Finally I tooreceived an invite this morning to post on the blog !It was kinda weird that Swath had sent me 3 invites earlier and I finally received the 4th invite.( If the earlier mails had gone into spam how then did I get this invite... Anyway strange are the ways of technology and emails..! )
Continuing on the topic which is closest to Gopu mama & many of our hearts ... environment and global warming, & also very much relevant to the current affairs scenario of the summit in Copehagen:
I was reading an article this morning on the Wall Street Journal which I foiund to be quite thought provoking and was keen on sharing it with all of you:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704517504574589952331068322.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
So long,
Ramya.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Yes, we have to tread a middle path in energy saving and global warming. Where we can, and when we can(especially for us people for whom malnutrition, HIV and other immediate concerns do not affect us as much as those in Africa, Bangladesh etc, whatever we can in small ways, we should still keep doing.Like taking cloth bags for vegetables and grocery shopping. Not a big hassle right? But what a lot of plastic bags we are saving! Bags that we do not need and finally ends up as garbage on the earth.Small beginnings - but big results.
ReplyDeleteLet us come up with more ideas, which are not too difficult to do.
Mami,
ReplyDeleteWhat are you talking..? Maybe the so called elite upper middle class like us might not be directly affected by HIV AIDS, malaria, malnutrition etc, But shockingly recent statistics reveal the following:
a)India is ranked no.3 in the world for the maximum incidence of HIV AIDS and no. of deaths due to the same..!
b) India is ranked No.1 in tuberculosis..!
If you take a walk down the slums of Mumbai or maybe even Chennai for that matter.. you will find malnutrition,malaria , dengue.. and hordes of other diseases quite prevalent...!
The point Bjorn Lomborg is trying to make in his article is: The amount of financial resources countries are trying to allocate towards carbon cuts and other means of reducing global warming.. could be instead focussed on tackling and preventing such life threatening diseases..!
More people are dying due to such diseases than due to the ill effets of global warming...!
True that a lot of aquatic life is suffering due to melting of glaciers in the Antartic...
But would we rather care for the loss of a penguin or a blue whale in the seas to a child dying of malnutrition in Africa..or a woman dying of hiv Aids in india ...!!
I guess it's a case of choosing whether we want to be healthy on an unhealthy planet or unhealthy on a healthy planet.
ReplyDeleteIts a tough one really, something that journalists can only bandy about and policy makers have to do something about.
I totally concur with you Swathi...
ReplyDeleteI am not trying to write off any of our noble views on being environmentally conscious ... just wanted to share the point of view expressed in the article...
But at the same time we should be sensitive towards issues such as malnutrition , HIV aids, irrespective of whether it affects us directly/indirectly.
(No particularoffense to anybody )
One needs to be a little careful in digesting statistics - especially when they are packaged to appear shocking (like $blah billion will reduce temperatures by only a zillionth of a degree).
ReplyDeleteFor instance, that India ranks #1 in total HIV infected population should be shocking only if one is shocked to find out what India's population is. In terms of incidence rate (number infected as a percentage of population), India ranks around 160 in the world (that's among the 10 lowest), and has an incidence of only 0.3% among adults, if you go by the government numbers. The total incidence rate is over 50 times lower than the worst affected countries in Africa (where about a quarter of the population tests HIV positive), and lower than that in virtually every developed country! Because of the poor availability of effective treatment, however, the death rate from HIV/AIDS is higher in India than it is among most OECD countries but still about 50 times lower than it is in South Africa or Zimbabwe.
Relative to the rest of the world, TB (and infectious disease in general) is a much bigger problem in India than AIDS, with an incidence rate of 0.28% - that's nearly as bad as most African countries which lie in the range of 0.3% to 0.7%. Other major health problems particularly relevant to India are perinatal conditions, oral cancer, respiratory diseases like pneumonia, and intestinal diseases like diarrhoea.
Causes of death:
1. http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/35/6/1522
2. www.uky.edu/Classes/PHI/350/cod.htm
HIV/AIDS prevalence: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_HIV/AIDS_adult_prevalence_rate
TB Prevalence: Search within database at www.who.int/tb/country/global_tb_database/en/index.html
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteEdit to previous post: I meant to say "For instance, that India ranks #3 in total HIV infected population ..." (not #1). Sorry for the confusion.
ReplyDelete-G
Also Rummy, I'm not saying that you got any of the statistics wrong. I'm just saying that the stats used by major media and interest groups are sometimes packaged in a way to misdirect rather than elucidate the underlying issues, so one needs to be particularly watchful (especially when it comes to highly charged/polarizing topics). This is most true at the moment, in the field of climate science.
ReplyDeletePoint Noted and shall be kept in mind for future posts... thanks DR. G. METAZOAN..:)
ReplyDeleteSo good to communicate with you goki.... atleast via blogs... otherwise you are conspicuous by your absence! LOL