Dear Tunza Friends,

I would like to share with you about  EEG's 11th Community Lecture for the year 2013 which happened yesterday. This was the last lecture of this year.

The lecture started with keynote address by EEG's chairperson Ms. Habiba who emphasized the alarming consequences of Climate Change and the need to wake up for environment conservation and reducing our carbon footprint.  She rightly pointed out that it's all due to Global warming that today the places (in Europe etc) which should have WHITE CHRISTMAS are having BRIGHT/ SUNNY / SHINING CHRISTMAS and whereas places like Lebanon , Syria , Egypt , Saudi Arabia which are a part of Hot Middle Eastern region are seeing snow in past few days.

She also emphasized the need to be mindful of our food wastage. I totally agree with her that we should NEVER NEVER waste food. The world produces enough to feed the entire global population of 7 billion people. And yet, one person in eight on the planet goes to bed hungry each night. In some countries, one child in three is underweight. There are many reasons for the presence of hunger in the world , Food wastage is one of the major reasons .

One third of all food produced (1.3 billion tons) is never consumed. This food wastage represents a missed opportunity to improve global food security in a world where one in 8 is hungry.

Producing this food also uses up precious natural resources that we need to feed the planet. Each year, food that is produced but not eaten guzzles up a volume of water equivalent to the annual flow of Russia's Volga River. Producing this food also adds 3.3 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, with consequences for the climate and, ultimately, for food production.

She rightly said that she and EEG looks upto we , the students to bring a positive change as students can influence their parents  and can contribute to curbing the well known Global warming. When we go to supermarket we should think what we are buying , from where we are buying and why we are buying(Is there a real need?). She concluded her speech by wishing all of us a Happy New Year and by saying " Let's all act in beautiful , matured and responsible manner in the New Year."

Then started the film screening of  CHASING ICE. This film is amazing . Basically this film lets you follow National Geographic  / environmental photographer James Balog across the Arctic as he deploys time-lapse cameras designed for one purpose: to capture a multi-year record of the world's changing landscapes especially glaciers.

In the spring of 2005, James Balog headed to the Arctic on a tricky assignment for National Geographic: to capture images to help tell the story of the Earth?s changing climate. Even with a scientific upbringing, Balog had been a skeptic about climate change. But that first trip north opened his eyes to the biggest story in human history and sparked a challenge within him that would put his career and his very well-being at risk.

Chasing Ice is the story of one man's mission to change the tide of history by gathering undeniable evidence of our changing planet. Within months of that first trip to Iceland, the photographer conceived the boldest expedition of his life: The Extreme Ice Survey. With a band of young adventurers in tow, Balog began deploying revolutionary time-lapse cameras across the brutal Arctic to capture a multi-year record of the world?s changing glaciers.

As the debate polarizes America and the intensity of natural disasters ramps up globally, Balog finds himself at the end of his tether. Battling untested technology in subzero conditions, he comes face to face with his own mortality. It takes years for Balog to see the fruits of his efforts. His videos compress years into seconds and capture ancient mountains of ice in motion as they disappear at a breathtaking rate. Chasing Ice depicts a photographer trying to deliver evidence and hope to our carbon-powered planet.

It was exciting to see EIS Engineers (EIS:Extreme Ice Survey) placing their cameras to capture the calving/retreating of glaciers. Glaciers were disappearing so fast that photographer  had to re-aim his cameras just to follow their rapid decline.

I would like to share with you about " Calving which I learnt yesterday.

Calves aren't always born to living creatures. Glaciers, enormous, slow-growing and slow-moving ice sheets found in the icy regions of the world also go through a process called calving to produce their babies, which are called, not calves, but icebergs. A combination of factors, including glacier movement and other stresses, causes huge chunks to separate from the ice cliff where the glacier meets water (ocean or lake) with a thundering crash and a dramatic splash. The new baby iceberg may be as large as some islands. Once separated from its parent glacier, it drifts away. In the sea, it's carried on ocean currents potentially to become a menace to navigation until warmer weather and water cause it to melt and disappear.

After the film , all of us were convinced that Climate Change not only is real and happening but also is very powerful. If we don?t act now , the pace at which plants & animals are getting extinct , we may have mass extinction in next years . Mass extinction is when half  or 3/4th of  the  no. of species we have today , will extinct.

Tomorrow when our children ask us "when this global warming was happening what were you doing" , we want to say "I did the best I could". So let's wake up and act and spread the message , be an inspiration for others.