Daily Archives: April 25, 2022

The nationwide popularity of the Earth Week 1990 festivities showed the concern that Americans feel about the continuing degradation of the global environment. The twentieth anniversary celebration of the original Earth Day focused on ways that individual citizens can reduce waste and retard pollution. From coast to coast, a plethora of multimedia displays demonstrated the need for recycling used materials and lowering power consumption. They showed the changes in lifestyle necessary to halt the poisoning of the Earth.

An environmentally-conscious populace would prove to be a frugal one if those Earth Week programs were adopted. Assuming that the American people would be willing to cut back on energy consumption and muster the effort to recycle their trash, would industrial corporations and energy producers be willing to do the same? Would corporate America drop the aggressive sales pitches, stop spending billions to encourage people to buy impulsively? Would people be able to kick the mass consumption habit thats been generations in the making? Would corporate America ever entertain the idea of abstaining from its short-term profit fix, and consider the consequences of quick-return capitalism for future generations of life on Earth?

President Bushs speechgiven just days after Earth Week 1990 at the 17-nation conference dealing with global pollution held in Washington, DCdrew criticism from European participants. Bushs emphasis on scientific and economic uncertainties was seen as White House foot dragging on the environmental issue.

A memo prepared by administration staffers for members of the US delegation, under the heading Debates To Avoid, instructed delegates to avoid discussion of whether there is or is not [global] warming, or how much or how little warming. In the eyes of the public we will lose this debate. A better approach is to raise the many uncertainties that need to be better understood on this issue.

Bush repeatedly stressed the need to find policies that do not limit economic growth: Environmental policies that ignore the economic factor, are destined to fail [Science News, April 28,1990].

President Bush publicly prides himself on his career in the oil industry. He is, to say the least, an energy-industry celebrity. But he has also gone to great lengths to represent himself as the environmental president. If the Bush administration believes that in the eyes of the public they will lose any debate questioning the scientific validity of the greenhouse effect, is it possible they dont believe that excessive accumulation of greenhouse gasses generated by fossil fuel-burning is unbalancing the global carbon-dioxide cycle? Or is it possible that the corporate/industrial-energy complex, which controls the trillion-dollar-per-year energy industry, fears profit losses andunlike the American peopleis in no way willing to make a sacrifice in corporate lifestyle to help heal the Earth?

President Bush is right about one thing. Policies that ignore the economic factor, the human factor, are destined to fail. In this case, the economic factor and the human factor converge into dire straits: If we do not convert from a fossil-fueled economy to a biomass-fueled economy, the human factor will become part of the fossil history on Planet Earth.

The corporate/industrial-energy complex is collectively holding its breath on the topic of biomass resource-conversion to replace fossil fuels. The industrial energy giants spend millions in public relations explaining how they are environmentally responsible, yet the fossil-fuel resources they peddle are endangering our fragile ecosphere. The majority of scientists throughout the world agree: The single most effective way to halt the greenhouse effect is to stop burning fossil fuels.

It was proven in the 1970s that biomass, specifically plant mass, can be converted to fuels that could replace every type of fossil fuel currently produced by industryand these biomass fuels are essentially non-polluting.

Fossil-fuel materialscoal, oil and natural gaswere made by nature from Earth biomass that lived over 160 million years ago. Crude fossil fuels contain hydrocarbon compounds that were made by plant life during the process of photosynthesis.

Carbon dioxide and water were converted into hydrocarbon-rich cellulose. Plants manufacture many other biochemicals in the complex and mysterious act of livingbut cellulose and lignin are the compounds that give plants structure, body, and strength. They are the main components of plant mass.

Nature took millions of years to concentrate the ancient plant mass into what we call fossil fuels. The eons-long process that converted the once-living biomass into hydrocarbon-rich fossils also compressed sulfur into the fossil biomass. It is this sulfur that causes acid rain when belched out of power-plant smokestacks. According to the Brookhaven National Laboratory, 50,000 Americans and 10,000 Canadians die each year from exposure to acid rain. Humankind, through the science of chemical engineering, can transform modern biomass into hydrocarbon-rich fuels that contain no sulfur because fresh plant mass contains no sulfur. And the scientific method of biomass conversion into hydrocarbon fuels requires mere hours instead of eons to accomplish.

