MN: When did you start promoting shark awareness, and why the interest?

Brendon Sing self-funds his shark protection campaign. But you can donate to help him out

BS: I became fascinated with sharks from an early age while living in South Africa. When I went on trips to the local aquariums I would spend 99% of the time looking at sharks. I started scuba diving when I was 17 years old and still in high school, which allowed me to get even closer to them. Naturally in university I started to study sharks and get involved with many field projects such as shark tagging, personal identifications, migration patterns and behavior study.

Unlike what most people know about sharks from movies like “JAWS”, I learnt the truth about sharks, about their roles they play in the eco-system, their beautiful nature and so much more. I also learnt that shark species all over the world are on a rapid decline, sharks are in grave danger. They are being exploited for their fins and natural resources. Up to 100 million sharks are killed each year. From 2000 to 2007 up to 2 million tons of shark fin (equivalent to 6.5 747 jumbos) came though Asian trade alone.

MN: What are the recent shark population trends?

BS: One of the problems we face in encouraging governments around the world to adopt stronger protection laws for shark finning/fishing is that actual data is hard to come by. When sharks are caught very little data is collected (species, male vs. female, size, depth caught, GPS co-ordinates etc). They are usually just caught, fins removed then the body discarded overboard.

Of the 20 nations responsible for shark finning, 13 (65%) provide no species breakdown regardless of agreements made. A study of shark populations by the World Conservation Union concluded that 111 species are under serious threat, with 20 classified as critically endangered, 25 classified as endangered and 66 classified as vulnerable. Many more are likely to be seriously threatened, but not enough data exists.

Shark declines at 2009

• 90-95% decline in hammerhead sharks in the NW Atlantic since 1988

• 80% decline in thresher sharks in the NW Atlantic since 1988

• 79% decline in great white sharks in the NW Atlantic since 1988

• 65% decline in tiger sharks in the NW Atlantic since 1986

• 60% decline in blue sharks in the NW Atlantic since 1988

• 99% decline in oceanic white tip sharks in the Gulf of Mexico since the 1950s

• 90% decline in oceanic silky sharks in the Gulf of Mexico since the 1950s

• 60% decline in relative abundance of all sharks

(Source: World Conservation Union, 2009)

MN: Are sharks misunderstood?

BS: That’s a HUGE understatement! Even before the movie “JAWS” sharks were already being depicted as the ‘enemy of man’, ‘a danger to all living things’ by the media. For 40 years there was no other creature that terrified people as much. Only in the last decade have we seen more educational and factual programs about sharks, but that element of fear is still around.

MN: Why are sharks important?

BS: The earliest sharks existed over 400 million years ago. They survived the extinction of the dinosaurs and have not changed much in the last 200 million years; they are an ancient wonder. As the apex predator of the worlds’ oceans they are a natural barometer for oceans’ health and help maintain a balanced eco-system. They remove the weak, injured, dying or dead creatures in the ocean and in some areas now with depleted populations there have been population explosions of seals, smaller shark species and jelly fish. This is having damaging effects on reefs and fisheries.

MN: Can you describe shark fishing methods used?

BS: The most damaging is long lining or long line fishing. A long line can reach up to 90km in length with thousands of baited hooks on it. Sharks get entangled in the line, but what is also destructive is that often many other marine species get caught too: turtles, dolphins and various pelagic fish. Additionally other species caught on the line attract even more fish, adding to the casualties.

MN: What can people do to protect sharks?

Brendon Sing urges kids not to fear but love sharks

BS: Get involved! Don’t just rely on governments and organizations. You need to actively participate. Also encourage friends and family not to eat shark fin soup. As well as killing sharks, one survey estimated up to 1400 microgram of poisonous methyl mercury/kg of blue shark steak. This is 60 times more than a 70 kg human should consume per day. Also methyl mercury can pass easily between a mother and her unborn child, as well as the blood-brain barrier.

You can also sign petitions that help organisations reach out to governments to draft stronger shark protection laws. Visit www.sharkguardian.org and follow the links. As well, create your own presentations and projects to promote shark conservation at your work, schools, clubs and so on. Contact Shark Guardian for examples. And don’t forget to write letters to hotels, restaurants, wedding and function organisers and airlines that serve shark fin soup. Visit our site for templates.

MN: How and where do you get your message across?

BS: Apart from the Shark Guardian web site we conduct educational workshops and seminars to dive centers and resorts, international schools and local communities. Our Shark Guardian Presentation has been introduced in South Africa, European countries, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and soon Brunei. Future projects will include other Asian nations as this is where the main demand for shark products comes from. We focus mainly on schools to educate our future generations.

MN: How is Shark Guardian funded?

BS: Shark Guardian is a non-profit organisation. Funding comes mostly from donations, Shark Guardian t-shirt sales and invitations to events and conferences. If you want to donate, look on Facebook, visit our website, come to our presentations, sign up for Shark Guardian courses (coming soon) and buy your own Shark Guardian t-shirts for your friends and family. It all helps!

MN: What are your plans for the future?

BS: Next week I will be presenting to International schools in Bangkok and later Shark Guardian will for the first time be presented to international schools in Brunei. This will be followed by another presentation on Marine biodiversity at the National Environment Conference. We will be launching our unique shark courses and materials, including online certifications that include general shark information plus several additional courses on specific shark species. We are also gaining contacts in other international schools in Singapore, Indonesia and China.

MN: How many shark species have you dived with?

Sharks are mild, like this leopard shark. Brendon gets close to see it smile

BS: I’ve been very lucky to spend time with some beautiful and fascinating sharks such as Great Whites, Bull sharks, Tiger sharks, Whale sharks, Grey Nurse sharks, Blacktip sharks and Zebra sharks. In Mozambique I’ve seen Hammerhead and Silvertip sharks, and in Asia I have seen reef sharks like Black Tip and White Tip sharks, Grey Reef sharks, Nurse sharks and Bamboo sharks. A couple of years ago I saw a Thresher shark in Indonesia.

But I’d really like to dive and see an ancient deep water Gill shark around 100-120m underwater. That would be amazing!

For more information: www.info@sharkguardian.org;     info AT sharkguardian DOT org

Please donate to keep Shark Guardian going in its fantastic job! Buy t-shirts for your friends too.

Photos courtesy: Liz Ward/Shark Guardian

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About our Guest Writer:
Concerned with the alarming rate of tourism development with little regard for the environment, Mallika Naguran founded the independent publication Gaia Discovery in 2008 to promote responsible travel, eco-living, and heritage. It is a platform for subject experts to voluntarily contribute articles to for greater awareness of important social and environmental issues in Asia. Follow Gaia Discovery on Facebook and  Twitter.

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Further links you may be interested in:

EWTT: So Just What is Shark Fin Soup?

EWTT: Sharks’ Fin: The Red Flag

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Asian consumers’ appetite for shark fins is severely threatening several shark species to extinction and destroying oceans.   Considered a Chinese delicacy, shark fin soup is often served at wedding banquets, business meetings and on special occasions as a status symbol, due to its high price tag and presumed health benefits.

Shark fins are sold in Asia  from anywhere between Euro 1000 per fin or Euro 80 per bowl of soup.  Top consumers include countries such as Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore, with demand coming from other parts of the world as well from wealthier clientele.

