Chapter 19: Preventive Measures
It is half past eight on a weekday morning, and the road out of a city colony has stopped moving. Cars of every make and size fill both lanes, most of them carrying one person behind the wheel. Nothing here has broken down. The engines are running exactly as they were built to run, and that is the problem. Inside each engine, air is being heated above 1200°F in the presence of oxygen. At that temperature the nitrogen in the air stops being harmless. It joins with oxygen, and nitric oxide leaves the exhaust pipe. Out in the open air it takes on more oxygen and becomes nitrogen dioxide. Later, and somewhere else entirely, that gas meets water in a cloud, turns into nitric acid, and comes down as rain on a field, a rooftop, a marble wall. The driver in the third car does not know she is helping to make that rain. She is only late for work. This is what makes pollution such a stubborn problem. It is produced by ordinary people doing ordinary things in very large numbers, and no single one of them is doing anything unusual. This chapter is about what those ordinary people can do differently, and it starts with the car they are sitting in.
Diagram
Fig. 19.A1 Caption: Six preventive measures, each aimed at a different source of pollution. Brief: Hub-and-spoke drawing with ‘Preventive Measures’ at the centre and six labelled spokes reading carpools, promotion of public transport, no smoking zone, restricted use of fossil fuels, saving energy, organic farming; a small icon beside each label; arrows point outward from the hub to each measure.
19.1 Vehicular Pollution
Pollution reaches us through three doors at once. It affects the air we breathe, the water we drink and the soil in which we grow our crops, and each of these has its own set of sources.
The chapter begins by naming those sources. (a) The air, especially in cities, has been made poisonous by gaseous fumes from industries, by the emission from motor vehicles and by the burning of fossil fuels, until living in it has become difficult for citizens. (b) The water is polluted by pollutants discharged from industries, by household detergents, by sewage and by offshore oil drilling, which together make it unfit for human consumption. (c) The soil is polluted by effluents discharged from chemical industries, paper and pulp mills, tanneries and textile mills, by urban commercial and domestic waste, and by the use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides.
Because the sources are this many and this varied, no single step will do. A comprehensive set of preventive measures is needed to check the growing menace of pollution, and the rest of this chapter sets those measures out one by one. The first of them deals with the vehicle, because in a city the vehicle is where pollution is manufactured closest to people.
Why City Roads Are Choked
The rising level of air pollution in most of our cities is caused by the rapidly increasing number of private vehicles. Two things have pushed that number up together. The purchasing power of the middle class has increased, so more families can afford a car, and an efficient public transport system has been lacking, so more families feel they need one.
The result is an upsurge in the number of cars per family in the cities. The roads leading to and from any colony are choked with cars of various makes and sizes, blocking the lanes and bylanes at all times of the day and creating heavy traffic jams. Besides slowing everybody down, these vehicles are the major source of air pollution in the cities.
Diagram
Fig. 19.1 Caption: Traffic Jam: Vehicular Pollution Brief: Photograph of a congested urban Indian road, cars, buses and two-wheelers filling every lane nose to tail; haze visible over the traffic; no numberplates legible.
Two Effects Of One Exhaust Pipe
Vehicular emissions have two negative effects on the environment, and they work on completely different scales. One is global climate change, which acts on the whole planet. The other is air pollution and its negative health repercussions, which act on the street where the vehicle is running.
Climate change is a result of increasing carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions. The greenhouse effect results from carbon dioxide, the most important of the greenhouse gases, which acts like a blanket around the earth and keeps surface temperatures at warm levels. Increasing the CO₂ concentration in the earth’s atmosphere effectively adds another blanket, which warms the earth’s surface even more.
The Gases That Leave The Exhaust
Besides CO₂ emissions, other vehicle emissions also contribute to air pollution. In the atmosphere of major urban areas, vehicles are responsible for the following. (a) Vehicles account for most of the carbon monoxide (CO) present, a gas released when fuel burns without enough oxygen to burn completely. (b) They account for a large share of the hydrocarbons (HC), which are unburnt fragments of the fuel itself passing straight out of the engine. (c) They account for a large share of the nitrogen oxides (NOx), which are not made from the fuel alone but from the air drawn into the engine. (d) They account for a large share of the particulates, the fine solid specks small enough to stay suspended in the air rather than settle.
The nitrogen oxides are worth following through, because they travel furthest from the road that made them. Nitrogen oxide (NO) is formed when the nitrogen in the fuel, or the nitrogen of the air, heats to temperatures above 1200°F in the presence of oxygen — far hotter than anything reached in a kitchen. This reaction occurs in most car engines today, which is why the gas is produced by ordinary vehicles in ordinary use.