The inherent problem with burning fossil fuels to power industrial energy systems and economies is the mega-ton release of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the air. However, biomass-derived fuels are part of the present-day global CO2 cycle. The quantity of CO2 released into the air from burning biomass fuels equals the amount of CO2 that the biomass energy crop absorbed while it grew. If the energy crop is an annual plant, then one years biomass fuel (when burned) will supply the CO2 needed for the next years fuel biomass growth. There will be no net increase in atmospheric CO2.

For over 100 years industrialized nations have burned hydrocarbon fuels that are not part of the current ecosystem. The delicate balance between life and climatic cycles is being unbalanced by injecting ancestral CO2 into the atmosphere.

The only way to reduce the ever-thickening blanket of carbon dioxide warming the earth is to grow more plants to absorb it. Yet the Bush administrations plan to plant one billion trees a year will only reduce by 15 percent the amount of CO2 predicted for the end of the century. However, American CO2 production (from burning fossil fuels) will rise by 35 percent during the same time period [Science News, April 28,1990]. The Bush administrations plan is futile as long as fossil fuels remain Americas major energy resource. And at the rate forests are being cut down to make the paper our society is wrapped up in, a billion saplings a year will barely compensate for that loss in CO2 absorption. In addition, wood happens to be the governments chief biomass candidate to replace the dwindling fossil-fuel supply. Officials claim US yearly energy consumption can be met by harvesting one-third of the trees in the National Forests on a rotating basis coupled with more intensive silvaculture (tree farming) techniques. Estimated yearly biomass production in the National Forests is one ton per acre [Progress in Biomass Conversion, Vol. 1; Kyosti V. Sarkenen and David Tillman, editors]. However, private industry has been, without conscience, clear-cutting unprotected timber stands in National Forest and Parks, and none of that wood is going into biomass fuel conversion. The US Forestry Service is the government bureaucracy promoting this ludicrous forests-for-fuel idea.

The trees of the world are the biospheres C02-cycle safety valve. Since a tree will live for centuries, forests can gradually pull the excess CO2 out of the air. Trees are not only aesthetically pleasingthey can cure our ailing atmosphere.

Is it realistic to halt construction to save trees, or to ask people to stop using paper?

If wood resources cannot hope to meet the demand for lumber, paper and biomass fuels, can any plant be cultivated to meet those needs? This problem is not new. Civilizations have been exhausting vital resources and dooming themselves for centuries. Versatility, cleverness and common sense are the hallmarks of the ones that survive.

About 75 years ago, two dedicated USDA scientists projected that at the rate the US was using paper, we would deplete the forests in our lifetime. Those government scientists were endowed with common sensesomething government officials are hopelessly lacking nowadays. So USDA scientists Dewey and Merrill looked for an alternate agricultural resource for paper products to prevent the disaster we now face.

They found the ideal candidate to be the waste material left in the fields after the hemp harvest. The leftover pulp, called hemp hurds, was traditionally burned in the fields when the hemp fiber had been removed after completion of the time-consuming retting process (partially rotting the hemp stalk to separate the fiber from the hurds).

Since hemp hurds are richer in cellulose and contain less lignin than wood pulp, Dewey and Merrill found that the harsh sulfur acids used to break down the lignin in wood pulp were not necessary when making paper from hemp hurds. Sulfur-acid wastes from paper mills are known to be a major source of waterway pollution. The coarse paper they made from hemp hurds was stronger and had greater folding durability than coarse wood-pulp paper. Hemp hurd paper would make better cardboard and paper-bag products than wood paper. They found the fine print quality of hemp hurd paper to be equal to writing-quality wood pulp paper [USDA Bulletin, no. 404].

The only problem in implementing the change from wood to hemp hurds was that machinery to separate hemp fiber from the hurds needed to be developed. Separation was still done by hand after the machine breaks had softened the hemp stalks. The decorticating machine that separated the fiber and hurds wasnt developed until the early 1930s. Popular Mechanics declared in 1937 that hemp would be a billion-dollar-a-year crop because of this new machinery and their predictions did not take into consideration hemps potential as a biomass-fuel resource. But they did not predict that hemp would be maligned. Its flower tops and leaves condemned as marijuana, hemp was outlawed-just when the fiber/hurd separating machinery had been perfected.

If America had not been infected with anti-marijuana hysteria, hemp would be solving our energy problems today. When marijuana was outlawed, most people did not know that marijuana was Mexican slang for cannabis hemp. The American people, including doctors who routinely prescribed cannabis extract medicines, thought hemp and marijuana were two different plants. Otherwise hemp prohibition might never have happened.

