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Efforts to reduce environment pollution
India's first green tribunal
to reduce environment pollution
The National Green Tribunal (NGT), a judicial body aimed at expediting environment-related cases and the first in the country,
has established ito reduce pollution. India is only the third country after Australia and New Zealand to have a dedicated green
court. Launched last October, NGT is headed by L.S. Panta, a retired judge of the Supreme Court. "The tribunal started
functioning in mid-May Cases have been heard earlier.
According to an environment ministry official, the NGT is an
independent body which was launched with the "initial support" of the ministry. The bench is hearing cases
transferred from the National Environment Appellate Authority and from the various courts including the Supreme Court of India. With
the launch of the NGT, the appellate authority has ceased to exist.
A day after the national green tribunal in Delhi
ordered new industrial units in Noida would not be given environmental clearance because of
rising pollution, the local administration on April 15, 2012 said The Uttar Pradesh State Pollution
Control Board (UPSPCB) says 70 % of the pollution is caused by vehicles, 20 % by industries and 10 % by households.
The EPA’s small step on carbon emissions
The Environmental Protection Agency announced its first
limits on carbon dioxide emissions from new power plants on april 1, 2012
By requiring that facilities produce less than 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt-hour, the rule essentially bans construction of
traditional coal-fired power plants. Burning coal releases lots of carbon dioxide and a range of nasty pollutants that encourage
heart attacks and respiratory illness.
Coal is America’s most abundant fossil fuel, but coal-fired power plants
are the largest source of carbon pollution in the country, contributing
about one-third of greenhouse-gas emissions. Harmful emissions from coal
can and should be managed better.The coal industry is likely to challenge the new rule, which it argues
will drive up energy costs and reduce demand for domestically produced
coal. A better response would be to meet the challenge with more innovative technology, such as carbon capture and sequestration. |
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NASA GISS 14 Air Pollution Control Measures
NASA GISS Identifies 14 Air Pollution Control Measures to Slow Global Warming, Improve Health and Increase Crop Yields
Fourteen air pollution control measures, if implemented today, could not only slow the pace of global warming, according to an intensive study by
NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), but also improve health and boost agricultural productivity. All regions of the world
would benefit as a result, NASA found, but the biggest health and
agricultural gains would be realized in Asia and the Middle East as a result of greenhouse (GHG) emissions reductions.
The GHG pollution measures center on methods of reducing emissions of methane (CH4) and black carbon particulates (soot). While increasing
volumes of carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted into our atmosphere is the primary agent of the greenhouse effect and the long-term global warming
trend, the NASA GISS research team found that reducing emissions of methane and black carbon "are complementary actions that would have a
more immediate impact because these two pollutants circulate out of the atmosphere more quickly," according to a project summary on NASA GISS'
website that comes with several, unique interactive explanatory features.
"Protecting public health and food supplies may take precedence over
avoiding climate change in most countries, but knowing that these measures also mitigate climate change may help motivate policies to put
them into practice," NASA GISS research team leader Drew Shindell stated. "The scientific case for fast action on these so-called 'short-lived
climate forcers' has been steadily built over more than a decade, and this study provides further focused and compelling analysis of the likely
benefits at the national and regional level," added United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) executive director Achim Steiner.
Unmanned NASA aircraft to study hurricanes in 2012
NASA will be sending unmanned aircrafts dubbed "severe storm sentinels" above stormy
skies, beginning this summer and over the next several years, to help researchers and forecasters uncover information about hurricane formation and intensity changes.
Several NASA centres are joining federal and university partners in the Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel (HS3) airborne mission targeted to
investigate the processes that underlie hurricane formation and intensity change in the Atlantic Ocean basin. |
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