Nitric oxide (NO) is the initial product, and it oxidizes to nitrogen dioxide (NO₂). Nitrogen oxides also combine with water, leading to a component of atmospheric acidification, specifically nitric acid (HNO₃). In turn, this leads to acid rain — rainfall carrying dissolved acid, which falls far from the traffic that supplied the gas. Vehicle emissions constitute the greatest individual source of nitrogen oxides in industrialised countries.
Flowchart
Fig. 19.A2 Caption: One exhaust pipe, two separate kinds of damage. Nodes: fuel burnt in a vehicle engine → exhaust gases → branch one: carbon dioxide → thickens the greenhouse blanket → global climate change; branch two: carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides, particulates → urban air pollution → health effects in the breathing zone; nitrogen oxides branch further → combine with water → nitric acid → acid rain
Indian Cities And Their Air
Most of the big cities in India are affected by air pollution caused by high levels of total suspended particulates, carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide. It is exhaust pollution from vehicle emissions that has increasingly become the source of air pollution in these cities.
Alarmed at the air pollution levels in Delhi, in northern India, the Delhi High Court termed living in Delhi as living ‘in a gas chamber’. In 2014, the WHO released a list of the world’s 20 most polluted cities, and 13 of them were in India.
Indian cities therefore need to curb pollution from all sources. Vehicles, however, need special attention, and the following measures can help to curb air pollution.
Read the two facts about India carefully before moving on. A court’s description and a list of cities both tell you that the air is bad, but neither tells you which source is responsible in any one city. That is why the measures that follow are aimed at several sources at once, and not at vehicles alone.
19.2 Carpools
Carpooling refers to the sharing of car journeys by persons travelling on the same route. Nothing about the car itself changes. What changes is how many cars are needed to move the same number of people to the same place.
That is the whole mechanism, and it is worth being clear about it. A carpool does not make an engine cleaner, and it does not reduce what one car emits over one kilometre. It reduces the number of engines running on that route at that hour. Every saving that follows comes from that single change.
Diagram
Fig. 19.2 Caption: Carpooling Brief: Illustration showing four cars, each with a single occupant, with arrows converging on one car carrying four people; keep the arrows pointing from the four cars towards the single shared car.
What A Carpool Saves
The main advantages of carpooling are the following. (a) It reduces air pollution by reducing the number of vehicles on the road and thereby cutting down the vehicular emissions. (b) It helps to save money in buying fuel and in the maintenance cost of cars, since the cost of one journey is now divided among several people instead of being paid by one. (c) It helps to save petrol and diesel, and thereby saves the foreign exchange that goes into buying these fuels — the foreign currency the country must spend when it purchases fuel from outside its own borders. (d) It reduces traffic congestion on the roads and thereby prevents traffic jams, reduces fuel consumption, cuts commuting time and lowers the cost of road repairs, because fewer vehicles wear the road surface down. (e) It helps to use commuting time in useful pursuits. If one drives to work alone every day, the time spent behind the wheel is essentially wasted; riding in a carpool allows that time to be used to check and answer emails, read a newspaper or a novel, prepare for meetings, check bank balances or simply relax. (f) It helps to de-stress by talking to fellow commuters, sharing an anecdote, a story or a joke, and it can also help to build friendships. Many online services now provide a choice to share a ride with people of your choice.
Notice that these six advantages are not six separate benefits. Points (a) to (d) all follow from the same fact — fewer cars on the road — while points (e) and (f) follow from a different one, that a passenger has hands and attention free and a driver does not.
Flowchart
Fig. 19.A3 Caption: One shared journey, and everything that follows from it. Nodes: several people travelling the same route → they share one car instead of taking one each → fewer vehicles on the road → branch one: less fuel burnt → lower vehicular emissions and lower fuel bills → foreign exchange saved; branch two: less congestion → fewer traffic jams → shorter commuting time and less wear on the road surface; branch three: passengers are free of the wheel → commuting time used or spent talking to fellow commuters
Carpooling is therefore the cheapest of the measures in this chapter. It needs no new vehicle, no new road and no new law — only an agreement between people who were already going the same way.
19.3 Promotion Of Public Transport
Public transport is a shared passenger transport service which is available for use by the general public. That last part is what sets it apart from modes such as taxis, carpooling or hired buses, which are shared only among the people who arranged the journey between themselves. A public transport service runs whether or not any particular person turns up for it.
Public transport modes include city buses, trams (or light rail), passenger trains and metro rail. They differ in size and speed, but they work on the same principle as the carpool of the previous section, carried much further: one vehicle, one driver, one length of road, and a great many passengers.
