Publications

The @CompCoRe_STS project organised the first (semi-)in person meeting at @HarvardSTS . Leo Saldanha and Bhargavi Rao of ESG are part of this network and writing the India paper as part of a 50 country study on how COVID was managed, an international research effort led by Prof. Sheila Jananoff of Harvard Kennedy School and Prof. Stephen Hiltgartner of Cornell University.

At Environment Support Group(ESG), every day is Environment Day. And it has been the case for us ever since the organisation was founded, 25 years ago. Yes, it is the 25th year of this initiative and we hope we are doing our bit to be grateful for the incredible opportunity of being a part of this living planet.

In the final hours of the 2021-22 Financial Year, we invite you to support ESG’s critical efforts advancing environmental justice.

The war is also a reminder for the urgent need for stringent international control necessary in the use of thermobaric, cluster and nuclear weapons, owing to the brutality and highest dangers arising from the use of these inhuman tools of mass destruction. 

A key strategy promoted to tackle climate change, especially from the North, is to keep coal, oil and gas in the ground and shift to renewables.  Which, as Thea Riofrancos argues in Foreign Policy, is fraught with serious inconsistencies even if this involves  shifting the mining of minerals critical to the renewable energy transition to the Global North. ”Global north onshoring does not repair the forms of environmental harm disproportionally meted out in the global south”, he argues. Besides, this would create new problems which primarily affect oppressed populations within affluent countries. 

The Wildlife Protection Act, 1972 appears poised to be the next victim of the continuing onslaught on environmental protections by the Union Government. The Wildlife Protection (Amendment) Bill, 2021 endangers several common but declining species of wildlife by allowing them to be classified as “vermin” and thus be opened up to being hunted. Several species that were previously protected under the Schedules of the Act have been removed in the amendments without any justification.

Leading environmentalist, rationalist, educator and philosopher from Kerala, Prof. M K Prasad, lost his battle with COVID on 17th January 2022.   Prof. Prasad was the inspirational force behind the successful Save Silent Valley Movement, which forced former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to stop the dam that would have destroyed the rainforest

” This Diwali Don’t Burn Your Money, instead help ESG do more to advance environmental and social justice. “

On 9th October 2021, the floating village Champu khangpok at Loktak Lake, Manipur celebrated World Migratory Bird Day organised by All Loktak Lake Areas Fisheries Union Manipur (ALLAFUM) in partnership with Ngamee Lup, Pumlen Pat Khoidum Lamjao Kanba Apunba Lup, Environment Support Group and Indigenous Perspectives. Renowned ornithologist Dr. S. Subramanya spoke on the critical importance of protecting wetlands like Loktak for protecting and conserving water birds, as he highlighted the wetland is a habitat of the Central Asian-Indian Flyway and East Asian-Australasia Flyway for migratory birds.

During March and June 2021, ESG worked with administrators of Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike and Karnataka Government, senior representatives of regulatory agencies,  representatives of multiple sectors across Bengaluru, academicians and experts, and importantly the wide public, in 9 webinars held through the 2nd major lockdowns imposed due to COVID  in developing “Make Bengaluru Climate Friendly: A blueprint for integrated, participatory and inclusive urban governance”.

Scientists have provided fresh evidence linking heatwaves that ravaged western Canada and the US with climate change. They termed the occurrence of the phenomenon “virtually impossible” without human influence. This explainer in the Indian Express decodes the phenomenon of ‘heat dome’, the basis of the unprecedented heatwave in North America. Lou Del Bello in conversation with climate resilience entrepreneur Barath Mahadevan, provides a glimpse of what went wrong in the West and some lessons for South Asia in countering heatwaves.

As we resume our bi-weekly newsletter, we invite you to also read the unpublished issues of EJ Matters, which we have archived on our website.

Week 8 of the series saw rich discussions on how to build climate-resilient and inclusive infrastructure for Bengaluru. A major theme that emerged was the need to plan infrastructure for all sections of society, utilising consultative processes from the ward-level up. Read our previous session reports here.

Electric vehicles have often been touted as a panacea to reduce particulate emissions from automobiles. But data has emerged that the biggest source of PM 2.5 is tire wear, not vehicle exhaust. This could raise questions about the viability of mass transition to Electric Vehicles.

Bengaluru’s Climate Action Plan- Making it Participatory and Inclusive On March 22nd, World Water Day, ESG began a new webinar