Tenets of Sustainable Living

Perhaps we need a sustainability version !!

If we had to define what would constitute the basic principles when it comes to reducing your ecological footprint what would they be?. Here is one version:

• Consume less
• Power
• Water
• Building/construction materials- go simple tech as against high-tech
• Consumer goods
• Consume local
• Eat local produce
• Build using local materials and skills
• Generate less waste.... Re-use and recycle
• Build using old or discarded materials... apply clean tech
• Compost and share with neighbours
• Choose what you buy.... things that wont contribute to the waste you produce
• Throw away less
• Occupy less space
• Do you really need all that extra built area?
• Do you really need that big a car?
• Go independent... as far as possible
• Build as much with what you have
• Be self sufficient in your harvesting water and generation of energy (as long as it makes sense in terms of the Life-cycle)
• Manage what little waste that you generate
• Travel less and travel green
• Use your car/two-wheeler less frequently
• Use a bus instead of your car/bike.
• Use a cycle for the short distances
• And if you can walk... go for it.
• Work as a community
• Share resources
• Share travel resources
• Assist in solving each other's problems
• Get others to live sustainability, it is your responsibility too
• Give back
• Recharge the ground water
• Share power that you generate
• Plant as many trees as you possibly can
• Take only what you need... probably the most important since it is this very appetite that has gotten us into this environmental glut

We could have been the 'People of the tanks'

I guess most of us will be saying, "what is he talking about?" But, that is just it. Bangalore is set in a landscape of a 100 tanks (for a lovely insight read the book "Deccan Traverses'), has had a history that recorded for over 400 years.

Many of us know of the lakes around Bangalore, but that is part of the change brought in by the limited understanding of our administrators and planners. The system stretches from beyond the Northern boundaries of our city limits and goes beyond the point where Cauvery plummets many levels at Sangam, making all of us in the lands of Ramnagaram, Maddur, Mandya and Srirangapatnam inhabitants of this landscape. Even more significant is the fact that this fabric of tanks is a result of human actions. Yes, all of this is man-made! The will of the people made this landscape and it is the lack of it that is fast erasing it.
So why 'tank people'? Well, it formed the very life fabric that sustained this slice of civilisation. Each village/ hamlet had a tank of its own or shared a large one. These tanks would fill up during the monsoons and drained out water through a system of overflow valleys. The tanks would loose their water through the dry months, some completely and would leave large amounts of silt behind (a result of sedimentation). This silt formed crucial building material, for mud mortar/plaster and even for earthern walls, and was also used for agriculture as a nutrient rich soil. Most importantly, these tanks would help in recharging the ground water table. Potentially, these tanks can help in sustainably recharging rainwater for over twice the current population!! The landscape would change with the cycle of seasons, the tanks filling up during the monsoons and transforming into silted depressions for the drier months. This was the same space that we now occupy.
So where is this land that our city is in today?
The death knell was sounded by some interventions during the colonial rule... the closure of tanks, the conversion of drain valleys into narrow nallahs... stone lined channelways. Then came the babus and state government planners (post independence) who did more damage in the last 60 years than in the 200 plus years that the British occupied this land. Closure of tanks, treating them as lakes (completely misunderstanding their purpose and characteristics), and reducing this system to a pale reminder of the past.
So what is different?
The most significant change is that of identity and association. The link between tank and habitation has been forgotten. We no longer see them as great catchments of precious rainwater runoff. The nallahs, once percolating drain valleys, have been concreted and thinned clogging the system, or, encroached upon... causing great damage to both life and property every time we have even a good shower. The change in attitude is very visible in the health of these nallahs and tanks. They stink, sewage flows illegally into these systems in innumerable points. Many tanks have also been converted into permanent water bodies.. with stone masonry walls and pretty landscaped gardens to 'beautify' them. Probably the greatest change was the import of water to feed this city's population (executed during British times) from over 100 kms away near Mysore and therefore pumped up to over 900 feet! .... something that was never done for centuries before. Arguably, the population has also increased multifold over the last 100 years, but how do we explain that we had a water management system that could cater to twice the current population? This turning of our backs on a constant sustainable rainwater collection and recharge system combined with a callous and greed driven boring of our aquifers has resulted in falling groundwater levels.
This has changed the very way we live... our water comes from an unseen source (almost magical) so we dont see the link between these tanks around us and the water in our taps. The governments constant crowd pleasing statements of increasing supply 'to' the city has always conveyed the message that the solution for our water woes lies outside this system. This complete faith in long piped systems is also reflected in the city's wet waste treatment plants, large systems that are supposed to handle and treat the sewage from large quadrants of the city. This has also had an impact on the water equation of our city. Nearly all the water consumed by the city's inhabitants is drained out (inefficiently) only to be treated and led away from the city. In the original system, all waste water would find its way into the ground, filtered through rear yard broad leafed high-capillary plants and through the various layers of the earth.
Just take a look at that. Water was captured right around where people lived, allowed to filter into the ground, drawn out through open wells... and was recycled after consumption through a biological treatment system, again within the habitation limits. (of course, people did not waste great volumes of water in flushing)
This is what we today call a sustainable water loop. There is still hope, i think. The steps are obvious.

'Green Building', a solution to problems we create?

Triple glazing, insulation, energy efficient air-conditioning..., these and more form the many green measures and inventions that seem to define the higher plane of environmental sensitivity that today's green building movement.
I am sure that many of us have asked ourselves- "did we need this much glass in the first place?" Take a look; all that glass meant that we needed to tackle the extra heat gain/loss, so this gave rise to a new thermally efficient glass. The change in our wall sections (thinning to gain as much usable space for the money invested) has now resulted in new insulation codes. The extra FAR utilisation meant that we climbed much higher than before, reducing the shading on the more vulnerable areas, more reasons for insulation. We changed our terrace treatment (from the breathing 'surkhi' treatment that doubled up as water proofing) to a thinner 'plain cement concrete', so now we have reflective/emissive high albeido paints. We sealed off our buildings (arguably to protect our new machinery from dust) and therefore created artificial air exchanges to both ventilate and condition the air within these premises. Now we work towards making these energy guzzling air-conditioners consume less power. Since even this is a relatively stale environment, we now focus on internal air quality improvements- approved carpeting, non-toxic paints, and even have new norms for prescribed air-exchanges and a mandatory flushing out process after fresh painting! One may call the flushing out sensible, but our paints started getting more complex in their chemical structure purely due to the change in the way we built and our aesthetic sensibilities. We tar our roads and hard pave/concrete our external surfaces, and then look for ways to increase ground water percolation. We drain out all surface water (most evident at the city level) and reclaim our percolation tanks, only to incentivise individual rainwater harvesting schemes within homes.
While some steps to go green, like using the abundant energy of the sun and rainwater harvesting systems, don’t you think that we need to question the very premise of many of our green decisions?
What if we built with lesser glass, but allowed greater scope for natural daylight to flood the insides of our buildings? What if we ensured that our external surfaces were appropriately shaded from direct solar radiation? What if we built lower (not necessarily hugging the ground) and used landscaping to cover the ground? What if we had naturally ventilated spaces, while demanding our machinary manufacturers to make them dust proof? What if we considered all our roads and drains as percolation surfaces? What if we brought down hard bans on employee driven transportation for offices that were larger than ten people? What if we mandated that all offices had to be at walking distance from mass public transportation systems? What if we decided that our cities were large carbon sinks (for intensive planting) and intensive soaks? What if we grew on our flat terraces and made compulsory lighter roofing where the roofs were inaccessible (or sloping)?
Compared to this, our current green steps seem mere lip service.... don't you think?