Did you know that bottled water is not just bad for the environment but also for your health? Take a look at this presentation to find out more about why you shouldn’t drink bottled water…

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Tags: healthy living, Save Earth, Stop Wasting, Sustainable Living, Water Conservation, why save water

A team at Australia’s Queensland University has invented a waste treatment plant to treat household waste and waste water. The plan works on waste to produce methane, which is a clean, renewable source of energy and class A+ standard recycled water.

Though this recycled water is not good enough for drinking, yet it can be used for toilet flushing, gardening. Not a bad idea. Could help conserve a whole lot of water. It would be interesting to see when it is launched commercially. We sooooo badly need to save water! Apartment complexes which generate gallons of waste water would do very well to install a waste treatment plant like this. Could perhaps help save them plenty of dough in their energy bills too.

Tags: environment conservation, green living, Save Earth, science & technology, Stop Wasting, Sustainable Living, Water Conservation, why save water

The Panna Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh boasted of as many as 40 tigers till six years back. Today however, the count is very sadly down to null. The lone tiger at Panna has not been sighted for over 25 days now.

The Government on its part is trying to locate the tiger. As part of the effort, two tigresses from Bandhavgarh National Park and Kanha National Park were shifted to the area. However, it has not brought out the desired result. Some say that the tiger has wandered away into the forests of Chattarpur.

Well, lets hope the tiger has indeed wandered away and has not been slain by poachers. But how does a tiger reserve with no tigers sound? Wonder how they managed to mess up so much. And why no one did anything about it while they still had the time. Indeed, its become so common these days to wonder why we didn’t act when we could have. The Age of Stupid tells us its going to become the most asked question tomorrow.

Tags: environment conservation, Save Earth, save tiger, Sustainable Living

Earth Hour is a good way to raise awareness of the issue of global warming and how our collective effort can save our beautiful planet. However, while a whole lot of people participated in the earth hour on 28th of March and switched off all non-essential lights for an hour from 8:30 pm to 9:30 pm, it was weird to see the same people switch on a galaxy of lights immediately after and go about their business as usual. Well, is that what earth hour is all about? All hype and little substance? Do people participate just to sound ‘cool’ and ‘with it’ or do they really understand the meaning behind the campaign?

If negating global warming and saving the planet really mean the earth to us, then why don’t we make “consuming less” a  way of life? Why do we need to switch on a sea of lights on the Vegas strip? Why do office building have most lights on even long after all staff has left? Why do hotels and restaurants have a sea of lights on all the time? Why do we keep our windows covered with blinds? Why don’t we use natural light? Why do we keep the AC on in our cars when the weather outside is pleasant enough? Why do we first stay all the time in air conditioned environs and then go for sauna and visit spas and gyms to sweat and get rid of toxins?

Tags: environment conservation, Global Warming, green living, Stop Wasting, Sustainable Living

That our tiger count is rapidly waning is no new news. We have lost more than 39 tigers in the last year out of which 17 have been in the last three months alone. And mind you these are official figures. I recently read an article by Jay Mazoomdaar where he elaborates on how the unprofessional management and lack of knowledge on the part of concerned officials is nulling any tiger conservation efforts.

Jay enumerates an incident where a tiger cub was mistakenly taken to be a man-eater and had it not been for the prudence of the authorities at Corbett in 2005, there would have been killings.  Interesting….

To quote Jay, “Conservation is not about raising a million tigers in ranches but about letting a few thousands to be in the wild, where at the top of the food chain, they protect the ecology of forests, which in turn, ensure our water security.”

Food for thought…?

Tags: environment conservation, Save Earth, save nature, save tiger, Sustainable Living

Will we take a break and ask ourselves why aren’t we doing something about the environment while we can? We shake our head, shrug and feel how one person’s (read my) consuming less will help while the rest of the world is hogging resources. Lets remember little drops of water make up the ocean…

Tags: "the age of stupid", environment conservation, Global Warming, green living, Save Earth, Stop Wasting, Sustainable Living

Poaching, poisoning and infighting are killing our tigers.  While the majority of incidents have been reported from the Kanha Tiger Reserve (MP) and Kaziranga National Park (Assam), two tigers were found dead in Corbett Tiger Reserve as well.

Last month, the Army officials seized several tiger body parts at the Myanmar border, which goes to prove that poaching is still very rampant. Despite the ban, tiger parts are actively being traded illegally. In a lot of cases, it has been found that poverty forced the locals to resort to tiger killings for paltry sums from the traders.

Poverty alleviation and sensitizing the locals as well as general popualtion to the importance of conserving wildlife are the only ways to tackle the menace. While NGOs are actively doing their bit, the state authorities perhaps would do well to train and recruit locals as forest guards. That would serve both purposes – give them employment and make them partners in environment conservation. If the locals and the forest officials are together involved in prerservation of the tigers, I doubt the masterminds behind the poaching activities will find any success in their designs!

By the way, there has been further addition to the count since I first saw the above numbers, though that has been on account of tigers turning into man-eaters. Definitely attributable to humans again.

Tags: environment conservation, Save Earth, save nature, save tiger, Sustainable Living

March 21 was World Forestry Day. Befittingly, the Ministry of Environment & Forests laid down certain concrete objectives for the year, its theme being “Sustainable Forest Management”. The ministry has resolved to:

• Bring 33% of the landmass under forest or tree cover
• Forests to be managed holistically for their ecological, economic and socio-cultural roles
• Forests to play a key role in climate change amelioration

Kudos to the ministry. Hope they have worked out the strategies to achieve these objectives and are also able to put it into action!

Tags: environment conservation, Save Earth, save nature, save tiger, Sustainable Living

Last night on my way to Gurgaon for an outing, I noticed all these beautifully lit up office complexes on the highway. They looked attractive from a distance, orderly lit and their interiors shining through the glass walls. It was all calm inside, not a soul could be sighted and one felt compelled to imagine the frenetic pace of activity therein during the day. And then it struck – why were all offices in these buildings so well lit up when there wasn’t a soul working at that time? Who pays for their electricity bills? What a sheer waste at a time when all companies are looking to cut costs!

And think of its repercussions on the environment. It is a colossal loss of energy. We all know there isn’t surplus energy in the country. Why keep thousands of lights switched on at night in offices where people work during the day or atleast not after 11pm? Can’t that energy be used to light up villages in the state that are often plunged in darkness?

Tags: Global Warming, green living, Save Earth, Stop Wasting, Sustainable Living

At a time when everyone is trying to tighten one’s purse strings, at a time when we need to sit up and take notice of global warming and reduce unnecessary consumption and hence wastage, there is a lot one can save by following these very simple tips in the kitchen.

• Given the fast paced lives we lead today, we tend to cook food and then store in the refrigerator for consumption later. Or we tend to use packaged food that we buy and store in the fridge. When we take out this food and put it in the microwave or on a kitchen stove, it takes up a lot of fuel to warm up the food. This can be saved on drastically if we take the food items out of the refrigerator well in advance and let them get to the room temerature before heating them.
• Soak pulses in water well in advance before cooking. This will reduce cooking time and hence help save fuel.
• After you are done with making chappatis, use the hot tawa to warm anything that you might have taken out of the fridge for heating. You will be surprised how much residual heat is still there in the tawa.
• A few drops of oil or a small piece of butter, added when steaming pulses speeds up the cooking process. I have tried this while cooking dal, rajma and channa and it works.

Tags: environment conservation, Global Warming, green living, Save Earth, Stop Wasting, Sustainable Living