By Dr. Tilak K Doshi
Sustainable development is mom’s apple pie and the central organizing principle of all things environmental. Governments and companies are all for it. Sustainability occupies pride of place in public policy and social discourse across multilateral agencies, governments and societies. However the concept lacks definition and its ambiguity allows its proponents to make extravagant claims that cannot be tested.
In the private sector, most companies extol their commitment to sustainability in advertisements, annual reports, CEO speeches and PR communications. These serve to promote a favourable corporate image, burnish credentials in corporate social responsibility (“CSR”) and, not least, to appease their NGO and social activist critics. Originating in the Rio Earth Summit of 1992, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development includes leading multinational corporations such as AT&T, BP, General Motors, Mitsubishi, Nestle, Proctor and Gamble, Shell, Sony and Toyota.
While the sustainability concept has been defined in many ways, it was first made popular in a report published by the Brundtland Commission in 1987 (Gro Brundtland was the former Prime Minister of Norway and was appointed by the UN to head its sustainability programme in 1983). It was defined as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” This definition appeals quite naturally to the broad intuition of people who are concerned about ensuring a better life for future generations. Yet it is difficult to pin down when practical questions of policy or private sector behaviour are posed.
Some examples serve to make this apparent. The first derives from the experience in the US. Among the most expensive energy policies imposed in that country is the program to substitute a portion of the gasoline used for transport by blending it with ethanol derived primarily from corn. Current U.S. ethanol production uses 30 percent of the nation’s corn crop, billions of gallons of water, and vast quantities of pesticides, fertilizers, and diesel for tractors to produce a blended fuel that drives up food prices and gets one-third less mileage per gallon than ordinary gasoline. Vast tracts of precious farmland are being devoted to make ethanol with little discernible benefit to energy security or reducing CO2 emissions.
Meanwhile the country – with private capital and dynamic entrepreneurship — is producing prodigious amounts of additional oil from what was once useless shale rock by the remarkable “fracking revolution” in the past decade. For most observers, calling the blending of ethanol for gasoline supply in the US a “sustainable” practice is a gross misuse of the term.
Perhaps the most direct sense of sustainability that relates to the man on the street has to do with the fear of “running out of resources”. This Malthusian scare was propagated by the Club of Rome which came out with the highly publicized study entitled “Limits to Growth” in 1972. Utilizing a (then) state-of-the-art computer model, it forecast that the world would have run out of aluminium, copper, gold, lead, mercury, natural gas, oil, silver, tin and zinc by 2013. Of course none of this has happened, and the study’s predictions are now duly noted as examples of doom-mongering that gained global attention.
The example of oil resources is illustrative. In 1980, world oil reserves stood at 684 billion barrels according to the BP’s 2018 statistical bulletin. Annual use amounted to 22 billion barrels, yielding a reserves/production ratio (time before the resources “ran out”) of 30 years. In 2017, reserves stood at 1.7 trillion barrels, and at a consumption rate of 36 billion barrels a year, life expectancy increased to 47 years despite billions of barrels of oil being used up in the interim. How was this so?
A basic appreciation of economics and technological progress suggests that as demand increases and the price of oil rises, consumers would economize, and suppliers would search for newer sources of oil, improve techniques of extraction and exploit opportunities to use substitutes wherever possible. This applies to all natural resources. Indeed, the conventional wisdom that resources are finite is false: as the late economist Julian Simon remarked presciently that the only true resource in the world was human ingenuity.
Another example of what sustainability really means relates to organic farming which forsakes the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides as well as genetically modified seeds. This is quite a turn from the situation five decades ago when countries such as China, India, and Mexico among many other countries were facing widespread food shortages and endemic hunger. Famines were a common occurrence in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
In the 1960s, Dr. Norman Borlaug introduced high yielding varieties of the wheat crop and later other staples such as rice. These yielded a dramatic improvement in agricultural productivity. The Green Revolution that subsequently took off in Asia and elsewhere has been credited with saving hundreds of millions of people. When the Nobel Laureate was asked about his views of organic farming, he said: “There are 6.6 billion on the planet today. With organic farming, we can only feed 4 billion of them. I don’t see two billion volunteers [willing]to disappear.”
