Arquivo da categoria: Uncategorized

What-If and What-Is: The Role of Speculation in Science (N.Y.Times)

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SIDE EFFECTS

MPI/Getty Images

An illustration from about 1850 of a dog with a small travois in an Assiniboine encampment.

By JAMES GORMAN – Published: May 24, 2012

Woody Allen once said that when you do comedy, you sit at the children’s table. The same might be said of speculation in science.

And yet speculation is an essential part of science. So how does it fit in? Two recent publications, both about the misty depths of canine and human history, suggest some answers. In one, an international team of scientists concludes that we really don’t know when and where dogs were domesticated. Greger Larson of the University of Durham, in England, the first of 20 authors of that report, said of dog DNA, “it’s a mess.”

In the other, Pat Shipman, an independent scientist and writer suggests that dogs may have helped modern humans push the Neanderthals out of existence and might even have helped shape human evolution.

Is one right and the other wrong? Are both efforts science — one a data-heavy reality check and the other freewheeling speculation? The research reported by Dr. Larson and his colleagues in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences is solid science, easily judged by peers, at any rate. The essay by Dr. Shipman is not meant to come to any conclusion but to prompt thought and more research. It, too, will be judged by other scientists, and read by many nonscientists.

But how is one to judge the value of speculation? There are a few obvious ways. The questions readers ought to ask when confronting a “what-if “as opposed to “what-is” article are: Does the writer make it clear what is known, what is probable, and what is merely possible?

Dr. Shipman was careful to make these distinctions in her essay inAmerican Scientist, and in an interview, when I asked her to walk me through her argument.

First, she said, we know that modern humans and Neanderthals occupied Europe at the same time, from about 45,000 to 25,000 years ago, and that the fortunes of the modern humans rose as those of the Neanderthals fell. Somehow the modern humans outcompeted the Neanderthals. And here we are now, with our computers, our research, and our beloved dogs, which, scientists agree evolved from wolves.

Second, and this point is crucial, Dr. Shipman thinks dogs were very probably around during this time period, although she recognizes that others disagree. She tells us about the research that convinced her, so we can check it ourselves, if we like: a 2009 report of three skulls, the oldest dating to 32,000 years ago, by Mietje Germonpré of The Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences in The Journal of Archaeological Science.

The skulls are clearly of members of the canid family, but that includes wolves, jackals and foxes. Dr. Germonpré and her colleagues concluded that the skulls belonged to dogs. That’s where things get sticky.

The rest of Dr. Shipman’s essay is clear enough. If the humans had dogs, the dogs must have been helping somehow, in hunting or pulling travois. And they may have been so helpful that they gave modern humans an edge over the Neanderthals (unless the Neanderthals had dogs, too). If they helped in hunting, they might have watched human eyes for clues about what was going on, as they do now. Other researchers have suggested that the white of the human eye evolved to foster cooperation because we could more easily see where others were looking, than with plain brown eyes.

If dogs were watching us too, that would have added survival value to having a partly white eye and thus played a role in our evolution. Fair enough, but the dogs had to be there at that time when humans and Neanderthals overlapped. I asked Dr. Larson about Dr. Shipman’s essay, and I confess I expected he might object to its speculative nature. Not so. “I love speculation,” he wrote back, “I do it all the time.” And, he said of Dr. Shipman’s essay, “it’s a lovely chain of reasoning.”

But, he said, “it begins from the premise that the late Pleistocene canid remains are dogs. And they are not.”

He wrote, “there is not a single piece of (credible) evidence to suggest that the domestication process was under way 30,000 years ago.” He cited an article in press in The Journal of Archaeological Science that is highly critical of the Germonpré paper. The article, written by Susan J. Crockford at the University of Victoria and Yaroslav V. Kuzmin at the Siberian branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, suggests that the skulls in question came from short-faced wolves and do not indicate that the domestication process had begun. Dr. Crockford, who had read Dr. Shipman’s paper, thought it “too speculative for science.” But she did not view the case of early domestication as completely closed.

She said in an e-mail: “We simply need more work on these ancient wolves before we can determine if these canids are incipient dogs (in the process of becoming dogs, although not there yet) or if they simply reflect the normal variation in ancient wolves. At present, I am leaning strongly towards the later (normal variation in wolves).”

Perhaps the way to judge the scientific value of speculation would be to see if it prompts more research, more collecting of fossils, more study. Until then, only proximate answers will exist to the question of where dogs came from.

Mine came from a shelter? How about yours?

Mudando para que nada mude (Cineclube Ciência em Foco)

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SEXTA-FEIRA, 25 DE MAIO DE 2012

 “A exaustão dos recursos naturais não será resolvida enquanto os padrões de subjetividade ocidentais não forem incluídos como parte fundamental do problema. […] A insatisfação crônica do cidadão ocidental, e a forma irresponsável com que se relaciona com as coisas […] são coisas tão importantes quanto a discussão sobre matrizes energéticas”.

 

Renzo Taddei – Doutor em Antropologia pela Univ. de Columbia, pesquisador da Coordenação do Núcleo Interdisciplinar de Estudos Contemporâneos da ECO-UFRJ e palestrante do Ciência em Foco de 2 de junho.

1) O personagem central do filme Árido Movie é um profissional que apresenta diariamente a previsão do tempo para o Brasil em uma rede de TV em São Paulo. Ao voltar para sua terra natal no sertão nordestino, ele se vê deslocado na fissura entre estes dois “nordestes”: o da previsão do tempo, distante e virtual, e o concreto. Diante dos vários contrastes com os quais se defronta, como podemos pensar seu deslocamento?

Essa fissura não se limita à questão do “nordeste”, mas é ainda mais importante, ainda que menos saliente, na própria questão do clima. Somos levados a crer todo o tempo que o clima que importa está em algum outro lugar, e que só é acessível através da mediação de especialistas e equipamentos. Obviamente isso ocorre de fato, mas há efeitos deletérios nessa alienação entre os indivíduos e o meio ambiente: a questão passa a ser entendida como problema distante, vivido apenas de forma abstrata. Isso gera a atitude caracterizada pela ideia de que “eu não tenho nada com isso” – o que é exatamente o que o personagem do filme diz à avó quando percebe que esta espera que ele vingue a morte do pai. De certa forma, ele vivia a sua própria relação familiar de forma alienada, como algo abstrato, virtual, e as contingências da vida o obrigam a enfrentar a incontornável materialidade dos contextos locais. A crise ambiental atual nos confronta com esta materialidade incontornável. Se o personagem vivesse as suas relações familiares de forma mais integral, talvez o destino de todos ali fosse outro. Há responsabilidades que nos implicam, mas que não escolhemos – algo difícil de aceitar no contexto liberal em que vivemos. Mas a analogia acaba por aqui: felizmente não há morte alguma a ser vingada na questão climática (ou haverá?).

2) O fenômeno climático da seca é recorrente na filmografia brasileira. Pode-se dizer que o cinema traz representações do meio ambiente que muitas vezes nos forçam a pensar seus elementos a partir de sua relação com a sociedade e a cultura. Sem entregar muito de sua fala, poderia comentar algo em torno desta relação? Qual a importância destas perspectivas e seu papel no cenário das discussões oficiais?

Mais do que a seca propriamente dita, o elemento que povoou a imaginação de escritores e artistas foi o “sertão”. Hoje, especialmente para as audiências do sudeste urbano, sertão é quase sinônimo de nordeste rural, mas no passado a situação era diferente. Há debates acadêmicos sobre de onde vem a palavra sertão: uma das hipóteses é que tem origem na palavra desertão, sugerindo a ideia de área remota e desolada; outra, sugere que a palavra vem de sertus, termo do latim que significa entrelaçado, enredado. Na história do Brasil, o sertão sempre foi o espaço refratário à penetração do poder oficial, das instituições de controle do Estado. Um dos lugares onde isso é mais claro é na obraGrande Sertão: Veredas, de Guimarães Rosa. A obra se ambienta toda em Minas Gerais, em uma região que não é semiárida como o sertão nordestino, e numa época onde sequer existia o “Nordeste”, mas tudo o que ficava acima da Bahia era considerado “Norte”. No início, o Brasil todo era sertão; com a expansão do Estado ao longo do século XX, houve uma redução considerável do território que pode ser considerado sertão, nos sentidos mencionados acima: praticamente toda a região sudeste, por exemplo, se “dessertaniza” à medida que o espaço passa a ser ocupado por cidades e atividade agrícola em larga escala.

Desta forma, na imaginação artística o sertão funcionou, ao longo dos últimos dois séculos, como o “outro mundo” onde há liberdade em contraposição aos controles que marcam as sociedades urbanas, e onde há mais autenticidade, o que pode ser encarado por um viés romântico (como vemos em José de Alencar, por exemplo) ou onde coisas impensáveis podem ocorrer, numa espécie de mirada conradiana [referente a elementos da obra do escritor britânico Joseph Conrad (1857-1924), autor de Coração das trevas]. Mesmo com o Cinema Novo, onde há uma sociologização mais intensa do sertão, esse não deixa de ser espaço de liberdade e experimentação, como vemos em Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol, de Glauber Rocha. Mas é preciso que se diga que isso tudo marca uma perspectiva de quem olha de fora. O sertão não é uma coisa, são muitas.

O que a seca faz, em certo sentido, é ressertanizarmomentaneamente um território dessertanizado, porque ela tem o potencial de desorganizar processos políticos e sociais locais, inclusive no que diz respeito às instituições oficiais de poder. Em lugares onde as variações climáticas (como as secas) são recorrentes, como no nordeste brasileiro, em geral as relações de poder locais existem de forma associada às epidemias de sofrimento trazidas pela seca. A infame indústria da seca é um exemplo disso. Mas há limites em quanto as sociedades e instituições locais conseguem se ajustar à variação do clima: secas muito intensas podem efetivamente colocar toda uma sociedade em situação de crise, como se vê atualmente nos sertões de Pernambuco e da Bahia.

