A price tag on nature
TEEB estimates that every year the world loses $2-4.5 trillion worth of natural capital. Does it make sense to put an economic value to our natural resources? Darryl D'Monte explores
Gloom and doom unlimited?
Three recent reports underline once again the impending global ecological crisis. Will Rio+20 this June help us arrest the race to catastrophe, asks Darryl D'Monte
Linking rivers: Tragedy of errors
The river-linking project needs to be given a decent burial, says Darryl D'Monte, but instead, the Supreme Court has exceeded its brief and asked the centre to implement it
The high costs of poor sanitation
Despite the Total Sanitation Campaign launched since 1991, just 30,000 of 600,000 villages are free of open defecation today. The economic impact of poor sanitation in India is Rs 2.46 trillion or 6.5% of the GDP, writes Darryl D’Monte
Exit endosulfan
India manufactures 70% of the world’s endosulfan, which explains why there has been such a strong lobby against its ban, despite evidence of its health hazards. But India has finally dropped its opposition to a ban on endosulfan, thanks largely to the campaign against the pesticide by Kerala’s people and government
Making sanitation as popular as cricket
700 million Indians have cell phones, but 638 million still don’t have access to proper sanitation. At this year’s South Asian Conference on Sanitation, social solutions to the problem were discussed, including “naming and shaming” and the CLTS programme which gets villagers to map the open areas where they defecate
Rethinking fossil fuel subsidies
The government has proposed direct cash transfers instead of subsidies on essential items including kerosene and diesel to the poor. The country certainly cannot permit the huge losses from subsidies any more, says Darryl D’Monte, but it remains to be seen whether cash transfers or a coupon system, or even a combination of such reforms, will work
Small green hope in India's burgeoning construction industry
Most of India’s construction industry mimics the energy-inefficient glass-and-steel buildings of the West. But with the introduction of two green rating systems for buildings, the revival of traditional architecture and 30 architecture/engineering colleges introducing green certification courses, the country is slowly building up capacity to construct green buildings
Ecological illiteracy regarding Mumbai
Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh recently increased the floor space index in Mumbai’s coastal belts. It’s a move doomed to fail; and will only add to the city’s cup of environmental woes, writes Darryl D’Monte
Renewable energies as big business opportunities?
Biomass and biogas are the cheap, decentralised renewable energies to choose for India. But the ministry of renewable energies -- and the technocrats and entrepreneurs surrounding it -- appear to favour hi-tech solutions such as grid solar power, with only a few exceptions such as the project to produce power from rice husk in 10,000 villages in eastern India
