User talk:Shyamal gangopadhyay

VOLUNTARY MODIFIED DMZ - MAY BE A NEW CONCEPT.

PREFACE:
We are indebted to mother earth without any limit, because in this universe comprising of innumerous Galaxies of gigantic proportion, earth is the only planet, which nurtures life. But ironically, we are putting the mother earth to imminent danger of global warming by our reckless deforestation and destruction of green plants, in the name to spreading civilization, which in turn give rise to the life threatening accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere creating ‘Global Ecological Crisis’. My humble question to all the eminent global leaders of the world is “Can our widespread civilization save us, when the earth & its creatures themselves are facing the danger of extinction”?

The climate of the earth is convenient for living. The outer layer of earth consists of hydrosphere, lithosphere, atmosphere and “fourth envelope” – Biosphere. The life came into existence in the hydrosphere and few organisms came up, which could develop the processing of photosynthesis by which it could start releasing oxygen into the atmosphere. With the help of this oxygen, the terrestrial species are formed. By the process of bio-diversification, the entire plant and animal life are formed on the soil (lithosphere). The human being is one of the members of bio-diversification of life on the soil. Soil is the only place for our civilization to grow. Then the rapid growth of civilization which followed by burning of the fossil fuel, more and more CO2 released in the atmosphere.

Role of CO2 : We all know that the scientists are making research all over the world, to combat the accumulation of excess CO2 in the air; although comprising a very tiny percentage (0.04%) of the atmosphere, it plays an important role in supporting life, in the structure, biochemistry and nutrition of all living cells. Moreover, it also controls the normal temperature of the planet and the climate of the Earth becomes convenient for living. Excess CO2 formation :

Usually CO2 is taken from atmosphere in several ways, specially, by the process of photosynthesis; on the other hand it is released back into the atmosphere by several ways, namely, by respiration performed by living cells of plants and animals through the decay of living matter and the combustion of organic matter including the burning of fossil fuel.

After the rapid civilization and industrial growth, the exorbitant burning of fossil fuel has created a new problem i.e. global warming. Global warming or ‘climate change’ as popularly referred to, have posed, perhaps the greatest threat, human civilization has ever faced. The maximum CO2 emission from transport by way of shipping is three times higher than previously thought of value as per U.N. report and as per I.P.C.C. “It has been left out of the climate change discussion”.

It is an irony that man’s quest for new land, mainly by way of water transport (mostly convenient at that era), had given rise to excess CO2 in the atmosphere through burning of fuel. On the other hand, we are loosing earth’s greatest biological treasures just as we are beginning to appreciate their true value. Rain forest once covered 14% of the earth’s land surface; now they cover merely 6%. The Amazon rain forest has been described as the “lungs of our planet” - because it provides the essential environmental service of continuous cycling of CO2 into oxygen. More than 20% of the world oxygen is produced in the Tropical rain forest. When we are strategically planning to ensure our survival from the global warming threats, we must sincerely pay our attention to the indiscriminate destruction of rain forest, which could provide a better solution than many other remedies summed up together. To arrest the accumulation of excess CO2 in the atmosphere, the root source of global warming, scientists all over the world have started the process of advocating many methods. Scientists have observed that the main cause of accumulation is that the process of formation of CO2 is not properly recycled. To mitigate the problem, following steps are being taken :

To solve the problem :

1.	Carbon capture and storage (CCS) - Extraction of CO2 either at source or from air are proposed to be placed under water in liquid form. However, there is a chance of leakage of CO2 back into the water and atmosphere. As a result, portion of water may become acidic and the marine life may be in danger of extinction. Not only this, since oxygen is essential for life and is a part of CO2, storage of liquid CO2 in this form may take away vital portion of oxygen from the atmosphere, which may cause deficit of storage of oxygen in the atmosphere; on the other hand, formation of ozone layer (O3) is hampered, causing free access of ultraviolet rays through the stratosphere. The result is obvious – Global Warming.

2.	By dumping iron into sea - Ocean fertilization – the plankton (phyto) will grow more and the CO2 will be utilized by their photosynthetic process. But the knowledge about the effectiveness and potential environmental impact of ocean from fertilization is not sufficient for large-scale operation. Moreover, the ocean fertilization may jeopardize the Plankton-Necton-Benthos ecological balance.

