Dr. Hatha Environmental Scientist - Marine Microbiologist's visit

As soon as my friend Dr. Hatha told me about his Full bright (MSU) trip to USA from CUSAT,

I was envisioning to spend quality time with him on all ends - professional, recreational and personal - during Thanksgiving week, 2012.

The day came and Hatha was with our family. I got the true feeling of friendship when I received him. That's when I actually experienced the following- 

Even though friends are apart from each other, when they meet, it will be the same as before.

Bharathiar University Days

Next day I drove Hatha and my family to Everglades, a sub tropical wetland - an important ecosystem.

As we both are Environmental Scientists and nature loving people, we had wonderful time at Everglades. During boat ride to Coot bay from Flamingo center, we were watching Mangroves, beautiful birds and alligators and walking in the Anhinga Trail was excellent. As usual, I stopped at "Robert is Here" and had a tasty mango shake.

Evening after visiting a family friend stayed at another friend's house at South Florida near the

 NOAA center Atlantic Oceanographic& Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) - National Oceanic & AtmosphericAdministration - NOAA) - , where Hatha had to give two presentations. Thanks to my other great Environmental Scientist friend - Dr. Yuncong Li.

1) Research Initiatives in Marine Science at Cochin University of Science and Technology 

2) Diversity of culturable bacteria in the Arctic Region





  

Both were very well delivered and relevant people, who attended got what they wanted from the seminars. Hope and pray these teams will work together and co-ordinate in future for the betterment of various environments (esp. the Ocean Environments - they are concentrating on) and people. I will do my part on that also.

After the seminars, stayed at friend's house close to Lion Country Safari (LCS). Again with my family and Hatha, I visited LCS. So many varieties of animals are there - Lion, rhinos, several varieties of deer, birds, zebras, giraffes, monkeys and camels. Every animal roams freely, has vast areas to roam and we ride in our cars to see the animals and birds. Wonderful Safari.

Next day we were at SeaWorld. Another fun place for watching sea animals especially for scientists who work in Oceans. Killer whale (Shamu) show, Dolphin show, Manatees, Polar bears, Beluga whales, Otters, Sea lions, Humongous Walrus, birds, sharks and thousands of varieties of fishes and sea animals - all at one place. It was great to be at Sea World with a Marine Scientist.

Next day at Disney World - EPCOT center - Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow - at Siemens's Earth Space ship, we designed our future workplace and home. Of course it was completely green living and environmentally friendly. Visited the 'LAND' area and twice road the boat through Disney's  green house. We soared in SOARIN across the great state of CALIFORNIA.



Also, we experienced Mexico, China, Norway, Japan, France, Italy and Canada in the EPCOT country pavilion and finally finished the day seeing the EPCOT laser show with wonderful fireworks.

Final day of tour was at NASA - Kennedy Space Center (KSC). Those Imax movies take you to the out of world experiences. We spent quality time in the Rocket gardens, KSC Bus tours, Apollo Rocket experiences, Nature and Technology areas and space history pavilions. Driving back we saw the excellent views of Florida (Sunshine state) sunset.

On the day we all relaxed, Hatha was kind enough to give the Arctic Expedition and his scientific research experience presentation (That he gave in NOAA - AOML)  to our family. Again it was well taken and I envision that one day my daughter would be a scientific person.

Everything has to end at sometime. The send off day has come and had to send off Hatha after his visit with us. But the wonderful time we spend as now mature Environmental Scientists, has its own merits. We have planned to do more good work in the future to better the environments and its inhabitants. Every minute was well utilized by good friends.

EARTH SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY CELL - CUSAT





Dr. Hatha is also the ORGANISING CONVENER the MARICON, 2019

Makesh Karuppiah, Ph.D

Environmental Scientist



Teach In - Kids - Environmental Sciences - Save the Earth, Environment and Nature

I had the opportunity to teach Environmental Sciences to small kids (bunch of 3rd graders) during this week. I have taught the subject to under and post graduate students. After few years of break, I had this opportunity. Since, lots of news about BP oil Pollution (They were going to pay billions of dollars as fine) was going on, I choose to create a model that explains how oil pollution happens and how it gets cleaned.