Um segundo ponto da questão menciona a forma como o cinema nos faz pensar o meio ambiente em sua relação com sociedade e cultura. Há duas formas de relacionar natureza e sociedade que parecem ser recorrentes na experiência humana. Por um lado, usamos elementos da natureza para pensar relações sociais, coisa que na antropologia chamamos de totemismo. A forma como usamos figuras de animais para pensar torcidas de futebol (urubu, gaviões, porco etc), ou como destacamentos militares usam símbolos animais (a onça em quartéis na Amazônia), ou ainda quando nos referimos a qualidades pessoais através de imagens animais (ao dizer que alguém “é” uma cobra, um rato, ou uma anta), são exemplos disso. Por outro, projetamos na natureza elementos humanos, culturais e sociais, o que, por sua vez, é conhecido na antropologia como animismo. Desta forma, uma tempestade é “traiçoeira”, ou uma estação chuvosa, como ouvi várias vezes em pesquisa de campo no sertão do Ceará, pode ser “velhaca” (isto é, promete e não cumpre). O cinema naturalmente se utiliza disso tudo como recurso narrativo.

Além disso, nossa percepção do ambiente é visceralmente marcada por nossas perspectivas contextuais. Uma pesquisa que coordenei a respeito das respostas sociais e culturais às secas do ano de 2005 – um ano em que houve secas na Amazônia, no Nordeste e no sul do Brasil – mostrou que as populações locais não pensam o meio ambiente como algo desconectado das demais dimensões da vida; como tais dimensões são variáveis, a percepção do ambiente o é também. Os resultados da pesquisa foram publicados no livroDepois que a chuva não veio, disponível em texto integral na Internet. O problema é que os governos centrais, como o federal, no Brasil, têm a tendência a homogeneizar tudo com o qual se relacionam, ignorando os contextos locais; e a ciência climática tende a pregar que o contexto local e o clima não têm relação causal direta (especialmente quando estão contestando a capacidade do conhecimento tradicional de produzir previsões climáticas válidas). No que diz respeito às relações entre sociedade e clima, vivemos uma situação verdadeiramente neurótica. O meio ambiente pode inclusive ser uma forma de eufemizar uma discussão demasiadamente sensível em termos políticos e sociais. Um manual de infoativismo editado na Inglaterra, por exemplo, sugere que personagens em forma de animais sejam usados em campanhas públicas em que questões politicas sensíveis dificultem a comunicação através de exemplos humanos.

As discussões oficiais são, infelizmente, demasiadamente economicistas e unilineares, presas a um utilitarismo frustrante, para levar qualquer dessas questões a sério.

3) No mês de junho, o Rio de Janeiro sediará a Rio+20, a conferência das Nações Unidas em torno do desenvolvimento sustentável, que articulará líderes mundiais em discussões que convidam à cooperação mundial para a melhoria de problemas sociais. Tendo em vista o cenário de mudanças climáticas, como abordar a participação social nestas discussões, face às diferenças culturais que estão em jogo?

As diferenças culturais não devem ser entendidas como obstáculo às ações relacionadas à crise ambiental. Pelo contrário, são recursos importantes. É interessante observar como a biodiversidade é hipervalorizada, ao ponto de ser fetichizada, e ao mesmo tempo a diversidade de formas humanas de ser e estar no mundo é desvalorizada – por exemplo, quando se acredita, com as melhores intenções, que é preciso “educar” as pessoas que praticam queimadas para plantio, por exemplo, para que “entendam” os efeitos deletérios de algumas de suas práticas cotidianas. Projetamos o problema sobre os outros, sem perceber que esse nosso foco em informação e no pensamento, ou seja, ao diagnosticar tudo como “falta de informação” ou diferentes “formas de pensar”, é parte fundamental do problema. Tudo ficou cibernético demais, de forma que as questões morais e éticas nos escapam muito facilmente.

A ideia de que diferenças culturais dificultam a construção de um entendimento mundial sobre as questões ambientais em geral, e sobre a questão climática, em particular, me assusta. A própria ideia de “entendimento mundial” em torno do meio ambiente evoca perigosamente um centralismo pouco democrático. Nunca na história da humanidade houve uma tentativa tão articulada para a criação de um discurso único sobre o meio ambiente. A polarização política que se vê nos Estados Unidos, em torno da questão climática, é uma farsa: o comportamento do partido republicano mostra com clareza que se trata de uma disputa pelo poder, onde os envolvidos se comportam estrategicamente e defendem qualquer posição que maximize suas chances de vitória. E, acima de tudo, apresentam o problema climático como se houvesse apenas duas alternativas – aceitar ou negar o efeito das ações humanas nas mudanças climáticas –, mas as duas são validadas dentro do mesmo paradigma ocidental, exacerbadamente materialista e utilitarista. E as outras formas de pensamento e de vida, outras epistemologias e ontologias? Como diz o antropólogo Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, é preciso aprender a pensar “com” os outros. Segundo o pensamento ameríndio, por exemplo, ao invés de tomar os humanos como excepcionais em sua humanidade, há a ideia de que a humanidade é a essência comum de todos os seres vivos. Que tipo de ética e moralidade decorre dai, na relação entre humanos e não humanos? Não se trata de romantizar as formas indígenas de vida, mas apenas de mostrar como outros pensamentos são extremamente interessantes na abordagem dos problemas ambientais.

No meu entender, o que sobressai nesta questão da participação social e da multiplicidade cultural é o fato de que é preciso que os ocidentais, e nós, ocidentalóides, entendamos que há dimensões do problema que transcendem a materialidade e o utilitarismo. A exaustão dos recursos naturais, por exemplo, não será resolvida enquanto os padrões de subjetividade ocidentais não forem incluídos como parte fundamental do problema. Não adianta criar esquemas institucionais para evitar a “tragédia dos comuns”, por exemplo, sem lidar com os temas da satisfação e da responsabilidade. A insatisfação crônica do cidadão ocidental, e a forma irresponsável com que se relaciona com as coisas (ao pagar os governos municipais para “sumir” com o nosso lixo, sem que nenhuma pergunta seja feita, de modo que não precisemos pensar mais nele, por exemplo), são coisas tão importantes quanto a discussão sobre matrizes energéticas.

4) Contraplanos – expresse em poucas palavras (ou apenas uma) sua sensação com relação aos sentidos e problemáticas evocadas pelas seguintes palavras:

– tempo e clima: clima é um ponto de vista[1]; tempo é a vista (a partir) de um ponto[2] (notas: [1] Clima é “ponto de vista” no sentido de que trata-se de uma construção abstrata, resultante de cálculos estatísticos sobre medições de indicadores atmosféricos em intervalos amplos de tempo, e onde as técnicas estatísticas, o termômetro e outros mediadores técnicos têm tanta importância quanto a vibração das partículas que o termômetro busca medir; [2] tempo, no sentido dado ao conceito pela meteorologia, é o fenômeno atmosférico que existe num prazo de tempo mais curto, e portanto tende a fazer referência ao fenômeno em si, enquanto singularidade experiencial, ou seja, coisas que vivemos e lembramos, porque nos afetam num tempo e espaço específicos, e desta forma são a experiência a partir de um ponto).

 – sustentabilidade: o que exatamente se está tentando sustentar? Precisamos pensar a “mutabilidade” tanto quanto sustentabilidade. É muito difícil mudar o (insustentável) sistema econômico em que nos encontramos, e é preciso atentar para o fato de que, sob a fachada de “sustentabilidade”, há um esforço imenso de mudar apenas o que é necessário para que nada mude no final. O mercado de carbono é o exemplo paradigmático disso. Ou seja, em geral os debates sobre sustentabilidade (e sobre adaptação, resiliência etc.) são conservadores e insuficientes.

– construção social: já não há mais muita clareza a respeito do que significa tal associação de termos (o que é bom). Se tudo é construção social, a ideia deixa de ser relevante, porque não explica muita coisa. Tudo está em fluxo; se é “construção”, e se é “social”, depende de qual jogo semântico se está jogando. A expressão diz mais a respeito de quem usa a expressão do que sobre o fenômeno em questão. Tenho a impressão que dizer que o clima, por exemplo, é uma “construção social” constitui uma forma de evitar levar o clima a sério – e aqui estou repetindo ideias de autores como Bruno Latour ou Roy Wagner, por exemplo.

– ciência e cultura: há muito menos clareza a respeito do que significam tais termos (o que é melhor ainda). Num sentido mais propriamente filosófico, são duas ideias que morreram no século XX. Ou seja, tanto a Ciência como a Cultura, assim com “c” maiúsculo, que constituíam o santo graal do pensamento acadêmico Europeu dos séculos XIX e grande parte do XX se mostraram quimeras, principalmente em função dos trabalhos de gente como Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Wittgenstein, Gadamer, dentre muitos outros. Sobraram “ciências” e “culturas” com “c” minúsculo, ou seja, tais conceitos se transformaram em problemas empíricos. Puxando a sardinha pro meu lado (risos), se tornaram problemas antropológicos.

5) Roteiros alternativos – espaço dedicado à sugestão de links, textos, vídeos, referências diversas de outros autores/pesquisadores que possam contribuir com a discussão. Para encerrar essa sessão, transcreva, se quiser, uma fala de um pensador que o inspire e/ou seu trabalho.

No meu blog Uma (In)certa Antropologia (http://umaincertaantropologia.org) mantenho um arquivo de notícias e materiais acadêmicos sobre as relações entre cultura, sociedade e o clima. Há lá uma gravação em áudio de uma apresentação do antropólogo Eduardo Viveiros de Castro que toca no tema das mudanças climáticas como crise do Ocidente, e como outros povos e outras culturas se relacionam com isso, que vale a pena ser ouvida. Ela está no link http://www.taddei.eco.ufrj.br/ViveirosdeCastro_IFCS_20111123.wav.

