EPC

Environmental pollution and its characteristics

Generally speaking,environmental pollutants is in lower concentration and long duration

Environmental pollutants can be changed by the biological or chemical effect in environment

The goal of environmental pollution control

Prevent pollutants going to water, atmosphere and soil system

Restore the use function of natural ecosystem

Planning

1.A basic management function involving formulation of one or

more detailed plans to achieve optimum balance of needs or demands with the available resources. The planning

process

(1) identifies the goals or objectives to be achieved,

(2) formulates strategies to achieve them,

(3) arranges or creates the means required, and

(4) implements, directs, and monitors all steps in their proper sequence.

2.The control of development by a local authority, through regulation and licensing

for land use changes and building.

ENVIRONMENTAL PLANNING TOOLS AND

TECHNIQUES

Environmental planning concerns itself with the decision making processes where they are required for managing

relationships that exist within and between natural systems and human systems. Environmental planning endeavors to

manage these processes in an effective, orderly, transparent and equitable manner for the benefit of all constituents within

such systems for the present and for the future. Present day environmental planning practices are the result of continuous

refinement and expansion of the scope of such decision making processes. Some of the main elements of present day

environmental planning are:

Social & economic development

Urban development

Regional development

Natural resource management & integrated land use

Infrastructure systems

Governance frameworks

The environmental planning assessments encompass areas such as land use, socio-

economics, transportation, economic and housing characteristics, air pollution, noise pollution, the wetlands, habitat of

the endangered species, flood zones susceptibility, coastal zones erosion, and visual studies among others, and is referred

to as an Integrated environmental planning assessment.[1] It is the ability to analyze environmental issues that will facilitate

critical decision making.

Common rules for environment planning.

1. Numerical standards for environmental pollution

2. Regulation of emissions of polluting substances

3. Regulation of the manufacturing sector

4. Land use regulations

5. Monitoring and measurement regimes

6. Pollution prevention programs

7. Pollution prevention facilities and systems

8. Subsidy schemes for businesses to reduce pollution levels

9. Compensation for pollution victims

10. Dispute resolution mechanisms

The Basic Law for Environmental Pollution

Environmental Management Systems (EMS) An Environment Management System (EMS) is a tool for managing the impacts of an organisation's activities on the environment. It provides a

structured approach to planning and implementing environment protection measures.

An EMS monitors environmental performance, similar to the way a financial management system monitors expenditure and income and enables

regular checks of a company's financial performance. An EMS integrates environmental management into a company's daily operations, long

term planning and other quality management systems.

Need of EMS

Serves as a tool, or process, to improve environmental performance and information mainly "design, pollution control and waste

minimization, training, reporting to top management, and the setting of goals"

Provides a systematic way of managing an organization’s environmental affairs

Is the aspect of the organization’s overall management structure that addresses immediate and long-term impacts of its products,

services and processes on the environment. EMS assists with planning, controlling and monitoring policies in an organization.

Gives order and consistency for organizations to address environmental concerns through the allocation of resources, assignment of

responsibility and ongoing evaluation of practices, procedures and processes

Creates environmental buy-in from management and employees and assigns accountability and responsibility.

Sets framework for training to achieve objectives and desired performance.

Helps understand legislative requirements to better determine a product or service's impact, significance, priorities and objectives.

Focuses on continual improvement of the system and a way to implement policies and objectives to meet a desired result. This also

helps with reviewing and auditing the EMS to find future opportunities.

Encourages contractors and suppliers to establish their own EMS.

Components of an EMS

To develop an EMS, an organisation has to assess its environmental impacts, set targets to reduce these impacts, and plan how to achieve the

targets.

The most important component of an EMS is organisational commitment. For an effective EMS to be developed and implemented, you need

commitment from the very top of the organisation, as well as all staff. Following are more examples of components that should be considered

when developing an EMS.

Environmental Policy: this is a statement of what an organisation intends to achieve from an EMS. It ensures all environmental activities are

consistent with the organisation's objectives.

Environmental Impact Identification: identification and documentation of the actual and potential environmental impacts of an organisation's

operations need to be undertaken. This can be achieved through undertaking an environmental audit.

Objectives and Targets: an environmental audit forms the basis of determining an organisation's environmental objectives and targets. An

organisation can find benefits in adopting more stringent longer term objectives to encourage it to improve its performance. To continually

improve, targets should be regularly reviewed.

