Impact of Climate change on Economy

Currently the world is in severe economic crisis, triggered by the failing liquidity in the major banks of the world. The immediate outcome of this was evident on the stock markets. This is perhaps one of the largest stock market failures since the Great Depression.

However, the stock market crash is but a trifle in front of the economic disaster that is awaiting us in the near future.

Can you think about a world sans oil?

Oh well, that is the thing that is happening.
Alas, exploitation of natural resources is something that is happening. However, people have stepped forward and discussed on this issue.
Yet there is an imminent threat, known as global climate change. It is also a result of a phenomenon known as global warming, just as the stock market crash has been the result of failing banks.

The Ecology department of the state of Washington projects the following:
The economic effects of climate change in Washington will grow as temperatures increase.

• Direct costs of fighting wildfires may exceed $75 million per year by the 2020s. This is a 50 percent increase from current costs and does not take into account the costs of the lost timber value.
• Water conservation costs to offset the decline in guaranteed water of Seattle's water supply due to climate change impacts could exceed $8 million per year by the 2020s and $16 million per year by the 2040s. Eastern Washington communities in Spokane and Yakima will face similar impacts.
• Public health costs will increase due to smoke related health problems like asthma from wildfires.
• Tourism and recreation losses related to forest closures and smoke intrusion from wildfires could increase in some locations. An increase in flooding will also affect this area of the state's economy.
• Hydropower revenues may be affected as water management changes in response to rising temperatures. University of Washington researchers suggest at most a 5% loss or $166 million per year.
• Consumers could face water price increases in some basins. Water conservation costs about $680,000 per million gallons per day.
• Dairy cows are affected by higher-than-optimal temperatures. Dairy revenues in two counties may decline by as much as $6 million per year by the 2040s.
• More frequent droughts in Yakima may cause crop losses. While drought does not occur every year, the averaged losses may increase by $66 million for Yakima. Other agricultural areas statewide are likely to be similarly effected.
• New sea level rise projections could trigger costly re-design of long-term investments in shoreline protection such as Seattle's Alaskan Way seawall increasing its cost by $25 to $50 million. A 2-foot rise in the sea level will flood 35,848 acres and affect 44,429 people in the Puget Sound.
• Flooding due to more intense rainstorms, impacts on public health due to heat and vector-related illness such as West Nile virus, and impacts on snow sports as well as salmon and other fisheries are likely to increase as the climate warms up.
• Cumulative economic effects are usually larger than the sum of obvious individual sector effects, such as those listed above. This is because of interactions between industries and economic sectors which depend on each other. As one industry declines, another may follow.

It is very important to take into account the fact that the figures given here are just for the state of Washington. Therefore we can assume the impact of it on the world.

Due to the ever increasing temperatures, the global climate can change and will be impossible to stop after a 20 years or so.

We have to start now!

Change of Attitudes

I was recently talking to my friend at school. She was saying about her birthday gift. She was to have a Honda Activa. It is actually a vehicle, a scooter.

Well, she is only 16.
She can and should drive.

But when I Asked her about why did she not take an electric vehicle, she answered,"What! Electric Vehicles! No way! I'd rather walk than drive that."
Well, it is not her fault. She reflects what most people in India think about Eco-friendly technologies.

Speed matters more than the Earth.
I was talking with a person i know very well. He drives a Pulsar 220 motorbike. I asked him why did he not take an electric vehicle when he easily could take ten of them, and that to powerful ones. He answered that,"I won't get speed and acceleration with that. No way! 40 to 60 kmph, nope, thats not what i want. I want Speed."
When i reminded him that he is not Valentino Rossi and does not get any money after winning a race but a punishment from the traffic rules, he lambasts me.

Imagine, Speed more important than the Earth.

Style
Electric Vehicles do not look cool.
Stupidity.
It is foolish thoughts, after seeing some of the more stylish vehicles produced from Honda and Mercedes.


But what can a person do?
Even if after all the things being said they don't understand then what can the activist do?
And then they blame us.
They blame us for unnecessarily taking up issues to disturb them. Then, they blame us for all the lack of initiatives to save the Earth.
I have only one thing to say for them.

Rise People, Rise;
Rise from you drunken stupor;
Save the World
Change your Attitudes

NSG waiver to India

The "clean waiver" passed by the NSG, on September 6, 2008, was indeed a turning point to the futures of Indian energy crisis.
Crisis it is, for I am in India, and I know very well. We face here power cuts for 7 hours and 30 minutes. The clean chit given by NSG is really a great boon. Following the waiver, many big industrialists are keen to expand there own business and take nuclear power commercially. More than 35 public sector industries have already making plans about future power plants.

But, amidst all this, how can we forgive the amount of nuclear waste that is going to come out from all these new nuclear reactors. The question of maintaining the guidelines often comes to one's mind. The large amount of nuclear wastes will cause a lot of problems.

Though it may significantly reduce the gap between demand and production, it may come at the cost of billions of dollars.

Hope for the best!

Arctic circumnavigation..........

