Scientists praise TRS govt for trying to reduce carbon emission

​Mahbubnagar: With an aim to sensitise media on climate change, a three-day workshop on climate change was organised in Mahbubnagar from May 22.

The State-level workshop was mainly aimed at sensitising and providing more inputs to the journalists as to how they can address the issue of climate change more effectively and what were the important data they needed to focus on while writing on a story on impact of climate change particularly on the farming sector and agriculture sector.

The workshop was organised by the Centre for Media Studies (CMS), Ministry for Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MOEFCC), Deutsche Gesellschalt Fur International Zusammenarbeil (GIZ) and EPTRI.

Speakers, officials from Forest Department, Agriculture Department and CMS, who are experts in the subject matter, shared their views and observations which were supported by scientific research and predictions about the global challenge of Climate change on its impact on humans.

Experts like Dr J Sesha Srinivas, Senior Scientists from EPTRI appreciated the State government for taking up the Haritha Haaram programme and initiating measures to wards mitigating the adverse impact of climate change by planting saplings across the state.

He also delved on how the Prof Jayashankar Telangana State Agriculture University in association with ICRISAT and NABARD are doing an alternative livelihood project in Jadcherla, Bijinepally and Ghanpur mandals with a cost of Rs 24 crore for climate resilient agriculture interventions. For the first time in India, mandal-wise climate analysis is being done by ICRISAT.

The scientist also took note of how the government was initiating steps like converting waste into natural gas in Social Welfare Hostels and reducing intensity of carbon emission and creating additional carbon sink.

“Telangana government’s initiatives to reduce carbon emission and take up large-scale plantation programme are some of the positive things that are very much of the need of the hour,” said Dr J Sesha Srinivas.

Scientists Dr M Venkataramana, Associate Director of Research PJTSAU said that they had developed paddy varieties which can be harvested in just 125 days.

According to Dr Ashok Karumuri, Professor of University of Hyderabad the extreme weather conditions like heavy rainfall in one area and very scanty rainfall in another area are being witnessed very frequently and this is mainly because of climatic changes.

Many scientists also agreed that there are no clear climatic models that are 100 per cent reliable to predict accurate climate change. They also felt that old methods have become redundant and for forecasting the perfect weather predictions new technology must be adopted and use of super computers is also be brought into force.

On the final day of the concluding session, Vasanti, Director General of CMS observed that there are many new data resources available for the journalists to be relied on for making their stories more authentic. She urged the media to be more pro-active advised the journalists that each and every minute change in the environment must be studied in detail and should come up with stories that sensitise the general public and the policy makers so that better initiatives can be brought in to save our environment.