An environmental round-up

Atula Gupta, Dec 29, 2015,

Looking back

When this flood blocks the road, I am worried more by my soil getting washed, than by getting late, to reach my destination,” wrote Nepalese poet Suman Pokhrel. For India, no words could be truer for the year 2015. If something has blocked the road of India’s savvy future in the last year, it has been the constant news of flood in some or other part of the country. From the flash floods of Gujarat to the annual flooding of the North East to the recent disasters in Tamil Nadu, rising waters have set the alarm bells ringing all through the year, breaking the pace of growth the nation has so enthusiastically embraced.
In retrospect, it is hard to see these calamities as individual occurrences or even natural. The extreme weather events such as the one in Chennai, Manipur, Assam or Gir National Park earlier this year are sprouting from a single event of atmosphere heating which is man-made and expanding into a bigger catastrophe each day. In 2012, it was Haiti and the Philippines that were affected, and a super-cyclone hit the Philippines again in 2013. This year, it is India’s turn.

State of the wild cats
In the July flash floods of Gujarat, 10 Asiatic lions lost their lives apart from a number of other wild animals of the Gir forests. Although the Supreme Court of India had earlier allowed the relocation of few of the Asiatic lions from Gir to another protected area in Madhya Pradesh, the plans are yet to be materialised. Till then, Gir remains the last bastion of the Asiatic lions — all of them living in one habitat, all equally vulnerable to any calamity that may arise in future.

While the lions of India have been restricted to the forests of Gujarat, it was another smart cat that surprised researchers with the ease with which it has made urban India its home. An international study of radio-collared leopards in India found that the animals were not strays that had wandered out of the forest, but residents of cities, just like a cat or a dog staying in a locality. Given their extremely flexible nature, leopards have now found it a survival necessity to shift from forests to urban places, as green covers see depletion. And they also know how to remain hidden in the human jungle, avoiding contact and the conflict that may arise due to chance encounters.

For India’s national animal, the year 2015 brought reassurance that the conservation efforts are being put in the right direction. According to the latest census, India now has 2,226 tigers in the wild, showing a sharp 30 per cent increase in population from the last census done in 2010. Despite the day-to-day challenges of habitat loss, human-animal conflict and poaching, the tiger seems to be slowly, but steadily regaining its lost status as the king of the Indian jungles. What is still sad though is the rampant killings of animals including the tiger.

Till the mid of November this year, 22 tigers were documented to have been killed by poachers. As many as 216 leopards, 40 tigers, 43 rhinos, 100 elephants and innumerable birds and reptiles have lost their lives to the poacher’s gun in the last 18 months. 

Ironically, the promise of recruiting a rhino protection force in Assam that was made in January this year, still remains in papers. Another Indian star caught in the wildlife trade is the beautiful and rare star tortoise. In a study published in the journal Nature Conservation, researchers warned of a large-scale network, fuelled by growing international demand for exotic pets, which is causing extreme suffering to the animals and threatening the survival of the species. In one site alone, at least 55,000 tortoises were poached from the wild in one year.

On the positive side, India is one of the few megadiverse nations in the world, where species discoveries are still a constant delight. Adding to the growing list of species found in the rich North East, Western Ghats and the Himalayan region were a number of creatures like a newly discovered wasp, frogs, butterflies and fish. The Botanical Survey of India (BSI) and the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) released a list of 349 new species of flora and fauna in the past one year on the World Environment Day. This includes 173 species and genera of plants and 176 species of animals. 

Good news also came in the form of another survey result that showed that the country’s forest cover has grown 3,775 sq km since 2013, taking the total to 7,01,673 sq km — 21.34 per cent of the country's geographical area. Experts do worry though that the increase of cover isn’t the indicator of the protection or growth in numbers of local plant species that are more vital to the sustenance of the local habitats than afforestation alone.

Growing numbers
A survey of the Ganges river dolphins  revealed 1,263 dolphins in Uttar Pradesh against 671 in the 2012 census. The survey also counted 116 dolphins in a 215-km stretch of the river from Lakshagrah in Allahabad to Kaithi in Varanasi, a confluence of Ganga and Gomti. If these numbers are to be believed, the national aquatic animal is faring well despite the high level pollution of River Ganga.

Local community power proved its mettle once again in 2015 where aware citizens chose to conserve, protect and nurture, while they led a sustainable life and prospered too. The Nyishi tribe of Nagaland, once hunters of the famed great hornbill of the state have now become protectors of the bird and its future generations, by guarding their nests. It’s a prime example of how given the correct knowledge, locals can be the greatest asset in fighting the conservation battle.

John Muir once said, “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.” Let us hope in 2016, the opportunities to help the crippled planet back on its foot are much more than the deliberate attempts to hurt it further. Development without ecological stability can only make calamities such as the floods, a routine than a rarity. 

Fog history of Atacama reconstructed

Jonathan Amos, Dec 29, 2015, The New York Times

It is hard to imagine you could reconstruct a record of fog dating back thousands of years, but this is exactly what Chilean scientists have done. The low-lying cloud is seemingly so transient and intangible, and unlike rivers and glaciers it leaves no easy-to-read impressions on the landscape.
And yet, a Santiago team has been able to trace the fog history of the Atacama Desert by studying Tillandsia plants. Their chemistry suggests strongly that this local fog has increased over time. It is a period covering the last 3,500 years. “I don’t think there’s any other place in the world where I’ve actually seen a record of fog, even spanning the last hundred years,” said Claudio Latorre Hidalgo from the Catholic University of Chile. 

“What little we know about fog is from measurement instrumental data that we have, and from satellite data that only spans the last 20 years. So, this is actually a unique opportunity to study the evolution of a fog ecosystem over the Late Holocene, and what are the major drivers and controls of the mechanisms that produce that fog in the long term — the very long term,” he added.

The palaeoclimate expert was discussing his team’s research at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union — the world’s largest annual gathering of Earth scientists. The Atacama is famous for its super-arid conditions; there are places where it has not rained for years.

But life can eke out an existence if it can exploit the fog that rolls in off the Pacific. Tillandsia are a perfectly adapted opportunist. These wiry, grey plants have no roots. 

They clutch weakly at sand dunes, but arrange themselves at every spatial scale to maximise their capture of the fog. They derive everything they need from the damp air — not simply the must-have water, but also all the chemical nutrients required to underpin their biology.

Claudio and colleagues have dug deep into the dunes to uncover a multi-millennia succession of Tillandsia; and they have described a pronounced trend: the younger the plants, the more of the lighter type, or isotope, of nitrogen atom that they have incorporated into their tissues.

Deductions
Analysis of modern fog suggests this lighter nitrogen is favoured, and so the observed trend in the Tillandsia would strongly indicate the fogs of the Atacama have increased over time — with some complications. 

“How the nitrogen gets into the fog is a much more complex question,” said Claudio Latorre Hidalgo. “I suspect a lot of that nitrogen is of marine origin. There is a huge oxygen-minimum zone off the coast of northern Chile, where there is a lot of denitrification going on. So, there is a lot of molecular nitrogen going into the air and a lot of nitrous oxide as well. We know there is both ammonia and nitrate in the fog. So, you get both organic and inorganic forms of nitrogen.”

Oxygen-minimum zones are mid-water regions in the ocean that are extremely low in oxygen abundance, in part because marine organisms are removing it very fast and also because the waters that move into the zone fail to replenish the oxygen as they themselves are depleted. This is usually cold, upwelling water. And, again, this fits the overall picture because cold coastal waters will produce more fog.

“Our monthly fog collector data shows there is a significant trend with the coastal sea-surface temperatures and the fog. So, when you get El Nino events (and local surface waters warm), this warm water dissipates the thermal inversion that’s holding in the low-lying cloud and this dissipates the fog. We think that over the last three thousand years, the coastal waters have gotten much colder, much more productive and that’s releasing nitrogen from this oxygen-minimum zone to fertilise the plants.”

And it is more than just the Tillandsia that are benefiting. The plants’ success in trapping and using fog anchors a whole ecosystem that supports creatures as diverse as beetles, scorpions, spiders and even lizards.

