The Bangalore Pollution Control Board is out with the stats and its bad news. The CO2 emisison in the city has doubled to 2.36 million tonnes from 1997 – 2006. Another bad news to hit Bangalore now.

‘Bangalore – A Retiring Man’s Paradise’ is what they used to call it. But it seems to be more of an oxymoron! these days! A city that is known as the Garden City is fast metamorphising into an Urban blackhole that is collapsing under its own mass!

Back to the point here… Pollution is rising and stats split says its 56% from two wheelers, that does not take into account the fact that the number of 2 wheelers far outnumber 4 wheelers.

Bangalore which has got a diamond crown by being called the Silicon Valley of India sadly is listed. My carbon footprint offsetting calculator tells me that the cost of offsetting this huge baggage of CO2 is about 11 million pounds. Now enough of numbers and some problem solving to be done here, folks!

What you can do about it:

1. Use company buses (buses have the highest PCU’s)
2. Strongly and actively engage in car pooling (lots of sites offer this service these days)
3. If you can, optimize the usage of ACs
4. Switch monitors off and for those on bench, you are better off at the cafeteria rather than the system :)
5. Use energy saver bulbs when given an option
6. Switch off your vehicle at the signal if it’s going to take more than 1.4 minutes (if you are driving a car with Bharat stage 3), else 2 minutes.

Last but not the least: Don’t crib about the Nano! (let the Governmant decide about the policy). Buy one if you plan to… but give lift to 3 people when you drive it.