Urgent Need To Focus On Clean Air: Activist Sunita Narain

The environment is no long era luxury and climate change is right in our faces, said noted environmentalist Sunita Narain, Director General of Centre for Science and Environment. Delivering the second annual Darryl d’Monte Memorial lecture on Saturday, Narain pointed out that air is a great equaliser as rich and poor both breathe the same air.

“We have to focus on clean air and drastically cut down emissions,” Narain, who also edits the fortnightly magazine Down to Earth, said. The event, titled Remembering the Environmental Challenge, was organised by Mumbai Press Club, Mumbai Marathi Patrakar Sangh, Participatory Urban Design & Development Initiative, Sanctuary Nature Foundation and Vanashakti, apart from the family of the pioneering environmentalist D’Monte.

Narain said all the governments should focus on developing convenient mass rapid transport and luxury electric vehicles to encourage de-creased dependence on cars.She regretted that water re-sources are also being grossly neglected. The Yamuna has been officially declared dead as its oxygen level has been reduced to zero, she re-marked.She stressed that infra-structure progress must be balanced with environmental care. “This is where the governments should take local communities into confidence,” she said.