365betÓéÀÖ

ENVIRONMENT, EPISTOMICS AND ISPAT PRODUCTION

Dr. T.R. Rao

Elephantine economic growth and development attained by western hemisphere, has created affluence and abundance of goods and services that ensured high levels of consumption and comfort. But this growth had given results that are socially unacceptable and environmentally undesirable. During the 20th Century Western World had consumed materials, fuels and goods and services, more materials and fuels that the world had consumed in the past 2000 years.

This growth in production and consumption had led to a significant depletion of ore bodies, denudation of forests, destruction of life chains, genebanks erosion of top soil, decline in water retentive power, recurrence of floods. Agricultural development, that provides food and fibre, with high yielding, high fertiliser consuming intensive cultivation had led to an increase in methane in the atmosphere. Mineral extraction and processing desulpherisation etc., - have created acid rains, air pollution and higher S P M levels. Some of the Atlantic beaches in V.S. became unusable to bathers as medical waste was washed to the shore.

There was a time when growth theorists or technocentric advocates, opined that degradation of gestalt is a necessary evil or price that has to be paid if one wants development - especially mineral based development. Minerals exist in the earth and their extraction disfigures the earth. The mined area can be rehabilitated with land filling and extensive greening.

The techno-centric growth advocates display inadequate appreciation, if not ignorance of the character of earth and the dynamics. Also they display a “cosmic impertinence� and an absolute faith in the omni-competence of man. Earth, which has come into existence some 4 to 5 billion years ago as a cloud of gas - helium, hydrogen and other elements - became Sun and later Planets were formed.

Eternal movement, transformation of matter adjustment of topography, dessipation of matter and agglomeration of it for further dissipation, are the eternal characteristics of Earth. It has seen the formation of continents and their drifting apart, germination of glaciers and their creeping movements from polar caps, jutting of mountains from sea bed, disappearance of land masses Beneath sea waves, violent volcanic expulsions, earthquakes due to tectonic movements, extinction of species and emergence of new species and many other things.

Illustratively, molten material, jets upwards from inner core to outer cores through mantle into crust. In the crust exposed to atmosphere - wind and water, slowly gets washed to sea from there perhaps into plates and into outer core and inner core - An absolute guess work a confectual interpretation of movements of earth. But movement and changing climate, weather environment and topography are eternal features of earth.

The unique feature of Earth’s environment apart from the existence of life and water, is the position from the Sun. This particular position, or distance from the Sun, is just right to warm the earth’s surface and keep the water in a liquid form. Water is a mobile component of earth’s environment. Being an excellent solvent facilities many chemical processes and entrains many substances. The environment around us is in a constant change - winds, rains, rivers, waves, tides, earth quakes, volcanoes ­are an expression of perpetual change and dynamics of our environment. Complex chemical changes are associated with the cycling of the elements. All this would come to stop or stand still if there were to be no ceaseless and endless flow of energy. In this ceaseless flow, no matter is permanent, no form eternal, a ceaseless transformation of energy receipt or thermal, kinetic or chemical energy flow.

Earth receives energy from Sun-radiation, reflected radiation, infra-radiation and gravitational energy. It has energy/heat from radioactive decay, surface heating, latent heat and atmosphere heating - thermal energy.

Some three, four or five thousands years Sages of vedic period described this all pervading omnipresent omnicompetent perpetually transforming itself from one form to another is described as Brahman - the Absolute - the cause and consequence, unborn and un-conceived Entity. “What ever is seen or heard in this world is a manifestation of the Supreme. The Supreme is present in every atom - within without�. The universe, earth, water, air, light, space, time - the elements are the manifestation of Supreme. There is neither space nor time, which is not occupied and filled by these elements interdependent and interactive. Space contains air. Air generates heat (oxygen). Heat generates water (Hydrogen and Oxygen). Water pervades earth. Space is pervading. So are the elements. All forms manifested are Supreme. There is neither beginning nor end to the expansion of the universe or to the Supreme. The Absolute and Infinite has neither beginning nor end.

