Amid the impeachment motion against Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake gripping the nation domestically, Sri Lanka needs to focus attention and take practical action on a potentially catastrophic socio-economic issue – global warming and air pollution. Some 17,000 delegates from more than 190 countries gathered in Doha last week for a 12-day climate change conference sponsored [...]

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Air and food pollution: Doomsday scenario

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Amid the impeachment motion against Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake gripping the nation domestically, Sri Lanka needs to focus attention and take practical action on a potentially catastrophic socio-economic issue – global warming and air pollution.

Some 17,000 delegates from more than 190 countries gathered in Doha last week for a 12-day climate change conference sponsored by the United Nations, but despite high expectations and lengthy speeches or discussions, the eventual outcome was cold and cloudy. The delegates agreed to extend the Kyoto Protocol on the curbing of carbon emissions but the biggest polluters, including the United States, China and India, made no firm commitments. With prophets of doom and star-gazing astrologers spreading rumours frightening people with predictions of a doomsday or three-days of darkness later this week, Sri Lanka while not taking fear-mongers seriously needs to act urgently and effectively to avoid the real doom by curbing air pollution.

The Sunday Times in its editorial column has regularly focused on this issue and called for decisive action against pollution and polluters. For instance, the number of motor vehicles in Sri Lanka is far too much for a small country, though the recent huge hikes in vehicle import duties have, to some extent, reduced the pollution level. Yet we see unusually heavy traffic snarls at peak time in the mornings and evenings resulting not only in a waste of precious time, money and fuel, but also in more air pollution. With petrol prices increased again yesterday, the fuel cost would soar.

Though government’s economic pundits are claiming, there is an economic boom, Sri Lankans are in danger of choking in their own so-called success because some 60 per cent of the people living in urban areas are known to be suffering from respiratory ailments such as asthma. The Government did not have the political guts to implement a proposal to ban twin-stroke three-wheelers because of fears of losing a vote base. To hell with the poor children and the next generation!

With Government politicians embroiled in political pollution and corruption rampant at all levels, sincere and patriotic citizens themselves need to take some steps to save our country from the gloom and doom of environmental pollution and all the consequences of global warming. As people in many other countries are doing, Sri Lankans also need to measure their carbon footprint to find out how much they are contributing towards the self-destruction of our mother country and mother-Earth itself and how we could curb it. For instance, using public transport instead of private transport is one practical way in which every citizen could help to avert the environmental disaster. It will involve a more difficult course and sacrifice, but nothing good comes easy and often the better or the best way is the more difficult way. But how many Sri Lankans will take this course unless the public and private transport systems are streamlined in addition to the building of an underground electric tube train service as in many countries.

For decades, environmental groups have proposed that the best place to start the reduction of air pollution is the school. They point out that some 5,000 school vans come to Colombo and urban areas every day, causing heavy traffic jams, heavy fuel consumption and, worst of all, air pollution. For instance, if the school authorities and the Sri Lanka Transport Board could arrange safe and efficient school bus service, ten buses could do what is done by 100 vans – saving time and money and reducing pollution. For short trips in and around our homes, we could do a walk or use the good old bicycle which is good for the health of the body and the environment. The policies of the globalised capitalist market economy drive us to think of convenient and comfortable ways which when looked at in a deep way, are selfish and self-centred with little care or concern for others or our country.

We need to be liberated from this self-centredness to think and act for the common good of all, though we may have to sacrifice some of our comforts.

Several years ago, the Government took one important step towards curbing air pollution by passing a law requiring all vehicles to obtain a green certificate – that is a certificate to confirm that carbon emissions from the vehicle are below the permitted level. But corruption has polluted this law with numerous instances of eco test companies not observing this law or being taken for a ride especially by thousands of three-wheeler drivers and state transport vehicles.

Most of us are not only breathing poison most of the time, we are also eating poison. That is why hospitals in Sri Lanka are more crowded than markets and private health care has become one of the biggest profit-making businesses in the country.

Largely because of the lack of national food and nutrition policy and awareness programmes to educate the people, lots of the food we eat daily is polluted or poisoned by the excessive use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides. Recently, we heard how far and wide food poisoning has spread with the Kohila curry in the privileged parliamentary kitchen having traces of arsenic apparently from agrochemicals. The excessive use of agrochemicals has also brought about a calamity, especially in the North Central and Uva provinces with more than 50 per cent of the people known to be suffering from kidney ailments and some of them even requiring kidney transplants. Scientists are still not sure of the root cause but many believe the ground water in the area has been polluted by agro-chemicals. In addition to the pollution or poisoning of vegetables, fruit and other local food, Sri Lanka is also continuing to allow the free import of lots of non-essential food items and processed rubbish, some of which are known to be unfit for human consumption. These items have been banned in the countries where they are manufactured but they are freely dumped here because we have allowed ourselves to become a garbage dump for unscrupulous transnational companies.

The Government needs to check and curb the import of non-essential food items because this tropical country of ours has enough and more nutritious food.

By way of a solution, the Government again needs to encourage the more difficult way of organic farming with the use of local bio fertiliser. On Friday, the Agriculture Ministry announced it would be providing organic fertiliser free to farmers and this fertiliser would also be produced locally, thereby savings hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign exchange.

In this week which the Government is marking as national health week, these are some of the key issues that need to be considered because if we wish to become the hub of Asia or a wealthy nation, we need to first become a healthy nation.




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