IIPM
June 5 is celebrated by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) as World Environment Day and 2008's theme was 'Kicking the Carbon Habit'. As part of the events that marked the day, IIPM International, Bangalore organized 'Melting Ice—The Impact of Climate Change'- an event that showcased how the young generation of today can set right the mistakes of an earlier generation.
Ms. Maheen Dhanda from Equations, an NGO that studies issues relating to the effect of the tourism industry on the environment and Chippy Gangjee, noted theater personality, trainer and an avid environmental campaigner were the keynote speakers for the seminar. While Maheen presented the overlapping aspects of climate change and global warming and how increasing tourism across the world is accentuating it, Mr. Gangjee addressed the need for immediate action and how to get started. Hotels waste a lot of water (the average tourist in Grenada, for example, uses 5 times the amount of water an average citizen uses), airlines contribute to the pollution and more people generally mean trouble for sensitive areas like virgin beaches and mangrove forests. That presents the predicament for the tourism industry and they are trying both market as well as technological mechanisms to tackle it. The students of the Post Graduate program at IIPM who were the audience listened in rapt attention to issues that will have a bearing on them in the not so distant future. And by the time Chippy Gangjee hit the stage they were itching to take action. Mr. Gangjee's powerful speech shook any ennui that the students might have possessed and many of them passionately put forward ideas and solutions to tackle the problem. 'Don't use refrigerators' said one, 'Plant trees' hollered another and one student even came up with an idea for an alternative refrigeration system that doesn't use harmful Chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) gases. Mr. Gangjee gave some suggestions of his own, but then his main message was that they should adhere to the famous ad tagline 'Just Do It'.
Photo:
http://www.prlog.org/