Science this year

Sudhindra Haldodderi, Dec 29, 2015,

Major events

Science was never static ever since we started understanding it, and the year 2015 was no exception. From artificial spider silk development to the lightest ever gold film deployment the spread here is far and wide. Scientists have tried to take control on the rat’s consciousness and they have also attempted to peep into a monkey’s brain to know whether it perceives its own mirror image. Clean energy continues to be an interest for some who attempted to make artificial leaves while others tried to strap tiny computers on beetles to remote control them. With the advancement of information age, a discovery or an invention gets reported every minute. And let us keep our eyes and ears open to read and hear more in 2016. These are what made news this year, in case you missed them:

Manipulating consciousness in rats
Scientists like Jin Hyung Lee, an assistant professor of neurology, neurosurgery and bioengineering at Stanford University are prepared to lose sleep to understand the neuron functioning related to consciousness! Recently, his team showed that stimulation frequencies could alter brain activity of rats and either wake them up or put them in an unconscious state by changing the firing rates of neurons in the region which regulates arousal — the central thalamus. What Jin did to trigger neurons is that she flashed laser pulses onto light sensitive central thalamic neurons of sleeping rats, which caused the cells to fire. When the frequency of stimulation was raised beyond 40 and up to 100 pulses per second, the rats woke up. At the same time, in a low frequency stimulation of 10 pulses per second, the rats underwent a state of stiffening and staring before returning to sleep.

Tracing magnetic fields at Milky Way’s central black hole
Going by textbooks, we believed black holes to be giant suckers, gobbling anything and everything that gets too close to them. Contrary to this belief, some supermassive black holes at the centres of galaxies are behaving like giant cosmic engines, converting energy from infalling matter into intense radiation. This amount of radiation is so huge that it can outshine the combined light from all the stars surrounding such black holes. Astronomers have detected for the first time, magnetic fields outside the black hole which is at the centre of Milky Way.

This major accomplishment was achieved using the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) — a global network of radio telescopes that link together to function as one giant telescope as big as the size of Earth, according to principal investigator Shep Doeleman of MIT Haystack Observatory.

It is bacteria which make your drinking water safe!
Generally we believe that good drinking water must be free from bacteria. But we hardly realise that our drinking water is to a large extent purified by millions of “good bacteria” found in water pipes and purification plants. Most of us did not know this till a publication of Lund University explained it. 

The work of doctoral student Katharina Lührig, who works with Prof Peter Radstrom and Kenneth Persson, has been published in Microbes and Environments. The findings indicate that the diversity of species of bacteria in water pipes is huge, and that bacteria may play a larger role than previously thought. Further, the research team has concluded that a large part of water purification actually takes place in the pipes than in water purification plants.

How old are you Mr Saturn?
Like all of us get cool over the years, even the planets tend to cool as they get older. However, the scientists have found that Saturn is hotter than it should have been. Because of this unexplained additional heat, the computer models estimating Saturn’s age has made an error to an extent of two-billion-years. The same computer models have correctly predicted Jupiter as 4.5 billion years old, while they indicated Saturn as only 2.5 billion years old. 

According to Thomas Mattsson from Sandia’s high-energy-density physics theory group, experiments at its Z machine has helped solve that problem. The reason for the ‘hotness’ of Saturn is the presence molecular hydrogen, which is normally an insulator. This becomes metallic if squeezed by enough pressure. A pressured lattice of hydrogen molecules can break up into individual hydrogen atoms, releasing free-floating electrons that could carry current.

Gold foam, as light as air
The researchers at Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule, Zurich, led by Raffaele Mezzenga, professor of Food and Soft Materials, have produced a new kind of foam out of gold, a three-dimensional mesh of gold that consists mostly of pores. It is the lightest gold nugget ever created. This new type of foam made of real gold is thousand times lighter than its conventional form and yet it is nearly impossible to tell the difference with the naked eye. This gold foam can even float on the milk foam of a cappuccino cup.

How does your heart get the pumping power?
Elementary science has taught us that heart is a pump which contracts and expands. It was always believed that the muscles, which make the heart, aid pumping action.  The special property called ‘contractility’ of these muscles helped making the heart a wonderful pumping machine.

But scientists like Prof Anthony Gramolini and Prof Thomas Kislinger in the Department of Medical Biophysics of Ted Rogers Centre for Heart Research, Canada, wanted to find answers about how our heart muscles gained the ‘contractility.’ Their team identified and analysed more than 500 membrane proteins on the surfaces of cardiac contractile cells which are likely to have a critical role in normal heart function. Now the scientists have found a treasure trove of proteins which hold answers about the contractility.
New metamaterial for better acoustic imaging.

Scientists always fancy discovering new materials which enhance the diagnostic capability of acoustic imaging as acoustic waves are safe for diagnosing human defects or injuries. At the same time, acoustic imaging tools are used in testing the structural integrity of aeroplane parts. Recently, scientists at North Carolina State University and Duke University developed a metamaterial made of paper and aluminium that can manipulate acoustic waves to more than double the resolution of normal acoustic imaging. 