Flowchart
Fig. 19.A4 Caption: The modes that make up public transport in India. Nodes: public transport → city buses → over 90 per cent of public transport in India, mostly run by State government owned transport corporations; trams or light rail; passenger trains → suburban services in a limited number of cities → mostly Electric Multiple Units; metro rail → operational in a small number of metro systems
Buses, The Backbone
Buses make up over 90 per cent of public transport in India and serve as a cheaper mode of transport for the general public. These buses are mostly run by State government owned transport corporations, such as the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) in Delhi and the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) in Mumbai, on the western coast of India.
Suburban Railways And The Metro
The suburban railway services in India are limited. They are operational only in Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Pune and Delhi, and between Kanpur and Lucknow. The Mumbai suburban railway transports 6.3 million passengers daily and has the highest passenger density in the world.
Suburban trains are run between a central business district — the part of a city where offices, markets and workplaces are concentrated — and the suburbs or other locations that draw large numbers of people on a daily basis. The trains that handle this commuter traffic are mostly Electric Multiple Units (EMUs), in which the motors are spread through the coaches instead of sitting in one separate engine. They usually have nine or twelve coaches, and sometimes even fifteen to handle rush hour traffic.
At present the metro rail is operational in metro systems in Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Jaipur, Chennai, Gurgaon in Haryana, and Bengaluru.
Diagram
Fig. 19.4 Caption: Delhi Metro Brief: Photograph of a metro train on an at-grade or elevated track with overhead electric wires visible; keep the overhead line clearly in view, since it is what makes the train electric rather than fuel-burning.
The Trend That Has To Be Reversed
However, in recent years there has been an increasing trend towards private vehicles. This has resulted in far more vehicles on the road, leading to more vehicle emissions and thus more pollution. If public transportation is used more frequently, this trend can be reversed, and so can its subsequent harmful effects.
What Public Transport Saves
The main advantages of using public transport are the following. (a) It reduces damage to the environment by reducing emissions; one bus emits far fewer fumes than 20 cars, and train emissions of carbon dioxide (CO₂) per passenger per kilometre are much less than travel by car. (b) It requires one-fifth of the energy per passenger per km compared to a road based transport system, so it reduces fuel consumption and helps to save the foreign exchange used in buying petrol and diesel. (c) It causes less noise, no air pollution, and is an eco-friendly transport system. (d) It helps to save money spent on the maintenance of personal vehicles, a cost that disappears entirely for a household that owns none. (e) It occupies no road space at all if it runs underground, and only about 2.6 m width of road if it is elevated above the traffic. (f) It avoids the need to find parking space for private vehicles, which in a crowded city takes up land at both ends of every journey. (g) It reduces congestion on the roads and thereby cuts traffic jams and travelling time. (h) It is safer to travel by public transport than by private vehicles, and it averts a number of accidents.
Point (e) is easy to read past, and it is the one that separates public transport from every other measure in this chapter. Carpooling makes better use of the road we already have. An underground metro takes its passengers off the road surface altogether, which is the only way a crowded city can move more people without first finding more land.
19.4 No Smoking Zone
The measures so far have dealt with pollution released into the open air of a city. This one deals with pollution released indoors, a few centimetres from the people breathing it.
Smoking is the inhalation of the smoke of burning tobacco encased in cigarettes, beedis, pipes and cigars. Nicotine, the active ingredient in tobacco, is inhaled into the lungs, where most of it stays. The rest passes into the bloodstream, reaching the brain in about ten seconds and dispersing throughout the body in about 20 seconds.
Flowchart
Fig. 19.A5 Caption: The route nicotine takes, and how little time the journey needs. Nodes: tobacco burns in a cigarette, beedi, pipe or cigar → smoke is inhaled → nicotine enters the lungs → branch one: most of it stays in the lungs; branch two: the rest passes into the bloodstream → reaches the brain in about ten seconds → disperses throughout the body in about 20 seconds
Smoking is recognised as the leading preventable cause of death. The word preventable is the important one: these are not illnesses that arrive without warning, but ones that follow a habit which can be stopped. Anyone with a smoking habit has an increased chance of lung, cervical and other types of cancer, of respiratory diseases such as asthma and bronchitis, and of cardiovascular diseases such as heart attack, high blood pressure and stroke.
Diagram
Fig. 19.5 Caption: Health Risks of Smoking Brief: Spider diagram with ‘Smoking — Health Risks’ at the centre and arrows pointing outward to cardiovascular diseases (hypertension, heart attack), pulmonary diseases (bronchitis), cataract and loss of eyesight, rheumatoid arthritis, cancers (lung, mouth, throat), ulcers, periodontal disease (gums, breath, teeth), ageing and facial wrinkles, asthma, and reduced life expectancy; all arrows point away from the centre.
