In my growing up years, Lent was all about giving up meat, fish, eggs or dairy products. In other words, I had to forgo some proteins that formed part of my regular diet, some carbohydrates and fats. But it was more like being on a ‘Daniel fast’. I got all the vitamins and minerals that are essential for the functioning of the body from my vegetarian diet.
These days many people decide to give up a favourite food item like chocolate or keep time away from television or movies. Obviously, fasting is more than disciplining your taste buds or taking a break from that ‘chewing gum of the eye’, television.
Ina speech he made on his visit to India in October 2010, Archbishop Rowan Williams said: “Real fasting, says God to the prophet [Isaiah 58:6-7], is breaking the bonds of injustice and sharing your resources. And it is fasting because it means denying yourself something – not denying yourself material things alone, as in the usual sort of religious fasting, but denying yourself the pleasures of thinking of yourself as an isolated being with no real relations with those around; denying yourself the fantasy that you can organise the world to suit yourself; denying yourself the luxury of not noticing the suffering of your neighbour.”
When it comes to caring for the environment do we act as isolated beings? Is not Lent about redeļ¬ning our consumption patterns too? Here is a list of five things that we can learn to live without, beginning this Lent.
1. Plastic bags
According to the Worldwatch Institute, in 2002, factories around the world churned out roughly 4-5 trillion plastic bags - from large trash bags to thick shopping bags to thin grocery bags. You can imagine what it must be a decade later.
It is said plastic bags can take up to 1,000 years to break down. But as we see around us, some plastic don’t even reach the landfill. They clog the drains, get into waterways, damage the environment and pose a great threat to a large species of animals.
Of late, there have been initiatives to use biodegradable plastic. Some supermarkets voluntarily encourage shoppers to forgo plastic bags.
Why not carry a canvas or cloth bag to the grocery next time? I know of one instance where a Marthoma church gave jute shopping bags to all its members free.
2. Bottled water
Did you know that much more water is consumed in making PET water bottles than will ever go into them? A study says that producing 1 kilogram of PET plastic(polyethylene terephthalate) requires 17.5 kg of water and results in air emissions of 40 gm of hydrocarbons, 25 gm of sulphur oxides, 18 gm of carbon monoxide, 20 gm of nitrogen oxides, and 2.3 kg of carbon dioxide.
In India, the demand for bottled water is increasing by 50 per cent every year. Besides the environmental cost of producing bottles, this can put a strain on existing water resources.
So, starting this Lent, ditch the plastic bottle.
Running water, too, is a luxury where at least 11 percent of the world's population - roughly around 783 million people - are still without access to safe drinking water, and billions without sanitation facilities. There is no need to let the tap running while brushing your teeth or shaving. Also, try a bucket bath rather than using the shower.
3. Disposable cups and plates
The environmental impact of the ubiquitous paper plates and cups are more than we can ever imagine. Paper plates and cups begin as wood pulp, which are then bleached using chlorine compounds. Chlorine compounds are among the most hazardous industrial chemicals in use.
Besides, paper plates and cups that we use are not recyclable. Most manufacturers coat paper plates with materials that make them less biodegradable. That means all of them will go to landfills.
Sometimes Styrofoam disposables are referred to as paper plates, but they are made from non-renewable petrochemical products.
Try palm leaf plates for a change.
Add to this list of avoidables things like disposable pens, razors and nappies.
4. Air-conditioners
What price are we paying for cooled air? “In the past half-century, a number of big, energy-guzzling technologies have really changed our lives: automobiles,computers, television, jet aircraft. All that time, air-conditioning has been humming away in the background, like a character actor you see in a whole bunch of movies. It's never the star, but it always seems to be there moving the plot along. When I looked at the doubling in the amount of electricity used for air-conditioning homes in this country [U.S.] just since the mid-90s, I thought, we really need to address this, because it is a big contributor to greenhouse-gas release and it's going to increase the likelihood that we're going to have longer, more intense heat waves and hotter summers in the future, and we're going to have to be running the air-conditioning even more,” says Stan Cox, the author of Losing Our Cool: Uncomfortable Truths About Our Air-Conditioned World (and Finding New Ways to Get Through the Summer).
Air conditioning is a huge reason why power consumption is breaking records. In other words, we use a large part of our electricity to cool ourselves. And, “tofuel our own air conditioning, we're destroying nature's,” says Cox.
Why not try the humble fan?
5. Private transport
Here are other chilling facts. For every kilometre driven by private vehicle, people consume two to three times as much fuel as they would by public transit. And, it takes 18 litres of water to produce just one litre of petrol or diesel.
A2002 study by the Brookings Institution and the American Enterprise Institute noted that "private vehicles emit about 95 per cent more carbon monoxide, 92 per cent more volatile organic compounds and about twice as much carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxide than public vehicles for every passenger mile travelled".
