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When Moninder Singh first heard that farmers in northern India were marching back to the country’s capital in protest, he couldn’t think of anything the late actor and activist Deep Sidhu had ever said.
“It’s a generational struggle,” Singh said.
Singh, speaking on behalf of the Government of British Columbia. The Gurdwaras Council, a Sikh organization, has been following the protests in India. Many of its members have ties to the country, and some have even sent cash abroad to others on the march. he said.
In mid-February, thousands of farmers in rural areas of the states of Punjab and Haryana began flocking to New Delhi to demand, among other things, pledges of minimum value for their crops.
This would not only mitigate emerging production costs, but also allow them to adopt more sustainable practices and adapt to the effects of climate change, said Jayati Ghosh, an economist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
“Right now, we’re growing rice in places where we shouldn’t, and it’s depleting the water table,” he told What On Earth.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government promises a minimum purchase value for rice and wheat. This system, introduced in the 1960s, protects both crops from market fluctuations.
But farmers, who were allowed to enter New Delhi on March 14 after being stranded for weeks, need something similar for a wider variety of crops.
The farmers’ attitude is, “If the minimum price is offered, we will diversify into bigger crops, more sustainable crops and bigger types of crops,” Ghosh said.
Balshar Singh Sidhu, who teaches at the University of British Columbia’s Institute of Resources, Environment and Sustainability, says crops such as millet and resistant cereals are most indigenous to Punjab and surrounding states, a region that makes up India’s breadbasket.
But because of the guaranteed costs of rice and wheat, farmers are likely to grow basically those two crops, which require much more water, Sidhu explained.
About two-thirds of India’s population depend on agriculture for their livelihoods and rely heavily on groundwater for irrigation. But as rainfall patterns change and excessive heat waves and droughts become more frequent, farmers are finding it increasingly difficult to pump water out of the ground, Sidhu said.
“If your neighbor digs 91 meters into the ground and starts pumping, that also affects your water in the ground. So you have to dig even deeper. “
Sidhu said those who can’t dig deep into the surface have to rely on irrigation fed through canals and rivers, but extreme weather conditions also affect those water sources.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has rated India as one of the countries with the highest agricultural production.
In addition to taking on certain costs for crops other than wheat and rice, which can inspire farmers to grow crops that use less water, Ghosh also needs the government to use water, invest in crops that are more resilient to climate change, and help farmers. access to more ecological resources. Friendly fertilizers.
The latest protest comes three years after tens of thousands of farmers camped out in New Delhi for months, forcing Modi’s government to repeal three agricultural reform laws.
Singh, who has relatives in Punjab, said many other young people in the diaspora feel deeply connected to what farmers in that region are going through, even though many, like him, were born and raised in Canada.
“There’s an affinity and this love for the land we come from. . . where we grew up, between the culture, the music and the language,” he said.
“In fact, this is a generational struggle for the other peoples of Punjab, and the prestige quo will lead to. . . almost the annihilation of Punjab agriculture if they don’t do anything about it soon. “
—Vivian Luk
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Watch our podcast and radio show. This week: Make public shipping awesome. We wonder how to build buses and trains that other people will need to use. What On Earth releases new podcast episodes every Wednesday and Saturday. You can locate them on your favorite podcast app or on-demand on CBC Listen. The radio show airs Sundays at 11 a. m. m. ET, 11:30 a. m. in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Is it spring this year where you are? See how it compares to previous years with CBC’s Climate Dashboard.
In reaction to Emily Chung’s account of Toronto’s sewage to heat buildings, Marie Christenson wrote with her considerations about the potential contamination of sewage. “I can see if it’s the sewage from a paper mill that you also described, but the sewage, no matter how much filtration, will never be disease-free. What happens if the pipes break?”
Good question, Marie. As discussed in the article, heat is transferred to the white water in heat exchangers. Stephen Condie, director of lead generation at Noventa Energy Partners, the project company, told CBC News that wastewater and white water are physically separated in the heat exchanger and a voltage difference is maintained between them. “So if there was ever a problem, we’d still have leaks in the sewer system,” he said. “So there’s no threat of contamination from the blank water flow. “It’s similar to how strain-negative wards for COVID-19 patients in hospitals suck in air when the door is opened, preventing air in the room from flowing in and contaminating other areas. You can read more about heat exchangers here.
