Twenty First Century Life

How every one should live in twenty first century:

With all the development and sophistication everyone should live in

A place with fresh air,
A place with clean water,

Fresh Air and Clean Water

A place where one can produce, eat unadulterated and non artificial chemical induced food.

Artificial Chemical Free Foods - Mangoes from EA FARMS

An Earth with no wars, racial and religious tensions.

A place with no greed, where everyone helps each other and join hands to work towards betterment of Environment (incl. Flora and Fauna) and Human Kind.

A World where poverty does not exist.

Need truthful leaders who want to give good to people.

All the above points look like a dream now.

What have human kind done and What is really happening:

POLLUTION IS KILLING MORE PEOPLE

(I did some google image search (research) on each topic), you can also search and the results would cause heart aches.

Air Pollution is at highest level - see the map.

Water Pollution -  I did a google image search on water pollution and it was nasty all over the Globe.

Food is contaminated by so many things.

Pollution facts.

So many wars are taking place even in this 21st century. People are killed and displaced at alarming rate.

Even in this 21st century it is hard to understand with so much of advancement, poverty still exists.

There are people with hunger, no shelter and basic necessities for sustaining healthy life.

I hope and pray for the dream environment to come to true for future generations. It starts from every individual. We need more compassion and love rather than hate.We have come to this Earth for a reason. Let us make our life useful and contribute to the betterment of the Earth, rather than destroy it. Let us work towards less pollution, war and poverty free Earth. Better Environment is the best for Future Generations.

I pledge I will do my best towards better environment and request you to do so,

Makesh Karuppiah, PhD

Environmental Scientist and Information technologist

Fire from cell phone component industry in Tamilnadu – Environmental Effects - Air Pollution

No one was injured from the industrial fire – that is good news. However the fire burnt inflammable paints, other chemicals and sent smokes all over. This should have caused some damage to the air quality. Lots of people are living around that area and lots of agricultural lands are there near that area (Recently visited that place). Severe Environmental Damage would occur due to this. Tamilnadu Pollution Control Board should assess this damage.

News about the Fire

People from Finland were worried about the job loss when Perlos moved the jobs to a developing country.

Perlos Job loss in Finland

However it is only jobs they lost, Think about the Environmental Damage this fire has caused. The Environmental hazard that has happened to Environment and air quality of Tamilnadu is more damaging than just losing few jobs. This area is an agricultural area and this would not only damage crops but also affect the health of the people. Hazardous air pollutants will be inhaled by people living in those areas. Only years of real scientific study will identify the real damage.

Read my earlier blog about conversation between me and a graduate student about fine line between environment and economic importance:
Environment and Economics

Even though Finland was worried about Perlos Job loss, people are safe and have better environment, where as People of Tamilnadu might have got some blue collar jobs (Not the white collar jobs - may be few) from this industry being moved here, but face severe Environmental damage including Health effects from this chemical fire.

Finland Environment is getting better
Finland Emissions. SOx, NOx, NMVOC, CO, PM - all air pollutants reduced over the years. As an Environmental Scientist, I bet 100% that all these chemicals must have increased at damaging levels in the atmosphere because of this fire. Even though it is an accident, what emergency remediation action plan we have? or what rules India have regarding this (Environmental Pollution)? or who will be responsible for clean up and health problems from this industrial fire?

We still did not learn from Bhopal tragedy!. Our Politicians have other priorities – Bringing more and more such industries without proper Environmental planning or litigation.

Nokia

Industries Flocking into Tamilnadu

We should be happy and thank God, that there was no mortality in this industrial fire. However, we should wake up now (this is just a warning alarm) and create Proper Environmental Litigation and Environmental Responsibility by these industries.

Most Polluted in United States Air, Water and Land

Air: Los Angeles
particle pollution and ozone pollution

Air: Bakersfield, California
particle pollution and for ozone

Air: Pittsburgh
particle pollution

Water: Streams and Headwaters in Appalachia
mountaintop removal mining
Head Water Destruction

Water: Gulf of Mexico
excess nutrients such as nitrates and phosphates
HYPOXIA

Water: Chesapeake Bay
urban and agricultural resources," she says. "There's runoff from large factory farms, including large poultry farms, and raw sewage from Washington D.C.

My Ph.D Research: Toxicity Studies on Chespeake Bay Tributaries.
My research was one of the pioneer research on sediments of Chesapeake Bay Tributaries and it indicated that one of the river - Pocomoke River (Later to my study Massive fish kills occured in this river) was highly contaminated with runoff including large poultry farms.


Land: The Nelson Tunnel, Creede, Colorado
Superfund Site Heavy metals
arsenic, cadmium, lead and zinc

Land: Iron King Mine Humboldt Smelter, Dewey-Humboldt, Arizona
arsenic and lead poisoning
Land: Escambia Wood, Pensacola, Florida

Wood Treatment:
The soil and ground water around the site is polluted with creosote, naphthalene, pentachlorophenol, polyaromatic hydrocarbons and dioxin.

Makesh Karuppiah, Ph.D