Media and Nobel Peace Prize

Spot which one of these newspaper headlines and captions are from Indian newspapers:

Gore Shares Peace Prize for Climate Change Work

PM congratulates Gore for peace prize

2007 Nobel Peace prize awarded to Pachauri's IPCC, Al Gore

Pachauri and Gore share prize for raising awareness on climate change

Gore and U.N. Panel Share Peace Prize

Chidanand Rajghatta had a fine essay in the Times of India about the desperate lengths the Indian media goes to claim an Indian success story. Indian newspapers have been gushing about Pachauri the "man who put emotion into hard science", Pachauri the "efficient administrator and enabler", and Pachauri who stood up to Gore when the two had a brief disagreement in 2002 when Pachauri was elected to head the Inter Governmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC). Strangely, not one Indian newspaper has tried to find out, even as a matter of curiosity, what Pachauri has contributed to the science of climate change. I agree that his main job was administrative but isn't the media even curious? Wasn't it the research done by hundred's of scientists that enabled the IPCC to take the strong position it did about the urgency of dealing with climate change? Or is the Indian media under the delusion that somehow it was Pachauri heroically fighting opposition who convinced everybody to start acting responsibly on this issue?

In an earlier post I had written about this peculiar mentality of claiming an Indian connection to everything. In the hoopla over Pachauri's "achievement" there was one headline that was particularly revealing about the way we seem to think and link status, success and expertise.

Rajendra Pachauri backed N-deal - Hindustan Times

Now that Pachauri has "won the nobel" let's start asking his expert opinion on just about every subject under the sun. But expertise in one field does not translate into authority in another. Our media just doesn't seem to understand that.

Orissa and Hexavalent Chromium

A list of the most polluted places on earth prepared by Blacksmith Institute, an environmental group appeared in the Times of India, a few days ago. Not surprisingly it included two sites from India; Vapi in Gujarath state and Sukinda in Orissa state. Pollution in Vapi was mostly due to the chemical industry while that in Sukinda has a geological origin, the mining of chromite deposits. Sukinda mines account for a staggering 97% of discovered chromium ore deposits in India. Why is Orissa so unusually blessed or cursed some would say with chromite?

Chromite deposits form by a process of concentration by crystallization in magmas. But not just any magmas. Chromites are almost exclusively restricted to ultramafics, magmas rich in magnesium and iron. Chromite deposits occur in two varieties known as stratiform and podiform. As the terms imply, stratiform means layers of concentrated chromite within the ultramafic rocks, while podiform chromite occurs as lenses or pods of concentrated chromite within the ultramafics. The Sukinda chromites are stratiform. During the late Archean- early Proterozoic period around 2.5 to 2 billion years ago geologists estimate, massive amounts of ultramafic magmas originating in the mantle were injected into the crust in the area that is now Orissa. But why is chromium so concentrated in ultramafic magmas? Chromium is a refractory metal i.e. a metal with a melting point higher than iron and cobalt. It takes a large amount of melting in the mantle to release significant amounts of chromium in to the liquid phase. But large amounts of melting also make the magmas rich in magnesium and iron. So the connection of chromium and chromite deposits with ultramafic rocks.

Stratiform and podiform chromite deposits occur in distinctive tectonic settings. Stratiform deposits occur mostly within ultramafic intrusions in stable continental crust, while most podiform deposits originated in oceanic settings, either within ultramafic rocks associated with mid-oceanic spreading centres or in subduction zone associated back-arc spreading centres. Later, plate tectonic movements have obducted or thrust up these chromite bearing ultramafics to form sections of spectacular mountain belts. The best example in India are the podiform chromites in Ladakh (Karmalkar N.R. et al. 2000), which originated in the oceanic crust between the Indian and Asian continents in the Mesozoic period, and were subsequently thrust up to form the early Himalayan mountains as the Indian plate collided with the Asian plate.

Chromite deposits show an interesting age distribution indicative of the thermal and tectonic evolution of the earth.

Image Source : Stowe (1994). Stratiform deposits occur almost exclusively in the late Archean-early Proterozoic period (2.8 - 1.8 billion years ago), while podiform deposits occur almost exclusively in the Mesozoic and Tertiary periods beginning around 200 million years ago (there are some podiform chromites in late Proterozoic orogenic belts around 800 million years old). Anyone familiar with the geological time scale with readily appreciate that biological evolution has imparted a temporal uniqueness to the sedimentary rock record, enabling geologists to subdivide geologic history into different periods. What is less appreciated is that the thermal and tectonic evolution of the earth has also produced a distinctive rock record (a good idea for a post series). Chromite deposits are one good example. The mid late Archean-early Proterozoic was a period of intense continental crust building. Owing to the high geothermal gradients in the Archean (the interior of the earth was hotter then), there were periods of copious amounts of melting in the upper mantle and lower parts of earlier formed crust. So, were formed large ultramafic complexes and associated chromites. Over time, the earth cooled and large scale melting of the mantle became localized to plate boundaries. The breakup of supercontinent Pangea beginning in the early Mesozoic led to significant worldwide development of subduction zones and associated back-arc spreading centres and the origin of ultramafic hosted chromite. This activity culminated in intense amounts of mountain building activity in the mid-Mesozoic and early Cenozoic. So, podiform chromites occur mainly within tectonically emplaced slices of oceanic rock sequences in this age group. The gap between around 800 million years to 200 million years is one of geology's unresolved problems.

