EVERYDAY SCIENCE

 Ocean transports heat poleward in both hemispheres. Halley Cell takes warm air poleward and cooler air equatorward. The heat transport in the South Atlantic is equatorward (Source : Geoffey Vallis , An Exemplified El Nino , the tropical Pacific Ocean strongly influences regional climates)

How to Ahieve Climate Mitigation

 The world is warming at an alarming rate faster than at any point in history. If we do not act now there will have devastating impacts on the planet. Droughts, wild fires, floods and hurricanes will occur more frequently and with high intensity. Droughts, wild fires  cause food crops leading to hunger, starvation, unprecedented levels of under nutrition and premature deaths. Floods and hurricanes will  displace homes, deprives livelihoods and increase migration. World Bank has already disbursed 10.7 trillion dollars towards recovery from pandemic. Many countries and businesses have become pauper. Increasing debt and economic depression has negatively affected all sectors. 

In order to lessen the impacts of climate change we have to limit the ever increasing green house gases and the resultant climate extremes. Proper land use management, efficient use of natural resources, reducing waste and pollution as well as enhancing recycling ecofriendly housing, sustainable practices in sectors such as energy, food and agriculture, transport and tourism, infrastructure, life style and consumption will enable us achieve a carbon neutral pathway.

UNEP's SIX SECTOR SOLUTION

In order to achieve a 1.5 degree target  reduction of carbon in the following 6 sectors is possible.

• 8.2 giga tonnes of carbon could be reduced in the energy sector.
• 6.2 GtCO2  could be reduced in sectors such as agriculture and food waste.
• 5.9 GtCO2  could be reduced in building and cities.
• 5.4 GtCO2 in industry could be reduced in building and cities.

NUMERICALLY YOURS

 In the digital world everything big and small, including living things as well as non-living things are represented in numbers. We shall start with the Universe first.

THE UNIVERSE IN NUMBERS

• 14 billion years ago the universe materialized out of nothing.
• It took 400,000 years for the particles to cool down to form atoms.
• Took another 300 million years to form planets, stars and galaxies.
• Expansion of the  universe began 13.8 billion years ago.
• The diameter of the observable universe is 570 thousand million million million miles.
• 200 billion stars in the milky way.
• Once in every 200 million years our solar system orbits the centre of the galaxy.
• 7 trillion galaxies in the observable universe.
• 6000 years are required to count the Milky way's stars at a rate of one a second.
• In 4 billion years our galaxy will collide with the Andromeda galaxy.
• The brightest stars emit  6 million times more light than the sun.
• 13 billion years is the age of the oldest star.
• A handful of 5000 stars make up the Pleiades cluster which can be seen with the naked eye.
• In 250 million years time, the stars will have disappeared and the cluster will no longer exist.

SUN

• The diameter of the sun is 13,93,684 kilometres.
• Distance from Earth150 million kilometres
• Surface temperature 5,500 degree Celsius
• The sun is large enough by volume to swallow 1.3 million Earths.
• It contains 98.8% of all the matter in the solar system.
• In the core region the temperature soars to 15 million degree Celsius.
• The gaseous matter in the sun  is 150 times more dense than water.
• The energy out put from the sun is 385 million billion giga watts per second.
• It takes only 8 minutes for light from the sun to reach Earth.
• It takes 100, 000years for energy released in the sun's core to travel to the surface and emerge as light. (It takes such a long time  because the energy is absorbed and re-emitted by trillions of atoms as it passes through the dense radiative zone.)
• The equator takes 25 Earth days to rotate once, but polar regions take 34 days.

