Himalayan forests at greater risk from climate change

Climate change will be an additional stress on Indian forests, especially in upper Himalayan stretches, which are already subjected to multiple challenges including over-extraction, livestock grazing and human impact, a government report said here on Wednesday. 

India's second National Communication to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, released by environment ministerJayanthi Natarajan said that the assessment of climate impacts showed that at the nationallevel, 45 per cent of forested grids are likely to undergo changes. In the report, a digital forest map of the country was used to determine spatial location of all the forested areas. 

This map was based on a high-resolution mapping, wherein the entire area of India was divided into over 165,000 grids. Out of these, 35,899 grids were marked as forested grids - along with the forest density and forest types. Vulnerability assessment showed that sensitive forested grids arespread across India. "However, their concentration is higher in the upper Himalayan stretches, parts of Central India, northern Western Ghats and Eastern Ghats," said the MoEF report towards fulfillment of reporting obligation under the convention.

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Windmills to power streetlights in Chennai

Imagine 15-metre towers with micro wind turbines above and four solar panels below vying with huge palm trees to create a geometrically regular pattern along the East Coast Road.

These towers, with a hybrid of wind and solar energies systems, will soon be yet another initiative in Chennai Corporation's pursuit of tapping alternative energy sources for better street lighting in the city, particularly along coastal roads that are predominantly in newly added areas.

The civic body has commissioned a study on tapping wind and solar energy with optimum hybrid models for better street lighting in added areas. Chennai, according to persons associated with the study, “is a good wind zone” but is not suitable for big wind turbines over 100 metres in height. However, the initiative using micro wind turbines is also likely to be another stepping stone towards bringing down energy consumption by 25 per cent and to save 36 lakh units in the coming year.

A group of streetlights would be connected to a tower with hybrid power generating systems. These additional street lights would fill the unusual voids between rows of 2.2-lakh streetlights in the 426 sq km of the city, mainly in the coastal zones of Tiruvottiyur, Perungudi and Sholinganallur in the added areas and Tondiarpet, Royapuram, Teynampet and Adyar of the old city limits.

Existing streetlights have been found to be inadequate in many of the expanded areas, which have a relatively low number of 88,000 streetlights. The added areas, which were earlier part of Panchayats, would be the biggest beneficiaries from the proposal for wind and solar energy-based models.

Areas such as the Marina Beach and Elliots Beach are also set to gain from the initiative. Localities in Tiruvottiyur, Sholinganallur and Marina Beach will get pilot projects that will be expanded after ascertaining their viability. In the wake of an increase in power tariff, this proposal is likely to be viable.

These new hybrid facilities would be in addition to the 25,000 solar-powered streetlights proposed in eight new zones. The Corporation has already proposed a massive programme to replace around 60,000 streetlights.

The wind and solar hybrid systems would overcome challenges pertaining to the old system of illumination adopted by many Panchayats earlier. The Corporation's norm of a minimum of a 25-metre distance between two adjacent streetlights would be adhered to during the installation of these facilities in areas such as Tiruvottiyur, Perungudi and Sholinganallur.

The Hindu
http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/chennai/article3281765.ece

“Environment protection in people's hands”

The Advisor to Ministry of Environment and Forests, G. V. Subrahmanyam, has said that people's participation in environment protection alone can bring the desired results more than any number of legislations brought by the Government.

“Protecting the environment is for our own future and not for anybody else. You can have any number of legislations…but the implementation is done by local people. Any campaign on climate change or environmental issues can be successful only when all of us come together,” he said, while speaking at the Thiagarajar College of Engineering (TCE) here on Friday.

He was in the city to participate in an ‘International Workshop on Climate Change and GIS' organised jointly by the TCE in association with Madurai Kamaraj University.

Dr. Subrahmanyam underlined that respecting the environment is nothing new to India because historically this land was known for conservation ethics which came to its people either through religion, culture or philosophy.

“Nature and humans are inseparable and historically, we Indians have been respecting nature. The same spirit must be shown now because we have to protect environment for our own future,” he appealed.

The Ministry's Advisor also mentioned about the pollution caused by small scale industries across the country and the need to sensitise them on pollution control strategies.

“Pollution, energy and climate change are all related issues. It is important for our people to understand the consequences of climate change since it will have an impact on surface temperature, seal level and vegetation,” he stressed.

Stating that the Ministry of Environment and Forests has been doing a lot in creating public awareness, Dr. Subrahmanyam said that it was also deploying Geographical Information System and Remote Sensing to implement natural resources management scheme. Himalayan glacier and wetlands besides several other areas were mapped already.

Karumuttu T. Kannan, Chairman and Correspondent, Thiagarajar College of Engineering, in his presidential address, has urged the Government of India to launch a nationwide campaign to tell people about the dangers to environment.

Daniel Ayuk Mbi Egbe, Senior Scientist, Johannes Kepler University, Linz, Austria, spoke on the importance of tapping solar energy while A. Sundaram, Head and Chairperson of School of Energy, Environment and Natural Resources, Madurai Kamaraj University, said that renewable energy revolution is the need of the hour.

Link The Hindu