It is clear that while organic farming can be a thriving small sub-sector of global agriculture serving affluent consumers with particular preferences – despite the lack of any scientific evidence that organic crops are “healthier” than those normally-grown — it is not sustainable for the world at large.
What is most striking, if not perverse, about any discussion of this ambiguous concept – and its subtext of how modern lifestyles are unsustainable — is the fact that humanity as a whole is doing better than it ever has. With entrepreneurship, free markets and technological progress, the world is richer, more peaceful and healthier than at any previous time in history. Yet, in reading any number of “sustainable development” tracts, you would never have guessed it.
The writer is a consultant in the energy sector, and is the author of “Singapore in a Post-Kyoto World: Energy, Environment and the Economy” published by the Institute of South-east Asian Studies (Singapore, 2015).
(a modified version of this article was published in The Business Times (Singapore), 18 April 2018)
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Dr. Tilak K Doshi’s article “The Sense of Sustainability: A Perversion of Meaning” lacks clear clarity on the subject, more particularly on “Sustainability”. On 16th November 2018 American Water Works Association [AWWA] India organized conference and Exibition (AICE), 2018 in Hyderabad. The organizers invited me to present a talk and also asked me to participate in the panel discussion [this note is given at the end]. Title of my talk was “Impact of ‘Climate Change & Human Interference’ on Water Resources Availability in India”. The first two slides of my talk are: [Late Pundit Jawaharlal the first Prime Minister used the word sustainable development in water resources development] —
Water is a Natural-Renewable-Scarce Resource Fundamental to Life, Livelihood, Food Security, & Sustainable Development. Rainfall & Snowfall are the two Natural Sources for “Renewable Water”. Water resources developmental activities in India are Centuries old practice in a sustainable manner, but the current scenario is highly unsustainable even after spending lakhs of crores of rupees in the building of resource bases. Water Management in a Sustainable Way is of utmost Important. Sustainable Development must meet the basic needs of people “today” without ruining the chances of “future” generation to do the same. However in reality Sustainable Development is hindered by “Climate Change” & “Human Interference”. Here climate change refers to natural variability in precipitation and snowfall. Frequency of occurrence of floods in rivers and water availability in rivers follow this pattern. Without taking this one can’t achieve the sustainability in water.
However, this is drastically modified by pollution. Let me present below the two slides of my talk: River Ganga travels 2525 km from Gangotri in Himalayas and joins Bay of Bengal at Gangasar. On its way, water Quality is affected by Agriculture Runoff [non-point source], Wastewaters from urban areas & Industry [point source], etc. Upstream Dams limit the cleaning up of pollutants in the downstream. In USA, Mississippi River carry the non-point source agriculture runoff and finally dumps into Gulf of Mexico and thus thousands of square kilometers became dead zone.
Sustainable Development a Mirage: Hyderabad an example: Needs protection of water resources: like Himayatsagar & Osmansagar Lakes – of the 932 lakes, around 500 turned in to residential areas, the rest and Musi River around 50% encroached and the rest is filled with poison – groundwater is contaminated with nitrates, sulphates, poisonous chemicals. Needs controlling of water losses: brought at huge cost and of which around 55% is lost through pilferage 60% and leakages 40%. Use treated wastewater: out of 2000 mld, around 715 mld have STPs with around 50% efficiency [all India they are 30 to 70%] and thus when treated water joins untreated finally becomes again as wastewater. So these are basic problems to achieve sustainability in water resources. When we plan we must take all these in to account. But, however, people use in a casual manner “sustainable Development” like “Climate Change”, as an adjective.
