All of the Amazon’s splendid greenery. Every fish in the Pacific. Every microbe underfoot. Every elephant on the plains, every flower, fungus, and fruit-fly in the fields, no longer outweighs the sheer amount of stuff humans have made.
Estimates on the total mass of human-made material suggest 2020 is the year we overtake the combined dry weight of every living thing on Earth.
Go back to a time before humans first took to ploughing fields and tending livestock, and you’d find our planet was coated in a biosphere that weighed around 2 x 10^12 tonnes.
Thanks in no small part to our habit of farming, mining, and building highways where forests once grew, this figure has now halved.
According to a small team of environmental researchers from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, the mass of items constructed by humans – everything from skyscrapers to buttons – has grown so much, this year could be the point when biomass and mass production match up.
The exact timing of this landmark event depends on how we define the exact point a chunk of rock or drop of crude oil changes from natural resource to manufactured item.
But given we’re currently rearranging roughly 30 gigatonnes of nature into anything from IKEA bookcases to luxury apartments each year (a rate that’s been doubling every 20 years since the early 1900s), such fuzziness will be arbitrary soon enough.
Key components of dry biomass and anthropogenic mass in the year 2020. (Elhacham et al., Nature, 2020)
The researchers draw our attention to this depressing moment in history as a symbol of our growing dominance over the planet.
“Beyond biomass, as the global effect of humanity accelerates, it is becoming ever more imperative to quantitatively assess and monitor the material flows of our socioeconomic system, also known as the socio-economic metabolism,” the researchers write in their report.
Concern over society’s metaphorical expanding waistline isn’t new. Researchers have been crunching the numbers on humanity’s gluttony for energy and raw materials for years.
When it comes to calculating the mass of resources being gobbled up by our industrial complexes, past studies have generally focussed their estimates on primary productivity.
This isn’t really all that surprising. From mowing down forests for agriculture to plundering the oceans for their fish stocks, we’re increasingly aware that our hunger for T-bone steaks and convenient tins of tuna in spring water comes at a great ecological cost.
While it’s important to keep the greener parts of our environment in mind, this study shows why our insatiable hunger for sand, concrete, and asphalt shouldn’t be ignored, given the contribution infrastructure makes to our overall consumption.
“The anthropogenic mass, whose accumulation is documented in this study, does not arise out of the biomass stock but from the transformation of the orders-of-magnitude higher stock of mostly rocks and minerals,” the team notes.
The numbers can be hard to visualise. If the total mass of all humans exceeds 300 million tonnes, we could say there’s another 3.8 tonnes of cookware, jumbo jets, microwaves and backyard swimming pools on Earth each year for every single one of us.
Yet not all of us have an equal share in the benefits of this growth, nor do we all have the same influence over it.
Given our obsession with economic growth plays a major factor in our increasing rate of consumption, slowing it down will require rethinking the very foundations of how we function as a global society.
The prognosis of a future that’s more concrete than forest is far from novel. But with 2020 serving as a symbolic crossroads into a new epoch of human consumption, there’s no better time to act.
Com a loucura fingindo que isso é normal, a água começou a ser negociada na última segunda-feira, 7, na Nasdaq, no mercado futuro de commodities, como o petróleo e o ouro.
O nome do índice é Nasdaq Veles California Water, que, segundo a Nasdaq, “oferece maior transparência e soluções inovadoras de gestão de risco para os indivíduos e entidades que dependem dos mercados de água para alinhar a oferta e a procura”.
O ticker é NQH2O e, na segunda, 1.233 metros cúbicos de água valiam no mercado futuro US$ 486,53, fechando o dia com valorização de 1,06%. Por mais que vinculado à precificação das reservas de água da Califórnia, a tendência é que o NQH2O seja usado como referência para o resto do mundo.
“Em períodos de condições hidrológicas secas e oferta limitada de água, o índice responde à pressão de alta sobre o preço. A mesma relação é verdadeira em períodos de condições hidrológicas úmidas e excesso de oferta de água”, informa ainda a Nasdaq.
O “conceito original para indexação do preço da água” é um oferecimento da Nasdaq em parceria com a Veles Water, “empresa de produtos financeiros especializada em precificação da água, produtos financeiros da água, além de metodologias econômicas e financeiras da água”.
“Os futuros” do Nasdaq Veles California Water Index são negociados por meio do CME Group, vulgo Bolsa de Chicago. Em seu site, o CME Group participa que o NQH2O é “uma solução clara para a gestão de risco do preço da água. Agora disponível”.
Insípida, inodora, incolor e produto financeiro “agora disponível” para os fundos globais de investimento.
Intervenção artística com desenhos de Joseca Yanomami marca a entrega da petição #ForaGarimpoForaCovid a deputados federais e demais autoridades
Por Oswaldo Braga de Souza*
Poesia e política se somaram no encerramento da campanha #ForaGarimpoForaCovid, liderada pelo Fórum de Lideranças Yanomami e Ye’kwana. Para marcar o fim do capítulo mais recente da luta dos indígenas pela expulsão dos mais de 20 mil garimpeiros de suas terras, os coordenadores da Hutukara Associação Yanomami, Dário Kopenawa e Maurício Ye’kwana, entregaram a representantes do Parlamento brasileiro um abaixo-assinado com quase 440 mil assinaturas de apoiadores em todo o mundo.
À noite, em uma intervenção artística inédita, frases em defesa da floresta e desenhos dos xapiri, os espíritos Yanomami, foram projetados na fachada do Congresso por quase duas horas. As ilustrações são do artista Joseca Yanomami e o texto é do líder indigena Davi Kopenawa.
*Consulte a ficha ténica abaixo
Os xapiri são os espíritos que auxiliam os xamãs em seu árduo trabalho de manter o equilíbrio do mundo e o próprio céu em seu lugar. São figuras centrais na cosmologia Yanomami, e se materializam para os xamãs como os espíritos dos animais, das árvores, das águas, de tudo o que existe na Urihi a, a “terra-floresta”, conceito Yanomami que engloba a floresta e todos os seus habitantes físicos e metafísicos.
O objetivo da campanha é exigir a retirada de milhares de garimpeiros da Terra Indígena (TI) Yanomami (AM/RR) para impedir a disseminação da Covid-19, a contaminação do solo e dos rios e o degradação florestal. O garimpo está espalhando a doença na área, segundo relatório produzido pelo Fórum de Lideranças Yanomami e Ye’kwana e a Rede Pró-Yanomami e Ye’kwana, também encaminhado aos parlamentares.
Mais de um terço das 26,7 mil pessoas que moram na TI foi exposto ao novo coronavírus e o número de casos confirmados saltou de 335 para 1,2 mil, entre agosto e outubro, um aumento de mais de 250%, ainda conforme o levantamento. Apesar disso, menos de 5% da população foi testada.
A petição foi apresentada numa reunião virtual das frentes parlamentares de defesa dos direitos indígenas e ambientalista, com a presença de deputados federais e senadores. O evento foi organizado para discutir o aumento do garimpo e seus impactos nos territórios yanomami, kayapó e munduruku e contou com a participação de parlamentares, líderes indígenas, procuradores da República, pesquisadores e organizações da sociedade civil.
“Chega de sofrer. Já perdemos muitos parentes”
“Chega de sofrer. Já perdemos muitos parentes. Temos xawara [Covid-19]. Os Yanomami estão contaminados pelo garimpo, nossos rios estão poluídos, contaminados com mercúrio”, afirmou Dário Kopenawa. “Queremos que as autoridades tomem providências. Não queremos mais perder nossos velhos, nossos filhos, não queremos mais chorar. Queremos que as autoridades retirem os garimpeiros o mais rápido possível”, continuou.
“Ao longo desses meses, alertamos as autoridades sobre os impactos que sofremos com os garimpeiros que invadem nossa terra”, diz carta lida por Maurício Ye’kwana na reunião. “Mas nosso recado não foi escutado. Os garimpeiros continuam entrando em nossas casas”, seguiu a liderança.
“Um absurdo dizer que defender Terras Indígenas, defender indígena, se manifestar contra os garimpos em Terras Indígenas é uma questão ideológica, de esquerda ou de comunista. Isso é lei. Isso é direito. Está na nossa Constituição”, afirmou a deputada federal e coordenadora da Frente Parlamentar em Defesa dos Direitos dos Povos Indígenas, Joênia Wapichana (Rede-RR). “Essa petição é mais uma forma de reivindicar nada além do que está na Constituição, que é o direito à proteção à vida, o direito à terra, o direito de ter sua terra sem invasões”, afirmou.
Joênia lembrou que a TI Yanomami abriga grupos indígenas isolados, os Moxihatëtëa, que correm risco de desaparecer caso sejam contatados por não indígenas e contaminados por doenças para os quais não têm defesas imunológicas, como gripe e sarampo. A Covid-19 representa um risco ainda maior para essas comunidades em virtude da dificuldade para atendimento e transporte de doentes em regiões remotas e de difícil acesso, como é o caso da área.
Estímulo ao garimpo
O governo Bolsonaro não só não fez nada para retirar os invasores do território yanomami como estimula abertamente o garimpo em TIs, o que é ilegal. O Planalto enviou um Projeto de Lei ao Congresso, em fevereiro, para regulamentar a atividade nessas áreas, além da mineração industrial e a construção de hidrelétricas. O resultado é o aumento da presença garimpeira, dos conflitos envolvendo sua atividade e do desmatamento nos territórios indígenas em geral, nos últimos dois anos.
“A responsabilidade pelo aumento das invasões está diretamente relacionada à complacência deste governo com a criminalidade, a desestruturação dos órgãos de fiscalização e controle e com a omissão em cumprir decisões judiciais”, criticou, na reunião, a advogada do ISA Juliana de Paula Batista. Ela lembrou que a Justiça Federal determinou que a União apresente um plano de retirada dos garimpeiros da TI Yanomami e o STF ordenou a implantação de barreiras sanitárias na área. Nenhuma das duas decisões foi cumprida.
“É fundamental que as casas legislativas estejam comprometidas com a defesa e proteção dos povos indígenas e em assegurar seus direitos, previstos na Constituição”, concluiu.
Em agosto, o Supremo Tribunal Federal (STF) confirmou uma liminar do ministro Luís Roberto Barroso que obriga o governo a agir para conter a escalada da crise de saúde entre os povos indígenas. A única medida incluída no pedido original da ação e não atendida foi justamente a retirada imediata de invasores de sete TIs, entre elas a Yanomami. Barroso criou um grupo de trabalho para acompanhar as providências da administração federal. O ministro determinou que fossem refeitos os planos oficiais de enfrentamento geral da Covid-19 e de instalação de barreiras sanitárias nas TIs. O movimento indígena segue aguardando uma medida mais enérgica para forçar o governo a retirar os invasores das sete áreas.
Munduruku
“Querem legalizar o garimpo, como se isso fosse resolver o problema da população indígena. Isso só vai piorar a situação. O garimpo traz prostituição e drogas para o territorio”, criticou, na reunião do dia 03 de dezembro, Alessandra Korap Munduruku, líder indígena ameaçada de morte pelas denúncias contra os invasores da TI Sawré Muybu, no sudoeste do Pará. Em outubro, ela ganhou o prêmio Robert F. Kennedy de Direitos Humanos, dos EUA.
“A maioria dos indígenas tem de beber água suja do rio. Todas as nascentes estão sendo desmatadas para uso dos garimpos. Vemos máquinas, dragas cavando o fundo do rio, enquanto os indígenas têm de comer o peixe. Teremos de comprar peixes na cidade para levar para as aldeias? Teremos de comprar água na cidade para levar para as aldeias. O que será dos indígenas depois de legalizarem o garimpo?”, questionou Alessandra Munduruku.
Ainda na reunião, o WWF-Brasil apresentou parte dos resultados de um estudo realizado pela organização em conjunto com a Fundação Oswaldo Cruz (Fiocruz) sobre contaminação do mercúrio em três aldeias da TI Sawré Muybu.
Os dados revelam uma situação dramática. O mercúrio foi detectado em 100% da população e, em 60% dela, o nível da substância não foi considerado seguro. Em 100% das amostras de peixes, havia resquícios do elemento químico. Em algumas, havia 18 vezes mais mercúrio do que o máximo tolerado pelos critérios da agência ambiental dos EUA.
Em quatro de cada 10 crianças foram identificadas altas concentrações de mercúrio. Em 16% das crianças, foram detectados problemas de neurodesenvolvimento. “As crianças estão perdendo a saúde. Isso é um crime gravíssimo contra as crianças indígenas! Quando Alesssandra Munduruku fala em genocídio, ela não está exagerando”, afirmou Bruno Taitson, representante do WWF-Brasil.
* Com informações de Ester Cezar
Ficha técnica:
O SOPRO DOS XAPIRI XAPIRI PË NË MARI 2020 animação em três canais projetada no Palácio do Congresso Nacional 01:39”
Desenhos: Joseca Yanomami
Frases: Davi Kopenawa Yanomami
Cantos: Ehuana Yaiara Yanomami, Levi Malamahi Alaopeteri Yanomami, Tafarel Yanomami – captados por Marcos Wesley de Oliveira na aldeia Watorikɨ. Outros registros sonoros captados por Gustavo Fioravante, em Watorikɨ.
Realização: Fórum de Lideranças Yanomami e Ye’kwana e Instituto Socioambiental
Apoio: Hutukara Associação Yanomami
Criação, direção e roteiro: Gisela Motta, Isabella Guimarães e Mariana Lacerda [Barreira Y.]
Animação e montagem: JR Muniz e Leandro Mendes – Vigas
Video mapping em Brasília, direção técnica: Alexis Anastasiou
Equipamentos: Visual Farm / Paralax
Captação em Brasília: Bruna Carolli, Cleber Machado, Daniel Basil, Ester Cezar, Guto Martins, Paulo Comar, Victor Ekstrom
Edição e áudio: Cauê Ito
Agradecimentos: aos povos Yanomami e Ye’kwana, Ana Teixeira, André Komatsu, Bruno Rangel, Carlo Zacquini, Claudia Andujar, Gui Conti, Irina Theophilo, Joana Amador, Juliana Calheiros, Kauê Lima, Laura Andreato, Lucas Bambozzi, Peter Pál Pelbart, Pio Figueiroa, Rede Pró-Yanomami e Ye’kwana, Rivane Neuenschwander, Tuíra Kopenawa Yanomami, Vitor Osório
O total dos objetos construídos pela humanidade acaba de superar pela primeira vez a massa somada das formas de vida na Terra, mostra um levantamento liderado por pesquisadores israelenses.
A chamada massa antropogênica, como decidiram designá-la, ultrapassou a marca de 1,1 teratonelada (ou 1,1 trilhão de toneladas) em 2020 e tem dobrado de tamanho a cada 20 anos ao longo do último século, segundo os autores do estudo.
A transformação de matérias-primas naturais em artefatos humanos cresceu de forma tão vertiginosa que, a cada semana, os novos objetos feitos pela nossa espécie superam o peso corporal de cada pessoa viva hoje, afirma a pesquisa, que acaba de ser publicada na revista científica Nature por uma equipe do Instituto Weizmann de Ciência.