They can also focus acoustic waves and control the angles at which sound passes through the metamaterial. According to Yun Jing, an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at NC State (Raleigh, USA), the metamaterial is designed to block sound from most angles, leaving only a small opening for sound to pass through, which might be useful for microphones.

Aluminium can unlock the secrets of stars 
In astrophysical terms, radioactive aluminium (aluminium-26, or Al26) has a relatively short lifespan, decaying in around one million years. Since Al26 emits gamma radiation through its decay, astronomers can locate it in our galaxy. By studying how Al26 is created in massive stars, scientists are now able to measure the rate of its production by nuclear fusion.

They have measured the fusion of helium and sodium at two separate particle accelerators in Canada and Denmark, and the rate of production of Al26 was determined to within a factor of two. Physicists at the University of York have further revealed that a new understanding of nucleosynthesis in stars, which can provide greater insight into the role of massive stars in the evolution of the Milky Way and the origins of our solar system.

Gold-plated onion cells to make artificial muscles
A group of researchers from National Taiwan University, lead by researcher  Wen-Pin Shih, have found that the onion’s cell structure and its dimensions were similar to what they were expecting from artificial muscle cells. The initial goal was to develop an engineered microstructure in artificial muscles for increasing the actuation deformation (the amount the muscle can bend or stretch when triggered). With fine coating of gold on onion epidermal cells, they can either expand or contract to bend in different directions depending on the driving voltage applied on them.

(This compilation is based on the inputs from several blogs, news services, institutional releases and magazine articles.)

Exercise may starve a cold

Gretchen Reynolds, Dec 29, 2015, INYT

Disease BARRIER

Working out could help us fight off colds and other infections, according to a new study. The study, which found that regular exercise strengthened the body’s immune system in part by repeatedly stressing it, was conducted on animals. But the results probably apply to people, the researchers say, and could offer further incentive for us to remain physically active this winter.

In broad terms, our immune system reacts to invading microbes through a variety of cells. Some of these cells don’t directly combat the infection, but instead promote the development of inflammation. When we think of inflammation, we usually think of fever, swelling and redness. But inflammation can also be a good thing, helping the body to heal as it fights invading microbes. The problem is that inflammation can easily get out of hand. If the inflammatory response to an infection or injury is too robust or indiscriminate, the inflammation can ultimately cause more tissue damage and lingering health problems than it prevents.

Scientists have long tried to determine why inflammation sometimes grows rampant in the body. One thing they’ve noticed is that fat cells are particularly adept at producing substances that promote inflammation, in part as a response to messages from the immune system. But fat cells also often produce inflammatory substances in greater amounts than needed to fight germs, in some cases even when there is no actual infection. As a result, past studies have found, obesity in animals and people can lead to elevated levels of inflammation throughout the body and, interestingly, a weaker overall immune response to an infection or illness.

Because of these links between fat cells and the immune response, scientists at Chosun University in Gwangju, South Korea, and other institutions recently began to consider whether exercise might affect the body’s response to germs. Among the many effects of physical activity, exercise generally reduces the amount of fat in the body and also alters levels of inflammation.

Test run
So for the new study, which was published last month in Scientific Reports, they gathered 28 average-weight male laboratory mice and tested their blood and fat cells for markers of inflammation and other immune cells. They then had half of the mice begin a swimming regimen, during which the animals paddled around a warmish pool for 10 minutes, five days a week, for three weeks.

Mice aren’t natural or eager swimmers and tend to thrash in the water, so the exercise was moderately strenuous for them, the equivalent of what 30 minutes or so of jogging might be for us. The other mice remained sedentary. Throughout the three weeks, the scientists monitored all of the animals’ levels of inflammation and what was happening, if anything, to their fat cells.

As expected, the swimmers showed increases in markers of inflammation, especially in their muscles, as their bodies worked to heal the slight tissue damage that occurs during regular exercise. Over all, they displayed higher levels of inflammation than the unexercised animals. Meanwhile, their fat cells were shrinking in size and number.

Immunity comparison
After three weeks, to test the animals’ immune response, half of the swimmers and half of the inactive mice were inoculated with Staphylococcus germs. In mice and people, these germs cause skin infections and serious lung problems that resemble pneumonia. The mice that had exercised and those that had remained sedentary began to grow ill from the staph infections. But the differences in the animals’ immune responses were considerable, the scientists found.

