Extinction, Russia-Ukraine War, IPCC Report, Groundwater: Down to Earth (DTE) 16-31 March 2022

in this edition of down to earth we would be focusing on specifically the mass extinction and what would be the species which would be most affected to begin with maratha region now here we women reclaim the part of their farmland of their choice and there were certain sowing species for example pearl millet sesame and green gram which were grown they started a small kitchen garden and used buffalo dung and goat droppings for natural fertilization now the women that came across this region from various districts to form a group of non-profit organizations which was known as caitanya vikas to promote the participative ecosystem management and as part of the kisan mahalakis the next is the russia ukraine crisis and wake of that we have seen the brent crude uh the oil which is extracted mainly from the north sea and is now traded at a very high price of 125 dollars per barrel coal has increased to 4 37 pattern also we have seen that russia is major supplier of liquefied natural gas mainly to europe and if this continues u.s and iran though they believe that they would be able to meet the production but it is unlikely to close the gap as a result the countries are now moving towards coal as one of the uh alternatives but coal is again phased out fossil and therefore is not recommended the other way is uh to focus on renewable sources but that would require a while for other nations amidst this crisis we have seen that russia and ukraine together account for one-fourth of the total world wheat production and ukraine is one of the major producers of sunflower oil and corn now the countries which are major buyer include egypt from ukraine and these countries have been significantly affected this can lead to food related security issues and crisis issues mainly in egypt and malaysia the next is china has banned the cryptocurrency in september 2021 the mining of currencies like bitcoin has been banned because it increases the carbon footprint and it is believed that bitcoin mining consumes nearly 130 terawatt hours of power every year which is one tenth of the total energy used by countries like india the next is with line of uh the declining cases of uh severity in the covet we have seen that the vaccinations have been wasted nearly 9.5 percent or 65 million doses uh have been wasted in united states guti mala a million more than a million doses have been wasted uh in the given time also it is from the sputnik vaccine the next is the ipcc assessment report here we have seen the sixth assessment report which has been published as ar6 we have already covered a separate lecture on it the first report was the physical science basis the second report talked about inequality under communities and countries for vulnerability of climate change impacts the poor typically have low carbon footprints but are affected because of the consequences and they have lacked to access the adoptations the most vulnerable areas are the south uh the global southeast the central and the west africa south asia micronesia and central america also uh the population which is highly vulnerable is around 3.3 billion which has been classified by ipcc the next is the extreme event so as we can see extinction extreme events have become more common and their extremities are further going to increase the survival extremes are again seen in the coming decades and then we have the recovery time which is reducing the magnitude and the duration has been increasing for such cases the next is what can be the way ahead the way ahead is to reduce the global temperature rise to the pre-industrial level and that's one of the ways through which the impact could be reduced also with the climate change we are witnessing severe floods heat waves wildfire and habited destruction more frequent cases of these are now witnessed across the globe plastic trap is again important concern we are trying to come on to a resolution to end plastic pollution by 2024 and this is a worldwide resolution there have been inter governmental negotiation committees coming on this line and 11 environmental agreements either in force or under discussion are there to focus on that the next is to save biodiversity we are talking about what can be the ways so if we talk about the greenhouse gases emitted it's around 2 billion tons the production of plastic is 460 billion million tons and 50 percent of the plastic is single use plastic that can be managed 90 percent of the plastic goes into la landfills which is either dumped or incinerated and mismanagement leads to 12 million tons of plastic into ocean every year so those are some of the major concerns that need to be taken into account now uh in india reliance industry takes 42 percent of the stake in plastic ecosystem in india and under the new guidelines of the epr extended producer responsibility we are introducing the concept of plastic credits for industries with which the companies have a liability to collect the plastic waste equivalent to the amount that they generate in a year so india is one of the largest consumer goods company and daba which is one of the largest companies here is talking about getting plastic neutral by fulfilling the extended pr the extended producer responsibility groundwater has been depleting and three of the world's top five groundwater extracting countries uh which includes india have over exploitation of groundwater resources which is a significant threat so as we can see the annual uh extractable amount and the annual extraction is significantly higher in 2020 true we are in 2020 we have seen 62 percent of the groundwater extraction and these are the areas which are over exploited so we can see the regions which are over exploited in the west and the south the next is recharging the groundwater 89 percent gets depleted in agriculture 11 percent for domestic and industrial consumption 57 percent of the rainfall during the monsoon season can be recharged 19 from non-monsoon recharge and then we have understanding that these blocks are getting uh unsafe and these numbers have significantly declined over the years now welfare votes on banking we have the la bharti work which was discussed and there are various subsidies given to them and the various benefits given to them have been mentioned here so those would be available in the handouts the next is the mass extinction which is one of the most