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65% of Indian population is rural and almost all of them are linked to agriculture, horticulture and pisciculture for their livelihoods. They are absolutely dependent on nature economy and affected disproportionately higher by climate change. They may not contribute large amount of GDP, but the the sheer volume of population in distress is alarming. States tend to think that there is no budget for climate adaptation and feel helpless too.

Wastepickers are the gatekeepers of plastic pollution. The plastic wastes they do not pick up are leaked to the environment. But policymakers working towards banning plastics never consulted this important stakeholders. Chintan conducted a research among wastepickers in Delhi, Pune, Indore and Nainital on importance of plastics on their livelihoods and their perception about plastics.

Everybody got super-concerned about plastics in 2018. It was the theme for the World Environment Day. But a campaign to 'Ban Plastics' does not work at all. Plastics are too entangled with our lives and economy. Ban plastics? What will the farmers do? Most of the implements are made of plastics now. What will happen to the healthcare industry? Imagine a world of disposable glass syringes!

This is a companion to the book on understanding global issues around plastics.

This was a fun project. We were given a paper, and we had to turn it into a palatable book. The following is what we understood reading this paper.

DamageControl undertook the task of raising awareness about electronic waste among the youth -- a target audience that perhaps uses and will be using electronic gadgets most. Bearing in mind the youth’s resistance to preachy advise, we chose a comic book as the medium, with text, illustrations, photos and graphics.

The economic growth fuelled by rapid increase in consumption and production has a suicidal
element. The resources for production are limited and a lot of them are already dwindling. In the near future, their dearth will give rise to conflicts and create a crisis for the economy. But we cannot stop the rapid consumption of resources in one day.

The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity [TEEB] is a global initiative to put a right price
to ecology and its services. One may argue that economic valuation of ecology is absurd, but
this probably the best way to present ecology to a materialistic society.
TEEB’s India programme looked at 12 cases, landscapes and species to look at valuation that

'Pick My Trash' is almost like an art project.

Climate bureaucrats talk in Latin. Official documents are full of abbreviations, brackets and textual gymnastics. No wonder common people of the world has no clue about these negotiations. More importantly, even the negotiators from developing and least developed countries find it difficult negotiate through this text and make informed interjections to safeguard the interest of their respective countries. Maybe it is an intended design.