Doshi at the end raised the issue of green revolution versus organic. When green revolution technology was introduced in India, the basic problem was not food production but it was the distribution. Even in early 90s, I have seen this in Ethiopia. Some parts of Ethiopia are producing surplus but to transport to deficit areas, there was no transport facility and also hindered by internal struggle. Prior to green Revolution, India used to produce nutritious diet as farming includes animal husbandry. With green Revolution this was disturbed with polluted mono crop. We achieved quantity but not quality. GM technology also uses green revolution technology. So, the green revolution technology created health hazards that costs heavily to citizens as green revolution technology introduced soil-water-air-food pollution. This helped corporate hospitals. FAO reported around 30% of the food produced is going as waste and thus the resources used to produce that are also going as waste. When we talk of sustainability in agriculture we must take in to account all these. In the case of organic farming, animal husbandry becomes a part. When organic farming becomes part of “Cooperative Agriculture” system, the production [food security, economic security, nutritious security] will be more than green revolution technology. Israel has been following this agriculture system. Anand white revolution [Milk] in Gujarat and Sugarcane in Maharashtra are under cooperatives only. However, in agriculture multinational companies are not allowing the Indian government to move in this direction.
Sustainability in isolation has no meaning. Corruption is the root-cause of all ills in developing countries.
Panel Discussion: “State of Water Infrastructure in India”
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
Firstly I am thankful to the organizers for given me this opportunity, Thank you Sir;
India has more than 17.1% of the world’s population, but has only 4.6% of the world’s water resources with 2.3% of the world’s land area. Though in terms of geographical area Chine is around three times to India, population and area under irrigation are more or less the same.
The natural input to any surface water system is precipitation and snow melt which are highly variable with climate change. Also Human interference in terms of pollution and water availability estimates and management play critical role in the quantity and quality of water available in both space and time. In general:
India uses around 25% of the world’s groundwater. Out of the total 5723 groundwater blocks in India, more than 30% are already in the danger zone due to overexploitation. This may go up to 60% by 2025.
In India, in 1960-61, around 30% of the net irrigated area was under wells & bore-wells. This has gone up to around 51% in 1999-00. In undivided AP level, they were 11% and 43%. In addition, wells & bore-wells are the main sources of drinking water in rural India. However, with indiscriminate pumping of groundwater, per pump irrigated area has drastically come down. The River Sarayu that passes through Bihar & UP reduced the width from 1.5 km to 30-40 meters and polluted and thus groundwater depleted and thousands of hand pumps dried.
Immediately after the Independence, the First Prime Minister, Late Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru gave importance to irrigation sector wherein he considered “Dams are the modern Temples”. Yet around 60% of the cultivated area is still at the mercy of “Rain God”. Irrigation Projects have been moving at snails speed as in the 7th & 8th 5-Year plan periods Watershed Development Programme was given top priority as this helped the party cadre to mint money.
Narmada Project is a classical example, which took several decades to complete the project. However, watershed technology failed in undivided Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, etc.
Polavaram multi-purpose-cost effective project was turned into cost-ineffective. This was cleared by the Justice Bachawat Tribunal on all aspects in 1981. Until 2004 nothing has happened. In 2005 Environmental Clearance was obtained. The file on getting the national project status, Just before going to cabinet meet in 2009 Central Water Commission put a break by asking the state to modify the project plan for 50 lakh Cusecs a fictitious figure of maximum flood instead of 38.2 lakh Cusecs.
This raised the cost from Rs. 10,000 crores to Rs. 16,000 crores. While this is going on, the state government completed 1st phase of Rehabilitation and Resettlement, excavation of right and left canals. Just at that time the then Chief Minister was killed.
After the new government was formed in 2014, the cost has gone up to Rs. 60,000 crores – few days back central water resources minister raised this to Rs. 80,000 crores.
In 2015 with three failures, by lifting water through pumps and putting into right canal and claimed it as inter-linking of rivers instead of completing the Polavaram project, that would have provided water through gravity.
In Telangana state, by completing the pending irrigation projects on war-footing the cost of rural-drinking water scheme would have comedown drastically. Also successive governments have been just watching the destruction and polluting the local water resources in and around Hyderabad including the two drinking water reservoirs wherein water is available through gravity. Groundwater is contaminated with nitrates, sulphates and poisonous chemicals.
One-thirds of the Telangana state’s population lives in Hyderabad with huge infrastructure, establishments and industries. At huge cost infrastructure was created to bring water to Hyderabad from River Manjeera, River Krishna and River Godavari but failed to stop huge losses of around 55% of which 60% through pilferages and 40% through leakages. Large population drink purified water.
