Bangalore: Technology promotes consumerism rather than environment preservation, said H.C. Sharatchandra, Chairman, Karnataka State Pollution Control Board.

He was speaking after inaugurating the second international conference on "Towards a greener era: interdisciplinary approaches", organised by the Acharya Institute of Management and Sciences and the Organisation for Studies in Literature and Environment — India, here on Friday.

Dr. Sharatchandra said the improvement in technology and quality of life had led to overexploitation of natural resources. "We have failed to integrate environment preservation in our development projects. We need to use our natural resources judiciously. Sustainable development has become the need of the hour and can no longer remain a theory," he said.

Suresh Heblikar, chairman, Eco-Watch, a non-governmental organisation, said the world leaders should get together and take a re-look at economic goals. "The megalomania mindset is mainly responsible for environmental degradation. The city planners across the world have no environment consciousness," he said.

He said that a study recently showed that the meat industry was contributing towards global warming. "The livestock is being fed fish meat for which intensive deep water fishing activities have increased. Large tracts of land in Latin America have been razed and soya bean is being cultivated. The study has shown that all these have contributed towards global warming," he added.

The need of the hour was to have an interdisciplinary approach to tackle global warming and protect the environment, said D. Narasimhan of the Department of Plant Biology and Biotechnology, Madras Christian College, and Advisor, OSLE-India Conference. He said, "With out lifestyle become more energy-dependent, we are pumping a lot of carbon into the atmosphere. Carbon emissions has increased from 580 billion tonnes before the Industrial Revolution to 750 billion tonnes now. As much as 400 years of carbon is burnt in three years, which three times or more since 1950.

"Carbon emission levels have exceeded far higher than the absorbing capacities of green cover. Out of 368 billion tonnes of carbon emitted from 1850-1995, only 208 billion tonnes has been absorbed," he added.

Jean Jacques Braun, chairman of the Indo-French Cell for Water Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, spoke about the activities of the cell. He spoke about the projects taken up by both IISc. and the Institute de Recherche pour le Developpement, France. He said that the over-exploitation of soil and water resources was posing several hazards.

Nirmal Selvamony, president of OSLE-India, and Kiran Reddy, principal and chief executive officer, AIMS, spoke.

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