One of often discussed area of global warming is melting of the ice in the polar region. This melting can cause serious side-effects such as producing hurricanes, tsunamis and sub-merging the coastal area. This process of melting is further accelerated by the lowering of salt in the sea water. Elementary chemistry tells us that high concentration of salt in water reduces the rate of melting of ice*. However, with global warming, the salt concentration is reduced, thereby accelerating the melting process.
* Why salt in water reduces melting of ice?Consider a cube of ice dropped in plain water. Following are the types ofenergy transfer that happen:
Type 1: Energy that results in melting of ice: - Water (i.e. liquid form) consists of free molecules that are randomly moving around in alldirections. These molecules have kinetic energy due to which they cancollide with its surrounding molecules. When water molecules collide withice, they transfer the energy to ice which in turn displaces the icemolecule (i.e. causes ice to melt).
Type 2: Energy that results in formation of ice: - Now, in the process the water molecules lose energy, become cooler and some of these become cool enough to form ice. But the extent of formation of ice is based on the temperature that this water now acquires.
With the addition of salt to water, Type 1 energy transfer is impacted. This is because the kinetic energy of water molecules is distributed between salt and ice. Greater the salt molecules, greater is the kinetic energy expended toward it. This essentially means the bombardment of ice by water is reduced. The melting is lowered. Greater the proportion of salt, lower is the melting.
Current Initiatives
1. Tree Plantation Initiative, a Partnership With BBMP: Free tree plantation has been arranged for the roadsides of large areas in Bangalore. This has been done with the help of BBMP. The saplings will be provided free of cost with barricade and transportation. The minimum requirement is 50 saplings per area.
2. Survey on "Best Practices at IT Companies Towards Environment Conservation" with Climate Project India: We have partnered with Climate Project that has Nobel Laureates Al Gore and IPCC Chairman, Dr. Pachauri, as their patrons. The objective of the initiative is to undertake a survey on IT companies to understand the best practices in environment conservation implementations. The key dimension of the survey would cover areas of e-waste recycling, water re-cycling, power management and transportation. Large IT houses and data center operations will be a part of this survey. The insights gathered from organizations, will be publicized to contacts in several media outlets.
3. Symposium on "Implementations & Opportunities in Large IT Organizations to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions": Project GreenCredit in collaboration with "The Climate Project, India" and a few companies will sponsor a two-day workshop that has two-pronged objectives of sharing of best practices across these companies and will help them to collaborate with internationally acclaimed subject matter experts(SMEs). These SMEs will participate as program committee and in panel discussions, and will be experts in the areas of power management, e-waste recycling, water management, and health-cum-safety management.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Inspirational Incidents
True Story from the Bishnois
We all have heard about the sensational news coverage of the Bollywood actor Salman Khan being jailed for killing a blackbuck in some remote village of Rajasthan and Bishnois were agitated and angered with his action. I had somehow internally framed in my mind that these Bishnois must be one of those tribal communities living in remote villages of Rajasthan.
Recently I was reading a book called Forest Tales by Meena Raghunathan and Mamata Pandya published by Center of Environment Eduction(CEE). One story in the book narrates the true incidents involving the Bishnois. I understood that Bishnois meant “Twenty-Niners” and these were a group of people who followed the 29 tenets on “Protecting Nature” laid down by their founder, named Jambaji, who lived several hundred years back.
The history narrates that this region in Rajasthan faced severe drought due to complete de-forestation. A youngster named Jambaji realized that the only way to bring relief to the situation was by recreating a healthy living environment and planting trees was one main aspect of it. He started preaching 29 simple tenets to achieve this. Some of these tenets were:
Do not cut any living tree; do not kill a animal or a bird etc. This way he dedicated himself to preaching these tenets to all the nearby villages. This started a revolutionary movement and his followers started calling themselves “Bishnois” or “The 29ers”. This community has made amazing sacrifices for conservation of Environment. One of those incidents is when a King of the area wanted to build a palace and had ordered his soldiers to get timber for the palace by cutting down the thickly populated forest in the Bishnoi area. Bishnoi villagers protested this by hugging the trees as and when the soldiers came to cut them. The story reports that 363 people were axed to death by the soldiers before the King himself intervened. King was touched and inspired by the dedication that the Bishnois showed and passed an order that no tree should be ever cut or an animal be harmed in any Bishnoi village. Today there are many blackbucks that roam freely (well almost! :-)) in the tree abundant Bishnoi villages.
We all have heard about the sensational news coverage of the Bollywood actor Salman Khan being jailed for killing a blackbuck in some remote village of Rajasthan and Bishnois were agitated and angered with his action. I had somehow internally framed in my mind that these Bishnois must be one of those tribal communities living in remote villages of Rajasthan.
Recently I was reading a book called Forest Tales by Meena Raghunathan and Mamata Pandya published by Center of Environment Eduction(CEE). One story in the book narrates the true incidents involving the Bishnois. I understood that Bishnois meant “Twenty-Niners” and these were a group of people who followed the 29 tenets on “Protecting Nature” laid down by their founder, named Jambaji, who lived several hundred years back.
The history narrates that this region in Rajasthan faced severe drought due to complete de-forestation. A youngster named Jambaji realized that the only way to bring relief to the situation was by recreating a healthy living environment and planting trees was one main aspect of it. He started preaching 29 simple tenets to achieve this. Some of these tenets were:
Do not cut any living tree; do not kill a animal or a bird etc. This way he dedicated himself to preaching these tenets to all the nearby villages. This started a revolutionary movement and his followers started calling themselves “Bishnois” or “The 29ers”. This community has made amazing sacrifices for conservation of Environment. One of those incidents is when a King of the area wanted to build a palace and had ordered his soldiers to get timber for the palace by cutting down the thickly populated forest in the Bishnoi area. Bishnoi villagers protested this by hugging the trees as and when the soldiers came to cut them. The story reports that 363 people were axed to death by the soldiers before the King himself intervened. King was touched and inspired by the dedication that the Bishnois showed and passed an order that no tree should be ever cut or an animal be harmed in any Bishnoi village. Today there are many blackbucks that roam freely (well almost! :-)) in the tree abundant Bishnoi villages.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment