Sharada Prasad

Soon after my K2K journey last year, I decided to pursue research in the area of environment and natural resources. Here is a list I have compiled of some of the degrees in the domains I am interested in. Considering time and money, I may apply to five different programs.

If you need additional information, please visit the websites. Note that this compilation is based purely on my preferences. BTW, education in Sweden is free till 2010. If you apply this year to any of the universities in Sweden, you just have to manage your living expenses. From 2011 onwards, Sweden would be charging tuition fee to foreign students.

• University of California at Berkeley,
  • Energy and Resources Group
  • The Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management
• University of Michigan at Ann Arbour
  • School of Natural Resources and Environment
  • Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
• Yale University – Master of Environmental Management
• Duke University
  • Master of Environment Management
  • Dual degree options
• Oxford University – Environmental Change Institute
• Columbia University – The Earth Institute
• Purdue University – Ecological Sciences and Engineering
• Lund University – Environmental Studies and Sustainability Science
• Stanford University – Environmental Engineering and Science
• Virginia University – The Graduate Program in Environmental Sciences
• Brown University – Center for Environmental Studies
• University of Texas, at Austin
  • Jackson School of GeoSciences
  • Environment Engineering
• International Water Centre – University of Queensland
  Master of Integrated Water Management
• Environmental Science in Europe

If you know / come across any interesting quality programs in environment sciences / management, please let me know.

Currently I am reading this book – “The Humanure Handbook” by Joseph Jenkins. I am impressed.

If there is one thing human beings don’t want to talk about, it is their excreta. I don’t remember discussing managing the excreta with anyone – either at home or at school. All I knew about excreta was that it stinks and is host to millions of pathogens. Today it is “the thing” that is killing the planet.

We all know that excreta is organic in nature and just as any organic substance, under the right conditions and time frame, it will turn into humus. But we are putting our excreta in clean water and pushing it out of our house. In few cases the excreta is stored in a pit just in front of the house. But in most of the urban areas, it is ferried away for hundreds of kilometers just to be dumped in a river, with almost no treatment.

Nobody wants to own the waste created by oneself – let it be vegetable peels, plastic covers or human excreta. To start with, almost 60% of the Indians do not have safe drinking water. To add to this woe, people are building leach pits and allowing the waste water to seep down into groundwater sources. Human excreta contains all kinds of pathogens. If not treated properly, it can contaminate water sources and spread various diseases.

I keep saying this – People talk about HIV, but in India, number of deaths by dysentery and diarrhoea is greater. If we want, we can blame the government and continue shitting with our eyes closed. But the danger is looming. 70% of our rivers is polluted either with domestic or industrial waste. It is time to cut down this pollution. What is the option?

The best option which people would like is – treating the waste water. But this requires infrastructure to carry waste water from every corner to the treatment plant and huge amount of energy and chemicals to treat it.

The best option nature would prefer is – composting the waste – let it be kitchen waste or toilet waste. Daily Dump, a small initiative to compost kitchen waste is picking up in Bangalore. But most people fail to compost properly and complain about smell, flies and maggots. The key lies in keeping the mix dry by moist enough to encourage microbial breakdown. Composting is an art. If performed right, it can create the very essence of soil – Humus^W

Human waste can be composted. The stinking excreta turns into fragrant humus within a year. The ‘How’ part of it is technical and lengthy to be put into a blog post. Good thing would be to read the Humanure handbook. Best thing is – it’s available free of cost.

In India, composting human excreta is done through ecological sanitation (EcoSan^W). There are many villages near Kolar^W and Mysore^W which are reaping the benefits of human compost. EcoSan is a dry toilet. You don’t need water to flush the excreta instead you deposit it directly in a pit. The urine is collected separately, stored, diluted and used on crops. The combination of human compost and urine replenished the fertility of the soil. Farmers don’t use fertilizers thereby avoid the damage imparted to nature in producing and using it. Humanure eliminates the need for clean water to carry the excreta and puts an end to the pollution caused by dumping human waste into rivers, lakes or leach pits.

Countries like Singapore are struggling to meet their water demands. Singapore recycles waste water to manufacture bottled drinking water.

