07-12-2018

EDITORIAL
FRIDAy,
DECEMbER 7, 2018
4
Acting Editor & Publisher : Jobaer Alam
Telephone: +8802-9104683-84, Fax: 9127103
e-mail: editor@thebangladeshtoday.com
Friday, December 7, 2018
Improving Dhaka’s
environment
O
nly
inaugurating some glittering projects like
Hathirjheel cannot compensate for the lack of
comprehensive policies and their timely
implementation for the overall improvement of the
environment of Dhaka city. While the Hathirjheel project has
been a salutary addition towards improving the environment
and connectivity in Dhaka city, there are noted lapses in
protecting and uplifting the environment in many other
places of the city. Thus, a comprehensive plan and its
execution are needed on the whole that would lead to a
desired upgrading in the environment of the city as a whole.
And not only creation of new environment oriented projects
are enough which is starkly evident in the Hathirjheel project.
Only days after its opening, the otherwise beautiful place was
turning untidy from carelessly thrown away rubbish by
visitors. The flower beds in the project were also reportedly
raided by them. There were even reports about defecation on
the pavements here. So, all newly opened projects as well as
the older ones that lend positively to the environment of the
city, must also be accompanied by round the clock
supervision or maintenance activities.
Residents of Dhaka city with over 15 million people, are
exposed to environmental hazards and this situation is
worsening day by day. But unfortunately, the governmental
response to the same is inadequate.In a city already
overloaded with population, more people from all over the
country are coming with their desperate bid to settle here.
The influx of population has resulted in not only high density,
but also growth of slums in a more alarming way.
The management of different kinds of wastes -- solid,
clinical, human, industrial and others-- is poor and the issues
are not being addressed properly. About 400 tons out of
3,500 tons of solid waste, generated in the city everyday,
remain on the roads and in open spaces. Vehicles of Dhaka
City Corporation (DCC) remove the rest solid wastes and
carry those to dumping grounds, which are again located in
open spaces near densely populated areas contributing to air
and water pollution.
Medical waste contains highly toxic metals, toxic chemicals,
pathogenic viruses and bacteria , which can lead to health
problems for humans from exposure to the same. Medical
waste presents a high risk to doctors, nurses, technicians,
sweepers, hospital visitors and patients due to arbitrary
management . It is a common observation in Dhaka City that
poor scavengers, women and children collect some of the
medical wastes (e.g. syringe-needles, saline bags, blood bags
etc.) for reselling despite the deadly health risks. It has long
been known that the re-use of syringes can cause the spread
of infections such as AIDS and hepatitis . The collection of
disposable medical items (particularly syringes), its re-sale
and potential re-use without sterilization create a serious
disease burden.
The safe disposal and subsequent destruction of medical
waste is a key step in the reduction of illness or injury through
contact with this potentially hazardous material, and in the
prevention of environmental contamination . The
transmission of blood-borne viruses and respiratory, enteric
and soft tissue infections through improper medical waste
disposal is well known. The management of medical waste
therefore, has been of major concern due to potentially high
risks to human health and the environment .
The growing number of hospitals, clinics, and diagnostic
laboratories in Dhaka City exerts a tremendous adverse
impact on public health and environment. All of the
hospitals, clinics, and diagnostic laboratories are considered
here as health care centres (HCC) . Some 600 HCC in Dhaka
city generate a huge amount of wastes a day . Like ordinary
household wastes, medical wastes are generally dumped into
Dhaka city Corporation (DCC) bins. It is reported that even
body parts are dumped on the streets by the HCC. The liquid
and solid wastes containing hazardous materials are simply
dumped into the nearest drain or garbage heap respectively.
Proper management of medical waste is crucial to minimise
health risks. The improvement of present waste management
practices for HCC in Bangladesh will have a significant longterm
impact on minimising the spread of infectious diseases.
Medical wastes require specialized treatment and
management from its source to final disposal. Simply
disposing of it into dustbins, drains, and canals or finally
dumping it to the outskirts of the City poses a serious public
health hazard. Thus, there is a need to initiate a concentrated
effort to improve the medical waste management to reduce
the negative impact of waste on: environment, public health
and safety at health care facilities.
Most of the still remaining tannery industries in the city's
Hazaribagh area and some other industries at Tejgaon area
leave hazardous industrial wastes untreated. Experts fear
that in near future the untreated industrial wastes by seeping
underground might severely pollute the underground water
which is still the main source of water in the city.
Meanwhile, the inadequate and faulty sewerage network in
the city is able to carry only about one third of the total sewage
to the only sewage treatment plant at Pagla in Narayanganj.