A new short documentary called “Bowls of Blood” from Gary Stokes of Oceanic Love shows the path of shark fins from the ocean to the infamous bowl of soup, behind the closed doors of a Chinese restaurant’s kitchen in Kowloon, Hong Kong.  We are made to realise how pointless it all is, considering the mindless bloodbath and slaughter of sharks in the oceans!

Hammerhead pups Photo:David Jacobsen-Fried

The basic facts about the shark fin trade as outlined in the new Oceana.org report entitled, ” The International Trade of Shark Fins: Endangering Shark Populations Worldwide are shocking:

* Upto 73 million sharks are killed each year to meet the demands of the global shark fin market
* Shark finning uses only 2-5% of the entire animal, which is thrown back into the sea while still alive to die a slow and agonising death
* Hong Kong is the world’s single largest market for shark fins, importing nearly 10 million kgs in 2008
* There are 87 shark fin exporting countries, the major ones being Spain, Singapore, Taiwan, Indonesia and United Arab Emirates
* Populations of shark species such as the North Atlantic oceanic whitetips have declined by about 70% in the 1990s. The Northwest Atlantic scalloped hammerheads have declined by 83% since the 1980s.

Source: Oceana.org

Other facts from Sustainablewaters.com

*Currently the EU supplies 27% of all fins imported into Hong Kong
*Sets of shark fins can sell for more than US$700/kg, with hammerhead shark fins among the most valuable by weight
*A single Whale Shark pectoral fin can sell for up to US$15,000
*Global trade in shark fins is increasing, and the market for shark fin soup is estimated to be growing by 5% per year
*A third of European sharks, and a total of 110 species of chondrichthyan fish are listed under a threat category on the IUCN Red List, with a further 95 species Near Threatened

Sharks are at the top of the food chain, and play an important role in maintaining the health of the marine ecosystems. They grow slow and mature late in life, have very few offspring during their long life spans. This makes them vulnerable to overexploitation.  To understand more about the function of sharks in maintaining a balance in our oceans, watch the 17 minute documentary “Sharks: Predators with a Purpose” at OceanicResearch.org

Many NGOs have been campaigning for the inclusion of shark species in Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) which would protect them from commercial trade. 175 countries are part of this convention, and according to Matt Rand, Director Global Shark Conservation of the Pew Environment Group,  listing under CITES has been effective in protecting other animal species like the African elephant and the American alligator.

The CITES March 2010 conference in Doha, Qatar is now history. It failed hugely to agree on new trade measures to protect sharks. The next round will be only held in 2013.

According to the UNEP Press release:

Four proposals to include sharks in CITES Appendix II were rejected. The scalloped hammerhead, Oceanic whitetip, porbeagle and spiny dogfish – four fish species of great commercial value – were not added to CITES and can therefore continue to be traded without CITES permits.

Some technological advancements however, give new hope.  Shark fins can be traced using DNA tools for the first time, to their country of origin according to a new research report, entitled, “Forensic Methods in Conservation Research” as reported in this CDNN article. This could help in tracking and managing shark populations.

In the meantime, awareness has to be raised amongst consumers to stop consuming shark fin – a tasteless ingredient whose flavours are derived essentially from the chicken or meat broth in which it is stewed. There are no proven health benefits to eating shark fin either. Consumers are merely wasting money and precious oceanic life.

Further links you may be interested in:

EWTT: Shark’s Fin – The Red Flag
Sify.org: Demand for shark fins making sharks an endangered species in Andhra Pradesh
Oceana.org: The International Trade of Shark Fins: Endangering Shark Populations Worldwide
EWTT: Gong Xi Fa Cai : Celebrate a Green Chinese New Year

Gordon Ramsay eats Shark Fin for the first time

 

Amendments on 21st June 2010:

Thanks to a comment on Shark Rescue’s Facebook page by Robin Mellecker, the line “There are no proven health benefits to eating shark fin either” has been added to the conclusion to highlight that this practice has no scientific basis.

Please support these:

Sign this at the Petition Site: Ban the use of Shark Products in China

Donate to the fund raising campaign by Shark Rescue and Shark and Coral Conservation Trust. As part of the Winter Campaign, Delian Gaskell and Denvy Lo will put their fitness to the test as they hike through 250km of the Gobi Desert in 6 days in the Gobi Desert March. This is one of the toughest terrains of the planet, a wild and unforgiving place, and they’re taking on this challenge with the help of Shark Rescue. Click here to meet the Shark Rescue Champions.

Linkbacks: Petboutiques.eu

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Global warming is real and upon us.  How will global warming affect the rivers in India; will they all dry up?  Can the holy Ganges, the river that has shaped and sustained Indian civilisation through the ages, who we Indians revere as the life-giving mother, run dry!  Many climate experts and environmentalists, in the last ten years, have been making dire predictions of the Ganges becoming seasonal.  Some doomsayers have even gone to the extent of boldly predicting the river to be ephemeral by the year 2035, which is barely a generation away!  Is it really possible that the Ganges will run dry by 2035!  Is this calamity an inevitability that should be accepted as fait accompli, or is there anything we, the people of India, collectively can do to save the holy Mother Ganges from extinction.  This profound issue demands examination, and I propose to engage my readers in a serious debate.  

Source of the Ganges

Gangotri Glacier

The Ganges originates from Gangotri glacier, which is one of the largest valley glaciers located in western Himalayas.  30.2 km long and 0.5 to 2.5 km wide Gangotri lies recumbent at the altitudes between 4,120 and 7,000 m above sea level.   This glacier originates in a cirque, which is a natural amphitheatre like space at the base of a mountain, immediately below the locally highest Chaukhamba peak, and is fed by several tributary valley glaciers.  The total area occupied by this glacier complex (in 2001) is 260 square km, which contains 40 cubic km of ice (in 1999).  During a 60 year period between 1936 and 1996, Gangotri has receded by as much as 1,147 m, 850 m of which happened during a 25 year period between 1971 and 1996.  In a three year period between 1996 and 1999 Gangotri retreated by 76 m.  When this result is contrasted with the 2,000 m retreat over the last 200 years, the significantly accelerated rate of retreat becomes obvious.  Available data show that the rate of retreat in 1971 was 19 m per year, which has now accelerated to 34 m in 2007.  Having observed these rates of retreat some experts and environmentalists have speculated that due to global warming Gangotri glacier may completely disappear by 2035. (Please see Note 1)  If that happens, they argue that the Ganges will cease to flow during the summer months, and will drain only the monsoonal rains thus becoming seasonal.  I would like to record here that while Gangotri is receding, a large number of glaciers further west are growing in size and volume!  Let us investigate the issue further.

Global warming is not uniform

Global warming does not mean uniform amount of warming at each and every place on the globe.  Although vast majority of the places on this earth will become hotter due to global warming, however strange it may seem, certain parts will in fact become cooler.  Moreover, global warming does not mean that the earth will uniformly dry up, or for that matter there will be no rains.  Although bulk of the continental landmass will become much drier, quite paradoxically again, some places will actually become wetter and receive much more rainfall.  In the following section I will present discussions to convince my readers of my assertions that one: some places will become cooler, and two: some places will receive much more precipitation, due to global warming.  Let me start my discussion to explain cooling, which can occur, say for instance, at a place in higher latitudes currently kept warm by the Gulf Stream.