Well!
That's now a fact. for the first time in history can we circumnavigate the arctic ice cap. If you don't believe it then look for yourself:

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/for-the-first-time-in-human-history-the-north-pole-can-be-circumnavigated-913924.html

let us all first start with a geographical description of how the north polar ice cap is. Starting from the Bering bay, ice is found all over the arctic ocean except for some places like the Bering strait. But truly, never was it expected to find no ice in the Baffin island, nor was it expected that ice will melt within the 80 latitude zone. The Independent revealed that:

"But it is the simultaneous opening – for the first time in at least 125,000 years – of the North-west passage around Canada and the North-east passage around Russia that promises to deliver much the greatest shock. Until recently both had been blocked by ice since the beginning of the last Ice Age."

Strange but true, as this situation was not expected before 2050. Just imagine! 2050! And we have got this 42 years before. Again, from The Independent :

"Many scientists now predict that the Arctic ocean will be ice-free in summer by 2030 – and a landmark study this year by Professor Wieslaw Maslowski at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, concluded that there will be no ice between mid-July and mid-September as early as 2013."

Alas, some day will come when there will be no ice on the top of the world. Polar bears shall swim in hope of a home. But that will only be a false hope. No ice, just as it was projected in his documentary for global warming, "An inconvenient truth", by Al Gore.
Days will come when Antarctica will also melt, and the dramatic effects of it will be felt worldwide.
Days will come when all of New York will be under water. Hong Kong, Shanghai, Mumbai, Sydney shall all be underwater. Those who quaff all these off by saying, "Rubbish", think again. This was projected in 2005, along with the fact that arctic will sport no ice during the summers.
All that has been projected is coming true, but at a level more alarming than before. Even as I write, a boy starts his motorbike, and like a fool accelerates it standing on neutral. His massive 500 cc engine roars. And he does all this just to impress a girl living next door.
Really!
Sometimes I feel what is it to them? What if there is no ice at the north pole? What the damn do they care about polar bears. Yet he was telling me some days ago how the rains haven't been upto the mark in Nagpur and how it wreaked havoc in West Bengal. He said, "yaar! Barish to pagal ho gayi hai ( Man! The rains have gone mad)".
I tried to explain him the gravity of the situation to which he answered, "Bore mat kar (Don't be a bore) "

Well, there you go. Similar to him are the shipping companies, who will use it to speed up the trade between the two continents of North America and Asia.

God, save us! Apocalypse is not far away if this continues.
Such incidents will continue to happen, and happen for a long time if don't change our habits. Such incidents bend our attention towards our dear mother nature. She needs care and attention in such a time of distress.

Let us help her. Let us all be good sons and daughters of mother Earth.

Global Warming: Doomsday

I was watching Albert Gore's documentary, An Inconvenient Truth.
I don't know how many of those people have actually seen the film, but it is worth a watch. It indeed was a very informative experience for me, and something which set my brain thinking. My intention is only to put forward my thoughts, on this delicate subject.
What it is to a dog on the streets, this talks of Global climate change?
What is it to a horse which knows nothing but to run wild?
Nothing.
Perhaps, nothing.
But the world is changing. We know it is changing because of everything that is happening in it. We know it. It is in the air and it is around us : the world is changing. Fiercer storms, powerful showers, cloud bursts, drought, floods, etc. We know, for we see it.
So whose responsibility is this?
Dog's?
Horse's?
Or the ones who see it happening. Us?

We know the answers. Us. OK. So what? All the person's are shouting for this, Boring Blog! What's new?
I don't know. Nothing's new in this. But I wish it was new. IF it is old then why haven't people actually have done something? The world's going to end, be it in 30, 40 or 50 years. This won't be a world which I know. Pollution, Storms, Droughts and what not will happen when my heirs will come on to be. Gore says very well
"My fellow Americans, people all over the world, we need to solve the climate crisis. It's not a political issue; it's a moral issue. We have everything we need to get started, with the possible exception of the will to act. That's a renewable resource. Let's renew it."

We must change it because we know what is happening. Mahatma Gandhi said, "This world has everything for everyone's need, but not for everyone's greed"

Just imagine, this world will have its temperature raised above 51ºC where I live. Glacier's ice will no longer be there. No more polar ice caps, no polar bears or penguins nestling inside their mother's for warmth (they will have lots of "warmth ", I am sure).
When I went to Badrinath a few years ago, I saw beautiful picture filled with snow. I asked the owner of the inn in which I was staying where exactly was this. What he answered was strange. He said , "It is Badrinath. 35 years ago"
Startling, because now Badrinath sports of no glaciers.

IN the last 650,000 years, levels of carbon dioxide have increased by astronomical leaps and bounds: by a whopping 1500% times! The last 18 years has had the 10 most hottest years on Earth since it was made. We have also the most powerful storms in the history of Mankind in the last few years.
It is only in our hand if we wish to reverse it or not. The most essential need is the will act.
I list here three things that a person could do to help:
1. Walk or use a bicycle to near distances
2. Please use Electric vehicles if one is available near you
3. Learn to use eco-friendly practices, and put them into practice

I ask all people reading this Blog to follow this 3 principles
Hey, it is important.
I write this because I want something, which without your collaboration is impossible. I want my children to see a world which is not heating up. I want my children to see glaciers. I want them to see the most beautiful ice caps of this world, and the polar bear, and the penguins. I don't want to show them storms and droughts.

I want them to see the Earth

I want to show them life.

Help me.
Save the world.