Chromium from Sukinda mines is present as air-borne dust and is also being leached into the groundwater and nearby streams in the form of hexavalent chromium (+6 oxidation state).

In image, the Sukinda syncline is clearly seen. In the core of the syncline the arrow points to the open pit Sukinda chromite mines. The rust color is due to oxidation of the ore. When ingested either through air-borne dust or through water, hexavalent chromium is reduced in our cells to pentavalent and trivalent chromium. This leads to a variety of health problems, including increased risk of cancer. An estimated two hundred and seventy thousand people around Sukinda are at risk or are suffering from chromium related poisoning. The Orissa Pollution Control Board have pleaded impotence, saying “It is unique, it is gigantic and it is beyond the means and purview of the (Orissa Pollution Control) Board to solve the problem,”. In effect they have questioned the rationale for their own existence. The board chairman L.N. Patnaik has predictably rubbished the report, saying that any mining activity will lead to some air pollution, apparently forgetting that chromium is getting into the water supply in massive quantities.

Hexavalent chromium gained recognition because of the movie Erin Brockovic, in which the character played by Julia Roberts campaigned successfully against a polluting industry. In India, maybe this lady on the left can help :-)


References:
Karmalkar N.R., A. G. Dessai and R. A. Duraiswami: Alteration of Chromite from the Dunites of Indus Ophiolite Belt, Ladakh 27-34, Himalaya, India, Gondwana Geological Magazine; V. 15 (1)- June 2000

Stowe, C. W. 1994. Compositions and tectonic settings of chromite deposits through time. Econ. Geol. 89:528 – 546

Climate and Point of No Return

The science section of the Times of India has a rather alarming article on global warming. According to Australian scientist Tim Flannery, we may have already emitted greenhouse gases to a threshold value that may cause "irreversible climate change". Flannery remarks that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report due in November will show that greenhouse gas level by mid 2005 have reached around 455 parts per million, a level not expected until a decade later. The Times of India calls Flannery a "world recognized climate change scientist". I looked up his credentials and found that he is a palaeontologist, an expert on mammals who over the course of his research I am sure has acquired a good knowledge of climate change. But he is not a climate scientist. Don't Indian science reporters ever do any background checks? He may well be right about greenhouse gases already passing some threshold, but with or without immediate thresholds, isn't climate change irreversible on the time scale of the next few hundred years anyway? Owing to the long residence time of CO2 in the atmosphere there is always going to be a lag between our reducing emissions and its effects to be felt in terms of stabilizing the temperature.

This press release reminded me of a cartoon I saw some time back.

Cartoon Creator: Mike Adams; Source: www.NewsTarget.com

Flannery's fears may be well founded. We should be doing better than this.

Tiny Frogs and Fault Rocks

Two news items that caught my eye in the last week or so.

Tiny Frog is India's smallest land vertebrate:
Biologist S D Biju of Delhi University working in the western ghat forests in Kerala discovered a new species of leaf frog which they named Nyctibatrachus minimus. Adult males are barely 10 mm in length and can fit inside a 5 rupee coin (Image source Delhi Univ).

The pleasant surprise was that a press release from an Indian university was picked up by a major science news portal, in this case Science Daily. Indian universities do not have well organized proactive press offices. News of research rarely filters out even in Indian newspapers. Indian scientists for their part have remained largely invisible to the public. We meet them not through their books or articles or on radio and TV talk shows, but only on that tiresome "science day" when hordes of bored school children are made to walk through science exhibits in some government institution. There a government scientist will tell you how fulfilling a career option science is. Despite their best efforts, science as an activity doesn't register among young Indians as something exciting.

Fresh from within the San Andreas Fault:
In 2004, the San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth, a monumental project to drill right into the world's most famous fault zone began. The San Andreas fault zone marks the boundary between the Pacific plate and the North American plate. The goal was to set up a deep monitoring system to analyse the movements of rocks along the fault zone. After drilling about 2 miles, geologists have recovered about a ton of rock from within the fault zone itself.

It is a magnesium aluminium rich silicate rock known as serpentinite (Image source: Earthscope). Its composition and physical structure will be invaluable in understanding the conditions at depth, and how this major plate boundary behaves and how earthquakes work. In time geologists using this deep monitoring system hope to refine earthquake prediction methods.

Diets, Consumption and Global Warming

Part 6 of the six part series on Pune pollution and environment.

Sometime back a blogger left a comment on one of my earlier blogs, suggesting a number of ways to reduce pollution. Among the many was, "don't drive, walk as much as possible", the rationale obviously being that using less fuel is good for the environment. In these times, when global warming is one of the big talking points, walking is the healthy and responsible way forward. But is it?