O livro Depois que a chuva não veio, mencionado acima, está disponível no link http://www.taddei.eco.ufrj.br/DQACNV.htm.

O documentário “10 tacticts for turning information into action”, também mencionado acima, está no site http://informationactivism.org/original_10_tactics_project#viewonline, com subtítulos em português – o exemplo de uso de animais como personagens está na tática número 3.

Há um vídeo provocativo do Slavok Žižek, cujo título éEcology as Religion, que evoca discussões importantes sobre como o meio ambiente existe no senso comum e nas discussões políticas. O video está reproduzido em https://umaincertaantropologia.org/2012/04/12/slavoj-zizek-on-ecology-as-religion-youtube/

6) Como conhecer mais de suas produções?

Há uma lista de artigos acadêmicos e também escritos para jornais e revistas em meu website, no link http://www.taddei.eco.ufrj.br/Textos.htm

Severe Nuclear Reactor Accidents Likely Every 10 to 20 Years, European Study Suggests (Science Daily)

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ScienceDaily (May 22, 2012) — Western Europe has the worldwide highest risk of radioactive contamination caused by major reactor accidents.

Global risk of radioactive contamination. The map shows the annual probability in percent of radioactive contamination by more than 40 kilobecquerels per square meter. In Western Europe the risk is around two percent per year. (Credit: Daniel Kunkel, MPI for Chemistry, 2011)

Catastrophic nuclear accidents such as the core meltdowns in Chernobyl and Fukushima are more likely to happen than previously assumed. Based on the operating hours of all civil nuclear reactors and the number of nuclear meltdowns that have occurred, scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz have calculated that such events may occur once every 10 to 20 years (based on the current number of reactors) — some 200 times more often than estimated in the past. The researchers also determined that, in the event of such a major accident, half of the radioactive caesium-137 would be spread over an area of more than 1,000 kilometres away from the nuclear reactor. Their results show that Western Europe is likely to be contaminated about once in 50 years by more than 40 kilobecquerel of caesium-137 per square meter. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, an area is defined as being contaminated with radiation from this amount onwards. In view of their findings, the researchers call for an in-depth analysis and reassessment of the risks associated with nuclear power plants.

The reactor accident in Fukushima has fuelled the discussion about nuclear energy and triggered Germany’s exit from their nuclear power program. It appears that the global risk of such a catastrophe is higher than previously thought, a result of a study carried out by a research team led by Jos Lelieveld, Director of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz: “After Fukushima, the prospect of such an incident occurring again came into question, and whether we can actually calculate the radioactive fallout using our atmospheric models.” According to the results of the study, a nuclear meltdown in one of the reactors in operation worldwide is likely to occur once in 10 to 20 years. Currently, there are 440 nuclear reactors in operation, and 60 more are planned.

To determine the likelihood of a nuclear meltdown, the researchers applied a simple calculation. They divided the operating hours of all civilian nuclear reactors in the world, from the commissioning of the first up to the present, by the number of reactor meltdowns that have actually occurred. The total number of operating hours is 14,500 years, the number of reactor meltdowns comes to four — one in Chernobyl and three in Fukushima. This translates into one major accident, being defined according to the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES), every 3,625 years. Even if this result is conservatively rounded to one major accident every 5,000 reactor years, the risk is 200 times higher than the estimate for catastrophic, non-contained core meltdowns made by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 1990. The Mainz researchers did not distinguish ages and types of reactors, or whether they are located in regions of enhanced risks, for example by earthquakes. After all, nobody had anticipated the reactor catastrophe in Japan.

25 percent of the radioactive particles are transported further than 2,000 kilometres

Subsequently, the researchers determined the geographic distribution of radioactive gases and particles around a possible accident site using a computer model that describes Earth’s atmosphere. The model calculates meteorological conditions and flows, and also accounts for chemical reactions in the atmosphere. The model can compute the global distribution of trace gases, for example, and can also simulate the spreading of radioactive gases and particles. To approximate the radioactive contamination, the researchers calculated how the particles of radioactive caesium-137 (137Cs) disperse in the atmosphere, where they deposit on Earth’s surface and in what quantities. The 137Cs isotope is a product of the nuclear fission of uranium. It has a half-life of 30 years and was one of the key elements in the radioactive contamination following the disasters of Chernobyl and Fukushima.

The computer simulations revealed that, on average, only eight percent of the 137Cs particles are expected to deposit within an area of 50 kilometres around the nuclear accident site. Around 50 percent of the particles would be deposited outside a radius of 1,000 kilometres, and around 25 percent would spread even further than 2,000 kilometres. These results underscore that reactor accidents are likely to cause radioactive contamination well beyond national borders.

The results of the dispersion calculations were combined with the likelihood of a nuclear meltdown and the actual density of reactors worldwide to calculate the current risk of radioactive contamination around the world. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), an area with more than 40 kilobecquerels of radioactivity per square meter is defined as contaminated.

The team in Mainz found that in Western Europe, where the density of reactors is particularly high, the contamination by more than 40 kilobecquerels per square meter is expected to occur once in about every 50 years. It appears that citizens in the densely populated southwestern part of Germany run the worldwide highest risk of radioactive contamination, associated with the numerous nuclear power plants situated near the borders between France, Belgium and Germany, and the dominant westerly wind direction.

If a single nuclear meltdown were to occur in Western Europe, around 28 million people on average would be affected by contamination of more than 40 kilobecquerels per square meter. This figure is even higher in southern Asia, due to the dense populations. A major nuclear accident there would affect around 34 million people, while in the eastern USA and in East Asia this would be 14 to 21 million people.

“Germany’s exit from the nuclear energy program will reduce the national risk of radioactive contamination. However, an even stronger reduction would result if Germany’s neighbours were to switch off their reactors,” says Jos Lelieveld. “Not only do we need an in-depth and public analysis of the actual risks of nuclear accidents. In light of our findings I believe an internationally coordinated phasing out of nuclear energy should also be considered ,” adds the atmospheric chemist.

How Twitter Is Used to Share Information After a Disaster (Science Daily)

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ScienceDaily (May 22, 2012) — A study from North Carolina State University shows how people used Twitter following the 2011 nuclear disaster in Japan, highlighting challenges for using the social media tool to share information. The study also indicates that social media haven’t changed what we communicate so much as how quickly we can disseminate it.

“I wanted to see if Twitter was an effective tool for sharing meaningful information about nuclear risk in the wake of the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant,” says Dr. Andrew Binder, an assistant professor of communication at NC State and author of a paper describing the work. “I knew people would be sharing information, but I wanted to see whether it was anecdotal or substantive, and whether users were providing analysis and placing information in context.

“In the bigger picture, I wanted to see whether social media is changing the way we communicate, or if we are communicating the same way using different tools.”

Binder searched for Twitter posts, or “tweets,” originating in the United States that specifically referenced “Fukushima Daiichi” – which is the name of the nuclear plant – rather than searching for the term “Fukushima.” This allowed him to target tweets about the plant instead of general references to the tsunami and overarching disaster in the region. Using that as a base, Binder then selected every 20th tweet on each day over the two weeks following the onset of the Fukushima disaster – from March 11 to March 25, 2011 – to create a representative sample of these tweets.

Fifteen percent of the tweets in the sample contained some mention of risk-related terms, such as hazard or exposure, while 17.7 percent of the tweets included language that helped place the events at Fukushima Daiichi and their potential causes or consequences in context. For example, one tweet read “Most of the 100s of workers at Fukushima Daiichi live close to the plant so it’s their families and houses at risk.” Overall, 54 percent of the tweets included hyperlinks to external websites, of which 62.7 percent linked to traditional news sources.

“I found that, initially, tweets that mentioned risk were unlikely to include analysis or information on context,” Binder says. “Similarly, tweets that attempted to help understand events at Fukushima Daiichi rarely mentioned risk. By the time people began tweeting about risk issues in a meaningful way, the initial high level of interest had begun to wane significantly.”

Binder also found that people were more likely to include links to websites as time went on. And, as time passed, a higher percentage of those links were to traditional news sites.

“This highlights a significant problem,” Binder says. “People are clearly looking to news outlets for insight and analysis into disasters such as this one. But news organizations have fewer and fewer reporters who specialize in covering science and technology issues – and those are the very reporters who would be able to provide insight and analysis on these events.”

The study also seems to imply that social media have not significantly changed the content of our communications. “This case, at least, indicates that Twitter is allowing people to share news quickly and easily,” Binder says. “But the news they are sharing is not much different from that available to someone reading a print newspaper – they’re simply getting it sooner.”

A convergência da Arte e Ciência: Pistas do Passado (Revista Z Cultural)

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de Martha Blassnigg – tradução Cleomar Rocha e Júlio César dos Santos
Revista Z Cultural

Este artigo faz uma breve excursão pela história européia da ciência e da tecnologia numa perspectiva antropológica, destacando os valores humanos nas diretrizes subjacentes, imaginação, e atividades relacionadas à mente, como a maioria fundamentalmente constitutiva de toda a colaboração inter-disciplinar e seu impacto sobre a avaliação atual do valor associado às trocas cada vez maiores entre as Artes e as Ciências.

A Conferência Científica Internacional “Rumo a uma terceira cultura. A coexistência da arte, ciência e tecnologia”, organizada pelo Centro Laznia de Arte Contemporânea e o Museu de História em Gdansk, 23 a 25 maio de 2011, começou a discutir como “Atingir a arte por tecnologias científicas desenvolvidas agora no contexto da visão de uma terceira cultura, postulada por John Brockman “. Em vista das críticas e equívocos da problemática “duas culturas” da C.P. Snow, a postulação de uma “terceira cultura” foi criticamente abordada pela agenda das discussões da conferência, em particular em torno de idéias sobre a ciência para a arte e arte para a ciência, o papel, o significado da abordagem colaborativa, revista e criticamente a partir de diferentes perspectivas. A dimensão da interação humana em seus aportes subjacentes, a imaginação e a atividades mentais relacionadas, foi um entre muitos outros assuntos discutidos, o que será destacado aqui como o mais significativo parceiro constitucional, em especial entre as artes e ciências. Este artigo, portanto, concentra-se nas intersecções históricas entre a arte e a ciência e o que isso pode nos dizer, se não sobre a mudança de paradigmas, pelo menos, sobre a mudança em relação aos valores humanos envolvidos na colaboração.

