheeses, meats, and beverages? More importantly, how would it taste?
When guests present their food at the potluck, ask them what the ingredients are and where they are from. How many food miles have guests’ dishes traveled? It’s a great way to get people excited about supporting and eating local foods if they can participate in an event where they can be creative about cooking with fresh, seasonal ingredients.
Try it out! Next time you want to get together with your friends, suggest a local foods potluck challenge!
http://blog.sustainablog.org/local-food-potluck/
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