Today world is facing a perilous state of climate and weather patterns. The year 2015 is termed as hottest year of earth's recent civilizational history. High level emission of carbon di oxide and other green house gases has pushed the temperature by nearly 1%. According to research report, an increase of 2% would lead to irreversible state. It may cause unbearable change in crop and climate patterns. An increase of 1.5% would lead to submergence of many island nations like Maldives and indo-pacific islands. It will lead to submergence of more than 50% of rice cropping area of Bangladesh. In India, It may lead to change in crop seasons, frequent droughts during Monsoon season and more intense rain in localized regions. Scholars proposes Sustainable development strategies as possible solution to curb such menacing trends.
Sustainable development refers to judicious usage of existing resources so that we can save enough for our future generations. Today, we are surviving on finite resources like oil, water or minerals. With increasing population, these resources are going to finish very soon. Therefore, it is advisable to use them as per our need and not as per our greed.
India's environment history presents various lessons about this.
India has a civilizational history of nearly 3500 years. The land has various sort of geographical features be it mountains, rivers, snow clad peaks, deserts, plateau or coastal island. We have survived many environmental calamities in the past. We have also created some environmental tragedies for ourselves in current past and present epoch. Thus India's rich civilizational knowledge teaches us some positive lessons on sustainable development and simultaneously it tells the world about various don'ts to preserve the environment.
If we study Harappan Civilization, we find evidence of water harvesting in Kalibangan. The architectural design of cities and houses could be useful for current day problems of water resource management. In Kalibangan, houses were devised in such a manner that any waste water from Kitchen would flow into the deep earth. This principle could help us in managing water in water stress regions.
Similarly, in Dholavira, Houses were made of burnt bricks but they were plastered with powder made of rice husk. This acted as artificial air conditioning for the house. This way people survived even in hot and humid season without any electricity or diesel fuel consumption. Such architectural knowledge could help us in dealing with problem of reducing hydrocarbons or electricity shortages.
The houses in Ashoka's time were made of woods. This architectural design was suited for earth-quake prone Indian landscape. Currently nearly 68% of Indian landmass falls under earth-quake prone region. If we could learn from these examples of dealing with environmental calamity then we can achieve the goal of sustainable development.
Similarly, if we look at our traditional knowledge then we can derive immense amount of information which could help us in developing in sustainable manner. For example, recently Farmers of Nalanda city in Bihar recently used system of rice intensification technique to increase rice productivity by 4-fold. This has set a guinese book world record for maximum rice productivity in a given sphere of land. This feat was achieved without use of any pesticide or insecticides. It was purely organic in nature. If we can spread this practice to all over India then we can reduce our consumption of artificial fertilizers. Fertilizer manufacturing uses nearly 80% of our natural gas consumption. Thus subsequently, our natural gas usage would be reduced. This natural gas could be used for other productive purposes or be saved for future generations thus helping us in achieving ideals of sustainable development.
Another model from our environment history could be learned from Village Ralegaon Sidhdhi. Here, efforts of Anna Hazare has turned a once barren land into productive land with the use of organic farming and social capital. Similarly Tarun Bharat Sangh has achieved similarly feat in Alwar district. Tarun Bharat Sangh used the concept of water budget. He gathered 120 villages which were facing water problems and devised canal system which could help in solving their water problem.
There are numerous other example from Indian civilizational history which have turned the hostile environment into a profitable proposition. For example, Local harvesting system like Bawari in Rajasthan, or Use of solar+wind lamps in Laddakh or social movements like chipko or Appiko which helped in saving large amount of natural resources and forests.
We can draw lessons from these best practices and environmental movements. These explain the power of social capital and awareness. This would certainly help in reducing our resource consumption and sustainable development.
However, failure and mistake is a better teacher in life. This stands true in the context of our environment history as well. India has committed countless mistake in managing environment. We can draw bigger lessons from those events. One such example comes from city of Faridabad.
Faridabad is located hardly 20 km from the national capital. The city had nearly 800 small and big lakes at time of independence. However, recent survey shows that city has hardly 10 lakes left. Moreover, the biggest lake which was used for boating and water activities has turned into playground for kids. The water table has gone abysmally low. Why has this happened? This happened because of neglect of administration, sudden upsurge in population of the city and irresponsible and unaccounted use of water for agriculture and industrial activities. From this, we can learn to avoid mismanagement of existing resources.
Similarly, we can learn from Koena dam. The dam was built in a earth quake prone region. When quake came, it led to crack in the dam and as a result thousands of villages were submerged and great destruction of life and animals occurred. We can learn to focus on micro-dam instead of mega-dams. This teaches us to do proper geological research before taking this big projects.
Similarly, Tsunami crisis taught us importance of Mangrove ecosystem for coastal village life. The Villages which were shielded by Mangrove were protected better and faced little wrath of high waves. The villages where Mangroves were removed saw severe destruction. Moreover Mangrove vegetation in coastal zone acts as a fisheries zone. It provides various rich mineral and plants with medicinal values.
Our legislative history in environment domain teaches us about ill-effects of having a fragmented law. For example our air pollution, water pollution and noise pollution laws are separated. This creates problem for all stakeholders in implementing laws. Our state pollution control board have become non-functional due to poor finance and poor expertise.
Had there been a comprehensive law on environment, It would be easy to monitor different resources and various organization would not work at cross purpose.
Another fine example from our environmental history is of Excavation of Aravalli. Aravallis are considered residual mountain. They stretched from Gujrat-Rajasthan border to Delhi. They acts as major source of rainfall in Rajasthan during Monsoon. Recent media reports showed that in region around Delhi, Aravali are excavated so heavily that they are not more than mounds of sand or stone. Their distinguished geographical features are peeled off. As a result, we also see lesser rainfall in Delhi region.
Similar ambiguity in Land-use pattern laws have led to appropriation of forest land or conversion of forest land into industrial, or residential land. There are various other milestones in environmental history like Bhopal gas tragedy, frequent floods, Judicial intervention on CNG usage which teaches us various dont's and do's to achieve the ideal of sustainable development.
Today, world is facing serious problem of climate change and green house gas emission. If we continue driving the same road, then we may end up with oil wars, resource crunch, famines, which can ultimately lead to destruction of human civilization. Alternatively, we can learn from our mistakes in recent past like Koena Dam or Aravali Mountain or Mangrove destruction and implement our ancient knowledge to achieve the goal of sustainable development.
Gandhi Ji remarked "World has enough for everyone's need but not for everyone's greed". We need to follow these principles to achieve harmony with mother nature. We need mother earth more than mother earth needs us. Thus time has come that we shall be united in judiciously using our resources and use water harvesting, or natural sources of energy. Otherwise we shall perish.
Power packed!
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