Newater Bottle

But people have not accepted this form of recycling fully. Last week, our CEO, Sunita Nadhamuni got us a bottle of Newater^W from Singapore. I tasted the water and just could not find any difference. The problem lies in our culture – we treat our excreta as waste – but it is a precious resource that returns the fertility back to the soil that fed us. Singapore is ahead in thinking. Singapore does not use words like waste water treatment plants or water reuse. Instead it uses words such as Water Reclamation Plants or reclaimed water.

I am constructing an EcoSan at my house. It should be ready by September. I will update you all on my findings. In the meantime, you read the book and let me know about your opinion.

With the advent of rainy season, with the frequent water logging, we might all be thinking that the planet has excess water and hence all the mess… But the fact is, our planet’s fresh water reserve is dwindling at an ever accelerating pace.

To begin with, let us look at the sources of freshwater – lakes, rivers, ice and groundwater. So what is happening with each source?

1. Lakes – Lakes have been the traditional systems of harvesting rainwater – it is the nature’s way to store rainwater in a depression, which can be used in non-rainy days. But today, the catchment area of the lake as well as the lake itself is being encroached. Wherever the lake has withstood this attack, we are letting in our domestic waste into the lake and accelerating eutrophication
2. Rivers – This source, since it is mobile, is suffering the largest possible damage. We are building dams and stopping water. This is affecting the entire ecosystem of the river. Many rivers are not reaching the oceans because of dams and over extraction of water. It is not just the over extraction but the contamination of rivers that is doubling the damage. Again, industrial and domestic waste is let into rivers without any treatment. Rainfall and Glacial melt – the two important sources of water for rivers – are changing their patterns. At some places, it seems that rivers seem to have more water than in the past. But it is the result of accelerated glacial melt. Rainfall pattern is shifting. Now oceans will carry more water than ever. This will alter the load balance mechanism of the planet. If oceans have to carry extra weight of water, it can trigger frequent earthquakes.
3. Ice – Considering the climate change, we are not sure how long they can last. Fortunately, ice cannot be contaminated but can only be melted. But melting ice can completely change the current ocean levels.
4. Groundwater – Over the last few decades, groundwater has been the most abused source of water. Apart from over extraction, the source is being contaminated with the constant seepage of harmful chemical of fertilizers, pesticides and soak pits. Today almost 70% of India’s water needs is met by groundwater. 85% of which goes towards irrigating crops. India’s farmers haven’t been very keen of optimizing the efficiency of water in agriculture. 40-50% of water goes underutilized. To add to all these woes, groundwater is not being replenished at the rate at which it is being extracted.

(more…)

There is no other word that can aptly describe water – Blue Gold.

Blue Gold Movie Poster - Source:http://www.greenmuze.com/

Today I was watching the movie – Blue Gold – World Water Wars. A must see movie for environment and water enthusiasts.

The movie starts with a true story of a Californian gold hunter – how his body got transformed into a quasi corpse in seven days because of lack of water. The story then moves on how we humans are using water without discretion. Here are some interesting statistics:

1. Manufacturing an average automobile requires 350,000 liters
2. Upto 7 barrels of water is required to extract a barrel of oil – Save oil to save water
3. One microchip requires 32liters of water
4. Today there are 50,000 large dams worldwide
5. Today there are at least 10 publicly traded water indices
6. 750 pounds of carcass requires 5.2 million liters of water – be a vegetarian and save water.
7. 30,240 liters of water is required per 50pound bag of wheat! Don’t waste food my friends.
8. 1.8 million liters per bale of cotton – Don’t buy too many clothes (don’t wear too less either)
9. 77,500 liters of water is required per 50pound bag of rice. One kilo of rice requires 3,500 litres of water
10. 99 liters for an apple
11. 107 liters for a banana
12. 22,000 liters of water per 50pound bag of corn
13. 10 litres for a rose (more…)

Buying gold on Akshaya Trutiya is a new trend that has picked up in south only during recent years. Today’s newspapers are filled with ads to nudge people to buy gold. Many people believe that the amount of gold bought on this would double soon in the coming years fetching them fortune.

But I was wondering about the implications of these precious metals. Mining a single gram of gold would mean creating 5 tonnes of mining waste – that is 5000kg of mining waste. An gold earring would leave half a truck load of waste.

It is not just about environmental waste, but also the communities that get affected in the wake of our attraction to the glitter. Read this article from WorldWatch Institute for more details.

After watching Blood Diamond, I am sure, most of us would not have the tendency to buy Diamond, Gold or any other precious metal.

Are these precious metals so important to lead a happy life?