#StudentSpotlight: Seeing Climate Change

With a coastline of almost 25 km, Chennai and its residents have always had a close relationship with the ocean. We depend on the ocean for many things — the ocean produces over half of the world's oxygen and absorbs 50 times more carbon dioxide than our atmosphere.

Our treasured coastline is also under threat from rising sea-levels due to climate change.

On October 29, 2019, Climate Central – a US-based think tank – released a report that has just made climate change shockingly real, by confirming what activists have been saying for long.

Sea level rise will cause salinization of land, damage due to corrosion, water scarcity due to salinity intrusion into freshwater aquifers, and outright destruction to critical infrastructure like ports and harbors, roads, and coastal power plants and desalination plants.

Can we think about development in a way that doesn’t come at the cost of our access to clean air, water and other resources? We need to shift our thinking and change the way we do things. We need to demand a better government that has our future generations' interests at heart.

How Pallikaranai, one of the most important ecosystems in Chennai, went from wetland to wasteland.

The Pallikaranai marshland is the only surviving wetland ecosystem of the city, and is among the last remaining natural wetlands of South India.

The original expanse of the marsh in 1965 was about 5,500 hectares. The expanse estimated on the basis of the Survey of India toposheet of 1972 and aerial photographs of 1965 was about 900 hectares, which has shrunk to about 600 hectares.

Indiscriminate dumping of toxic solid waste along the road, discharge of sewage, and construction of buildings, railway stations and a new road to connect Old Mahabalipuram Road and Pallavaram have shrunk the wetland to a great extent.

The SIPCOT Area Community Environmental Monitors group analyzed an ambient air sample collected downwind of the Pallikaranai garbage dump and found that it contained at least 27 chemicals, 15 of which greatly exceed health-based standards set by the United States Environmental Protection Agency.

Over 250 acres (100 ha) of the marsh are choked by half of the city's garbage. The Chennai Corporation dumps 2,000 tonnes (2,200 short tons) of waste into the marsh daily.

Despite several court rulings, the burning of garbage continues unabated at the marsh and the adjacent area of Perungudi. All these led to a decrease in the estuarine fauna.

The tragedy of human existence today is that plastic has entered almost every aspect of our existence. But thankfully, these prints will not be making their way to the landfill.