The city generates more than 0.1 million cubic metres of
sewage everyday. A huge quantity of sewage oozing out of the
city's faulty sewerage network is severely polluting the city's
roads and lanes, canals, water bodies and the Buriganga
river. Untreated sewage is also discharged into the river
directly and regularly.
Two studies conducted in the last three years suggested
average noise levels were almost double than permissible
levels and rising fast. Sound levels in Dhaka are almost twice
as loud as the law permits, creating an unhealthy
environment for residents, say scientists from the
Department of Environment.
Thus, only inaugurating some show case projects like
Hathirjheel is no substitute for sincerely taking up a strictly
time bound plan for the restoration of the environmental
health of the entire city on a sustainable basis. And routine
maintenance activities must accompany such projects.
With populations growing, along
with continued urbanisation and
climate change, there is no
question that we will need far more
cooling. By 2050, according to the Green
Cooling Initiative, there could be more
than 9.5 billion cooling appliances
worldwide - more than 2.5 times today's
3.6 billion. Cooling, however, is energy
intensive. Even with the development of
more efficient cooling technologies and
other more aggressive energy mitigation
strategies, the cooling sector will, on
current trajectory, increase its overall
energy consumption by at least 90 per
cent to 7,500TWh/year by 2050, up from
3,900TWh in 2017.
However, that is only half the picture.
Despite the significant growth in cooling
equipment stock, much of the world will
remains considerably underserved
compared with the most advanced
nations. Put another way, even with some
9.5 billion cooling appliances in use by
2050 this will not be sufficient to deliver
universal access to cooling, let alone meet
targets to reach the United Nation's 2030
Sustainable Development Goals.
Without 'Cooling for All', food and
medicine loss in the supply chain will be
high; food poisoning from lack of
domestic temperature management will
be significant; farmers will lack market
connectivity, hundreds of millions of
people will not have safe, let alone
comfortable, living or working
environments; medical centres will not
have temperature-controlled services for
post-natal care, etc.
Effective refrigeration is essential to
preserve food and medicine. It underpins
industry and economic growth, is key to
sustainable urbanisation as well as
As an organization of the fossil-fuel
industry, OPEC, meets in Vienna,
the United Nations' COP24
climate talks are taking place nearby in
Katowice, Poland. The coal-rich province
of Silesia, where sits Katowice, was
wrested from Austria by Frederick the
Great of Prussia. Now, major oil
producers must decide whether to fight
the new energy transition or try to annex
their share.
All the leading oil and gas players -
companies and countries - confront two
interlinked challenges. The first,
represented by the series of talks that
include this month's 24th Conference of
the Parties to the UN Framework
Convention on Climate Change, the Paris
Accord of 2015 and other international
climate negotiations, is the growing
concern over climate change.
The latest report by the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) laid out disturbingly the
scale of the challenge required to keep the
global temperature rise below 1.5 or 2
degrees Celsius, as the Paris Accord
requires. Warming to date is already 1
degree Celsius.
And non-fossil-fuel technologies are
rising in response. Solar and wind power
continue to set new records for low cost,
the cost of batteries to store renewables'
intermittent output is falling too, and
sales of electric vehicles are growing
sharply. New designs of nuclear power
plants intended to be cheaper and safer
than their forebears are also under way.
It has always been my contention
that much of the blame for the
failure to bring peace to the Middle
East is the result of the outright bias of
much of the mainstream American
news media. Such media outlets claim
to champion free speech but are
hypocritical in practice, applying
double standards when it comes to
certain issues.
For sections of the mainstream news
media in the US, you can be obnoxious
and disrespectful to an American
president, but you had better not cross
the line when it comes to challenging
Israel.
We saw two scenarios last month that
illustrate perfectly how this hypocrisy
works at CNN, which aggressively
defended the right of its White House
correspondent Jim Acosta to challenge
President Donald Trump, while ousting
commentator Marc Lamont Hill, who
dared to criticize Israel's policies.
When Trump suspended Acosta's
White House accreditation for
badgering him during a press
conference on Nov. 7, much of the
mainstream American news media
went into a "free speech" rage. The
media outburst against Trump's action
was deafening. They went berserk with
criticism of the ban, arguing that Acosta
has the absolute right to question an
American president, asserting that
denying him access to the president's
press conferences was a violation of the
The energy drain in the cold economy
providing a ladder out of rural poverty. It
increasingly makes much of the world
bearable - or even safe - to live in. But the
growth of artificial cooling will create
massive demand for energy and, unless
we can reduce our need for cooling and
roll out solutions for clean and
sustainable cooling provision, this will
cause high levels of CO2e and pollution.
