Copyright © HT Digital Streams Limit all rights reserved. From toxic chemical residues to the use of child labor for harvest, the famous Shahi Litchi of Bihar is a basket case of everything that can go wrong with a premium fruit. (Photo: Sayantan Bera) Summary This issue of Mint’s climate change and your newsletter discusses pesticide residues in fresh produce, the pre-monsoon Deluge and continuous heatwave, and fast fashion choices by Gen Z Climate Change & You are a two-week newsletter written by Bike Bhattacharya and Sayantan Bera. Subscribe to Mint’s newsletters to get it directly into your inbox. Dear reader, I traveled to North -Bihar last month to take a closer look at two of India’s most popular summer fruit, Litchi and Mango. Rajendra Prasad Central Agricultural University in Pusa, Samastipur, holds a national seminar on Litchi and Litchi Honey that was an eye opener. Scientists were honest to admit that the orchards, despite the heritage and pride associated with the famous rose -floor -fragrant Shahi Litchi of Bihar, are in a state of despair. Unwilling to carry climate and market risks, owners and absent landlords sell their harvesting months to contractors. The contractors use a cocktail chemicals to manage pests and maximize yields without taking care of the overall well -being of orchards. Some insecticides are deadly to pollinators such as bees, and excess use is harming fruit yields and honey production. Most lychis will not pass the standards for exporting pesticides for export to Western markets. Bihar farmers sell in good years for the price of potatoes- it is a tragedy. Meanwhile, the urban consumer pays a solid price to buy the fruits, unaware of the toxic chemical residues they take. The story is not very different for mangoes-one can no longer be sure that the fruits naturally ripen and remain. Concerns are many Indian consumers not aware of the residue of pesticides in primary agricultural products, be it grains, pulses, fruits or vegetables. During my travels, I met farmers who grow vegetables for their own kitchen without using chemical input – for crops such as okra and brinjal – in separate, smaller plots. Many people would not consume the other products they grow themselves in the market. Those who are part of the farm supply chain know about high pesticide residues in fresh produce – which is exacerbated by a warmer climate that leads to higher pest infestation. But all this is kept under the casing. We only seem to take note when exports in developed markets are red flag. This has happened repeatedly, about products such as rice, tea and spices. State of the Climate View Full Image Floodwaters in Kongba, Imhal East, on June 3, 2025. (Photo: AFP) Late last month, several Indian cities went underwater to extreme rain. The list contains Mumbai, Bengaluru and Guwahati. More than forty died after flooding in the North East. Experts have blamed abnormally high sea level temperature and depression over the bay of Bengal. Compared to the 50-year-old average, the month of May has seen 106% more rainfall for the entire country. The annual monsoon in June-September arrived early this year and saw a 33%deficit by June 10. Just after this flood, the focus shifted to the dreaded summer heat. Parts of Central and Northern India are now in the grip of a heat wave that extends over Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Delhi and the Jammu region. Residents of the national capital usually flock to the hillside to escape the heat. But also Himachal Pradesh is in the grip of a serious heat wave with a maximum temperature that crosses 42 degrees Celsius in Una and 35 degrees in the popular tourist destination of Dharamshala on June 10. Parts of the adjacent hill state Uttarakhand are also witness to high temperatures with Dehradun, the capital, which recorded a maximum temperature of 39 degrees on Monday. The news is briefly the full image illegal dumping of garbage, construction and demolition waste in Aravallis near Jalalpur Village, in Gurugram in May. (Photo: HT) It is important if you live in the national capital: a green wall project is underway to restore the Aravallis, among the oldest mountain ranges in India. One goal of the project is to stop the constant desertification of the northern plain, which is filled with cities such as Gurugram, Delhi and Noida in dust blanket with dirty air. Rivers that originated in the Himalayas are a lifeline for millions. What will happen if glaciers who have these rivers retreat? It is a story of a haven of one glacier over the past 25 years. Obituaries often end up as Paeans, but here is a fair assessment of nature conservationist Valmik Thapar and his work on Tigers. Check out a more critical one here (related to the rights of indigenous forest residents) and some photos from Thapar’s book, Tiger Fire. The annual monsoon that once inspired poetry and music became unique, with the prospect of relieving a grueling summer making room for anxiety. Cut off on the rhythms of nature and depend on ominous urban infrastructure, we are now looking at the air with sadness, writes Shalini Umachandran. Climate change Tracker widespread use of pesticides and fertilizers, lights and chemical pollution, habitat loss and the growth of industrial agriculture has led to a drastic drop in insect population. Scientists now see a new phenomenon: a catastrophic collapse of insect populations in protected areas such as forests. Global warming seems to be the culprit. David Wagner, an entomologist who spent his life documenting insect diversity, recently returned empty -handed. “I just returned from Texas, and it was the most unsuccessful journey I’ve ever undertaken … there was just no insect life to talk about.” And it wasn’t just the insects that were missing. “Everything was brittle, fried; The lizard numbers were down to the lowest numbers I could ever remember. And then the things that lizards eat were not present – I didn’t see a single snake all the time. ‘ Know your jargon fast fashion view full image The Gen Z in India says they want to care more about the planet, but they also want to look cool. (Photo: Mint) Quick fashion can be described as fast -made and cheap priced garments that copy the latest styles. The products are hurriedly pushed into the stores to encompass the current trends. The target is to shorten the lead time of a product, from design to purchase. The term ‘fast fashion’ was created in the 1990s to describe the rapid production system of Zara that was later adopted by other brands. The fast fashion industry has a major environmental footprint – because it uses large amounts of water, except to pollute rivers and seas. If consumer dumps clothes after wearing it several times, contributes to the falling. The fashion choices of Gen Z in India, a 300 million consumer group, are not very planetary friendly. Because for every Greta Thunberg, thousands of trends are chasing their cabinets with quick fashion. Prime Number 14 US-based businesses have canceled or delayed more than $ 14 billion in clean energy and clean vehicle factories since January, according to an assessment by E2, a coalition of business leaders and investors. This was due to increasing fear of the future of federal clean energy policy and tax credits. As per E2, businesses in April alone canceled $ 4.5 billion worth of investments in new battery, electric vehicle and wind projects before the US home’s transition from a massive tax and spending package- called the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill Act’. Movie of the Month View Full Image “Flow” is an Oscar award-winning eco-fabel about a lonely cat navigating to a post-apocalyptic world. Gints Zilbalodis’s “flow” is an Oscar-winning eco-fabel about a lonely cat navigating to a post-apocalyptic world. This Lats animation is produced with a small team and free software. It is a silent film, and it resists anthropomorphism: the animals do not speak in human tongue. The works draw emotional depth of a cat traveling in a weathered sailboat with an unlikely crew – a lemur, a capybara, a labrador and a bird. ‘Flow’ Investigate climate collapse, cooperation and resilience and remind us that nature, not people, can have the final word. That’s all, for now. Bibek is back with the next issue within two weeks. Catch all the business news, market news, news reports and latest news updates on Live Mint. Download the Mint News app to get daily market updates. More Topics #Climate Change #heatwave Read Next Story
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