The People Who Did Not Choose It
Smoking does not just harm the smoker. It also harms the people nearby, who breathe in the smoke exhaled by the smokers and are called passive smokers. Recent research has shown that the concentration of second-hand tobacco smoke — the smoke exhaled by smokers — in many outdoor areas is often as high as, or higher than, in some indoor areas. The risks posed by such outdoor exposure are well beyond generally accepted norms when large numbers of people are involuntarily exposed.
Therefore the passive smokers, or those who unavoidably breathe in second-hand tobacco at public places, have an increased chance of many health problems such as lung cancer, asthma, bronchitis, and sudden infant death syndrome in children.
The Scale In India, And The Law
There are approximately 120 million smokers in India. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), India is home to 12 per cent of the world’s smokers, and approximately around nine lakh people — a lakh being one hundred thousand — die every year in India due to smoking.
Two legal measures have followed. As a preventive measure, a mandatory specific statutory health warning on cigarette packs was introduced in 1975, so that the warning travels with the product itself. Realising the seriousness of the problem, smoking in public places was then prohibited nationwide from October 2, under the Prohibition of Smoking in Public Places Rules 2008.
The smoking ban pertains to public places, and the list is long because a public place is anywhere people must go rather than choose to go. It includes auditoriums, cinemas, hospitals, public transport (aircraft, buses, trains, metros and taxis) and their related facilities (airports, bus stands and railway stations), restaurants, hotels, amusement centres, offices, libraries, courts, post offices, markets, shopping malls, canteens, educational institutions and parks.
Diagram
Fig. 19.3 Caption: No Smoking Zone Brief: Photograph of a standard no-smoking sign — a lit cigarette inside a red circle with a diagonal bar, the words NO SMOKING below it; keep the sign square to the frame and fully legible.
A person caught smoking in public places has to pay a fine. By creating a ‘No Smoking Zone’ in public places, an attempt has been made to save not only passive smokers but also to encourage smokers to give up smoking.
What A No Smoking Zone Achieves
The advantages of a ‘No Smoking Zone’ are the following. (a) It reduces the possibility of second-hand tobacco smoke being inhaled by non-smokers, who were never in a position to consent to it. (b) It reduces air pollution; areas which have prohibited smoking have been found to have better indoor air quality as opposed to areas where smoking is allowed. (c) It reduces healthcare costs by reducing the chances of the diseases caused by smoking. (d) It reduces the chances of influencing others, especially the youth, to take on the habit of smoking, because a habit that is never seen in public is far less likely to be copied. (e) It reduces the chances of accidental fires in places with highly flammable materials, and of forest fires and other fires which start from lit cigarettes.
Point (d) is the one that makes this a preventive measure rather than a protective one. A ban in a cinema or a bus stand cleans the air in that place today, but it also removes the sight of smoking from the places where young people spend their time — and a habit that is not taken up does not have to be given up later.
19.5 Restricted Use Of Fossil Fuels
Fossil fuels refer to buried, combustible deposits of organic materials, formed from decayed plants and animals that have been converted to crude oil, coal and natural gas by exposure to heat and pressure in the earth’s crust over hundreds of millions of years. Combustible simply means that they burn, and burning is the only way we take the energy out of them.
The word fossil is doing real work in that definition. These fuels are the remains of living things, buried and altered, and the time written into them is the reason they cannot be replaced within a human lifetime.
Where The World’s Energy Comes From
Fossil fuels are the major source of energy, and each of the three has settled into its own uses. (a) Coal provides about 28 per cent of all commercial energy in the world, and is used to produce electricity and to make steel, besides its use in many other industries and for domestic use. (b) Petroleum furnishes about 40 per cent of the commercial energy used in the world, provides most of the energy used for transportation, and heats millions of houses as well. (c) Natural gas accounts for 20 per cent of the commercial energy used in the world, is used to heat homes, cook meals and run industries, and in its compressed form, CNG, is used as an alternative to petrol or diesel in automobiles.
Graph
Fig. 19.A6 Caption: Share of the world’s commercial energy supplied by each fossil fuel. Brief: Vertical bar chart, three bars — coal, petroleum, natural gas — with x-axis labelled fuel and y-axis labelled share of world commercial energy in per cent, scaled 0 to 50; values 28, 40 and 20 respectively; data from the figures given in this section; do not draw a bar or a slice for any remaining share, as the chapter does not give it.
Diagram
Fig. 19.6 Caption: Petroleum Plant Brief: Photograph of an offshore petroleum platform standing in open sea, drilling derrick and crane visible; keep the surrounding water clearly in frame.
