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Mridula Ramesh

Articles by Mridula Ramesh

How many of us is too many?: Mridula Ramesh writes on the population matrix

Population and climate limit our strategic options – especially since we have doubled down on crops that do not suit our climate, pumping out so much groundwater to support them that we have altered the tilt of Earth’s axis.

Views of Paris, London and India by night, as seen from the International Space Station. (NASA-Johnson Space Center; Adobe Stock)

Art and Culture

Published on Nov 30, 2024 05:27 PM IST

ByMridula Ramesh

Cane and able: Can sugar find a greener future, asks Mridula Ramesh

We would need to water the crop differently, and offset the added costs using carbon credits. We would also need to ask: How much sugar do we really want? Read this month’s Trade-Offs.

Art and Culture

Published on Nov 02, 2024 02:33 PM IST

ByMridula Ramesh

Chinna Thambi, Parvati, Sita: The elephants I’ve known

A gentle giant who wouldn’t leave home; a little calf who loved candy; a playful pachyderm who died on her way to work - Mridula Ramesh writes on elephants she can’t forget.

Sita Lakshmi loved playing with water, bathing, eating fruit and leaves.

Art and Culture

Published on Oct 04, 2024 04:09 PM IST

ByMridula Ramesh

Have you herd?: In Assam, a new roadmap for the safe passage of elephants

It was the same old story: dwindling forests, more fields, elephants in conflict with humans. Coordinated low-cost measures, and a little tech, are changing a ground reality here, says Mridula Ramesh.

At Manas National Park, Assam. (Shutterstock)

Art and Culture

Published on Oct 04, 2024 04:05 PM IST

ByMridula Ramesh

A giant shadow: Mridula Ramesh writes on elephants, climate and India

They have no sweat glands, and so the story of the elephant is the story of water. They never forget, and so they follow paths that no longer really exist. We love and revere them; capture and worship them. In this month’s Trade-Offs, an overview of India’s friendly giant.

Art and Culture

Published on Oct 04, 2024 03:23 PM IST

ByMridula Ramesh

Connecting the drops: Mridula Ramesh writes on India, China and the mighty Brahmaputra

The river has always been integral to life, and faith, in large parts of India. Given China’s aggressive plans – and the undeniable power of a good story – are we simply failing to be inspired?

A bridge is built across the Brahmaputra, in Guwahati. (PTI)

Art and Culture

Published on Aug 30, 2024 04:26 PM IST

ByMridula Ramesh

Trade-Offs by Mridula Ramesh: When it comes to trash, one way or another, we will pay

As Delhi’s latest tragedy shows, waste and water woes – and their solutions – are joined at the hip. The way out hinges on intent, money, and on all of us getting involved.

New Delhi is at #7 on the list of India’s 10 cleanest cities, as of 2023. But outside the prime, well-managed heart of the city, clearly all is not well. Drains choked with garbage and sediment burst and drowned three students last week. The city now floods dramatically each monsoon. (PTI)

Art and Culture

Updated on Aug 03, 2024 05:54 PM IST

ByMridula Ramesh

Trade-Offs: Your burning trash has much in common with the Vietnam War

Data indicates that open waste burning in India may be producing as much dioxin — a year — as the US released into Vietnam in six months.

A US Air Force plane sprays Agent Orange over a neighbourhood in Vietnam. This toxin wreaked havoc because of a dioxin it contained. (Getty Images)

Art and Culture

Updated on Jul 06, 2024 03:39 PM IST

ByMridula Ramesh

Heat and rust: Mridula Ramesh writes on the red sand desert in Tamil Nadu

The dunes of Teri Kaadu serve as a time capsule of how climate change can alter history, move oceans, erase cities. It is now changing again. Trees are being planted, water sucked up by invasive species. There’s likely an equivalent story unfolding near you, and a different lesson in each.