The Gulf Stream

NASA photos: Gulf Stream

The Gulf Stream is a vast oceanic current that carries warm waters from the tropics to the temperate regions of northern Europe and North America.  This ocean current originates in the Gulf of Mexico, flows past the east coast of the USA and Newfoundland in Canada, and then crosses the Atlantic Ocean.  It then branches into two, with the northern stream moving to northern Europe.  The Gulf Stream is about 80 to 150 km wide and a 1,000 m deep river of sea that transports 1.4 petawatts (1 petawatt is 1,000 million megawatts) of heat, which is equivalent to almost 100 times the current energy demand of the entire world.  Around Cape Hatteras on the coast of North Carolina in the US, the Gulf Stream transports water at the rate of 80 million cubic meter per second, and is much bigger than any river system of the world; in fact the combined release of all the waters from all the rivers flowing into the Atlantic is only 0.6 million cubic meter per second. 

As the Gulf Stream proceeds north, the warm waters undergo cooling due to evaporation, and the evaporative loss makes the waters heavier due to increased salinity.  By the time it reaches North Atlantic, its saltier heavier and denser waters sink in the relatively less salty and less dense waters, and reverses its direction of travel and embarks on a southward journey.

The Gulf Stream has significant localised effects on the climate of the east coast of Florida and Massachusetts in the US; and the west coast of Britain, which is a good few degrees warmer than the east coast.  The warming effect of the Gulf Stream is most dramatic in the western islands of Scotland, so much so that the small township of Plockton (latitude 57.33oN) that is located east of the Isle of Skye, has a mild climate that allows sub-tropical cabbage-palm-trees to grow.  The local climate in Plockton in the absence of the Gulf Stream would be freezing cold as latitudinally it lies further north of Moscow (latitude 55.45oN) by almost two degrees.

Due to global warming, there is every possibility that the Gulf Stream may change course or it may lose its strength.  In fact in November 2004, it completely stopped for full ten days, and there are reports saying that in the last 50 years (since 1957) its deep return flow has weakened by as much as 30%.  Any change in the characteristics of the Gulf Stream, would cause significant localised cooling in Scandinavia and Britain.  At a time of global warming, the western islands of Scotland will experience substantial cooling.
 
This very logic that global warming is not uniform is also applicable to Himalayan environment, where in certain pockets the glaciers instead of disappearing due to global warming, may start to grow due to a combination of reasons.  Unlike the Scottish islands, the Himalayas, however, are not influenced by the Gulf Stream, but by an equally powerful agent, monsoon, which is discussed below.    

Monsoon and its effect on Himalayan environment

Himalayan mountain system is a vast 2,400 km long arc sprawling from the west to the east.  Width of this range varies from 400 km in Kashmir in the west to 150 km in Arunachal Pradesh in the east. The Himalayas consist of three parallel ranges, the northern most being the Great or High Himalayas, with an average height of 6,100 m.  This is where more than a hundred mountains that exceed 7,200 m in height exist.  The Great Himalayas act as a massive barrier that arrests the South West or the summer monsoon, which starts around June and continues till September, and the North East or the winter monsoon, and prevents their escape to northern Asia.

In hot summer months, intense incoming solar radiation (insolation) significantly heats up the Great Indian Desert of Thar in Rajasthan and adjoining semi-arid regions of Indian landmass causing a low pressure over north and central India.  Waters of the Indian Ocean also experience similar heating that causes a large scale evaporation leading to the production of moisture laden winds.  These winds flow in to fill up the vacuum created by the low pressure, and proceed north until they reach the Himalayas, which as mentioned earlier act as a huge wall, forcing the winds to rise higher.  At high altitudes these moist winds cool and precipitation of rain and or snow occurs.  The north-eastern part of India, where Cherrapunji is, receives abundant rainfall. 

In a slight diversion from the main course of this article, I would like to record here that the name Cherrapunji, which was the anglicised version of Sohra in the native lingo, has just been reverted back to the original by the State Government of Meghalaya.  Sohra receives the highest rainfall in the world of about 1,200 cm per year, and also holds two unique records.  The first record is the maximum rainfall in the world of 2,299 cm in a single year (between August 1860 and July 1861); and the second, is for the maximum amount of rainfall of 930 cm in a single month in July 1861.       

Now let us go back to the movement of the monsoon clouds, which then turn west and move along and over the Himalayas, in the direction of Kashmir, causing widespread rains.  Intensity of the rainfall, however, decreases towards the west.  The Himalayas also receive a significant amount of precipitation from the North East or the retreating monsoon of the winter months.

The South West Monsoon like the Gulf Stream is a vast natural system of transport of energy and water, and carries 1.2 petawatts (1,200 million megawatts) of heat energy.  The monsoon system, both South West and North East combined, transports about 12,000 billion cubic meter of water vapour over the Indian landmass annually, a third of which precipitates as rain and snow.  I will present a small calculation using some round figures to demonstrate the enormity of the volume of precipitation India receives due to the monsoon.  Let me start with the annual average rainfall of India, which is about 117 cm (1.17 meter) over a landmass of 3.3 million square km.  The amount of rainwater the landmass thus receives is about 3,860 billion cubic meter (1.17 m X 3.3 million km2) or say 4,000 billion cubic meter (4,000 km3). 

Over the millennia these monsoonal precipitations have created the vast glacial environment in the Himalayas that now hosts 18,065 glaciers spread over a total area of 34,659 square km containing a total volume of 3,734 cubic km of ice.  The vast majority of these glaciers (9,449) exist in the central Himalayas.  The western Himalayas host 5,648 glaciers and the rest (2,968) occur in the eastern Himalayas.  I want my readers to realise that the Himalayas have the largest concentration of glaciers outside the polar ice caps, and provide about 500 billion cubic meter (500 km3) of water annually.  Unfortunately, at present, 67% of these glaciers are receding, and the retreat is being attributed exclusively to global warming by many.  In the following section I demonstrate that global warming will make the monsoon system more vigorous yet erratic, which in turn will affect the general environment of the Himalayas to a significant extent.
           
Global warming and erratic monsoon

This year the onset of the South West Monsoon on the Indian landmass was almost a week early, and the arrival at New Delhi was two weeks ahead of schedule.  The early arrival at Delhi in 2008 broke a 108 year old record.  This new record may create the impression that early arrival of the South West Monsoon may become the norm.  This observation may not be correct though, as in the last few years the onset of monsoon has been late too.  Early or late, one fact that is obvious is that monsoon has become erratic, and global warming will make the erratic behaviour even worse.  The duration of the monsoon season will also vary; it may become shorter or even longer. 

As stated earlier, solar heating of sea water generates monsoon.  Because of global warming, the surface water temperature of the Arabian Sea, the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean that generate the South West as well as the North East Monsoons, will increase, which in turn will make monsoon more intense.  I offer a simple analogy of a kettle full of water on a stove to explain the rise in intensity of the monsoon system.  When the kettle is heated gently the water boils slowly and does not produce much steam.  On the other hand if the kettle is heated strongly, that is the kettle receives a lot more heat, the water boils vigorously and generates copious amounts of vapour.  Likewise hotter sea surface will generate more intense monsoon than a cooler sea. 