Eastern Europeans were not subjected to the hysterical anti-marijuana syndrome plaguing the West. Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, among others, continued to make clothing from hemp fibers and medicines from hemp flowers. They pressed the versatile and edible oil from the seeds and used the leftover high-protein seed mash to make breakfast cereal and livestock feed. And they used surplus hemp for building insulation.

Here in the US, a private firm called Mansion Industries is pioneering the use of agricultural fibers to make sturdy, light-weight construction paneling to replace plywood. Mansion uses straw to make their Envirocore (TM) panels. According to Dewey and Merrills test results, if hemp was an available resource, Envirocore (TM) construction paneling would be even stronger.

Its not too late to save our environment, but it is absolutely essential that we start now. Restoring the balance to the biospheres ecosystem will require courage and determination, but not self-denial. We need not give up our comfort or quality of life.

America stands at the crossroads of greatness and decline. The might of our weaponry will not sustain us anymore. Our chance to again lead the world will require the same kind of determination we once used to turn our peacetime economy into war production during the 1940s. But the war mentality will no longer help us. This time we must be innovative and change the very way we produce our energy resources. Hemp prohibition must end at once in order to inaugurate a nationwide green economy. To save the world that gives us life, we must begin immediately to grow our own energy.

Hemp is the only plant capable of becoming the American biomass-energy standard. Hemp grows well everywhere on earth, except for the polar regions. Hemp will out-produce wood at a rate greater than four-to-one per acre in cellulose/pulp. And by analyzing pre-prohibition hemp-crop reports from various states, ten tons per acre becomes a reasonable biomass production figure. Hemp will make ten times more biomass per acre than forest wood.

Wood is not a viable fuel resource. The forests are essential to scrub the CO2 from the air. Soft-wood forests should not be harvested for paper products or biomasstheir only economic value. Hemp can supply that need. Hardwood trees should be harvested, utilizing sustainable-yield ecology, for board and finishing lumber only. Hemp will make pressed-board lighter and more durable than plywood.

Hemp can be grown for crude biomass fuels on energy farms; fiber/hurds for textiles, pressed-board and hurd cellulose products; seed for oil and high-protein foods; flowers for pharmaceutical-grade extract medicines and recreational herbal products for adults.

The green economy based on a hemp multi-industry complex will provide income for farmers in every state. Regions for each hemp agricultural industry application will be established through open, free-market competition. The historically traditional hemp fiber growing areas in the eastern US will re-emerge, creating new jobs in an old industry. The economically devastated northern plains will see a boom as the nations energy-farming states. Medicinal and intoxicant-grade hemp will be grown on less-productive, higher-elevation lands. Mountainous areas have traditionally produced intoxicant-quality hemp.

Ironically, although the target of prohibitionist reefer madness propaganda, the hemp medicine and intoxicant industry will generate the least amount of capital.

The hemp-seed oil and food-resource industries, and the hemp-textile and cellulose industries will develop thousands of sustainable new jobs. Hemp-energy farming will become the backbone of a trillion-dollar-a-year non-polluting energy-production industry. And the petroleum industries need not fear this, for their expertise, hardware and manpower are vital to turn the farmers raw biomass into refined fuels.

These projections could represent a tremendous boon to our flagging economy, a by-product of the need to save our world from human-induced biocide. If we as a society have the courage and determination to set upon this bold path of planetary restoration, we can in our lifetimes leave a healthier world to our children as well as a lifestyle based on renewable resources in a balanced ecosystem that our children can leave to their children for generations to come.

Read the rest of the issue here.

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From the Archives: Toward a Green Economy (1991) - High Times

While universal coverage can catalyse the regions economic growth, energy trade must be linked to peace building

While universal coverage can catalyse the regions economic growth, energy trade must be linked to peace building

South Asia has almost a fourth of the global population living on 5% of the worlds landmass. Electricity generation in South Asia has risen exponentially, from 340 terawatt hours (TWh) in 1990 to 1,500 TWh in 2015. Bangladesh has achieved 100% electrification recently while Bhutan, the Maldives, and Sri Lanka accomplished this in 2019. For India and Afghanistan, the figures are 94.4% and 97.7%, respectively, while for Pakistan it is 73.91%. Bhutan has the cheapest electricity price in South Asia (U.S.$0.036 per kilowatt hour, or kWh) while India has the highest (U.S.$0.08 per kWh.) The Bangladesh government has significantly revamped power production resulting in power demands from 4,942 kWh in 2009 to 25,514 MW as of 2022. India is trying to make a transition to renewable energy to provide for 40% of total consumption, while Pakistan is still struggling to reduce power shortage negatively impacting its economy.