Marine Oil Pollution and Clean Up:
I bought some sand from Home Depot. I used a plastic box, shoe box and filled with the sand sliding from top to bottom. I created blue water using water and blue colored ink. It turned out as a good Ocean model. All the kids were watching with full curiosity. I made an 'Oil Barge' with simple small candle light stand on small ship shaped wooden plank which I got from 'Michaels' store. I used left over cooking oil (which I take to recycling center) and colored it with some black color. That cooking oil now looked like crude oil and I poured them in the candle stand tanks of my oil barge model. It was floating in my clean Ocean model.
All of sudden, I turned barge and oil fell into the Ocean and spread. I heard a big 'oooh' sound from the kids. I had made oil containers to contain oil spread using left over 'felt' and threw them around the oil polluted area. It contained the oil spread. I used cotton to absorb the oil and make my Ocean model once again a clean environment. I took some marine animal toys including a pelican toy and covered them with oil and taught them how to clean the oil soaked animals with dilute soap solution and dry them with towel. I told them to visualize the whole thing in real world and showed the pictures. All of them clearly understood how oil pollution occurs and how it can be cleaned.

Good Sample Identification:
Before going to teach in, I made three solutions - Solution A - Vinegar, Solution B - Baking soda solution and C - Filtered water. I bought pH paper from 'Amazon.com'. I told them there is a site where people are affected from a natural disaster and they don’t know which water they could drink. They send us three samples and asked us to find which sample can be used as drinking water. Kids used their school tap water (filtered using Brita water filter) as control and using pH paper they found that Solution A was an Acid, B - was a base and C was drinkable water. They were happy to find out the drinkable water and to know they have saved people from drinking the wrong water.
I felt this was a good small experiment to kids to identify the toxicity, which I fully used in my PhD research.

Water treatment:

I procured some Alum from 'Amazon.com'. I took some tap water and added some dirt solids and made a polluted water sample. Now added the alum and did some swirling (to give centrifugal force) and allowed that bottle content to settle. After few minutes the solids settled down and the above water as clean as we mixed the dirt before. I told them this is one of the steps how they treat water before it comes through the tap. Along with this primary (Physical) treatment, they also do secondary (biological) treatment and tertiary (Chemical) treatment.

Aquatic Biosphere:
I had collected some aquatic plants and water from our community pond. I used a clean glass bottle and added some filtered water. Then I added the pond water. That’s when I noticed some small water bugs were also in the pond water. The children were happy to see the bugs. I added some of aquatic plants in the water and closed the bottle and told them to keep it near a corner in the table and watch the bottle. The bugs were happily swimming in the water. After a week I will bring it back and let them in the community Pond again. I told them in future (several years) if we don’t reduce pollution, the future generations should have to live in contained self-sustainable biospheres and this bottle aquatic biosphere is one such example.

Safety:
I emphasized that in labs - safety is important. There may be several chemicals and biological organisms. So it is very important to follow safety procedures such as wearing lab coat, gloves, safety eye glasses and sometimes even mask. I used all these and showed them how the experiments are conducted in a real lab.

Renewable and Biodegradable:
I talked about Natural Renewable energies such as SOLARand WIND . Also I talked about Biodegradable materials. I showed models of them.

Finally, I told them how they can save the earth by using the paper they write fully instead of writing one line and throw. I told them about Reduce, Reuse and Recycle - Three R's. Also, told them not to waste water. In US, we are privileged to have water coming to us, but in some parts of the world to get water they have to travel so much. They really understood and were happy to be part of people, who would save the Earth, Environment and its Nature. These wonderful gifted and knowledgeable kids send me individual hand made cards to thank me for teaching them Environmental Sciences. It was a fulfilling day for me.

Poor Animals and Idiotic Poachers

Idiots are still killing majestic animals for wrong reasons:

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Rhinos - Poached in a National park.                                             

A majestic rhino crossing  - view from my car:

Tiger - Poached in Zoo.
A Tiger relaxing at Disney Animal Kingdom:

For God sake, there are medicines available  now for your dysfunctions. Rhino's horn and tiger parts wont do it.

Animals are not even safe in National Parks and Zoos. How one can protect these animals from these greedy morons?.

These greedy mongers want to erase all the national wealth including majestic animals.

Great Dr. Kalam is saying to give whatever you can and these low lifes are doing exactly the apposite of what he says. Recently, on Gandhiji's birthday Dr. Kalam  told that children should follow what Gandhiji's mom told to Gandhiji when he was nine years old - HELP OTHERS.