“Precisaríamos de décadas para reunir todos esses dados. Para nossa sorte, é algo que já está sendo explorado há anos por cientistas que trabalham na área de análise de fluxo de materiais”, explicou à Folha o coordenador do estudo, Ron Milo, do Departamento de Ciências Botânicas e Ambientais do Weizmann.
“Eles compilaram uma base de dados global, abrangendo todos os países e campos da indústria, e isso nos permitiu ter dados confiáveis sobre o tema”, diz Milo, cuja mãe nasceu no Brasil.
Para chegar à conclusão (que tem margem de erro de seis anos para mais ou para menos), Milo e seus colegas precisaram fazer uma série de delimitações metodológicas. De um lado, eles colocaram a soma de toda a biomassa viva —ou seja, a totalidade do que é produzido pelos seres vivos que ainda não morreram, incluindo árvores e demais vegetais, animais, fungos de tamanho macroscópico e todos os micro-organismos no solo e nas águas. A conta inclui também o peso de todos os seres humanos vivos hoje, e o de seus animais e plantas domesticados.
Do outro lado, a massa antropogênica é composta pela matéria não viva modificada diretamente pela ação do Homo sapiens: metal, concreto, tijolos, asfalto, plástico, vidro etc. (veja infográfico abaixo). Os pesquisadores optaram por usar o peso seco (desprezando a presença de água) de ambos os conjuntos.
No caso da massa antropogênica, eles só levaram em conta objetos que ainda não viraram lixo —se eles fossem incluídos, a produção humana teria “virado o jogo” em relação à biomassa já em 2013 (margem de erro de cinco anos a mais ou a menos), calcula o grupo. Também não colocaram na soma os materiais apenas deslocados pela ação do ser humano, mas ainda não usados diretamente para nada (como a terra removida para a construção de um reservatório, digamos).
Se a taxa atual de crescimento se mantiver, espera-se que a massa antropogênica alcance 3 teratoneladas em 2040, ou seja, o triplo da biomassa terrestre. As comparações caso a caso, porém, já são suficientemente assustadoras. A atual massa de plásticos, por exemplo, já equivale ao dobro da de todos os animais do planeta, enquanto o peso dos prédios e da infraestrutura (estradas etc.) superou o da totalidade das árvores e arbustos. A massa da Torre Eiffel, cartão-postal parisiense, equivale à de todos os 10 mil rinocerontes-brancos ainda existentes no mundo, enquanto a de Nova York empata com a de todos os peixes nos mares e rios da Terra.
A magnitude e a clareza dos dados podem se tornar um argumento em favor da definição oficial do chamado Antropoceno —a ideia de que a ação humana inaugurou uma nova fase geológica da história do planeta. No momento, o conceito está sendo debatido pela Comissão Internacional de Estratigrafia.
“Não somos parte da discussão oficial, mas estamos em contato com as pessoas envolvidas nela. Acho que, de fato, é questão de tempo até que o Antropoceno seja oficializado”, diz o cientista israelense.
A eleição do líder Yanomami Davi Kopenawa como membro da Academia Brasileira de Ciências (ABC) é motivo de júbilo para a Comissão Arns. Em qualquer entidade científica no mundo, Davi brindará o conhecimento humano com a transmissão de saberes e sensibilidades que melhorariam a vida de todos no planeta. Davi tem sido voz incansável na defesa dos povos indígenas, das florestas que ardem em incêndios criminosos e dos recursos naturais que elas abrigam. Por sua ética e coragem, foi agraciado em 2019 com o Right Livelihood Foundation Award, conhecido como o Nobel alternativo. E, agora, vemos as portas da nossa academia centenária abrirem-se para ele. Congratulamos a ABC pela escolha. E saudamos o grande líder e xamã do povo Yanomami.
Aos leitores deste blog, a Comissão Arns oferece um presente: a íntegra de um testemunho recente de Davi Kopenawa, no qual que ele trata do cerco de garimpeiros e desmatadores na região do seu povo, acuando grupos indígenas isolados, como os Moxihatetea. Este texto foi distribuído, em três idiomas, na 43ª. Sessão do Conselho de Direitos Humanos da ONU, no início de março deste ano de 2020, em Genebra. Davi participou da sessão e de outros encontros presenciais, ao lado da Comissão Arns e do Instituto Socioambiental.
A invasão do território Yanomami e o risco de morte para os Moxihatetea
Tradução do Yanomami por Bruce Albert, antropólogo
As coisas estão assim. Agora os Brancos não vivem longe de nós. Eles não param de se aproximar. Na cidade vizinha de Boa Vista, chegam em muitos, sem trégua, exortando uns aos outros. Eles dizem entre eles: “Sim, vamos tomar para nós os bens preciosos dos Yanomami. Esses bens ainda não são mercadorias de verdade, porque estão escondidos sob os cascalhos da terra. Mas nós tomaremos essas riquezas, também as árvores da floresta e vamos nos instalar na Terra Yanomami!”. É o que os Brancos se dizem e é como eles mesmos se encorajam: “Venham para Boa vista! Eu, governo de Roraima, vou lhes dar trabalho! Vocês não serão mais pobres!”. Estas são as palavras deles. Com elas querem trocar seu dinheiro e suas mercadorias. Por isso, os Brancos não param de fixar seu olhar sobre a nossa floresta, todos eles, para tentar se apoderar. Eles dizem: “Sim, nós vamos tirar dinheiro da floresta. Como os Yanomami não sabem de nada, então, são nossas as riquezas”. É isso o que os Brancos falam ao encorajar seus trabalhadores a virem para a floresta. “Sim, podem ir! Não tenham medo! Os Yanomami parecem muitos, mas nós é que somos, de verdade! Mesmo que eles ataquem com flechas alguns de nós, ainda somos mais numerosos do que eles! “.
Dizendo esse tipo de coisa, eles crescem por toda a parte, na floresta, nos rios, nas terras. Eles querem pegar o ouro. E como o ouro vale cada vez mais, eles continuam a crescer, sem parar. Eles se dizem: “Sim, agora o valor do ouro está muito alto, então, vamos todos para a terra dos Yanomami!”. É assim que eles vão penetrando a floresta por todas as partes, através dos rios, pelos caminhos, com seus aviões e helicópteros. É assim que as coisas estão hoje em dia. Abriram portas de entrada nos cursos da água e também pelos ares. Desmataram para fazer pistas de aterrissagem por toda a parte. E também para fazer novos caminhos na floresta. Na bacia do Rio Apiaú, chegam em grande número. Através o rio Parimiú, também. Eles já foram expulsos de lá, mas voltaram ainda mais numerosos! Há também um outro caminho aberto, que sobe ao longo do Rio Catrimani.
Pelo caminho do Rio Apiaú eles se aproximaram do lugar onde vive o grupo isolado Moxihatetea. Nas nascentes do Rio Apiaú, onde vivem esses povos isolados, começaram a atacar e a destruir a floresta com seus rios. No início, eles estavam trabalhando com as mãos, mas agora usam máquinas. Descem as peças destas máquinas de um helicóptero para, depois, montar tudo no solo. Os Moxihatetea estão vigilantes, eles desejam ficar longe dos Brancos. Eles não conhecem esses garimpeiros e não querem se aproximar deles. Já fugiram algumas vezes, agora não podem mais fugir. Já se transferiram para a floresta profunda, muito longe dos caminhos, e lá ficaram em abrigos provisórios, como quando estavam em expedições de caça, longe de casa. Os garimpeiros então começaram a roubar a comida dos seus jardins – a mandioca, as bananas, as canas de açúcar, e fizeram isso quando as suas provisões de arroz, farinha e latas de conservas estavam esgotadas. Então os guerreiros Moxihatetea atacaram com flechas, mas os garimpeiros, mais violentos, responderam com fuzis. É o que se passou com os Moxihatetea isolados, e eu acho isso muito ruim.
Eles fugiram de novo subindo o rio, mas nessa direção há também garimpeiros instalados no Rio Catrimani, criando obstáculo. Os índios agora estão cercados. Por isso estou falando para defender os Moxihatetea. Eu não conheço as suas casas, assim como vocês também não conhecem. Eu só os vi do céu, pelo avião. Nunca pude visitá-los caminhando, a pé. Nunca nos falamos. É por isso que estou muito preocupado. Todos poderão ser rapidamente exterminados — é o que eu acho.
Os garimpeiros irão matá-los com seus fuzis e suas doenças, a malária, a pneumonia… Os indígenas não têm vacinas de proteção, vão todos morrer.
E não há só eles na terra-floresta Yanomami. Mais além, na região de Erico, vivem outros povos isolados. São como os Moxihatetea. E também, sobre a margem do Rio Catrimani, descendo o rio, nas fontes do Rio Xeriuini, há outros grupos isolados. E ainda num afluente do Rio Arca, no meio. É por isso que lutamos por eles. Estamos angustiados pelo possa acontecer.
Há outros isolados na floresta dos Waimiri-Atroari e há outros em toda a Amazônia! Vivem assim há muito tempo e querem continuar assim! São eles que cuidam verdadeiramente da floresta. São os Moxihatetea e todos os povos isolados da Amazônia que ainda guardam a última floresta. Mas os Brancos não sabem disso, porque eles não compreendem a língua desses povos. Os brancos apenas pensam: “O que eles estão fazendo aqui?” E quando os Brancos chegam, suas epidemias que chegam, também.
É por isso que digo a mim mesmo: “O que pensam os grandes homens brancos? Eles não querem nos deixar viver em paz e em boa saúde? Eles nos detestam, de verdade?”. É evidente que nos consideram como inimigos, porque somos outras gentes, somos habitantes da floresta. Fomos criados na floresta da Amazônia, no Brasil, e por isso os Brancos não nos conhecem. Eles se contentam em atacar e destruir nossa floresta como querem. Não é a terra deles, mas, declararam que é. Eles se dizem: “Esta floresta é nossa. Vamos arrancar o ouro do solo, cortar as suas árvores e vamos instalar aqui outros brancos que necessitam de terra, os criadores de gado, os colonos, e vamos então terminar com os Yanomami”.
Não é mais o que eles pensam, agora, é verdadeiramente o que eles dizem!
Sobre o presidente do Brasil, nem menciono o seu nome, mas posso dizer para ele: “Como você é o presidente, você deveria nos proteger”. Eu já conheço muito bem as palavras deste presidente: “Que venham todos os Brancos que queiram dinheiro, os criadores de gado, os forasteiros, os garimpeiros e os colonos, também. Eu vou dar a eles essa floresta, para terminar com todos os Yanomami, não importa quantos eles sejam, e para que os Brancos se tornem os proprietários. É nossa terra e tudo bem! E assim eu serei o único senhor desta terra!”. Essas são as suas palavras. Essas são as palavras daquele que se faz de grande homem no Brasil e se diz Presidente da República. É o que ele verdadeiramente diz: “Eu sou o dono dessa floresta, desses rios, desse subsolo, dos minérios, do ouro e das pedras preciosas! Tudo isso me pertence, então, vamos lá buscar tudo e trazer para a cidade. Tudo deve virar mercadorias!”.
É também o que os Brancos se dizem e é com estas palavras que destroem a floresta, desde sempre. Mas, hoje, eles estão prontos para terminar com o pouco que resta. Eles já destruíram os nossos caminhos, sujaram os nossos rios, envenenaram os peixes, queimaram as árvores e os animais que caçamos. Eles nos matam também com as suas epidemias.
Alguns Brancos têm pena de nós, mas não os seus Grandes Homens que afirmam que nós somos animais. Eles dizem: “São macacos, porcos selvagens!”. No entanto, são esses homens que não sabem pensar. Eles não sabem trabalhar na floresta, não conhecem seu poder de fertilidade në rope e nem querem conhecer. Não fazem outra coisa do que andar de um lado para o outro destruindo tudo. Eles só conhecem floresta do alto de suas máquinas satélites, que passam sobre as árvores, as nossas casas, os rios, as colinas, a beleza da floresta. Depois, eles chamam uns e outros: “Sim, venham por aqui. Nós todos do Brasil vamos tirar os bens preciosos! Nós vamos acumular tudo isso nas cidades! Nós vamos, de verdade, virar o Povo da Mercadoria! Não seremos mais pobres, vamos ter muitos bens!”. É o que eles dizem entre eles. E era isso que eu queria contar aqui. Essas gentes são indiferentes às palavras daqueles que defendem os Yanomami. Mesmo assim, envio essa mensagem.
Gostaria que os Direitos Humanos da ONU possam olhar para nós e nos dar um apoio forte para que as autoridades do Brasil – os políticos dos municípios, dos estados e da capital – todos esses Brancos das cidades, nos respeitem e não nos molestem mais. Que eles compreendam e reconheçam os direitos dos seres humanos, assim como a ONU. Os Direitos Humanos da ONU são construídos para defender os que sofrem. Então, eu gostaria que a ONU faça um bom trabalho, denunciando com muita força o que nos acontece, para que as autoridades do Brasil respeitem os Yanomami, os povos isolados e todos os povos ainda não reconhecidos.
Meu povo tem o direito de viver em paz e em boa saúde, porque ele vive em sua própria casa. Na floresta estamos em casa! Os Brancos não podem destruir nossa casa, senão, tudo isso não vai terminar bem para o mundo. Cuidamos da floresta para todos, não só para os Yanomami e os povos isolados. Trabalhamos com os nossos xamãs, que conhecem bem essas coisas, que possuem a sabedoria que vem do contato com a terra. A ONU precisa falar com as autoridades do Brasil para retirar – imediatamente – os garimpeiros que cercam os isolados e todos os outros em nossa floresta.
Viver o racismo, direta ou indiretamente, tem efeitos de longo prazo sobre desenvolvimento, comportamento, saúde física e mental
Episódios diários de racismo, desde ser alvo de preconceito até assistir a casos de violência sofridos por outras pessoas da mesma raça, têm um efeito às vezes “invisível”, mas duradouro e cruel sobre a saúde, o corpo e o cérebro de crianças.
A conclusão é do Centro de Desenvolvimento Infantil da Universidade de Harvard, que compilou estudos documentando como a vivência cotidiana do racismo estrutural, de suas formas mais escancaradas às mais sutis ou ao acesso pior a serviços públicos, impacta “o aprendizado, o comportamento, a saúde física e mental” infantil.
No longo prazo, isso resulta em custos bilionários adicionais em saúde, na perpetuação das disparidades raciais e em mais dificuldades para grande parcela da população em atingir seu pleno potencial humano e capacidade produtiva.
Embora os estudos sejam dos EUA, dados estatísticos — além do fato de o Brasil também ter histórico de escravidão e desigualdade — permitem traçar paralelos entre os dois cenários.
Aqui, casos recentes de violência contra pessoas negras incluem o de Beto Freitas, espancado até a morte dentro de um supermercado Carrefour em Porto Alegre em 20 de novembro, e o das primas Emilly, 4, e Rebeca, 7, mortas por disparos de balas enquanto brincavam na porta de casa, em Duque de Caxias em 4 de dezembro.