The electricity policies of South Asian countries aim at providing electricity to every household. The objective is to supply reliable and quality electricity in an efficient manner, at reasonable rates and to protect consumer interests. The issues these address include generation, transmission, distribution, rural electrification, research and development, environmental issues, energy conservation and human resource training.

Geographical differences between these countries call for a different approach depending on resources. While India relies heavily on coal, accounting for nearly 55% of its electricity production, 99.9% of Nepals energy comes from hydropower, 75% of Bangladeshs power production relies on natural gas, and Sri Lanka leans on oil, spending as much as 6% of its GDP on importing oil.

Given that a 0.46% increase in energy consumption leads to a 1% increase in GDP per capita, electrification not only helps in improving lifestyle but also adds to the aggregate economy by improving the nations GDP. For middle-income countries, the generation of power plays an essential role in the economic growth of the country. More electricity leads to increased investment and economic activities within and outside the country, which is a more feasible option as opposed to other forms of investments such as foreign direct investment.

The South Asian nations have greatly benefited from widening electricity coverage across industries and households. For example, 50.3% of Bangladeshs GDP comes from industrial and agricultural sectors which cannot function efficiently without electricity. Nepals GDP growth of an average of 7.3% since the earthquake in 2015 is due to rapid urbanisation aided by increased consumption of electricity. On the other hand, Pakistan suffered a drop in industrialisation of textiles by 9.22%, wiping off U.S.$12.4 billion from the industry in 2014 due to power shortages. India leads South Asia in adapting to renewable power, with its annual demand for power increasing by 6%.

Solar power-driven electrification in rural Bangladesh is a huge step towards Sustainable Development Goal 7 (which is Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all) by 2030 and engaging more than 1,00,000 female solar entrepreneurs in Sustainable Development Goal 5 (which is achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls). Indias pledge to move 40% of total energy produced to renewable energy is also a big step. Access to electricity improves infrastructure i.e., SDG 9 (which is build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation). Energy access helps online education through affordable Internet (SDG 4, or ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all), more people are employed (SDG 1: no poverty), and are able to access tech-based health solutions (SDG 3, or ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages).

South Asian leaders are increasingly focused on efficient, innovative and advanced methods of energy production for 100% electrification. Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his net zero by 2070 pledge at COP26 in Glasgow asserted Indias target to increase the capacity of renewable energy from 450GW to 500GW by 2030. South Asia has vast renewable energy resources hydropower, solar, wind, geothermal and biomass which can be harnessed for domestic use as well as regional power trade. The first-ever Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) benefits such as poverty reduction, energy efficiency and improved quality of life were realised when there was India-Bhutan hydro trade in 2010.

The region is moving towards green growth and energy as India hosts the International Solar Alliance. In Bangladesh, rural places that are unreachable with traditional grid-based electricity have 45% of their power needs met through a rooftop solar panel programme which is emulated in other parts of the world. This is an important step in achieving Bangladeshs nationally determined contributions target of 10% renewable energy of total power production.

The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) prepared the regional energy cooperation framework in 2014, but its implementation is questionable. However, there are a number of bilateral and multilateral energy trade agreements such as the India-Nepal petroleum pipeline deal, the India-Bhutan hydroelectric joint venture, the Myanmar-Bangladesh-India gas pipeline, the Bangladesh-Bhutan-India-Nepal (BBIN) sub-regional framework for energy cooperation, and the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline, rumoured to be extended to Bangladesh.

South Asias regional geopolitics is determined by the conflation of identity, politics, and international borders. Transnational energy projects would thus engage with multiple social and ideational issues which is a major limitation for peaceful energy trade. If energy trade is linked and perceived through the lens of conflict resolution and peace building, then a regional security approach with a broader group of stakeholders could help smoothen the energy trade process. The current participation in cross-border projects has been restricted to respective tasks, among Bhutan and India or Nepal and India. It is only now that power-sharing projects among the three nations, Nepal, India, and Bangladesh, have been deemed conceivable.

India exports 1,200MW of electricity to Bangladesh, sufficient for almost 25% of the daily energy demand, with a significant amount from the Kokrajhar power plant in Assam worth U.S.$470 million. Bhutan exports 70% of its own hydropowered electricity to India worth almost U.S.$100 million. Nepal on the other hand, not only sells its surplus hydroelectricity to India but also exported fossil fuel to India worth U.S.$1.2 billion.