A more intense monsoon system will not only raise the peak wind-speeds of the storms but also increase their frequency.  In the last ten years we have already seen some very severe storms and downpours in India, Bangladesh and Myanmar.  I will mention an example from each of the three above mentioned countries.  The super cyclone of 29, 30 and 31 October 1999 that devastated the state of Orissa in the east coast of India had wind-speeds over 260 km per hour perhaps reaching as high as 300 km.  Widespread torrential rains that accompanied this category 5 cyclone, poured anywhere between 60 to 80 cm of rain over the Mahanadi basin in the three day period.  The maximum rainfall during the storm was even higher at 95 cm recorded in Bhadrak district of Orissa.  I want my readers to appreciate the scale of this almost one meter rainfall in three days, which is higher than average annual rainfall of many parts, even many countries of the world. 

The super cyclone caused a storm surge of about 6 m above the astronomical tide recorded at Paradip port on the 29th of October 1999, which was probably 8 m at some other coastal locations that travelled up to 20 km inland.  The lethal combination of the cyclone, flooding and the storm surge killed over 10,000 people, 400,000 heads of cattle, 2 million domestic animals, and uprooted or broke 90 million trees.  A vast majority of these trees had stood tall for generations, and some for centuries.  Destroyed were crops over a land area of 17,110 square km, and 275,000 homes that created 1.67 million homeless.  The damages by this super cyclone also known as the Paradip cyclone were simply unprecedented in the history of Orissa that made at least 5 million farmers lose their livelihood.  This cyclone affected Myanmar too.

Bangladesh has seen many devastating cyclones.  The latest very severe cyclonic storm that affected Bangladesh was only last year, on the 15th of November 2007 to be precise.  This category 5 cyclone, Sidr attained peak wind-speeds of 260 km per hour, and caused a storm surge of over 5 m that inundated low lying coastal regions.  Despite massive evacuations of the order of 2 million people, the cyclone, heavy rains and the storm surge united to cause 10,000 fatalities.  Cyclone Sidr of 2007 is generally considered to be the strongest to have stormed Bangladesh since 1991 cyclone that had caused over 143,000 fatalities.  Cyclone Sidr utterly destroyed the mangrove forests of entire one quarter of the vast Sunderbans that marks the very end of the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta, and is a world heritage site.  The devastation was such that the forest will take at least 40 years to regenerate.  This cyclone affected the Indian states of West Bengal and Orissa too.    

On the 2nd of May 2008, category 4 tropical cyclone Nargis that ravaged Myanmar reached peak wind-speeds of 215 km per hour and seriously damaged the capital city Yangon.  Vast areas of the low-lying Irrawady delta were inundated by a combination of torrential downpours and a 3.5 m tidal surge that caused at least 146,000 fatalities. Such severe cyclones will become even more intense and certainly much more frequent, due to global warming.  These intense cyclones are evidences of the intensification of the monsoon system.

Due to the more intense monsoons, recent years have seen far heavier rainfalls practically over the entire eastern and northern parts of India, and Bangladesh.  Last year serious floods played havoc with the lives and properties of hundreds of millions of people in virtually all the states of eastern India.  This year, as I write this article, eastern India has received torrential rainfalls, and vast areas in the states of Orissa and Bengal have already been severely flooded rendering millions homeless.  A few days ago, on the 24th of August 2008, following heavy rains in Himalayan foot-hills in eastern Nepal, the Kosi river breached its bank and opened a channel in the adjoining north Bihar, it had abandoned over 200 years ago.  The initial 3 km wide breach grew at the rate of another 200 m per day.  The ensuing inundation instantly affected over two million people, eventually making three million homeless.  Initial reports speak of hundreds of deaths, and the fatalities are bound to rise.

Heavier rains in Rajasthan and at Tehri

I hope I have convinced my readers that monsoon will become more intense and erratic in the future due to global warming.  The more vigorous monsoon will carry more water vapour, travel much faster and will generally lead to higher precipitations on the landmass of India.  The monsoon clouds moreover, will penetrate deeper into the Himalayas, scale higher altitudes and probably cause significantly higher amounts of precipitation.  The monsoon system might have already started penetrating deeper into the Himalayas and north-western India, evident from significantly higher rainfall in the last ten years in the north western most state of India, Rajasthan, which has been a desert state, and constitutes the last stop of the South West Monsoon before dissipation.  In July 2003 the South West Monsoon caused heavy downpours in Rajasthan leading to 9 deaths.  The maximum recorded rainfall in a matter of a couple of days in July 2003 was 7 cm, which is very high and unusual for the desert state.  In July 2007 rainfalls were heavy too due to a vigorous South West Monsoon.  The state of Rajasthan as a whole as of the 14th of August 2008 had received an average rainfall of 433 mm as against 342 mm in the same period of the previous year.  9 districts of the state recorded abnormal (60% more than average) rainfall.

Further evidence of more vigorous monsoon penetrating deeper in to the Himalayas could be gleaned from the reports of regularly higher rainfall of the past few years at the sprawling body of water of Tehri reservoir, which is barely 50 km from Gangotri glacier.  I must, however, state that Tehri Dam is situated at an altitude of only 770 m above sea level where as Gangotri’s lowest point is at 4,000 m.  Growth of glaciers in the western most Himalaya, also provide some very interesting evidence of vigorous monsoon, discussed below.

Growth of glaciers in the western most Himalayas

The Karakoram Range in the western Himalayas that is over 500 km further north-west of Gangotri plays host to a number of glaciers.  The most prominent glacier in the Karakoram is the 74 km long Siachen, which is not only the largest Himalayan glacier but also the largest in the world outside of the polar-regions.  The head of this high altitude valley glacier lies at 5,753 m above sea level at its source at Indira Col in the north, and its snout lies at an elevation of 3,620 m in the south.  A glaciologist Mr VK Raina in his article published in the Journal of the Geological Society of India in 2007 has recorded that Siachen glacier ‘along its snout front has been in a rest mode’, which in plain language means that the glacier is not retreating.  During my tenure with the Department of Science and Technology of the Government of India, I had the pleasure of interacting with Mr Raina, and I am quite willing to accept his observation on Siachen.  Moreover, I would like to add that the neighbouring 58 km long Baltoro glacier has been reported to be advancing and so are the 40 km long Rimo I and Rimo II glaciers, which means that these glaciers are actually growing.  Quite interestingly some scientists have attributed this growth to the lack of human intervention.  The average winter snowfall in this region is 10.5 m, which is not insignificant.
 
A combination of reasons for Gangotri’s retreat

So far I have tried to convince that due to global warming the moisture content and intensity of the summer and winter monsoon should increase, and they will penetrate deeper into the Himalayas causing more precipitation.  Perhaps this is happening already as evidenced from the earlier mentioned descriptions of the strong cyclones, severe floods, intense rainfall in Rajasthan and growth of glaciers in the Karakoram.  If this were the case, why 67% of Himalayan glaciers, particularly Gangotri are in recession then?  Some other glaciers such as Ratakona, Pindari and Milam in the vicinity of Gangotri, say within the area of a radius of a hundred km, are also in recession.  They are briefly discussed below.   

In Saraswati valley, north of the township of Badrinath, which is about 50 km from Gangotri, hosts Ratakona glacier very close to high altitude Mana Pass.  Situated at 5,443 m above sea level, Mana Pass has been the gateway to the Indo-Tibetan trade route since time immemorial.  Ratakona glacier near the pass is about to dry up, and it has disappeared entirely in the nearby Dhauli Ganga valley.  Pindari and Milam glaciers that occur about a hundred km south east of Gangotri attract vast number of tourists for trekking and a range of other adventure sports, and are fast retreating too. 