Around 75% of the water turns into sewage and around 20% is passed through STPs and finally flows in to Musi and again turns into sewage. In the last two decades successive governments planned to convert Musi into Sabarmati, Narmada water flushes the pollution in to the Sea but for Musi proper planning is required.
Industries use “Zero Discharge” to overcome pollution control board’s action. CETPs have no proper technology to treat industrial effluents and thus effluents are diluted with sewage at 50:50 ratios and with some treatment dump into Musi River through Amberpet STP. Rainwater also turns into wastewater with sewage and effluents freely flowing.
The core ailments for these are: they go by theoretical path instead of practical path; under poor ethics and poor governance. Niti Aayog brought out a composite water management index relating to augmentation-restoration & management of water. In the case of urban water management Chinese brought out a “Sponge City” concept [infiltrate, detention, store, clean, utilize, and discharge]. They are theoretically sound but they fail practically in India under climate change and pollution conditions.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
Dr. Tilak K Doshi’s article “The Sense of Sustainability: A Perversion of Meaning” lacks clear clarity on the subject, more particularly on “Sustainability”. On 16th November 2018 American Water Works Association [AWWA] India organized conference and Exibition (AICE), 2018 in Hyderabad. The organizers invited me to present a talk and also asked me to participate in the panel discussion [this note is given at the end]. Title of my talk was “Impact of ‘Climate Change & Human Interference’ on Water Resources Availability in India”. The first two slides of my talk are: [Late Pundit Jawaharlal the first Prime Minister used the word sustainable development in water resources development] —
Water is a Natural-Renewable-Scarce Resource Fundamental to Life, Livelihood, Food Security, & Sustainable Development. Rainfall & Snowfall are the two Natural Sources for “Renewable Water”. Water resources developmental activities in India are Centuries old practice in a sustainable manner, but the current scenario is highly unsustainable even after spending lakhs of crores of rupees in the building of resource bases. Water Management in a Sustainable Way is of utmost Important. Sustainable Development must meet the basic needs of people “today” without ruining the chances of “future” generation to do the same. However in reality Sustainable Development is hindered by “Climate Change” & “Human Interference”. Here climate change refers to natural variability in precipitation and snowfall. Frequency of occurrence of floods in rivers and water availability in rivers follow this pattern. Without taking this one can’t achieve the sustainability in water.
However, this is drastically modified by pollution. Let me present below the two slides of my talk: River Ganga travels 2525 km from Gangotri in Himalayas and joins Bay of Bengal at Gangasar. On its way, water Quality is affected by Agriculture Runoff [non-point source], Wastewaters from urban areas & Industry [point source], etc. Upstream Dams limit the cleaning up of pollutants in the downstream. In USA, Mississippi River carry the non-point source agriculture runoff and finally dumps into Gulf of Mexico and thus thousands of square kilometers became dead zone.
Sustainable Development a Mirage: Hyderabad an example: Needs protection of water resources: like Himayatsagar & Osmansagar Lakes – of the 932 lakes, around 500 turned in to residential areas, the rest and Musi River around 50% encroached and the rest is filled with poison – groundwater is contaminated with nitrates, sulphates, poisonous chemicals. Needs controlling of water losses: brought at huge cost and of which around 55% is lost through pilferage 60% and leakages 40%. Use treated wastewater: out of 2000 mld, around 715 mld have STPs with around 50% efficiency [all India they are 30 to 70%] and thus when treated water joins untreated finally becomes again as wastewater. So these are basic problems to achieve sustainability in water resources. When we plan we must take all these in to account. But, however, people use in a casual manner “sustainable Development” like “Climate Change”, as an adjective.