What Burning Them Costs
Fossil fuels are the cause of environmental hazards like air pollution, global warming and acid rain. Air pollution is one of the major disadvantages of fossil fuels. The carbon dioxide (CO₂) released into the air when fossil fuels are burnt is the primary gas responsible for global warming.
Sulphur dioxide is another of the pollutants that is released when fossil fuels are burnt, and it is a main cause of acid rain. Acid rain can lead to the destruction of monuments made up of marble, and it damages crops through the acidification of loams — a loam being a soil holding a workable balance of sand, silt and clay, which is why farmers depend on it.
Flowchart
Fig. 19.A7 Caption: Three hazards, all beginning at the same flame. Nodes: fossil fuel burnt → branch one: carbon dioxide released → acts as a greenhouse gas → global warming; branch two: sulphur dioxide released → combines with water in the atmosphere → acid rain → marble monuments destroyed and loams acidified → crops damaged; branch three: fine particulate matter and other airborne toxicants released → breathed in → respiratory and lung disease
The Damage To Health And To Water
Pollution of the air from vehicles and from coal powered power plants can cause serious health hazards. It can result in diseases like asthma, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disorder (COPD) and lung cancer. Long-term exposure may increase respiratory infections in the general population.
Children and the elderly are the most vulnerable to fine particulate matter and other airborne toxicants, because their bodies have less reserve to cope with the strain. The harm is not shared equally, and that is a point worth holding on to when a city’s air quality is described as a single average figure.
The fuel does damage on its way to us as well. Transportation of crude oil via sea can cause oil spills, which are hazardous to aquatic life because they lessen the oxygen content of the water. A spill therefore kills without any burning taking place at all.
Running Out, And What Comes Next
Fossil fuels are non-renewable sources of energy, which means that once a deposit is used, no natural process will replace it on any timescale that matters to us. As a result of growing demand, fossil fuels are being depleted at a rate 100,000 times faster than they are being formed.
At the present rate of usage, the coal reserves are likely to last for about 200 years. Similarly, at the present rate of usage, the world’s crude oil reserves would be exhausted in just 50 years. These resources take millions of years to form, so the figures describe a stock being emptied, not a supply being drawn on.
It is essential, therefore, to reduce dependence on such energy resources, and to explore and exploit the enormous potential of alternative sources of energy. The chapter names solar energy, tidal energy, wind energy, geothermal energy and biomass based energy. These are not only renewable sources of energy but are also environmentally clean and safe to use, which is what makes them an answer to both problems at once — the stock that is running down, and the pollution released while it is being burnt.
19.6 Saving Energy
India faces a serious energy crisis, caused by population pressure and by the deterioration in the physical environment. More people need more energy, and an environment already under strain supplies it less easily.
Today, the fossil fuels are the main source of energy in the urban areas. Fossil fuels like coal, petroleum and others are being used at an alarming rate. If these fuels continue to be used at the present rate, they would not last for consumption for a long time.
Hydro-electric power, generated by falling water rather than by burning anything, is also used in urban areas. It is a clean fuel, but at the source of its production huge dams are being built which create environmental problems. The pollution has not disappeared; it has moved from the city that uses the electricity to the valley that produces it.
Two Different Shortages
The energy problem does not look the same everywhere in the country. In the urban areas, energy resources are used to the maximum without caring for the future. In the rural areas the difficulty is the opposite one: there is not enough energy supply to draw on in the first place.
Some of the villages use hydro electrical power for light and for pumping up water from tubewells. However, such supply is not regular, and not all rural areas have sources of hydroelectrical power available to them. Despite urbanisation, 74 per cent of India resides in rural areas, where the villages still depend on traditional fuels to meet their energy needs.
That figure is worth reading carefully. It describes where the supply has reached, not what the people there are capable of. Three-quarters of the country is being asked to meet its needs from fuels gathered and burnt at home, while the heaviest and least careful use of commercial energy happens in the cities.