River Ganges at Bhagirathi - drying up

The recession, even disappearance of these glaciers is due to a combination of reasons, two main ones being population pressure, and massive deforestation.  The holy township of Badrinath at an altitude of 3,415 m above sea level is located on the banks of the Alakananda River which joins the Bhagirathi to form the Ganges.  Although Badrinath is home to only about 900 people, in 2006 season the holy town received about 600,000 pilgrims up from 90,000 in 1961.  In 2008 the total number of pilgrims and tourists trampling Badrinath, Kedarnath and Gangotri, was perhaps well over a million.  A hundred years ago no more than a few dozen souls lived here, and barely a few hundred came on pilgrimage, and most importantly they all travelled on foot.  Badrinath was then the site of the holy temple and a few nondescript little dwellings where a few sadhus lived.  Now Badrinath is a sprawling township with many luxury hotels and guest houses offering spacious accommodation to these battalions of tourists and pilgrims.  The construction boom at Badrinath is showing no signs of abating. Fifty years ago, there was virtually no vehicular traffic, and now the roads to Badrinath and the nearby holy towns of Kedarnath and Gangotri are choked full of flotillas of buses, trucks, jeeps and cars spewing obnoxious hot gases all the way up from their origin in the townships of Rishikesh and Haridwar at the Himalayan foothills some 300 km away.  These vigorous human activities are causing significant amounts of local warming. 

Each human body is a source of heat, and a million trampling the sites of Badrinath, Kedarnath and Gangotri every year give off more heat than a giant blast furnace; the heat is enough to scare the glaciers into a retreat.  Had this many stampeded on to Her Majesty Queen Victoria’s Vice-Roys, the all powerful and all oppressive British Raj would have beaten a hasty retreat, half a century before 1947, and what to talk of poor Gangotri!  What chance does Gangotri have to stand her ground against such a sustained onslaught by so many for so long, but to retreat!  I am amazed that she is still there!  And let us not blame this heat on global warming for the simple reason that when a room gets warm because of an electrical heater switched on, the warming is local and not due to global causes.  I have not mentioned yet, the inimical effects of the massive deforestation on the glaciers, which is rampant even total, in these areas and the rest of the Himalayas.

Badrinath, Gangotri and all the nearby townships now stand on forest-land stripped bare.  These human habitations were much smaller a century ago, and were surrounded by thick forests, which are now completely gone.  The scale of deforestation here is absolute, full one hundred percent.  My readers may be surprised to know the extent of deforestation in the Himalayas as a whole.  The dense Himalayan forests have been so denuded in so many areas that vast patches of deserts have replaced the forests.  A study published in 2001 on the deforestation of the Himalayas in Himachal Pradesh using remote sensing techniques shows the forest cover to be only 17.15 % .  This result is perhaps true for the entire Himalayas, and what a shame that is for us all in India!  In an attempt to further humiliate us all, I cite Japan, an advanced industrialised country where I live these days, and whose population density at 340 persons per square km is higher than that of India at 330, has a forest cover of over 70%, I repeat over seventy percent!

Forests invite rains, and as we destroy the forests, the Himalayas refuse to attract the monsoonal precipitations.  Moreover, the local warming that we generate because of the million plus tourists and pilgrims in the townships of Badrinath and Gangotri, chases the monsoon clouds away.  And the consequence is that at a time when monsoon is getting more intense due to global warming, certain pockets of the Himalayas like Gangotri glacier will receive lesser precipitation forcing her to retreat.  This is comparable to the paradox of Plockton that I elaborated earlier in the text. 
  
Retreating Gangotri and the need for creation of a series of glacial lakes

Glaciers scour the ground they travel, and transport the un-assorted mixture of clay, sand, gravel and boulders, known as glacial till depositing them along their flanks often forming substantial embankments known as lateral moraines.  These glacial rocks and debris, when deposited at the snout where the glacier ends, form the terminal moraine.  These moraines, terminal and lateral often impound glacial melt water from the retreating glaciers to create glacial lakes in the void left behind.  There exist many natural glacial lakes in the Himalayas as well as in other temperate and polar regions of the world.  In fact in the last few decades many glacial lakes have been forming at the termini of the glaciers in Bhutan-Himalayas.

Terminal moraines that act as natural dams for glacial lakes are inherently weak, and often, because of natural reasons again, break, causing glacial lake outbursts.  The ensuing floods are known as glacial lake outburst floods, and are a common hazard in the Himalayas.  Such floods are quite devastating, and have wreaked havoc in the past in China, Nepal and India.  Consolidation of glacial till of the moraines, particularly the terminal moraine not only reduces the risk of glacial lake outbursts but also helps in the formation of relatively stable glacial lakes.  Formation of a series of such lakes at suitable locations in Himalayan valleys where glaciers are in retreat, particularly at Gangotri, would create sources for ground water as well as surface water flow.  In this context I remember Professor K S Valdiya, an eminent Himalayan geologist who I had the good fortune of interacting with during my stay with the Department of Science and Technology of the Government of India, had suggested the construction of a number of small scale gravity dams across upper reaches of the Bhagirathi to impound the melt-water from Gangotri glacier in a series of reservoirs.  His decade old suggestion should be carried out to conserve the precious water.  The reservoirs may quite unwittingly attract more precipitation to the region.      

The concept of formation of a series of glacial lakes in the Himalayas at high altitudes need not scare the extremely powerful anti-dam lobby of India, as there already exist many such vast natural bodies of water at considerable elevations say over 4,000 m above sea level.  I would name a few here, such as Dashaur lake near Rohtang pass at 4,200 m, Manimahesh lake in Chamba of Himachal Pradesh at 4,200 m, Tsomgo lake in Sikkim at 3,700 m, and the largest lake Pangong Tso at 4,600 m.  Pangong Tso located at India China border is up to 8 km wide and stretches over 134 km.  Moreover, the other large Himalayan lakes such as Mansarovar spread over 320 square km at an altitude of 4,600 m above sea level, and the nearby 70 square km Rakshastal at 4,750 m.  I would also like to add that these lakes are often the sources of many Himalayan rivers like Mansarovar is for the Indus.  Should a series of lakes be created on the upper reaches of the Bhagirathi all the way to Gangotri, they will impound enough water and replenish the ground water table enough to prevent the Ganges from becoming seasonal.  It will not be out of place to record here that glacier melt water constitutes only a minor proportion (5 to 10%) of the overall runoff of the Ganges; however, the melt water is crucial as it maintains the Gangetic flow during the pre-monsoon summer months.  Water impounded in the glacial lakes could well replace the glacier melt water, while making the Ganges perennial.

The legend of King Bhagirath persuading Goddess Ganges to descend from her heavenly Himalayan abode on to the plains to save the multitudes might not be an allegory; it may well contain some elements of truth.  The legend could well be the historical account of a massive civil engineering project King Bhagirath undertook to break the terminal moraine of a glacial lake to channel the water to irrigate the plains parched by a prolonged drought.  Many such glacial lakes formed by retreating glaciers after the end of the last ice age, 18,000 years ago, and are forming naturally even today.  King Bhagirath utilised the water by breaching a terminal moraine then, and let us harness the water for rejuvenating the Ganges by consolidating the moraines now.

