18 Apr 2023 : The Hindu Editorial Analysis

Editorial 1: Dealing with extreme heat

Context

• Around 350 million Indians were exposed to strong heat stress between April and May 2022.

 

The data

• Between 1990 and 2019, summer temperatures on average rose by 0.5-0.9°C across districts in Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan; about 54% of India’s districts have also seen a similar rise in winter temperatures.
• Between 2021 and 2050, it is expected that the maximum temperature will rise by 2-3.5°C in 100 districts and by 1.5– 2°C in around 455 districts. Similarly, winter temperatures will rise between 1°C and 1.5°C in around 485 districts.

 

Weather variability

• Our cities are beset with the urban heat island effect, with temperatures 4-12°C higher than rural outlying areas. Humidity has exacerbated the felt temperature, with wet bulb temperatures often rising above 32°C in many cities. More recently, northern India has seen significant variability in the weather.

 

Consequences of weather variability

1. Agriculture: The effects on agriculture is huge.

• For example, 90% of India’s cumin production is from Gujarat and Rajasthan. The recent weather variability has destroyed the majority of the cumin crop in Rajasthan.

2. Drought: From agricultural crop losses, it is a short step towards drought and higher mortality.
3. Unliveable cities: Rising temperatures have also led to increasingly unliveable cities. For labourers doing heavy work, heat exposure leads to a loss of 162 hours per year, as per one study.
4. Labour unproductivity: About 50% of India’s workforce is estimated to be exposed to heat during their working hours.

 

Mitigating the problem

1. Greening: Greening could help mitigate part of the problem. Ideally, for every urban citizen in India, we should have at least seven trees in the urban landscape.
2. Role of state: Development plans for Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities can set up a mandate to increase urban surface area that is permeable, while pushing to increase the density and area of urban forests.
3. Expanding wetlands and restoring dead and decaying ponds/lakes can help ensure ecological functioning along with reducing urban heat.
4. Reducing Urban heat island effect: This can be done by

• Greater usage of permeable materials in civic infrastructure and residential construction
• Enhancing natural landscapes in urban areas.
• Urban layouts such as brick jalis for ventilation
• Terracotta tiles to allow hot air to escape,
• Curbs on anthropogenic heat emissions from vehicles, factories, etc.

 

Chandigarh’s urban design model The urban design of Chandigarh considered climate responsiveness as a key factor. The city was set up by the foothills of the Shivaliks, between two river beds, while natural green belts were incorporated within the city’s master plan. Local architecture such as mud houses within the region was considered as a template to build climate-responsive architecture. A small rivulet was dammed to create the Sukhna lake, to help cool the city, while small water bodies were developed near large buildings. Large forest areas were also reserved.

 

Other measures

1. Embracing  public transportation and reducing personal vehicle usage
2.  Reducing the size of landfills: Methane production from mountainous landfills may lead to fires, often exacerbating urban heat and weather variability in our cities.
3.  A push for waste segregation, along with solid waste management at source, can help reduce methane production
4. Improving our forecasting ability:

• Current econometric models associated with food inflation primarily look at the variability in the monsoon, minimum support prices and vegetable prices.
• We need to add local heat trends to the mix as well, given the impact of heat on food production, storage and sale.

5. Need of detailed policies and guidelines on weather variability and urban heat management at the State, district, city and municipality ward levels.

 

Conclusion

• An El Niño-influenced monsoon bodes ill for marginal farmers and urban migrants. Policymakers must take mitigatory action early, while instituting structural infrastructure measures to help Indians adapt to these conditions.

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Editorial 2: How coastal species are living on plastic debris in the ocean

Introduction:

• Scientists have proposed the name “Anthropocene” for a new epoch in history characterized by the influence of one species on the planet’s geology, ecosystems and even its fate — none other than Homo sapiens.