A partir de uma excursão na história da ciência e tecnologia dos últimos dois séculos, fica evidente que o final do século 18 via a Arte e a Ciência ainda intimamente relacionados, como é explicitado, por exemplo, pelo químico e inventor Sir Humphrey Davy (1778-1829), na sua comparação entre o filósofo natural e o estado mental do artista:

A contemplação das leis do universo está conectada a uma exaltação imediata a e tranqüila da mente e puro prazer mental. A percepção da verdade é quase tão simples quanto um sentimento, como a percepção da beleza … o amor da natureza é a mesma paixão, como o amor do magnífico, do sublime e do belo. (WRIGHT, 1980: 199)

Quando o filósofo e historiador da ciência William Whewell cunhou o termo cientista, em 1833, na Inglaterra, o termo foi publicado pela primeira vez, anonimamente, em 1834, na resenha de “On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences” de Mary Somerville, com um comentário satírico sobre a crescente tendência “de separação e desmembramento “das ciências, que excluía filosofia, a menos no que referia aos termos “natural” ou “experimental”1. Ele propôs o termo novamente, de modo mais sério e em seu próprio nome em 1840, em “The Philosophy of the Inductive Science”, dando um nome genérico compreendendo vários campos científicos, semelhante à maneira como ele concebeu o termo artista para se referir às áreas da música, pintura, poesia etc. O que é particularmente interessante sobre a intervenção de Whewell para o contexto atual é que ele concebeu que todo conhecimento tem um ideal, ou dimensão subjetiva; bem como uma dimensão objetiva. O que ele viu como uma antítese fundamental do conhecimento, revelou em todo ato de conhecimento há dois elementos opostos: idéias e percepções. Por contrariar os Idealistas Alemães, bem como os sensacionalistas por sua propensão exclusivista, ele alegou estar procurando uma “via intermediária” entre racionalismo puro e um empirismo extremo.

Whewell (1858, I, 91) denominou ideias fundamentais como sendo: “… não uma conseqüência da experiência, mas um resultado da constituição particular e atividade da mente, que é independente de toda a experiência em sua origem, embora constantemente combinadas com experiência no seu exercício “. Ele reconheceu que a mente não é um mero receptor passivo de dados sensoriais, mas um participante ativo na produção de conhecimento.

É notável que a filosofia da mente reflete na história da ciência no modo como vários processos de produção de conhecimento foram compreendidos e modificados nas metodologias e significados implicados. Embora tenha sido freqüentemente alertado que a condição humana tem de ser reconhecida na sua implicitude em qualquer ato de observação ou de análise (se não na coleção científica de dados em si, e ainda, na leitura e interpretação da informação recolhida), as implicações do papel ativo da mente humana, no entanto, tem sido freqüentemente subestimado. A longa tradição na separação dualista entre a racionalidade como um processo de ordem superior e os sentidos físicos e a mente do corpo como os processos menores relacionados ao instinto deixou seus traços e ainda prevalece. Consequentemente, o dualismo cartesiano serviu predominantemente de modelo para racionalizar a separação crescente entre as Artes e Ciências durante o século 19 com uma presunçosa oposição binária entre o racional e o irracional, o inteligível e o sensível, ou o dionisíaco e o apolíneo, que Friedrich Nietzche (1872) reinterpretou como as unidades da natureza artística, como oposição estética fundamental.

Ao olhar para a interseção entre Arte e Ciência em estudos de casos particularizados, no entanto, muitos dos limites freqüentemente discutidos parecem se dissolver no reconhecimento das tensões produtivas dentro de contradições, paradoxos e incoerências nas práticas cotidianas. A partir dos muitos exemplos que podem ser extraídos da história da ciência, um caso paradigmático pode ser encontrado no fisiologista francês Etienne-Jules Marey (1830-1904), cuja obra se coloca entre as tensões que transformaram a ciência do século XIX dentro do paradigma positivista do século XX. Enquanto um estudo de caso mais completo é desenvolvido em outros lugares (BLASSNIGG, 2009) deve-se notar aqui que os estudos sobre movimento de Marey estava entre a sua capacidade visionária e orientação motivadora que entendeu o movimento como força subjacente para além da atividade executada de corpos em movimento ou substâncias, e o método científico de análise que reduziu essa força de apreender momentos para estudar posições individuais e casos de intensidades.2 A sobreposição de fotografias em série em sua “composite chronophotographs” situaram as tensões entre a calibração instrumental e a expansão da percepção subjetiva por uma ligação rigorosa com uma imaginação visionária e uma consciência explícita das suas implicações perceptuais e epistemológicas. Através de sua combinação única de métodos gráficos e fotográficos, de tecnologias de análise e de síntese, Marey teve sucesso abordando intrinsecamente a ambos: o capturado (análise) e o percebido (em suas tensões entre o experienciado e o sintetizado), em contraste com o paradigma positivista, cada vez mais privado desta totalidade e dinamismo visionário3 enquanto método científico. Esses recursos são evidentes no trabalho inovador de Marey, em que a imaginação desempenhou um papel fundamental tanto quanto a estética, ambos aplicados como ferramentas intrínsecas para complementar o rigor científico e a precisão.

A discrepância entre a análise e a descrição (ou representação visual) do movimento e o dinamismo atual das forças subjacentes de corpos animados que se cristalizam como duas dimensões chaves no trabalho de Marey, que na época também foi discutido pelo filósofo Bergson Hneri (1859-1941), que foi quem identificou a confusão entre a medição do tempo quantificável e do tempo como experiência qualitativa, uma vez que permanece fundamental reconhecer as potencialidades intrínsecas da mente humana que se mantém envolvida. Ele procurou desenvolver uma abordagem pragmático filosófica para abordar a questão da mudança de paradigma anteriormente mencionado nas ciências; inicialmente escrito como uma crítica à posição extremada do idealismo de Kant dentro do idealismo alemão de uma filosofia transcendental, ele tentou se mover através da dicotomia matéria (corpo) e espírito (mente), evitando estabelecer um reino transcendental e sem ter que considerar a consciência como um epifenômeno do cérebro. Assim procedento, os esforços de Bergson resultaram na distinção de duas tendências da mente – intelecto e intuição (antigo instinto), em uma oposição esquemática, que de forma construtiva e colaborativa foram complementando-se mutuamente ao longo do processo evolutivo, como ele demonstra em particular o caso dos processos criativos da mente (BERGSON 1999, 1998). Ao invés de representar uma crítica polêmica ao método científico, ele refletiu sobre o entreleçamento implícito e de contingências entre esses dois pólos dinâmicos e as suas necessidades evolutivas como tendência integradora: “Há coisas que a inteligência sozinha é capaz de buscar, mas que, sozinha, nunca as vai encontrar. O instinto, por si só, poderia encontrar; mas nunca irá procurá-las ” (BERGSON, 1998, 151).

A partir da perspectiva de uma filosofia (ou antropologia) da ment,e Marey e Bergson reconhecem intuição e imaginação como constituintes intrínsecos de sua prática do conhecimento, e viram a arte como uma disciplina importante para manter o movimento em uma posição dinâmica e instável – o próprio princípio da vida como é experimentado e aspirado. Há paradigmáticos exemplos anteriores de tentativas similares para descobrir um acesso mais direto e holístico para os fenômenos observados, em particular nas suas comunicações interrelacionais e representações com e no espectador, como nas obras de Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832 ) e Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851), que tanto tentaram mediar e comunicar a experiência de fenômenos de luz e escuridão em seu caráter unificado e alterações transitórias.4 Goethe, mais explicitamente, tinha manifestado a interação entre a intuição e o intelecto de uma forma semelhante a Bergson, pois ele compreendeu a percepção intuitiva (Anschauung) e a faculdade do pensamento (DENK-KRAFT) como duas forças complementares na conformação de qualquer ato criativo que objetiva alcançar uma maior atenção e análise mais completa (NAYDLER, 1996, 120). Não obstante que a resolução de Turner para estas tensões inerentes, como expresso em particular na sua pintura do Dilúvio, tem sido interpretada como uma imagem de desespero, a resolução de Goethe foi vivamente contestada e as intenções inerentes de Marey têm sido negligenciadas ou deliberadamente prejudicadas , suas obras tem sido orientadas por sensibilidades e preocupações interconectadas, embora em enquadramentos muito diferentes e através de metodologias divergentes. As tensões intrínsecas no tratamento do movimento dinâmico no seu trabalho e pensamento indicam a aparente incompatibilidade e paradoxo que Bergson e, semelhante aWhewell e Goethe, situou como tendências complementares da mente humana: o intelecto e a intuição.