PLANET EARTH

• Earth formed 4.5 billion years ago
• 250 million years ago earth's continents all joined together an enormous super continent known as Pangaea.
• One fifth of earth's landscape is mountains
• Solid surface of the earth below sea level is 10,900 meter deep.(The Mariana trench)
• The highest solid surface or point above sea level is 8848 meter high Everest summit
• The surface of most land areas is less than 500 meter above sea level
• Earth's elevation over 4000 meter
• Sea depth below 4000 meter
• 130 million years ago India escaped from the southern land mass, and is moving north, towards Asia.
• 70 million years ago South America split from Africa, while in the north , North America is splitting from Europe
• Continental plates move at a rate of 2.5 centimeter in a year. That is as fast as your finger nails grow. Some move faster, up to 10 centimeter in a year
• Earth's surface and atmosphere contain 1.39 billion cubic kilometer of water
• During ice ages sea level was 120 meter lower than it is today, exposing the continental shelves as dry land
• Temperature of earth's inner core is 5500 degree Celsius
• 1.5 million species of plants and animals live in tropical rainforests
• The length of under water mountain chains formed by mid ocean ridges is 65000 kilometers
• 55 million years ago the Indian and Asian plates crashed together  creating the Himalayas 
• Deepest point on Earth is 10911 metre below sea level.
• Most of the Mid Atlantic Ridge (2500 metres) is under water. Iceland is the only part of it above sea level
• 60 volcanoes erupt in an average year the world over
• Ash cloud from a large volcanic eruption can be up to 60 kilometres high
• 75% of the world's active  volcanoes are under water
• Southern California experiences 30 small earthquakes everyday
• The distance that the whole planet vibrates back and forth in space during the very largest earthquake is one centimetre
• The largest earthquake ever occurred off the coast of Chile in 1960 caused devastating tsunami.
• The length of the rupture under the sea floor that caused the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami was 1600 kilometres

ANTIOXIDANTS

 Antioxidants affect free radicals, which are atoms that have many or too few electrons. They roam the body and damage cells by collecting or dropping off electrons. Free radicals can be formed by exercise, by sun light, or during metabolic processes(all of the above).

What are antioxidants?

Antioxidants are substances that can prevent or slow damage to cells caused by free radicals.

What are free radicals?

Free radicals are unstable molecules produced in the body as a reaction to environmental and other pressures. The sources of free radicals can be natural or artificial. Free radicals are unpaired electrons.

How many free radicals are produced in a day in  our body?

Over 20 billion free radicals are formed by each of our body's cells every day.

What do they do in our body?

Free radicals annihilate vital cellular components , including our cell membranes  and our all important DNA. A prominent theory of aging blames the unpleasant process on free radicals. Eventually enough damage accumulates from these relentless molecules that we simply fall apart.

INFLUENCE OF MICROBES ON HUMANS

•  Trillions of microbes affect every stage of life of humans from birth to old age. Our health and well-being are really driven by the bacteria, viruses, fungi and protozoa that live in our intestines, in our lungs, in our skin, and even on our eye balls. The bugs are essential for establishing the basic nature of who we are. 

Escherichia coli 

• Escherichia coli is a bacteria which inhabit the human gut and perform essential functions.
• They make vitamins K  and B12 .
• They also repel disease causing bacteria.

The effects of microbiomes can be profound.

• A child's temperament might be related to whether the bacteria in an infant's gut are predominantly from one genus : the more Bifidobacterium bugs , the sunnier the baby.
• There are 38 trillion microbes for a typical young adult male, slightly more than the number of actual human cells.

EPIDEMICS AND PADEMICS

• Diseases spread  throughout populations are considered epidemics when more than 400 people out of every 100,000 are affected.
• Pandemics are those that sweep across wide geographic areas, such as the influenza pandemic that followed  the World War 1.,killing more people than had died during the war.

WHY DO WE NEED CLEAN AIR

 Air Pollution causes one in three deaths from stroke, chronic respiratory disease and lung cancer. 1 in 4 deaths from heart attack is caused by air pollution. Ground level Ozone produced by interaction of pollutants in sunlight causes asthma and chronic respiratory disease . Air pollution is one of the most critical health threats today.

seven million people die prematurely. Ozone air pollution alone is responsible for 52 million tons of global crop losses annually. Air pollution drives climate change crisis.Economic costs are mounting - through health care bills, lost productivity, reduced crop yields , eroded competitiveness of cities. We must lift the smog of air pollution .If we do we can save millions of lives and billions of dollars each year. LAST YEAR FLIGHTS WERE CANCELLED IN DELHI. PEOPLE WERE ADVISED TO STAY INDOORS OR WEAR MASKS JUAT AS WE DO NOW IN THE PANDEMIC. 

