To save the planet
Tuesday, 5 January 2010
Md Mozzammel Haque
WATER, air and food, to be safe for consumption, must be unpolluted.
Green house gases not only deplete the ozone layer but also make the planet unsuitable for growing food. Noise pollution is creating serious health problems. Pollution control needs global as well as community level action.
Air, water and soil are getting continually contaminated due to human action.
The environment must be protected from growing industrial emissions by the developed countries as well as the emerging industrial ones. Steps taken so far, to contain emissions are inadequate to protect the planet. The upshot is natural calamities like floods, storms and droughts are increasing in frequency and intensity.
Overuse of the world's natural resources for industrialisation has resulted in considerable environmental degradation.
The poor and the marginalised of the world are more vulnerable to environmental degradation caused by growing consumption and industrial activity that is fuelled by the profit motive alone.
Population, environment and development, three interactive factors, can no more be treated as separate issues. Rapid population growth which prompts production and consumption, increases pressure on the environment. The presence of the growing population in overpopulated Bangladesh has been leading to rapid urbanisation since 1990. Urban population grew in Bangladesh to 21 per cent in 1998 from 20 per cent in 1995.
The Copenhagen summit identified greenhouse gases as the primary cause of climate change, contributing to depleted ozone layer and longer heat waves. But the summit achieved little to improve the global environment. Speaking for the poor should not be turned into a business.
(A student under Erasmus Mundus "A to Sim" Programme, Faculty of Science, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, the writer can be reached at: mdmozammelhaque@yahoo. com)
WATER, air and food, to be safe for consumption, must be unpolluted.
Green house gases not only deplete the ozone layer but also make the planet unsuitable for growing food. Noise pollution is creating serious health problems. Pollution control needs global as well as community level action.
Air, water and soil are getting continually contaminated due to human action.
The environment must be protected from growing industrial emissions by the developed countries as well as the emerging industrial ones. Steps taken so far, to contain emissions are inadequate to protect the planet. The upshot is natural calamities like floods, storms and droughts are increasing in frequency and intensity.
Overuse of the world's natural resources for industrialisation has resulted in considerable environmental degradation.
The poor and the marginalised of the world are more vulnerable to environmental degradation caused by growing consumption and industrial activity that is fuelled by the profit motive alone.
Population, environment and development, three interactive factors, can no more be treated as separate issues. Rapid population growth which prompts production and consumption, increases pressure on the environment. The presence of the growing population in overpopulated Bangladesh has been leading to rapid urbanisation since 1990. Urban population grew in Bangladesh to 21 per cent in 1998 from 20 per cent in 1995.
The Copenhagen summit identified greenhouse gases as the primary cause of climate change, contributing to depleted ozone layer and longer heat waves. But the summit achieved little to improve the global environment. Speaking for the poor should not be turned into a business.
(A student under Erasmus Mundus "A to Sim" Programme, Faculty of Science, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, the writer can be reached at: mdmozammelhaque@yahoo. com)