Craig Jansen of Halifax, Nova Scotia, wrote: “Thank you for your recent article on heat recovery from wastewater in Toronto. Simple concepts like this can lead to significant power gains. I added a sewage heat recovery hose in my own home to preheat the bloodless water. inlet of my hot water tank. Simple, reasonable and effective. “
Nancy Murphy wrote: “I don’t know if you know this, but Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, has a power, heating, cooling, and waste treatment plant that heats/cools the university and its large athletic facilities, while moderating hospital air prices. . Quality/Heat/Cooling/Sterilization of Equipment. . . And [it provides heat to] about 145 more buildings in the city through the burning of biomass. . . and municipal waste. . . It diverts 90% of municipal waste from landfills and reduces fuel intake for landfills. This facility has been in operation for 30 years, with new funding there will be even greater savings and pollutant control functions.
Anyone interested can read a profile of the Charlottetown district power formula and profiles of some other district power formulas across the country, such as the Charlottetown DES expansion. Would you like to know more about the power of the district?Check out our explainer.
In a long-term edition, we’re interested in his tips on how to live more sustainably and save money at the same time. Do you have any to share?
Write to us at whatonearth@cbc. ca.
Do you have a compelling story about the weather update that you’d like to share with CBC News?Present a first-person chronicle here.
Spring officially arrived earlier in the week. The start of the season means we can expect a lot of spring blossoms, such as cherry blossoms, but not at the same time they arrived. For more than 1,000 years, the Japanese have faithfully recorded the blossoming of cherry trees in Kyoto. On average, until around 1900, this annual display could be expected between April 10 and April 20. But things have literally changed over the course of the last century, as shown in a graph from Our World. Now, in warmer weather, you’re better off making plans for your cherry blossom picnic for the first part of the month (or now, if you’re in Vancouver or Washington, D. C. ). -Emily Chung
Meats like beef and lamb have a huge carbon footprint, but scientists believe they’ve discovered a more sustainable meat source: pythons.
Global emissions reached an all-time high in 2023. One of the main reasons the climate is replacing itself, especially the droughts that hampered hydropower generation around the world.
According to Ducks Unlimited Canada, a task in Moncton to reduce salt and sediment reaching waterways due to the massive sale of snow in the city is yielding positive results.
Water quality has improved about 20 percent since a new wetland was created to remove pollutants from snowmelt, said Adam Campbell, the conservation group’s director of Atlantic Affairs.
“Not so long ago it was perfectly appropriate to sell snow directly to rivers and the bay. “
But that’s changing.
“We know it can be harmful,” Campbell said.
Moncton’s task has been underway since 2015, when the local government participated in that runoff from snow trucks hauled to the Berry Mills landfill from other parts of the city could reach an adjacent creek.
Since the snow sale is full of snow from the roads, it is also full of sand, salt, and other pollutants.
The city and Ducks Unlimited worked in combination to design a thin wetland that mimics a grass wetland. Runoff is forced through the entire new wetland before exiting in a more filtered state into the creek.
“It cuts down pretty well on a number of things, but especially salt,” Campbell said. “The amount of salt entering the formula at the outlet is particularly reduced, as we expected. “
If salt enters a freshwater system, Campbell said, it can be poisonous to fish and other species that live there.
He said a wetland will have to have three things: water, plants that can grow in those conditions, and soils good enough to hold water in place.
Once a wetland is established, it acts as a filter. But it took a few seasons of development before Moncton’s new wetland was working properly.
Elaine Aucoin, the city’s executive director of expansion and sustainability, said the water testing regime, the inlet (or start of the wetland) and the outlet (the part of the wetland that flows into the creek) are tested to see if the wetland is well filtered out pollutants.
The results show that in addition to the reduction of melt salts at the exit of the wetland, there is also a reduction of hydrocarbons, metals and sediments in the runoff.
Aucoin said that while the waterway reaches all the way to the creek, it has also helped create an environment for other wildlife.
Since the inception of the Berry Mills Wetland, the city has constructed 3 more wetlands, or naturalized stormwater ponds, for stormwater control purposes, also with Ducks Unlimited.
Campbell said there is most likely an opportunity to explore creating more wetlands in reaction to melting runoff.
“We’re all going in the right direction. “
-Hannah Rudderham
Thanks for reading. Are there any topics you’d like us to cover?Do you have a question you’d like to answer? Do you just want to share a percentage of a typoword?We’d love to hear from you. Email us at whatonearth@cbc. ca.
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Editors: Emily Chung and Andre Mayer | Logo design: Sködt McNalty
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