Need for massive afforestation of the Himalayas now

Occurrence of Himalayan glaciers at various altitudes depends on a range of conditions that include total annual precipitation, latitude, topography and aspect.  Glaciers in the eastern Himalayas occur at higher altitudes compared with glaciers in the central or western Himalayas.  For example, the lowest average elevation of glaciers in Arunachal Pradesh in the east is at 4,350 m above sea level, in Garhwal and Kumaun in the centre is at 4,000 m, while in Kashmir in the west it is at 3,700 m.  Now due to an increase in the average Himalayan air temperature anywhere between 0.6 to 1.0 oC since the mid-1970s because of global warming, the snowline, which is the lower limit of perpetual snow, will move to a higher altitude.  As the snowline migrates higher, the Himalayan tree-line, the altitude above sea level at which trees cease to grow, will rise higher too, thus making larger areas available for the growth of forests.

With the onset of global warming there is every possibility of an increase in rainfall in the Himalayas, and as nature provides a larger area for forests to grow by raising the tree-line, a massive and sincere campaign for afforestation must be undertaken now, before Himalayan forests lose their ability to regenerate.  As a part of this afforestation campaign, each and every pilgrim as well as tourist, must plant a sapling of a native tree and must pay a certain amount of money towards the management of the forests.  A great deal of care should be taken in afforesting the lateral moraines or the sidewalls, which traditionally supported abundant vegetation as they contained higher quantities of soil moisture.  A successful regeneration of Himalayan forests will reduce local-warming, attract higher rainfall, lead to a higher retention of water in the aquifers, and will contribute to a steadier supply of the runoff in the Ganges.

Conclusion

Gangotri glacier may well disappear in the future due to a lethal combination of massive deforestation, population pressure, influx of pilgrims and tourists, and local and global warming.  But if we start caring for the Ganges now on, which would involve formation of a series of glacial lakes, undertaking a massive programme of afforestation right from the foot-hills up to the elevated tree-line in the Himalayas, taking drastic measures to reduce the local warming, and reducing the pilgrim and tourist pressure, she will rejuvenate herself to a great extent, and will continue to remain perennial.  But are we resolved to look after her?

I conclude this article by citing Ganga (Goddess Ganges) from the Mahabharata when she says, ‘I will stay as long you continue to address me respectfully by my proper name, and will leave should you use any abusive word to call me by’.  This statement perhaps always had a deeper meaning, and meant that the Ganges will flow perennially if treated properly with respect and affection; but would cease to flow if mistreated.  With the massive deforestation of her catchment, metaphorically we have disrobed her to her utter degradation.  Deforestation has triggered a reduction in monsoonal precipitation, and lowered the groundwater reserves, and the two have combined to reduce the steady round the year runoff in the Ganges and her tributaries.  Deforestation, moreover, has accelerated the loss of top soil and has increased the frequency and magnitude of Himalayan landslides, which have collectively supplied a vast quantum of sediments that have choked the channels of flow.  And the final humiliation we have caused her is the release of vast quantities of untreated sewage, virtually along the entire length of her course.  With our mistreatment we have made Mother Ganges ill.  She is now showing her annoyance through the recession of Gangotri glacier.  It is time we wake up, and start caring for her now on, and if we do, she will regain her health and will remain perennial, she will not leave us.

Apathy, inaction, resignation and despair are ruinous; let mass action commence to keep the Ganges perennial.

This article, is by Guest Writer, Dr. Nachiketa Das.  He holds a masters degree in Geology (Environmental Sciences) from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) India and obtained his doctorate in Geochemistry from Glasgow University, Scotland. Upon completion of his Ph.D. he conducted research in chemical evolution of atmosphere and oceans as a Postdoctoral fellow of Harvard University. He has prior experience at the Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India, and the CSIRO division of Petroleum Resources, Australia. He is currently a Special Associate Professor at Hiroshima University, Japan. Dr Das writes on various political and environmental issues related to India and Japan.

Note 1: The IPCC’s 2035 prediction is inaccurate, and it is more likely that the glaciers will disappear in 150 years.  See this article for more information.
Further links you may be interested in:

EWTT: Waters of the Third Pole : Water crisis in Asia

EWTT: Sick Water: UNEP Report

 Photo credits : Gangotri Glacier : www.commons.wikipedia.org

                                 Gulf Stream :   www.nasaimages.org

                                 River Ganges at Bhagirathi : Gaurav Bhalla

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Water on the Table

Here’s a trailer of the movie:

This is what the Official Press Release as mentioned on the Water on the Table website has to say :

(Toronto – February 5, 2010) Canadian crusader Maude Barlow has had to defend the life-or-death truth against corporate interests for years… And even today, it is a war un-won. At stake in her crusade is humanity’s own right to the liquid that sustains all life – balanced against powerful interests that insist water is just another resource to be bought and sold. In some countries where the corporate argument has prevailed, the poor can be barred from collecting rainwater.

Water On The Table is a character-driven, social-issue documentary by Liz Marshall that explores Canada’s relationship to its freshwater, arguably its most precious natural resource. The film asks the question: is water a commercial good like running-shoes or Coca-Cola? Or, is it a human right like air?

Water On The Table approaches this question through the eyes of Barlow – an “international water-warrior,” a lightning rod for the looming water crisis. She fought relentlessly – if in vain – to keep water off the table in the controversial North American Free Trade Agreement, and she served as the U.N. Senior Advisor on Water to the 63rd President of the General Assembly from 2008 – 2009.

“Water must be declared a public trust that belongs to the people, the ecosystem and the future, and preserved for all time and practice in law, as a human right.” Barlow says.

Water On The Table shadows Maude Barlow at the controversial tar sands in Alberta, in the halls of the United Nations, and protesting Site 41 – a local issue with global resonance – the camera follows Barlow and a cross-section of farmers, Mohawk First Nation activists, cottagers and seniors in Simcoe County, Ontario to protest dumpsite Site 41. After decades of contentiousness, the municipality of North Simcoe seemed finally set on greenlighting a privately-administered land-fill on the far-reaching Alliston Aquifer, what one water expert, University of Heidelberg Professor William Shotyk, has called “the cleanest water in the world.” Barlow’s strategic campaign resulted in Walks For Water eventually attracting up to two thousand people and a proposal for a one year moratorium on the site. The attention on the issue lit a fire under both local and provincial governments. Water On The Table tracks the arc of this monumental struggle.

But more than an activist’s diary, Water On The Table is a poetic essay that intimately captures the public face of Maude Barlow as well as the unscripted woman behind the scenes. Her day-in-the-life is woven between dramatic, artfully crafted debates with several opponents in Canada and in the U.S. who argue that the best way to protect freshwater is to privatize it, and that water-rich Canada should bulk- export its water now, in the face of an imminent U.S. water crisis.

Cinematic water compositions by Steve Cosens (The Tracey Fragments, Durham County, Nurse Fighter Boy) create a reflective mood. The camera lingers on watersheds, wetlands, rivers, estuaries, cascades and lakes, elevating water beyond the political and into the realm of our own soul as a species on Earth.

Water On The Table is an 11th-hour cinematic wake-up call, and an unforgettable profile of a woman on an unstoppable mission.

Documentary cinematic storyteller Liz Marshall has explored social justice in projects shot all over the world, including West and Central Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, Central and South America, Europe, and North America. She has focused on censorship issues for writers, war-affected children, the anti-corporate-globalization movement, gender, education, sweatshop labour,
refugees, HIV/AIDS, popular culture, music and the written and spoken word.