A busca de Bergson, no entanto, não só reconhece alguns destes paradoxos irreconciliáveis, mas escava um caminho através do reconhecimento da agência imanente durante o processo perceptivo co-criativo como evento ontológico que interliga apreensão estética e intuição com rigor intelectual. O esforço em direção ao holismo, sem negligenciar a agência criativa e promulgada autodeterminação do participante (seja ele humano ou não humano), oferece-se como uma solução potencial para a dicotomia comumente assumida entre mente e matéria através de uma compreensão pragmática da intuição, que suplementa e, finalmente, contém o intelecto. A fim de manter em vista a constante renegociação dos valores humanos em qualquer prática do conhecimento (no pleno reconhecimento de agência e criatividade como forças motrizes), uma das principais preocupações pode ser identificada nos canais que facilitam a co-construção de conclusões específicas levantados deles mesmos. Estes “conjuntos” com as práticas e experiências do cotidiano através de participação(1) pro-ativa, co-criativa e consciente pode constituir uma verdadeira “ciência compartilhada”, em especial quando se trata de troca de conhecimento através da colaboração. Neste sentido, o binário arte-ciência genérico, talvez entre os muitos binários interdisciplinares, serve como um modelo para aludir ao potencial transformador da dinâmica da troca, como eles aspiram e que Sundar Sarukkai (2009) chamou de uma “ética da curiosidade” em ciência. Ao invés de contar os resultados em termos de diferença (1 + 1 = 2) ou de equalização em terra comum como uma espécie de amálgama (1 + 1 = 1), a equação mais valiosa da arte-ciência pode estar no recorte da dinâmica fusão: 1 + 1 = 3; não como uma terceira “cultura”, no entanto, mas como algo novo e diferente que pode acontecer em um meta-nível como princípio autotranscendente de qualquer colisão materializada. O restabelecimento do sublime como uma qualidade na efetiva atividade da mente humana, ao invés de um “dado” de natureza transcendental em termos de um “absoluto”, fornece uma reconciliação potencial da condição humana de viver entre binários, em um dualismo que não precisa ser necessariamente superado, mas que alimenta a fusão evidente que produz os deleites da mente promulgada por meio de uma responsabilidade de a conceber como um todo. Um dom ativo do amor que só pode ser apreciado na atividade concreta de estar com, no próprio ato co-criativo entre dois elementos, nas seções transversais de qualquer prática com o objetivo de produzir novos conhecimentos ou algo assim, com ou sem o auxílio da tecnologia, o movimento efetivamente criativo da mente que “mentaliza”. Como tal, a polaridade da arte-ciencia pode ser vista em uma gama muito maior de oposições binárias, onde questões semelhantes e dificuldades de comunicação podem ocorrer: nas colaborações interdisciplinares relacionadas a diálogos inter-culturais, a assuntos relacionados a gênero, a trocas inter-nacionais, a relações inter-geracionais etc.

A capacidade de apreciar e facilitar a transcendência disciplinar aparece como o fulcro de que podem inflamar no encontro ciência-arte, mas somente se os métodos envolvidos e as abordagens forem mantidos inteiros numa relação dialógica (ao invés de uma dialética ou uma convergência) que desafiem a unificação e abraçem a diferença na mutualidade (co-sendo). Deixar de lado modelos paradoxais como premissas, para dislumbrar novas visões podem provocar uma fusão onde as relações envolvidas estão sendo transformadas e discernimentos sendo transferidos através de uma troca de conhecimentos que não elimina, mas acomoda diferenças. Um encontro idealizado e produtivo que se orienta potencialmente em direção a uma auto-transcendência responsável, privilegiando o todo . Mentalidade aberta, tolerância, generosidade intelectual, curiosidade ética, modéstia – qualidades essenciais para qualquer encontro na fronteira entre as disciplinas, culturas, nações, ideologias, etc – indicam um papel-modelo que a ciência da arte da colaboração poderia representar no século XXI, para um reconsideração dos valores das Humanidades, que não se restringem aos seres humanos, mas estende seu parentesco a todas as formas de vida. Isto estava no cerne da visão de Henri Bergson de uma nova ciência que abraçava a metafísica por meio da filosofia, especialmente como expressa em sua abordagem para a compreensão da consciência além dos limites humanos em “L’Evolução Créatrice “(1907. Evolution, Creative, 1998) pelo que , pode-se sugerir retrospectivamente, ele talvez deveria ter ganhado o prêmio Nobel da Paz, além do que ele recebeu em 1929, de Literatura. Intuição, entendida como prática responsável auto-consciente e dom ativo do amor , mais que uma visão espontânea, pode servir como abordagem potencial em direção a uma atitude “humanitária” através da escolha auto-transcendente e agência individual para descobrir os domínios que são deliberadamente ou acidentalmente perdidos na tradução. Numa última análise, o principal desafio a ser identificado pode não ser a busca de uma linguagem comum, mas sim o desenvolvimento de competências e habilidades em relação ao entendimento da mente humana de modo a acomodar diferença e contingência em sintonia com os valores selecionados e advogados para orientar buscas futuras.

 

Referências

Bergson, Henri. An Introduction to Metaphysics (tr. T.E. Hulme). Indianapolis, Cambridge: Hackett Publishing. [1903. ‘Introduction à la Métaphysique’ in Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale, January].

______ 1998. Creative Evolution (tr. A. Mitchell). Mineola, New York: Dover Publications. [1907. L’Évolution Créatrice. Paris: Alcan].

Blassing, Martha. 2009. Time, Memory, Consciousness and the Cinema Experience: Revisiting Ideas on Matter and Spirit. Amsterdan: Rodopi.

Marey, Étienne-Jules. 1895. Movement: The Results and Possibilities of Photography (tr. E. Pritchard). London: William Heinemann. [French original: 1894. Le Mouvement. Paris: Masson].

Naydler, Jeremy (ed.) 1996. Goethe on Science. An Anthology of Goethe’s Scientific Writings. Trowbridge: Floris Books.

Nietzche, Friedrich. 1872. Die Geburt der Tragödie aus dem Geiste der Musik (The Birth of Tragedy: Out of the Spirit of Music). Leipzig: E.W. Fritzsch.

Sarukkai, Sundhar. 2009. Science and the Ethics of Curiosity. Current Science 97 (6): 756-767.

Whewell, William. 1858. The History of Sientific Ideas. Two Volumes. London.

Wright, C.J. 1980. The ‘Spectre’ of Science. The Sutdy of Optical Phenomena and the Romantic Imagination. Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 43.

 

Notas

1 Citação retirada da Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2006. Disponível em http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/whewell. Acessado em 30/05/2011.

2 A Monografia de Marey: Movement (1895; Le Movement, 1894) é particularmente esclarecedora para compreender as intenções subjacentes em seus estudos do movimento.

3 O método científico é reducionista a certos valores e dimensões humanas como uma condição necessária da sua eficaz especialização e quantificação e isto não é considerado um problema – somente é problema se esta redução estiver ultrapassando a perspectiva do todo e, consequentemente, a especialização se mostra como a totalidade, o que não só ocorre nas Ciências mas também nas Artes e Humanidades.

4 A contextualização do trabalho de Marey e Bergson com as ideias de Goethe e Turner, da percepção da luz, é mais plenamente elaborada no artigo: The Delightful (1) Mind and a Case for Aesthetic Intuition: Marey and Bergson in the Company of Goehte’s and Turner’s Conceptions of Light. In: Light, Image, Imagination: The Spectrum Beyond Reality and Illusion. Blassing, M. (ed.) Amsterdan: Amsterdan University Press.

Martha Blassnigg
Universidade de Plymouth

Heart Rules the Head When We Make Financial Decisions (Science Daily)

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ScienceDaily (May 21, 2012) — Our ‘gut feelings’ influence our decisions, overriding ‘rational’ thought, when we are faced with financial offers that we deem to be unfair, according to a new study. Even when we are set to benefit, our physical response can make us more likely to reject a financial proposition we consider to be unjust.

Conducted by a team from the University of Exeter, Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit and University of Cambridge, the research is published in the journal Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioural Neuroscience.

The research adds to growing evidence that our bodies can sometimes govern how we think and feel, rather than the other way round. It also reveals that those people who are more in tune with their bodies are more likely to be led by their ‘gut feelings’.

The study was based on a well-known psychological test, the Ultimatum Game. 51 participants were presented with a series of financial offers, based on different ways of dividing £10. Players frequently reject unfair offers in this game even though it leads to personal financial loss — an ‘irrational’ decision from an economic perspective.

The researchers measured participants’ physical responses to each offer by recording how much they sweated through the fingertips and how much their heart rate changed. How accurately participants could ‘listen’ to their bodies was measured on a different task by asking them to count their heartbeats and comparing their accuracy to their actual heart rate recording. Those people who showed a bigger physical response to unfair offers were more likely to reject them, but this was only the case if individuals were also able to accurately ‘listen’ to what their bodies were telling them.

The findings show that individuals who have a strong ‘gut-reaction’ and are in tune with their own physical responses are more likely to reject unfair financial offers, even if this decision results in personal losses.

Lead researcher Dr Barney Dunn of Psychology at the University of Exeter said: “This research supports the idea that what happens in our bodies can sometimes shape how we think and feel in our minds. Everyday phrases like ‘following your heart’ and ‘trusting your gut’ can often, it seems, be accurate.”

“Humans are highly attuned to unfairness and we are sometimes required to weigh up the demands of maintaining justice with preserving our own economic self-interest. At a time when ideas of fairness in the financial sector — from bankers’ bonuses to changes to pension schemes — are being widely debated, it is important to recognise why some individuals rebel against perceived unfairness, whereas other people are prepared to accept the status quo.”

Educational Games to Train Middle Schoolers’ Attention, Empathy (Science Daily)

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ScienceDaily (May 21, 2012) — Two years ago, at a meeting on science and education, Richard Davidson challenged video game manufacturers to develop games that emphasize kindness and compassion instead of violence and aggression.

With a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the University of Wisconsin-Madison professor is now answering his own call. With Kurt Squire, an associate professor in the School of Education and director of the Games Learning Society Initiative, Davidson received a $1.39 million grant this spring to design and rigorously test two educational games to help eighth graders develop beneficial social and emotional skills — empathy, cooperation, mental focus, and self-regulation.

“By the time they reach the eighth grade, virtually every middle-class child in the Western world is playing smartphone apps, video games, computer games,” says Davidson, the William James and Vilas Research Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at UW-Madison. “Our hope is that we can use some of that time for constructive purposes and take advantage of the natural inclination of children of that age to want to spend time with this kind of technology.”

