Powerful Heat Wave Outbreak in 2024: Our country is literally burning. Look at this image. If you look at India from a satellite, it looks like this due to the heat wave. This means that right now, at this moment, India is hotter than Saudi Arabia, Oman, Sudan, and many other African countries. A heat wave is a national emergency.
And summer has just begun. This year is going to be India’s hottest summer. We cannot even imagine what will happen in the month of May. But this article is not just to talk about the problems. At the end of the article, we will also discuss solutions. where the active participation of you, me, and the government is important.
Summer is expensive. Sun’s heat makes India poor. It sounds strange, but listen to me, even today 75% of India’s population i.e. 3 out of 4 people work in manual labor jobs. They do farming, build buildings, set up roadside shops and sell some goods and when is this work done? in the afternoon.
That is, in the scorching heat. Similarly, 75% of India is dependent on the unorganized sector, which contributes 1/3 of our GDP. Due to heat, productivity drops by 5–10%. You feel dehydrated. You get tired quickly. So how will India progress if it cannot function due to heat? You and I are privileged. We are protected from this heat in our offices, so it is only while traveling that we have to face the heat.
A McKinsey report says that 20 crore people in India may be affected by the heat wave. Statistics say that by 2030, the impact of this productivity loss on GDP will be between 2.5% and 4.5%.
That means 126 billion dollars every year. Our central government spends about 2% of GDP on education every year. That is, if we could save all the losses caused by heat waves and allocate all the remaining money to education, our education budget could double every year.
That means, that money can be used for good works by avoiding financial loss. Now do you think that our leaders do not know all this? Of course, they do. But if environment becomes our priority then things can change for good i.e. where we dream of making India a developed nation by 2047, those dreams will remain just dreams as climate change is a reality.
Sonam Wangchuk Sir has been protesting for the last 2 months by telling everyone the same but instead of addressing her protest, her voice is being suppressed by using Section 144. This is a sad truth of our country, which if we ignore, it will be our biggest mistake. The climate is quite fair. It doesn’t matter whether you are leftist or rightist.
It doesn’t matter which political party you vote for or which religion you follow, climate only looks at the facts. And the truth is that India is the third most unsafe country in the world. India will be the third most affected country due to climate change, more than any ranking, this ranking should be given more importance but wait, we have AC.
We thought that if it is hot then we will turn on the AC. But AC does not reduce the heat. AC increases heat. Why? Because AC runs on electricity. And in India, most electricity comes from thermal power plants such as coal. Pressing them releases carbon and also increases pollution. Let’s look at data from the International Energy Union.
In their World Energy Report 2023, there are many interesting insights about AC usage in India, 24 out of 100 homes in the US have AC, 85 out of 100 homes in the US have AC. Whereas in urban areas of China, almost every house has AC. By 2050, AC units in use will increase 9 times. In fact, this report says that by 2050 our electricity demand for AC will exceed that of the whole of Africa.
Using AC is a short-term solution but in the long run, it is a problem that may cost us. Chapter 2. What are Heat Waves? Ok. So we understood the impact of heat waves on our economy. But why should heat wave be a national emergency? Actually, what is heat stroke? Have you ever sat in a sauna? Or in a room where there is no ventilation you start sweating.
Heat waves form when high pressure conditions arise in the atmosphere of the area. Winds are trapped towards the ground due to high pressure in the upper atmosphere. And the heat that the ground reflects gets trapped in this area. And he cannot get out of that area. Winds cannot come into this high pressure area.
And heat also gets trapped. Kind of like a pressure cooker. Lu is not a season like summer, winter or rain, Lu is a condition. Heat wave is declared only when the temperature goes above a particular limit. According to IMD for plains, core temperature is 5 degrees above or crossing 40 degrees, in hilly areas core temperature is 5 degrees above or crossing 35 degrees, in coastal areas core temperature is 5 degrees above or crossing 37 degrees Overall the economy is linked to the productivity of people.
Which happiness is this pointed towards? And people’s happiness is related to temperature. Let me give you an example. Last month, we were in Finland, which has been the happiest country for the last 7 years in a row, not only in Finland, but all Nordic countries, which are good countries, top the happiness index. Why? Because we have found new ways to protect ourselves from cold weather, we can wear jackets, build a small fireplace, insulate our homes, so that cold winds do not come inside.
But our cities have not found any way to escape the heat. We all felt bad when India ranked 126th out of 146 countries in the happiness index. Some people asked how valid this happiness index is but we have to go one step further. We have to think about how the changing environment is affecting our mood, our productivity and our economy, all these things are connected.
This is true. According to a study, the temperature of modern buildings is 5 to 7 degrees higher than that of old buildings. You must have seen such houses in many big cities where many people are not able to buy a roof. So they put up a metal roof. 37% of the houses in Mumbai are like this. If you look at the map of Mumbai, you can clearly see that the temperature is lowest around the Carey forest.
And where there are fewer trees, the temperature increases; this is called the urban heat island effect. Look at this chart. Every ward of Mumbai has been analyzed. This clearly shows that the temperature is higher in the ward where there is less vegetation. Chapter 3. Solutions If we have to beat the rising temperature in India, then we have to stop blindly copying western ideas; we can completely adopt those things from the west. For example, observe this New York skyline. Here, you can see many glass buildings.
Seeing these tall glass buildings increases the need for an office in such buildings to achieve corporate success and thus, it was copied and followed in India too. Do you realize how stupid this is? The average temperature in New York in summer is 27 degrees Celsius. Whereas in Mumbai the temperature is 35 degrees. This means that Mumbai is hot, humid and tropical.
And it snows in New York in winter. But what difference does it make if there are glass buildings in Mumbai? Two suns are formed at the same time. Look at this. The sun is here and there too, this glass building creates a double sun effect by reflecting the sunlight. That means double the light and double the heat.
Now, in cities like Mumbai, where there are only two seasons, summer and extreme heat, isn’t glass construction a stupid idea? People working in glass buildings experience this phenomenon while traveling, yet they do not realize it.
Because copying the West has now become a fashion and whom are we copying? A society that gives us stale food in the guise of ‘fast food’ and a society that wraps bananas in plastic so that the fruit does not spoil, it would have been great if there was a natural covering on the banana.
So that they always remain fresh! People who respect nature so much that they cut trees, make tissue paper from them and use it to clean up their mess. However water is sufficient and easily available.
We have a lot to learn from the West and a lot to unlearn. If we have to copy, why can’t we copy Singapore? Their climate is similar to ours but they also have space issues.
And yet, the buildings look like this. There are vertical gardens that make maximum use of limited space. We need to change our mindset. In our Gurukul system, children were taught to plant 1 Peepal tree, 1 Tamarind tree, 3 Amla trees and 5 Mango trees.
A mango tree produces 271 tonnes of oxygen and absorbs 81 tonnes of carbon in its entire lifetime. This is the same amount of carbon that 5 ACs emit when used for 1000 hours. Everyone eats mangoes in summer, but how many of us plant mangoes? We do not give back what we take from nature.
All these things, resources, water, fruits, flowers we can only borrow, we do not own them! That is, we have to return all this, we have to repay the loan, all these things which every child should be taught in our school, we are forgetting to teach them. We were taught that before plucking the flowers, we should thank the tree.