The Maharashtra government lifted the stay order on the construction of the controversial Mumbai Metro Line 3 car shed at Aarey Colony on Thursday, 21 07 22. It is to be noted that the stay on the same was issued by former Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray after he assumed office in November 2019.
The Deputy Chief Minister, Devendra Fadnavis commented that the opposition to the car shed at Aarey was political in nature and there were vested interests involved who didn’t want the car shed at Aarey, where substantial work had already been completed.
What is Ill Intention? To protect the environment or to destroy it? To find ways for sustainable development or to cut forests in the garb of development? To preserve the Mithi flood plains or to destroy them? To ensure good air quality or to destroy carbon sequestering forests? To protect tribal rights or to confiscate their lands and render them hopeless? To make provision for the proliferation of biodiversity or to usurp their habitat? We request Mr Fadnavis to produce proof that common citizens right from students, senior citizens, housewives, and professionals who are protesting for saving Aarey have any ‘ill intentions’.
The activists and environmentalists fighting to save Aarey have proposed technically and financially viable alternatives to Aarey forest for building the metro car shed. Instead of co-creating the development pathway with the inputs of civil society which is the fundamental basis of democracy, the government chooses to gaslight, malign, and abuse civil society in order to benefit the real estate lobby. This is a form of ‘hidden autocracy’ where there the suppression of independent voices is hidden with the logic from manipulated data and advice from sycophant experts. The mass is made to perceive the revolution as treason thus, discouraging them to think, fight, and revolt. This strategy may be successful with government lobbying of complex public policies but the matter of saving Mumbai’s green lungs falls beyond the purview of the ‘hidden autocracy’. It is a straightforward case where even a simpleton cannot argue the prospects of saving a forest in a highly polluted metropolitan city when other alternatives are available.
Mr Fadnavis also had the audacity to say that it is because of the environmentalists Mumbai is spending every day in pollution. They delay Metro 3 project which is the solution to Mumbai’s pollution crisis. First Metro doesn’t absorb pollution but it is predicted to reduce pollution emitted by vehicular traffic. Trees, on the other hand, absorb pollutant gases (nitrogen oxides, ammonia, sulfur dioxide and ozone), sequester carbon dioxide, and filter particulates out of the air by trapping them on their leaves and bark. Metro operation will release greenhouse gas emissions every day because the service consumes electricity for traction, lighting, air-conditioning, escalators and other facilities. Who will absorb this pollution created by the Metro? Aarey forest of course.
Forests break up the urban heat, release water, and keep the cities cool. Can Metro keep temperatures low like tress and provide respite to Mumbaikars who are fighting the heatwave and soaring temperatures? Against the world’s average of 7 trees per person, Mumbai has only 1 tree between four people. Can Mumbai afford to lose its tree cover? (The trees in Aarey are not standalone trees but forest trees that have more capacity to fight pollution than their standalone counterparts)
It is about time that politicians take activism as a coherence to the governance and not as a threat.
https://eco-intelligent.com/2020/05/23/why-is-it-cooler-around-trees/