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more on Chennai’s water crisis

August 2, 2019 By meerasub Leave a Comment

The summer Southwest monsoon has brought some rain and momentary relief to Chennai, but the question of how to mitigate water shortages (and excesses) are not gone. After my New York Times op-ed last month, I’ve had a chance to speak about water with others interested in the story. These issues are not disappearing anytime soon. From the World Resources Institute:

New data from WRI’s Aqueduct tools reveal that 17 countries – home to one-quarter of the world’s population—face “extremely high” levels of baseline water stress, where irrigated agriculture, industries and municipalities withdraw more than 80% of their available supply on average every year.

I spoke to Mark Goldberg on the Global Dispatches Podcast. In essence, do all the small stuff first: restore wetlands, enforce rainwater catchment mandates, educate on conservation, fix leaky pipes, capture water across the landscape with small-scale systems that work with nature, and not against it. Can India develop a new 21st-century model of sustainable development? The opportunity is still there, though hard to see evidence of embracing such possibility. Listen to the podcast here:

On the BBC’s podcast Beyond Today, I spoke with host Matthew Price about the crisis. BBC’s Rajini Vaidyanathan also reported from Chennai directly. Have a listen here.

I also make a cameo appearance in this Al Jazeera The Stream news piece, featuring Veena Srinivasan, a senior fellow with Ashoka Trust, Raj Bhagat Palanichamy, a data manager with World Resources Institute India, and T.M. Krishna, a musician, artist, and activist. Watch the episode here:

And then sit back and watch/listen to T.M. Krishna’s haunting song Poromboke:

Filed Under: A River Runs Again, audio, climate change, drought, elemental india, journalism Tagged With: Chennai, climate change, india, interview, podcast, water

Conversations Across America: Talking Climate Change with Conservative Voters

November 7, 2018 By meerasub Leave a Comment

As the InsideClimate News Finding Middle Ground series nears an end, I had a chance to speak with the lovely Heather Goldstone of WCAI’s Living Lab about some of the experiences I’ve had as I traveled across the country.

Click here to listen.

Filed Under: audio, climate change, InsideClimate News, journalism Tagged With: cape cod, climate change, InsideClimate News, interview, Montana, North Dakota, politics, radio, Texas, WCAI

living on earth

October 9, 2015 By meerasub Leave a Comment

photo by Meera Subramanian

photo by Meera Subramanian

It was a pleasure to speak with Helen Palmer of PRI’s show Living on Earth about A River Runs Again, exploring questions about organic agriculture’s ability to feed humanity, how to handle ambivalent respect for well-intentioned nonprofits, and vulture survival. Here’s the intro…

Investigative journalist Meera Subramanian crisscrossed India examining its environmental problems and searching for homegrown solutions described in her new book A River Runs Again. She tells Living on Earth’s Helen Palmer that everywhere she looked, she found serious concerns, but also hope for a better future.

Listen to the 17-minute segment here.

 

Filed Under: A River Runs Again, elemental india, News Tagged With: A River Runs Again, Elemental India, india, interview, pollution environment, radio

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