Inflammation rapidly blossomed in the sedentary, infected animals, as their immune systems pumped out high numbers of cells that promote inflammation. Many of these cells migrated to the animals’ lungs, suggesting that excessive inflammation was taking hold there. The infected swimmers had much lower levels of these pro-inflammatory cells, lower even than in the uninfected swimmers. The numbers of these cells in their lungs were particularly low. At the same time, the sickening swimmers were producing far more of a potent type of antimicrobial immune cell that, like internal Purell, directly kills germs, especially in their lungs.

Overall, the infected swimmers did not become as sick as the infected sedentary mice. They also had much less lung damage. Precisely how swimming had changed these animals’ immune systems remains somewhat unclear. But, said Yoonkyung Park, a professor of biomedical science at Chosun University who oversaw the new study, the exercise seemed to have had two signal effects.

Most obviously, it reduced fatness, which, in turn, lessened the often excessive levels of pro-inflammatory substances produced by fat cells. At the same time, however, the workouts caused small amounts of continuous tissue damage and inflammation. This process, the researchers said, seems to have familiarised the animals’ bodies with trauma and how best to initiate healing.

The swimmers, in effect, appeared to have developed a more refined and effective immune response. Their immune systems appear to have learned to produce a beneficial amount of inflammation, but not too much. So when germs invaded, the system could rely less on indiscriminate, blunt-force inflammation and instead turn to targeted, antimicrobial killers.

Of course, rodents are not people. But Yoonkyung says that the effects are likely to be similar. “We strongly believe that long-term, regular exercise can considerably improve the immune defence mechanism,” he said, including, thankfully, “against viral infections such as colds and the flu.”
 

Making exercise virtually easier

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A virtual reality game for an exercise bike that makes physical activity so fun, you forget you’re burning calories

A new stationary bike from Boston startup VirZoom requires an unusual accessory while you’re pedalling: a virtual reality headset, so you can turn your workout into a virtual adventure.

Last week, I pulled an Oculus developer headset over my eyes and settled onto the bicycle, which will retail for $250 (about Rs.16,578) when it ships next year. It looks almost exactly like a traditional folding bike except for the buttons and triggers scattered across its two handles.

With several virtual reality headsets for consumers coming out this year — including Oculus’s anticipated ‘Rift’ — excitement is growing around applications like gaming. But virtual reality has long been used for rehabilitation, including exercising. A 2011 study from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, U.S., for instance, found that when people thought the intensity of a virtual reality workout increased, so did their motivation.

Inside the headset, Eric Janzsen, VirZoom’s co-founder and CEO, challenged me to a race car race. I leaned to hug corners on tight turns and pedalled faster to speed up my car. When I rolled over what looked through my headset like rougher ground, I was forced to pedal harder to keep up the same pace.

In another game, I became a Pegasus, flying through a world filled with trees and rolling hills. The harder I pedalled, the higher I flew. The game itself was simple and, after a while, a bit boring: I had to find coins and fly through them to gain energy. While I felt my legs growing tired over time, my mind never had time to dwell on the pain of working out.

How it works

Initially, VirZoom will be compatible with three forthcoming virtual reality headsets — the Oculus ‘Rift’, Sony ‘PlayStation VR’ and HTC ‘Vive’ — all of which track head movements to make the leaning motion translate into movement within the game. The bike itself tracks how fast you pedal and can add more resistance based on what avatar you take on or what type of land you travel over.

“We move you through the world in proportion to your effort,” Mr. Janzsen says.

The platform will eventually open up to developers, but for now VirZoom is building its first five games from scratch because its team worries that the types of motion in existing games could make users sick. That makes sense: Early on, leaning too far to the side gave me a twinge of nausea. But as I grew more experienced with the bike, that feeling went away.

Still, purchasing all the gear you’ll need to buy the bike won’t be cheap, and using it will be clunky. While VirZoom will cost $250, buyers will also have to factor in the cost of a headset (still undetermined for the three supported ones, which are all slated for release in 2016). And the Vive and Rift will need to be tethered to a powerful desktop computer, while the ‘PlayStation VR’ will have to connect to a PlayStation 4.