No Brasil, 54% da população é negra, percentual que é de 13% na população dos EUA.
A seguir, quatro impactos do ciclo vicioso do racismo, segundo o documento de Harvard. Para discutir as particularidades disso no Brasil, a reportagem entrevistou a psicóloga Cristiane Ribeiro, autora de um estudo recente sobre como a população negra lida com o sofrimento físico e mental, que foi tema de sua dissertação de mestrado pelo Programa de Pós-graduação em Promoção da Saúde e Prevenção da Violência da UFMG.
1. Corpo em estado de alerta constante
O racismo e a violência dentro da comunidade (e a ausência de apoio para lidar com isso) estão entre o que Harvard chama de “experiências adversas na infância”. Passar constantemente por essas experiências faz com que o cérebro se mantenha em estado constante de alerta, provocando o chamado “estresse tóxico”.
“Anos de estudos científicos mostram que, quando os sistemas de estresse das crianças ficam ativados em alto nível por longo período de tempo, há um desgaste significativo nos seus cérebros em desenvolvimento e outros sistemas biológicos”, diz o Centro de Desenvolvimento Infantil da universidade.
Na prática, áreas do cérebro dedicadas à resposta ao medo, à ansiedade e a reações impulsivas podem produzir um excesso de conexões neurais, ao mesmo tempo em que áreas cerebrais dedicadas à racionalização, ao planejamento e ao controle de comportamento vão produzir menos conexões neurais.
Protesto pela morte de Beto Freitas, em Porto Alegre, 20 de novembro; assistir cenas de violência contra pessoas da mesma raça tem efeito traumático – é o chamado ‘racismo indireto’
“Isso pode ter efeito de longo prazo no aprendizado, comportamento, saúde física e mental”, prossegue o centro. “Um crescente corpo de evidências das ciências biológicas e sociais conecta esse conceito de desgaste (do cérebro) ao racismo. Essas pesquisas sugerem que ter de lidar constantemente com o racismo sistêmico e a discriminação cotidiana é um ativador potente da resposta de estresse.”
“Embora possam ser invisíveis para quem não passa por isso, não há dúvidas de que o racismo sistêmico e a discriminação interpessoal podem levar à ativação crônica do estresse, impondo adversidades significativas nas famílias que cuidam de crianças pequenas”, conclui o documento de Harvard.
2. Mais chance de doenças crônicas ao longo da vida
Essa exposição ao estresse tóxico é um dos fatores que ajudam a explicar diferenças raciais na incidência de doenças crônicas, prossegue o centro de Harvard:
“As evidências são enormes: pessoas negras, indígenas e de outras raças nos EUA têm, em média, mais problemas crônicos de saúde e vidas mais curtas do que as pessoas brancas, em todos os níveis de renda.”
Alguns dados apontam para situação semelhante no Brasil. Homens e mulheres negros têm, historicamente, incidência maior de diabetes — 9% mais prevalente em negros do que em brancos; 50% mais prevalente em negras do que em brancas, segundo o Ministério da Saúde — e pressão alta, por exemplo.
Os números mais marcantes, porém, são os de violência armada, como a que vitimou as meninas Emilly e Rebeca. O Atlas da Violência aponta que negros foram 75,7% das vítimas de homicídio no Brasil em 2018.
A taxa de homicídios de brasileiros negros é de 37,8 para cada 100 mil habitantes, contra 13,9 de não negros.
Há, ainda, uma incidência possivelmente maior de problemas de saúde mental: de cada dez suicídios em adolescentes em 2016, seis foram de jovens negros e quatro de brancos, segundo pesquisa do Ministério da Saúde publicada no ano passado.
“O adoecimento (pela vivência do racismo) é constante, e vemos nos dados escancarados, como os da violência, mas também na depressão, no adoecimento psíquico e nos altos números de suicídio”, afirma a psicóloga Cristiane Ribeiro.
“Embora possam ser invisíveis para quem não passa por isso, não há dúvidas de que o racismo sistêmico e a discriminação interpessoal podem levar à ativação crônica do estresse, impondo adversidades significativas nas famílias que cuidam de crianças pequenas”, diz o documento de Harvard
“E por que essa é violência é tão marcante entre pessoas negras? Porque aprendemos que nosso semelhante é o pior possível e o quanto mais longe estivermos dele, melhor. A criança materializa isso de alguma forma. Temos estatísticas de que crianças negras são menos abraçadas na educação infantil, recebem menos afeto dos professores. (Algumas) ouvem desde cedo ‘esse menino não aprende mesmo, é burro’ ou ‘nasceu pra ser bandido'”, prossegue Ribeiro.
Embora muitos conseguem superar essa narrativa, outros têm sua vida marcada por ela, diz Ribeiro. “Trabalhei durante muito tempo no sistema socioeducativo (com jovens infratores), e essas sentenças são muito recorrentes: o menino que escuta desde pequeno que ‘não vai ser nada na vida’. São trajetórias sentenciadas.”
3. Disparidades na saúde e na educação
Os problemas descritos acima são potencializados pelo menor acesso aos serviços públicos de saúde, aponta Harvard.
“Pessoas de cor recebem tratamento desigual quando interagem em sistemas como o de saúde e educação, além de terem menos acesso a educação e serviços de saúde de alta qualidade, a oportunidades econômicas e a caminhos para o acúmulo de riqueza”, diz o documento do Centro de Desenvolvimento infantil.
“Tudo isso reflete formas como o legado do racismo estrutural nos EUA desproporcionalmente enfraquece a saúde e o desenvolvimento de crianças de cor.”
Mais uma vez, os números brasileiros apontam para um quadro parecido. Segundo levantamento do Ministério da Saúde, 67% do público do SUS (Sistema Único de Saúde) é negro. No entanto, a população negra realiza proporcionalmente menos consultas médicas e atendimentos de pré-natal.
E, entre os 10% de pessoas com menor renda no Brasil, 75% delas são pretas ou pardas.
Na educação, as disparidades persistem. Crianças negras de 0 a 3 anos têm percentual menor de matrículas em creches. Na outra ponta do ensino, 53,9% dos jovens declarados negros concluíram o ensino médio até os 19 anos — 20 pontos percentuais a menos que a taxa de jovens brancos, apontam dados de 2018 do movimento Todos Pela Educação.
Familiares das meninas Emilly e Rebecca, mortas a tiros,em encontro com o governador em exercício do Rio, Claudio Castro; Atlas da Violência aponta que negros foram 75,7% das vítimas de homicídio no Brasil em 2018
4. Cuidadores mais fragilizados e ‘racismo indireto’
Os efeitos do estresse não se limitam às crianças: se estendem também aos pais e responsáveis por elas — e, como em um efeito bumerangue, voltam a afetar as crianças indiretamente.
“Múltiplos estudos documentaram como os estresses da discriminação no dia a dia em pais e outros cuidadores, como ser associado a estereótipos negativos, têm efeitos nocivos no comportamento desses adultos e em sua saúde mental”, prossegue o Centro de Desenvolvimento Infantil.
Um dos estudos usados para embasar essa conclusão é uma revisão de dezenas de pesquisas clínicas feita em 2018, que aborda o que os pesquisadores chamam de “exposição indireta ao racismo”: mesmo quando as crianças não são alvo direto de ofensas ou violência racista, podem ficar traumatizadas ao testemunhar ou escutar sobre eventos que tenham afetado pessoas próximas a elas.
“Especialmente para crianças de minorias (raciais), a exposição frequente ao racismo indireto pode forçá-las a dar sentido cognitivamente a um mundo que sistematicamente as desvaloriza e marginaliza”, concluem os pesquisadores.
O estudo identificou, como efeito desse “racismo indireto”, impactos tanto em cuidadores (que tinham autoestima mais fragilizada) como nas crianças, que nasciam de mais partos prematuros, com menor peso ao nascer e mais chances de adoecer ao longo da vida ou de desenvolver depressão.
Na infância, diz a psicóloga Cristiane Ribeiro, é quando começamos a construir nossa capacidade de acreditar no próprio potencial para viver no mundo. No caso da população negra, essa construção é afetada negativamente pelos estereótipos racistas, sejam características físicas ou sociais — como o “cabelo pixaim” ou “serviço de preto”.
Valorização e representatividade impactam positivamente as crianças e, por consequência, suas famílias
“A gente precisa ter referências mais positivas da população negra como aquela que também é responsável pela constituição social do Brasil. A única representação que a gente tem no livro didático de história é de uma pessoa (escravizada) acorrentada, em uma situação de extrema vulnerabilidade e que está ali porque ‘não se esforçou para não estar'”, diz a pesquisadora.
Mesmo atos “sutis” — como pessoas negras sendo seguidas por seguranças em shopping centers ou recebendo atendimento pior em uma loja qualquer —, que muitas vezes passam despercebidos para observadores brancos, podem ter efeitos devastadores sobre a autoestima, prossegue Ribeiro.
“Isso que a gente costuma chamar de sutileza do racismo não tem nada de sutil na minha perspectiva. Quando alguém grita ‘macaco’ no meio da rua, as pessoas compartilham a indignação. É diferente do olhar (preconceituoso), que só o sujeito viu e só ele percebeu. Mesmo para a militante mais empoderada e ciente de seus direitos — porque é uma luta sem descanso —, tem dias que não tem jeito, esse olhar te destroça. A gente fala muito da força da mulher negra, mas e o direito à fragilidade? será que ser frágil também é um privilégio?”
Como romper o ciclo
“Avanços na ciência apresentam um retrato cada vez mais claro de como a adversidade forte na vida de crianças pequenas pode afetar o desenvolvimento do cérebro e outros sistemas biológicos. Essas perturbações iniciais podem enfraquecer as oportunidades dessas crianças em alcançar seu pleno potencial”, diz o documento de Harvard.
Mas é possível romper esse ciclo, embora lembrando que as formas de combatê-lo são complexas e múltiplas.
“A gente fala muito da força da mulher negra, mas e o direito à fragilidade? será que ser frágil também é um privilégio?”, diz Cristiane Ribeiro
“Precisamos criar novas estratégias para lidar com essas desigualdades que sistematicamente ameaçam a saúde e o bem-estar das crianças pequenas de cor e os adultos que cuidam delas. Isso inclui buscar ativamente e reduzir os preconceitos em nós e nas políticas socioeconômicas, por meio de iniciativas como contratações justas, oferta de crédito, programas de habitação, treinamento antipreconceito e iniciativas de policiamento comunitário”, diz o Centro de Desenvolvimento Infantil de Harvard.
Para Cristiane Ribeiro, passos fundamentais nessa direção envolvem mais representatividade negra e mais discussões sobre o tema dentro das escolas.
“Se tenho uma escola repleta de negros ou pessoas de diferentes orientações sexuais, mas isso não é dito, não é tratado, você tem a mesma segregação que nos outros espaços”, opina.
“Precisamos extinguir a ideia do ‘lápis cor de pele’. Tem tanta cor de pele, porque um lápis rosa a representa? Tem também a criança com cabelo crespo em uma escola onde só são penteados os cabelos lisos. Se a professora der conta de tratar aquele cabelo de uma forma tão afetiva quanto ela trata o cabelo lisinho, ela mudará o mundo daquela criança, inclusive incluindo nessa criança defesa para que ela responda quando seu cabelo for chamado de duro, de feio. E daí ela se olha no espelho e vê beleza, que é um direito que está sendo conquistado muito aos poucos. A chance é de que faça diferença pra família inteira. A criança negra que fala ‘não, mãe, meu cabelo não é feio’ desloca aquele ciclo naquela família, de todas as mulheres alisarem o cabelo. (…) Um olhar afetivo nessa história quebra o ciclo.”
O afeto e a construção de redes de apoio também são apontados por Harvard como formas de aliviar o peso do estresse tóxico e construir resiliência em crianças e famílias.
“É claro que a ciência não consegue lidar com esses desafios sozinha, mas o pensamento informado pela ciência combinado com o conhecimento em mudar sistemas entrincheirados e as experiências vividas pelas famílias que criam seus filhos sob diferentes condições podem ser poderosos catalisadores de estratégias eficientes,” defende o Centro para o Desenvolvimento Infantil.
Kopenawa, primeiro indígena eleito na academia, deve tomar posse no primeiro dia de janeiro.
7 de dezembro de 2020
Um dos principais líderes do povo ianomâmi, Davi Kopenawa foi eleito membro colaborador da ABC (Academia Brasileira de Ciências). Ele toma posse no dia 1º de janeiro. Trata-se do primeiro indígena a integrar a academia.
A ABC, fundada em 1916 e uma das mais tradicionais associações científicas do país, diz que para fazer parte de seu quadro, reconhece os mais importantes pesquisadores brasileiros, que “podem ser considerados os representates mais legítimos da comunidade científica nacional”. O foco da academia, com seus mais de 900 membros, é o desenvolvimento científico do Brasil.
No fim de 2019, ele recebeu, junto com a Associação Hutukara Yanomami, o Prêmio Right Livelihood, apelidado de “Nobel alternativo”, destinado a homenagear aqueles que oferecem respostas práticas e exemplares para os desafios mais urgentes enfrentados atualmente. Na mesma premiação, também foi homenageada a jovem ativista ambiental sueca Greta Thunberg.
Publicada originalmente em francês em 2010, na coleção Terre Humaine, a história traz as observações do xamã a respeito do contato predador com o homem branco, ameaça constante para seu povo desde os anos 1960. O livro foi escrito a partir de suas palavras contadas a um etnólogo com quem nutre uma longa amizade —foram mais de 40 anos de contato entre Bruce Albert, o etnólogo-escritor, e o povo de Davi Kopenawa.
Segundo descrição da Companhia das Letras, a vocação de xamã desde a primeira infância, fruto de um saber cosmológico adquirido graças ao uso de potentes alucinógenos, é o primeiro dos três pilares que estruturam este livro. O segundo é o relato do avanço dos brancos pela floresta e seu cortejo de epidemias, violência e destruição. Por fim, os autores trazem a odisseia do líder indígena para denunciar a destruição de seu povo.
O contato com os “napë” (brancos), porém, trouxe uma enorme quantidade de mortes por doenças como gripe, sarampo e rubéola, além dos massacres ao povo indígena.
“Napë”, para ianomâmis, de forma geral, significa garimpeiros, que produziram sérios conflitos dentro do território, e continuam em atividade na área. Um dos casos emblemátcos foi o massacre de Haximu (1993), que resultou na morte de 16 indígenas, principalmete de mulheres, crianças e velhos. O fato ocorreu após o assassinato de um garimpeiro.
Kopenawa dizia que não adianta brigar com “napë”, pelas suas armas de fogo, tratores e o fogo na mata.
Children who experienced compassionate parenting were more generous than peers
Date: December 1, 2020
Source: University of California – Davis
Summary: Young children who have experienced compassionate love and empathy from their mothers may be more willing to turn thoughts into action by being generous to others, a University of California, Davis, study suggests. Lab studies were done of children at ages 4 and 6.