 

Evidences

• The creation of plastic trash which is abundant in our urban refuse, rivers, and forests, from the slopes of the highest peaks to the depths of abyssal trenches. Ocean life has washed ashore at beaches with stomachs of plastic debris.
• Plastic has provided ample evidence of its persistence in the natural universe, but of late, scientists have also been uncovering evidence that it is becoming one with nature in troubling new ways.
• In a study published recently researchers from Canada, the Netherlands, and the U.S. have reported that coastal lifeforms have colonized plastic items in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. 

 

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

• There are some water currents in the ocean that, driven by winds and the Coriolis force, form loops. These are called gyres. The North Pacific Subtropical Gyre (NPSG) is one such, located just north of the equator in the Pacific Ocean.
• It consists of the Kuroshio, North Pacific, California, and North Equatorial currents and moves in a clockwise direction. These currents flow adjacent to 51 Pacific Rim countries. Any trash that enters one of these currents, from any of these countries, could become part of the gyre.
• Inside this gyre, just north of Hawai’i, lies a long east­west strip where some of the debris, mostly in the form of microplastics, in these currents has collected over the years. The eastern part of this is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

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The study and findings

• From 2018 to 2019, researchers collected plastic debris from the eastern part of the NPSG, “the most heavily plastic polluted ocean gyre on the globe” and found the following:
• 98% of the debris items had invertebrate organisms.
• They also found that pelagic species (species of the open ocean) were present on 94.3% of them and coastal species on 70.5%.
• The number of coastal species such as arthropods and molluscs identified rafting on plastic was over three times greater than that of pelagic species that normally live in the open ocean
• In all, they found organisms belonging to 46 taxa. While maximum of them were coastal, the rest were pelagic.
• Among both coastal and pelagic organisms, crustaceans were the most common. The coastal species were most commonly found on fishing nets whereas the pelagic species on crates.
• Nearly all taxa were of Northwest Pacific origin including Japan.
• Most debris items (85.7%) were mainly from East Asia, North America.

 

The relevance of the findings

1. The introduction of a vast sea of relatively permanent anthropogenic rafts since the 1950s  has given rise to a new kind of “standing coastal community in the open ocean” named by them as the neopelagic community. 
2. Coastal species found on human made objects in the open ocean before, were always considered to have been “misplaced” from their intended habitats. The neopelagic community, on the other hand, is not misplaced but lives on plastic items in the garbage patch, including reproducing there.
3. The finding recalls a study published which reported that polyethylene films had chemically bonded with rocks in China.

• This, in turn, is reminiscent, of the “anthropoquinas” of Brazil (sedimentary rocks embedded with plastic earrings) and the “plastiglomerates” of Hawai’i (beach sediment + organic debris + basaltic lava + melted plastic).

 

Concerns

• Due to the ocean gyres serving as conveyor belts, the waste accumulated is doubtful to ever escape. The circular movements of the oceanic currents and winds prevent the debris from moving in any direction other than the gyre’s centres.
• The Great Pacific Garbage Patch receives a huge amount of things that are not biodegradable so it leads to bioaccumulation and biomagnification within the ecosystem.
• These tiny plastic fragments then enter into the food web thereby endangering lives of not just humans but of other animals too.
• Microplastics are more dangerous to marine wildlife since they can now be confused for food and eaten by fish, sea turtles, and sea mammals.
• Plastic bags are frequently mistaken for jellyfish by loggerhead sea turtles, and albatrosses confuse plastic resin pellets as fish eggs by feeding them to their offspring, resulting in the animals’ death due to malnutrition or burst organs.
• microplastics affect the marine food chain when they accumulate in places rich in algae and plankton.
• Plastics which have been broken down into smaller pieces by a process known as photodegradation are more likely to absorb contaminants like PCBs from the saltwater. Plastics release colourants and compounds like “Bisphenol A” during photodegradation, which have been connected to health and environmental issues.

 

Conclusion

• The Anthropocene epoch can be said to have commenced. No surprises if scientists agree that it looks like a spike in the concentration of microplastics.