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Mint
2 days ago
- General
- Mint
How safe is the food on your plate?
Climate Change & You is a fortnightly newsletter written by Bibek Bhattacharya and Sayantan Bera. Subscribe to Mint's newsletters to get them directly in your inbox. Dear Reader, Last month I travelled to north Bihar to take a closer look at two of India's most loved summer fruits, litchi and mango. The Rajendra Prasad Central Agricultural University at Pusa, Samastipur, was holding a national seminar on litchi and litchi honey that turned out to be an eye opener. Scientists were honest to admit that despite the heritage and pride associated with the famous rose-floral scented Shahi litchi of Bihar, the orchards are in a state of despair. Unwilling to bear climate and market risks, owners and absentee landlords are selling their harvest months in advance to contractors. The contractors use a cocktail of chemicals to manage pests and maximize yields without caring for the overall wellbeing of orchards. Some insecticides are fatal for pollinators like bees, and excess use is hurting fruit yields and honey production. Most litchis won't pass pesticide residue standards for export to western markets. Farmers of Bihar, in good years, sell litchis for the price of potatoes-- it's a tragedy. Meanwhile, the urban consumer is paying a hefty price to buy the fruit, unaware of the toxic chemical residues they may be ingesting. The story is not very different for mangoes -- one can no longer be sure that the fruits are naturally ripened and residue-free. Worryingly, many Indian consumers are unaware of pesticide residue levels in primary agricultural produce, be it grains, pulses, fruits or vegetables. During my travels, I have met farmers who grow vegetables for their own kitchen without using chemical inputs -- for crops like okra and brinjal -- in separate, smaller plots. Many would not consume the other produce they themselves grow to sell in the market. Those who are part of the farm supply chain know of high pesticide residues in fresh produce -- made worse by a warmer climate leading to higher pest infestation. But all this is carefully kept under the wraps. We only seem to take notice when exports are red-flagged in developed markets. This has happened repeatedly, across products like rice, tea and spices. State of the Climate Late last month, several Indian cities went under water following extreme rains. The list includes Mumbai, Bengaluru and Guwahati. Over forty died following floods in the North-east. Experts blamed abnormally high sea surface temperature and a depression over the Bay of Bengal. Compared with the 50-year-average, the month of May witnessed 106% more rainfall this year for the entire country. The June-September annual monsoon arrived early this year and by 10 June, had seen a deficit of 33%. Right after this deluge, the focus shifted to the dreaded summer heat. Parts of central and northern India are now in the grip of a heatwave spanning Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Delhi and the Jammu region. Residents of the national capital region usually flock to the hill states to escape the heat. But Himachal Pradesh, too, is in the grip of a severe heatwave with maximum temperatures crossing 42 degree Celsius in Una and 35 degrees in the popular tourist destination of Dharamshala on 10 June. Parts of the adjoining hill state of Uttarakhand are also witnessing high temperatures with Dehradun, the state capital, recording a maximum temperature of 39 degrees on Monday. The news in brief Climate Change Tracker Widespread use of pesticides and fertilizers, light and chemical pollution, loss of habitat and the growth of industrial agriculture have led to a drastic fall in insect population. Scientists are now witnessing a new phenomenon: a catastrophic collapse of insect populations in protected areas like forests. Global warming seems to be the culprit. David Wagner, an entomologist who spent his life documenting insect diversity, recently returned home empty-handed. 'I just got back from Texas, and it was the most unsuccessful trip I've ever taken… there just wasn't any insect life to speak of." And it was not only the insects which were missing. 'Everything was crispy, fried; the lizard numbers were down to the lowest numbers I can ever remember. And then the things that eat lizards were not present – I didn't see a single snake the entire time." Know Your Jargon Fast Fashion Fast fashion can be described as quickly produced and cheaply priced garments which copy the latest styles. The products are hurriedly pushed into stores to encash on current trends. The target is to shorten the lead time of a product, from design to purchase. The term 'fast fashion' was coined in the 1990s to describe Zara's rapid production system which was later adopted by other brands. The fast fashion industry has a huge environment footprint— because it uses copious amounts of water besides polluting rivers and seas. When consumers dump clothes after wearing them a few times, it adds to the waste load. The fashion choices of Gen Z in India, a 300 million consumer cohort, are not very planet-friendly. Because for every Greta Thunberg, thousands are chasing trends by stuffing their wardrobes with fast fashion. Prime Number 14 US-based businesses have cancelled or delayed over $14 billion in investments and 10,000 new jobs in clean energy and clean vehicle factories since January, as per an assessment by E2, a coalition of business leaders and investors. This was due to rising fears around the future of federal clean energy policy and tax credits. As per E2, in April alone, businesses cancelled $4.5 billion of investments in new battery, electric vehicle and wind projects ahead of the US House's passage of a massive tax and spending package -- dubbed the 'One Big Beautiful Bill Act.' Movie of the Month Gints Zilbalodis' 'Flow" is an Oscar-winning eco-fable about a lone cat navigating a post-apocalyptic world. Made with a tiny team and free software, this Latvian animation shines. A silent film, it resists anthropomorphism: the animals do not speak in human tongue. The works draws emotional depth from a cat who journeys in a weathered sailboat with an unlikely crew -- a lemur, a capybara, a Labrador and a bird. 'Flow" explores climate collapse, cooperation, and resilience, reminding us that nature, not humans, may have the final word. That's all, for now. Bibek will be back with the next issue, in a fortnight.