Young children who have experienced compassionate love and empathy from their mothers may be more willing to turn thoughts into action by being generous to others, a University of California, Davis, study suggests.
In lab studies, children tested at ages 4 and 6 showed more willingness to give up the tokens they had earned to fictional children in need when two conditions were present — if they showed bodily changes when given the opportunity to share and had experienced positive parenting that modeled such kindness. The study initially included 74 preschool-age children and their mothers. They were invited back two years later, resulting in 54 mother-child pairs whose behaviors and reactions were analyzed when the children were 6.
“At both ages, children with better physiological regulation and with mothers who expressed stronger compassionate love were likely to donate more of their earnings,” said Paul Hastings, UC Davis professor of psychology and the mentor of the doctoral student who led the study. “Compassionate mothers likely develop emotionally close relationships with their children while also providing an early example of prosocial orientation toward the needs of others,” researchers said in the study.
The study was published in November in Frontiers in Psychology: Emotion Science. Co-authors were Jonas G. Miller, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University (who was a UC Davis doctoral student when the study was written); Sarah Kahle of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, UC Davis; and Natalie R. Troxel, now at Facebook.
In each lab exercise, after attaching a monitor to record children’s heart-rate activity, the examiner told the children they would be earning tokens for a variety of activities, and that the tokens could be turned in for a prize. The tokens were put into a box, and each child eventually earned 20 prize tokens. Then before the session ended, children were told they could donate all or part of their tokens to other children (in the first instance, they were told these were for sick children who couldn’t come and play the game, and in the second instance, they were told the children were experiencing a hardship.)
At the same time, mothers answered questions about their compassionate love for their children and for others in general. The mothers selected phrases in a survey such as:
“I would rather engage in actions that help my child than engage in actions that would help me.”
“Those whom I encounter through my work and public life can assume that I will be there if they need me.”
“I would rather suffer myself than see someone else (a stranger) suffer.”
Taken together, the findings showed that children’s generosity is supported by the combination of their socialization experiences — their mothers’ compassionate love — and their physiological regulation, and that these work like “internal and external supports for the capacity to act prosocially that build on each other.”
The results were similar at ages 4 and 6.
In addition to observing the children’s propensity to donate their game earnings, the researchers observed that being more generous also seemed to benefit the children. At both ages 4 and 6, the physiological recording showed that children who donated more tokens were calmer after the activity, compared to the children who donated no or few tokens. They wrote that “prosocial behaviors may be intrinsically effective for soothing one’s own arousal.” Hastings suggested that “being in a calmer state after sharing could reinforce the generous behavior that produced that good feeling.”
This work was supported by the Fetzer Institute, Mindfulness Connections, and the National Institute of Mental Health.
Jonas G. Miller, Sarah Kahle, Natalie R. Troxel, Paul D. Hastings. The Development of Generosity From 4 to 6 Years: Examining Stability and the Biopsychosocial Contributions of Children’s Vagal Flexibility and Mothers’ Compassion. Frontiers in Psychology, 2020; 11 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.590384
Cacique Cobra Coral: de volta aos bastidores do governo municipal Facebook/Reprodução
Ela vai voltar. Depois de quase duas duas décadas trabalhando espiritualmente para desviar nuvens de chuva que pairavam sobre o Rio e expunham a cidade a enchentes, deslizamentos e ao insucesso de grandes eventos, Adelaide Scritori prepara seu retorno à cidade.
A médium que diz incorporar o espírito do Cacique Cobra Coral – entidade que teria a capacidade de controlar o tempo – teve a parceria com a prefeitura suspensa por Marcelo Crivella e agora, com a eleição de Paes, voltará a usar seus poderes paranormais para monitorar o clima e as precipitações no Rio. “A primeira coisa que vamos fazer é redistribuir as chuvas para que não caiam em excesso e no lugar errado”, disse a VEJA RIO Osmar Santos, porta-voz da Fundação, que teve Paulo Coelho entre seus diretores. A presença da médium não será apenas espiritual: no início de janeiro, Adelaide e sua equipe reabrem a sede carioca do grupo e voltam a passar quatro dias da semana na cidade – mais especificamente, na Barra da Tijuca.
A Fundação vinha sendo chamada para evitar temporais na virada do ano em Copacabana desde 2000, mesmo ano em que passou a monitorar os carnavais da cidade – a única exceção foi 2015, quando o estado vivia uma crise hídrica. Exatamente naquele ano, um temporal atrapalhou os desfiles da Mocidade, da Mangueira e da Viradouro, que foi rebaixada. Adelaide costumava ser convocada por empresários do entretenimento, como Roberto Medina (Rock in Rio) e Abel Gomes (Réveillon, Árvore de Natal da Lagoa), para “desviar” chuvas e temporais que se aproximavam da cidade em dias de shows e eventos ao ar livre. João Doria, ex-prefeito e atual governador de São Paulo, também firmou parceria com a Fundação Cacique Cobra Coral.
SAO PAULO (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – As farms expand into the Amazon rainforest, felled trees and expanding pastures may open the way for new Brazilian exports beyond beef and soybeans, researchers say: pandemic diseases.
Changes in the Amazon are driving displaced species of animals, from bats to monkeys to mosquitoes, into new areas, while opening the region to arrivals of more savanna-adapted species, including rodents.
Those shifts, combined with greater human interaction with animals as people move deeper into the forest, is increasing the chances of a virulent virus, bacteria or fungus jumping species, said Adalberto Luís Val a researcher at INPA, the National Institute for Research in the Amazon, based in Manaus.
Climate change, which is driving temperature and rainfall changes, adds to the risks, the biologist said.
“There is a great concern because … there is a displacement of organisms. They try to adapt, face these new challenging scenarios by changing places,” Val told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a telephone interview.
The Evandro Chagas Institute, a public health research organization in the city of Belém, has identified about 220 different types of viruses in the Amazon, 37 of which can cause diseases in humans and 15 of which have the potential to cause epidemics, the researcher said.
They include a range of different encephalitis varieties as well as West Nile fever and rocio, a Brazilian virus from the same family that produces yellow fever and West Nile, he noted in an article published in May by the Brazilian Academy of Sciences.
Val said he was especially concerned about arboviruses, which can be transmitted by insects such as the mosquitoes that carry dengue fever and Zika.
‘SPILLOVER’
Cecília Andreazzi, a researcher at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (FIOCRUZ), a major public health institute in Brazil, said the current surge in deforestation and fires in the Amazon can lead to new meetings between species on the move – each a chance for an existing pathogen to transform or jump species.
The ecologist maps existing infectious agents among Brazil’s animals and constructs mathematical models about how the country’s changing landscape “is influencing the structure of these interactions”.
What she is looking for is likely “spillover” opportunities, when a pathogen in one species could start circulating in another, potentially creating a new disease – as appears to have happened in China with the virus that causes COVID-19, she said.
“Megadiverse countries with high social vulnerability and growing environmental degradation are prone to pathogen spillover from wildlife to humans, and they require policies aimed at avoiding the emergence of zoonoses,” she and other researchers wrote in a letter in The Lancet, a science journal, in September.
Brazil, they said, had already seen “clear warnings” of a growing problem, with the emergence of a Brazilian hemorrhagic fever, rodent-carried hantaviruses, and a mosquito-transmitted arbovirus called oropouche.
Brazil’s Amazon has registered some of the worst fires in a decade this year, as deforestation and invasions of indigenous land grow under right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro, who has urged that the Amazon be developed as a means of fighting poverty.
In a speech before the U.N. General Assembly last month, he angrily denied the existence of fires in the Amazon rainforest, calling them a “lie,” despite data produced by his own government showing thousands of blazes surging across the region.
‘BLAME THE BAT’
João Paulo Lima Barreto, a member of the Tukano indigenous people, said one way of combatting the emergence of new pandemic threats is reviving old knowledge about relationships among living things.
Barreto, who is doing doctoral research on shamanistic knowledge and healing at the Federal University of Amazonas, created Bahserikowi’i, an indigenous medicine center that brings the knowledge of the Upper Rio Negro shamans to Manaus, the Amazon’s largest city.
He has called for indigenous knowledge systems to be taken seriously.
“The model of our relationship with our surroundings is wrong,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a telephone interview.
“It is very easy for us to blame the bat, to blame the monkey, to blame the pig” when a new disease emerges, Barreto said. “But in fact, the human is causing this, in the relationship that we build with the owners of the space”.
Without adequate preservation of forests, rivers and animals, imbalance and disease are generated, he said, as humans fail to respect nature entities known to shamans as “wai-mahsã”.
Andreazzi said particularly strong disease risks come from converting Amazonian forest into more open, savanna-like pastures and fields, which attract marsupials and also rodents, carriers of hantaviruses.
“If you transform the Amazon into a field, you are creating this niche” and species may expand their ranges to fill it, she said, with “the abundance of these species greatly increasing”.
In the face of deforestation, animals are “relocating, moving. And the pathogen, the virus… is looking for hosts” – a situation that creates “very high adaptive capacity”, she said.
But Andreazzi worries about old diseases, as well as new ones.
As the Amazon changes, new outbreaks of threats such as malaria, leishmaniasis and Chagas disease – transmitted by a “kissing bug” and capable of causing heart damage – have been registered, she said.
“We don’t even need to talk about the new diseases. The old ones already carry great risks,” she added.
Reporting by Fabio Zuker ; editing by Laurie Goering : Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters. Visit news.trust.org/climate
Analysis suggests individual steps in evolution were more likely to take longer than Earth’s existence.
The scientists say this research is designed give future researchers a foundation.
In newly published research from Oxford University’s Future of Humanity Institute, scientists study the likelihood of key times for evolution of life on Earth and conclude that it would be virtually impossible for that life to evolve the same way somewhere else.
Life has come a very long way in a very short time on Earth, relatively speaking—and scientists say that represents even more improbable luck for intelligent life that is rare to begin with.
For decades, scientists and even philosophers have chased many explanations for the Fermi paradox. How, in an infinitely big universe, can we be the only intelligent life we’ve ever encountered? Even on Earth itself, they wonder, how are we the only species that ever has evolved advanced intelligence?
There are countless naturally occurring, but extremely lucky ways in which Earth is special, sheltered, protected, and encouraged to have evolved life. And some key moments of emerging life seem much more likely than others, based on what really did happen.
“The fact that eukaryotic life took over a billion years to emerge from prokaryotic precursors suggests it is a far less probable event than the development of multicellular life, which is thought to have originated independently over 40 times,” the researchers explain. They continue:
“The early emergence of abiogenesis is one example that is frequently cited as evidence that simple life must be fairly common throughout the Universe. By using the timing of evolutionary transitions to estimate the rates of transition, we can derive information about the likelihood of a given transition even if it occurred only once in Earth’s history.”
In this paper, researchers from Oxford University’s illustrious Future of Humanity Institute continue to wonder how all this can be and what it means. The researchers include mathematical ecologists, who do a kind of forensic mathematics of Earth’s history.
In this case, they’ve used a Bayesian model of factors related to evolutionary transitions, which are the key points where life on Earth has turned from ooze to eukaryotes, for example, and from fission and other asexual reproduction to sexual reproduction, which greatly accelerates the rate of mutation and development of species by mixing DNA as a matter of course.
Most of these “evolutionary transitions” are poorly understood and have not been very well studied by the scientists of likelihoods. And using their model, these scientists say that Earth’s series of Goldilocks lottery tickets are more likely to have taken far longer than they really did on Earth.
There’s an iconic scene in the 2001 movie Ocean’s Eleven where George Clooney explains the series of escalating improbabilities of his planned crime. After several hugely unlikely outcomes, he says, “Then it’s a piece of cake: just three more guards with Uzis, and the most elaborate vault door conceived by man.” In a way, the unlikely hurdles to the rapid flourishing of complex life on Earth are the same way.
First, we win the lottery for surface temperature and protection from spaceborne dangers. Second, we win the lottery for the presence of building blocks of life. Third, we win the lottery for the right location for the right building blocks. That’s before anything like the most primitive single cell has even emerged.
Using some information we do know, like the age of Earth and the expected end of its habitable lifetime due to the expanding heat radius of our sun, these researchers have turned evolutionary transitions into a series of existential scratch-off tickets. Read the whole fascinating study here.
LaRazaUnida cover the Fray Junípero Serra Statue in protest at the Brand Park Memory Garden across from the San Fernando Mission in San Fernando on June 28, 2020. Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News / SCNG
On this day, Indigenous activists in New England and beyond are observing a National Day of Mourning to mark the theft of land, cultural assault and genocide that followed after the anchoring of the Mayflower on Wampanoag land in 1620 — a genocide that is erased within conventional “Thanksgiving Day” narratives.
The acts of mourning and resistance taking place today build on the energy of Indigenous People’s Day 2020, which was also a day of uprising. On October 11, 2020, also called “Indigenous People’s Day of Rage,” participants around the country took part in actions such as de-monumenting — the toppling of statues of individuals dedicated to racial nation-building.
In response to Indigenous-led efforts that demanded land back and the toppling of statues, Catholic Church leaders in Oregon and California deemed it necessary to perform exorcisms, thereby casting Indigenous protest as demonic.
The toppled statues included President Abraham Lincoln, President Theodore Roosevelt and Father Junípero Serra, who founded California’s mission system (1769-1834) and was canonized into sainthood by the Catholic Church and Pope Francis in 2015.
What do these leaders whose statues were toppled have in common? They perpetrated and promoted devastating violence against Native peoples.
Abraham Lincoln was responsible for the largest mass execution in United States history when 38 Dakota were hanged in 1862 after being found guilty for their involvement in what is known as the “Minnesota Uprising.”
Theodore Roosevelt gave a speech in 1886 in New York that would have made today’s white supremacists blush when he declared: “I don’t go as far as to think that the only good Indian is the dead Indian, but I believe nine out of every ten are…” This was not his only foray in promoting racial genocide.
Junípero Serra is known for having committed cruel punishments against the Indians of California and enslaved them as part of Spain’s genocidal conquest.
Last month, “Land Back” and “Dakota 38” were scrawled on the base of the now-toppled Lincoln statue in Portland, Oregon. The political statements and demands for land return reveal a Native decolonial spirit based in resistance continuing through multiple generations
The “Indigenous People’s Day of Rage” came after months of protests in Portland in support of Black Lives Matter. The resistance enacted in Portland coincides with demands for both abolition (the end of racialized policing and imprisonment) and decolonization (the return of land and regeneration of life outside of colonialism). Both of these notions encompass a multifaceted imagining of life beyond white supremacy.
In San Rafael, California, Native activists gathered at the Spanish mission that had been the site of California Indian enslavement. Activists, who included members of the Coast Miwok of Marin, first poured red paint on the statue of Serra and then pulled it down with ropes, while other protesters held signs that read: “Land Back Now” and “We Stand on Unceded Land – Decolonization means #LandBack.” The statue broke at the ankles, leaving only the feet on the base.