Consultation: staff and community consultation should be undertaken before, during and after establishment of an EMS. This is necessary to

ensure that all staff are involved in, and committed to the EMS. It can also help to improve public perception of the company, one of the benefits

of implementing an EMS.

Operational and Emergency Procedures: all procedures should be reviewed to ensure they are compatible with the organisation's

environmental objectives and targets. Any changes should be included with the documentation.

Environmental Management Plan: this details the methods and procedures which an organisation will use to meet its objectives and targets.

Documentation: all objectives, targets, policies, responsibilities and procedures should be documented along with information on environmental

performance. Documentation is useful for verifying environmental performance to staff, regulators and the community.

Responsibilities and Reporting Structure: responsibilities need to be allocated to staff and management to ensure the EMS is implemented

effectively.

Training: staff should undergo environmental awareness training to familiarise them with their responsibilities for implementing the EMS and

with the overall environmental policy and objectives of the organisation. This provides staff with the necessary skill and motivation for the

effective implementation of the EMS.

Review Audits and Monitoring Compliance: review audits should be undertaken regularly to ensure the EMS is achieving its objectives and to

refine operational procedures to meet this goal. In order to ensure regulatory and other requirements are being met, it is often necessary to

undertake regular environmental monitoring.

Continual Improvement: an important component is continual improvement. An EMS comes into its best use when used to review progress

towards the targets and objectives set by a company to protect the environment. The procedures set in place to meet these objectives should be

constantly examined to see if they can be improved or if more effective systems can be introduced.

Benefits of an EMS

An EMS can assist a company in the following ways:

minimise environmental liabilities;

maximize the efficient use of resources;

reduce waste;

demonstrate a good corporate image;

build awareness of environmental concern among employees;

gain a better understanding of the environmental impacts of business activities; and

increase profit, improving environmental performance, through more efficient operations.

An EMS can be a powerful tool for organisations to both improve their environmental performance, and enhance their business efficiency. An

EMS is not prescriptive, rather, it requires organisations to take an active role in examining their practices, and then determining how their

impacts should best be managed. This approach encourages creative and relevant solutions from the organisation itself.

Although the implementation of an EMS is essentially a voluntary initiative, it can also become an effective tool for governments to protect the

environment as it can assist regulation. For example, regulatory systems can encourage organisations to use EMS to meet standards, by

providing incentives for strong environmental performance.

Likewise, organisations can use EMS to ensure that their performance is within regulatory requirements, and to keep ahead of more stringent

regulations which might be introduced in the future.

How It Works

The EMS is based on the "Plan, Do, Check, Act" model of continual improvement, consisting of six major elements:

1. General Requirements - a defined and documented scope of the EMS, which in this case will be all activities, products and services of the City of Saskatoon;

2. Environmental Policy - a statement by the organization of its intentions and principles in relation to overall environmental performance, providing a framework for action and for setting environmental objectives and targets;

3. Planning - identification of environmental aspects and legal/other requirements relating to the aspects, development of objectives, targets and programs to address significant environmental aspects;

4. Implementation and Operation - identification of resources, roles, responsibility and authority, recognition of training requirements, establishment of communication and documentation procedures, development of operational and emergency control programs;

5. Checking - monitoring and measurement of significant aspects/impacts and performance of the EMS in terms of objectives/targets, evaluation of compliance with legal/other requirements, correction and prevention of problems, control of records, internal audit to ensure conformance to and adequacy of the EMS;

6. Management Review - the requirement of top management to review the EMS at planned intervals, and to ensure its continuing suitability, adequacy and effectiveness.

An EMS will enable the City of Saskatoon to conserve resources and to be more productive; it will give all employees and contractors the knowledge they need to eliminate incidents of non-compliance to environmental legislation; it will help to ensure that the best solution is reached from an economic, social and environmental standpoint over the entire lifecycle of a project

Human Quality of Life

"It is quality rather than quantity that matters."

"Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises."

Introduction

Is life worth living ? Why ? Assume science makes you immortal, what will you then do for eternity ? Such questions help us to put into perspective just what is satisfying about life and what we would rather discard. But it also highlights that we would not wish to just repeat the same things over and over again - production line style. Even what we love becomes boring if we are forced to do nothing else, humans need variety in our lives. We can use a form of Kant's categorical imperative to ask "what does what we are doing achieve ?" If we all continue doing it for eternity then what benefit is it to us or our world ? If the answer is "not a lot" then we may wish to reconsider our options and construct a better lifestyle or 'Quality of Life' and this is what we consider here.