Mint
31-05-2025
- Climate
- Mint
The world has already breached a dangerous level of warming, and India isn't prepared
NEW DELHI : Climate Change & You is a fortnightly newsletter written by Bibek Bhattacharya and Sayantan Bera. Subscribe to Mint's newsletters to get them directly in your inbox. Dear reader, As I was writing this newsletter, Mumbai was drowning in record rains. The monsoon set in 8 days early this year, and according to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), it is so early that it has already touched Mumbai. In fact, this year the monsoon came to Mumbai two weeks early, within 24 hours of its onset in Kerala. Mumbai certainly wasn't ready for it. In fact, by the morning of 26 May, one of the city's main stations in Colaba registered a record-breaking amount of rainfall—at 295mm—for the month of May. The previous record was set in 1918 – 107 years ago. We will soon know if climate change played a role in both the early onset of monsoon, as well as the rainfall in Mumbai. But what is already clear is that with rising atmospheric heat, monsoon rains will be more erratic and heavier as the years go by, simply because hotter air can hold more moisture, resulting in cloudbursts like the one in Mumbai on Sunday night. Speaking of climate anomalies, April 2025 was the second hottest April on record, after 2024. According to EU's climate monitoring service Copernicus, the global average temperature in April was 1.51 degrees Celsius higher than pre-industrial levels. This made April the 21st straight month that was 1.5 degrees Celsius hotter than pre-industrial times, prompting some scientists to wonder if the world has already crossed the safety limit of 1.5 degrees of warming on a permanent basis. In fact, a new report from the World Meteorological Organization states that, by 2030, the world might experience at least one year that is 2 degrees hotter. If this is true, then this spells very bad news for the planet, as we will see below. STATE OF THE CLIMATE India's unbearable heat is rising The biggest climate threat in India continues to be heat, and the heat risk is rising. According to a recent study by the New Delhi-based climate policy thinktank Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), 57% of India's districts are facing high to very high heat hazards. And 76% of India's population lives in these districts. The risk assessment study is based on 34 separate heat indicators from 734 districts across the country. It found that 417 districts are in the high risk zone, while another 201 faced moderate heat hazards. The top ten heat prone states and union territories include Delhi, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Goa and Uttar Pradesh. Also Read: Remembering the Climate Pope The report, titled How Extreme Heat Is Impacting India, highlighted two important dimensions of rising heat—an increase in very warm nights, and a rise in humid heat. Both of these factors amplify the effect of heat on the human body, and can lead to deadly overheating. According to the study, nearly 70% of the districts recorded an increase of over five extra warm nights per year between 2012 and 2022, as compared with 1982-2011. This is especially true of cities, where the heat island effect caused by highly built-up environments has been boosting warmer nights. For example, Mumbai recorded 15 additional 'very warm' summer nights in the past decade compared with the previous three decades. It is a similar situation for other cities like Jaipur and Chennai. With a 10% rise in relative humidity in north India, drier cities like New Delhi are seeing more humid heat, and high humidity plus heat is a deadly combination for the human body. THE NEWS IN BRIEF -In an incisive and well-researched article,LA Timesclimate reporter Sammy Roth lays out how Warren Buffet's investments for Berkshire have always skewed towards fossil fuels, helping drive planet-heating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. -All eyes are on Brazil, as the country gears up to host a pivotal global climate conference this November. In this interview with Hindustan Times, COP30 president designate André Aranha Correa do Lago lays out his priorities for the summit. -In this opinion piece, noted climate skeptic and contrarian Bjorn Lomberg questions if renewable energy really is cheaper than fossil fuels. CLIMATE CHANGE TRACKER Sea-level rise threatening India's coasts I started this newsletter by noting that the world has already experienced 21 consecutive months of 1.5 degrees Celsius of global heating. Over the past decade, the average heating was of 1.2 degrees, but it seems like we are steadily moving into a much hotter world, sooner than many had predicted. In fact, it is clear that the goal to keep warming to under 1.5 degrees by 2100 is already unreachable, with many climate scientists predicting a catastrophic rise of 2.5-3 degrees of heat this century. This will have serious consequences. According to a major climate science study published earlier in May, sea-level rise may become unstoppable once the world hits 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming permanently. The