THE GLOBAL AND THE LOCAL

It is clear that the city of Kathmandu cannot depend upon drinking water ferried on fossil fuel tankers, although the current government has embraced this model as a permanent one. Not only do the millions of trips made per month foul the already polluted air, it also adds hugely to poor people’s water and health bills. Nepal Parliament must pass a resolution which makes it mandatory for landlords to provide water to residents before they rent a room. In Kathmandu, landlords are rapidly putting up buildings with no running water, kitchen, toilets or electricity provided. These rooms are rented from Rs.5000 to Rs.10,000 each. The women renting them are often single mothers whose husbands are in the Gulf. The women manage their finances and run their household by holding down small jobs. They do domestic work, construction, laundry and other part-time work while taking care of school-going children. Trying to source water from tankers or plastic canisters can be a serious burden o

Annapurna Express, January 10, 2020 Australia is on fire. Who is to blame for the millions of acres burnt to cinder, the lives lost and properties destroyed, the almost half billion animals killed? Australia is a major producer and user of fossil fuel. Australia Energy Update 2018, from Australian Government’s Department of Environment and Energy (energy.gov.au), says coal, oil and gas accounted for 94 per cent of Australia's primary energy mix in 2016–17. Sixty-three percent of electricity was generated from coal. Out of this, 11% was from brown coal, a source of energy environmental activists have long opposed due to its harmful health and ecological effects. Coal mining releases methane, a potent greehouse gas which is one of the main causes of global heating. Scott Morrison, Prime Minister of Australia, brought a lump of coal to Parliament in 2017. He sang the virtues of coal and its links to Australian prosperity, and said: “those opposite have an ideological,