<p>2022 is the wettest year in the recorded history of Bengaluru’s rainfall. By October 16, the Indian Meteorological Department observatory had recorded 1,704 mm of rainfall, breaking the 2017 record of 1,696 mm. It continues to rain, and there are still several weeks left before we reach the end of the year.</p>.<p>The impact of climate change on our monsoon is undeniable. In recent years, Bengaluru has experienced three out of its five wettest years in recorded history – in 2022, 2021 and 2017. We not only receive more water from the skies than we used to, we also receive it in shorter bursts of time. And with the loss of wetlands, lakes, paddy fields and mango orchards that once mopped up the extra rainfall, this water falls on impervious, hard concrete, rushing along with force, sweeping into homes and offices, malls and bus stands, converting roads into rivers, and apartment complexes into lakes. Climate change is the consequence of human mismanagement and greed on a monumental, global scale.</p>.<p>But while international negotiations at fora like the recent United Nations Climate Change Conference, CoP-27 at Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, engage in complex pass-the-blame games, closer home in Bengaluru, the same story plays out on a smaller scale. The writing on the wall is clear. The crisis of Bengaluru’s floods, which seems severe now, is going to get much worse. Climate change is ‘everything change’ – a time when extreme becomes the norm, and floods and droughts constitute our daily experience.</p>.<p>From November 2-16, we held a 15-day bilingual (Kannada & English) festival on climate change, ‘Rivers of Life’, at Azim Premji University. Of the 10,000 visitors that came to the university’s Bengaluru campus, some 8,500 were children from schools and colleges in and around Bengaluru. The exhibition depicted images from over 60 river and lake basins across the country. Documented by young interns who spread across the length and breadth of India for several weeks to photograph the condition of India’s water bodies, this was an exhibition by young people, for young people, to transfer knowledge on climate change.</p>.<p>We had senior visitors, too -- some of them in their late eighties. Using an #Ifoundmyriver hashtag, people went looking for the river, lake, stream or pond that they grew up next to. Some were excited to see a river which they knew from visits to grandparents’ homes, while others pointed to streams and lakes on the banks of which they had studied while in school or college. But one trend was unmistakable. Anyone over 40 years of age had once seen waterbodies that were sparkling and clear, brimming with life, rich with biodiversity. But now, almost every single waterbody they had seen and loved was polluted. Bharathapuzha, Narmada, Krishna, Cauvery, Godavari, Ganga, Yamuna, Brahmaputra – every river that our interns documented was dammed, encroached, choked with waste, polluted with industrial effluents, prevented from reaching the sea.</p>.<p>Even the Uyyakondan canal of Trichy, built by the Cholas over a thousand years ago, is now filled with plastic and sewage, a pale shadow of its once impressive self. River restoration and beautification projects, such as the massive Chambal valley riverfront project in Kota, have poured hundreds of crores into ‘development’ for tourism, altering the ecology by pouring tons of concrete into once-natural riverfront ghats.</p>.<p>Yet, hope comes from the young people involved in river recovery and restoration – such as our young interns, who held workshops for the school and college children on how to explore their local lakes. Or the young fifth standard boy who pronounced the ‘Rivers of Life’ exhibition to be “ek dam mast”, fun and exciting. And most unforgettably, the young woman from New Vani Vilas College who asked senior Adivasi leaders from the Narmada Valley what they gained by environmental activism -- prompting one of the most enriching panel discussions that we have recently witnessed. If there is hope, it is with the next generation, who are not afraid to question our most basic assumptions about development, growth, and the environment.</p>.<p>(<em>Harini Nagendra, the Azim Premji University Prof prides herself on barking up all trees, right and wrong</em>)</p>
<p>2022 is the wettest year in the recorded history of Bengaluru’s rainfall. By October 16, the Indian Meteorological Department observatory had recorded 1,704 mm of rainfall, breaking the 2017 record of 1,696 mm. It continues to rain, and there are still several weeks left before we reach the end of the year.</p>.<p>The impact of climate change on our monsoon is undeniable. In recent years, Bengaluru has experienced three out of its five wettest years in recorded history – in 2022, 2021 and 2017. We not only receive more water from the skies than we used to, we also receive it in shorter bursts of time. And with the loss of wetlands, lakes, paddy fields and mango orchards that once mopped up the extra rainfall, this water falls on impervious, hard concrete, rushing along with force, sweeping into homes and offices, malls and bus stands, converting roads into rivers, and apartment complexes into lakes. Climate change is the consequence of human mismanagement and greed on a monumental, global scale.</p>.<p>But while international negotiations at fora like the recent United Nations Climate Change Conference, CoP-27 at Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, engage in complex pass-the-blame games, closer home in Bengaluru, the same story plays out on a smaller scale. The writing on the wall is clear. The crisis of Bengaluru’s floods, which seems severe now, is going to get much worse. Climate change is ‘everything change’ – a time when extreme becomes the norm, and floods and droughts constitute our daily experience.</p>.<p>From November 2-16, we held a 15-day bilingual (Kannada & English) festival on climate change, ‘Rivers of Life’, at Azim Premji University. Of the 10,000 visitors that came to the university’s Bengaluru campus, some 8,500 were children from schools and colleges in and around Bengaluru. The exhibition depicted images from over 60 river and lake basins across the country. Documented by young interns who spread across the length and breadth of India for several weeks to photograph the condition of India’s water bodies, this was an exhibition by young people, for young people, to transfer knowledge on climate change.</p>.<p>We had senior visitors, too -- some of them in their late eighties. Using an #Ifoundmyriver hashtag, people went looking for the river, lake, stream or pond that they grew up next to. Some were excited to see a river which they knew from visits to grandparents’ homes, while others pointed to streams and lakes on the banks of which they had studied while in school or college. But one trend was unmistakable. Anyone over 40 years of age had once seen waterbodies that were sparkling and clear, brimming with life, rich with biodiversity. But now, almost every single waterbody they had seen and loved was polluted. Bharathapuzha, Narmada, Krishna, Cauvery, Godavari, Ganga, Yamuna, Brahmaputra – every river that our interns documented was dammed, encroached, choked with waste, polluted with industrial effluents, prevented from reaching the sea.</p>.<p>Even the Uyyakondan canal of Trichy, built by the Cholas over a thousand years ago, is now filled with plastic and sewage, a pale shadow of its once impressive self. River restoration and beautification projects, such as the massive Chambal valley riverfront project in Kota, have poured hundreds of crores into ‘development’ for tourism, altering the ecology by pouring tons of concrete into once-natural riverfront ghats.</p>.<p>Yet, hope comes from the young people involved in river recovery and restoration – such as our young interns, who held workshops for the school and college children on how to explore their local lakes. Or the young fifth standard boy who pronounced the ‘Rivers of Life’ exhibition to be “ek dam mast”, fun and exciting. And most unforgettably, the young woman from New Vani Vilas College who asked senior Adivasi leaders from the Narmada Valley what they gained by environmental activism -- prompting one of the most enriching panel discussions that we have recently witnessed. If there is hope, it is with the next generation, who are not afraid to question our most basic assumptions about development, growth, and the environment.</p>.<p>(<em>Harini Nagendra, the Azim Premji University Prof prides herself on barking up all trees, right and wrong</em>)</p>
