Bakery ,global warming and us.

akery Fuel

October 4th, 2010 by admin

Methodology: Interviews
Language: English
Catalysts: Kaustubh Marathe
Youth Fellows:
Kaustubh Marathe
Alok Chorghe
Vishal Rasal
Abhishek Pawar
Priyanka Fernandes
Sudhir Khodwekar
Roshan Ghatkar
Coordinator: Kapil Chavan
About the Subject:
The urbanization processes are leading to increased use of fossil energy in every aspect of life, leading to increased levels of pollution, ozone depletion and global warming. To add to this insult most of the bakeries in the city are using wood as a fuel. How much do these fuels contribute to the carbon emissions? How does it affect the health of local workers? While other sources of fuel are available, why are the bakery owners still using wood? These were the questions haunting Kaustubh and his friends.
Challenges & Learnings:
Most of the bakery owners resisted giving interviews and sharing truthful information. Some interviewers requested anonymity. No one allowed photographs. The researchers continued their project in a tenacious fashion despite these difficulties.
Conclusion:
Their research helped in drawing two important conclusions. First and foremost was that most bakery owners had no knowledge about the relationship between usage of wood and pollution and its final impact on health and global warming. Second, those who knew this simply could not afford to switch to either diesel or electric oven due to prohibitive costs. A few believed that the taste of the final products of their bakery was better with wood as a fuel.
End Product:
They created a small booklet where all these conclusions are shared

Mighty fish

I was at bhedaghat, Jabalpur , Here mighty Narmada river, makes her way cutting through the marble rocks over the rocks making a powerful roar and smoke . Water falling from a height of 150 ft generates great noise with water sprinkles. It looks like a white smoke or fog. Hence the name Dhuandhar (Smoky) Fall.

There were several small pools just few centimeters deep were formed by water. I noticed some movement in one of such pool, It was a small fish (Around 15 cm) belong to genus Channa striatus  . This is amazingly brave fish It was reached there climbing Dhuadhar and may be tall walls of one or many dams on Narmada. Biology of channa is not well studied as compare to its distance relative salmon.Fish like this have developed habit of flowing against rapids of shallow and fast flowing rivers through the course of millions of years of evolution and now fighting for survival against large dams.

 There were several small pools just few centimeters deep were formed by water. I noticed some movement in one of such pool, It was a small fish (Around 15 cm) belong to genus Channa striatus  . This is amazingly brave fish It was reached their climbing Dhuadhar and may be tall walls of one or many dams on Narmada. Fish like this have developed habit of flowing against rapids of shallow and fast flowing rivers through the course of millions of years of evolution and now fighting for survival against large dams.

Servants of nature

Servants of nature.

Earth is only known planet which sustain life. There are around 8.7 million species have occupied every corner of it ranging from cold Antarctic ice to volcanic vent. All the life forms on earth are linked each other with complex food web .This has transformed earth in to giant a single self-managing organism. All life on Earth exists to sustain, nourish and support all other life on Earth including a humans .

We as species have followed bacterial pattern of population growth .Our population has just crossed 8 billion mark. Till now we have managed to feed us with loads of chemical fertilisers and irrigation facilities, but at a same time we have poisoned water and land. We have dangerously interfered earths fragile climate with green house gases.

Now it is time to payback unreliable extreme climatic events have killed millions around the earth.In 1950s it was believed by the year 2000 world will be disease free but now we are witnessing newer forms of diseases. In 1970s rampant cutting of African rain forest , hunting ,and increased population provide opportunity to parasites like Ebola virus and HIV to jump from animals to humans . We are all part of nature, an indivisible, living community of interrelated and interdependent beings with a common destiny.

We must remember that we cannot survive without mentoring nature’s delicate balance. We are not the alien species which is colonising this planet but we have evolved here. We must not behave as a master of nature but as servant of nature.