EQ: Read About All Things Green, Improve Your Environment Quotient

EQ: The Quint’s green newsletter. Read about climate change, eco-friendly tech, raise your environment quotient.

E-India

• In a victory for animal welfare, the Himachal Pradesh High Court has banned all buffalo and bull fights in the state citing animal cruelty. The case was brought by an NGO following the Supreme Court’s 2014 decision banning Jallikattu or the bull-fight tradition in Tamil Nadu.
  
  

• New species alert! Authorities have confirmed finding a new butterfly species in Arunachal Pradesh and a new fish species in Kerala. This news follows reports that 349 new species of plants and animals were discovered in India in 2014.
  
  
• Raising concerns at the “staggering pace” of e-waste increase, a Parliamentary Standing Committee called for the Centre and states to take immediate action. The committee said the number of e-waste recyclers in India was too few, and called for robust e-waste rules to make manufacturers responsible for e-waste generated by their products.
  

• Flash floods in Gujarat earlier this month have claimed the lives of 10 lions and around 1600 blue bulls among other animals. The animal deaths have raised renewed questions about the concentration of the entire wild population of Asiatic lions in the Gir region.

E-Economy

• There is growing discussion about how it would be efficient and environmentally sound to develop our water-based infrastructure and mitigate the pressure on land. Should we be focusing on developing our “blue economy” or ocean infrastructure?

E-Resource and Waste

• A new report suggests that solar power in India could get cheaper than thermal power within the next two to three years. The reasons include falling capital costs, increased efficiency and economies of scale.

E-Law

• A landmark case by a Kiribati man seeking to be declared the first “climate change refugee” has failed. Climate change is expected to cause increasing environmental damage and human and wildlife displacement and this case was keenly watched across the globe.

E-International

• NASA announced that it has found “the closest twin to Earth outside the solar system”. Using data from the Kepler space telescope, scientists said that “Kepler 452B” (Earth’s twin) and 12 other exo-planets had been identified as being the most likely planets to be habitable.

E-Stat

• 1883: The number of LEED certified “green buildings” in India, earning India 3rd place on the list of countries with the most such buildings.

E-Nature

• Are we doing enough to conserve India’s wild buffaloes? Habitat destruction, disease and even local political instability have taken their toll on the wild buffalo which is listed as “Endangered” by the IUCN Red List.

E-Tech

• Challenging our ideas of city living, a team of French architects have presented their vision for tomorrow’s sky-scrapers. While the proposed structure looks straight out of a sci-fi novel, it raises interesting questions about the future of our rapidly growing cities. As India shapes and designs its proposed Smart Cities, this debate is especially relevant to us.

E-Quote

I’ve starred in a lot of science fiction movies but let me tell you something - climate change is not science fiction, this is a battle in the real world, it is impacting us right now.
— Arnold Schwarzenegger, The Original Terminator

E-Quiz

Which national park or wildlife sanctuary is closest to where you live? Which animals is it famous for? If you don’t know, find out... :)