Before Darwin gave us 'natural selection' many theories of fitness had been proposed, these mostly derived from ethics and were variants on the question "what is the good life ?". Neo-Darwinism answers this only by saying 'survival', a one-dimensional reduction that trivialises life and cannot distinguish bacteria or virus from human or sequoia tree. Here we will say that fitness or 'Quality of Life' is a multidimensional set of values, unique to each organism, person and context. The higher the complexity of the organism or the more developed the person the more numerous the values or criteria for determining fitness become. This dynamic nature of fitness is very different from the static or fixed criteria previously employed, and reflects the coevolutionary insights arising from complexity science.

Dynamic Fitness

Complex systems grow, they change over time, and humans are one of the most complex systems on the planet. The shifting balance between components, whether in cells, minds or societies, makes a static evaluation of fitness invalid, so we must use a dynamic measure. This measure must take into account not only the effects of actions on the organism but also what effects they have on the environment (including other people). Additionally we must consider effects at different levels, e.g. drugs may be psychologically beneficial but damage our cells. A further complication is that effects vary with time, this can work in many ways, e.g. euphoria today, hangover tomorrow or pain this week, fitness next week.

Quality of Life is often defined in a very negative way, simply as the absence of health threatening hazards from the environment or as the absence of disease or medical problems. Even if we take a more positive approach and consider the advantages the environment offers (e.g. in arts, schools, natural beauty, access and so on) this is again a static viewpoint and assumes that a body that is functioning at its optimum in an optimum environment is somehow also optimised. Nothing could be further from the truth, a vegetable could perhaps say that - but not a human.

Optimising Needs

We saw earlier that our human needs group into many areas, but initially we will take for granted the measurable external Primal (survival) and Social (environmental) needs and concentrate on those higher psychological needs that actually comprise our humanity and what they can contribute to our 'Quality of Life' (QOL). We saw that these needs are implemented at an abstract level, they do not relate to the physical world, thus our evaluation of them (in ourselves or in others) is problematical - we cannot measure beauty, or love or understanding using any instrument. Despite this lack of a quantitative absolute measure, we can still easily measure these things in a relative way (e.g. as we do in eye tests - is this lens better than that ?) and for a dynamic fitness evaluation this will suffice.

If we weight (hypothetically) all these needs over a fitness range of 0 to 1, we can see that an optimum fitness could be obtained in multiple ways, there is no 'right' way of living (we are accepting here that we cannot maximise all possible activities at the same time). Similarly, we can see that concentrating exclusively on just one need to the exclusion of others cannot optimise fitness, since having two needs at 0 can't be compensated by a single need going from, say, 0.5 to 1, all three at 0.5 would be fitter. Thus the trend in modern society to specialise could be regarded as fitness reducing to the individual (unlesscompensated by other areas). The lack of independence between needs results from many causes, a prime one being time (e.g. doubling the time we spend playing golf must take that time from somewhere else, perhaps our family life).

Attitudes to Life

In many respects life is what we make it. It is our personal psychological attitude that defines our abstract level satisfaction or otherwise with our lives. Thus if we are an optimist we will see the good aspects of our environment, whilst a pessimist will only see the bad - thus the same environment is perceived differently. This means that environmental or material change is a poor method of optimisation, it is a crude global change that can make life seem

worst for some - even if most like the change. Thus our concentration here on the psychological aspects of fitness should prove beneficial, in the fulfilment of those personal goals that lies behind most definitions of Quality of Life.

Focusing on the abstract aspects of reality gives us considerable scope. The mind (unlinked to material) is totally free, and this freedom means that all of state space is available to us (if we can avoid mental wall building). Thus our options are very much wider than generally believed, assumptions of a static world and a powerless me are invalid. This vast unexplored state space is what we often encounter indreams (day or night) - new free form combinations of existing concepts and variants on them. The world is dynamic and our views are as powerful as we choose to make them. They will be heard if what we say is sensible (and we collectively repeat it often enough !).

