Ecology is economics

PAAVAN MATHEMA
Sunday 5 June is World Environment Day, and to mark it there will be a rush to organise neighbourhood cleaning campaigns, tree plantations and numerous seminars and conferences. But hanging the 'green' tag needs to go beyond 5 June, it has to be year-round way to thinking. Sustainable lifestyles and an ecological consciousness doesn't just save the planet, it also makes business sense. Being ecological is economical.

The best way to do this is to promote green jobs: work opportunities that explore ways to preserve and restore the environment and at the same time are economically viable. Green jobs offer a hybrid solution to address problem of unemployment and environment sustainability, linking the twin goals of reducing poverty and protecting the environment.

The transition to a low-carbon economy presents employment opportunities by opening new markets, and by stimulating eco-innovation and investment in more efficient production techniques. Prospects for creating green jobs can be developed in entirely new ideas or in finding ways in which the existing businesses can be made environmentally friendly.

माथिल्लो कर्णाली आगजनी भित्रको कारण राजनैतिक

नौ सय मेगावाटको परियोजनाबाट भारतीय कम्पनीले नेपाललाई दिने १२ प्रतिशत बिजुली सीधै राष्ट्रिय प्रसारणमा जोडिने र ८८ प्रतिशत सीधै भारत लग्ने भएकाले स्थानीय जनता ठगिने भन्दै विरोध गरीएको थीयो । माथिल्लो कणर्ाली जलविद्युत् आयोजनाका लागि भारतीय कम्पनी जिएमआरले दैलेखको सालतडामा बनाएका तीनवटा भवनमा आइतबार आगजनी भएको थीयो ।

थप जानकारी को लागि तल क्लिक गर्नुहोला
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3reMGp5z-c&feature=player_embedded

स्रोत : www.news24nepal.com

Rural Energy Policy, 2006

There are huge possibilities of producing energy in Nepal. Availability of enormous water resources and topographic situation gives rise to a potential for 83,000 MW of hydropower of which about 43,000 MW of power production seems to be economically and technically feasible. Till now, where only about 563 MW has been harnessed which is mainly consumed in urban areas, the rural and remote areas of the nation has no access to reliable and clean energy. In the other hand, in spite of enough possibility of producing energy in rural areas in the form of biogas, solar energy, wind energy, improved water mill, micro and mini hydropower, it has not been used as per the needs.

In Nepal, only 160,000 biogas plants have been installed out of the installation potential of 1.9 million biogas plants. There has been savings in the energy consumption by installing 250,000 improved cooking stoves. Similarly, in spite of huge potential of solar energy, only 75,000 solar home systems have been installed. With regard to the wind energy, it has not been possible to harness its potential. Up to now about 2,000 traditional water mills have been improved. Onlyabout 8 MW power is produced through micro hydro. These efforts have made it possible toprovide electricity services to about 40 percent of the population in the country. In the ruralareas, only 29 percent of the population has access to electricity.

Hydrocratic dreams

RATNA SANSAR SHRESTHA 

You don't need to be a Nobel-laureate economist to deduce that Nepal is technically insolvent. Our balance of trade deficit in the last fiscal year (2009-10) amounted to Rs320 billion. It was only Rs216 billion the year before. Our balance of payment deficit during the same period was Rs 2.92 billion. It was favorable by Rs38 billion the previous year. 

The business community, renowned economists and the "hydrocracy" argue that the only way out is to export hydropower. Susan Goldmark, the World Bank country director in Nepal, lent credence to this diagnosis by declaring that Nepal's GDP could be comparable to that of Saudi Arabia if we exported hydropower.
Actually, it is because Nepal for the past two decades concentrated on projects to export hydropower that we are suffering an energy crisis in both electricity and petroleum products. This situation will get worse unless policymakers refocus and realign the country's energy policy.

Ozone over Everest

BUDDHA BASNYAT,

Amazingly, pollution-related ozone concentrations in the Mount Everest region are reported to be very high as shown by John Semple, colleagues from the University of Toronto in a 2009 March issue of the New England Medical Journal. This is potentially alarming because death rates from respiratory causes are associated with increasing concentrations of ozone. The Mount Everest region is somewhere you can inhale deeply without feeling a burning throat sensation as you do when you complete such a manoeuvre in Kathmandu. But if the ozone story is true, our lungs may be in for a rough ride even in the pristine Solukhumbu Valley. 

Ozone concentrations in the troposphere have doubled globally since preindustrial times. They are now 30 ppb from estimates of 15 ppb in the pre-industrial era. And, not surprisingly, the major reason for this is burning of fossil fuel. (Not to be confused with the stratospheric ozone layer which is "good" ozone and protects the planet from harmful ultraviolet rays from the sun.)