A few weeks ago I read a strange article in the Times of London, where a calculation was presented. Apparently if a person walks to the store and around the neighbourhood for errands, let's say around 3 miles or 4.8 km, then providing that person with enough calories to replace those burnt, emits more CO2 than if the person had driven to the store. Driving to the store and back according to the calculation will emit around 0.9 kg of CO2. On the other hand, walking to the store will burn around 180 calories. To replace that with a mostly beef diet will result in 3.6 kg of CO2 emissions. With a straight face the report says “The troubling fact is that taking a lot of exercise and then eating a bit more food is not good for the global atmosphere. Eating less and driving to save energy would be better.” This says a lot about how energy intensive the meat food production chain has become in developed countries. But not just the meat. If you try to replace those 180 burnt calories with milk, it will result in 1.2 kg of CO2 emissions, still more than driving. In 2002, in the United States, the food production system accounted for around 17% of fossil fuel use. Going vegetarian or "vegan"will reduce this burden. Another study has calculated that the difference in greenhouse gas emissions due to shifting to a veggie diet is as much as that achieved by shifting from an SUV to a standard car, a reduction of about 1.4 tons CO2 per person per year. Cutting meat altogether from our diet seems very unpopular at present. Recently, Michael O'Leary, the boss of budget airline Ryanair, came under heavy criticism when he remarked that global warming can be eliminated by slaughtering the world's livestock. Off course going veggie alone doesn't help as illustrated by this cartoon.

I walk a lot in Pune, so do I actually contribute more to global warming by walking and not driving. Suppose following the U.K example I walk around 4.8 km per day and burn about 200 calories. My diet these days is almost entirely vegetarian. Based on a Ford Foundation study on energy intensity of Indian agriculture I calculated that producing 1 kg of food will result in about 2 kg of CO2 emissions. This includes energy required for the entire food production chain including fertilizers and transportation. If I burn 200 calories, eating healthy I would have to eat about 300 grams of various vegetables to make up those burnt calories resulting in about 0.6 kg of CO2 emissions. Much less than the person walking in U.K. and gorging on beef later. Energy intensity of Indian agriculture is still much less than the industrialized food production of the west. If I drive those 4.8 km in my Fiat (that old beast still chugs along) this will result in about 1.15 Kg of CO2 being emitted. But if a person zips around on a two wheeler, driving 4.8 km to the store and back will emit around 0.19 kg of CO2. In Pune, walking over short distances is better than driving a car, but not better than driving a two wheeler when it comes to replacing burnt calories and emitting greenhouse gases.

This will work as long the person maintains a particular weight. If a person starts overeating then all those extra calories represents extra emissions of CO2. This is likely to be a problem in urban India with all the new found prosperity. Trends of weight increase in urban Indians suggest that 40 to 50 million Indians have become overweight over the last few years and it could get worse. To gain one pound a week one has to eat 500 calories extra per day. That is a total of 3500 extra calories. Urban Indians are becoming fat not by eating huge amount of healthy veggies, but by stuffing themselves with calorie rich foods like sweets and oil rich fried stuff. That would mean they will require about 900 - 1000 grams of extra food to put on 1 pound of weight or 20 kg of extra food to gain 10 kg weight. The energy intensity of producing smaller amount of sweets and oil is probably the same as consuming larger amount of veggies. Going by this assumption, that would mean additional emissions of about 230 kg CO2 for every 10 kg of weight increase. If 50 million Indians become overweight by 10 kg that will result in additional emissions of 11.5 million tons of CO2. The figure will be much more if they start eating more chicken, since poultry industry is becoming very energy intensive, western style. My calculations are probably off by some amounts but the intent is to show that obesity and consumption has unexpected consequences.

How are urban Indians doing when it comes to personal lifestyles and the contribution thereof to global warming? Why not find out? Use the personal CO2 calculators I have listen below to calculate how much you contribute to global warming.

Carbon Counter
Conservation Fund Calculator
Carbon Footprint Calculator

To help you out here is a conversion list:

1 Dollar ~ Rs 40
1 gallon = 3.37 litres
1 kg = 2.2 lbs
One unit on your MSEB electricity bill ~ 1 kwhr.
1 cylinder of cooking gas (Propane) ~ 16.5 litres
Fuel Economy: 1km/lit = 2.35 miles/gallon
1000 kg = 1 ton

Compare your emissions with those of households of other nations given below.
CO2 Household Emissions by Country:
Australia - 14 tons/yr
China - 2.4 tons/yr
U.K- 9.8 tons/yr
U.S.- 19.06 tons/yr.

In the interest of full disclosure, I emit about 4 tons per year, a little more I suspect than many Puneites, primarily due to international travel.

This has been a fun series to write. I will be writing on and off about Pune so watch this space.

Part1. Idling and Pollution
Part2. PMT buses and Pollution
Part3. Rickshaws and Pollution
Part 4. Urban Forests and Clean Air
Part 5. Sensing Corruption Remotely