Word: ramanathan
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...India's other big cities, seemed new. They resolved to demand more from their politicians - better services and real accountability - and from themselves. Instead of just dusting themselves off and getting back to work, many promised to complain less, volunteer more and take the trouble to vote. Swati Ramanathan, whose Bangalore-based group Janaagraha led an ambitious national voter-registration drive, told me shortly before the general elections earlier this year that the attacks had jolted India's cities out of complacency. "The tide is turning," she said...
...India - including its villages - needs cities that work. Ramanathan, for one, is trying to organize neighborhood-watch committees in Mumbai, an effort slowed considerably by the resistance of the local police. To revitalize India's cities, the country needs a new vision of itself - and a government committed to the hard work of making it real...
...atmosphere is 96% CO2, is over 400°C, or 750°F.) By contrast, black carbon in the air actually absorbs sunlight as it comes from space, directly heating up the atmosphere. "The soot particles are like the parts of a blanket, and it's getting thicker," says Ramanathan. "The smoke absorbs sunlight and heats the blanket directly." (Read "COP15: Climate Change Conference...
...combustion remains prominent. (In developed countries like the U.S., there's much less burning of biomass and any diesel combustion tends to be much cleaner, as the clearing skies over major U.S. cities demonstrate.) Though India is responsible for less than 3% of global greenhouse-gas emissions, according to Ramanathan it is responsible for about 6% of global black-carbon emissions, give or take a significant margin of error. India and other developing countries rightly argue that rich nations are responsible for the majority of carbon already in the atmosphere, and should therefore take the lead on cutting emissions...
...cannot be ignored. Black carbon is already having an impact on the ice atop the Himalayas, the massive glaciers that feed the major rivers of Asia when they melt each spring. Thanks to global warming, these glaciers are receding, threatening the long-term water supplies for the region. Ramanathan, Wilcox and an Indian glaciologist Syed Iqbal Hasnain are working to figure out the impact of black carbon on glacial loss. Beyond warming the atmosphere, black carbon can also speed the melting of glaciers by literally turning them black - soot on snow makes the ice heat up faster. "When black carbon...