How do the following factors contribute to the environmental crises in India ? What problems do they pose for the government ?
(i) Rising population
(ii) Air pollution
(iii) Water contamination
(iv) Affluent consumption standard
(v) Illiteracy
(vi) Industrialization
(vii) Urbanization (viii) Global warming
(ix) Poaching
(x) Reduction of forest coverage.
(i) Rising Population: India supports approx 16% of the world’s human and 20% of livestock population on a mere 2.5% of the world’s geographical area, The high density of population and livestock and the competing uses of land for forestry, agriculture, pastures, human settlement and industries exert an enormous pressure on the country’s finite land resources. Hence, it becomes very difficult for the government to provide all types of facilities to such a huge population. All the measures adopted by the government cannot become fruitful unless we adopt a path of sustainable development. Development to enhance our current living styles, without concern for other factors will deplete resources and degrade environment at a speed that is bound to result in both environmental and economic crisis.
(ii) Air Pollution : In India, air pollution is wide-spread in urban areas because of vehicles, factories and other reasons. Air pollution is a great concern because it has serious harmful effects on the general population. For example, the number of motor vehicles has increased from about 3 lakh in 1957 to 67 crores to 2003. In 2003, personal transport vehicles (two wheelers vehicles and cars only) constituted . about 80% of the total number of registered vehicles. This growth directly contributes to air pollution.
(iii) Water Contamination : Life depends to a great extent on water. However, increase in population, waste disposal from factories etc., contaminate water. The development process has also polluted water and is responsible for the decreasing level of water that is harmful for animals living in water. The government has taken many steps to solve the problem of water contamination but it had failed to achieve desired success.
(iv) Affluent Consumption Standards : The affluent consumption and production standards used by developed countries have placed a huge stress on the environment. In developed countries, the government exerts less strictness on society because they have small amount of population and abundant resources. Hence, they try to make affluent society. But in this way, sometimes the resources remain unutilized or sometimes they are over utilized. Either the resources are underutilized or over utilized, they generally lead to wastage of resources.
(v) Illiteracy : Illiteracy is a serious hurdle in the development process. The government has taken a number of measures to tackle the problem of Illiteracy but it failed to give desired results and had lead to deforestation, pollution, shortage of basic necessities like health, sanitation etc.
(vi) Industrialization: The cost of industrialization is environmental degradation. The result of industrialization is that the demand for resources for both production and consumption has gone beyond the rate of regeneration of the resources. Hence, problems have started taking place.
(vii) Urbanisation : Urbanisation has resulted in environmental degradation. The government has tried hard to provide benefits and programmes in the rural and backward areas but in a quest to earn more and rapidly, people migrate to urban areas making them slums.
(viii) Global Warming : It refers to a gradual increase in the shortage temperature of the earth’s lower atmosphere as a result of increase in green-house gases since the Industrial Revolution much of The recent observed and projected global warming is human induced.
It is caused by man made increases in carbon dioxide and other green-house gases through the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.
A UN Conference on Climate Change, held in Kyoto, Japan in 1997, resulted in an inter¬national agreement to fight global warming which called for reductions in emissions of green-house gases by industrialized nations.
(ix) Poaching : Destroying wildlife is termed as Poaching or entering into other’s field force-fully is known as Poaching. Preservation of wildlife is essential to maintain ecological balance. The government is very much worried about the killing of animals at a massive scale and it has taken stern measures against the criminals.
(x) Reduction of Forest coverage : The need for reduction of forest coverage or deforestation arises due to the growing demand for land, wood, rise in population and river valley projects. Deforestation leads to reduction in oxygen level in air, soil erosion, climate change & global warming due to rise in the CO2 level. Thus, measures are needed to promote afforestation, opening up of sanctuaries and national parks such as Jim Corbett National Park.