Doshi at the end raised the issue of green revolution versus organic. When green revolution technology was introduced in India, the basic problem was not food production but it was the distribution. Even in early 90s, I have seen this in Ethiopia. Some parts of Ethiopia are producing surplus but to transport to deficit areas, there was no transport facility and also hindered by internal struggle. Prior to green Revolution, India used to produce nutritious diet as farming includes animal husbandry. With green Revolution this was disturbed with polluted mono crop. We achieved quantity but not quality. GM technology also uses green revolution technology. So, the green revolution technology created health hazards that costs heavily to citizens as green revolution technology introduced soil-water-air-food pollution. This helped corporate hospitals. FAO reported around 30% of the food produced is going as waste and thus the resources used to produce that are also going as waste. When we talk of sustainability in agriculture we must take in to account all these. In the case of organic farming, animal husbandry becomes a part. When organic farming becomes part of “Cooperative Agriculture” system, the production [food security, economic security, nutritious security] will be more than green revolution technology. Israel has been following this agriculture system. Anand white revolution [Milk] in Gujarat and Sugarcane in Maharashtra are under cooperatives only. However, in agriculture multinational companies are not allowing the Indian government to move in this direction.
Sustainability in isolation has no meaning. Corruption is the root-cause of all ills in developing countries.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
Conti—-Panel Discussion: “State of Water Infrastructure in India”
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
Firstly I am thankful to the organizers for given me this opportunity, Thank you Sir;
India has more than 17.1% of the world’s population, but has only 4.6% of the world’s water resources with 2.3% of the world’s land area. Though in terms of geographical area Chine is around three times to India, population and area under irrigation are more or less the same.
The natural input to any surface water system is precipitation and snow melt which are highly variable with climate change. Also Human interference in terms of pollution and water availability estimates and management play critical role in the quantity and quality of water available in both space and time. In general:
India uses around 25% of the world’s groundwater. Out of the total 5723 groundwater blocks in India, more than 30% are already in the danger zone due to overexploitation. This may go up to 60% by 2025.
In India, in 1960-61, around 30% of the net irrigated area was under wells & bore-wells. This has gone up to around 51% in 1999-00. In undivided AP level, they were 11% and 43%. In addition, wells & bore-wells are the main sources of drinking water in rural India. However, with indiscriminate pumping of groundwater, per pump irrigated area has drastically come down. The River Sarayu that passes through Bihar & UP reduced the width from 1.5 km to 30-40 meters and polluted and thus groundwater depleted and thousands of hand pumps dried.
Immediately after the Independence, the First Prime Minister, Late Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru gave importance to irrigation sector wherein he considered “Dams are the modern Temples”. Yet around 60% of the cultivated area is still at the mercy of “Rain God”. Irrigation Projects have been moving at snails speed as in the 7th & 8th 5-Year plan periods Watershed Development Programme was given top priority as this helped the party cadre to mint money.
Narmada Project is a classical example, which took several decades to complete the project. However, watershed technology failed in undivided Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, etc.
Polavaram multi-purpose-cost effective project was turned into cost-ineffective. This was cleared by the Justice Bachawat Tribunal on all aspects in 1981. Until 2004 nothing has happened. In 2005 Environmental Clearance was obtained. The file on getting the national project status, Just before going to cabinet meet in 2009 Central Water Commission put a break by asking the state to modify the project plan for 50 lakh Cusecs a fictitious figure of maximum flood instead of 38.2 lakh Cusecs.
This raised the cost from Rs. 10,000 crores to Rs. 16,000 crores. While this is going on, the state government completed 1st phase of Rehabilitation and Resettlement, excavation of right and left canals. Just at that time the then Chief Minister was killed.
After the new government was formed in 2014, the cost has gone up to Rs. 60,000 crores – few days back central water resources minister raised this to Rs. 80,000 crores.
In 2015 with three failures, by lifting water through pumps and putting into right canal and claimed it as inter-linking of rivers instead of completing the Polavaram project, that would have provided water through gravity.
In Telangana state, by completing the pending irrigation projects on war-footing the cost of rural-drinking water scheme would have comedown drastically. Also successive governments have been just watching the destruction and polluting the local water resources in and around Hyderabad including the two drinking water reservoirs wherein water is available through gravity. Groundwater is contaminated with nitrates, sulphates and poisonous chemicals.
One-thirds of the Telangana state’s population lives in Hyderabad with huge infrastructure, establishments and industries. At huge cost infrastructure was created to bring water to Hyderabad from River Manjeera, River Krishna and River Godavari but failed to stop huge losses of around 55% of which 60% through pilferages and 40% through leakages. Large population drink purified water.