The Second portion for “Mantrapushpam� is an exposition of relationship of water with other elements - air, fire, Sun, Moon, starts, planets, clouds, time (year). There are eight stanzas that expound the interdependence and inter activity of elements.

“Those who, realise the potentialities of water - presence of water in supreme - Fire provides the abode and ambit for free play of water and water provides the abode and ambit for free play for fire. Air, water are interdependent. Water takes the form of air and becomes again water. Sun is the abode of water (Hydrogen) so are the planets. An year is the span of time for the interaction of water and other elements.�

Bhagwan Sankaracharya in Panchikaranam brought out the reality and transitory and transcending nature of Supreme (Energy) its transformation and the mixed existence of elements - Earth, air, water, fire and space. The Acharya was elaborating and explaining the vedic view and philosophy of Nature. According to this view, three stages are discernible - three elements - fire, water and earth are posited (Chandoaya Upanishad). Later two more elements air and space are added (Tanttriya Upanishad) Acharya explained that these elements are not pure and unmixed in existence. Earth is a mixture of water, minerals and fire. Water is a mixture of hydrogen, oxygen and various minerals. So is the case with air - a mixture of oxygen, Nitrogen, Argon, Carbondioxide etc. Fire is a mixture of matter and oxygen. Space is a mixture of many things including radiating energy from Sun. The elements in their admixture form are interactive, inter-dependent and also independent in empherical fact. Illustratively, Earth, half of it is pure earth while the other half consists of other four elements - water, oxides (energy) fire in the core and floats in space and time. All this exposition - dividing the gross existence in the five elements is “P²¹²Ô³¦³ó¾±°ì²¹°ù²¹²Ô²¹³¾â€�.

The Indian Sages have explained that the universe and particularly earth is a perpetually changing entity. Energy and form - now appearing in a solid state, now appearing in liquid form and then appearing in gaseous condition. None of the states are permanent or perpetual. All the states are transitory and transcending over time. The only reality in the world is Energy - call it Supreme Brahma, Atma or what you will like. This is the reality. This is advaita. The only permanent feature is change of form and change in composition.

Since change and transformation are imminent inevitable and inescapable, Vedic sages, have pleaded for policies that promote prudence in use of natural resources, harmony between, living and non-living, animate and inanimate. “This earth protected and regulated by ruling natural force is a great habitat, it moves at great speed exerting great attraction. Fire has permanent residence within the earth. There is energy in plants water in animate things and energy in every thing on earth. Energy pervades the Earth atmosphere, outer space, and inner core. Energy flares with oblations of spirituality and sacrifice. May Earth charged and imbued with energy make me brilliant - This earth which provides materials for noblest actions by men give us strength, loyalty and prosperity�. The entire hymn is a fervent prayer and plea for a non-­violent living and harmony between animate and inanimate, living and non-living (PRUTHVISUKTAM).

In Pruthvisuktam, there is no denigration of desire or yearning for material prosperity comfort and luxury. On the other hand material prosperity and progress are treated as steps towards spiritual progress. Renunciation is, sought through satiety and satisfaction of desire. However, material progress and, prosperity of human settlements are to be achieved through processes of production that are in harmony with the health and well being of Earth. Anxiety for conserving the natural, ethos, a plea for prevention of harm to any element on earth - land, water, fauna flora, climate, human settlements and a prudent use of natural resources is expressed. Human beings are invited to take the treasures of earth with the delicate touch of a Gardener in plucking flowers. The conduct of the humans should be such that to find policies and practices that are specific to a region, nation or location that will slow the change giving an opportunity to adjust to the climatic ecological and other immanent changes that will emerge.

