Climate change is already happening worldwide and poses a great threat to the environment. India is now spending over 2.6 percent of its gross domestic product to adjust to climate change according to the country’s annual economic survey, listed in the parliament recently by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee.
Climate is largely affected by human habits and livelihood globally. Several efforts have been made to promote the quick and extensive spread and application of climate friendly technologies to bring climate change to a stop especially in the highly populated subcontinent of India.
Simple solutions like recycling can reduce carbon dioxide emissions and conserve natural resources.
Role of human actions in climate change
Human activities that add to climate change comprise the burning of fossil fuels and waste, agricultural production as well as land-use changes like deforestation. These all cause the emission of carbon dioxide (CO2), the main gas responsible for climate change, and other 'greenhouse' gases. Recycling can surely be promoted more in India but there are some challenges still to be faced.
Lakshmi Narayan, General Secretary of Kagad Kach Patra Kashtakari Panchayat (KKPKP), a union of women rag pickers, whose work involves the separation of domestic garbage into various recyclable items and checking to see if recycling takes place, talks of the problems involved:
"Recycling has never been formally recognized by the state -- all the way from the waste picker to the small scrap dealers to whom they sell scrap to in the recycling and reprocessing industry. In small cities there are organisations giving formal identity cards to waste pickers, otherwise they do not enjoy any privilege."
Recycling benefits all
Global greenhouse gas emissions can be reduced significantly by recycling glass, metals and plastics. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Kyoto protocol have also constantly made efforts to promote recycling for better climate conditions. "Recycling reduces emissions 25 times," says Jyoti Mhapsekar, President of a women’s group Stree Mukti Sangathana in Mumbai. "It not only saves energy and trees but it saves money also. We are against burn technology and composting should be done from the bio degradable waste."
It requires 95 percent less energy to recycle aluminium than it does to make it from raw materials. Producing recycled steel saves 60 percent, recycled newspapers 40 percent, recycled plastics 70 percent and recycled glass 40 percent. The savings far outweigh the energy formed as by-products of burning and land filling. While Lakshmi from KKPKP confirms: "Environmentally we all know that recycling if a better option to handle waste than open dumping. It also ends up reducing the cost of solid waste management."
Climate a concern
While the climate has become a serious reason for concern, recycling is one option for betterment not only in India but globally. Change starts by educating the masses.
"The attitude of 'use and throw' should be re-examined," says Jyoti. "People should be encouraged to recycle. Film and documentaries can be shown to uneducated people in villages. Sometimes it seems that the uneducated do not understand but the educated do not want to understand."
With the UN Copenhagen climate change conference COP15 coming up at the end of this year, one can only hope that climate change can be countered with newer solutions being offered worldwide.
Author: Nikki Rattan
Editor: Grahame Lucas
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Facebook Booming in Indonesia, but Also Controversial
More than a million Indonesians use Facebook
The social networking site Facebook has become increasingly popular across the world over the past two years। In Indonesia, it is the most popular website after Google and Yahoo. But some clerics think it is too popular and want it to be banned in the Muslim country. Others, however, argue that Facebook can be used to promote Islam. For most users it is an ideal forum for discussing topical issues.
In the past year, the number of active Facebook users worldwide has doubled to 150 million। Indonesia, which has a population of 235 million, has 1.3 million users.
Laksmi Pamuntjak, who has written columns and articles on politics, film, food, classical music and literature for Tempo Magazine, is one of them। She logs on to Facebook everyday and says it is a good way of "tracking down old friends and renewing ties, of promoting a cause -- political, social or personal -- and of learning about local and world issues."
Fatwa against Facebook
However, not everybody is in agreement with her. In May, hundreds of clerics from Java and Bali condemned the networking site and called on the country’s religious authorities to issue a fatwa banning Muslims from using Facebook. They said that the site could be used to conduct illicit affairs, flirting or adultery in the name of social networking. The reaction has been subdued and most users have refused to bow down to demands to stop using the site.
Another controversy arose when Prita Mulyasari, a 32-year-old mother of two, was sentenced to jail after being charged with defamation after she complained about treatment she had received at Omni International Hospital and distributed complaint emails online.