Maude Barlow is the National Chair of the citizen advocacy group The Council Of Canadians, the co-founder of the Blue Planet Project, a best-selling author of 16 books, the recipient of the Right Livelihood Award (the ‘Alternative Nobel’), and a holder of eight honourary Doctorates.”

 

Water privatisation is a matter of concern to many of us in Asia, with climate change and population growth adding much pressure to the demand for scarce water resources.  Vandana Shiva, the well known environmental activist from India has written extensively on the subject in her book, Water Wars.   NGOs such as India Resource Centre continue to campaign for the legitimate needs of  local communities versus bigger corporate interests like Coca-Cola.

Countries such as Singapore depend on its neighbour, Malaysia for water supplies.  It would interesting to see what lessons the movie made in a North American context has for this part of the world.

Further links to explore:

Food and Water Watch Report:  All Bottled Up- Nestle’s Pursuit of Community Water

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Our guest writer today is Sahana Singh, the editor of Asian Water, a trade magazine which covers water and waste water issues.

This article was first published in Asian Water (Nov 2009) and reproduced in Maxim News Network, the News Network of the United Nations and in Sahana Singh’s Blog

You may also read this website’s interview with Sahana here.

You may also be interested in this :

 
World Water Monitoring Day on Flickr

Children in India test water on WWMD

World Water Monitoring Day in Bangkok

According to Wikipedia, the coordinators of WWMD, the Water Environment Federation (WEF) and the International Water Association (IWA) plan to expand participation to one million people in 100 countries by 2012.

Encourage schools and communities to take part in WWMD and send results over to the organisation, especially if you live in an area where the water quality is suspect.  Thanks for supporting the initiative!

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Kudos to Golden Village, Singapore for premiering yesterday, yet another eye-opening movie after Food Inc. inviting ACRES Director,  Anbarasi Boopal, in a dialogue session to share her views and suggestions for action.

“THE COVE” won the Audience Award at the Sundance film festival, the largest annual film festival for independent US and international films. It takes place in Utah, US.  Click here to read a review of the movie.

 Let me highlight the main issues as portrayed by ”THE COVE:”

What’s wrong with killing dolphins?

Dolphins are highly intelligent and self-aware mammals, much like humans who are conscious of what is happening to them, so it’s difficult to justify any kind of killing of these creatures, especially so where there is so much pain inflicted. They are highly social creatures, and travel about 40km a day in the wild, and are extremely stressed and unsuited for captivity in the entertainment industry.

They are also very sensitive to sound, which makes the capture methods used in Taiji of banging plates from boats an effective but distressing way to corner them. The dolphins who have nowhere to escape are then brutally poked.

It’s hard for one not to be moved, as you see these gentle creatures writhing in a pool of blood, desperately splashing the water with their fins in the agony of their final moments.
 
Why are the dolphins being captured/killed?

A dolphin sold to the entertainment industry fetches about $150,000, and this is the main economic driver for the capture. Taiji is the world’s largest supplier of porpoises.  Dolphin meat earns about $600 per dolphin and about 23,000 dolphins are killed in Taiji cove alone.

The fishermen are led to believe by the government that if they don’t kill the dolphins, the already diminishing fisheries stock will be consumed by the dolphins (and marine creatures in the higher rungs of the food chain).

The dolphin meat, which incidentally contains very high mercury levels is passed off  as whale meat without the knowledge of the Japanese public, threatening to cause a public disaster, like the Minamata disease induced by mercury contamination in the 1950s.

Enter a toothless International Whaling Commission (IWC), which does little by way of protecting lower cetaceans like dolphins.

What can we do?

Anbarasi Boopal gave a few suggestions for urgent action.  As she said, we have to act now, to prevent the next round of slaughter that is going to start in September.

@ Sign the petition “HELP SAVE JAPAN’S DOLPHINS”  and please rush in those signatures

@ Write to the ambassador of Japan in your country appealing to stop the slaughter or Taiji dolphins

@ Enjoy natural ways of watching dolphins, such as in the wild

@  Write to your government to ban marine mammals in captivity, the way Brazil has done.

@  Join Richard O’Barry’s Facebook group SavetheDolphins.org 

@ Visit the ACRES website to learn more about animal welfare activism

And yes, Watch the movie! Please do. Connect with these magnificent creatures. Feel their pain. Realise that we need not sit idle.  As Louis Psihoyos states, “You’re either an activist or an inactivist.”  It’s your choice.

We need to support environmental activism movies like these in mainstream cinema. THE COVE, with its excellent cinematic production, and brilliant undercover operation in a heavily guarded enclave, has all the elements that would beat a Bond thriller anyday. The movie itself is indeed an act of heroism.

And all for a great cause!

The movie may come across as anti-Japanese, but unfortunately, such is the context. We are all to share the blame, especially if we continue to enjoy a dolphin jump through a hoop or bounce a ball in a show pool.

We must also not forget that millions of Taijis are happening the world over, with other creatures, especially those mindlessly slaughtered for industrial meat and leather.  Let’s continue our support in many other ways for the voiceless and defenceless creatures of the world.

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Bottled water, no doubt, is convenient. At times, it even makes a lifestyle statement. And it is becoming increasingly common to think that it’s the only alternative, as one may have lost faith in local public utilities to deliver uncontaminated water, regardless of whether one lives in the developed or developing world.

Here are some ways to help break the habit

- Learn more. Read the books recommended at the bottom of this blog as well as this excellent report by Food and Water Watch.  This insightful report is a must read. It’s entitled “Take back the tap:Why choosing tap water over bottled water is better for your health, your pocketbook and the environment”

- Invest in a good filter. If you live in the developed world, chances are that your bottled water is no safer than your tap water, as scientific studies have shown time and again. This doesn’t mean that tap water is necessarily safe by itself.  Regardless of where you live, the presence of chlorine and chlorine by-products, pesticides, synthetic fertilisers and chemicals, dirt and bacterial contamination in pipes and overhead tanks are genuine concerns. It makes sense to research into a good quality water filter, such as one with activated carbon, with natural magnetic stones to energise the water.

Here’s a guide that may help you choose one:
http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/take-action/consumer-tools/choosing-a-water-filter/

Another website which has loads of information on the contaminants in bottled as well as tap water is www.thefreewaterreport.org

- Carry your own bottle of water, preferably a stainless steel one with filtered water from home.

- If you’re dying of thirst and can’t get hold of any potable water, look for alternatives such as fresh juice or fruit or pick up bottled water that has been manufactured as close as possible to where you live. Please recycle your used bottles. My friend, Vinisha suggested a great website for recycling ideas. It’s http://www.instructables.com/contest/keepthebottle/

-Refuse free bottled water that is dispensed liberally at events, parties and functions and avoid providing them when you are organising an event. Hire or install a water dispenser instead.

- Encourage your company not to distribute bottled waters at seminars and conferences and place water dispensers instead

Your saying NO to bottled water can make a huge difference in reducing a host of environmental ills, conserving oil and reducing carbon emissions. More importantly, you will help in conserving water that belongs to communities, and in ensuring water quality that belongs to future generations.

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Plastic galore

In an era where we need to particularly conscious of our use of oil and water, and work hard towards reducing global warming, the innocuous looking plastic water bottle has become an ubiquitous symbol of the kind of things we as a human race should precisely not be doing.

