EQ: Poaching, LED and a Melting Arctic

EQ: The Quint’s green newsletter. Read about climate change, wildlife, raise your environment quotient

E-India

• Poaching alert!
Another rhino was killed by poachers in Assam’s Kaziranga National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site. This incident brings the number of rhinos poached this year to 14.
• Log on to India’s new climate action website:
The environment minister has launched a new website detailing India’s efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions. The website includes videos of the government’s initiatives to tackle the problem of climate change.

E-Mage

• Ban more drugs to save the vulture:
Encouraged by the government’s ban on multi-dose diclofenac, a drug fatal for cultures, environmentalists have called upon the government to also ban the veterinary use of two more such drugs.

E-Video

• Watch the Northern Lights paint the skies over Scotland in this stunning video:

E-Energy

• Are you “LED-ing” the Way?
The government has launched a new website called iledtheway.in to promote the use of LED bulbs in Indian homes. Led lights are far more energy-efficient than their CFL and other counterparts and the government is trying to make them more affordable for general public.
• 25,000 hours: The life expectancy of LED bulbs

E-Waste

• Cleaning rivers with sunlight and rare earth:
Indian scientists have developed a way to clean highly polluted rivers using sunlight and a compound of rare earth elements. The compound can clean rivers of microbes and chemical dyes and can even be re-used.

E-International

• The Earth heats up by 1 degree Celsius:
Bad news for Planet Earth – scientists have confirmed that the Earth’s temperature has officially increased by 1 degree. To put things in perspective, this is half the “safe” level of 2 degrees – any further increase could lead to devastating climate change impacts around the globe.

E-Case

• “Firecrackers are as harmful as firearms”:
Last week, the Delhi High Court ruled that the potential danger posed by firecrackers must lead to their careful regulation. The court also observed that no religious texts sanction the use of firecrackers.

E-Nature

• Less ice, more water:
Melting sea ice in the Arctic could cause another 100 ice-free days in the region by 2050. We should be worried – rapidly melting ice at the Poles could drastically alter the world’s environment.

E-Renewables

• Green bonds for a clean railways:
The Indian Railways is considering a proposal to float green bonds in order to fund its renewable energy initiatives. The railways has been taking up a number of solar, wind, and waste to energy projects in order to go green and also reduce its mounting fuel bills.

E-Quiz

• Which of the following National Parks in India is not a UNESCO World Heritage site? (a) Sunderbans
(b) Kaziranga
(c) Keoladeo
(d) Panna
(Shalini Iyengar is a lawyer and Research Associate at the International University College, Turin)