The project grew from the intersection of Davidson’s research on the brain bases of emotion, Squire’s expertise in educational game design, and the Gates Foundation’s interest in preparing U.S. students for college readiness-possessing the skills and knowledge to go on to post-secondary education without the need for remediation.

“Skills of mindfulness and kindness are very important for college readiness,” Davidson explains. “Mindfulness, because it cultivates the capacity to regulate attention, which is the building block for all kinds of learning; and kindness, because the ability to cooperate is important for everything that has to do with success in life, team-building, leadership, and so forth.”

He adds that social, emotional, and interpersonal factors influence how students use and apply their cognitive abilities.

Building on research from the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds at UW-Madison’s Waisman Center, the initial stage of the project will focus on designing prototypes of two games. The first game will focus on improving attention and mental focus, likely through breath awareness.

“Breathing has two important characteristics. One is that it’s very boring, so if you’re able to attend to that, you can attend to most other things,” Davidson says. “The second is that we’re always breathing as long as we’re alive, and so it’s an internal cue that we can learn to come back to. This is something a child can carry with him or her all the time.”

The second game will focus on social behaviors such as kindness, compassion, and altruism. One approach may be to help students detect and interpret emotions in others by reading non-verbal cues such as facial expressions, tone of voice, and body posture.

“We’ll use insights gleaned from our neuroscience research to design the games and will look at changes in the brain during the performance of these games to see how the brain is actually affected by them,” says Davidson. “Direct feedback from monitoring the brain while students are playing the games will help us iteratively adjust the game design as this work goes forward.”

Their analyses will include neural imaging and behavioral testing before, during, and after students play the games, as well as looking at general academic performance.

The results will help the researchers determine how the games impact students and whether educational games are a useful medium for teaching these behaviors and skills, as well as evaluate whether certain groups of kids benefit more than others.

“Our hope is that we can begin to address these questions with the use of digital games in a way that can be very easily scaled and, if we are successful, to potentially reach an extraordinarily large number of youth,” says Davidson.

Healthy Marriage Interventions: A Boom or a Bust? (Science Daily)

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ScienceDaily (May 22, 2012) — Conventional wisdom, backed by years of research, suggests that healthy marriages equals a healthy society. And politicians and government officials have taken note, investing hundreds of millions of dollars each year in education programs designed to promote healthy marriages, focusing specifically on poor couples and couples of color. Is it working? No, says a Binghamton University researcher in a new study published in the current issue ofAmerican Psychologist, the flagship journal of the American Psychological Association. And it’s because many of these programs were based on research data gathered from White and middle-class marriages, and when applied to poor couples or couples of color, just don’t work.

“Initially, the rationale for these programs came from policy makers and scholars, who honed in on the association between unmarried parents and poverty that is plainly obvious in the data,” said Matthew D. Johnson, associate professor of psychology at Binghamton University. “This association led George W. Bush to make the promotion of healthy marriages a central plank of his domestic policy agenda, resulting in the implementation of the Healthy Marriage Initiatives. Barack Obama endorsed these initiatives, both as presidential candidate and as president. Now that the data on the success of these programs has started to roll in, the results have been very disappointing.”

According to Johnson, the problem lies in the fact that many of these programs lack grounding in solid science and are allowed to run unchecked. He cites research from two recent multisite studies as evidence that many of the federal programs that promote healthy marriage need to be suspended — or at the very least, overhauled. One of these studies, which was focused on over 5,000 couples in eight cities, examined the benefits of interventions designed to improve the relationships of low-income, unmarried couples who were either pregnant or recently had their first child.

The results indicated that the interventions had no effect in six of the cities, small beneficial effects in one city, and small detrimental effects in another city. The results of the other outcome study focused on 5,395 low-income married couples and found that those who received the intervention experienced very small improvements in relationship satisfaction, communication, and psychological health but no significant changes in relationship dissolution or cooperative parenting. And to add to it, the interventions didn’t come cheap, costing on average around $9,100 per couple.

So why the disconnect between a seemingly good idea and disappointing program outcomes? Johnson says there are several possible explanations. The best of these programs — the ones based on scientific findings — were initially studied with middle-class couples while the federal initiatives target poor couples. And even if the research that formed the basis of these interventions does apply, relationship improvement just doesn’t seem to be a priority for poor couples.

“There is evidence that suggests poor women want to be married and understand the benefits of healthy marriages,” said Johnson. “But earning enough for basic household expenses, keeping their children safe and working with their children’s overburdened schools are much more urgent concerns, making the idea of focusing on marriage seem self-indulgent if not irrelevant to many poor parents. When faced with a myriad of social issues, building intimate relationships is just not high on their priority lists.”

Johnson explains that this doesn’t mean the federal government shouldn’t be funding intimate relationship research. Instead, the government needs to adopt a more multifaceted approach: focus on programs that will ease the stress of poor families and at the same time, fund more rigorous basic research.

“We just don’t have solid predictors for relationship satisfaction for poor couple and couple of color, let alone whether the current marriage models apply,” said Johnson. He points to the National Institutes of Health as being the perfect place to coordinate and sponsor the research, noting “It has a long history of using scientific rigor in decision-making and it would certainly help in achieving the type of results that we’re looking for from these initiatives.”

Johnson also suggests that every community-based program funded by the Health Marriage Initiative should be required to gather standardized quantitative data in order to clearly demonstrate outcomes. And if the data shows programs aren’t working, Johnson recommends that the federal government get tough and either defund or filter out those that do not demonstrate effectiveness.

“If we are going to continue these initiatives, let’s at least make certain that we are assessing the effectiveness of the programs and learning from our mistakes,” said Johnson. “Improving marriages is a worthy goal and one shared by Democrat and Republican administrations alike. The key now is to get that same bipartisan support for improving the research and programs that target poor couples. With the renewed focus on the federal budget, the timing is just right.”

Wrongful Convictions Can Be Reduced Through Science, but Tradeoffs Exist (Science Daily)

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ScienceDaily (May 22, 2012) — Many of the wrongful convictions identified in a report this week hinged on a misidentified culprit — and a new report in a top journal on psychological science reveals the paradox of reforms in eyewitness identification procedure. In our efforts to make sure that good guys don’t get locked up, we could let more bad guys go.

In the May issue of Perspectives on Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, leading scholars in psychology and the law explore and debate various aspects of eyewitness identification procedures, providing a scientific foundation for this important social issue.

In recent years, researchers and policymakers have called for specific reforms to eyewitness identification procedures that would help to reduce the rate of false identification. These reforms affect various aspects of identification procedure, including how lineups are constructed, what witnesses are told prior to the lineup, and how police officers should behave during the procedure.

Such procedural reforms are often viewed as having ‘no cost’ — they reduce the false identification rate without affecting the correct identification rate. But psychological scientist Steven Clark (University of California, Riverside) argues that ‘no cost’ view may not actually be true. After extensive review of the existing data, Clark points out the paradoxical tradeoffs to reforms in eyewitness identification procedure. Existing data suggest that when we choose to enact reforms that are designed to reduce false identifications, we may also reduce the number of correct identifications at the same time.

But this tradeoff does not tell the whole story, say Gary Wells (Iowa State University), Nancy Steblay (Augsburg College), and Jennifer Dysart (John Jay College of Criminal Justice). While reform procedures may reduce the number of ‘hits,’ they do so by minimizing the influence of suggestive and coercive practices, such as biased instructions and cues from lineup administrators. Wells and his co-authors argue that the so-called ‘lost’ hits aren’t actually relevant, because hits that result from suggestive practices are not legitimate identifications. Eryn Newman from Victoria University of Wellington and Elizabeth Loftus from the University of California, Irvine agree, arguing that eyewitness identification evidence should be based solely on the independent memory of the witness, not on the results of suggestive or coercive procedures.

There is, however, a scientifically valid way to compare witness-identification procedures, say John Wixted and Laura Mickes, both of the University of California, San Diego. If we identify the procedures that reliably differentiate between innocent and guilty suspects over time and across different situations, we will be able to determine which techniques are diagnostically superior to others.

Until we have such comprehensive data, the best way to protect innocent defendants, says Larry Laudan of the University of Texas, is by clearly communicating the fact that eyewitness identifications, regardless of their format, are fallible. According to Laudan, we now have enough empirical data to be able to inform jurors about the error profiles of various eyewitness identification procedures. Sharing this information, he argues, is more important than trying to arrive at “the one unique and definitive format for conducting identifications.”

In the end, Clark points out that the goal of his article is not to argue for or against any particular witness identification procedure. Rather, he hopes to create strong links between social science data and public policy. “To the extent that social science research has a useful role in shaping policy decisions,” says Clark, “social scientists must do for policymakers what they do best and what policymakers cannot do for themselves: conduct careful studies, and provide a clear and complete analysis of the empirical data.”

  • Steven E. Clark et al. “Costs and Benefits of Eyewitness Identification Reform: Psychological Science and Public Policy,” Perspectives on Psychological Science, May 2012
  • Nancy K. Steblay et al., “Eyewitness Identification Reforms: Are Suggestiveness-Induced Hits and Guesses True Hits?”Perspectives on Psychological Science, May 2012
  • Elizabeth F. Loftus et al., “Clarkian Logic on Trial,”Perspectives on Psychological Science, May 2012
  • John T. Wixted et al., “The Field of Eyewitness Memory Should Abandon Probative Value and Embrace Receiver Operating Characteristic Analysis,” Perspectives on Psychological Science, May 2012
  • Larry Laudan et al. “Eyewitness Identifications: One More Lesson on the Costs of Excluding Relevant Evidence,”Perspectives on Psychological Science, May 2012

Inpe e Rede Clima lançam cartilha educativa para a RIO+20 (Fapesp)

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Publicação apresenta os temas que serão discutidos durante a Conferência das Nações Unidas sobre Desenvolvimento Sustentável e os cenários de mudanças climáticas projetados para o Brasil (reprodução)

23/05/2012

Agência FAPESP – O Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (Inpe) e a Rede Brasileira de Pesquisa sobre Mudanças Climáticas Globais (Rede Clima) produziram uma cartilha educativa, intitulada O futuro que queremos – economia verde, desenvolvimento sustentável e erradicação da pobreza.