South Asia is reinforcing its transmission and distribution frameworks to cater to growing energy demand not only through the expansion of power grids but also by boosting green energy such as solar power or hydroelectricity. Going forward, resilient energy frameworks are what are needed such as better building-design practices, climate-proof infrastructure, a flexible monitory framework, and an integrated resource plan that supports renewable energy innovation. Government alone cannot be the provider of reliable and secure energy frameworks, and private sector investment is crucial. In 2022, private financing accounted for 44% of household power in Bangladesh, 48.5% in India, and 53% in Pakistan. Public-private partnership can be a harbinger in meeting the energy transition challenges for the worlds most populous region.

Syed Munir Khasru is Chairman of the international think tank, The Institute for Policy, Advocacy, and Governance (IPAG), New Delhi, India with a presence in Dhaka, Melbourne, Vienna and Dubai. E-mail: munir.khasru@ipag.org

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The goal of an energy-secure South Asia - The Hindu

Protestors shout slogans against Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa near the Presidential Secretariat, Colombo, April 11 2022. Photo: Reuters/Dinuka Liyanawatte

Sri Lanka is going through the most difficult economic period since its independence in 1948, and has defaulted on its national debt. For some commentators, the main problem is easy enough to spot: organic farming. It is even enough for others to suggest that the Green New Deal in the US should be rethought.

And yet, the collapse of Sri Lankas economy had little to do with organic farming per se, and much more to do with the disastrous handling of its economy.

Nonetheless, the banning of inorganic fertilisers, the reasons it was done and the way it was done is a cautionary tale of how not to embark on a green transition. It should be a mandatory exercise to review these failures as the developing world looks for a stable path as the climate crisis intensifies.

The first thing to note about Sri Lankas decision to ban the import of inorganic fertilisers is that it was based on desperation rather than planning. It is true that President Gotabaya Rajapaksas government had promised when it came into power in 2019 that it would shift agriculture to organic farming but it had announced that it would do so over a period of 10 years, not overnight.

No large-scale plan was drawn up, no public discussions with farmers was undertaken, and the people in government pushing the policies included those who came up with locally made syrups to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the end, the decision was taken for the simple reason that Sri Lanka was running out of money. The pandemic had hurt the tourist industry, and when the government was elected in 2019, it further cut down taxes, leaving it with money flowing out much of it for vast infrastructure projects and little to raise.

Between the end of 2020 to March 2021, the countrys foreign exchange reserves plummeted from $7.6 billion to less than $2 billion. It was because of this huge loss of foreign currency, and the cost of importing inorganic fertilisers that Sri Lanka largely does not manufacture, that the country imposed a ban on it forcing two-thirds of its population that depends on agriculture to suddenly scramble to deal with the fallout.

To make an analogy, this would be the equivalent of India running out of foreign exchange reserves to buy coal from overseas, and shutting down all coal power plants except those that could be run on locally sourced coal. It would certainly be a (forcible) shift to far more renewable energy, but it would cause blackouts and a huge drop in industrial productivity. To call it a green transition would be the same as calling what Sri Lanka did an organic transition.

The sad part of all of this is that the country has been experimenting with locally produced organic fertilisers supplemented by processes like biological nitrogen fixation, which could have paved the way for a replacement for inorganic fertilisers.

This is important not just from a green point of view but from a financial sustainability point of view. A locally produced method of fertilisers would have cut down imports without cutting down agricultural productivity. But this would require a plan, soil testing, experimentation on a small scale and significant buy-in by local farmers before being implemented on a wider scale.

None of this took place. Instead, a whole country was pushed into a deep agricultural crisis, which further wrecked its economy.

The lessons of this crisis for proponents of a green transition are important ones. First and foremost is that, to cover governance failures, authoritarian leaders backed by charlatans see greenwashing as a popular way to shift the blame from their failures.

Secondly, any transition that is top-down, and ignores science for quick solutions, is likely to be a disaster.

Thirdly, a development approach that privileges massive infrastructure projects, and then passes off economic and environmental costs to the people without their consultation, will never manage a green transition.

All of these issues are also central to the work of Manshi Asher of the Himdhara Collective, whom the interviews below, and whose work highlights how top-down environmental and development projects that ignore local livelihoods are both destructive and massively inefficient.

The interview

x

Manshi Asher (left) is a member of Himdhara Collective. As a researcher and activist she has been associated with diverse organisations around social and environmental justice issues. She lives in Kandwari village in the Dhauladhar valley of Himachal Pradesh. She enjoys engaging with feminist political ecologies of life in the mountains.

