Climate change and a rapidly growing middle class are putting enormous pressure on the Earth. Unless we innovate ourselves out this dire situation, the planet is in peril.

Environmental challenges that we have got to solve are:

Pandas have become the endearing symbol of the environmental challenges the Earth faces. Only few cuddly creatures remain in the wild. Human’s encroachment on the fragile habitats of many species threatens biodiversity. Everyday “17crore Heat waves are one of the ten major issues. The thing is that human activity is behind the global rise in temperature.

Glaciers have started melting and have increased the ocean level.
Lack of sanitation and clean water is a major public health threat. Each day, many children die from infectious diarrhea, caused principally by poor sanitation.
Air pollution makes lungs cough and eyes water in large cities around the world.
Another adverse effect is drought, cyclones.

The amount of waste a country produces tends to grow with its economy. This doesn't mean, however, that richer countries are always better at dealing with their garbage. For instance, in our nation, India, people don't throw away their junk, instead they sell those waste to special traders called kabari-wallahs. All these together resulted in a huge environmental threat called global warming and unpredictable climatic change.

There are many ways to ensure environmental sustainability, but many people think that governments and organizations are only the ones who have the power to stop and reverse its effects. There have been several laws passed and a lot of organizations that have been rallying to preserve the environment. What is left now is for us to do our part.

According to statistics, some of the major contributors to environmental pollution are power plants and vehicles. Coal-powered power plants around the world spew tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere to generate electricity. Cars and all other petroleum-powered vehicles emit carbon dioxide to enable transportation.

Each of us can do something to lessen the greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere. Here are a few ways that could greatly impact the production of greenhouse emitting agents.

The first main mantra to reduce pollution is “Reduce, Reuse and Recycle”.

REDUCE

The amount of waste can be reduced by increasing the life time of the materials that we use, in case of energy the amount of energy consumed should also be reduced and more than that the energy must be a   renewable energy source, such as wind power and solar power. So, let’s sign up for Green Energy!

REUSE

We can use the products made with recycled materials.  Government must provide a recycle bin in each and every street so that the waste can be easily collected and recycled based on it’s recycling ability.

RECYCLE

We people can recycle all materials to our best ability in our local area and purchase Carbon Offsets.

WHAT ELSE WE CAN DO?

Help bring back the electric car and personally PLANT SOME TREES. Afforestation is of more importance because only “freshly planted trees have more capacity” to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The other green method is to make use of RENEWABLE ENERGY RESOURCES.

RECYCLING - We can save a lot of power, though indirectly, if we recycle items in our home. Newspapers, magazines, bottles, cans, and cardboard boxes are just some of the items in our home that we can recycle. This will save a lot of energy in the production of these materials. Recycling not only helps reduce global warming, but it also reduces pollution.

HEATING AND COOLING - More than half of the electric bill we pay is for the cooling or heating system in our home. By keeping our system cleaned and maintained regularly, we will ensure it is efficient in terms of energy consumption. We should also check our home for areas where heat may escape, and do the necessary adjustments to guarantee efficiency.

If we can do without heat or air conditioning, it will save a lot of energy. By opening our windows during the summer or keeping warm with jackets and blankets, we will not use our heating or cooling system as much.

GET RID OF INEFFICIENT APPLIANCES - Refrigerators, washing machines, and heating systems are just some of the inefficient appliances in our home. If they are already several years old, we must consider replacing them with newer and more efficient models.

Refrigerators eat a lot of power, especially old ones. They may seem to be in working condition because they still manage to keep our foodstuff cool. That is not the case. Our old refrigerator may be consuming a lot of power to compensate for that. We will notice a huge drop in our electric bill in the month’s end right after we replace those inefficient appliances.

One of the main chemical which is the reason for ozone depletion is CFCs, i.e., chlorofluorocarbons used in refrigerators. Thus, this CFC should be replaced with a substitute which should be a nonpolluting substance.

• REPLACE LIGHT BULBS - If people still use incandescent light bulbs in our home, then it is about time that we replace them with something more energy efficient. Incandescent light bulbs consume a lot of electricity, causing more power to be generated by these power plants. If we switch to more energy-efficient light bulbs, namely florescent bulbs, we will save a lot on our electricity bill, at the same time reducing the power that has to be generated by these power plants.
• USE GREEN TRANSPORTATION – If people are going to some place nearby, pollution can be reduced by not taking our car, instead, we can walk or take our bike, which will be helping the environment. It will also help us burn calories from the tasty dinner we had last night. If walking or biking to that place is not possible, then take the bus or a train. Using our car only when we need to will greatly help reduce the greenhouse gases released by our car.
• USE GREEN CAR- If we have a car, we should make sure it is well-maintained to ensure its fuel efficiency. When not well-maintained, vehicles consume more fuel, releasing more greenhouse gas into the atmosphere and then “smoke emission test” must be undertaken for vehicles.

