ENVIRONMENTAL MATTERS By- M.K. Bajpai

ENVIRONMENTAL MATTERS

By – M.K.BAJPAI/Jhansi

Today every living organism is suffering from the pollution hazards in one way or the other, human greed had does not only driven him into the danger but also pushed various species of animals & plants up to the edge of extinction. In order to fulfill our materialistic needs for rapid development we are depleting natural resources blindly to provoke natural disasters. Environmental pollution, global warming, global dimming & deforestation are some of the burning issues around the globe

GLOBAL WARMING ------ Green house gases like CO2, Methane & water vapors in atmosphere absorbs the heat radiated or reflected from the earth surface and do not allow the heat to return thus accumulation of carbon dioxide in atmosphere is the root cause for rise in global temperature and the phenomenon is termed as Green house effect. The CO2 concentration in our atmosphere during 1800 was about 280 ppm& at present it has increased upto 375 ppm, which is beyond the recommended safe limit. During the last 100 years global mean temperature is increased by 0.5 to 10C which is enough to melt frozen ice, during last five years only Antarctica ice cap has shrunken by 3000Sq.metre. Glaciers in the Himalayas are receding faster than anywhere else, over the last 25 years the Gangotri glacier has shrunken by more than 850 meters with a recession of 76 meters from 1996 to 1999 alone. These melting glaciers are regularly increasing the sea level, the world can expect sea level to rise by 19-86 cm by the year 2100 which would be enough to engulf many island and low lying deltas like Bangladesh & India. It is shocking to know that 25 Km. long Gangotri glacier is shrinking by 18 meters per year. The automobile exhausts must be checked more strictly to reduce the extra CO2 concentration in our environment.

ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION.---- The results of air, water and land pollution is very shocking for all of us, today we are not getting fresh & clean air to breath, safe water to drink and fertility of soil is also decreasing because of dumping of solid wastes. It is estimated that in India about 50 – 60 % of population is suffering from the desease caused by consumption of unhygienic water and about 30% to 40% of death occurs due to water born diseases like typhoid, cholera, jaundice, dysentery, diarrhea etc.

Air pollution is a major cause of health problems, affecting the developing and the developed countries alike. The effects of air pollution on health are very complex as there are many different sources and their individual effects vary from one to the other. Tobacco smoke generates a wide range of harmful chemicals and is a major cause of ill health, as it is known to cause cancer, not only to the smoker but affecting passive smokers too. Harmful gases from vehicles and industries are causing frequent cases of Acid rain. Major air born diseases are Asthma and Allergy based effecting millions of peoples around the globe.

ALARMING ALERTS ---

* 1.8 million people die every year from diarrhoeal diseases (including cholera); 90% are children under 5, mostly in developing countries.

*133 million people suffer from high intensity Intestinal helminths infections, which often leads to severe consequences such as cognitive impairment, massive dysentery, or anaemia.

*There are 1.5 million cases of clinical hepatitis A every year.

*Over 26 million people in China suffer from dental fluorosis due to elevated fluoride in their drinking water.

*Natural disasters in the last decade of the 20th century, 86% of they by floods and droughts affected almost two billion people.

*The World Health Organization estimates that 4.6 million people die each year from causes directly attributable to air pollution

GLOBAL DIMMING------ Air pollution is making our world darker & darker day by day due to the decreasing transparency of our atmosphere, Scientist Atsumo Ohmura of Swiss federal institute of technology first suggested in 1985 that the amount of solar radiation striking the earth is declined by more than 10% in last 3 decades, much of the earth’s surface is receiving about 15% less sun light than it did 50 years ago.

Global dimming is hazardous for photosynthetic activity in plants & also damaging for the solar energy power stations to hinder the future energy requirements. According to WHO the permissible limit of Suspended Particulate Matter (SPM) is 200 microgram/cubic cm.The present diagnostic results intimate that the SPM level in major cities of India and around the globe is beyond the recommended safe limit. SPM comprises dust particles, carbon particles coated with toxics gases from automobiles and other forms of carbon particles released from industrial plants. SPM do not allow the required intense sunlight to strike the earth and is the root cause behind the global dimming.

