The term 'plastic rice' first
surfaced in China in 2010. Dubbed the Wuchang rice scandal, Chinese
officials unearthed a scam by companies who passed off ordinary rice as
premium Wuchang rice by adding flavours to it. The Wuchang rice, known
for its unique aroma, is exported to various nations. Chinese traders
are believed to have made a huge profit through this scam.
Apart
from these two reports, the mainstream media doesn't have much
information on 'plastic rice'. But the web is flooded with information
ranging from YouTube videos on how it is manufactured to "Ways to spot a
fake rice." And the social media too is cluttered with forwards on the
"Chinese conspiracy" behind dumping 'plastic rice'.
In
a report, it said, "The plastic rice story [and its fellow counterfeit
Chinese food export legends] resemble an internationally viral 2007 CCTV
segment about pork buns purportedly made with scrap cardboard, for
which an independent journalist was eventually detained and accused of
faking the oft-referenced story."
India is now two and a half times more likely to experience a deadly
heat wave than a half century ago, and all it took was an increase in
the average temperature of just 0.5 degrees Celsius, a new study shows.
The
findings are sobering considering that the world is on track for far
more warming. For the last two weeks much of Asia has been gripped by a
heat wave, with a record high of 53.5 degrees C set in the southwest
Pakistani city of Turbat on May 28 the world’s hottest-ever temperature
recorded for the month of May. Temperatures in New Delhi have soared
beyond 44 degrees C.
Even if countries are able to meet the Paris
Agreement goals in curbing climate-warming carbon emissions, that would
still only limit the global temperature rise to an estimated 2 degrees
C. U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent pledge to exit the Paris treaty
won’t help.
“It’s getting hotter, and of course more heat waves
are going to kill more people,” said climatologist Omid Mazdiyasni of
the University of California, Irvine, who led an international team of
scientists in analysing a half century of data from the Indian
Meteorological Department on temperature, heat waves and heat-related
mortality.
“We knew there was going to be an impact, but we didn’t expect it to be this big,” he said.
Their study, published on Wednesday in the journal Science Advances,
shows that, while India’s average temperatures rose by more than 0.5
degrees C between 1960 and 2009, the probability of India experiencing a
massive heat-related mortality event defined by more than 100 deaths
shot up by 146 per cent.
The study also found that the number of
heat wave days increased by 25 per cent across most of India. Areas in
the south and west experienced 50 per cent more heat wave events, or
periods of extreme heat lasting more than three or four days, in
1985-2009 compared with the previous 25-year period.
It’s harder
to estimate how deadly future warming might be. There is no historical
data for heat wave mortality at those peak temperatures, and death tolls
could increase sharply as it gets even hotter.
“The general
public may think that a 1 or 2 degree temperature rise is not that
significant, but our results show that even small changes can result in
more heat waves and more death,” said Amir AghaKouchak, another
climatologist at UC Irvine and a co-author of the report.
Scientists have warned for years that climate change will make heat waves more intense, more frequent and longer lasting.
“It
stands to reason there would be more dire health impacts with more
severe heat waves, and this paper provides a key quantification of those
impacts for one region of the world,” said climate scientist Gerald
Meehl of the National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Boulder,
Colorado, who was not involved in the study.
The same methodology
can be applied in any region to get a sense of how vulnerable a country
or population might be, the authors said.
They accounted for
India’s fast-rising population and income levels in the analysis, to
make sure neither affected the results. In the case of income, they
found an even stronger correlation between heat waves and deaths among
those who are poor.
That’s bad news as India is already seeing new deadly highs. Last year in May, Jaisalmer recorded a record 52.4 degrees C.
The
vast majority of India’s 1.25 billion people are poor and have few
options as temperatures hit sweltering levels, drying forests and
riverbeds and wiping out farm animals. Most in India rely on agriculture
for their livelihoods, and climate change is likely to hurt their
crops.
Many who work as farmers or in construction will have to
shorten their work days by 2-3 hours within four decades, simply because
it will be too hot outdoors, according to a report last year by the
U.N. Environment Program.
Most cities and states are not prepared
to handle more heat, even if they understand the devastation it can
wreak. In 2010, some 1,200 people died in a heat wave in Ahmedabad,
prompting city officials to introduce seven-day weather forecasts, extra
water supplies and cool-air summer shelters.
After more than
2,500 were killed in heat-ravaged areas across India in 2015, nine other
cities rolled out a plan to educate children about heat risk, stock
hospitals with ice packs and extra water, and train medical workers to
identify heat stress, dehydration and heat stroke.
But the nine cities cover only about 11 million people, not even 1 per cent of the country’s population.
“Heat
wave stress is a relatively new aspect that hasn’t been recognized” as a
climate change threat in the region, said scientist Saleemul Huq,
director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development
in Dhaka. In Bangladesh, “we are seeing more heat waves, there’s no
doubt about it. And there is strong anecdotal evidence that we are
seeing a similar trend in mortality. I would recommend a similar study
here.”
source: http://epaper.jagran.com/ePaperArticle/09-sep-2016-edition-Delhi-City-page_14-3615-3364-4.html
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