To sum up - the Indian intellect has theorised that the universe is an admixture of five elements. They never exist except as admixtures. These elements are the manifestation of the Supreme. But these transformations are not real. Reality is only Supreme or Brahman. This exposition transcends with extraordinary ease from physical to philosophical and philosophical to spiritual and spiritual to Supreme Brahman. It does not talk of God or Diety or anything other than SOUL (ATMA) that lies in every individual being - animate and inanimate living or non-living material or non-material. It talks of only energy, transforming, if liberally interpreted itself continuously and constantly. Like the first law of Thermodynamics, energy can neither be created nor destroyed. So is the case of Brahma or Atma. Its manifestations are interactive, interdependent and are always in a state of change.

Policy makers and administrators ed by scientists and technologists, despite knowledge of the elemental system of universe interactivity and interdependence and in a continuously changing environment - advocate “Sustainable development, cleaner technologies and prevention of pollution or a prophelactic approach, to abate and amend the problems of pollution, environmental and ecological degradation. To keep the bearings straight, one has to define these concepts for analysis. What constitutes environment? What is ecology? What is cleaner production? What is sustainable development?

Etymologically, the word “environment� is derived from the verb “environ� which means - to surround, to envelop, to form a circle around. The word environment means the aggregate of surrounding things, conditions or influence. Environment is a wholistic concept that signifies a totality which cannot be described fully either by air, water, climate, fauna or flora. It is an ensemble. These are only few aspects of environment. The word ecology refers to a branch of biology that studies relations between organisms and environment or to a branch of sociology that studies the relations between people and institution.

“The cleaner (production) technology is defined as “nothing but a more efficient process to achieve the following objectives: - 1) Waste prevention and reduction by lesser consumption of raw materials 2) modification and upgradation of the technological processes so that optimal utilisation of natural resources is made possible 3) Adoption of preventive rather than corrective approach to pollution control� “sustainable development is the process in which exploitation of resources, direction of investments, the orientation of technological development and institutional changes are all made consistent with the future as well as present needs�. Thus “sustainable development calls for carrying capacity based developmental planning process�. Carrying capacity is the maximum consumption and waste discharge that can be sustained indefinitely in a given region without professively impairing biodiversity and ecological integrity. The resources accountal for in the carrying capacity approach include not just the natural resources but also transformational, infrastructural and socio-cultural resources as well.

A cleaner technology adoption after assessment and undertaking of carrying capacity based developmental planning are the two basic pillars of Environmental management. Thanks to the environmentalism, people no longer presume, environment as a necessary evil to be tolerated and accepted as a small price for growth and development. The environmentalists have succeeded in hammering the idea that development should be ecocentric. This is against the anthropocentric view of subjugation of nature and its subservience to the needs of Man. Eco centric view, advocates the harmony of societal culture with nature.

In complete opposition to this view, the techno centrists believe in the omni-competence of technology and presume that any and every environmental damage or degradation can be ameliorated and abated and recreated by managerial and technological innovation. The environmentalists are accused of promoting an “adversorial culture� that restrains and restricts growth and progress. Unparalleled economic security consequential to unprecedental affluence, and abundance, according to Ronald Ingehart, enjoyed by Western World (Europe and U.S), had led to a sort of diminishing return from material consumption creating a yearning for higher quality of life than mere availability of abundance of goods and services. Suddenly aesthetic values surged ahead pure air, clear water, verdant forests are in demand ­environmentalism thus is a reaction and response to an ecological degeneration which threatened the quality of life of the affluent and rich.

In order to maintain environmental purity ­technocentrists advocate the adoption of low pollutant processes of production recycling of materials, finding uses for residues and wastes and conservation of resources. Is it always possible to adopt a technology that is low in pollutants? How do you make a coke without burning the volatiles contained? How can you sinter without any emission? How do you run a Blast furnace without letting any emissions? How do you push a coke without letting 2.0 kg. of emissions per hour? Most of the measures are cosmetic and try to meet legal obligations rather than ensuring purity of gestalt.

