Climate Solutions Project
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Climate Solutions Database
Despite the urgency of climate change, the world has not yet mobilized into large-scale action and implementation of climate solutions that exist today! We travelled 3500 kilometers across India to document the inspirational climate solutions that have already been put into action in pockets of innovation across India, with enormous co-benefits for community health, organizational profits, and business success. We wanted to share more hope, change, and solutions, in the hope that you'll implement your own solution, and be the change that you wish to see!
This database is fed by its users, so please take the time to share your solutions to climate change, by contacting us at indiaclimatesolutions@gmail.com with your solutions, ideas, queries. We ourselves are the solution we've been waiting for!
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As part of an Indicorps Fellowship in 2006-07, I helped strengthen eco-clubs in rural schools in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal, reaching around 6000 students in 7th-12th Standards. While environmental education is mandatory in all Indian schools, I wanted to encourage proactive hands-on leadership.
Climate solutions included: installing a school vermicomposting project and rainwater harvesting tanks in 40 schools; a month-long mural project focusing on local biodiversity; creating an environmental leadership camp for adolescent girls; building and cooking with a solar oven from cardboard and tinfoil; writing and performing a play about water issues; and holding debates on environmental issues.
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The Indian Food and Agricultural system is facing a major challenge: Biotechnical Corporations are pushing to introduce controversial and potentially dangerous technologies to our markets: Genetically Engineered seeds.
With lax national government policies, as well as the absence of reliable information for consumers and producers, farmers' livelihoods, public health and the environment are being placed under threat. GMO seeds, as part of industrialised agricultural practices, can also contribute to an increase greenhouse gas emissions and hence to climate change.
As part of our campaign for non-GMO seeds, Navdanya is freely distributing The "Freedom Seed Kit", a charming envelope that brings close to any interested community the fascinating world of native seed cultivation.
The kit contains 9 varieties of seeds of well-known grains and vegetables essential to the Indian kitchen, that are currently in process of genetical modification. The envelope also contains a leaflet with updated information on GMOs.
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A cycle rickshaw with an electric assist, charged at solar-powered charging stations, which it is hoped will both reduce the physical burden on its driver (still called a 'puller', after the old rickshaw simply pulled by a man) as well as the environmental burden of burning more fossil fuels if cycle rickshaws were eliminated altogether.
Cross-posted from: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/10/solar_powered_r_3.php
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When it comes to recycling, Goonj is one step ahead! Goonj has developed over 30 different products from waste cloth to paper in 20 states across India. Goonj, founded in 1998, began introducing India to the life-or-death importance of clothing. Since its inception, Goonj has evolved into a strong force, with over 300 volunteers, operating in 20 states across India. Goonj works through the year to channel resources, such as used clothing from cities to the far-flung villages.
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After attending the IYCN and IIT Kanpur Youth Summit as a part of IITK's Antaragani cultural festival, students from the university returned to campus and presented the ideas of the charter to various student bodies who gladly took up the cause to reduce pollution. We are working towards making the NLU fest also zero waste and carbon neutral.
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Beverly Solomon created a program to take waste fabric from a garment factory in Delhi, pass it to Save the Children: India, an NGO in Delhi, where young girls now make cloth bags from the fabric. The girls are simultaneously educated about the problems with plastic and empowered as a critical part of solving this problem!
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Hewlett Packard has made a change in Bangalore that is now saving the company 2 million annually. To save on data canter cooling costs, 14 separate data centers were consolidated into one 70,000 square foot facility. Traditionally, data centers are pumped with cool air, causing energy waste . HP's data center has 7,500 temperature sensors that are part of a centralized system which allow for spot cooling, which saves approximately 40% of the cooling energy.
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Nearly 500 biogas plant installations of two or three cubic meter plants have been installed in the 96 villages surrounding Ranthambore National Park of Sawai Madhopur District, Rajasthan. These biogas plants make the most of an abundant source of decentralized energy in rural India: cow dung. Approximately 40 kilograms of dung (easily provided by 3 cattle) and 40 liters of water are required daily to operate the plant and produce enough methane gas to feed a family of six three meals. The cooking fuel is clean, the food cooks faster thus health is improved and more time is available for other activities (fuel wood collection can take up to 8 hours a day). More importantly for villages living outside protected areas, the stress on the jungle is reduced as people decrease their consumption of fuel wood by 50 to 100%--thereby giving endangered species such as the tiger a fighting chance for survival. For more information: