'Managing carbon vital in climate change control'

“The effective management of Carbon will decide the success of regulating climate change or global warming. Shifting to a development paradigm which is sustainable with nature can only save the planet from the alacrity of soaring mercury,” noted Dr S M Kulkarni, faculty at the department of Mechanical Engineering, NITK Surathkal.

He was delivering a talk on ‘Climate change and waste recycling’ organised by The institution of Engineers, Institution of valuers and Kodagu, DK, Udupi Engineers association here on Tuesday.

Kulkarni emphasized that on an average, an individual is adding 94 lb of Carbon per day to earth’s atmosphere.

Cutting down emission of green house gases such as Carbon dioxide, Methane, Nitrous Oxide, CFC is the way towards sustainable development.

Production of more fuel-efficient vehicles, reduction of individual vehicle use and promoting public transporting system, reducing deforestation, promoting solar energy etc will enhance sustainable development, he stressed.

He said that of the global consumers, USA consumes 40 pc of more energy than average individual use.

Power generation tops

Speaking on the different segments that add carbon to the environment, he said that electricity generation tops the chart of rapidly adding global warming.

“Around 21.3 per cent of the addition of Carbon has been from power generation which is followed by vehicles, industry, agriculture, commercial and residential segments.”

“Packaging, storage and transportation needs carbon. If one is packing a food item and sends it to far off places for selling, the entire process is adding up carbon thus enhancing global warming. On the other hand, if one is consuming a local made product, which doesn’t need packaging, transportation and storage facilities, that much emission of carbon is avoided,” Kulkarni pointed.

Carbon footprint

The Carbon Footprint is defined as the sets of green house gas emissions caused by an organisation, event product or a person. Kulkarni explained that everyone has a Carbon Footprint and reducing it to a maximum is the need of the hour.

“A healthy environment, economy and healthy society marks sustainable development. Any approach towards reduction of Carbon Footprint is contributing towards sustainable development.”

He explained that the successful experiment conducted at NITK Surathkal where PET bottles were recycled to manufacture another product without adding carbon to the atmosphere.

“We used crushed PET bottles mixed with fly ash and LDPE, put the mixture in a mould and produced a component used in toys, a perfect example of using technology without harming environment,” Kulkarni said.