Metaneeds

Assuming that there is nothing basically wrong in our life (in other words our Primal and Social need structures are in place) what fitness enhancing actions can we take ? Most of us go through life in a repetitive way, we do the same things over and over again, like passive machines. Yet we are not machines, so can readily break free from this outdated deterministic Newtonian model. Even our media and educational systems are locked into this narrow repetitive world - the full diversity and beauty of knowledge and of our world is hidden by a fear of being different, of going beyond the lowest common denominator.

The move towards multiple TV channels, towards online information, towards virtual reality breaks down the stranglehold over information that has steered (and manipulated) our societies over the centuries. New information is itself fitness enhancing, since it provides choice, new options in state space. It also allows us to counter misinformation, to challenge the views that we have had imposed upon us by those holding power (by whatever means). This freedom is itself a major component of Quality of Life.

Social Needs

Returning now to the real world, we must recognise that with all the will in the world we cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. If the world in which we live is actually a bad one in some respects, then we are unwise to persuade ourselves that it is good. This tends to invalidate many forms of psychotherapy, which attempt to make us believe that this is 'the best of all possible worlds', and if we cannot accept that then we must be 'faulty' and need 'reprogramming'. Our world today is far from perfect, and the negative effects on our quality of life is obvious - whether as a result of the need to commute for hours a day, suffering arrogant and insensitive leaders, of intrusive noise or all the other obstructive and restrictive practices that comprise our societies.

This level of needs relates strongly to the structure of our society, to the cultural norms that we invent to simplify our interactions. And make no mistake, we do invent these ideas, the values we put on things, on position, on fame or money are arbitrary. Many alternative value systems are possible and many of these will give a better quality of life. We need to carefully re-evaluate all these social attitudes and behaviours to specify just what benefit or fitness they provide, and to be prepared to discard those that have no benefit. We should augment or add alternatives that are more appropriate to a modern interdisciplinary and multidimensional view of quality.

Primal Needs

Mankind has failed dismally in even meeting the first stage of our species' survival needs. Despite all our technological superiority millions die from starvation, from disease, from flood and from natural disasters every year. Due to the insensitivity of the rich few (their inability or unwillingness to consider fitnesses other than their own) the vast majority have their quality of life reduced. Can any aware person say their fitness is maximised if they know of people dying from neglect elsewhere ? Clearly a fitness maximised world would not tolerate this problem.

Control of nature was one of the early ideas behind science. Despite a rather human centered domination ideology, we now have the ability to seriously raise the quality of life for millions, perhaps billions of the inhabitants of this planet. Given that we are connected nowadays more than ever before, this would considerably increase the fitness of the complex system of which we are a part. Like most aspects of fitness maximisation this isn't to do with material world limitations but with psychological ones. It is a problem of attitude and needs to be addressed initially from the abstract level. Quality of Life, essentially is again all in the mind.

Conclusion

Nature is passive, humans are not. That message means that the value of our lives is a fluid quantity. It depends upon many dynamic aspects, relating not only to our own attitudes but to those of our society and our physical or environmental context. As a species we have far more say in our own Quality of Life than other creatures, indeed since we base much of our perceived social fitness on abstract ideas of worth we are in a position to change this fitness globally, almost overnight. What is required to maximise Quality of Life is largely awareness. Awareness of

options, of alternatives, of the different attitudes than can be taken, of the limitations of conventional thought processes.

Many of our essays and the complexity ideas behind them relate to the re-evaluation of our thought patterns, of our way of treating the world. In essence this means a move from a static mechanical and materialistic perception of reality to an organic multilevel perception of a dynamic and changing reality. In the latter we are all connected parts of one global ecosystem, interdependent and interrelated. What we do affects other people, it affects their Quality of Life - their fitness and they in turn (in coevolutionary fashion) affect ours. Taking these interactions into account is the key to maximising fitness both as individuals and as a species. This is a multidimensional task, there are many values, at many need levels and many social groupings. This web of diversity comprises our Quality of Life.

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human enviroment-

what we live in and around and what we build.