The questions are in bold.

What does Himdhara do? Why was there a need for it?

Himdhara is a Himachal-Pradesh-based environment research and action collective that was formed in 2009. The collective has been working with an environmental justice approach, supporting mountain communities asserting their right to access, use and protect their natural landscapes. The support work itself comprises documentation, dissemination, community dialogues and advocacy.

The need for such a collective emerged from growing threats posed to mountain ecology and peoples nature-based livelihoods by policies and projects of the neoliberal extractive development model and top-down exclusive conservation. Alienation of forest and land dependent people from their resource base began in the colonial era and continued after independence, more evidently in the past few decades and this has led to wide ranging ecological, socio-cultural and economic shifts.

While newer legal provisions were put in place during this time to protect the environment and rights of impacted communities, on one hand access to and just implementation of these has remained a far cry and on the other many of these policies have further alienated marginalised peoples like adivasis, dalits, women. Many of the democratic spaces in environmental decision making have been shrinking, with the push for ease of doing business agenda.

The need thus has been to build a counter narrative by demonstrating the real adverse ecological and socio-economic impacts and costs of such a scenario and also support communities advocating for their livelihoods and their right to govern their resources using democratic spaces and constitutional provisions.

For instance, Himachal has over the last two decades seen various community led movements to raise issues around large-scale hydropower dams and how these have affected local lives and land-use. Himdhara has worked towards building evidence on the oft invisibilised and hidden costs of hydropower projects that are being pushed in the name of clean energy and green growth.

Over the years, as we understood the criticality of secure tenure over land, both for farming and forest uses, we joined the campaign for implementation of the Forest Rights Act 2006 in the state. In absence of basic information about the provisions of this radical law which guarantees individual and community rights over forest land and is a step towards decolonising forest governance too, we worked on demystifying the legislation by generating basic audio-visual material on it.

Currently we are engaged in activating Forest Rights Committees through training and dialogues. We also feel the need to dialogue with the youth, which is imperative for any transformative work. One of our programs is an annual workshop called Pahar Aur Hum: Rethinking development in the Himalaya, which explores challenges in the Himalayan region with Pahari youth.

How did the collective begin?

Initially we were three or four people from diverse backgrounds passionate about working in the mountains, who decided to pool our skills and perspectives to respond to the needs that came from different communities.

We felt that just being located in the region was not sufficient to engage with environmental justice issues and that a deeper interaction with the landscape and community led groups and movements was essential.

We continue to function as an informal and autonomous support group driven by a common vision rather than as a formal structured organisation.

What is the key difference between how think-tanks such as Himdhara, which are located in mountain areas, versus those in places like Delhi, see environmental issues?

I would not use the term think tank to describe Himdhara, for several reasons. Firstly, as I mentioned earlier, we are a small collective, a support group with localised engagement, even as we constantly try to understand the bigger picture (national and global) which impacts the local.

Secondly, the term think tank (which has a certain military connotation) in its current usage inherently means that knowledge lies in a few thinking minds and they will draft the policies and laws.

That is precisely where the problem lies, not just in the way governments work but also in how civil society tends to operate, led by the elite and privileged. It takes away from the agency of people, citizens to be able to plan, decide and demand accountability based on their localised geographies and circumstances, as it should be in a democratic framework. The system then works conveniently to serve the interests of a few.

So, when a group like ours examines environmental issues on the ground, we try not to look at them from a single lens and in isolation. We may not be able to address everything but we cannot deny the historical contexts as well as intersections between the political, economic, social justice issues and environmental concerns.

Also, our work, especially our research is action oriented, whether it is on Forest Rights or protection of riverine ecosystems. The work is more of a process rather than a project, driven by constantly evolving ground observations and dialogue with various actors.

What is the one big question you feel does not get the attention it deserves?

Environmentalism, today, is about top-down techno-managerial solutions and quick fixes. Renewable energy and net zero are being posed as game-changers whereas far from addressing the ecological and climate crisis they are likely to create more inequities and new problems.

Environment is a political issue and interwoven with many other issues, like the question of the economy and ownership, distribution, production and consumption of resources. The questions may be complex and daunting requiring multiple long-term strategies, but false solutions need to be identified and resisted.

This article and interview were first published on Environment of India, Omair Ahmads newsletter about Indias environment through a multi-disciplinary lens. Subscribe here. They have been republished here with permission.

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Sri Lanka's Problems Are Anything but Organic The Wire Science - The Wire Science