Prita was acquitted after spending several weeks in prison but she was later charged with violating a new law on transferring electronic information. She immediately said she would answer a summon to clarify the case.
Resistance to censorship
Laksmi was one of the 100,000 Facebook users who rallied to champion Prita when she was in jail. She is against censorship of Facebook and the Internet: "Freedom of expression is the pillar of individual liberty and of democracy. In Indonesia, in the past few years, there has been an increased tendency towards using Facebook to advance certain political platforms or beliefs."
"This is true in the intensity of discourse around the recent elections; current affairs with a distinct "social injustice" bent such as the case of Prita Mulyasari, who was recently brought to trial for libel by a hospital in Jakarta, the scandal involving Indonesia’s top graft-buster, Antasari Azhar, the debate over the triumph of the anti-pornography law; and a host of cases involving corruption, violence, exploitation, abuse of power, bureaucratic ineptitude, and religious intolerance," she said.
The human rights lawyer Todung Mulya Lubis also supports Facebook: "I don’t think the use of Facebook should be limited to religious teaching only. It would betray the very idea of social networking. However, there should not be a limitation. People mature and become responsible. The abuse of Facebook is an exception, not a rule."
Facebook with all its several merits and demerits is gaining much popularity in Indonesia. Although the clerics may think differently.
Author: Nikki Rattan
Editor: Grahame Lucas
The social networking site Facebook has become increasingly popular across the world over the past two years। In Indonesia, it is the most popular website after Google and Yahoo. But some clerics think it is too popular and want it to be banned in the Muslim country. Others, however, argue that Facebook can be used to promote Islam. For most users it is an ideal forum for discussing topical issues.
In the past year, the number of active Facebook users worldwide has doubled to 150 million। Indonesia, which has a population of 235 million, has 1.3 million users.
Laksmi Pamuntjak, who has written columns and articles on politics, film, food, classical music and literature for Tempo Magazine, is one of them। She logs on to Facebook everyday and says it is a good way of "tracking down old friends and renewing ties, of promoting a cause -- political, social or personal -- and of learning about local and world issues."
Fatwa against Facebook
However, not everybody is in agreement with her. In May, hundreds of clerics from Java and Bali condemned the networking site and called on the country’s religious authorities to issue a fatwa banning Muslims from using Facebook. They said that the site could be used to conduct illicit affairs, flirting or adultery in the name of social networking. The reaction has been subdued and most users have refused to bow down to demands to stop using the site.
Another controversy arose when Prita Mulyasari, a 32-year-old mother of two, was sentenced to jail after being charged with defamation after she complained about treatment she had received at Omni International Hospital and distributed complaint emails online.
Prita was acquitted after spending several weeks in prison but she was later charged with violating a new law on transferring electronic information. She immediately said she would answer a summon to clarify the case.
Resistance to censorship
Laksmi was one of the 100,000 Facebook users who rallied to champion Prita when she was in jail. She is against censorship of Facebook and the Internet: "Freedom of expression is the pillar of individual liberty and of democracy. In Indonesia, in the past few years, there has been an increased tendency towards using Facebook to advance certain political platforms or beliefs."
"This is true in the intensity of discourse around the recent elections; current affairs with a distinct "social injustice" bent such as the case of Prita Mulyasari, who was recently brought to trial for libel by a hospital in Jakarta, the scandal involving Indonesia’s top graft-buster, Antasari Azhar, the debate over the triumph of the anti-pornography law; and a host of cases involving corruption, violence, exploitation, abuse of power, bureaucratic ineptitude, and religious intolerance," she said.
The human rights lawyer Todung Mulya Lubis also supports Facebook: "I don’t think the use of Facebook should be limited to religious teaching only. It would betray the very idea of social networking. However, there should not be a limitation. People mature and become responsible. The abuse of Facebook is an exception, not a rule."
Facebook with all its several merits and demerits is gaining much popularity in Indonesia. Although the clerics may think differently.
Author: Nikki Rattan
Editor: Grahame Lucas
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