French President Nicolas Sarkozy last night declared that his country would witness a “green” revolution which will cut the nation’s energy consumption and carbon emissions, reduce road and air transport and promote organic farming.
The Independent reports: M. Sarkozy hailed the two-day national meeting as an ‘important moment’ in a shift away from a ‘production and consumer’ society to a world which rejected ‘waste’ and accepted the need to defend the ‘future of the planet’.
‘He promised to implement all the agreements reached over two days by a conference of politicians, employers, trades unions, ecological pressure groups and farmers – claimed to be the first meeting of its kind in the world. The conference would, M. Sarkozy said, start a ‘revolution in our way of thinking, in our way of making decisions, a revolution in our way of life’.”
In another related development, nearly 400 experts from around the world who contributed to the recent United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report, warned that humanity itself could be at risk if nothing is done to address the three major environmental problems of a growing human population, climate change and the mass extinction of animals and plants, reports The Independent.
“The report is the fruit of five years’ work by leading scientists and is the fourth in a series since the publication in 1987 of Our Common Future by an international commission into the state of the global environment chaired by the former Norwegian prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland.
“The world economy has at the same time boomed, with the global GDP per capita rising from about $6,000 (£2,920) to just over $8,000. But this increased wealth has been geared towards the developed world and has come at an enormous cost to the environment.
“Available freshwater stocks have declined dramatically since the 1980s, in west Asia, for instance, from 1,700 cubic metres per person per year, to 907 cubic metres today. By the middle of the century, this is likely to fall still further to 420 cubic metres per person per year.
“Over the past 20 years, the proportion of fish stocks in the world that have collapsed has doubled from 15 per cent to 30 per cent. At the same time the proportion of fish stocks that are deemed to be overexploited has risen from 20 per cent to 40 per cent.”
Achim Steiner, the executive director of UNEP, said that the objective of the latest report was not to present a ‘dark and gloomy scenario’ but to make the case for an urgent call to action. However, the dire state of almost every aspect of the planet’s wellbeing points to 20 years of missed opportunities.
Swaraaj Chauhan describes his two-decade-long stint as a full-time journalist as eventful, purposeful, and full of joy and excitement. In 1993 he could foresee a different work culture appearing on the horizon, and decided to devote full time to teaching journalism (also, partly, with a desire to give back to the community from where he had enriched himself so much.)
Alongside, he worked for about a year in 1993 for the US State Department’s SPAN magazine, a nearly five-decade-old art and culture monthly magazine promoting US-India relations. It gave him an excellent opportunity to learn about things American, plus the pleasure of playing tennis in the lavish American embassy compound in the heart of New Delhi.
In !995 he joined WWF-India as a full-time media and environment education consultant and worked there for five years travelling a great deal, including to Husum in Germany as a part of the international team to formulate WWF’s Eco-tourism policy.
He taught journalism to honors students in a college affiliated to the University of Delhi, as also at the prestigious Indian Institute of Mass Communication where he lectured on “Development Journalism” to mid-career journalists/Information officers from the SAARC, African, East European and Latin American countries, for eight years.
In 2004 the BBC World Service Trust (BBC WST) selected him as a Trainer/Mentor for India under a European Union project. In 2008/09 He completed another European Union-funded project for the BBC WST related to Disaster Management and media coverage in two eastern States in India — West Bengal and Orissa.
Last year, he spent a couple of months in Australia and enjoyed trekking, and also taught for a while at the University of South Australia.
Recently, he was appointed as a Member of the Board of Studies at Chitkara University in Chandigarh, a beautiful city in North India designed by the famous Swiss/French architect Le Corbusier. He also teaches undergraduate and postgraduate students there.
He loves trekking, especially in the hills, and never misses an opportunity to play a game of tennis. The Western and Indian classical music are always within his reach for instant relaxation.
And last, but not least, is his firm belief in the power of the positive thought to heal oneself and others.