As an indication of the impact of
widespread global access to cooling, at the
University of Birmingham we have
looked at scenarios where the world has
"Cooling for All". The number of cooling
appliances rises to more than 14bn. Even
assuming accelerated technology
progress projections delivering aggressive
energy performance improvements, the
energy requirement still equates to
15,500 TWh which is approx 2.5x the
6,300 TWh maximum sector allocation
envisaged by the IEA 2 degrees scenario.
To achieve the required amount of
cooling within the energy budget
available would require us to double the
efficiency of our cooling devices on
average, in addition to the technology
progress proposed currently.
The leading petroleum producers
include national oil companies (NOCs) -
such as Saudi Aramco, Qatar Petroleum
and Rosneft - and international
corporations, such as Shell, ExxonMobil
and Total. Some, such as Equinor
(formerly Statoil) of Norway, are largely
state-owned but behave mostly like the
international firms. The classic NOCs are
the repositories of their host country's
hydrocarbon resources, often the
dominant driver of the economy, exports
and government revenues. These big
hydrocarbon companies and countries
can conceive of in essence three future
strategies in response to climate change
and new energy sources.
They could double down on their
current path, aiming to maximize profits
before climate limits and non-oil
technologies really have an impact.
Natural declines in producing fields mean
heavy investment in new supplies still will
US Constitution. In the tsunami of
media protests against Trump's action,
CNN filed a lawsuit in the federal court.
Dozens of mainstream news operations
then filed briefs in support of CNN and
Acosta.
"While President Trump has made it
clear he does not respect a free press, he
has a sworn obligation to protect it. A
free press is vital to democracy, and we
stand behind Jim Acosta and his fellow
journalists everywhere," CNN declared
in a contemptuous attack against
Trump.
Despite Acosta's confrontational and
disrespectful conduct, the mainstream
news media largely came down hard on
Trump. It has been tougher on Trump
than on any previous chief executive.
Ray Hanania
Chief New York Times White House
correspondent Peter Baker said on
Twitter: "This is something I've never
TOby PETERS
RObIN MIllS
RAy HANANIA
Alternatively to "green" this volume of
electricity would require more than 50
per cent of the total projected renewables
capacity for all demands from transport
to industry to our cities under the IEA's 2
degrees Celsius scenario.
The world must not solve a social crisis
by creating an environmental
catastrophe; we need to ensure access to
affordable cooling with minimum
environmental impact and maximum
efficient use of natural and waste
resources.
If cooling is to be sustainable, then we
need more efficient air-conditioners and
Without 'Cooling for All', food and medicine loss in the
supply chain will be high; food poisoning from lack of
domestic temperature management will be significant;
farmers will lack market connectivity, hundreds of
millions of people will not have safe, let alone
comfortable, living or working environments; medical
centres will not have temperature-controlled services
for post-natal care, etc.
be required even after demand begins to
shrink. Countries such as Saudi Arabia
and Russia are likely to remain among
the world's lowest-cost suppliers.
Investing in refineries in major
developing economies, such as India and
China, and pipeline links to them, can
anchor these suppliers in growing future
markets. Or, they could pursue climatecompatible
hydrocarbons. That would
involve switching progressively from oil
to gas, which emits 25% less carbon
dioxide when burned, and is also cleaner
and more efficient. Oil and gas can also be
converted into petrochemicals, which will
continue to be needed in growing
quantities. Biofuels are already blended
into gasoline and diesel, but raise
concerns over competing land uses and
negative effects on biodiversity.
Carbon capture and storage (CCS)
takes emissions from coal-, oil- or gasfired
power plants and industry and
seen since I started covering the White
House in 1996. Other presidents did
not fear tough questioning." The White
House Correspondents' Association,
which advocates for news media
freedoms, called the revocation of
Acosta's access "unacceptable."
Despite Acosta's confrontational and
disrespectful conduct, the mainstream
news media largely came down hard on
Trump. It has been tougher on Trump
than on any previous chief executive.
A federal judge on Nov. 16 ordered
Acosta's White House access restored.
Days later, Trump introduced new
rules for reporter conduct at press
conferences, limiting journalists to one
question and one follow-up. The
president had narrowed his focus on
Acosta's obstreperous confrontation, in
which he had asked multiple questions,
became argumentative with the
president, and even resisted when a
fridges, but this is not enough. We must
also see a fundamental overhaul of the
way cooling is provided.
The Cold Economy is the development
of cohesive and integrated system-level
strategies to mitigate and meet cooling
needs sustainably within our climate
change, natural resource and clean air
targets, while supporting economy
growth.