Around 75% of the water turns into sewage and around 20% is passed through STPs and finally flows in to Musi and again turns into sewage. In the last two decades successive governments planned to convert Musi into Sabarmati, Narmada water flushes the pollution in to the Sea but for Musi proper planning is required.
Industries use “Zero Discharge” to overcome pollution control board’s action. CETPs have no proper technology to treat industrial effluents and thus effluents are diluted with sewage at 50:50 ratios and with some treatment dump into Musi River through Amberpet STP. Rainwater also turns into wastewater with sewage and effluents freely flowing.
The core ailments for these are: they go by theoretical path instead of practical path; under poor ethics and poor governance. Niti Aayog brought out a composite water management index relating to augmentation-restoration & management of water. In the case of urban water management Chinese brought out a “Sponge City” concept [infiltrate, detention, store, clean, utilize, and discharge]. They are theoretically sound but they fail practically in India under climate change and pollution conditions.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
Panel Discussion: “State of Water Infrastructure in India”
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
Firstly I am thankful to the organizers for given me this opportunity, Thank you Sir;
India has more than 17.1% of the world’s population, but has only 4.6% of the world’s water resources with 2.3% of the world’s land area. Though in terms of geographical area Chine is around three times to India, population and area under irrigation are more or less the same.
The natural input to any surface water system is precipitation and snow melt which are highly variable with climate change. Also Human interference in terms of pollution and water availability estimates and management play critical role in the quantity and quality of water available in both space and time. In general:
India uses around 25% of the world’s groundwater. Out of the total 5723 groundwater blocks in India, more than 30% are already in the danger zone due to overexploitation. This may go up to 60% by 2025.
In India, in 1960-61, around 30% of the net irrigated area was under wells & bore-wells. This has gone up to around 51% in 1999-00. In undivided AP level, they were 11% and 43%. In addition, wells & bore-wells are the main sources of drinking water in rural India. However, with indiscriminate pumping of groundwater, per pump irrigated area has drastically come down. The River Sarayu that passes through Bihar & UP reduced the width from 1.5 km to 30-40 meters and polluted and thus groundwater depleted and thousands of hand pumps dried.
Immediately after the Independence, the First Prime Minister, Late Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru gave importance to irrigation sector wherein he considered “Dams are the modern Temples”. Yet around 60% of the cultivated area is still at the mercy of “Rain God”. Irrigation Projects have been moving at snails speed as in the 7th & 8th 5-Year plan periods Watershed Development Programme was given top priority as this helped the party cadre to mint money.
Narmada Project is a classical example, which took several decades to complete the project. However, watershed technology failed in undivided Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, etc.
Polavaram multi-purpose-cost effective project was turned into cost-ineffective. This was cleared by the Justice Bachawat Tribunal on all aspects in 1981. Until 2004 nothing has happened. In 2005 Environmental Clearance was obtained. The file on getting the national project status, Just before going to cabinet meet in 2009 Central Water Commission put a break by asking the state to modify the project plan for 50 lakh Cusecs a fictitious figure of maximum flood instead of 38.2 lakh Cusecs.
This raised the cost from Rs. 10,000 crores to Rs. 16,000 crores. While this is going on, the state government completed 1st phase of Rehabilitation and Resettlement, excavation of right and left canals. Just at that time the then Chief Minister was killed.
After the new government was formed in 2014, the cost has gone up to Rs. 60,000 crores – few days back central water resources minister raised this to Rs. 80,000 crores.
In 2015 with three failures, by lifting water through pumps and putting into right canal and claimed it as inter-linking of rivers instead of completing the Polavaram project, that would have provided water through gravity.
In Telangana state, by completing the pending irrigation projects on war-footing the cost of rural-drinking water scheme would have comedown drastically. Also successive governments have been just watching the destruction and polluting the local water resources in and around Hyderabad including the two drinking water reservoirs wherein water is available through gravity. Groundwater is contaminated with nitrates, sulphates and poisonous chemicals.