We should also check our tires for the right air pressure. Our car will consume more fuel if its tires don't have the right tire pressure. Also, we need to remember that our car can only carry load up to a specific weight. Overloading will increase the strain on the engine, thus burning fuel inefficiently.

• UNPLUG ELECTRICAL APPLIANCES - Computers, televisions, and home entertainment systems are just some of the electrical appliances that still consume electricity even when we switch them "off." Those appliances are actually on standby mode and still eat up electricity. If people are not going to use those devices for a long time, then, they can unplug them.
• RECYCLE BIN- Making use of a recycle bin in each and every street, so that waste can be easily collected and recycled based on recycling quality.

PREVENTION IS BETTER THAN CURE:

Rather than finding ways to protect our earth from the polluting gases it’s better that we stop emitting those gases by using our precious renewable energy resources.

Now, it’s time to say goodbye to fossilfuels,oil gas,etc and  to make use of “renewable energy sources” such as wind power, geothermal, solar, hydro, etc which are absolutely pollution free sources to the environment.  Still, it will take years for these industries to mature. But if the world gets adopted to the use of green energy, then this will cent percent mitigate the effect of environmental degradation, and there’s going to be some winds of change.

LET’S MAKE THE NET ENERGY ZERO:
ZERO ENERGY BUILDING:

What’s that making net energy zero? That is, today, in the present scenario, the number of buildings is increasing day by day. So, automatically, the energy consumed by the buildings increases, which increases the overall carbon footprint. The net energy consumption of a building can be reduced by making use of “renewable technologies” such as solar power, wind power, hydroelectric power, bio-fuels, etc.

WASTE TO ENERGY:

Products and technologies are becoming smarter, enabling businesses to extend their services far beyond the four walls of the datacenter. As industries explore new ways to deliver business value to their customers, they must also consider how to manage these innovations.

Thus, there is plenty of garbage on this planet, in fact there is so much of garbage that   many developed countries are trying to dump their garbage on the lands of lesser developed countries, at a fee of course. But does dumping garbage on other places solve the problem? On the contrary it spreads pollutions and diseases. In fact it is more dangerous to dump garbage in the less developed countries (because there are neither technologies available to process it nor enough awareness). Even creating landfills wastes precious resources.

So, now it’s time for us to have an alternative way, yes, now let’s all adopt the new method, i.e., WASTE AS A RENEWABLE SOURCE.

There are varieties of waste such as agricultural residues, animal waste, industrial wastes, municipal solid wastes, sewage, which has to be utilized in a very efficient manner.

IT INDUSTRY –THE MAIN SOURCE OF CARBON FOOTPRINT:

Today, the IT industry is being a source of employment for many graduates, but still it has been contributing a lot to carbon emission and lot of heat radiation. This carbon emission and waste can be but down by following tips;

Apart from protocols such as kyotoprotocols, Copenhagen protocols some technical innovations such as

1.Making use of “eco-button”, which reduces the amount of power supply to the computer, when computer is not in use. 2.Making use of “wooden computers” made from bamboos, etc. 3.Every company must have a regulation or a limit up to which heat can be emitted, if that limit is crossed they must pay extra tax to the government.
4.Making use of “energy efficient coding and software” which saves time and in turn reduce the power consumption can be done.

The industrial smoke can be turned into energy using algae, thus it’s time for us to go carbon negative rather than going carbon neutral. Yes, why don’t we use technologies to convert carbon as a source of energy????????This would really help out the whole universe to escape from the climatic trauma happening all over the world.

Then, the agricultural waste can be processed into liquid fuels to produce electricity. Animal waste can be used as a source of bio-mass. Industrial waste can be fermented to give bio-gas, ethanol, municipal solid waste can be treated to produce electricity. An environmentally sound and techno-economically viable methodology to treat biodegradable waste is highly crucial for the sustainability of modern societies. A transition from conventional energy systems to one based on renewable resources is necessary to meet the ever-increasing demand for energy and to address environmental concerns.

Today, there is more advancement in technology, hence there are many electronic wastes, as old products become obsolete. So, after years, these wastes get accumulated as e-waste which is more toxic to the environment. Thus, E-waste is also a part of environmental pollution.

More, than that a lot of waste from computers such as chips, motherboard is being generated. Those, waste are very harmful to the environment as they contain some toxic metals such as lead, etc.

All those waste generated must be recycled. Normally, Engineers and common people believe that creating a new computer or a new device is far better rather than recycling, but the fact is that recycling is a profitable business, where we recover new one from the old ones. This e-waste is not only a problem emerging from IT-industry, but also a problem due to the overall waste accumulated from electronic devices which has to be treated with more care, because today in places like Bangalore “tons of e-waste” is being accumulated in a place.

The one and only solution to all this e-waste is that “the life time of the products must be increased and they must be energy efficient so that they are not going to be thrown away very soon and electronics items can be manufactured with eco-friendly items, in simpler words they can be manufactured from less toxic items such as a copper/silver instead of lead”.