Human Environment interaction is how people use, affect, and are affected by our surrounding

Ecosystem

An ecosystem is a community of living organisms (plants, animals and microbes) in conjunction with the nonliving

components of their environment (things like air, water and mineral soil), interacting as a system.[2] These biotic and abiotic

components are regarded as linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows.[3] As ecosystems are defined by the

network of interactions among organisms, and between organisms and their environment,[4] they can be of any size but

usually encompass specific, limited spaces[5] (although some scientists say that the entire planet is an ecosystem).[6]

Energy, water, nitrogen and soil minerals are other essential abiotic components of an ecosystem. The energy that flows

through ecosystems is obtained primarily from the sun. It generally enters the system through photosynthesis, a process that

also captures carbon from the atmosphere. By feeding on plants and on one another, animals play an important role in the

movement of matter and energy through the system. They also influence the quantity of plant

and microbial biomass present. By breaking down dead organic matter, decomposersrelease carbon back to the

atmosphere and facilitate nutrient cycling by converting nutrients stored in dead biomass back to a form that can be readily

used by plants and other microbes.[7]

Ecosystems are controlled both by external and internal factors. External factors such as climate, the parent material which

forms the soil and topography, control the overall structure of an ecosystem and the way things work within it, but are not

themselves influenced by the ecosystem.[8] Other external factors include time and potential biota. Ecosystems are dynamic

entities—invariably, they are subject to periodic disturbances and are in the process of recovering from some past

disturbance.[9] Ecosystems in similar environments that are located in different parts of the world can have very different

characteristics simply because they contain different species.[8] The introduction of non-native species can cause substantial

shifts in ecosystem function. Internal factors not only control ecosystem processes but are also controlled by them and are

often subject to feedback loops.[8] While the resource inputs are generally controlled by external processes like climate and

parent material, the availability of these resources within the ecosystem is controlled by internal factors like decomposition,

root competition or shading.[8] Other internal factors include disturbance, succession and the types of species present.

Although humans exist and operate within ecosystems, their cumulative effects are large enough to influence external

factors like climate.[8]

Biodiversity affects ecosystem function, as do the processes of disturbance and succession. Ecosystems provide a variety

of goods and services upon which people depend; the principles of ecosystem management suggest that rather than

managing individual species, natural resources should be managed at the level of the ecosystem itself. Classifying

ecosystems into ecologically homogeneous units is an important step towards effective ecosystem management, but there is

no single, agreed-upon way to do this.

Solid Waste

Solid waste means any garbage, refuse, sludge from a wastewater treatment plant, water supply treatment plant, or

air pollution control facility and other discarded materials including solid, liquid, semi-solid, or contained gaseous

material, resulting from industrial, commercial, mining and agricultural operations, and from community activities, but

does not include solid or dissolved materials in domestic sewage, or solid or dissolved materials in irrigation return

flows or industrial discharges that are point sources subject to permit under 33 USC 1342, as amended (86 Stat. 880),

or source, special nuclear or by-product material as defined by the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended (68 Stat.

923) except as may be provided by existing agreements between the State of New York and the government of the

United States (see section 360-1.3 of this Part).

In Simple Words - Solid wastes are any discarded or abandoned materials. Solid wastes can be solid, liquid, semi-

solid or containerized gaseous material.

Examples of solid wastes include the following materials when discarded:

waste tires

septage

scrap metal

latex paints

furniture and toys

garbage

appliances and vehicles

oil and anti-freeze

empty aerosol cans, paint cans and compressed gas cylinders

construction and demolition debris, asbestos

Solid waste can be classified into different types depending on their source:

a) Household waste is generally classified as municipal waste,

b) Industrial waste as hazardous waste, and

c) Biomedical waste or hospital waste as infectious waste.

Hazardous Waste

"any substance which exceeds a threshold level of one or more of the following

intrinsic hazardous properties:

- an explosive nature

- flammability

- an oxidising nature

- toxicity

- corrosiveness

- ecotoxicity with or without bioaccumulation

- evolving substances with one or more of the above properties on release into the

environment"

Mgmt of Hazardous waste

Global Warming

Global warming is the greatest challenge facing our planet. It is, in fact, the increase in the temperature of the earth’s neon-

surface air. It is one of the most current and widely discussed factors. It has far-reaching impact on biodiversity and climatic

conditions of the planet. Several current trends clearly demonstrate that global warming is directly impacting on rising sea

levels, the melting of ice caps and significant worldwide climate changes. In short, global warming represents a fundamental

threat to all living things on earth.

Global average temperature rose significantly during the past century. The prevailing scientific view is that most of the

temperature increases since mid-20th century has been caused by increases in atmospheric greenhouse gas

concentrations produced by human activity. Most scientists agree that planet’s temperature has risen 0.5 degree Celsius

since 1900 and will continue to increase at an increasing rate. As a result, the world is getting warmer. The year 1990 was

the hottest year in the last century.

