"GREEN DAY CELEBRATIONS" AT SRI VIDYANJALI SCHOOL.

I was invited as chief guest to GREEN DAY CELEBRATIONS at Sri Vidyanjali School, Vivekananda Nager colony, Kukkatpally, Hyderbad. It is one of the most wonderful evenings I spent in my life.

It is amazing to see how Ist standard to VI th standard young children have sent a beautiful message to the parents, “how to protect environment”. The children’s played various scripts revolving the themes relating to environment, what will be the future if the present trends of environment degradation continues and how environment can be saved. Children played scripts not use plastic bags instead use cloth bags, how indiscriminate use of petrol will deplete natural resources and how to save petrol, how destruction of trees will degrade environment and gave message to plant trees and how to save water and how to save electricity

I gave a message to the parents and others that it is everyone’s individual social responsibility to protect environment and every one should take pledge to protect environment as the young children’s shown ways how to protect environment through their scripts.

My congratulations to all young children, teachers, and M. Hemalatha, Principal of Sri Vidyanjali School, have done wonderful work to give green message to all, to create clean and green environment. They should continue to do these programmes for awareness of people.

Growing CO2 could cause 6 metre rise in sea level

A file picture of a Greenpeace message about reducing the CO2 emission level on Le Meridien Hotel, New Delhi.

Photo: AP

If the world fails to get the growing carbon emission under control, sea levels could rise by up to six metres, said a new study.

According to the study by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), temperatures in the Antarctica were increased by six degrees Celsius during the past periods when the volume of high carbon dioxide (CO2) was high in the atmosphere.This could cause a sea level rise of up six metres, threatening coastal cities like London, New York and San Francisco, it said.Louise Sime, who led the BAS study, looked at ice cores to see how temperatures changed during periods of high carbon dioxide.

During the last period of high CO2, 125,000 years ago, she found temperatures were up to 6 degrees Celsius higher than present day levels.Such a hike in temperature could lead to a rise in sea levels of between 4 to 6 metres over hundreds of years as the ice sheets melt, The Telegraph reported.“We didn’t expect to see such warm temperatures, and we don’t yet know in detail what caused them. But they indicate that Antarctica’s climate may have undergone rapid shifts during past periods of high CO2.”

Dr Sime said the study suggests that current high levels of CO2 could also cause a rise in temperature. She said further research could predict the affect on sea level rise.“If we can pin down how much warmer temperatures were in Antarctica and Greenland at this time, then we can test predictions of how melting of the large ice sheets may contribute to sea level rise.”

It is the latest research to warn of the consequences of increased greenhouse gases on the Earth’s climate, The Telegraph Reported.All the recent studies are adding pressure on world leader to agree in international deal on climate change at a UN summit in Copenhagen this December.

A recent study appeared in Nature Geoscience found that carbon dioxide levels rose by almost a third in the last seven years. It warned that if the world continues to pump out pollution at such a rate it will cause temperatures to rise by six degrees Celsius, causing massive droughts, extinction of species and sea level rise.

Another study added to the urgency by claiming that the oceans are losing their ability to absorb CO2. Samar Khatiwala of Columbia University, found that the proportion of fossil fuel emissions absorbed by the oceans since 2000 may have decline by as much as 10 per cent.

“What our ocean study and other recent land studies suggest is that we cannot count on these sinks operating in the future as they have in the past, and keep on subsidising our ever-growing appetite for fossil fuels,” he said.But, Dr Wolfgang Knorr, of Bristol University, who has been studying the same subject said there is not yet enough evidence to prove that the Earth is losing its ability to absorb CO2.

‘Green bonus’ likely for States to protect forest cover

The State governments may soon be entitled to a “green bonus” for protecting and expanding their forest cover.

“We are looking at evolving a new mechanism to reward states for maintaining the forest cover and also provide incentives to expand it,” said Mr Jairam Ramesh, Union Minister of State for Environment and Forest.

The MoEF has suggested that along with Central grants through the Planning Commission or Finance Commission, the States should be given additional “green bonus” for protecting and expanding forest cover. It is the responsibility of the State governments to protect forests, which act as carbon sinks sequestrating green house gases. “We need greater sensitivity by the State government on this issue,” Mr Ramesh said.

A recent survey showed that 21 per cent of India’s geographical area was under forest cover. Two per cent of the area had high density forest cover, while 10 per cent had medium density and the remaining nine per cent was degraded forest.

Protecting forest cover is important and that the country cannot afford to lose it, especially the ecological hotspots such as the Western Ghats, North East, Himalayan ranges among others. States such as Karnataka, Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Orissa and Madhya Pradesh that have large areas of forest cover were making valuable contribution to the national eco-system, Mr Ramesh said.

Further, Mr Ramesh said that there was a need to monitor continuously as to how much of greenhouse gases have been absorbed by the forest cover. ISRO has started monitoring the absorption of greenhouse gases and would expand the network of stations in different parts of the country.

Preliminary estimates by MoEF suggest that about 10 per cent of the country’s annual green house gases were absorbed by the forest cover. “There is a need to measure and monitor on a continuous basis,” Mr Ramesh added

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