The water-guzzling Prosopis juliflora is invading parts of the region, while in the desert trees such as neem and cashew are being planted. (Photo by Mridula Ramesh)

Art and Culture

Updated on Jun 03, 2024 03:44 PM IST

ByMridula Ramesh

Forbidden forest: Mridula Ramesh, on the alien invaders in our midst

Some foreign tree species, like the African baobab, are bountiful. Others, like the Prosopis juliflora, were brought here for byproducts, have grown to dominate landscapes. And, as tussles over water intensify, have morphed into villains.

The baobab within the school campus in Rajapalayam, Tamil Nadu. This tree swells up and stores water in the monsoon, almost like a well. (Image courtesy Mridula Ramesh)

Art and Culture

Published on May 04, 2024 04:16 PM IST

ByMridula Ramesh

Heading into a dry run: Mridula Ramesh, on water

Dams, protests, siltation, lost trees all play a role as water goes missing. What can we do to prepare for a new reality, amid climate change?

Villagers in Shahapur taluka, Thane, gather around as tankers arrive to empty their contents into an empty well. (HT Archives)

Art and Culture

Published on Apr 06, 2024 05:01 PM IST

ByMridula Ramesh

Who pays to keep your batteries charged?: Trade-Offs with Mridula Ramesh

Cobalt is central to the making of rechargeable batteries. As demand rises, mines are expanding. They are hazardous, toxic. Is there a better way?

Miners move bags of cobalt at a mining site in Congo. In 2023, this country supplied three-quarters of the world’s cobalt, with children as young as six working in such mines. (Getty Images)

Art and Culture

Updated on Mar 04, 2024 12:49 PM IST

ByMridula Ramesh

The great defrost: Mridula Ramesh, on the perils of a melting Antarctica

It's been a rapid slide for the continent of ice, which was expanding until 2014. Mridula Ramesh on an ancient past, near future,and trade-offs to be made today

Sea ice reached a new low last year – the fourth new low here in seven years. The continent of ice is crumbling at its edges. One of these chunks is A23a (see aerial view above). The world’s largest iceberg – about four times the size of Delhi – is currently drifting and melting into the Southern Ocean. (Courtesy Ian Strachan / Eyos Expedition)

Art and Culture

Updated on Mar 02, 2024 12:34 PM IST

ByMridula Ramesh

After fumes, fire, flood, will hope bloom in 2024?: Trade-Offs by Mridula Ramesh

We can be guided, this year, by a simple truth: Change is wrought most profoundly by how we act. What we choose to do; buy (and not buy); and what we vote on.

A haze obscures the skylines of Dubai, where sandstorms have been intensifying, in December; Agra and the Taj Mahal, in November; and New York, amid raging wildfires in Canada, in June. (AFP, ANI, Getty Images)

Art and Culture

Updated on Jan 06, 2024 07:18 PM IST

ByMridula Ramesh

Faith has a role in climate action: Mridula Ramesh, in this month’s Trade-Offs

Some aspects of climate action ask us to consume less. Economics can be an awkward envoy for this message. Faith asks us to step lightly, see divinity in all.

The Deluge by Irish artist Francis Danby (1793–1861). A flood surges as a red sun sets to the left, and a shaft of moonlight picks out Noah’s ark in the background. (Wikimedia Commons / Tate London)

Art and Culture

Updated on Dec 08, 2023 07:26 PM IST

ByMridula Ramesh

Chandrayaan lessons to solve stubble burning

An air pollution-free Delhi is possible. The first step is to streamline paddy cultivation. Science, administrative will, and startups can make it happen.

The air quality continues to deteriorate in Delhi. ;(HT Photo/Arvind Yadav)

opinion

Published on Nov 10, 2023 10:52 PM IST

ByMridula Ramesh

Darn it! It is fashion’s time to repair: An essay by Mridula Ramesh

There are lessons to be learnt from Swadeshi, and why Gandhi was so concerned with fabrics. Follow that thread all the way to our ties to cotton, carbon today.