Ten Ways To Use Less
The following measures can help to save energy. (a) Use extra blankets and sweaters instead of using room heaters, and likewise, in summer, dress in light cotton clothes to save on air-conditioning costs and energy. (b) Make sure that the houses are well insulated and, if they are heated or cooled, that windows or doors are not left open; raise shades on winter days and lower them in the summer, seal all leaks, block windows and doors with weather-strip tape — a strip fixed along the gap of a door or window — and install blinds to reduce outside heat transfer. (c) Use products carrying the Energy Star label on products and equipment, which reduces the energy bill by 30 per cent and electric lighting charges by 40 per cent while cutting pollution. (d) Use a low-flow shower-head, which reduces water consumption and, with it, the energy used to heat that water. (e) Turn off equipment and lights at night, and unplug appliances when they are not in use. (f) Replace light fixtures with energy conserving CFL bulbs and tubes, which help save 75 per cent of the energy used with incandescent bulbs — the older kind that make light by heating a wire until it glows. (g) Check furnaces, air conditioners and heat pump filters regularly, because cleaning the heating, ventilation and air-conditioning equipment makes it last longer, avoids costly down time and improves indoor air quality. (h) Paint exterior and interior walls in a light colour so more light is reflected, paint the edges of the window in white so more light is reflected inside, and during the day open the blinds to bring in natural light instead of turning on lights. (i) By double siding on copiers, reusing single-sided paper and using electronic mail, an organisation can save a significant amount of energy and natural resources; one ton of waste paper saves enough energy to power an average home for 6 months. (j) Use public transport or carpool, which helps to save energy costs and extends the life of the vehicle.
CFLs help to save money, use less energy, reduce light bulb changes and lower greenhouse gas emissions. LED lighting differs from incandescent and compact fluorescent lighting in several ways: it is more efficient, more durable, more versatile and longer lasting.
Flowchart
Fig. 19.A8 Caption: The ten measures fall into a few groups, each attacking energy use in a different way. Nodes: saving energy → branch one: use less heating and cooling → clothing, insulation, sealed leaks, blinds, clean filters; branch two: use more efficient equipment → Energy Star products, CFL and LED lighting, low-flow shower-head; branch three: use less lighting → light wall colours, daylight through open blinds, switches turned off at night; branch four: use less material → double-sided copying, reused paper, electronic mail; branch five: travel differently → public transport or carpool
Read down that list and one thing stands out. Not a single measure asks for a new invention or a new power station. Every one of them is a decision taken inside a house or an office, which is why saving energy is the measure in this chapter that most nearly belongs to the reader.
19.7 Organic Farming
The measures so far have dealt with what leaves an exhaust pipe, a cigarette or a burning fuel. This last one deals with the soil, and with what is deliberately added to it every season.
Organic farming is a holistic system of farming, primarily aimed at cultivating the land and raising crops in such a way as to keep the soil alive and in good health. It does this by using organic wastes — crop, animal and farm wastes, and aquatic wastes — and other biological materials, along with beneficial microbes called biofertilisers, to release nutrients to crops. The purpose is increased sustainable production in an eco-friendly, pollution free environment.
The word holistic is the key to that definition. The soil is not treated as a container that holds whatever is poured into it, but as something living, whose health decides how well anything grows in it.
What Is Left Out, And What Replaces It
Organic farming excludes the use of synthetic inputs, such as fertilizers, pesticides, hormones and feed additives. In their place, it relies upon crop rotations, crop residues, animal manures, off-farm organic waste, and a biological system of nutrient mobilization and plant protection.
According to the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), organic agriculture is a unique production management system which promotes and enhances agro-ecosystem health, including biodiversity, biological cycles and soil biological activity, and this is accomplished by using on-farm agronomic, biological and mechanical methods in exclusion of all synthetic off-farm inputs.
Diagram
Fig. 19.7 Caption: Organic Produce Brief: Photograph of an assortment of fresh organic produce laid out together — vegetables, fruits, pulses, grains, nuts and bread; keep the range of items wide and the arrangement flat-lit.
Flowchart
Fig. 19.A9 Caption: On an organic farm the nutrients travel in a circle rather than a straight line. Nodes: crop, animal and farm wastes and aquatic wastes → composted on the farm → beneficial microbes, the biofertilisers, act on them → nutrients released into the soil → taken up by the crop → crop harvested → crop residues and livestock manures left behind → back to the composted wastes
The Four Principles
The four Principles of Organic Farming are the following. (a) Organic farming should sustain and enhance the health of soil, plants, animals and humans as one and indivisible, treating them as a single system rather than four separate concerns. (b) Organic farming should be based on living ecological systems and cycles, work with them, emulate them and help sustain them. (c) Organic agriculture should build on relationships that ensure fairness with regard to the common environment and life opportunities. (d) Organic farming should be managed in a precautionary and responsible manner to protect the health and well being of current and future generations and the environment.
Diagram
Fig. 19.8 Caption: How organic farming works Brief: Circular flow diagram with ‘Organic Farming — Good for Farmers and Builds Communities’ at the centre and eight labelled stages arranged clockwise around the ring — no genetically modified organism seed used; builds soil organic matter through crop rotation, intercropping and composting; better for the environment; conserves water and uses rainwater more efficiently; uses soil balance, trap crops and beneficial insects to manage pests; physical removal or intercropping to remove weeds; beneficial to animals and insects; natural defoliation; arrows run continuously around the ring so that the last stage leads back to the first.
19.7.1 Characteristics Of Organic Farming
The main characteristics of organic farming are the following. (a) Protecting the long term fertility of soils by maintaining organic matter levels, and creating optimised conditions for biological activity within the soil. (b) Providing crop nutrients indirectly, using relatively insoluble nutrient sources which are made available to the plant by the action of soil micro-organisms. (c) Maintaining nitrogen self-sufficiency through the use of legumes — plants such as pulses, whose roots host bacteria that take nitrogen from the air — and biological nitrogen fixation, as well as through the effective recycling of organic materials including crop residues and livestock manures. (d) Preventing weeds, disease and pests by relying primarily on crop rotations, natural predators, diversity, organic manuring and resistant varieties, with limited and preferably minimal thermal, biological and chemical intervention. (e) Providing attentive care and management of livestock, paying full regard to their evolutionary adaptations, behavioural needs and animal welfare issues with respect to nutrition, housing, health, breeding and rearing. (f) Careful attention to the impact of the farming system on the wider environment, and to the conservation of wildlife and natural habitats.
Characteristic (b) is the one that separates this system from the usual one. A synthetic fertiliser delivers nutrients that a plant can absorb at once. An organic system supplies sources the plant cannot use directly, and depends on soil micro-organisms to unlock them — which is why keeping the soil biologically active is not an added benefit here but the whole method.
19.7.2 Importance Of Organic Farming
The significant advantages of organic farming are the following. (a) Organic farming promotes the use of crop rotations and cover crops, and encourages balanced host and predator relationships, so that the creatures which eat a pest are present in the field alongside it. (b) Organic residues and nutrients produced on the farm are recycled back to the soil, and cover crops and composted manure are used to maintain soil organic matter and fertility. (c) Preventative insect and disease control methods are practised, including crop rotation, improved genetics and resistant varieties, while integrated pest and weed management and soil conservation systems are valuable tools on an organic farm.
Notice the word preventative in point (c). It places organic farming with everything else in this chapter: the aim is not to clean up damage after it has been done, but to arrange matters so that the damage is never done in the first place.
19.8 Summary
- Pollution reaches people through three routes at once — the air we breathe, the water we drink and the soil in which we grow our crops — and because its sources are many, a comprehensive set of preventive measures is needed rather than a single step.
- The rising level of air pollution in most Indian cities comes from the rapidly increasing number of private vehicles, driven by greater purchasing power in the middle class together with the lack of an efficient public transport system.
- Vehicular emissions damage the environment in two separate ways.
- Carbon dioxide thickens the greenhouse blanket around the earth and drives global climate change.
- Carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides and particulates pollute the air of urban areas and harm health, and vehicles emit them within our breathing zone.
- Nitric oxide forms when nitrogen heats above 1200°F in the presence of oxygen inside an engine; it oxidizes to nitrogen dioxide, and nitrogen oxides combine with water to form nitric acid, which returns to the ground as acid rain.
- Carpooling is the sharing of car journeys by persons travelling on the same route, and every advantage it brings follows from one change — fewer vehicles on the road.
- It cuts vehicular emissions, fuel bills, foreign exchange spent on fuel, congestion, commuting time and the cost of road repairs.
- It frees commuting time for useful pursuits and allows passengers to de-stress by talking to fellow commuters.
- Public transport is a shared passenger service open to the general public, and includes city buses, trams or light rail, passenger trains and metro rail.
- Buses make up over 90 per cent of public transport in India and are mostly run by State government owned transport corporations.
- Suburban railway services are limited to a few cities, and the Mumbai suburban railway carries 6.3 million passengers daily with the highest passenger density in the world.
- One bus emits far fewer fumes than 20 cars, and public transport uses one-fifth of the energy per passenger per km compared with a road based system.
- It occupies no road space if underground and only about 2.6 m width if elevated, avoids parking, reduces congestion and averts accidents.
- Smoking is the inhalation of the smoke of burning tobacco, and nicotine reaches the brain in about ten seconds and disperses through the body in about 20 seconds; it is recognised as the leading preventable cause of death.
- Passive smokers are those who breathe in the smoke exhaled by smokers, and they face an increased chance of lung cancer, asthma, bronchitis and sudden infant death syndrome in children.
- India has approximately 120 million smokers, is home to 12 per cent of the world’s smokers, and loses approximately nine lakh people every year to smoking.
- A mandatory statutory health warning on cigarette packs was introduced in 1975.
- Smoking in public places was prohibited nationwide from October 2, under the Prohibition of Smoking in Public Places Rules 2008, and a person caught smoking in a public place has to pay a fine.