OZONE DEPLETION------- The discovery of a hole in the zone layer goes back to the 1980s. As early as 1985, Joseph Farman, from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), published the results of his observations in Nature (Magazine). Canadian scientists also detected another hole over the artic region; these holes in ozone layer are increasing day by day due to the air pollution. Mainly chlorofluoro carbon (CFC) is the chief ozone depleting gas along with chlorine gas exhausted by space shuttles/ rockets, nitric oxide released from supersonic aircrafts, automobiles exhaust and use of extensive nitrates in fertilizer also playing key role in thinning of ozone layers, thinning of ozone layers is an alarming danger for the existence of life on earth.

The ozone layer is a protective layer for all of us as it prevents harmful ultraviolet radiations of the sun to reach on our earth’s surface. The maximum concentration of ozone gas is found between 20 to 25 Km. from the earth’s surface, when ozone molecule comes in contact with UV rays, it absorbs the radiant energy & break down into O2 (molecule) & O (Atom) with the release of heat energy thus ozone protects us from harmful UV rays. Ultraviolet rays are considered to be precursor of Skin Cancer and other skin disorders.

NATURAL DISASTERS---- Natural disasters like tsunami, storms, hurricane; earthquakes, famines & floods all are the returns of our non eco-friendly activities such as deforestation, pollution, extravagance of natural resource etc. Today about 25% of the world’s population residing in danger prone areas, India is also one of the most disaster prone countries of the world because of its geographical characteristic. In India about 65% of land area is prone to floods, 8% prone to cyclones and about 70% of its agricultural land is prone to drought. The risk of natural disaster is increasing day by day with the increasing imbalance in environmental components. Data analysis reveals that the frequency of earthquakes in India had increased by about 3 folds during the last decade only. Indian Government also launched National Disaster Management Dept. to monitor the environmental changes in order to predict early warnings of any possibility of natural disaster. 13th SAARC Summit at Dhaka on 12-13 November 2005 considered the issues of Regional Cooperation for Preparedness and Mitigation of National Disasters and approved the proposal of India to set up a SAARC Disaster Management Centre at the National Institute of Disaster Management at New Delhi. Govt. of India also paying equal attention on training and awareness programs through formal & non-formal educational methods for civil defence..

WILD LIFE ----- Land area under the forest is receding rapidly leaving behind the homeless creatures to suffer, this creates imbalance in ecosystem by disturbing the natural habitat of many animals and plants, today various plant & animal species are endangered and many are already extinct. In India white tigers, kites, vultures, peacocks are some of the animals surviving at the edge of their extinction. Various national & international organizations like Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) in India, Royal Society for the protection of birds (RSPB) UK & Zoological society of London working for the environmental protection concluded on the basis of autopsy that a non steroidal anti inflammatory drug Declofenac (a pain killer drug) is playing key role in unusual mysterious deaths of vultures in India & neighboring countries like Nepal & Pakistan. The population of vultures has declined up to 97 % during the short period of last 15 years only, drug declofenac is already banned in many countries including Africa and in India Prime Minister had also emphasized to discontinue the use of declofenac for cattle. Tigers & one-horned rhinos are already enlisted under the wild life protection act to save them on the planet earth, in India Asian lions are found only in Gir Forests of Gujarat. Tigers are already proclaimed endangered since 1970’s by International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural resources. In India at present the population of tigers is about 1500 – 1800 only even after the endeavors of PROJECT TIGER introduced during 1973 by Indian Government to save tigers. Three subspecies of tiger (Caspion Tiger, Bali tiger and Javan Tiger) are already vanished from our blue planet.

Now we don’t have a time to keep waiting for some magic or miracle just by thinking, reading and making rules for the protection of our environment. Its time for a comprehensive & combined endeavor to regain our lost natural wealth by enforcing the Eco-friendly rules more strictly to save the nature and life both. We humans are dominant and its our responsibility to nurture and conserve our natural wealth for a bright & progressive future.

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Mithlesh Bajpai (+91- 9839281700)  E-mail: guddu_bajpai@rediffmail.com

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