Voltada ao público em geral, a publicação apresenta os conceitos de economia verde e sustentabilidade e a importância da erradicação da pobreza, que são temas que serão discutidos durante a Conferência das Nações Unidas sobre Desenvolvimento Sustentável (RIO+20), que será realizada de 13 a 22 de junho no Rio de Janeiro.

A cartilha também traz um histórico das conferências anteriores relacionadas ao meio ambiente e o conceito de “pegada ecológica” (metodologia usada para medir os rastros deixados pelos humanos no planeta a partir de seus hábitos).

A publicação apresenta ao leitor os cenários de mudanças climáticas projetadas para o Brasil para o século 21, as atividades do Centro Nacional de Monitoramento e Alertas de Desastres Naturais (Cemaden) e outros projetos e programas nessas áreas, apoiados pelo Inpe.

A cartilha está disponível para download em versão para internet em www.inpe.br/noticias/arquivos/pdf/RIO+20-web.pdf.

O arquivo digital com resolução para impressão pode ser solicitado pelo e-mail maira.morais@inpe.br.

CLIMATE CHANGE: Understanding Rio+20 (Integrated Regional Information Networks)

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Photo: Jason Gutierrez/IRIN. We have to take action now to sustain life in the coming years

JOHANNESBURG, 3 April 2012 (IRIN) – A Nobel laureate, a Swedish environmentalist’s idea, the “doughnut” concept, Scandinavia’s sense of social capital, measuring the quality of life, and valuing the oceans are just some of the things trending in the run-up to the Rio+20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development due to be held on 20-22 June 2012.

Rio+20 will look at how economies have grown at the expense of natural resources and human capital since the last Earth Summit in Rio in 1992, when the concept of “sustainable development” gained currency.

The idea of growth meeting “the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” has not gained much traction since the 1992 conference – largely because countries continued to equate development with economic growth, and sustainable development languished as a fringe environmental concern, says a UN-commissioned study.

Twenty years later, “sustainable development remains a generally agreed concept, rather than a day-to-day, on-the-ground, practical reality,” says a report by the UN High-level Panel on Global Sustainability.

Since 1992, alarm bells on several interconnected factors with a far-reaching impact on growth, resources and the quality of life – accelerated man-made climate change, population growth, increasing numbers of hungry people, rapidly depleting and more expensive fossil fuels, and a decline in food production – have been ringing louder.

“Achieving sustainability requires us to transform the global economy. Tinkering on the margins will not do the job,” said the UN Panel’s report.

Optimists in the scientific and aid community hope Rio+20 will develop from an opportunity to reflect into a collective effort to plot the world’s future growth path.

IRIN aims to make the conference more relevant and accessible by examining some of the ideas circulating ahead of it.

1. Elinor Ostrom: Fast emerging as the moral and academic compass of the conference, Ostrom’s work, which won her the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2009, shows that growth combined with the sustainable use of natural resources is achievable. Ostrom looked at certain rural communities in Asia, Africa and Europe which have for centuries successfully managed in a sustainable way their common resources – grazing land, water and forests.

“When the Scandinavian countries had to set targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, they did not consider the markets… but went ahead because they value the well-being of humans and environment…”

2. Planetary Boundaries and Future Earth: The concept of Planetary Boundariesproposed in 2009 by Johan Rockstrom of the Stockholm Resilience Centre and 28 scientists, posits that there are nine critical Earth-system processes and associated thresholds that we need to respect and keep within, in order to protect against the risk of irreversible or even catastrophic environmental change on a continental or global scale.The communities developed while preventing problems such as overgrazing, misuse of forests or over-consumption of water. The fact that Ostrom took a multidisciplinary approach (rooted in economics, environment and social capital, successfully combining the three pillars of sustainable development), makes her the expert everyone wants to hear from. She was the chief scientific adviser to the recent Planet Under Pressure conference – an attempt by the scientific community to set the agenda for Rio+20.

Doing so would create a safe operating space for humanity. According to the concept’s authors, three of the nine suggested thresholds have already been crossed (climate change, biodiversity and the nitrogen cycle). The threshold for the phosphorus cycle (linked, within the concept, to the nitrogen cycle) has also been crossed, according to a scientific paper in 2011.

The status of the concept grew after being mentioned in the UN Panel report. The Boundaries concept has inspired the “nexus approach” between food, water and energy, which was also noted by the UN panel. “All three [food, water and energy] need to be fully integrated, not treated separately if we are to deal with the global food security crisis,” said the report.

Rockstrom, last week announced the launch in Rio of Future Earth, a 10-year collaborative initiative which will provide the knowledge to help societies meet their sustainable development goals. The International Council for Science, the Belmont Forum (a high-level group of donors who fund climate research), the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the UN University, and the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) are all part of the initiative.

Tom Mitchell, head of climate change at the UK’s Overseas Development Institute (ODI), was a bit skeptical about how “10 years of science inquiry” would help. He said countries needed solutions now – embedded in governments and designed to cater for national requirements.

3. The doughnut: In February 2012, Kate Raworth, a senior researcher with Oxfam, pointed out that human growth was glaringly absent from Rockstrom’s concept. She combined social boundaries (such as access to water, health services, food, jobs, energy and education for all) within the planetary boundaries – highlighting the need for an environmentally safe space which needed to be compatible with poverty eradication and rights for all. Between the planetary ceiling and the social foundation lay an area – shaped like a doughnut – which is a “safe and just space for humanity to thrive in”, her paper said.

Raworth said well-designed policies can promote both poverty eradication and environmental sustainability. She told IRIN the objective was to be able to take care of everyone’s minimum needs, while re-defining the meaning of prosperity, which is equated with material wealth and associated with over-consumption (e.g. food, vehicles). “Governments need to look beyond taking care of people’s material needs and focus on quality of life, qualities of social relationships.”

Multilateral processes to make life on earth sustainable such as the UN talks on climate change have been moving at a snail’s pace.

The concept has picked up a lot of momentum.

“The concept of Planetary Boundaries is almost pure science,” noted Andrew Scott, researcher with ODI, while the “doughnut” concept was grounded in human reality and the need to agree on a minimum standard of living, whilst guarding against over-consumption. This calls for the need to review UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which were not very ambitious to begin with, he said. “Instead of calling for the eradication of poverty it [the MDGs] settled for the halving of poverty by 2015.”

Felix Dodds, eminent author and head of the Stakeholder Forum for a Sustainable Future, also enthused about the “doughnut proposal” in the Planet Under Pressure conference, and suggested the world should strive to turn everyone into a member of the middle-class.

4. Sustainable agriculture: After years of lobbying for an agriculture system which would respect the biosystem and at the same time increase the production of quality food to keep the numbers of malnourished down, scientists feel they are making headway. The proposed draft outcome document of the Rio+20 conference makes note of their concerns. But is that good enough – will that force a change and make sustainable agriculture a part of mainstream policy in countries?

Kenyan scientist Judi Wakhungu, a member of the Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change, says attitudes are changing on the ground: Sustainable agriculture is now being taught in universities in developing countries; donors particularly in Scandinavian countries are more willing to fund such initiatives tailored by developing country governments; and at government levels, sectors such as water, energy and agriculture have begun to talk to each other.

Christopher Barrett, who teaches economics and agriculture at Cornell University in the USA, said: “The central issue is high-level political commitment to enacting the necessary policies.” He said the “lofty rhetoric” of the L’Aquila G-8 summit, or earlier summits such as Gleneagles, have “not been matched by significant new investments or policy innovations by the world’s major economies”. Progress towards sustainable agriculture was “incremental and dwarfed by the fiscal and employment challenges faced by the OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] countries,” he added, and we should “not hold our breath for any great breakthrough” at Rio+20.

5. Social capital versus market-based approaches: Academically, social capital is a concept which places value on social relations and the role of cooperation to get collective results. The concept is making waves among development experts and the scientific community in the Rio+20 context, particularly as it forces societies to reflect on their value systems.

“It [social capital] is too technical a word,” says Oxfam’s Raworth, but essentially the concept is about valuing quality of life and interpersonal relations more than material wealth. Brazilian scientist Carlos Nobre, a member of the Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change, explained: “It is a concept followed by Scandinavian countries – where human well-being is more important than the market value of a particular resource.

“For instance when the Scandinavian countries had to set targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, they did not consider the markets and industries but went ahead because they value the well-being of humans and environment more than anything else.”

But the reality is that most countries value markets more than human and environmental well-being, say experts, so a value has to be attributed to a natural resources to make people take care of it. As UNEP head Achim Steiner says, “we have to place ecology in economics.”

“We need to create markets around natural resources such as provision of environmental services,” said ODI’s Mitchell. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change did that with trees and carbon, but the process has not got very far.

Both Raworth and Nobre said that to achieve real change, attitudes to wealth needed to be changed, but this could only happen from the bottom up. “Market-based mechanisms to control and exploit the use of our natural resources should be seen as a means to get to a state of well-being and not as the goal,” said Nobre.

Richard Norgaard, one of the founders of ecological economics, said at the Planet Under Pressure conference that instead of markets dictating and shaping our economies, “we need to ask what kind of economy we want to live in and then design incentives for the markets.”

6. Measuring wellness: Putting a value on the quantity of natural resources that had to be exploited to achieve certain outcomes could help in terms of sustainability, argued Pablo Muñoz, an economist working on the Inclusive Wealth Report (IWR) project, a joint initiative of UN Univeristy-International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Climate Change (IHDP) and UNEP, aiming to measure, among other forms of wealth, the Natural Capital of countries. The report will be released at Rio+20.