Dr. Kalam - on Gandhiji Birthday Celebrations, 2012:

Great Mahatma Gandhiji has once told - "A nation's greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members (including the animals).
Hope these poachers end in a place where they cant do these activities in the future. Soon India needs to tighten up it's laws for saving its natural resources including these innocent but majestic animals.

Important Occupational Safety

It is becoming norm and every year number of victims are increasing -

One fire accident in a fire cracker unit has killed several poor working people.

Why dont people learn from previous mistakes. What is the necessity of greed in making crores of ruppees playing with life of poor people.

Safety Measures in this type fire cracker industries is Zero.  (I think when bought in bulk, gloves, masks would have been cheap and the owners could easily afford that).

Pollution Control Board - Environmental Inspectors, Occupational Health Inspectors and other authorities should inspect these places frequently.
I think above mentioned personnel are well educated and should do their part instead of getting bribe and keeping quiet if these industries violate the rules.

Innocent poor workers are lost. It is sickening to see the families suffer because of some ignorant and greedy people.

India had great leaders who had great visions. Our Mahamata Gandhiji's vision was followed by many people such as great Martin Luther King, all over the world.
Even great scientist such as Albert Einstein has praised him for his contribution.
Not only politicians and scientists followed and praised him, even the great comedian Charlie Chaplin have met him because of who Gandhiji's was and his vision.

See the speech of Charlie Chaplin in 1940 (Please listen and what a vision he had):

I should like to help everyone.
We all want to help one another.
Human beings are like that.
We want to live by each other's happiness, not misery.
We don't want to hate one another.

The GOOD EARTH is RICH and can provide for everyone.
Greed has poisoned souls. We need humanity..
More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness..

Eradicate the greed. Rich Industry Owners - please provide occupational safety to your workers. Your profit may be less, but the life is more valuable than your profit.
Instead of losing people, your profit and causing havoc, please, please provide safety measures.

Also the regulatory authorities - Bribe money is not that important - Poor working People's life is more important than you getting bribe money and consuming alcohol.

It should start from the schools. I have seen in chemistry labs, we don't follow any safety measures. It should be taught from the school.
Schools should be well equipped.
Now a days, we have a severe shortage of great leaders.

People - you know to whom I am talking to - You have stole enough money for your several future generations to live like a king.
Stop the corruption and do something for the poor people - give them proper education which will eradicate the poverty.

Government and educated government officials - Device rules and regulations such as OSHA and follow them strictly.

So that this type of accidents do not happen in the future. Now all we can pray for innocent poor people who have lost lives in this ignorant accident.

How to change negatives by being sustainable

தமிழன் என்று சொன்னால் தலை நிமிர்ந்து நில்லடா என்ற காலம் போய்
இப்படி செய்து கொண்டே போனால்:

மலையை, மண்ணை  சுரண்டி எடுத்தாலும் ... Mountain Mining
மரத்தை அறுத்து போட்டாலும்...Deforestation Cutting Trees
பல மணி நேரம் மின் வெட்டு செய்தாலும்...
தண்ணீரே கிடைக்காமல் போனாலும்...
இயற்கை வளத்தை அழித்தாலும்...Titanium Mining
விவசாய நிலத்தல் வீடு கட்டினாலும்...Industries Flocking
கழிவுகளை கொட்டினாலும்...Cancer Village, Dumping
அரசாங்கமே சாராயத்தை விற்று மக்களை குடி மகன்களாக்கினாலும்...Liquor
தமிழ் மீனவனை சுட்டாலும்...
இனத்தையே அழித்தாலும்...Innocent Deaths
கோடி கோடியாய் ஊழல் செய்தாலும்...Food Adulteration
அரசியல்வாதிகள் என்ன சொன்னாலும்... என்ன செய்தாலும்..Selling Expired Drugs
தமிழ் நாட்டு மக்கள் சகித்து  கொண்டே இருப்போம்...
தமிழன் என்று சொன்னால் தலை குனிந்து நின்று விடுவோம் போல்....

What we can do and are doing:
Grow trees, Grow agricultural products with out contamination, Treat people equally and give opportunities, make sustainable awareness, create environmental awareness, eradicate poverty, teach good things to the society whichever ways we can.
See the big canopy trees (below picture). It serves as home to lots of birds and also aids in hydrological cycle. It helps in lots of ways including providing cooler shades while resting during hard farm work.

We are also rearing cattle to provide good milk.

We are taking action to do good things, hoping and praying it will grow to an enormous level. As we know, hard work is paying off. Wild peahens are feeling safe and laying eggs in our farm.