The technocentrists seem to assume that there is a technological continue ranging from cleanest to cleaner to clean to unclean to dirtiest technologies. In the industrial world the generation of out put has a very small range of factor combinations capital labour and raw materials. Illustratively if one wants tonne of (liquid iron) hot metal he should put in 1000 + fe units in blast furnace. If iron oxide is 62 per cent fe content, one should put into the furnace 1.6 tonnes of iron ore i.e., 992 fe units to get 92% Fe pig iron with 4% carbon and 4% other materials. If the ore is say 66 percent he need feed only about 1.5 tonne of Iron oxide. Thus the quality of the raw material determines the quantum of feed and the so called minimum consumption has low relevance. If low grade ores are taken “cetaris paribus� say 58% fe ore has to be feed the furnace with 1.71 tonnes. Decrease in Fe content may increase energy consumption and fluxe consumption may go up or production may decrease. This type of choice is feasible in iron and steel industry and in other processes it may not be available. The most important issue in the assessment and grading of technologies is the availability of technology and its suitability to the available raw-material profile and location. Technology in disembodied form is rarely a choice. It comes in machines, drawings, people etc. Disharmony between resource and technology profiles is a very common occurrence.

The word cleaner technology is a very inefficient expression. Clean from which stand point? Is it from product quality - clean steel means steel without any tramp elements inclusions and of uniform grain quality. If it is from environment point of view, does it mean that no fumes are let into the atmosphere? If it is a noise pollution can a EAF function at a whispering level. If it is efficiency in production - is it in energy use? raw material use? Labour use? capital use? Proponents of clean technology talk of minimal wastage of raw materials. But how much of a choice is there ­in regard to quality of raw material? To consume the natural resources if one reduces the Fe content, he would be adding much to the. How much of a choice India has in coking coal, low alumina, iron ore, low phospherous manganese lump or high grade chromium.

Above all every technology is not available to every one. One has to make a choice taking into account - capital, labour, resource endowment, government regulations maintenance facilities availability entrepreneurial skills and marketing talents. Above all technical optimum is entirely a different kettle of fish from economic optimum. Resource conservation is neither a niggardliness or parsimony in resource use. Even if one conserves, how do we know that the future needs it. How do we know that future satisfies its need with the same material.

If one were to rank technologies by a) raw material consumption 2) energy consumption 3) residues/effluents emission 4) cost of production per unit of production, it may or may not turn to be environmentally benign. Irrespective of ranking it should be released that choice of technology is a multiple choice - if a technology is chosen output scale, investment cost, employment level are also chosen. Technology is not always divisible, machinery and equipment, may be available only for a limited scales of production.

If pollution of atmosphere and water regimes, perturbation of the earth’s face and flora disturbances and destruction are clearly anthropocentric. Some of the disturbances are inherent to the character of nature.

ANTHROPOGENIC POLLUTION
Pollutant	Chemical form	Anthropo-genic source	Reasons for concern
C	CO2	Fossil fuel bum	Global warming
	CH4	Agriculture	Global warming
	Co	Automobile industry	Air pollution
	Liquid hydrocarbon	Transport petroleum etc.	Hard to wild life
	Organic waste	Untreated sewage	Biological/oxygen denuded
N	Nitrates	Fertilizer	Water pollution
	Nitrates	Production	Toxic to infants
	No No2	Automobiles	Air pollution and acid rain
F	Florides	Industrial	Toxic
Cl	Organic compounds	Ind chemicals pesticides	�
	CFC	Refrigerators Aerosolset	Damage to ozone
			layer
N1	Any compound	Mining metal	Toxic extraction
CV	Any compound	Mining metal	Toxic soil spoiled extraction
As	Any compound	Ind & Pesticides	Toxic to living
BR	Organic compounds	Fire extinguishers	Destroys ozone
Kr	Kr	Nuclear power	Radio active
Cd	Any compound	Industry	Very toxic
Sn	Organic compound	Marine antifouling pounts	Harm to marine life
Sb	All compounds	Ind & Pesticides	Toxic
I	I	Nuclear power	Radio active
Cs	Cs	Nuclear power	Radio active
Hg	All compounds	Ind & Pesticides	Very toxic
Pb	All compounds	Ind pounts, Autos water supply	Very toxic
Ph	All compounds	Nuclear power	Radio active