Together with 1991, the years of 1983, 1987, 1988 and 1989 have been measured to be the warmest six years in the last

hundred years. The year 1991 was the second warmest year of the past century. The consequences of the rise in

temperature is being felt all over the globe the findings of scientific research done in this field reveal that the temperature of

the earth is likely to rise from 1.4°C to 5.8°C within a period of 100 years.

Unfortunately, the imbalance which we have created between our life and earth is already showing the signs disasters in the

form of flood, cyclones, landslides, tsunami, drought, etc. If the imbalance continues to rise, one day this will pose a question

mark on the existence of this planet. Carbon dioxide (C02) which is an important constituent of environment is causing a

warming effect on the earth’s surface.

It increases the evaporation of water into the atmosphere. Since water vapour itself is a greenhouse gas, this causes still

more warming. The warming causes more water vapour to be evaporated. The C02 level is expected to rise in future due to

ongoing burning of fossil fuels and landuse change. The rate of rise will depend largely on uncertain economic, sociological,

technological and natural developments. Other gases such as methane, CFCs, nitrous oxide, tropospheric ozone are also

responsible for global warming. Increases in all these gases are due to explosive population growth, increased industrial

expansion, technological advancement, deforestation and growing urbanisation, etc.

Trees play a significant role in the global carbon cycle. They are the largest land-based mechanism for removing carbon

dioxide from the air. Deforestation is checking these positive processes. It is the second principle cause of atmospheric

carbon dioxide. Deforestation is responsible for 25 per cent of all carbon emissions entering the atmosphere, by the burning

and cutting of 34 million acres of trees each year. Everyday over 5500 acres of rainforest are destroyed. As a consequence

of massive loss of forests, global CO, levels rise approximately 0.4 per cent each year, the levels not experienced on this

planet for millions of years. As we know the forests are the great absorbers of CO,,.

There is a close relation between global warming and population growth. Today the large population on earth is using the

technologies which are destructive for the earth. Approximately, 80 per cent of atmospheric C02 increases are due to man’s

use of fossil fuels either in the form of coal, gas or oil. A large portion of carbon emission is attributed to the burning of

gasoline in internal-combustion engine of vehicles. Vehicles with poor gas mileage contribute the most to global warming.

Besides, the sulphur group gas is the most harmful for this. Its contribution is 30 per cent in global warming. This gas is also

emitted from the burning of fossil fuels.

Increase in global temperatures will cause rise in sea level.

It will lead to melting of glaciers, changes in rainfall patterns, increased intensity and frequency of extreme weather. As per

the latest survey report the rate of melting of glaciers has seen sharp increase in recent times. Even those glaciers are

affected from global warming which have been considered permanent. The shrinking of glaciers is going to pose a major

problem of drinking water.

The sea levels as a result of melting of glaciers have risen from 0.35 mm to 0.4 mm. Scientists have warned in their reports

that most of the glaciers will disappear within a period of 15 to 25 years. It will create problems of drinking water and food

grains in most of the North American countries. India is not unaffected from it. The Himalayan glaciers have shrunk about 30

per cent after 1970.

The rise in sea levels is a major cause of concern. A large number of cities located in coastal areas will submerge in the sea.

Besides, many island countries will ultimately “lose their existence and will be washed away from the surface of the earth.

The damage of rising sea levels is diverse. Buildings and roads close to the water could be flooded and they could suffer

damage from hurricanes and tropical storms. Experts believe that global warming could increase the intensity of hurricanes

by over 50 per cent. In addition, as the sea rises, beach erosion takes place, particularly on steep banks.

Wetlands are lost as the level rises. Rise in atmospheric temperature will lead to the outbreak of air¬borne and water-borne

diseases. It would also contribute to the rise in death caused by heat. The problem of drought would be frequent.

Consequently, malnutrition and starvation will pose serious challenge before humanity.

Global warming is a great threat to the flora and fauna of the earth. A large number of species of them may become extinct.

The expanse of desert would increase. Low rainfall and rising temperature could add to the intensity and frequency of dusty

storm. This in turn will immensely affect the quality of agricultural land, ultimately causing adverse effect on agricultural

produce. It would have far-reaching socio-economic impact.