important coverages for this time this mass extinction talks about that what are the events occurring right now the laws in population the shrinking of the distribution area half of the species moving towards the pole or higher elevation to have a new lifestyle and the impact on the common man and we are focusing that we are entering into the anthropocene approach the approach which has been named for the first time on the life of human beings so there have been direct and indirect drivers for biodiversity losses and they have significantly affected the lifestyle so there are either the terrestrial freshwater or marine ecosystem there has been climate change land use change pollution which has been affecting it there is decline of species ecological communities uh the biomass and the species abundance have been affected we have wild mammals which have fallen by 82 percent and the nature of the indigenous population has declined the first extinction was called as the ice age and the here 85 percent of the species went extinct this was in the uh odo vision era then was the devonian age during the second extinction 75 percent of all the species were extinct and there were fluctuating levels of global warming then we had the third extinction the premium age where 95 percent of the species went extinct here it was the asteroid had hit a planet or the air was pulverized with materials which make it inhabitable the fourth extinction was where 80 percent of the species went extinct and geological activities like high carbon dioxide global warming acidified oceans were some of the reason fifth extinction was because of a meteor crash in the yucatan peninsula in mexico and led to high volcanic activity 76 of the species were lost the sixth extinction which is believed in the holocene approach uh talks about 99 percent of the species which have been lost the ongoing processes like climate change and invasive species are result of it now if we talk about the extinction since 1500 we have seen the highest extinction in terms of mammals followed by uh reptiles and birds and then we have the the birds and then we have the reptile species and the amphibians which has been seen also the fall in the survival has been highest for coral reefs then we have seen a significant fall in the caicades which is another species of plants uh now under the plant species 50 000 plant species exist in india 23 of those are endemic and 2 in every 100 flowering plants is vulnerable or is facing extinction gymnosperms which are having the naked seeds are exposed leaf-like structures which are known as blacks they are having cones uh in geosperms are the flowering plants bryophytes are those which are found in damp atmosphere territories are cryptograms that means they neither have seeds or flowers and do hidden reproduction in our expected class we have talked about how a cryptogramic plant uh garden has been established in the radhoon and uttarakhand then we have algae bacteria fungi lycanes and some other species now if we talk about the known species and the endemic species in india here is the list of the species which is specifically found in india and is endemic to india but there are huge number of threatened species from angiosperms and gymnosperms which are found in india also in the animal species four of the 35 global biodiversity hottest spots are in india western guards nicobar assam and meghalaya and eastern himalayas are part of it then we have the percentage endemic species which are present in each of the category which has been mentioned here now what is important there has been a huge loss mass extinction uh anthropogenic activities human induced climate change and invasive uh reasons are some of the reasons through which this would be affected the next is fecal sludge management in india few states are talking about rural management and urban fecal slush treatment plants uh europe and chhattisgarh sorry urisa and chatisgarh have been talking about urban plants for rural waste and there have been few states which have been declared odf free the various districts how they have been upscaling themselves for uh the recycling provisions and the treatment plants in karnataka or the regions of urisa have been important so states have been focusing on formalizing the uh process system for fecal sludge waste treatment uh specifically in larson town and alvar in rajasthan where this was constructed for the urban population in the rural vicinity now we are also talking about organic farming right now only two percent of the area is under organic farming and we are focusing on a state where more farmers now practice it so uh the farmer producer organizations are focusing on uh various ways for growing rice millets and pulses are some of the chains through which we are working on those and increasing the organic inorganic ratio or the rate at which the organic is growing is important so we are also focusing on micro food processing enterprises which is one district one product approach to allow farmers to have benefit of the market produce the organic market produce that they are doing now motena uh along with two other startups bio bio intake of germany has tied up with pfizer for new mrna vaccine now this has been uh based on a lipid nanoparticle which was developed by arbiters biopharma and the uh delivery of this genetic material uh was given to modena however moderna has been under various issues since then and wto has been talking about proposal to waive the intellectual property rights to help this grow further to other regions then we have we have talked about some other important uh issues for example chamrajnagar district in karnataka landslides have caused the collapse of the white stone hill in gundall paint and this has affected the local area there have been a bulwarm infestation in the state in punjab and haryana for the cotton uh in australia evacuation of the people has been asked because of the heavy rains also we have seen that a legal right of nature uh legislation has been passed in panama and honduras open pit mining has been banned in malaysia we are we are focusing on drafting a law to regulate the carbon trading by 2022 so those were some of the other news that have been discussed in this session so thank you for joining and for more information on current affairs courses on general studies for upsc please follow the link below the complete preparation material is available there thank you very much