3.	By geological sequestration - By this process, CO2 is injected directly into declined oil field, saline aquifers for permanent storage. Here the disadvantage is lack of storage safety, moreover the process may not be compatible with the convention of prevention of “Marine Pollution”	There are risk and uncertainty of all the above processes which are artificial to combat the global warming.

4.	Carbon offset - A way to halt global warming without extra effort i.e. photosynthesis by green plants. So, aforestation mainly in rain forest and tropical forest is the only solution in the context of indiscriminate deforestation all over the world. We can resort to creation of more green plants. The alarming figure shows that a forest area of nearly 50 crores hectors has to be created to absorb the already accumulated CO2 in the air. Trans-boundary Protected Area :

The question is how can we get this mammoth figure of forest area for coverage? Here lies the importance of trans-boundary protected area for the protection and maintenance of biological diversity which has been already initiated by countries of North America, Central and South America, Europe, Africa and Asia, although the projected area of TBPA as per latest estimate, is just a few drops to the requirement of sea.

Peace Park :

In connection with conflict of two adjacent countries, Professor Saleem Ali who edited the new book ‘Peace Park : Conservation and conflict resolution’ said that scarcity does not inevitably lead to conflict, in fact, scarcity sometimes leads to co-operation. According to Professor Ali, there are 227 trans-boundary protected area in the world but only few are the Peace Parks.

DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) :

In this context the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) between the South and North Korea cites, an ideal example, which was created by the United Nation in 1953, allowing cease-fire to the Korean War. DMZ is a strip of land (248 km. long and 4 km. wide) running across the Korean peninsular acting as a buffer zone to the North and South Korea. Here humans for the most part, have not entered the DMZ in the last 50 years. This isolation has created, as a by-product, one of the most well preserved pieces of temperate land in the world. The area is pristine with rich bio-diversity, an ideal habitat for hundreds of animal species, including endangered cranes, black bear, leopard and over one thousand plant species. The entire world is responsible for the preservation of nature at the DMZ.

Voluntary Modified Demilitarized Zones :

'''Voluntary Modified Demilitarized Zones can be set up along the borders of all countries, with mutual consent. The VMDMZ across the border of two countries should be pristine and converted to wild forests to provide natural support to the problem of CO2 accumulation. So VMDMZ can be a handy tool for combating ‘Global Warming’.'''

Benefit of VMDMZ :

This voluntary contribution of land across the border by two adjacent countries without any political & military conflict can contribute to manifold benefits, surpassing the sacrifice made by the agreeing countries :

a)	Due to voluntary contribution of true land, habitable area of the countries concerned will decrease, leading to negative population growth.

b)	Defence expenditure for both the adjacent countries must fall as a consequence of “land sacrifice”.

c)	Direct conflict will be minimized as the free boundary can be utilized for eco-tourism, wild tourism, which in turn will lead to sustainable economic growth and benefit to the local people.

d)	Free zone, converted to natural forest will increase local vegetation, prevent soil erosion, free roaming access to the wild animals and safe heaven for migratory birds.

e)	True natural forests, so created, will absorb the excess CO2 from the atmosphere, giving ample scope to the corresponding countries to enjoy carbon credit.

As an extract of the discussions made above to combat “Global Warming”, we find that the best remedy to combat this burning problem is afforestation, which in turn leads to the only solution, according to my suggestion, in the creation of more & more VMDMZ.

Land fill forest :

Apart from this benefits discussed above, we can think of supplementary and permanent solution of arresting CO2 accumulation by resorting to land fill forest. Burring one ton of dry wood is equivalent to arresting 1.8 ton of CO2; the trees so barred are those deliberately planted in the forests at VMDMZ. The scientists believe they might blunt the impact of global warming or negate all harmful global emissions. It will be for the first time that human kind will give something back to the nature that we have taken away earlier.

Conclusion : My humble submission to all those who are thinking of saving the earth form global warming is that as a pessimistic thinking, even if we believe that all our endeavours to arrest the global warming ends in smoke, even then we can hope that by taking sincere measures (to create VMDMZ) discussed above, we shall pave the way for a secure future for our future generation as a compensation for our greed towards destroying the mother earth.