Annual vehicle sales in India are projected to increase to 5 million by 2015 and more than 9 million by 2020. By 2050, the country is expected to top the world in car volumes with approximately 611 million vehicles on the nation's roads. The environmental impact of this is too large to be ignored.
Walk, ride a cycle or take public transportation whenever possible. If you have a car, give a ride to your neighbours too.
These days many people decide to give up a favourite food item like chocolate or keep time away from television or movies. Obviously, fasting is more than disciplining your taste buds or taking a break from that ‘chewing gum of the eye’, television.
Ina speech he made on his visit to India in October 2010, Archbishop Rowan Williams said: “Real fasting, says God to the prophet [Isaiah 58:6-7], is breaking the bonds of injustice and sharing your resources. And it is fasting because it means denying yourself something – not denying yourself material things alone, as in the usual sort of religious fasting, but denying yourself the pleasures of thinking of yourself as an isolated being with no real relations with those around; denying yourself the fantasy that you can organise the world to suit yourself; denying yourself the luxury of not noticing the suffering of your neighbour.”
When it comes to caring for the environment do we act as isolated beings? Is not Lent about redeļ¬ning our consumption patterns too? Here is a list of five things that we can learn to live without, beginning this Lent.
1. Plastic bags
According to the Worldwatch Institute, in 2002, factories around the world churned out roughly 4-5 trillion plastic bags - from large trash bags to thick shopping bags to thin grocery bags. You can imagine what it must be a decade later.
It is said plastic bags can take up to 1,000 years to break down. But as we see around us, some plastic don’t even reach the landfill. They clog the drains, get into waterways, damage the environment and pose a great threat to a large species of animals.
Of late, there have been initiatives to use biodegradable plastic. Some supermarkets voluntarily encourage shoppers to forgo plastic bags.
Why not carry a canvas or cloth bag to the grocery next time? I know of one instance where a Marthoma church gave jute shopping bags to all its members free.
2. Bottled water
In India, the demand for bottled water is increasing by 50 per cent every year. Besides the environmental cost of producing bottles, this can put a strain on existing water resources.
So, starting this Lent, ditch the plastic bottle.
Running water, too, is a luxury where at least 11 percent of the world's population - roughly around 783 million people - are still without access to safe drinking water, and billions without sanitation facilities. There is no need to let the tap running while brushing your teeth or shaving. Also, try a bucket bath rather than using the shower.
3. Disposable cups and plates
The environmental impact of the ubiquitous paper plates and cups are more than we can ever imagine. Paper plates and cups begin as wood pulp, which are then bleached using chlorine compounds. Chlorine compounds are among the most hazardous industrial chemicals in use.
Besides, paper plates and cups that we use are not recyclable. Most manufacturers coat paper plates with materials that make them less biodegradable. That means all of them will go to landfills.
Sometimes Styrofoam disposables are referred to as paper plates, but they are made from non-renewable petrochemical products.
Try palm leaf plates for a change.
Add to this list of avoidables things like disposable pens, razors and nappies.
4. Air-conditioners
What price are we paying for cooled air? “In the past half-century, a number of big, energy-guzzling technologies have really changed our lives: automobiles,computers, television, jet aircraft. All that time, air-conditioning has been humming away in the background, like a character actor you see in a whole bunch of movies. It's never the star, but it always seems to be there moving the plot along. When I looked at the doubling in the amount of electricity used for air-conditioning homes in this country [U.S.] just since the mid-90s, I thought, we really need to address this, because it is a big contributor to greenhouse-gas release and it's going to increase the likelihood that we're going to have longer, more intense heat waves and hotter summers in the future, and we're going to have to be running the air-conditioning even more,” says Stan Cox, the author of Losing Our Cool: Uncomfortable Truths About Our Air-Conditioned World (and Finding New Ways to Get Through the Summer).
Air conditioning is a huge reason why power consumption is breaking records. In other words, we use a large part of our electricity to cool ourselves. And, “tofuel our own air conditioning, we're destroying nature's,” says Cox.
Why not try the humble fan?
5. Private transport
Here are other chilling facts. For every kilometre driven by private vehicle, people consume two to three times as much fuel as they would by public transit. And, it takes 18 litres of water to produce just one litre of petrol or diesel.
A2002 study by the Brookings Institution and the American Enterprise Institute noted that "private vehicles emit about 95 per cent more carbon monoxide, 92 per cent more volatile organic compounds and about twice as much carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxide than public vehicles for every passenger mile travelled".
Annual vehicle sales in India are projected to increase to 5 million by 2015 and more than 9 million by 2020. By 2050, the country is expected to top the world in car volumes with approximately 611 million vehicles on the nation's roads. The environmental impact of this is too large to be ignored.
Walk, ride a cycle or take public transportation whenever possible. If you have a car, give a ride to your neighbours too.
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