When change is the order of the nature and the environment that envelops the nature also changes continuously. The E.I.A. reports give details of our water or air pollution and taking few observations on air quality and taking mining details forecast the water or air quality. Is this climate? Climate is a long term ensemble of daily, weekly, monthly weather events, that confer a specific character to a location, area region influencing the evolution of weave and web of life. This decides what that population, produces, eats, drinks or wears.

Experience tells us that administrators assume, that while weather varies from day to day, because of the sequential order of the seasons, a stability in patterns of weather. But knowledgeable opine assumption of stability is unwarranted. Human activities like intensive cultivation of land, destruction of forests to get land timber for housing etc., uncontrolled release of effluents from industry and agriculture have altered the atmosphere by increasing the quantum of green house gases.

General circulation models reveal substantial changes in global weather. These models can predict the general direction of the change, but it is not feasible to predict the regional distribution of effects of the change. The V.S. space Administration as well as European Commission opine that the World is conducting an experiment of increasing the concentration of trace gases without knowing the environmental effects.

This calls for a restriction of the biomass burning to the level of biomass generation restrictions on fossil fuel use, adoption of natural farming methods, that avoid or minimise ploughing, fertiliser use, pesticides etc., to prevent the increase of NO. The humanity is yet to grasp fully the sources and sinks of methane and are not capable of designing a policy for retarding the build up of methane.

Since the climate change is inevitable it is necessary to explore opportunities that enable a society to adapt to the change. Since fundamental activity for life is agriculture that provides food and fibre, it is necessary to get draught resistant seeds, improve efficiency in water use and delivery systems, avoid colonisation of marginal areas. The choice is not between preventing or adapting to a change. The challenge is to find policies and practices which will slow the rate of change particularly in the region or locality or nation and give an opportunity to that society to adapt to those climatic changes that cannot be avoided or eliminated.

Lastly the concept of sustainable production - is defined as the process in, which exploitation of resources, direction of investment, orientation of technological development and institutional changes are all made consistent with future as well as present needs. This is the most anthropocentric statement as production is done by man. For man as a concept this is a static concept. The production should have maximum rate of resource consumption and minimum waste discharge that can be sustained indefinitely, Resources are finite in mineral world. The resource use is dictated by quality and technology. What exactly is meant by “Indefinitely� is not clear when resource endowment itself is finite.

As concepts cleaner technology and sustainable development are some what infirm concepts without proper constructs and signify pious hopes for us. Hope is a good breakfast, but a bad dinner. The environment is a wholistic affair. By clearing air at a particular place, removal of pollutants from water regime at a locale will neither solve the problem nor cure the disease.

Single minded pursuit of growth has produced effects that are environmentally and socially unacceptable. “If we want growth, with justice, environment that is in perpetual harmony with our lives though continually changing, perhaps we must alter our life style, procreate less, recycle more, use our own locomotion or mass transit. We owe this to ourselves, to our children, grand children and their progeny. We need telescopic vision. Give up the intellectual arrogance and cosmic impertinence that technology will solve every problem. Man should learn to be humble and if he wants to save himself he should strive for harmony with his surroundings - living and non-living. As in the �Shanti Mantram� - May there be peace to fire, peace to water, peace to trees, peace to herbs, peace to Sun, Moon, peace to all. He should strive for dynamic and eloquent harmony.

Man’s capacity for destruction is unlimited and illimitable. But his creature powers are extremely limited. He can destroy a forest, destroy a life chain or extinguish a genebank. Can he create life chain? Can he create new genebank or species? What the world needs is not a technical balance in an auditing sense, but a moving harmony between various entities that populate earth. Are there methods or means to achieve it?