NRM Quiz 1 answers

1. NRM Quiz 1 answers NRM class 7

2. Myths or shocking facts about Bhakra • sole cause of dramatic increase in agricultural production in Punjab. • contribution to irrigation of Punjab and Haryana much less than before • Punjab already heavily irrigated, more from unsustainably mined ground water than canal irrigation. • Unintended effects • waterlogging, salinity, depletion of soils through monoculture

3. Films and their messages • Drinking the Sky and AD 2048 • Poor management of water resources can create drought even in the wettest part of the world (Cherrapunji), sensitive management can create options even in the driest parts (Atacama desert in Chile). • Climate changes are imminent in the globe and it is not clear who the winners and losers are going to be. Caused by man’s consumption of resources without being sensitive to long term consequences (CFCs, carbon emissions). • Small changes in earth’s temperature can be catastrophic. Cropping patterns likely to change dramatically.

4. Importance of rainfed areas • Agrarian crisis in India intimately linked to rainfed agriculture and its neglect over the years (76% of suicide victims). • Important for food security, home to large numbers of small and marginal farmers, production of pulses, oilseeds, coarse cereals. Less resource use than irrigated or more favoured areas yet neglected. Half India’s land mass, 66% of cultivable area, of 150 most backward districts, etc…

5. Myth of Kalahandi and NRM • Landlessness is forcing people to migrate Kalhandi receives little rainfall, hence the drought • (Parched amid plenty). Non-availability of land is leading to reduced yields (cropped area highest in Orissa) • Poor management of natural resources, breakdown of traditional systems and connection with forests etc leading to destitution and starvation. • A story of good resources and bad management.

6. Ecological footprint • the land and water area that would be required to support a defined human population and material standard indefinitely • Components: Growing Crops, Grazing Animals, Catching Fish, Harvesting Timber, Accommodating Infrastructure, Absorbing Carbon Dioxide Emissions • CO2 emissions: United States, China, Japan, Russia, India, Germany, UK, Canada, S Korea, Mexico, Italy, Ukraine • Ecological footprint/ capita: US, Canada, Australia, UK, Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Hungary, Brazil, China, Thailand, Nigeria,

7. what does it imply? • In a world of limited resources and limited waste assimilation capacity, excess consumption by the rich literally requires that others live in poverty if we are not to exceed the Earth’s physical carrying capacity. • Ecological footprint analysis cuts through the illusion that we can improve the living standards of the poor without curbing the excess consumption of the rich.

8. Global Environmental Movements • Rachel Carson, Silent Spring • important features in the study of environment • Environmental science + social aspects • Interdisciplinary • Complex relationships people, animals, organisms etc. • Numerous interconnections and inputs from various disciplines.... everything in this world is connected. • Kofi Annan’s statement • No crisis in history has so clearly demonstrated the interdependence of nations as the environmental crisis • Complexity, interrelatedness, connections

9. ALL THINGS ARE INTERCONNECTED EVERYTHING GOES SOMEWHERE THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A FREE LUNCH NATURE BATS LAST

10. Indian and American environmentalism

11. Forgotten pioneers of Indian environmentalism • Patrick Geddes – town planning, diagnostic survey, conservative surgery, gardener’s view of world, rural view of science, rural virtue • Radhakamal Mukherjee – social ecology, balance of man, • Kumrappa – Economy of permanence, careful husbanding of natural resources, lack of ecological wisdom in rural development, forest management peoples needs, desilting, biomass shortages

12. Evidence on climate change • NASA 2005 hottest year in the globe • Floods in Barmer and droughts in Assam, floods in Mumbai. Variations in rainfall unnatural even as intensity of rains is increasing.

13. Thinking through the environment: Implications for Rural India? • To relate changes in social and economic life, political institutions, scientific research to the natural world in which humans are embedded – eg. Kalahandi article. • Forging a more peaceable and sustainable relationship between humans and other species. – situating NRM within broader environmental debates

14. Implications for Rural India • Relation between consumption and growth: the unsustainability, Gandhi’s statement. The environmental hierarchy of consumption between North and South – America and Bangladesh. Implications for the ecological footprint, implications of the growth of China and India

15. The need for personal change • – Chinese chopsticks… greater sensitivity to what you consume, Coco cola and Plachimada or Mehdiganj? Choice between a handloom dhoti and a T shirt or shorts made in Tiruppur? • Education of the Oppressor? Pedagogy of the non-oppressed? The rural villager in Kalahandi or anywhere is not an ignorant fool to be educated. Their ecological lifestyles and worldview is something we need to respect and learn from (How to Build Simply?) Subsistence economies are rich in ways that we need to understand and appreciate.

16. Learning • Help learners see the big picture & connect with the realities of the global environment. • The underlying message is that their (your) own actions matter and that (your) their personal decisions make a difference in the environment. • Gobar Times, freeing plastics, noise free diwali, Holi with natural colours, paint free Durga & Ganesh idols in visarjans. Use power only when needed, CFLs, energy efficient buildings • Energy saved is cheaper than energy generated – Soota..Nega watt vs mega watt • Use and patronise products of the poor, market them, value over price........ add to the list, make your own