This involves understanding the
multiple cooling needs and the size and
location of the thermal, waste and wrongtime
energy resources to define the stepchange
novel energy vectors, thermal
stores, clean cooling technologies and
novel business models, policy and
societal interventions to optimally
integrate those resources and cooling
needs through self-organising systems.
Core to this is using surplus cold and
heat. For example, we should harness the
cold energy of liquefied natural gas (LNG)
along with industrial waste heat and lowgrade
geothermal energy. By 2025, we
shall be throwing away billions of dollars
of waste cold from LNG alone, primarily
into the sea.
To achieve the necessary step change,
we need to start by asking ourselves a new
question. No longer 'how much green
electricity do we need to generate?' but
rather 'what is the service we require, and
how can we provide it in the least
damaging way?'
Given the urgency and magnitude of
the challenge and the multi-partner and
multidisciplinary research and delivery
mechanisms required, to lead this work
we urge the establishment of a
multidisciplinary Centre of Excellence for
Clean Cooling to bring the global
expertise together to research and
develop the step-change pathways for
achieving sustainable cooling while
meeting social and economic cooling
needs. Toby Peters is professor in Cold
Economy at the University of
Birmingham, UK.
Starting today, we will run one opinion
article on sustainability issues every week
leading up to the Abu Dhabi
Sustainability Week, which runs from
January 12 to 19, 2019
Source : Gulf news
How will oil producers meet the challenge of climate change?
The leading petroleum producers include national oil companies
(NOCs) - such as Saudi Aramco, Qatar Petroleum and Rosneft -
and international corporations, such as Shell, ExxonMobil and
Total. Some, such as Equinor (formerly Statoil) of Norway, are
largely state-owned but behave mostly like the international
firms. The classic NOCs are the repositories of their host
country's hydrocarbon resources, often the dominant driver
of the economy, exports and government revenues.
Double standards on Acosta, Hill reflect widespread pro-Israel bias
When Trump suspended Acosta's White House accreditation
for badgering him during a press conference on Nov. 7, much
of the mainstream American news media went into a "free
speech" rage. The media outburst against Trump's action was
deafening. They went berserk with criticism of the ban, arguing
that Acosta has the absolute right to question an American
president, asserting that denying him access to the president's
press conferences was a violation of the US Constitution.
disposes of them safely underground, or
turns them into useful products such as
ceramics or plastics. Oil companies are
experts both in injecting fluids
underground and in chemical processes.
Converting natural gas to hydrogen and
capturing the carbon dioxide released
would produce a valuable fuel that could
be used in home heating, industry and
eventually ships and planes.
So far, the US oil companies are largely
following the first approach, since the rise of
shale oil presents them with an
unparalleled opportunity on home turf. A
recent change in the US tax code, though, is
encouraging companies such as Occidental
to expand carbon-dioxide capture to
liberate more oil from mature fields.
Most NOCs are pursuing a mix of the
first and second strategies. Some of them,
such as Petróleos de Venezuela, are barely
able to keep their core business alive. But
Saudi Aramco probably is the most
advanced in growing its petrochemicals
activities, with the recent acquisition of
compatriot SABIC. Abu Dhabi National
Oil Company's recently announced
strategy also includes a major turn to
petrochemicals, alongside investments in
emerging markets, a new focus on gas
and expansion of its CCS projects.
The third path would be radically
different: to explore a gradual transition
to non-carbon energy, including solar,
wind, nuclear, electric vehicles and
batteries.
Source : Asia times
White House intern tried to take the
microphone away. CNN's aggressive
defense of Acosta's right to challenge
Trump was in sharp contrast to its
rapid abandonment of Hill, an African
American who CNN favored as a paid
commentator and who often criticized
Trump. Hill was a speaker at the UNsponsored
International Day of
Solidarity with the Palestinian People
on Nov. 28. During his 21-minute
review of Palestinian-Israeli history,
Hill criticized Israel's policies and cited
the 60-plus laws Israel has adopted to
discriminate against Palestinians
"because of their religion."
He referred to the Palestinian
suffering of 1948 as the "Nakba"
(catastrophe) - a word banned in Israel
- detailed Israeli atrocities against
Palestinian civilians in Gaza and the
Occupied Territories, denounced
Israel's illegal settlements, and called
for justice for all, regardless of religion.
Hill ended his remarks by explaining
the need for "international action that
will give us what justice requires, and
that is a free Palestine from the river to
the sea."
Before he could explain his
comments, CNN fired him. He was not
allowed to explain that he was speaking
about applying "equal rights" and
"human rights" inside Israel and the
Occupied Territories.
Source : Arab news