We are slurping up bottled water at an astonishing pace. The volume of global consumption at 41 billion gallons in 2004 represents a doubling of volumes in 5 years. The US consumes a lion’s share of the market, but countries such as India and China are catching up. Much of this is due to an enormous marketing myth and our own notion that bottled water, is somehow is purer and healthier, and that tap water is simply not safe or clean enough.

Is your bottled water safer than tap water?

Many scientific tests show that bottle water is no better than tap water. If you feel that bottle water tastes better, it’s possibly because there’s some chemicals added to make it taste better, or you’re just buying into the marketing hype.

Tap water goes through several rounds of stringent checks, especially in more developed parts of the world. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the US, for example, subjects tap water to hundreds of tests every month, whereas only one test a week is done on bottled water. And only 40% of bottled water in the US is regulated by the FDA anyway.

In fact, the Environmental Law Foundation in the US sued eight bottled water manufacturers for using words such as “pure” to market water that contained bacteria, arsenic and chlorine. Environmental regulations may be far less stringent in developing countries for bottled water.

Watch this ABC News video on Bottled vs Tap Water, which compares bottled and tap water.

What is the true cost of bottled water?

According to Food and Water Watch, the average cost of one gallon of tap water is only $0.002 per gallon, whereas the price of commercial bottled water ranges from $0.89 to $8.26 per gallon, that’s about 400 to 4000 times more than tap water! 90% of bottle’s price goes for bottling, packaging, shipping, marketing, retailing and profit, anyway.

A possible health hazard comes from the extensive use of phthalates (plastic softening chemicals) and other synthetic chemicals such as Bisphenol A in the bottle production which may leach into the water stored in the bottles.

It’s not just consumers who are paying a huge premium, so does the environment.

According to the Container Recycling Institute:

- Globally, bottled water accounts for 1.5 millions tons of plastic waste as only 20% of plastic bottles get recycled. The bottles end up in incinerators, landfills and many in oceans posing a threat to marine life.
- Making the plastic bottles consumes 47 million gallons of oil every year, enough to enough to take 100,000 cars off the road and emitting more than 2.5 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions.
- Massive quantities of fossil fuels involved in shipping more than 5 trillion gallons of bottled water which are shipped every year.
By purchasing bottled water, you’re indirectly raising the price of gasoline and contributing to global climate change.

- It takes two gallons of water to actually produce one gallon of bottled water. That’s the kind of wastage we cannot afford when water is becoming increasingly scarce.

The price of bottled water does not include a host of social, and environmental costs that society has to bear:

- Toxic emissions and air pollution from production of plastic damage public health.

- Landfilled plastic bottles risk contaminating ground water as they take a 1000 years to biodegrade, and the synthetic chemical additives and phthtalates leach into the groundwater, threatening water quality for future generations.

-Many communities suffer from a loss of groundwater as a result of massive extraction of local water, for which companies pay a pittance, and reap huge profits, without sharing the profits with the community.

Read this report on the lack of effective laws to curb water exploitation in India.
http://www.indiaresource.org/campaigns/coke/2003/nowaterdrinkcoke.html

Governments should be investing billions to improve the quality and image of tap water, to manage and supply at a fair cost of what is essentially a common good belonging to the community. In privatising this precious resource, it is important to think who is profiting from a public good, and who is actually bearing the real costs.

I’ll explore in the next part, how we can break our addiction to bottled water, a habit that damages our health, pollutes the air, exacerbates global warming, contaminates the soil, and threatens future water supplies.

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Dr. Masuru Emoto

What then is water telling us? Incredible as it may sound, Dr. Emoto’s research as shown in the New York bestseller “The Hidden Messages in Water” shows us that water stores information, responds to “words,” to sounds, to feelings and even to events. From a quantum physics viewpoint, all of matter, every single atom in our body and in the cosmos, is vibrating at a particular frequency. Water is simply “listening” to that frequency and mirroring it. Water is simply reflecting what we are saying, thinking, writing and feeling.

Some of the most amazing and beautiful crystals appear when words such as “love,” and “thank you,” are shown to water, as written words emit a vibrational frequency as much as spoken words.  Complex and complete crystals emerge from natural spring water, water from shrines and water exposed to classical music.

In contrast, crystals fail to form in tap water which is usually chlorinated, in dammed or polluted water, as well as water that is subjected to heavy metal music.  Distorted crystals emerge when water is exposed to electromagnetic radiation from TVs, computers, mobile phones or before an earthquake or even a man-made catastrophe such as 9/11. If you microwave water, the crystal that emerges is similar to the one formed when water is shown the word “Satan.”

The way water crystals form and change depending on the words shown to it, reflect our very attitude to water itself and the rest of what Nature gives us. We drink it, cook and bathe with it, and use it to dump what comes out of our factories and homes and fields, and yet we spend most of our lives without as much as giving it a second thought. Perhaps it is because we lack gratitude for water that we treat it the way we like, by chlorinating it, damming it, stagnating it and muddying it with toxic effluents. What we get then, is a lifeless, crystal-less medium reflecting the dullness of our minds and souls. Water and Nature itself expresses this in such an eloquent way.

The beauty of water crystals amazingly reflect the fundamental principles of the universe, the healing powers of “love” and “gratitude.” Water blossoms when we spread love. Water rejoices when we say “thank you.” How vitally important it is to say “thank you” to those we meet and greet- our family, our friends, our neighbours, and to say “thank you” to all the wonderful things and events in one’s life, many of which we often take for granted. How important it is to sit at the dinner table with our children or family members to partake of food with a feeling of gratitude for the blessings of the earth and for each other’s company. We are almost nearly water as 70% of our bodies comprises of it.  As we and the food we take in are mostly water, how beautifully we can change the crystals in the water within us and in others.

In another experiment with three bottles of cooked rice, positive words were uttered everyday for a few days to the first, negative ones to the second and the third bottle was left unattended. Which rice do you think rotted first? You could try this simple experiment at home with your children.

Whilst the first got positive energy and the second got negative energy, at least some energy was being given to the latter. The last bottle which was ignored rotted first, because neglect is worse than negative energy. What a powerful lesson this is for those of us with children, for we need to give them our love and attention, as their minds will verily rot if left neglected and ignored.

Perhaps it is really obvious that water, as the most invaluable of Nature’s gifts to the planet should be a medium for what the Universe is telling us. Water is showing us how to live our lives, how to heal ourselves, how to heal the planet and bring peace and harmony in our minds and souls and in our society. In Dr. Emoto’s words,” Our emotions and feelings have an effect on the world moment by moment. Each one has a magical ability to change the world. All you must do is make a simple choice: Are you going to choose a world of love and gratitude, or a tortured world filled with discontent and impoverishment?”

I’m not capable of commenting whether Dr. Emoto’s research has the rigour and objectivity to convince the scientific community, but the results that he shows us are universal principles, in that we can change the world around us by changing our thoughts, words and feelings.  I can’t but agree with his conclusions,” We have an important mission: To make water clean again, and to create a world that is easy and healthy to live in. In order to accomplish our mission, we must make sure our hearts are clear and unpolluted.”

I know that I haven’t been able look at water the same way again… when I sip it from a glass, or let it run between my fingers from a tap, or catch the raindrops, or think of all the springs, rivers, lakes and oceans that sustain life …I can’t but help saying a huge “thank you” in my mind.

An EcoWALK “thank you” for stopping by…..and giving me the opportunity of conveying this beautiful message.

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