Natural Environment - Question of Cities

In art, climate change is sometimes a storm,
sometimes rubble

Landscapes and nature have always been a part of the artistic oeuvre but, in the present context, how has art addressed or interacted with climate change and its complexities? Has it even? Contemporary and younger artists are finding various forms…

Learning climate change language from lived experiences

As the English-dominated climate discourse becomes more technical, thinkers and activists are responding with strategies to make it people-oriented. A lot of…

People show the media what words and languages to use

The local impacts, descriptions, and knowledge of climate change rarely make it to the national or global climate discussions. Question of Cities…

The ‘build more’ way has failed. How to build better cities?

The construction industry, India’s second-largest contributor to the national GDP, rules the roost in cities, determining housing and other basic amenities, turning…

Seeing the unseen nature amidst Mumbai’s expanding concrete

A casualty of the build more approach is the erasure of precious natural wealth. Amidst the concrete maze of Mumbai-Navi Mumbai, there…

Wayanad rebuilds but discounts people’s needs and
nature-based development

Nearly nine months after devastating landslides flattened large areas in the northern part of Wayanad district, the process of building back –…

How much has your city expanded its footprint of
built-up area?

In cities across India, people speak of how much more construction they see in familiar areas. But how much exactly has been…

Reading Guha: India’s environmental history that’s “partially usable”

India’s environmentalism did not start with the Chipko movement, says historian and author Ramachandra Guha. His latest book Speaking with Nature – The Origins of Indian Environmentalism maps three waves of environmentalism in India and focuses more on the forgotten,…

Fighting erosion, climate change in the Sundarbans

The people of the Sundarbans show how they are the force of resilience, battling cyclones, and disrupted livelihoods. Adopting nature-based solutions, they…

How urban plans can, and must, value trees

Urban development plans and master plans have traditionally seen trees as impediments to ‘development’, rarely acknowledging them as natural wealth of cities…