Our farm is becoming Natural Integrated Sustainable Agricultural Farm. We will grow along this and create awareness  to the greedy people who are accumulating money by destroying natural national wealth, that it is not the only way to make money. It can be made by natural ways also with full of happiness without destroying anything.

MOUNTAINS, ROCKS - SAVE THEM

Every day we hear about aggressive mining of Granite for making crores of rupees. Greedy irresponsible people who don't care about future of the country make huge mountain disappear. Mountains are there for a reason. They are very important resource for the country. They provide minerals to the ecosystem. By mining aggressively along with cutting numerous trees these people for sure, will turn the nation into a desert. In doing so, they affect the health of poor people who work there. Mining causes to release dust and radon gas that are inhaled by poor workers which affects their lungs that leads to lung cancer. Mining also can cause voids, affecting balances in rocks that leads to seismic waves which induces earth quakes. Environment and Health deteriorates because of such mining practices. With all that money, they and their future generations will be only enjoying the Desert Environment in the future. Rocks are very important for soil formation. Also it is equally worse to remove sand and soil from river beds. I see pictures of huge machines removing loads of very important soil resources from the river. This will not only affect the environment but also affect the country's economy. These people think they can make more money by mining to last soil particle, but what they ignore is the future of the country and its people. Hey illegal mining People -  STOP illegal mining and soil removal  immediately, at least for the sake of your own grand children, if not for the great country.

Good thing that these huge Granite mountains are out of your reach :-).
Yosemite - El Capitan - The granite monolith:

Yosemite - Half Dome - A Granite Dome:

You should read how these wondeful granite mountains have been saved and secured - National Parks.

John Muir Quote:
“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn.”


One could feel that positive vibes on these mountains - Me in Yosemite Mountains:

All we see and hear is that granites are mined beyond limits, River soils and sands are removed at unprecedented levels, Trees and forest are destructed at alarming rates. Human resources are depleted by government supplies of liquor.  Corruption everywhere as that of 2G SCAMS.
OH MY GOD: Once again stop all the above negatives including - STOP AGGRESSIVE MINING for GRANITE and SAND REMOVAL FROM RIVER BEDS. If not it is going to affect you and your future generations also.

Wonderful Palani Hills:

Beautiful Western Ghats Mountains:

HELP to preserve the WORLD HERITAGE SITE - The great WESTERN GHATS.

TREES - SAVE THEM

It is been a while I posted. I was on tour to South Western USA (California, Nevada and Arizona). I had the chance to see the

Mojave Desert,

Yosemite Valley

and the Grand Canyon.

Enjoyed every minute of the nature tour and the different Biomes. Each time you see these places, it looks different. I had a chance to take a snap with statue of John Muir,

one of pioneer Environmentalist. Because of him everyone could enjoy these Natural National Parks. Grand Sequoia Trees

are unimaginable and one feel the greatness of them when you are close to them. These giant trees grow from a small seed. Year by year they store their history as rings and grow into these grand giant trees. All over the parks there are different kinds of trees and when you are there, you breathe fresh air and you feel healthy. One thing I noticed during the national park tours is they strongly insist to never even take anything from these areas, which is good. These parks will be preserved forever and future generations can enjoy. Meanwhile I read, in a wildlife sanctuary and a place I love in India, several teak trees were felled. It saddened me. These teak trees are also oldest trees in India. Just some greedy mongrels for getting money cut those several year old trees. These fools don't even know what they have done. They should at least replace the trees they cut.  

Beautiful Tree Canopy - Pollachi Anaimalai Road

When trees are gone, rains are gone. It was worst monsoon this year. Saw the photos of Cauvery river without water for Adi 18th festival. It is getting worst and worst. People should take care of the trees. If not these areas will turn into a desert.  I have experienced the coolness of the tree's shadow during hot summer. Even now I feel proud to see the grown up trees at Viswadeepthi School and Bharathiar University which we planted as small saplings.

Take care of the trees. These trees are very important in countering human induced climate change.

At EAFarms we are following Green economy policies, local community is hired to perform farm activities whenever required. 

EAFARMS - Tree of Life

Also, since we practice natural farming, chemical substances in any form such as fertilizer, pesticides etc. are not used and hence the worker's health is preserved. We have  planted several important trees and they are growing as we anticipated. Praying to  God to save the trees everywhere on the Earth.