What was even more provocative than the toppling of the statues by Native activists and their accomplices, was the response by the Catholic Church, which not only condemned the actions of the Native activists, but also spiritually chastised them. In both Portland and San Rafael, the reaction by the Church was to perform exorcisms.
The purpose of an exorcism, according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, is to expel demons or “the liberation from demonic possession through the spiritual authority which Jesus entrusted to his Church.”
In other words, Native activism and demands for land back were deemed blasphemous and evil by two archbishops and were determined to require exorcism.
In Portland, Archbishop Alexander K. Sample led 225 members of his congregation to a city park where he prayed a rosary for peace and conducted an exorcism on October 17, six days after the “Indigenous People’s Day of Rage.” Archbishop Sample stated that there was no better time to come together to pray for peace than in the wake of social unrest and on the eve of the elections. His exorcism was a direct response to Indigenous-led efforts that demanded land back.
San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone held an exorcism on the same day as the one performed in Portland and after the toppling of Saint Junipero Serra’s statue in San Rafael. In his performance of the exorcism, he prayed that God would purify the mission of evil spirits as well as the hearts of those who perpetrated blasphemy. Was he responding to a “demonic possession” or was he exorcising the political motivations of those he did not agree with? Perhaps both, as he also stated that the toppling of the statue was an attack on the Catholic faith that took place on their own property. However, the mission is only Church property because of Native dispossession through conquest and missionization.
The conquest of the Americas by European nations was, as Saint Serra had deemed his own work, a “spiritual conquest.” From the doctrine of discovery to manifest destiny, the possession of Native land was rationalized as divine – from God. Those who threaten colonial possession are attacking the theological rationalization of possession, not their faith.
Demands for land back interfere with the doctrine that enabled Native land to be exorcised from them. Archbishop Cordileone’s exorcism was in the maintenance of property that had been stolen from Indigenous people long ago, and Archbishop Sample’s was in the maintenance of peace and the status quo of Native dispossession.
With a majority-Christian population in the United States and other nations in the Americas, demands for the return of land and decolonization have more to reckon with than racial injustice and white supremacy. Christians must also consider how dominant strains of Christian theology rationalized conquest and its ongoing structures of dispossession. Can a religion, made up of many sects, shift its framework to help end continued Native dispossession and its rationalization? Can we come together to overturn a racialized theological doctrine that functioned through violence and was adopted into a nation’s legal system? Can we imagine life beyond rage and the racialized spiritual possession of stolen land?
The Doctrine of Discovery was the primary international law developed in the 15th and 16th centuries through a series of papal bulls (Catholic decrees) that divided the Americas for white European conquest and authorized the enslavement of non-Christians. In 1823 the Doctrine of Discovery was cited in the U.S. Supreme Court case Johnson v. M’Intosh. Chief Justice John Marshall declared in his ruling that Indians only held occupancy rights to land — ownership belonged to the European nation that discovered it. This case further legalized the theft of Native lands. It continues to be a foundational principal of U.S. property law and has been cited as recently as 2005 by the U.S. Supreme Court (City of Sherrill v. Oneida Nation of Indians) to diminish Native American land rights.
In 2009 the Episcopal Church passed a resolution that repudiated the Doctrine of Discovery. It was the first Christian denomination to do so and has since been followed by several other denominations, including the Anglican Church of Canada (2010), the Religious Society of Friends/Quakers (2009 and 2012), the World Council of Churches (2012), the United Methodist Church (2012), the United Church of Christ (2013) and the Mennonite Church (2014).
Decolonization and land return are as possible as repudiating the legal justification of land theft. Social, cultural, governmental and economic systems are constantly changing, but the land remains — in the hands of the dispossessors. When our faith is held above what we know is true — we will prolong doing what is right.
Native peoples are not ancient peoples of the past only remembered on days such as Thanksgiving, just as our mourning is not all that we are. Native peoples are a myriad of things, including activists who demand land back — which is not a demonic request. Our land can be returned, and we can work together to heal and imagine a future beyond white supremacy and dispossession.
He talks and talks, you are on the verge of falling asleep, until suddenly, out of the blue, a word or a concept slaps you in the face. You listen again. He adds another violent metaphor to his argument and there you are, disarmed by a truth he just unveiled. I presume part of Cameroonian historian and philosopher Achille Mbembe’s brilliance stems from his ability to coin ideas that were as yet framed. Not that they didn’t exist before, but they were lacking the proper notes to be heard. For instance, his book De la Postcolonie, published in 2000, contributed to a massive rise of interest in post-colonial studies by revealing how colonial forms of domination continue to operate on and within the African continent. His Critique de la raison nègre, published in 2013, shed light on the function of the “Black” figure in the construction of Western identity. He later developed the concept of necropolitics, widely used today in academia, to illustrate the production of superfluous and unwanted populations. More recently, he introduced the notion of brutalism, which describes capitalism’s constant process of extraction and waste production. A process that generates growth: walls, clean streets, prescribed drugs, cars, banks – and trash. A trash made of human and non-human residues that we bury, send abroad, or incarcerate. Combustion, islands of plastic, or “migrants” who have no value in our economic system are examples of this exponential “trashisation” of the world. This side effect of brutalism is also defined by Mbembe as the tendential universalization of the Black condition: “The way we used to treat exclusively black people, is now extended to people with a different skin color,” he told me recently. ” The black person is by definition the one who can be humiliated, whose dignity is not recognized, whose rights can be violated with impunity, including his right to breath. He or she therefore represents the accomplished figure of the superfluous person. And nowadays, the number of superfluous people is constantly growing.” What annoys me with Achille Mbembe is the way he managed to pollute the innocence of my Western privileges. I was so much better off before, flying for no reason around the world, while popping stimulants and tranquilizers to cope with my jet-lag. I’d see bankers as virtuous men I’d be desperate to marry and was secretly irritated by all these foreigners trying to flood our trash-free countries and schools. I’d worry for the future of my children and how all this precarity and danger might contaminate the clean side-walks of their own adulthood. I knew without “knowing” that racism and destruction of the environment are the two sides of the same coin, that we cannot fight one without fighting the other; that if we hadn’t and weren’t continuously destroying the African soil, it’s inhabitants for sure wouldn’t try to flee, that my privileges are not merely a question of luck, but the result of a continuous exploitation in which I am, whether I like it or not, complicit. All this I knew without being too disturbed by it. I hat found a comfortable way to exclude my responsibility from these tragedies that occur most of the time in remote parts of the world, far away from my home view in Switzerland. I guess no one enjoys to be reminded that under their innocence lies a pile of shit which has been produced not by “the other” but by one’s own self. Long story short: I sometimes wish I hadn’t come across Achille Mbembe’s slaps of truth. For, as he remarks in his last book, Brutalism, “Ignorance too, is a form of power.”
We met end of the summer 2020. I was in Bretagne, France; he waiting for winter to end in his house in Johannesburg.
***
You refuse to be defined as a post-colonial thinker, how come?
I have nothing against postcolonial or decolonial theory, but I am neither a postcolonial, nor a decolonial theorist. My story has been one of constant motion. I was born in Cameroun, I spent my twenties in Paris, my early and mid-thirties in New York, Philadelphia and Washington. I later moved to Dakar, Senegal and I’m now in Johannesburg, South Africa. Likewise, I was trained as an historian, then I studied political science. At the same time, I read a lot of philosophy and anthropology, immersed myself in literature, in psychoanalysis. As we speak, I am familiarizing myself with life sciences, climate and earth sciences, astrobiology. This perpetual crossing of borders is what characterizes my life and my work.
So how should one define you?
I’d rather define myself as a penseur de la traversée. One for whom critique is a form of care, healing and reparation. The idea of a common world, how to bring it into being, how to compose it, how to repair it and how to share it – this has ultimately been my main concern.
In your last book, Brutalism (Editions La Decouverte, 2020) you plead for a politics of the en-commun (in-common) as a means to re-enchant the world and re-infuse solidarity among the elements which constitute and belong to this one world we all share together. Does your concept of the en-commun have any affinities with communist ideas?
No, it has nothing to do with communism as a political ideology. It is related to my preoccupation with life futures, and as I have just said, with theories of care, healing and reparation, the reality of historical harms and debates on planetary habitability. Ultimately Eurocentrism has fostered colonialism, racism and white supremacy. Postcolonialism has been preoccupied with difference, identity and otherness. As a result of my deep interest in ancient African systems of thought, I am intrigued by the motifs of commonality and multiplicity, by the entanglement of all human and non-human forms of life and the community of substance they form. This commonality, I should add, must be constantly composed and recomposed. It must be pieced together, through endless struggles, and very often, defeats and new beginnings.
Isn’t difference the basis of identity?
During the 19th and 20th centuries, we have not stopped talking about difference and identity. About self and the Other. About who is like us and who is not. About who belongs and who doesn’t. As the seas keep rising, as the Earth keeps burning and radiation levels keep increasing and we are less and less shielded against the plasma flow from the sun and surrounded by viruses, this is a discourse we can now ill afford.
Does this imply hierarchies should be more horizontal?
By definition, all hierarchies should be exposed to contestation. I am in favor of radical equality. Formal equality is meaningless as long as certain bodies, almost always the same, remain trapped in the jaws of premature death. Once equality is secured, we need to work on the best mechanisms of representation. But those who represent us can never be taken to be hierarchically superior to us. Instead they are called upon to perform a service for the care of all. Representation can only be the result of consent and for such consent to be granted, those who represent us must be accountable. Nobody should make decisions on behalf of those who haven’t mandated him or her. The great difficulty these days and for the years to come is that decisions are increasingly made by technological devices. They are determined by algorithmic artefacts which have not been mandated, except possibly by their manufactures.
Do you have a mission?
I wouldn’t want to make things uglier than they already are. I’m here on earth like everyone else for a limited timeframe. A tiny particle in a universe governed by ungraspable forces. My goal is therefore to remain as open as possible to what is still to come. To welcome and embrace the manifold resonances of the forces of the universe. On my last day, at the dusk of my life, I want to be able to say that I have smelled the infinite flesh of the world and that I have fully breathed its breath.
Writing is your medium. How did this practice come to you?
I used to be shy. It was easier for me to write than to speak in public or even in a group. When I was 12, I was part of a poetry club at my boarding school. In parallel I kept a personal diary in which I would relate my daily experiences. But it was only when I turned 18 or 19 that I started writing, that is, speaking in public.
What does writing mean to you?
It enables me to find my own center. One could almost say “I write therefore I am.” It’s a space of inner peace, though it can also at times be one of self-division. Whatever the case, what I write is mine and can never be taken away from me.
Do you have any writing routines?
In order to write, I need silence. I need to be left alone for long hours, if not days. Silence for me is a prelude to a state of psychic condensation. When I was younger, I’d mostly write in the pitch dark, after midnight. Writing after midnight, I could reconnect with Africa’s deepest pulsations, its tragedies as well as its metamorphic potential, the promise it represents for the world. That is how I wrote On the Postcolony, in the midst of Congolese sounds and rhythms.
How do you reach this bubble of isolation and silence while living with your spouse, children and dog?
My wife is a writer of her own account. The dog is a very unobtrusive companion. It also happens that I can be talking to you now without really being present. Being physically present doesn’t prevent my mind from being totally elsewhere.
Where does your writing start?
Most of the time in my head. Sometimes from what I see, what I hear, what I read. It can start in the shower, when I am cooking or while I lie on the bed waiting to fall asleep. I can spend long months without writing anything. Things first need to boil. I need to find myself in a position where I can no longer bracket the interpellation addressed to me by reality, an event or an encounter.
Do you take notes?
Not really, or not all the time. I may have notebooks, but I keep misplacing them and hardly ever return to them in any structured way. My writing generally begins with a word, a concept, a sound, a landscape or an event which suddenly resonates in me. I do have a very lively mental scape. As a result, writing is like translating an image into words. In fact my books are full of images of the mind, non-visual images. But I never know in advance where these images will lead me to or whether at the end of the process I will be able to adequately translate them into words without losing their allure. It’s a rather intuitive process. That’s also why I write my introductions at the end, as I’ll only be able to tell you what the book is about once it’s written, when all the images have been curated.
Do you spend lots of time rewriting your sentences?
I’m extremely attentive to each word, each phrase, the way it’s formulated, its rhythm and musicality, the punctuation. For a text to be powerful, that is to heal, it must viscerally speak to both the reader’s reason and senses. It must therefore be methodically composed, arranged, and curated. Once it’s done with the appropriate amount of care, I no longer go back to it. I actually never reread my books.
Why ? Because I’m always afraid to realize that the translation of images into words could have been done differently, and that now it’s too late. It’s already published and now belongs somewhat to the public. I have a rather strange understanding of writing. Writing is like a trial with too many judges If one doesn’t wish to be condemned, one shouldn’t write. Because once you’ve written and published something, that’s it.. The door is locked and the key is taken away. Writing is like pronouncing a sentence on oneself.
Student in Paris in the 1980
You spend a significant amount of your time playing and watching soccer. What is it that you enjoy so much in this sport?
It’s all about contingency and creation, creating in the midst of contingency. It’s about a certain relationship between a body in motion and a mind in a state of alert. That’s what fascinates me the most about football, the way in which 22 people attempt to inhabit a space they keep configuring and reconfiguring, erecting and erasing, and the explosions of primal joy when one’s team scores, or the primal screams when one’s team loses. And indeed, if I could go back in time, I would unquestionably pursue a professional soccer career. I’d retire in my early thirties and then do something else.
If you were a philanthropic billionaire, in which cause would you invest?
I’ve always considered money as a means to hinder one’s freedom.
Why?
I don’t want to be the slave of anything or of anybody. Not even the slave of my own passions.
Doesn’t money enable a certain freedom too?
If I had billions, I’d go back to Cameroun and revive my father’s farm. That’s where I spent part of my youth. I’d go back and turn this farm into a cooperative, into a laboratory for new ways of producing and living. The farm would become a living alternative of how to use local resources to live a clean life, starting with air, water, plants, food and so on. The farm would also be a vibrant place for artistic innovation. It would offer writing residencies for authors eager to commune with the vast expanses of our universe.
If you could reincarnate, choose an era, country, profession, legend, what or whom would you choose?
I’d come back as Ibn Khaldun, an Arab intellectual who is often presented as one of the very first sociologists. He visited the empire of Mali in the 14th century. I would be curious to discover this era. To be a sort of intellectual who travels the world, discovering Africa before the Triangular trade and sounding out what we could have become.
Introduction: Sensors everywhere. Infinite storage. Clouds of processors. Our ability to capture, warehouse, and understand massive amounts of data is changing science, medicine, business, and technology. As our collection of facts and figures grows, so will the opportunity to find answers to fundamental questions. Because in the era of big data, more isn’t just more. […]
Marian Bantjes
Introduction:
Sensors everywhere. Infinite storage. Clouds of processors. Our ability to capture, warehouse, and understand massive amounts of data is changing science, medicine, business, and technology. As our collection of facts and figures grows, so will the opportunity to find answers to fundamental questions. Because in the era of big data, more isn’t just more. More is different.
