Young and Green

Updated on: Thursday, March 26, 2009

British Council organised ‘Young India on Climate Change’, a programme showcasing the results of an all-India survey of ‘What young India thinks of climate change’, a panel discussion on burning environmental issues and an exclusive screening of Praveen Singh’s ‘Future Beneath our Feet’ on March 24.

The evening commenced with an address from Sujata Sen, Director, British Council, East India. She said, “It is important for the youth to think on work on these issues. Our panelists today represent the youth. We, at British Council, have been working on various environmental issues, with our Climate Change programmes, and our association with the Green media, etc.”

The programme continued with the screening of Praveen Singh’s ‘Future Beneath Our Feet’.

The panel discussion followed this event. The panelists included Ayan Sengupta, International Climate Champion 2009, Saptarshi Paul, Indian Climate Champion, East India and Maureen Nandini Mitra, environment journalist, Reuters. Dr Indrila Guha, senior lecturer, Economics at Vidyasagar College for Women and Researcher in Global Change Programme, Jadavpur University, moderated the panel discussion.

Saptarshi Paul said, “A holistic approach is needed when it comes to combating environmental issues in India. On a personal level, the efforts are very important as the little changes we make in our lifestyle add up to make huge differences. We must make efforts to save electricity, save petrol and save water. Along with them, legislative measures like a pollution tax need inception to control the rate of toxic emissions.”

Ayan Sengupta said, “Awareness and action are both equally important and one cannot do without the other. The inaction in the field is a result of not only lack of awareness but also rampant presence of faulty information. We must remember that we are not ‘inheriting’ the resources from our parents but ‘borrowing’ them from our children. Simply aimless work does not help, rather information needs to accompany the work to make it successful.”

Maureen Wadia Mitra said, “There a lot of misconceptions regarding mitigation of global warming. We do watch people planting trees to buttress the environment, but if the plant isn’t compatible with the ecological surroundings, especially acacia and eucalyptus which are planted nineteen to a dozen in India, these trees leech the soil and impede the ecology and disturb the gene pool. The media has a huge responsibility, too, as it needs to concentrate on responsibly educating the masses about burning environmental issues of which there isn’t nearly enough coverage.”

Indrila Guha, the moderator, ended the discussion by averring, “We need to be aware of our contributions and take a leaf out of the books of suburaban masses, as they have showed brilliance in the field of environmental work. We tend to merge the lines between academics and awareness and they needn’t be conjoined.”

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