In Indian context, the impact of global warming is a matter of grave concern. As is well known, India is mainly an agricultural

country and agriculture here is gamble of the monsoon, e.g. largely depending on rainfall. Though it is to affect the whole

country, the worst likely impact would be on central and northern India which is high-yielding parts of the country. These are

the regions which produce the largest agricultural yield. The rise in atmospheric temperature and fall in rain would naturally

result in decline in crop production. Moreover, it would have great effect on biodiversity as well.

The growing concerns over global temperatures have led to the nations, states, corporations and individuals to draw out a

plan of action to avert the situation. As a result the world’s primary international agreement on combating global warming

was reached in Kyoto in 1997 which came to be known as Kyoto Protocol. However, ten years have passed; the situation

does not appear to be very changed. It seems that the member countries are not very serious about its devastating effects.

In addition, forestation can be of great help in this regard. Planting more trees and reducing timber cuts worldwide will help

restore the imbalance. Secondly, we must follow on environmental policy of ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’, i.e. promoting the reuse

of anything. Thirdly, the use of fuel-efficient vehicles should be promoted as these vehicles have lower emissions of harmful

gases. Fourthly, every individual should be aware of the importance of the protecting environment. Besides, eco- friendly

technologies must be promoted, and must be substituted with the technologies which cause great emission of global

warming gases. Public awareness campaign can be of great help in this regard because unless each and every individual is

aware only governments’ effect cannot bring desired difference.

Green House Effect

Green House Effect is a term used first by J. Fourier in 1827 and it is also called global warming, atmospheric effect or

C02 problem.

Green House means a building made of glass, with heat and humidity regulated by plants, which allows the short

wavelength solar radiation to come in, but does not allow the long wavelength terrestrial infrared radiation to escape.

Similarly the earth’s atmosphere bottles up the energy of the sun and acts like green house where, Co2 acts as glass

windows. Carbon dioxide and water vapours in the atmosphere transmit short wavelength solar radiation but reflect the

longer wavelength heat radiation.

So they trap and re-enforce the solar heat stimulating an effect which is popularly known as green house effect. Thus Green

house effect is progressive warming up of the earth’s surface due to blanketing effect of manmade C02 in the atmosphere.

Green House Gases:

The major green house gases are C02, CH4, N20, CFCs. S02 and 03 also enhance global warming. Recently trifluoromethyl

sulphur pentafluoride SF5 CF3 present at the height of 8 to 32 Kms above the earth’s surface is found to be 18000 to 22000

times more powerful in trapping atmospheric C02.

Relative contribution of green house gases:-

C02 = 50%, CH4 = 19%, CFC= 17%, 03 = 8%, N2Q = 4%, H2Q = 2%

Global Warming Potential:

The potential of a green house gas to cause global warming is expressed by GWP; it is a function of both the infrared

asorption characteristics and the lifetime of the gas. CFC > N20 > CH4 > C02

Harmful Impacts of Global Warming

The global mean temperature will rise by 1 to 3.5°C by the next century. Melting of polar ice will lead to increased radiation

as frozen ice is a good reflector of incoming solar radiation. With the increase in temperature soil becomes dry and durf and

goes easily to the air.

In cold places it causes smog formation, and in hot places dust particles scatter sunlight by decreasing the extent of sunlight

received, as a result photosynthesis process is affected. More flooding of tropical water leads to an increase in

schistosomias, a chronic parasitic disease.

Increase rainfall in tropical and subtropical regions produce more stagnant water which becomes a homeland for

mosquitoes. Wheat yield decreases with increasing temperature.

Increase in temperature will also extend the growing season for most of the crops. It will also extend the time when insect,

pests can breed and may make it possible for some species to have another, generation during the year.

There will be shift of animals and human beings towards higher latitudes. This will be a threat to the extinction species, as

they wouldn’t be able to adapt themselves to such conditions. Low lying areas of Kolkata and Dhaka will be flooded. Major

coastal cities such as New York, London, Amsterdam, Venice, Singapore and Jakarta may be flooded.

All agricultural crops will respond favourably to increasing atmospheric concentration of C02 but exploitation of the minerals

from the soil will increase which can make soil barren.

Environmental pollution

The Basic Law for Environmental Pollution Control defines environmental pollution as any activity, by corporations or

individuals, which compromises the health and/or environment of other persons in a localized area, where the causal link is clearly

established. There are seven categories of environmental pollution.