VEHICULAR EMISSIONS

The effects of long term exposure to fine particulate matter , nitrogen oxides, hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, air toxics, and other pollutants contained in vehicular exhaust include 

cancer, heart disease, stroke, asthma, and stunted lung growth in children.

INDIAN SCENARIO

Indoor air pollution in India causes 300,000 to 400,000 deaths 

• Air pollution linked diseases and infections kill 600,000 children under 5 years 
• 102 cities in India are most polluted with particulate matter.
• 2.2 millions school children in Delhi are growing up with irreversible lung damage which will never recover. 
• Smog caused by smoke from burning waste has compelled authorities to close schools for 4 days in a season.
• Premature deaths due to pollution increased 50% from particulate matter between 1990 and 2015.
• Smoke from fires contributed one-fourth of dangerous air pollution in Indian capital.
• According to Lancet Planetary Health India’s toxic air killed 1.24 million people in 2017.
• According to EPI 2016 half of world’s population  including 75% Indians are exposed to unsafe air quality.
• 50% in India is exposed to PM 2.5 concentration beyond 40 micrograms per cubic metre.(40 microgram is the safe limit)
• Festival of Deepavali contributes to hazardous levels of air pollution.
• Severity of air pollution is such that LIFE EXPECTANCY IN INDIA ON AN AVERAGE REDUCES BY 3.4 YEARS  WHILE in DELHII IT REDUCES BY 6.3 YEARS.(Hansala Aman, A Comprehensive study of Air Pollution in India.)
• 64% of Indians use solid fuels with high PM 2.5 production.
• In Andhrapradesh solid fuel sourced PM 2.5 level found to be between 73 and 732.
• If we compare 2016 Environmental Performance Index India ranks 141st globally.

(worse than Iraq, Nigeria, Liberia, Ukraine, Egypt, Syria and several other less peaceful countries)

VEHICULAR EMISSIONS

• The effects of long-term exposure to fine particulate matter ,oxides of nitrogen, hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, air toxics, and other pollutants contained in vehicle exhaust include, lung cancer, heart disease, stroke, asthma, stunted lung growth in children.
• Exposure to these pollutants from childhood affects them life long.
•  Children being at the developmental stage get the size of their  of lungs smaller, become victims of asthma and respiratory diseases.

Planet Earth's atmosphere is common to all. The total mass of the atmosphere is about 5.5 quadrillion tons. And it is all in motion. 30 % of pollution is not taking place on its territory. The breeze on your cheek right now might include atoms that 2 days ago were crazily distant. The newest plant cell formed in your garden might have been built from molecules that only a day or two earlier had been in exotically different places from a decaying log in the Amazon or from a car on a distant freeway. Or from a hornbill exhaling somewhere in the Silent Valley in Kerala or from a baboon exhaling through its magnificent pipe- like nose in Africa. And there they still stay there for 100 to 150 years surrounded by more plucked atoms , stuck in place . Every plant breathes in the whole planet. A single wood cell contains 2 trillion sugar molecules. One cell would add 7, 71, 600 units of sugar molecules every second. Plants are harvesting raw carbon straight out of the air, building carbon molecules. A little sapling in your garden is champing down 4.6 million CO2 molecules every second.

HEALTH IMPACTS  DUE TO AIR POLLUTION

• Lower respiratory infections account for 16.5%of deaths in 2012 in children under 5years
• In 2015 15.5% of deaths of children under 5 .
• Household air pollution from smoke from cook stoves and secondhand tobacco smoke most important of environmental risks.
• Pollution from use of solid fuels for cooling and ambient air pollution together cause 50% of lower respiratory infections in children under 5 years.