study, published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment, states that even at current levels of heating, the global sea-level is set to rise by 1cm a year by 2100. Given that we are on course to nearly 3 degrees of heating, this would be devastating for the Greenland and west Antarctic ice sheets, leading to their collapse and a sea level rise of 12m. To put that into perspective, about 230 million people around the world's coastal areas live 1m above the current sea level, while 1 billion people live within 10m above sea level. In India, at least 63 million people (6% of the total population) live within 10m of seacoasts, the second highest in the world after China. For India, this number is projected to grow to 216 million people (10.3% of the total population) by 2060. With sea-level rise a given, there's an urgent need to adapt to this new reality. Which leads us to the next section. KNOW YOUR JARGON Climate Migration With India facing multiple climate threats, the one major change that will be triggered by rising climate hazards is migration. Whether it is sea-level rise, or other impacts like water stress, low crop yields, ecosystem loss and droughts, more and more Indians—mostly the poorest—will be forced to become climate refugees in their own country. According to a 2020 report by Climate Action Network South Asia, about 14 million Indians were forced to migrate due to climate change the absence of drastic climate mitigation measures, the report forecasts over 45 million migrants by 2050. This is a reality that India urgently needs to plan for. Also Read: A deep dive into India's climate crisis Among the many measures that experts urge countries to make is to enhance resilience among vulnerable communities, ensure just transition for agriculture workers, provide universal access to social protection measures, guarantee decent work by creating job opportunities and have a plan for safe, orderly and dignified movement during forced migrations. This will require a combination of international finance access, and generating local finances by progressive taxation of fossil fuel companies, and even international cooperation with our neighbouring countries. India is badly lagging in all of these areas, though some initial measures have been taken. Last year, the UN's Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) set up a three-year project to increase resilience measures for climate vulnerable communities in Odisha and Telangana. This programme offers alternatives to migration, though it is also mandated to provide information for safe migration. But there is no actual policy addressing migration, apart from a private member's bill on climate migrants' protection and rehabilitation from an Assam Congress MP, which has been gathering dust since 2022. PRIME NUMBER 6.7 In 2024, the world lost 6.7 million hectares of primary forests, according to new data from the University of Maryland's GLAD Lab. The data, hosted on the World Resources Institute's Global Forest Watch platform, shows that this is nearly twice as much forest loss as in 2023. To put it another way, in 2024, the world lost forests at the rate of 18 football fields every minute. The data also revealed a disturbing new trend—loss due to fires. In 2024, nearly half the forest loss was due to fires, a huge jump from previous years, when agriculture was the primary driver of these losses. These fires emitted 4.1 gigatonnes of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, four times more than emissions from all air travel in 2023. The loss of forest cover is a major driver of climate change, as without humid primary forests, land on the planet loses its capacity to store carbon. Forests are the most effective carbon capture and storage tech we know of. Between 2002 and 2024, the world lost 83 million hectares of primary forests, or 8.1% of forest cover. According to the Global Forest Watch data, India has lost 348 kilohectares (1kha=1,000 hectares) of primary forests in 2002-2024, about 15% of the country's entire tree cover. BOOK OF THE MONTH Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer The human urge to view nature as something that is passive is rather strong, which shows itself in the seemingly carefree way in which we plunder it for our gains. But as Jeff Vandermeer's award-winning weird fiction novel Annihilation shows, this couldn't be further from the truth. In reality, natural processes are gigantic and care not a whit for human claims of mastery. If we cannot adapt our ways to the laws of nature, we will be overwhelmed, subsumed and, well, annihilated. In the novel this process takes the form of a seemingly alien entity that creates a human free zone in south Florida, called Area X. As Area X expands, all human signs are obliterated, and people caught inside it are changed into inhuman beings, monstrous to us, but utterly harmonious with nature. The first of an acclaimed trilogy, Annihilation is a must-read for its imaginative and unsettling depiction of nature that doesn't care about human beings. So that's it for this edition of Climate Change & You, dear reader. Sayantan will be back in a fortnight with the next instalment. Also Read: When winter melts into summer