For now, VirZoom is only planning to sell its bike to people who want to use it at home. Headsets will likely be too expensive and delicate for gymnasiums to lend out to attendees in a spin class at a gym, and I’m guessing people may not be too keen on sharing sweaty headsets — I know mine felt pretty gross when I was done with my workout. — New York Times News Service

A boost to global drive for stricter anti-tobacco laws

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The Hindu

File photo

In a significant boost to stricter tobacco control laws, the Australian government on Friday won an international legal battle against tobacco giant Phillip Morris, which had challenged “plain packaging” laws.

Globally, the public health community has been demanding implementation of “plain tobacco packaging” — which means standardised packaging of tobacco products without any exclusive branding (colours, imagery, corporate logos and trademarks). The laws will only allow the manufacturers to print the brand name in a mandated size and font. Australia, the first country to implement these laws, had passed the plain packaging legislation in November 2011.

The Australian tribunal in the arbitration, based in Singapore, unanimously agreed with Australia’s position and gave a verdict against Phillip Morris. The verdict was awaited by many countries wanting to implement stricter tobacco control legislation. “The judgment in favour of Australia is a vindication of policy taken in public interest. It is important that judiciary everywhere in the world recognises the irrefutable evidence on the incalculable harm done by tobacco to the health of millions across the world. Law must prioritise societal interest over narrow corporate interests, while adjudicating on matters of public policy,” said K. Srinath Reddy, the president of the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) and one of the leading voices of India’s anti-tobacco campaign.

According to the Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS) India report, smoking kills over one million people in India annually and is the fourth leading cause of non-communicable diseases (NCD) such as cancer and heart diseases, which account for 53 per cent of all deaths in India. According to the Health Ministry, economic burden of tobacco consumption is around Rs.1,04,500 crore per annum.

Biju Janata Dal MP Jay Panda had introduced a private member’s Bill on plain packaging, demanding that pictorial warnings occupy at least 60 per cent of the front panel of the pack. He welcomed the verdict given by the Australian tribunal.

“This is an issue that is close to my heart. I have been fervently advocating this reform as a measure to control tobacco consumption in our country; especially since India is the second largest consumer of tobacco. Given the scale of the issue facing us, today’s verdict would offer us greater confidence to follow Australia’s lead towards a stronger public health policy. In this light, I urge all stakeholders to stick to the important April 1, 2016 notification for increased pictorial health warnings.”

In July 2014, the Allahabad High Court allowed a writ petition asking for implementation of plain packaging and directed the government to implement the scheme at the earliest.

The laws are to be implemented in India by April 2016.

The assault on our bodies

A new report lays bare the link between environmental degradation and the health of Indians. The numbers cited are cause for concern

“Every poison we put out into the environment comes right back at us, in our air, water and food. These poisons slowly seep into our bodies and take years to show up as cancer or as immune system disorder or as hormonal or reproductive system disorders — affecting even the foetus,” was what environmental activist Anil Agarwal noted as he wrote about his journey towards understanding cancer in the context of the environment. Anil Agarwal died of cancer at 54, in 2002.

Way back in 1994 he warned that people would fall victim to the environment if they continue to pump toxics into it. Now, over two decades later, the Centre for Science and Environment’s (CSE) report, Body Burden: State of India’s Health (2015) provides, for the first time, a collection of articles highlighting the tangible link between our environmental degradation and health. It lays emphasis on contaminated water, polluted air, climate change, sanitation, pesticides, forest degradation and lifestyle-related issues.

Clear and present danger

The prognosis doesn’t read well for India. The report pegs air pollution as the fifth leading cause of death in India leading to 6,20,000 premature deaths annually due to stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, ischemic heart disease, lower respiratory infections and cancer of the trachea, bronchus and lungs, among others.

Water contamination that causes diseases affects 37.7 million Indians annually, including 1.5 million children who die of diarrhoea alone.

Establishing the link between climate change and a rise in vector-borne diseases, including dengue and malaria, the report notes: “The potential period of spread of malaria has increased to 10-12 months (almost the whole year), which is up from four to six months.” The report also warns that deforestation is causing diseases in animals that were earlier confined to forests but now affect humans, claiming 2.7 million lives annually. Worse, the World Health Organization says our indiscriminate use of pesticides will cause 20 times more deaths due to cancer by 2030.

Sunita Narain of CSE says there is now a well-established link between our environment and our health: “In fact, environmental degradation’s first assault is on our bodies and this is one of the biggest reasons why we try to protect the environment.”