- A ‘No Smoking Zone’ protects non-smokers, improves indoor air quality, lowers healthcare costs, reduces the chance of the young taking up the habit, and reduces accidental fires.
- Fossil fuels are buried, combustible deposits of organic materials, formed from decayed plants and animals over hundreds of millions of years, and they supply most of the world’s commercial energy — coal about 28 per cent, petroleum about 40 per cent and natural gas 20 per cent.
- Burning fossil fuels causes air pollution, global warming and acid rain.
- Carbon dioxide released on burning is the primary gas responsible for global warming.
- Sulphur dioxide is a main cause of acid rain, which destroys marble monuments and damages crops by acidifying loams.
- Air pollution from vehicles and coal powered power plants causes asthma, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disorder and lung cancer, and children and the elderly are the most vulnerable.
- Oil spills during sea transport of crude oil harm aquatic life by lessening the oxygen content of the water.
- Fossil fuels are non-renewable and are being depleted 100,000 times faster than they are formed; coal reserves are likely to last about 200 years and crude oil reserves would be exhausted in just 50 years, which is why solar, tidal, wind, geothermal and biomass energy must be developed.
- India’s energy crisis has two different faces: urban areas use energy resources to the maximum without caring for the future, while 74 per cent of India lives in rural areas where supply is irregular or absent and villages still depend on traditional fuels.
- Energy can be saved by everyday decisions inside a house or an office — insulation and clothing instead of heaters and air conditioners, Energy Star equipment, CFL and LED lighting, low-flow shower-heads, switching off and unplugging, light-coloured walls and daylight, reused and double-sided paper, and using public transport or a carpool.
- Organic farming is a holistic system that keeps the soil alive using organic wastes, biological materials and beneficial microbes, and excludes synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, hormones and feed additives.
- Its four principles cover the health of soil, plants, animals and humans as one, working with ecological cycles, fairness, and precautionary management for present and future generations.
- Its characteristics include long term soil fertility, indirect nutrient supply through soil micro-organisms, nitrogen self-sufficiency from legumes, and pest control through rotations, natural predators and resistant varieties.
- Its importance lies in recycling farm residues back to the soil, balanced host and predator relationships, and preventative insect and disease control.
Flowchart
Fig. 19.A10 Caption: Six measures, and the sources of pollution each one is aimed at. Nodes: sources of pollution → branch one: private vehicles on city roads → carpools and promotion of public transport → fewer vehicles, lower emissions, less congestion; branch two: tobacco smoke in public places → no smoking zone → cleaner indoor air and fewer passive smokers; branch three: burning of fossil fuels → restricted use of fossil fuels and saving energy → less carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxide, and reserves made to last; branch four: chemical fertilisers and pesticides in the soil → organic farming → nutrients recycled through the soil’s own organisms; all four branches → back to a reduced load of pollution on air, water and soil
What This Chapter Cannot Tell You
The figures in this chapter come without the year they belong to, so the shares of world commercial energy, the number of smokers and the reserves that are said to last 200 or 50 years describe a moment we are not shown. A reserve estimate in particular is a forecast at the present rate of usage, and the rate does not stay still.
National figures also hide everything inside them. That 74 per cent of India lives in rural areas says nothing about which villages have a supply and which do not, and a list of the world’s most polluted cities tells you the air is bad without telling you which source is responsible in any one of them.
Finally, the chapter names measures without measuring them. It does not say how much pollution each measure actually removes, what it costs, or how far the laws it describes are enforced — so the list should be read as what can be done, not as a record of what has been achieved.
19.9 Check Your Concepts
Using the shares of world commercial energy given in this chapter for coal, petroleum and natural gas:
- Work out the combined share supplied by the three fossil fuels together, showing your addition.
- State what the chapter does not tell you about the share that remains.
Look at Fig. 19.8, which shows how organic farming works.
- Name any three practices shown around the ring.
- Explain why the diagram is drawn as a closed ring rather than as a list of steps running from top to bottom.
The chapter says that suburban railway services in India are operational in only a limited number of cities. Using what the chapter says about where suburban trains run and who uses them, explain what conditions a city must have before such a service is worth running.
Coal reserves are expected to last about 200 years and crude oil reserves about 50 years. Both figures are given at the present rate of usage. Explain why either figure could turn out to be wrong even if no new deposit is ever discovered.
Explain how vehicles are a source of air pollution.
Why do we need to have an efficient public transport system?
Who are passive smokers? How does smoking harm passive smokers?
Why do we need to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels?
Describe the measures an individual can take to reduce the consumption of energy and to create a cleaner environment.
State why organic farming is gaining popularity in recent times.