Does big data have the answers? Maybe some, but not all, says Mark Graham
In 2008, Chris Anderson, then editor of Wired, wrote a provocative piece titled The End of Theory. Anderson was referring to the ways that computers, algorithms, and big data can potentially generate more insightful, useful, accurate, or true results than specialists or domain experts who traditionally craft carefully targeted hypotheses and research strategies.
This revolutionary notion has now entered not just the popular imagination, but also the research practices of corporations, states, journalists and academics. The idea being that the data shadows and information trails of people, machines, commodities and even nature can reveal secrets to us that we now have the power and prowess to uncover.
In other words, we no longer need to speculate and hypothesise; we simply need to let machines lead us to the patterns, trends, and relationships in social, economic, political, and environmental relationships.
It is quite likely that you yourself have been the unwitting subject of a big data experiment carried out by Google, Facebook and many other large Web platforms. Google, for instance, has been able to collect extraordinary insights into what specific colours, layouts, rankings, and designs make people more efficient searchers. They do this by slightly tweaking their results and website for a few million searches at a time and then examining the often subtle ways in which people react.
Most large retailers similarly analyse enormous quantities of data from their databases of sales (which are linked to you by credit card numbers and loyalty cards) in order to make uncanny predictions about your future behaviours. In a now famous case, the American retailer, Target, upset a Minneapolis man by knowing more about his teenage daughter’s sex life than he did. Target was able to predict his daughter’s pregnancy by monitoring her shopping patterns and comparing that information to an enormous database detailing billions of dollars of sales. This ultimately allows the company to make uncanny predictions about its shoppers.
More significantly, national intelligence agencies are mining vast quantities of non-public Internet data to look for weak signals that might indicate planned threats or attacks.
There can by no denying the significant power and potentials of big data. And the huge resources being invested in both the public and private sectors to study it are a testament to this.
However, crucially important caveats are needed when using such datasets: caveats that, worryingly, seem to be frequently overlooked.
The raw informational material for big data projects is often derived from large user-generated or social media platforms (e.g. Twitter or Wikipedia). Yet, in all such cases we are necessarily only relying on information generated by an incredibly biased or skewed user-base.
Gender, geography, race, income, and a range of other social and economic factors all play a role in how information is produced and reproduced. People from different places and different backgrounds tend to produce different sorts of information. And so we risk ignoring a lot of important nuance if relying on big data as a social/economic/political mirror.
We can of course account for such bias by segmenting our data. Take the case of using Twitter to gain insights into last summer’s London riots. About a third of all UK Internet users have a twitter profile; a subset of that group are the active tweeters who produce the bulk of content; and then a tiny subset of that group (about 1%) geocode their tweets (essential information if you want to know about where your information is coming from).
Despite the fact that we have a database of tens of millions of data points, we are necessarily working with subsets of subsets of subsets. Big data no longer seems so big. Such data thus serves to amplify the information produced by a small minority (a point repeatedly made by UCL’s Muki Haklay), and skew, or even render invisible, ideas, trends, people, and patterns that aren’t mirrored or represented in the datasets that we work with.
Big data is undoubtedly useful for addressing and overcoming many important issues face by society. But we need to ensure that we aren’t seduced by the promises of big data to render theory unnecessary.
We may one day get to the point where sufficient quantities of big data can be harvested to answer all of the social questions that most concern us. I doubt it though. There will always be digital divides; always be uneven data shadows; and always be biases in how information and technology are used and produced.
And so we shouldn’t forget the important role of specialists to contextualise and offer insights into what our data do, and maybe more importantly, don’t tell us.
Illustration: Marian Bantjes“All models are wrong, but some are useful.”
So proclaimed statistician George Box 30 years ago, and he was right. But what choice did we have? Only models, from cosmological equations to theories of human behavior, seemed to be able to consistently, if imperfectly, explain the world around us. Until now. Today companies like Google, which have grown up in an era of massively abundant data, don’t have to settle for wrong models. Indeed, they don’t have to settle for models at all.
Sixty years ago, digital computers made information readable. Twenty years ago, the Internet made it reachable. Ten years ago, the first search engine crawlers made it a single database. Now Google and like-minded companies are sifting through the most measured age in history, treating this massive corpus as a laboratory of the human condition. They are the children of the Petabyte Age.
The Petabyte Age is different because more is different. Kilobytes were stored on floppy disks. Megabytes were stored on hard disks. Terabytes were stored in disk arrays. Petabytes are stored in the cloud. As we moved along that progression, we went from the folder analogy to the file cabinet analogy to the library analogy to — well, at petabytes we ran out of organizational analogies.
At the petabyte scale, information is not a matter of simple three- and four-dimensional taxonomy and order but of dimensionally agnostic statistics. It calls for an entirely different approach, one that requires us to lose the tether of data as something that can be visualized in its totality. It forces us to view data mathematically first and establish a context for it later. For instance, Google conquered the advertising world with nothing more than applied mathematics. It didn’t pretend to know anything about the culture and conventions of advertising — it just assumed that better data, with better analytical tools, would win the day. And Google was right.
Google’s founding philosophy is that we don’t know why this page is better than that one: If the statistics of incoming links say it is, that’s good enough. No semantic or causal analysis is required. That’s why Google can translate languages without actually “knowing” them (given equal corpus data, Google can translate Klingon into Farsi as easily as it can translate French into German). And why it can match ads to content without any knowledge or assumptions about the ads or the content.
Speaking at the O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference this past March, Peter Norvig, Google’s research director, offered an update to George Box’s maxim: “All models are wrong, and increasingly you can succeed without them.”
This is a world where massive amounts of data and applied mathematics replace every other tool that might be brought to bear. Out with every theory of human behavior, from linguistics to sociology. Forget taxonomy, ontology, and psychology. Who knows why people do what they do? The point is they do it, and we can track and measure it with unprecedented fidelity. With enough data, the numbers speak for themselves.
The big target here isn’t advertising, though. It’s science. The scientific method is built around testable hypotheses. These models, for the most part, are systems visualized in the minds of scientists. The models are then tested, and experiments confirm or falsify theoretical models of how the world works. This is the way science has worked for hundreds of years.
Scientists are trained to recognize that correlation is not causation, that no conclusions should be drawn simply on the basis of correlation between X and Y (it could just be a coincidence). Instead, you must understand the underlying mechanisms that connect the two. Once you have a model, you can connect the data sets with confidence. Data without a model is just noise.
But faced with massive data, this approach to science — hypothesize, model, test — is becoming obsolete. Consider physics: Newtonian models were crude approximations of the truth (wrong at the atomic level, but still useful). A hundred years ago, statistically based quantum mechanics offered a better picture — but quantum mechanics is yet another model, and as such it, too, is flawed, no doubt a caricature of a more complex underlying reality. The reason physics has drifted into theoretical speculation about n-dimensional grand unified models over the past few decades (the “beautiful story” phase of a discipline starved of data) is that we don’t know how to run the experiments that would falsify the hypotheses — the energies are too high, the accelerators too expensive, and so on.
Now biology is heading in the same direction. The models we were taught in school about “dominant” and “recessive” genes steering a strictly Mendelian process have turned out to be an even greater simplification of reality than Newton’s laws. The discovery of gene-protein interactions and other aspects of epigenetics has challenged the view of DNA as destiny and even introduced evidence that environment can influence inheritable traits, something once considered a genetic impossibility.
In short, the more we learn about biology, the further we find ourselves from a model that can explain it.
There is now a better way. Petabytes allow us to say: “Correlation is enough.” We can stop looking for models. We can analyze the data without hypotheses about what it might show. We can throw the numbers into the biggest computing clusters the world has ever seen and let statistical algorithms find patterns where science cannot.
The best practical example of this is the shotgun gene sequencing by J. Craig Venter. Enabled by high-speed sequencers and supercomputers that statistically analyze the data they produce, Venter went from sequencing individual organisms to sequencing entire ecosystems. In 2003, he started sequencing much of the ocean, retracing the voyage of Captain Cook. And in 2005 he started sequencing the air. In the process, he discovered thousands of previously unknown species of bacteria and other life-forms.
If the words “discover a new species” call to mind Darwin and drawings of finches, you may be stuck in the old way of doing science. Venter can tell you almost nothing about the species he found. He doesn’t know what they look like, how they live, or much of anything else about their morphology. He doesn’t even have their entire genome. All he has is a statistical blip — a unique sequence that, being unlike any other sequence in the database, must represent a new species.
This sequence may correlate with other sequences that resemble those of species we do know more about. In that case, Venter can make some guesses about the animals — that they convert sunlight into energy in a particular way, or that they descended from a common ancestor. But besides that, he has no better model of this species than Google has of your MySpace page. It’s just data. By analyzing it with Google-quality computing resources, though, Venter has advanced biology more than anyone else of his generation.
This kind of thinking is poised to go mainstream. In February, the National Science Foundation announced the Cluster Exploratory, a program that funds research designed to run on a large-scale distributed computing platform developed by Google and IBM in conjunction with six pilot universities. The cluster will consist of 1,600 processors, several terabytes of memory, and hundreds of terabytes of storage, along with the software, including IBM’s Tivoli and open source versions of Google File System and MapReduce.111 Early CluE projects will include simulations of the brain and the nervous system and other biological research that lies somewhere between wetware and software.
Learning to use a “computer” of this scale may be challenging. But the opportunity is great: The new availability of huge amounts of data, along with the statistical tools to crunch these numbers, offers a whole new way of understanding the world. Correlation supersedes causation, and science can advance even without coherent models, unified theories, or really any mechanistic explanation at all.
There’s no reason to cling to our old ways. It’s time to ask: What can science learn from Google?
Terrence McCoy and Heloísa Traiano, November 15, 2020 at 5:23 p.m. GMT-3
RIO DE JANEIRO — For most of his 57 years, to the extent that he thought about his race, José Antônio Gomes used the language he was raised with. He was “pardo” — biracial — which was how his parents identified themselves. Or maybe “moreno,” as people back in his hometown called him. Perhaps “mestiço,” a blend of ethnicities.
It wasn’t until this year, when protests for racial justice erupted across the United States after George Floyd’s killing in police custody, that Gomes’s own uncertainty settled. Watching television, he saw himself in the thousands of people of color protesting amid the racially diverse crowds. He saw himself in Floyd.
Gomes realized he wasn’t mixed. He was Black.
So in September, when he announced his candidacy for city council in the southeastern city of Turmalina, Gomes officially identified himself that way. “In reality, I’ve always been Black,” he said. “But I didn’t think I was Black. But now we have more courage to see ourselves that way.”
Brazil is home to more people of African heritage than any country outside Africa. But it is rarely identified as a Black nation, or as closely identifying with any race, really. It has seen itself as simply Brazilian — a tapestry of European, African and Indigenous backgrounds that has defied the more rigid racial categories used elsewhere. Some were darker, others lighter. But almost everyone was a mix.
Now, however, as affirmative action policies diversify Brazilian institutions and the struggle for racial equality in the United States inspires a similar movement here, a growing number of people are redefining themselves. Brazilians who long considered themselves to be White are reexamining their family histories and concluding that they’re pardo. Others who thought of themselves as pardo now say they’re Black.
In Brazil, which still carries the imprint of colonization and slavery, where class and privilege are strongly associated with race, the racial reconfiguration has been striking. Over the past decade, the percentage of Brazilians who consider themselves White has dropped from 48 percent to 43 percent, according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, while the number of people who identify as Black or mixed has risen from 51 percent to 56 percent.
“We are clearly seeing more Black people publicly declare themselves as Black, as they would in other countries,” said Kleber Antonio de Oliveira Amancio, a social historian at the Federal University of Recôncavo da Bahia. “Racial change is much more fluid here than it is in the United States.”
One of the clearest illustrations of that fluidity — and the growing movement to identify as Black — was the registration process for the 5,500 or so municipal elections held here Sunday. Candidates were required to identify as White, Black, mixed, Indigenous or Asian. And that routine bureaucratic step yielded fairly stunning results.
More than a quarter of the 168,000 candidates who also ran in 2016 have changed their race, according to a Washington Post analysis of election registration data. Nearly 17,000 who said they were White in 2016 are now mixed. Around 6,000 who said they were mixed are now Black. And more than 14,000 who said they were mixed now identify as White.
For some candidates, the jump was even further. Nearly 900 went from White to Black, and nearly 600 went from Black to White.
How to explain it?
Some say they’re simply correcting bureaucratic error: A party official charged with registering candidates saw their picture and recorded their race inaccurately. One woman joked that she’d gotten a lot less sun this year while quarantined and decided to declare herself White. Another candidate told the Brazilian newspaper O Globo that he was Black but was a “fan” of the Indigenous, and so has now joined them. Some believed candidates were taking advantage of a recent court decision that requires parties to dispense campaign funds evenly among racial categories.
And others said they didn’t see what all of the fuss was about.
“Race couldn’t exist,” reasoned Carlos Lacerda, a city council candidate in the southeastern city of Araçatuba, who described himself as White in 2016 and Black this year. “It’s nationalism, and that’s it. Race is something I’d never speak about.”
“We have way more important things to talk about than my race,” said Ribamar Antônio da Silva, a city council member seeking reelection in the southeastern city of Osasco.
But others looked at the racial registration as a chance to fulfill a long-denied identity.
Cristovam Andrade, 36, a city council candidate in the northeastern city of São Felipe, was raised on a farm in rural Bahia, where the influence of West Africa never felt far away. With limited access to information outside his community — let alone Brazil — he grew up believing he was White. That was how his parents had always described him.
“I didn’t have any idea about race in North America or in Europe,” he said. “But I knew a lot of people who were darker than me, so I saw myself as White.”
As he began to see himself as Black, Brazil did, too. For much of its history, Brazil’s intellectual elite described Latin America’s largest country as a “racial democracy,” saying its history of intermixing had spared it the racism that plagues other countries. Around 5 million enslaved Africans were shipped to Brazil — more than 10 times the number that ended up in North America — and the country was the last in the Western Hemisphere to abolish slavery, in 1888. Its history since has been one of profound racial inequality: White people earn nearly twice as much as Black people on average, and more than 75 percent of the 5,800 people killed by police last year were Black.
But Brazil never adopted prohibitions on intermarrying or draconian racial distinctions. Race became malleable.
The Brazilian soccer player Neymar famously said he wasn’t Black. Former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso famously said he was, at least in part. The 20th-century Brazilian sociologist Gilberto de Mello Freyre wrote in the 1930s that all Brazilians — “even the light-skinned fair-haired one” — carried Indigenous or African lineage.
“The self-declaration as Black is a very complex question in Brazilian society,” said Wlamyra Albuquerque, a historian at the Federal University of Bahia. “And one of the reasons for this is that the myth of a racial democracy is still in political culture in Brazil. The notion that we’re all mixed, and because of this, racism couldn’t exist in the country, is still dominant.”
Given the choice, many Afro-Brazilians, historians and sociologists argue, have historically chosen not to identify as Black — whether consciously or not — to distance themselves from the enduring legacy of slavery and societal inequality. Wealth and privilege allowed some to separate even further from their skin color.