Why is radical rethinking vital? Growing plant-based fibres such as cotton consumes 55 to 99 billion cubic metres of water per year worldwide (not counting rain water), or roughly as much as all households in India use in a year or two. (Images: Adobe Stock and Midjourney; Photo imaging: Puneet Kumar)

lifestyle

Updated on Nov 10, 2023 07:48 PM IST

ByMridula Ramesh

What’s the next course?: Mridula Ramesh on the future of sustainable food

If food production were a country, it would be eclipse China as Earth's top carbon polluter. Food waste is a bigger climate villain than coal. We must fix this.

lifestyle

Updated on Oct 21, 2023 01:37 PM IST

ByMridula Ramesh

Trade-Offs: How to eat, dress, live and work in a changing climate landscape

A new monthly column by Mridula Ramesh aims to contextualise daily decisions – all the way from the personal (how to move around) to the political (how to vote)

A representation of choices, their impact and alternative futures, generated by Midjourney.

lifestyle

Updated on Sep 02, 2023 05:25 PM IST

ByMridula Ramesh

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Mridula Ramesh

Population and climate limit our strategic options – especially since we have doubled down on crops that do not suit our climate, pumping out so much groundwater to support them that we have altered the tilt of Earth’s axis.

We would need to water the crop differently, and offset the added costs using carbon credits. We would also need to ask: How much sugar do we really want? Read this month’s Trade-Offs.

A gentle giant who wouldn’t leave home; a little calf who loved candy; a playful pachyderm who died on her way to work - Mridula Ramesh writes on elephants she can’t forget.

It was the same old story: dwindling forests, more fields, elephants in conflict with humans. Coordinated low-cost measures, and a little tech, are changing a ground reality here, says Mridula Ramesh.

They have no sweat glands, and so the story of the elephant is the story of water. They never forget, and so they follow paths that no longer really exist. We love and revere them; capture and worship them. In this month’s Trade-Offs, an overview of India’s friendly giant.

The river has always been integral to life, and faith, in large parts of India. Given China’s aggressive plans – and the undeniable power of a good story – are we simply failing to be inspired?

As Delhi’s latest tragedy shows, waste and water woes – and their solutions – are joined at the hip. The way out hinges on intent, money, and on all of us getting involved.

Data indicates that open waste burning in India may be producing as much dioxin — a year — as the US released into Vietnam in six months.

The dunes of Teri Kaadu serve as a time capsule of how climate change can alter history, move oceans, erase cities. It is now changing again. Trees are being planted, water sucked up by invasive species. There’s likely an equivalent story unfolding near you, and a different lesson in each.

Some foreign tree species, like the African baobab, are bountiful. Others, like the Prosopis juliflora, were brought here for byproducts, have grown to dominate landscapes. And, as tussles over water intensify, have morphed into villains.

Dams, protests, siltation, lost trees all play a role as water goes missing. What can we do to prepare for a new reality, amid climate change?

Cobalt is central to the making of rechargeable batteries. As demand rises, mines are expanding. They are hazardous, toxic. Is there a better way?

It's been a rapid slide for the continent of ice, which was expanding until 2014. Mridula Ramesh on an ancient past, near future,and trade-offs to be made today

We can be guided, this year, by a simple truth: Change is wrought most profoundly by how we act. What we choose to do; buy (and not buy); and what we vote on.

Some aspects of climate action ask us to consume less. Economics can be an awkward envoy for this message. Faith asks us to step lightly, see divinity in all.

An air pollution-free Delhi is possible. The first step is to streamline paddy cultivation. Science, administrative will, and startups can make it happen.

There are lessons to be learnt from Swadeshi, and why Gandhi was so concerned with fabrics. Follow that thread all the way to our ties to cotton, carbon today.

If food production were a country, it would be eclipse China as Earth's top carbon polluter. Food waste is a bigger climate villain than coal. We must fix this.

A new monthly column by Mridula Ramesh aims to contextualise daily decisions – all the way from the personal (how to move around) to the political (how to vote)

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