Environment Studies

Unit 6 at a Glance

This unit connects society with the environment: how we should develop (sustainably), what cities and big dams cost people, why ethics matter, how the planet is warming, and which laws and movements protect nature in India. It is the most "current-affairs-heavy" unit — dates and names carry marks.

1. Sustainable Development

The idea grew through three milestones:

• Stockholm Conference, 1972 — first UN conference on the human environment; 5 June declared World Environment Day.
• Brundtland Report, 1987 — gave the classic definition above (chair: Gro Harlem Brundtland, former PM of Norway).
• Rio Earth Summit, 1992 — Agenda 21 adopted; later the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), 2015 — 17 goals for 2030 (e.g., clean water, climate action, life on land).

Three pillars

Sustainability stands on environment, economy and society together. In practice: renewable energy over fossil fuels, water harvesting, public transport, waste segregation, and protecting forests and biodiversity while growing the economy.

2. Urban Problems Related to Energy

Rapid urbanisation concentrates people, vehicles, industries and waste in small areas. The core urban-environmental problems are:

• Energy crisis: cities guzzle electricity (air-conditioners, lighting) mostly generated from coal; peak demand causes blackouts; the poor rely on biomass and kerosene with indoor air pollution.
• Water stress: falling groundwater tables; cities like Chennai and Bengaluru face summer shortages; tanker mafias.
• Transport and air quality: traffic congestion → smog (Delhi's winter AQI crisis).
• Solid waste: overflowing landfills (Deonar–Mumbai, Ghazipur–Delhi).
• Slums and sanitation: over a third of urban India lives in congested settlements with poor sewage.
• Urban heat island: concrete and asphalt make cities several degrees hotter than surrounding areas.

Solutions: energy-efficient buildings (ECBC code), metro and bus rapid transit, rooftop solar, rainwater harvesting, waste segregation, urban green belts.

3. Resettlement and Rehabilitation (R&R)

• Sardar Sarovar Dam (Narmada): displaced lakhs across Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat; the Narmada Bachao Andolan (Medha Patkar, from 1985) demanded proper R&R and questioned the dam's benefits.
• Tehri Dam (Uttarakhand): submerged the old Tehri town; long R&R disputes.
• India's Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 now requires consent and R&R packages for acquisitions.

Principles of just R&R

• Land for land (not just cash), jobs or livelihood support, housing with water/sanitation, and resettlement before submergence/displacement.
• Special care for tribals and vulnerable groups; participation of affected people in planning.

4. Environmental Ethics

• Anthropocentric view: nature has value only as a resource for humans.
• Ecocentric / biocentric view: nature and all living beings have intrinsic value, independent of human use.
• Aldo Leopold's land ethic (A Sand County Almanac, 1949): "A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community."
• Indian tradition: sacred groves (orans in Rajasthan), worship of trees (peepal, banyan) and rivers (Ganga), the Bishnoi community's 29 principles protecting trees and wildlife — ethics lived as culture.

Ethics in practice: inter-generational equity (leave resources for children), the precautionary principle (act against likely harm even without full proof), and polluter pays (the polluter bears cleanup costs — adopted by Indian courts).

5. Climate Change and Global Warming

Greenhouse gases (share of warming)

Effects of climate change

• Sea-level rise (thermal expansion + melting glaciers) threatening coastal cities like Mumbai and Chennai.
• More heatwaves, erratic monsoon, floods and droughts; Himalayan glaciers retreating.
• Coral bleaching, shifting crop zones, spread of vector-borne diseases.

Global response — the treaty timeline

India's stance: per-capita emissions far below the world average; committed under its NDCs to 500 GW non-fossil capacity and net-zero by 2070 (announced at COP26, Glasgow, 2021).

6. Acid Rain

• Effects: damages buildings and monuments (the Taj Mahal's marble yellowing from Mathura refinery emissions is the classic Indian case), acidifies lakes killing fish, leaches soil nutrients harming forests and crops, corrodes metals.
• Control: cut SO₂/NO_x at source (scrubbers, low-sulphur fuel, catalytic converters); the Taj Trapezium Zone restricts polluting industries around Agra.

7. Ozone Layer Depletion

• Discovery chain: Rowland and Molina warned in 1974; the Antarctic ozone hole was discovered in 1985 (Farman and colleagues); Rowland, Molina and Crutzen won the Nobel Prize in 1995.
• Effects of more UV: skin cancer, cataracts, weakened immunity; damage to crops and marine plankton.
• Vienna Convention (1985) and the Montreal Protocol (signed 16 Sept 1987, in force 1989) phased out CFCs — the most successful environmental treaty ever; the ozone layer is now slowly recovering.

8. Environment (Protection) Act, 1986

• Came into force: 19 November 1986.
• Key powers: Section 3 — Central Government may lay down environmental quality standards, restrict industrial locations, and regulate hazardous substances; Section 5 — issue binding directions (including closure of polluting units); Section 15 — penalties (up to 5 years' imprisonment and fines).
• Defines "environment" broadly: water, air, land and their inter-relationship with human beings and other living creatures.
• Offspring rules: EIA Notification (1994, revised 2006) — Environmental Impact Assessment mandatory for listed projects; Coastal Regulation Zone rules; Biomedical Waste rules.

9. Key Environmental Movements of India

10. Other Key Environmental Laws

Constitutional backing: Article 48A (Directive Principle — state shall protect the environment) and Article 51A(g) (fundamental duty of every citizen to protect nature), both added by the 42nd Amendment, 1976.

11. Quick-Revision Table