“In Brazilian schools, we didn’t learn who was an African person, who was an Indigenous person,” said Bartolina Ramalho Catanante, a historian at the Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul. “We only learned who was a European person and how they came here. To be Black wasn’t valued.”
But over the past two decades, as diversity efforts elevated previously marginalized voices into newscasts, telenovelas and politics, people such as Andrade have begun to think of themselves differently. To Andrade’s mother, he was White. But he wasn’t so sure. His late father had been Black. His grandparents had been Black. Just because his skin color was lighter, did that make his African roots, and his family’s experience of slavery, any less a part of his history?
In 2016, when Andrade ran for office, an official with the leftist Workers’ Party asked him what race he would like to declare. He had a decision to make.
“I am going to mark Black as a way to recognize my ancestry and origin,” he thought. “Outside of Brazil, we would never be considered White. We live in a bubble in this country.”
But this year, when he ran again, no one asked him which race he preferred. Someone saw his picture and made the decision for him. He was put down as White. For Andrade, it felt like an erasure.
“It’s easy for some to say they’re Black or mixed or White, but for me it’s not easy,” he said. “And I’m not going to be someone who isn’t White all over the world but is White only in Brazil. If I’m not White elsewhere in the world, I’m not White.”
He’s Black. And if he seeks public office again in 2024, he said, he’ll make sure that’s how he will be known.
Nurit Bensusan, assessora do ISA e especialista em biodiversidade
É interessante pensar que o fim do mundo talvez seja um longo processo: nada de meteoro ou de explosões atômicas. Uma pandemia aqui, um evento climático extremo ali, menos comida, mais uma pandemia, secas catastróficas, menos comida ainda, mais uma pandemia, sede, fome, guerras, mais secas, mais pandemias, mais inundações… Enfim, a consolidação de um planeta hostil à nossa espécie.
Em relatório recém-lançado, a Plataforma Intergovernamental de Biodiversidade e Serviços Ecossistêmicos (IBPES, na sigla em inglês) chama o período em que estamos entrando, com a pandemia de Covid-19, de a “Era das Pandemias”. Diante dos dados expostos pelo relatório, o nome vem bem a calhar. Alguns deles, para dar o tom:- Estima-se que haja 1,7 milhões de vírus que ainda não foram descritos em mamíferos e aves. Desses, entre 540 mil e 850 mil teriam a capacidade de infectar humanos.
– Os mais importantes reservatórios de patógenos com potencial pandêmico são os mamíferos (em particular morcegos, roedores e primatas) e algumas aves, em especial as aquáticas, assim como os animais criados para a produção de proteína animal, como porcos, galinhas, camelos, etc.
– O risco de pandemias está aumentando rapidamente com a emergência de mais de cinco doenças novas em humanos a cada ano. Qualquer uma dessas tem potencial para se espalhar e se tornar uma nova pandemia.
– O risco é aumentado exponencialmente pelas modificações antropogênicas, tais como a perda de biodiversidade, a simplificação das paisagens e a degradação de ecossistemas.
No quesito “modificações antropogênicas” que aumentam exponencialmente o risco das pandemias, é que estão as ideias, tão bem implementadas por aqui, para apressar o fim do mundo. A aceleração do desmatamento e da degradação do ambiente, o descompromisso com o combate à crise climática e o desrespeito à diversidade social, cultural e de formas de estar no mundo têm sido nosso cotidiano.
Não há dúvida alguma que o atual governo brasileiro parece ter pressa para chegar ao apocalipse. A situação geral do planeta, porém, não é muito diferente. Ao invés de uma janela de oportunidades, a pandemia revelou-se um espelho quebrado cujo reflexo tememos ver. Uma das estranhas consequências da situação é que o inaceitável mundo em que vivíamos, transbordante de desigualdades, racismo, ansiedade, depressão e violência, parece ter se tornado não apenas tolerável mas até mesmo desejável. Não apenas não enxergamos outras possibilidades de futuro, como ansiamos por voltar a nossa vida pregressa.
Pulsão de morte ou confiança na tecnologia?
Curiosamente, o relatório do IBPES não surtiu grandes efeitos. Assim como os números crescentes de mortes por Covid-19, de hectares desmatados na Amazônia ou queimados no Pantanal, de toneladas de carbono lançadas na atmosfera ou de plástico no mar. Trata-se, será, de uma pulsão de morte da nossa espécie ou uma confiança excessiva nas soluções tecnológicas?
Além das ideias para apressar o fim do mundo que já conhecemos, algumas novidades têm chamado atenção. Uma delas é a mortandade de elefantes em Botswana, o lugar com a terceira maior população de elefantes africanos. Nos primeiros meses deste ano, 330 elefantes morreram envenenados por fontes de água contaminadas por cianobactérias, provavelmente uma consequência das mudanças climáticas.
Outra é a situação das praias de Kamtchaka, localizadas na costa leste da Rússia, local que faz a festa dos surfistas. Ali, no começo de setembro, as pessoas começaram a apresentar queimaduras na pele, vômitos e dificuldade para respirar. De lá para cá, milhares de animais marinhos já morreram.
As hipóteses ligadas à poluição não foram comprovadas, apesar dos níveis de elementos derivados do petróleo, de fosfato e de mercúrio estarem muito acima do aceitável. As pesquisas conduziram à conclusão que se trata de uma proliferação exacerbada de algas, que emitem toxinas e exaurem o oxigênio da água, causada pelas mudanças climáticas.
Ambiente hostil e egoísmo
Além de transformarmos o planeta num ambiente hostil para nós mesmos, estamos contribuindo para o rápido desaparecimento da biodiversidade. Se o apelo ético da responsabilidade de carregar tantas mortes nas costas não move a nossa espécie, o egoísmo deveria fazê-lo. É justamente a complexidade da paisagem, composta por várias espécies em múltiplas relações, que garante a contenção das zoonoses, impedindo que essas doenças que vêm dos animais silvestres cheguem aos humanos.
Essas moléstias são muitas e se tornam mais comuns à medida que vamos destruindo os ecossistemas e degradando os serviços que eles nos oferecem. Vale lembrar que a maioria das enfermidades humanas infecciosas que surgiram nas décadas recentes teve origem na vida silvestre e 65% de todos os patógenos humanos descobertos, desde 1980, foram identificados como vírus zoonóticos. Entre elas, estão a Zyka, a Febre do Rift Valley, a gripe aviária, a H1N1 e muitas outras.
A esse cenário, já bastante preocupante, soma-se o descongelamento acelerado do Ártico e do Permafrost, área de milhares de quilômetros quadrados de solos congelados que circunda o Ártico. Esse fenômeno começa a causar uma injeção de mais gases de efeito estufa na atmosfera, o encontro de animais que não conviviam antes e a possibilidade da emergência de novos e velhos patógenos, presentes nos restos mortais de espécies de outros tempos, como o mamute, ou de pessoas de outros séculos, como as vítimas de uma epidemia de varíola do fim do século XIX. Tudo isso aponta para um maior risco de novas doenças e de pandemias.
Mundo sem nós
Alguns livros e filmes já tentaram delinear como seria o mundo sem nós. Aparentemente, a Terra se recuperaria bem do estrago que estamos fazendo e talvez nem demorasse muitos milhares de anos para isso. A única coisa que sobraria, uma lembrança de nossa passagem pelo cosmos, seriam os plastiglomeratos, um material que pode ser descrito como um fragmento rochoso que reúne grãos de areia, detritos plásticos e materiais orgânicos, como conchas, partes de corais e madeiras, amalgamados por algo que já foi um plástico derretido. Sua origem remete a fogos causados por humanos, em geral para queimar lixo. Foram encontrados primeiro na praia Kamilo, no Havaí, em 2014, mas de lá para cá já foram identificadas em Bali, na Califórnia, na ilha de Madeira e em Ontário, no Canadá.
O relatório do IBPES aponta que ainda podemos escapar da Era das Pandemias, pois temos acumulado bastante conhecimento para traçar caminhos que nos permitam prever e evitar novas crises sanitárias. Isso, segundo o relatório, inclui localizar possíveis origens geográficas de novas pandemias, identificar hospedeiros- chave e patógenos com mais probabilidade de emergir e demonstrar como as mudanças ambientais e socioeconômicas estão relacionadas com a emergência de doenças. O relatório também traz um conjunto de mecanismos para tornar isso possível. Alguns estão ligados a um reforço de instrumentos multilaterais, como o estabelecimento de um conselho intergovernamental de prevenção de pandemias que, além de promover a cooperação entre governos, trabalharia com as três convenções da Eco -92 (Mudanças Climáticas, Biodiversidade e Combate à Desertificação), para desenvolver uma abordagem chamada de One Heath (uma saúde, em inglês). Trata-se de pensar uma abordagem que conecte saúde humana, saúde animal e questões ambientais.
Há várias outras recomendações tanto ligadas ao financiamento de atividades que degradam o meio ambiente como relacionadas com o consumo humano. O inusitado é que nada disso é novo. Sabemos de tudo isso e sabemos há muito tempo. Sabemos que essa relação predatória que cultivamos com a natureza tem um preço e que, fatalmente, ele seria cobrado.
A conclusão do relatório é que as transformações necessárias a evitar pandemias podem parecer de difícil implementação, caras e de impacto incerto. A isso, os autores contrapõem os custos de enfrentar uma pandemia e afirmam que esse caminho trará benefícios para a saúde, a biodiversidade e as nossas economias. Apesar de não ser algo novo, o caminho para evitar o fim do mundo é apontado, descrito e sinalizado. Resta saber se vamos, como sempre, fazer mais do mesmo, ou se vamos agarrar o touro pelos chifres, sobreviver, viver e deixar viver, aqui e agora, neste planeta.
Farmers tending their plants. But Chatham House’s Patrick Schröder warns that green isn’t always sustainable. Copyright: USAID/Natasha Murigu/(CC BY-NC 2.0)
Speed read
‘Green’ doesn’t always mean ‘sustainable’, says circular economy specialist
Bioeconomy an essential part of the global economy
But, has potential to further degrade the environment
Green isn’t always sustainable, Chatham House’s Patrick Schröder warns as the Global Bioeconomy Summit kicks off.
All that glitters is not gold, or so the expression goes. Similarly, as business leaders, academics, and policymakers gather for the third Global Bioeconomy Summit it’s worth noting that all that’s green is not necessarily sustainable.
The ‘bioeconomy’ is a sophisticated sounding term, but essentially it means the things we make, use and sell that have their origins in nature; and the aim is to transition the economy from fossil resources towards renewable ones. Farming and forestry are part of the bioeconomy, as is energy produced from biomass, and services like tourism that are rooted in nature and outdoor experiences. The bioeconomy is central to what we do every day, and is an essential part of the global economy. In Europe alone the bioeconomy has an annual value of €2.4 trillion. It holds the key to a greener, more sustainable and healthy future for all — if the right practices, regulations and incentives are in place.
“Governments have the choice to use the bioeconomy as a source of regenerative and sustainable development that upholds the rights of citizens and protects crucial ecological systems.” – Patrick Schröder
At the same time, the bioeconomy has the potential to drive further environmental destruction and degradation. Irresponsible pursuit of profit and unsustainable exploitation of natural resources are making climate change, biodiversity loss, infectious diseases, hunger and inequality much worse. A recent report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) found that unless we dramatically reduce our impact on the natural world, future pandemics will become more frequent, spread more quickly and kill more people.
High levels of consumption in industrialised countries have far-reaching impacts on ecosystems, food security and human rights both within and beyond their borders. Low- and middle-income countries are directly affected by the policies and practices of the global North, and ordinary citizens have limited influence. Demand in the United States and the United Kingdom for beef directly drives deforestation in the Amazon; while the number of everyday products that contain unsustainable palm oil continues to increase.
Sustainability challenge
An unsustainable bioeconomy also threatens the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) — a global sustainability framework adopted by the United Nations in 2015. A recent report by the German Federal Environment Agency found that in order for the bioeconomy to work for, rather than against, the SDGs, the global agenda and national strategies need to focus much more on restoration of ecosystems, sustainable land-use, climate protection and food sovereignty.
Forests are a key testing ground. These ecosystems have a huge and positive impact on biodiversity, conservation and climate, and provide livelihoods and a place to live for millions of people. But they face an existential threat from unsustainable economic activity. For example, large-scale bioenergy production in Latin America and the Caribbean, where forests cover almost half of all land area, is competing for space with farming of monoculture crops for export, with serious consequences for biodiversity and food security of smallholders.
We’ll hear lots about the potential of the bioeconomy for delivering sustainable economic growth during this week’s summit, but we should be sceptical about the sustainability credentials of a system with a track record of pushing marginalised communities and vulnerable ecosystems to the limit. Without better governance and institutional frameworks, the bioeconomy will only exacerbate social and environmental problems.
Three steps
At Chatham House, we’ve been looking into how to make the bioeconomy more sustainable. Our research suggests that there are three things that will drive better outcomes.
First, we need to bring in new voices. Currently, bioeconomy policy processes are dominated by industry, science and a small circle of political actors. There’s an unequal agenda here: those most affected by the policies are rarely the ones shaping them. Greater efforts to include civil society and a wider range of government departments in decision making will encourage the bioeconomy to work for a larger group of people.
Second, governments need to use the right governance mechanisms. So far, only a small number of countries with national bioeconomy strategies consider the potential negative impacts and environmental risks. The development of the bioeconomy needs to align with existing international governance and support mechanisms for sustainable land-use, soil protection and forest conservation. The UN Biodiversity Conference, due to take place in China next year, will be important for establishing cohesive governance mechanisms and regulations to prevent trade-offs between the bioeconomy and biodiversity protection.
Third, the bioeconomy should embrace circular principles. Much of the bioeconomy is based on our current linear model of ‘take–make–throw away’, where resources are extracted, turned into products, consumed and discarded. This is fundamentally unsustainable. In a circular bioeconomy the cascading use principle is applied to biomass resources, such as wood and agricultural products. This approach gives priority to processes that allow the reuse and recycling of products and raw materials. It increases the productivity and efficient use of scarce and valuable raw material resources.
Governments have the choice to use the bioeconomy as a source of regenerative and sustainable development that upholds the rights of citizens and protects crucial ecological systems. Or, they can allow the evolution of a system that is just as exploitative, unsustainable and profit-driven as other parts of the economy.
Delegates at this week’s summit should think hard about the actions they can take to ensure the growing bioeconomy fulfils its promise to serve the needs of people and planet, and help deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals.
Patrick Schröder is a senior research fellow in Chatham House’s energy, environment and resources programme. He specialises in the circular economy and resource governance in developing countries.
O Papa Francisco pediu aos fiéis do mundo inteiro para que, durante o mês de novembro, rezem para que o progresso da robótica e da inteligência artificial (IA) possam sempre servir a humanidade.
A mensagem faz parte de uma série de intenções de oração que o pontífice divulga anualmente, e compartilha a cada mês no YouTube para auxiliar os católicos a “aprofundar sua oração diária”, concentrando-se em tópicos específicos. Em setembro, o papa pediu orações para o “compartilhamento dos recursos do planeta”; em agosto, para o “mundo marítimo”; e agora chegou a vez dos robôs e da IA.
