CO2, kick the habit

Today when I checked my mails, a mail from my HR with subject "Special screening on World Environment Day..." caught my attention. It says that today is World Environment Day and to mark this day, cafeterias across my organization will screen the documentary "An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore"

Then, In our monthly group meeting, Bhaskar Paul ( My cubicle mate ) made a point to go green at individual/organization level so that we can do something for the betterment of our environment. So, now very much aware of the fact that today is the World Environment Day, I also decided to write something on it.

CO2 kick the habit, is the theme for this years World Environment Day (June 5, 2008). The theme focuses on reduction of carbon footprint by individuals/organizations/governments. Carbon footprint is a of the amount of carbon dioxide produced by a person, organization or state in a given time.

One can calculate ones footprint at http://www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx. On the net one can find thousands of article on reducing carbon footprint size. Almost all ask you to go green by:

• car pooling
• using CFL aka Compact Fluorescent Lamp
• buying energy efficient and environment friendly appliances.
• planting tress
• using renewable source of energy
• doing recycling
• and many more.....

I am personally not against all these good measures to go green, but I feel still India has not done that much harm to environment compared to more civilized western countries have. Still our total carbon credit may be high but per person carbon credit is far lesser than advance nation, as more than half the percent of Indians still live in villages where there is almost nil carbon footprint per person.

India is a developing country, and we need solid infrastructure to become a developed nation by 2020, for this we need a lot of energy that translate into high carbon emission. West has already contributed more than there share of carbon credit in their race for becoming superpower, now, its our time and we have to be at par with west in development and growth but, minimizing the mistakes that our friends have already done. Its not the time to blame India and China for the deeds that have been already done by the countries that are pointing fingers on us.

We need to be sensible and intelligent enough to find ways to save our planet together.