Environment: July 2006 Archives

Socio-economic units will not only have to fulfill peoples social and economic needs, but also their cultural aspirations. Culture denotes all sorts of human expressions. Culture is the same for all humanity, though there are differences in cultural expression. The best means of communicating human expressions is through one's mother tongue, as this is most natural. If people's natural expression through their mother tongue is suppressed, inferiority complexes will grow in their minds, encouraging a defeatist mentality and ultimately leading to psycho-economic exploitation. Thus, no mother tongue should be suppressed.

What is light pollution?

Light pollution is a growing worldwide problem which affects vast areas of the earth. In a nutshell, Light Pollution is misdirected or misused light... generally resulting from an inappropriate application of outdoor lighting products. Light Pollution comes in several flavors... each with its own negative effects. These are...

Sky Glow: light wastefully escaping into the night sky and causing a glow over urban/suburban areas.

Glare: light shining dangerously out into people's eyes as they walk or drive by.
Light Trespass: unwanted light shining onto a neighbor's property or into their home.

Why should I care?

Light pollution impacts us all... in many ways. Some of these are quite obvious, others are much less obvious. For starters....

Light pollution wastes billions of dollars annually in the United States. 5 to 10 billion depending on whose numbers you want to use.

Light pollution wastes incredible amounts of valuable natural resources. Hundreds of millions of barrels of oil... and hundreds of millions of tons of coal... just so people can light the bottoms of clouds?

The Ministry of Mines and Minerals says it may lift the ban on asbestos mining. It is ignoring the views of exposure victims, informed recommendations of public sector medical experts, and mounting evidence of an asbestos disease epidemic emerging in developed countries. The rationale to permit mining is hollow, writes Gopal Krishna.

Human life is the most developed and final stage of animal life. The speciality of human life is that it has dharma. In animal life there is no dharma.

Civilization is a collection of usages, manners, etiquette, formalities, ideologies and love. The culture of the entire humanity is the same, but civilization varies from society to society.

Human civilization is created in, and moves along, river valleys. Like a river, human civilization also has three stages--hill stage, plain stage and delta stage. From the hill stage, it moves to the plain stage and from the plain stage to the delta stage. A civilization starts in the hill stage, develops in the plain stage, and matures in the delta stage.