One-thirds of the Telangana state’s population lives in Hyderabad with huge infrastructure, establishments and industries. At huge cost infrastructure was created to bring water to Hyderabad from River Manjeera, River Krishna and River Godavari but failed to stop huge losses of around 55% of which 60% through pilferages and 40% through leakages. Large population drink purified water.
Around 75% of the water turns into sewage and around 20% is passed through STPs and finally flows in to Musi and again turns into sewage. In the last two decades successive governments planned to convert Musi into Sabarmati, Narmada water flushes the pollution in to the Sea but for Musi proper planning is required.
Industries use “Zero Discharge” to overcome pollution control board’s action. CETPs have no proper technology to treat industrial effluents and thus effluents are diluted with sewage at 50:50 ratios and with some treatment dump into Musi River through Amberpet STP. Rainwater also turns into wastewater with sewage and effluents freely flowing.
The core ailments for these are: they go by theoretical path instead of practical path; under poor ethics and poor governance. Niti Aayog brought out a composite water management index relating to augmentation-restoration & management of water. In the case of urban water management Chinese brought out a “Sponge City” concept [infiltrate, detention, store, clean, utilize, and discharge]. They are theoretically sound but they fail practically in India under climate change and pollution conditions.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
If we accept that Sustainability is “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”, then we must note that ALL past generations have passed on an “unsustainable” world to their children. Whale oil for lamps, horses for transportation, peak oil, peak food, peak whatever. Statist sustainability requires that the needs of future generation can only be met in exactly the way those needs are met NOW.
Static bureaucrats may shake their heads, but dynamic technology always wins.
Not correct. Past generations passed on sustainable world to their children but this was affected by greedy western multinational companies that changed the sustainability in agriculture into unsustainable. I studied using kerosene lamp. My children and grand-children are studying using electric lamp. This digraded the environment several ways with unhealthy bodies.
In agriculture, farmers developed concepts over centures in terms of space and time. Now, technologies were developed based on few years experience that lead polluted food.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
…and the statist bureaucrat shakes his head…
Perhaps you should ask your children and grandchildren whether they would prefer a kerosene lamp to electricity.
Go ask the whales about whale oil. Electricity is not necessarily “unsustainable”. The main problem here is that scientists and politicians have taken over what is actually an engineering problem!
Word “Green” means in addition to a color also a “novice”, “uneducated”, “uninformed”. So, a “green idea” is something that is not sustainable, not thoroughly thought.
The word “green” was coinned by the profiteers. In fact I called the traditional system as “Green” Green Revolution and the so-called green revolution as “Yellowish-blue-green” Green Revolution technology. This is presented in my book published in 2011 — available on line.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
What is wrong with profits?
Nothing wrong with profit; but destroying the environment to get that profit is wrong — the path chosen to achieve profit is wrong.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
Sustainability has no meaning beyond the individual. The same thing with efficiency of energy use. My 4th law of economics states: Any attempt by governments to lower energy usage by promoting energy efficiency is doomed to failure. The reason is simple. If an individual saves money by increased efficiency on energy ; that individual will either put the saved money in the bank or spend it. If he/she spends it it will involve using energy of some sort. If he/she puts it into the bank, then the bank will lend that money to someone else that will use the money to either buy products that use energy or some service that uses energy. Either way energy is not saved in the end. Of course the individual is always better off individually if he/she uses energy efficiently.
both ambiguity and emoting (a substitute for thinking) are both important tools in the arsenal of the leftists. Put them together and you have an ideal tool for totalitarianism.
In Australia we get TV commercials encouraging gambling on horse races, with the entreaty “Gamble responsibly.” How long before we see “Gamble sustainably”? Geoff
“If you can’t explain it to a six year old, you don’t understand it yourself.”
― Albert Einstein
Where i live is only 33 miles long and 11 wide.
Down south we have peaty clay heavy soil,……
Up north shingle and sandy soil.
Barley wheat oat’s, are our cereal crops,…….
Every year without fail the harvezters work north to south,
Spring or winter sown doesnt matter, theres 3/4 weeks difference between the 2 ends of the Island.
Theres no difference in yield, but theres definately a difference in crop high.