Festival: Carbon Dioxide and Global Warming

Durga Puja is one of the auspicious occasion celebrated with great enthusiasm across India. In modern times, festivals are getting commercialized and taking the shape of pomp and show. Different communities set huge gigantic and attractive bright idols in order to compete with other communities. This all leads to major problem of environment pollution. Idols made by non biodegradable material and toxic paints contaminate water making it unfit for survival of aquatic life and drinking purposes.

The material used for idols like Plaster of Paris (POP) is mainly the compound of gypsum, sulphur, phosphorus and magnesium. Chemical paints comprise of mercury, cadmium, lead and carbon. Immersion of idols with such poisonous and toxic elements raises the level of acidity, solid matter, organic matter and heavy metals in water bodies. These materials don’t dissolve readily and lowers the oxygen level in water adversely affecting the aquatic life.

In order to come out of such problems and enjoy festival with the same spirit, devotees themselves should give a serious thought over the methods of celebrations and should turn to Eco friendly idols for their celebrations. Even Government should also take a step towards this burning issue and set strict guidelines for craftsmen to use Eco-friendly materials and organic paints.

After a year of waiting, Diwali arrived. Everyone’s house would be lighted up with lamps & joy. Almost everyone loves celebrating Diwali. Though I’m an atheist, I also like this festival as it lights up the world. But along with bit happiness for the arrival of Diwali, I get lots of worry every year. Whatever you say, Diwali, along with bunch of other festivals & functions, are tagged with some key words – crackers, pollutions, global warming & noise. However we celebrate this Diwali; we can’t remove these tags from the festival.
I remember last year I had posted a post on why not to use crackers in Diwali & other festivals. Do you remember that? It was – Is Diwali transforming from the festival of light & joy to the festival of pollution & destruction? : Diwali special. In that post, I had explained in details how firecracker, which is generally ignored as the cause of global warming, is affecting our climate & contributing to global warming. I don’t know if you’ve stopped using cracker by reading that post. Or even if you’ve ever gone through it completely!! But whether one ignores its bad effects or not, it’ll certainly contribute to the world climate change, & the unfortunate fact is that we can easily stop using crackers without any problem & reduce CO2 emission, but despite this, we’re wasting millions on it every year without any meaning & hurting the planet.
As the world is getting more & more educated & civilized, we’re doing more & more meaningless & uncivilized works. Today, using cracker is becoming a fashion. Millions are spent on this worthless garbage stuff. Bursting crackers is turning to a competition & a status indicator. Many people feel proud to show off their wealth by investing thousands or even lakhs on this non-sense stuff. Though I’ve used Diwali here as it’s a major event in India when considerable amount of crackers are used, in almost every event today, we wildly use crackers. I really don’t understand why even educated persons do not understand the ill effects of global warming. It’s a SHAME on our education.
Many of you may think why I am behind crackers so much. The reason is that crackers are something which, if we don’t use, will not affect our daily lives anyway. It’s nothing more than garbage. Then, why to use such a thing & hurt the entire planet & ourselves?
It is estimated that the annual U.S. carbon dioxide emissions from fireworks is 60,340 tonsor the same emissions from 12,000 cars on the road for a year!! If one suggests that planting trees is a solution, then, please be informed that it’d take the entire lifetime of 5,000 treesto offset the 60,000 tons of carbon emissions produced in this one day!! Not only it pollutes the environment, it also causes many deadly air-borne diseases. It releases carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide to the atmosphere with serious health hazards.
Despite knowing all these things, why to use crackers? As discussed in Is Diwali transforming from the festival of light & joy to the festival of pollution & destruction? : Diwali special, other sources of global warming are those which are important for our living or to fulfill our basic needs. Most of the causes of global warming are energy producers without which we can’t live. In fact, researches are going on on producing eco-friendly energy sources. When we’re uniting together to save this planet from global warming, then, why to put this garbage stuff in the equation?
The only condition for using crackers is the eco-friendly, carbon free, noiseless crackers which don’t affect us anyway. Still, it’s economically a waste, as it gives only ashes, & its prices are soaring up.
However you describe the ill effects of crackers, every time you’d get something very bad or simply, worst. Crackers are unnoticeably affecting all of us. We should understand what it’s doing & how it’ll threaten our very existence in future. Governments should take it very seriously & should: * ban the production of crackers * enforce laws on its production, sales, use, & advertisement * popularize the idea of not using crackers among public
There’re a lot of causes of global warming & pollution. All the other sources are important for our living despite their ill effects. But cracker is absolutely nothing more than garbage. Be smart, be civilized, use your knowledge, don’t worry about what others think, don’t care about society, & DON’T USE CRACKER.
With all these, wish you all a happy Diwali. Celebrate Diwali & all the other festivals & events in eco-friendly way without using crackers. Share this message with others & contribute towards a safer & healthier earth.

A visit to a doctor after the festival of colours is common in India. Diseases, specially of the skin and eye are bound to happen with the quality of colours that are now available in the market.

It may be noted that chemical colours came into vogue as they were earlier thought to be harmless. Besides their being convenient and cost effective options as against the natural colours. These days manufacturers mix harmful chemicals in colours and play with the health of the consumers for the sake of profit. The chemicals added by them are so injurious that if unfortunately they enter a human body, they may cause fatal infections.

These days most Holi colours sold in the market are oxidized metals or industrial dyes mixed with engine oil. These chemicals are known to cause serious harm to persons health.

For example -
Green colour is obtained from copper sulphate -which may cause allergies in eye or even temporary blindness.

Purple is obtained from chromium iodide - which may cause bronchial asthma or other forms of allergy.

Silver is obtained from aluminum bromide - a known carcinogenic.

Black is obtained from lead oxide - may cause renal failures or learning disability.

Red is obtained from mercury sulphite - may cause skin cancer or Minamata disease (mental retardation, paralysis, impaired vision...)

Shiny Colours are a result of powdered glass being added to the colours.

Besides, many water colours have an alkaline base capable of causing severe injuries. Colours in the form of pastes have toxic compounds mixed in a base of engine oil or other inferior quality oil, capable of causing skin allergy, temporary blindness.

Further, when washed, these colours containing toxic chemicals enter the river, thereby soil and water pollution.

Even the way we play Holi is becoming dangerous. Throwing water filled balloons has become rampant, which is very harmful. People should realise, what is fun for them could cause injury to the eyes and ears to the other person, specially when thrown from a distance and with force.

People must realise that the colours have been added to Holi to make the festival more joyous and enjoyable and not to cause inconvenience to others. So, next time you play with colours use good quality or natural colours and play according to the convenience of others.