Na sua mensagem, o Papa Francisco pediu uma atenção especial para a IA que, segundo ele, está “no centro da mudança histórica que estamos experimentando”. E que não se trata apenas dos benefícios que a robótica pode trazer para o mundo.
Progresso tecnológico e algoritmos
Francisco afirma que nem sempre o progresso tecnológico é sinal de bem-estar para a humanidade, pois, se esse progresso contribuir para aumentar as desigualdades, não poderá ser considerado como um progresso verdadeiro. “Os avanços futuros devem ser orientados para o respeito à dignidade da pessoa”, alerta o papa.
A preocupação com que a tecnologia possa aumentar as divisões sociais já existentes levou o Vaticano assinar no início deste ano, em conjunto com a Microsoft e a IBM, a “Chamada de Roma por Ética de IA”, um documento em que são fixados alguns princípios para orientar a implantação da IA: transparência, inclusão, imparcialidade e confiabilidade.
Mesmo pessoas não religiosas são capazes de reconhecer que, quando se trata de implantar algoritmos, a preocupação do papa faz todo o sentido.
Audrey Azoulay: Director-General, Unesco How will AI shape our lives post-Covid?
Covid-19 is a test like no other. Never before have the lives of so many people around the world been affected at this scale or speed.
Over the past six months, thousands of AI innovations have sprung up in response to the challenges of life under lockdown. Governments are mobilising machine-learning in many ways, from contact-tracing apps to telemedicine and remote learning.
However, as the digital transformation accelerates exponentially, it is highlighting the challenges of AI. Ethical dilemmas are already a reality – including privacy risks and discriminatory bias.
It is up to us to decide what we want AI to look like: there is a legislative vacuum that needs to be filled now. Principles such as proportionality, inclusivity, human oversight and transparency can create a framework allowing us to anticipate these issues.
This is why Unesco is working to build consensus among 193 countries to lay the ethical foundations of AI. Building on these principles, countries will be able to develop national policies that ensure AI is designed, developed and deployed in compliance with fundamental human values.
As we face new, previously unimaginable challenges – like the pandemic – we must ensure that the tools we are developing work for us, and not against us.
Until recently, the field of plant breeding looked a lot like it did in centuries past. A breeder might examine, for example, which tomato plants were most resistant to drought and then cross the most promising plants to produce the most drought-resistant offspring. This process would be repeated, plant generation after generation, until, over the course of roughly seven years, the breeder arrived at what seemed the optimal variety.
Researchers at ETH Zürich use standard color images and thermal images collected by drone to determine how plots of wheat with different genotypes vary in grain ripeness. Image credit: Norbert Kirchgessner (ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland).
Now, with the global population expected to swell to nearly 10 billion by 2050 (1) and climate change shifting growing conditions (2), crop breeder and geneticist Steven Tanksley doesn’t think plant breeders have that kind of time. “We have to double the productivity per acre of our major crops if we’re going to stay on par with the world’s needs,” says Tanksley, a professor emeritus at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY.
To speed up the process, Tanksley and others are turning to artificial intelligence (AI). Using computer science techniques, breeders can rapidly assess which plants grow the fastest in a particular climate, which genes help plants thrive there, and which plants, when crossed, produce an optimum combination of genes for a given location, opting for traits that boost yield and stave off the effects of a changing climate. Large seed companies in particular have been using components of AI for more than a decade. With computing power rapidly advancing, the techniques are now poised to accelerate breeding on a broader scale.
AI is not, however, a panacea. Crop breeders still grapple with tradeoffs such as higher yield versus marketable appearance. And even the most sophisticated AI cannot guarantee the success of a new variety. But as AI becomes integrated into agriculture, some crop researchers envisage an agricultural revolution with computer science at the helm.
An Art and a Science
During the “green revolution” of the 1960s, researchers developed new chemical pesticides and fertilizers along with high-yielding crop varieties that dramatically increased agricultural output (3). But the reliance on chemicals came with the heavy cost of environmental degradation (4). “If we’re going to do this sustainably,” says Tanksley, “genetics is going to carry the bulk of the load.”
Plant breeders lean not only on genetics but also on mathematics. As the genomics revolution unfolded in the early 2000s, plant breeders found themselves inundated with genomic data that traditional statistical techniques couldn’t wrangle (5). Plant breeding “wasn’t geared toward dealing with large amounts of data and making precise decisions,” says Tanksley.
In 1997, Tanksley began chairing a committee at Cornell that aimed to incorporate data-driven research into the life sciences. There, he encountered an engineering approach called operations research that translates data into decisions. In 2006, Tanksley cofounded the Ithaca, NY-based company Nature Source Improved Plants on the principle that this engineering tool could make breeding decisions more efficient. “What we’ve been doing almost 15 years now,” says Tanksley, “is redoing how breeding is approached.”
A Manufacturing Process
Such approaches try to tackle complex scenarios. Suppose, for example, a wheat breeder has 200 genetically distinct lines. The breeder must decide which lines to breed together to optimize yield, disease resistance, protein content, and other traits. The breeder may know which genes confer which traits, but it’s difficult to decipher which lines to cross in what order to achieve the optimum gene combination. The number of possible combinations, says Tanksley, “is more than the stars in the universe.”
An operations research approach enables a researcher to solve this puzzle by defining the primary objective and then using optimization algorithms to predict the quickest path to that objective given the relevant constraints. Auto manufacturers, for example, optimize production given the expense of employees, the cost of auto parts, and fluctuating global currencies. Tanksley’s team optimizes yield while selecting for traits such as resistance to a changing climate. “We’ve seen more erratic climate from year to year, which means you have to have crops that are more robust to different kinds of changes,” he says.
For each plant line included in a pool of possible crosses, Tanksley inputs DNA sequence data, phenotypic data on traits like drought tolerance, disease resistance, and yield, as well as environmental data for the region where the plant line was originally developed. The algorithm projects which genes are associated with which traits under which environmental conditions and then determines the optimal combination of genes for a specific breeding goal, such as drought tolerance in a particular growing region, while accounting for genes that help boost yield. The algorithm also determines which plant lines to cross together in which order to achieve the optimal combination of genes in the fewest generations.
Nature Source Improved Plants conducts, for example, a papaya program in southeastern Mexico where the once predictable monsoon season has become erratic. “We are selecting for varieties that can produce under those unknown circumstances,” says Tanksley. But the new papaya must also stand up to ringspot, a virus that nearly wiped papaya from Hawaii altogether before another Cornell breeder developed a resistant transgenic variety (6). Tanksley’s papaya isn’t as disease resistant. But by plugging “rapid growth rate” into their operations research approach, the team bred papaya trees that produce copious fruit within a year, before the virus accumulates in the plant.
“Plant breeders need operations research to help them make better decisions,” says William Beavis, a plant geneticist and computational biologist at Iowa State in Ames, who also develops operations research strategies for plant breeding. To feed the world in rapidly changing environments, researchers need to shorten the process of developing a new cultivar to three years, Beavis adds.
The big seed companies have investigated use of operations research since around 2010, with Syngenta, headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, leading the pack, says Beavis, who spent over a decade as a statistical geneticist at Pioneer Hi-Bred in Johnston, IA, a large seed company now owned by Corteva, which is headquartered in Wilmington, DE. “All of the soybean varieties that have come on the market within the last couple of years from Syngenta came out of a system that had been redesigned using operations research approaches,” he says. But large seed companies primarily focus on grains key to animal feed such as corn, wheat, and soy. To meet growing food demands, Beavis believes that the smaller seed companies that develop vegetable crops that people actually eat must also embrace operations research. “That’s where operations research is going to have the biggest impact,” he says, “local breeding companies that are producing for regional environments, not for broad adaptation.”
In collaboration with Iowa State colleague and engineer Lizhi Wang and others, Beavis is developing operations research-based algorithms to, for example, help seed companies choose whether to breed one variety that can survive in a range of different future growing conditions or a number of varieties, each tailored to specific environments. Two large seed companies, Corteva and Syngenta, and Kromite, a Lambertville, NJ-based consulting company, are partners on the project. The results will be made publicly available so that all seed companies can learn from their approach.
Nature Source Improved Plants (NSIP) speeds up its papaya breeding program in southeastern Mexico by using decision-making approaches more common in engineering. Image credit: Nature Source Improved Plants/Jesús Morales.
Drones and Adaptations
Useful farming AI requires good data, and plenty of it. To collect sufficient inputs, some researchers take to the skies. Crop researcher Achim Walter of the Institute of Agricultural Sciences at ETH Zürich in Switzerland and his team are developing techniques to capture aerial crop images. Every other day for several years, they have deployed image-capturing sensors over a wheat field containing hundreds of genetic lines. They fly their sensors on drones or on cables suspended above the crops or incorporate them into handheld devices that a researcher can use from an elevated platform (7).
Meanwhile, they’re developing imaging software that quantifies growth rate captured by these images (8). Using these data, they build models that predict how quickly different genetic lines grow under different weather conditions. If they find, for example, that a subset of wheat lines grew well despite a dry spell, then they can zero in on the genes those lines have in common and incorporate them into new drought-resistant varieties.
Research geneticist Edward Buckler at the US Department of Agriculture and his team are using machine learning to identify climate adaptations in 1,000 species in a large grouping of grasses spread across the globe. The grasses include food and bioenergy crops such as maize, sorghum, and sugar cane. Buckler says that when people rank what are the most photosynthetically efficient and water-efficient species, this is the group that comes out at the top. Still, he and collaborators, including plant scientist Elizabeth Kellogg of the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis, MO, and computational biologist Adam Siepel of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in NY, want to uncover genes that could make crops in this group even more efficient for food production in current and future environments. The team is first studying a select number of model species to determine which genes are expressed under a range of different environmental conditions. They’re still probing just how far this predictive power can go.
Such approaches could be scaled up—massively. To probe the genetic underpinnings of climate adaptation for crop species worldwide, Daniel Jacobson, the chief researcher for computational systems biology at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in TN, has amassed “climatype” data for every square kilometer of land on Earth. Using the Summit supercomputer, they then compared each square kilometer to every other square kilometer to identify similar environments (9). The result can be viewed as a network of GPS points connected by lines that show the degree of environmental similarity between points.
“For me, breeding is much more like art. I need to see the variation and I don’t prejudge it. I know what I’m after, but nature throws me curveballs all the time, and I probably can’t count the varieties that came from curveballs.”
—Molly Jahn
In collaboration with the US Department of Energy’s Center for Bioenergy Innovation, the team combines this climatype data with GPS coordinates associated with individual crop genotypes to project which genes and genetic interactions are associated with specific climate conditions. Right now, they’re focused on bioenergy and feedstocks, but they’re poised to explore a wide range of food crops as well. The results will be published so that other researchers can conduct similar analyses.
The Next Agricultural Revolution
Despite these advances, the transition to AI can be unnerving. Operations research can project an ideal combination of genes, but those genes may interact in unpredictable ways. Tanksley’s company hedges its bets by engineering 10 varieties for a given project in hopes that at least one will succeed.
On the other hand, such a directed approach could miss happy accidents, says Molly Jahn, a geneticist and plant breeder at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. “For me, breeding is much more like art. I need to see the variation and I don’t prejudge it,” she says. “I know what I’m after, but nature throws me curveballs all the time, and I probably can’t count the varieties that came from curveballs.”
There are also inherent tradeoffs that no algorithm can overcome. Consumers may prefer tomatoes with a leafy crown that stays green longer. But the price a breeder pays for that green calyx is one percent of the yield, says Tanksley.
Image recognition technology comes with its own host of challenges, says Walter. “To optimize algorithms to an extent that makes it possible to detect a certain trait, you have to train the algorithm thousands of times.” In practice, that means snapping thousands of crop images in a range of light conditions. Then there’s the ground-truthing. To know whether the models work, Walter and others must measure the trait they’re after by hand. Keen to know whether the model accurately captures the number of kernels on an ear of corn? You’d have to count the kernels yourself.
Despite these hurdles, Walter believes that computer science has brought us to the brink of a new agricultural revolution. In a 2017 PNAS Opinion piece, Walter and colleagues described emerging “smart farming” technologies—from autonomous weeding vehicles to moisture sensors in the soil (10). The authors worried, though, that only big industrial farms can afford these solutions. To make agriculture more sustainable, smaller farms in developing countries must have access as well.
Fortunately, “smart breeding” advances may have wider reach. Once image recognition technology becomes more developed for crops, which Walter expects will happen within the next 10 years, deploying it may be relatively inexpensive. Breeders could operate their own drones and obtain more precise ratings of traits like time to flowering or number of fruits in shorter time, says Walter. “The computing power that you need once you have established the algorithms is not very high.”
The genomic data so vital to AI-led breeding programs is also becoming more accessible. “We’re really at this point where genomics is cheap enough that you can apply these technologies to hundreds of species, maybe thousands,” says Buckler.
Plant breeding has “entered the engineered phase,” adds Tanksley. And with little time to spare. “The environment is changing,” he says. “You have to have a faster breeding process to respond to that.”
1. United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, World Population Prospects 2019: Highlights, (United Nations, New York, 2019).
3. P. L. Pingali, Green revolution: Impacts, limits, and the path ahead. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 109, 12302–12308 (2012).
4. D. Tilman, The greening of the green revolution. Nature 396, 211–212 (1998).
5. G. P. Ramstein, S. E. Jensen, E. S. Buckler, Breaking the curse of dimensionality to identify causal variants in Breeding 4. Theor. Appl. Genet. 132, 559–567 (2019).
6. D. Gonsalves, Control of papaya ringspot virus in papaya: A case study. Annu. Rev. Phytopathol. 36, 415–437 (1998).
7. N. Kirchgessner et al., The ETH field phenotyping platform FIP: A cable-suspended multi-sensor system. Funct. Plant Biol. 44, 154–168 (2016).
8. K. Yu, N. Kirchgessner, C. Grieder, A. Walter, A. Hund, An image analysis pipeline for automated classification of imaging light conditions and for quantification of wheat canopy cover time series in field phenotyping. Plant Methods 13, 15 (2017).
9. J. Streich et al., Can exascale computing and explainable artificial intelligence applied to plant biology deliver on the United Nations sustainable development goals? Curr. Opin. Biotechnol. 61, 217–225 (2020).
10. A. Walter, R. Finger, R. Huber, N. Buchmann, Opinion: Smart farming is key to developing sustainable agriculture. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 114, 6148–6150 (2017).
Key components of dry biomass and anthropogenic mass in the year 2020. (Elhacham et al., Nature, 2020)
© Stephanie Fuessenich/laif für die 
Student in Paris in the 1980
Illustration: Marian Bantjes “All models are wrong, but some are useful.”
Farmers tending their plants. But Chatham House’s Patrick Schröder warns that green isn’t always sustainable. Copyright: 
Uma (in)certa antropologia 
Você precisa fazer login para comentar.