A handbook is generally understood to be a ready reckoner, a quick reference, a flick-through pocketbook, something you pull out when the machinery has failed and so has your memory, or equally, in a moment of moral crisis or verbal vacuum. 

 

Understanding climate change and India 

The South Asian sub-continent faces the worst brunt of climate change in years to come, scientists of the UN’s Inter-governmental panel on climate change have warned. The sub-continent faces a challenge that it can only surmount acting in cohesion. 

The state will send its final draft on the action plan on climate change to the Centre in a few days. The plan includes the government’s strategy to address the problems of rising levels of sea water to melting Himalayan glaciers.

 

State prepares action plan on climate change 

Nearly 14,300 trees are likely to be felled during the construction work of Delhi Metro’s third phase. The “Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) has submitted a tentative proposal indicating removal of 14,298 trees for construction of following of metro lines in Phase-III,” Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jayanthi Natarajan said in a written reply to Lok Sabha today. 

A team of science and engineering students have developed an innovative ‘space web’ experiment which will be carried on a rocket from the Arctic Circle to the edge of space this week. The experiment, known as Suaineadh, was developed by a team of 20 graduate and postgraduate students from the Universities of Glasgow and Strathclyde and the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. Despite its humble beginnings, Suaineadh could pave the way for the development of a wide range of space construction projects.

 

Students’ ‘Space web’ experiment to be launched soon 

While the Information and Communications technology (ICT) sector worldwide is responsible for around 0.7 per cent of global CO2 emissions, the total emission of the telecom industry in India is around one per cent of the country’s total CO2 emissions.

 

Telecom sector seeks to go green 

Efforts to stem global warming have nurtured a strong urge worldwide to deploy renewable energy. As a result, the use of wind turbines has increased 10-fold over the past decade, with wind power often touted as the most cost-effective green opportunity. According to Connie Hedegaard, the European Union’s commissioner for climate action, “People should believe that [wind power] is very, very cheap.”

 

 

Questioning the developed countries’ reluctance to transfer technology to the developing world to combat climate change, Union Minister for New and Renewable Energy Farooq Abdullah today stressed on joint efforts to “turn the clock back” and save the earth. “I think the world is coming to an end and we are going to be one who will bring that end,” Abdullah said addressing a conference on sustainable development. 

 

Time to turn the clock back on climate change: Abdullah 

A seminar to raise initiatives on climate change among young people was held in Da Nang City yesterday. The seminar, under the Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience network (ACCCRN), aims to encourage young people to build up their involvement in programmes that fight climate change and the rising sea levels in Da Nang, Quy Nhon and Can Tho from 2012 to 2013.

With climate change posing one of the biggest challenges, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee Friday announced Rs.200 crore for research to develop plant and seed varieties that yield more and can resist climate change.