“A country can exhaust all its natural resources while posting positive GDP [Gross Domestic Product] growth,” said Muñoz. The world needs “an indicator that estimates the wealth of nations – natural, human and manufactured and ideally even the social and ecological constituents of human well-being,” he added.

Some findings of the reports were released at the Planet Under Pressure conference.

Between 1990 and 2008, the wealth of Brazil and India in terms of per capita GDP rose 34 percent and 120 percent respectively. Natural capital, the sum of a country’s assets, from forests to fossil fuels and minerals, declined by 46 percent in Brazil and 31percent in India, according the new indicator. Brazil’s “Inclusive Wealth” rose by 3 percent and India’s rose by 9 percent over that time. But do not expect countries to start using the new indicator any time soon. “It took years for countries to come round to using GDP – so it will be a few years yet,” said Muñoz.

7.Valuing the oceans: Attempts to put a value on the exploitation of natural resources are ongoing globally. A new book by the Stockholm Environment Institute calculates the impact of climate change on the economic value of the oceans. It says climate change (in the last 200 years the oceans have absorbed 25-30 percent of the global accumulated emissions of carbon dioxide) alone could reduce the economic value of the oceans by up to US$2 trillion a year by 2100.

Interview with Nobel prize winner Elinor Ostrom on climate change (Integrated Regional Information Networks)

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Photo: Indiana University. Elinor Ostrom: A champion of people power

JOHANNESBURG, 25 April 2012 (IRIN) – The governance of natural resources like land, the oceans, rivers and the atmosphere, can affect the impact of some of the world’s biggest crises caused by natural events like droughts and floods. How best to manage those resources has been at the heart of the work by Nobel Prize winner (economics) Elinor Ostrom.

She has been looking at how communities across the world, from developing and rural economies like Nepal and Kenya to developed ones like the USA and Switzerland, manage their commonly shared resources such as fisheries, pasture land and water sustainably.

Ostrom’s faith in the ability of the individual and community to be able to trust each other, take the right course of action and not wait for governments to make the first move is pivotal to her thinking.

Ostrom works with the concept of “polycentrism”, which she developed with her husband Vincent Otsrom. She advocates vesting authority in individuals, communities, local governments, and local NGOs as opposed to concentrating power at global or national levels.

Ostrom recently suggested using this “polycentric approach” to address man-made climate change. She talked to IRIN by email about “polycentrism”, Rio+20, climate change, trust and the power of local action.

Q: You have suggested a polycentric approach as opposed to single policies at a global level to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Could you explain how that would work? Do you think a similar approach would work to get all countries and their people to believe in, and adopt, sustainable development?

A: We have modelled the impact of individual actions on climate change incorrectly and need to change the way we think about this problem. When individuals walk a distance rather than driving it, they produce better health for themselves. At the same time that they reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that they are generating. There are benefits for the individual and small benefits for the globe. When a building owner re-does the way the building is insulated and the heating system, these actions can dramatically change the amount of greenhouse gas emissions made. This has an immediate impact on the neighbourhood of the building as well as on the globe.

When cities and counties decide to rehabilitate their energy systems so as to produce less greenhouse gas emissions, they are reducing the amount of pollution in the local region as well as greenhouse gas emissions on the globe. In other words, the key point is that there are multiple externalities involved for many actions related to greenhouse gas emissions. While in the past the literature has underplayed the importance of local effects, we need to recognize – as more and more individuals, families, communities, and states are seeing – that they will gain a benefit, as well as the globe, and that cumulatively a difference can be made at the global level if a number of small units start taking action. We have a much greater possibility of impacting global change problems if we start locally.

“the solutions that are evolved by local people have a chance of being more imaginative and better ways of solving these problems…”

Q: The earth is our common resource system – yet many countries including China and India feel they also have a right to grow, burn coal to get to where the developed world is – how do you get them out of that frame of mind without compromising the question of equity?

A: We may not be able to convince India and China of all of this. Part of my discouragement with the international negotiations is that we have gotten riveted into battles at the very big level over who caused global change in the first place and who is responsible for correcting [it]. It will take a long time to resolve some of these conflicts. Meanwhile, if we do not take action, the increase to greenhouse gas collection at a global level gets larger and larger. While we cannot solve all aspects of this problem by cumulatively taking action at local levels, we can make a difference, and we should.

Q: Do you think sustainable development did not gain much currency as it was directed at governments and a top-down approach? You think the world is about to repeat that mistake (if you would call it that?) at Rio+20? What would you do – would you ever call such a gathering of governments?

A: Yes, I do think that directing the question of climate change primarily at governments misses the point that actions that reduce greenhouse gas emissions must be taken by individuals, communities, cities, states, residents of entire nations, and the world. Yet, it is important that public officials recognize that there is a role for an international agreement and that they should be working very hard on getting an agreement that establishes international regimes that has a chance to reduce emissions across countries.

Q: You are a great believer in ordinary people’s ability to organize and use their commonly shared resources wisely, but I take it that does not work all the time? But ultimately collective action at the grassroots can force change at the top?

A: I am a believer of the capabilities of people to organize at a local level. That does not mean that they always do. There are a wide variety of collective action problems that exist at a small scale. The important thing is that people at a small scale, who know what the details of the problems are, organize, rather than calling on officials at a much larger scale.

Officials at a larger scale may have many collective-action problems of their own that they need to address. They do not have the detailed information about problems at a small scale that people who are confronting those every day do have. Thus, the solutions that are evolved by local people have a chance of being more imaginative and better ways of solving these problems than allowing them to go unsolved and eventually asking a much larger scale unit to solve it for them.

Q: This approach probably works better in a rural setting where there is a sense of community and of a shared responsibility to take care of their common resources. But how do you get that sense of ownership of the planet in an urban setting?

A: To solve these delicate problems at any scale requires individuals to trust that others are also going to contribute to their solution. Building trust is not something that can be done overnight. Thus, the crucial thing is that successful efforts at a local scale be advertised and well known throughout a developing country.

Developing associations of local communities, where very serious discussions can be held of the problems they are facing and creative ways that some communities, who have faced these problems, have adopted solutions that work. That does not mean that the solutions that work in one environment in a particular country will work in all others, but posing it as a solution that fits a local environment and that the challenge that everyone faces is to know enough about the social-ecological features of the problems they are facing that they can come up with good solutions that fit that local social-ecological system.

Q: I have been covering the recent drought in Niger – I came across people who were going to pack up and leave their village for good… Would that motivate people, countries, governments to take action to reduce emissions? But how do you make people in Europe, the US or Asia think about the people in Niger as their own?

A: There is no simple answer to this question. It is here that churches and NGOs can play a particular role in knowing about the problems being faced by villagers in Niger and other developing countries and trying to help. They can then also write stories about these problems in a way that people in Britain, Europe, and the US may understand better. It is a problem in some cases that officials in developing countries are corrupt, and direct aid to the country may only go into private bank accounts. We have to rethink how we organize governance at multiple scales so as to reduce the likelihood of some individuals having very strong powers and capability of using their public office primarily for private gain.

Q: Do you see the world moving in unison towards sustainability in the next five years? Do you think the world is prepared to take on this question and specially now when we are in a recession?

A: No, I do not see the world moving in unison. I do see some movements around the world that are very encouraging, but they are nowhere the same everywhere. We need to get out of thinking that we have to be moving the same everywhere. We need to be recognizing the complexity of the different problems being faced in a wide diversity of regions of the world. Thus, really great solutions that work in one environment do not work in others. We need to understand why, and figure out ways of helping to learn from good examples as well as bad examples of how to move ahead.

New Classroom Science Standards Up for Review (Dot Earth, N.Y.Times)

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May 18, 2012, 11:46 AM

By ANDREW C. REVKIN

The first substantial update to national science teaching standards in roughly 15 years — and the first including the science of human-driven climate change — is open for public comment through this month. Here’s a short video description:

The effort has been directed by Achieve, an organization created by states and corporate backers eager to boost student performance and prospects as science and technology increasingly drive economies. The final (optional) standards will help guide states in shaping science curricula and requirements.

The foundation for the standards was laid in a National Academy of Sciences report. Other groups involved in the effort are the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Science Teachers Association and theCarnegie Corporation of New York, which has provided much of the money.

The standards were drafted by a team of 41 writers from 26 states, range from Bob Friend, a Boeing aerospace engineer, to Ramon Lopez, a physics professor at the University of Texas at Arlington to Rita Januszyk, an elementary school teacher from Willowbrook, Ill.

Click here for middle school standards on weather and climate and here for a section for high schools on managing human environmental impacts, including greenhouse-gas emissions. I like the way each such section links directly to the relevant section of the underlying National Academy of Sciences report — “A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas.”

The National Science Teachers Association has posted heaps of valuable background and context.

Juanita Constible, a wildlife ecologist who’s spent time in Antarctica, has a piece summarizing the climate context at the Web site of the Climate Reality Project. Here’s an excerpt from Constible’s post:

The Next Generation Science Standards lay out core ideas K-12 students should understand about the basics of science – from biology, to physics and chemistry, to earth science. The last national standards were released back in 1996, and manmade climate change wasn’t mentioned. However, the new standards recognize that students need to know human activities are changing our climate. They also recognize that schools are training the next generation of engineers and scientists who can help solve the problem.

In the standards for middle school, for example, one of the core ideas is that “human activities, such as the release of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, are major factors in the current rise in Earth’s mean surface temperature (‘global warming’).” The standards for high school note that “changes in the atmosphere due to human activity have increased carbon dioxide concentrations and thus affect climate.” [Read the rest.]

Explore the standards and weigh in with your reaction, both on the Nextgenscience.org site and here.

Conflict abounds in climate education (The Daily Climate)

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Teachers are loath to teach climate science because it exposes them to charges of politicizing the classroom. They have reason to be cautious.

By Lisa Palmer
For the Daily Climate

The battles over teaching climate change science in schools are diverse, myriad and, like teaching evolution, being fought mostly district by district, classroom by classroom.

No-150Unlike evolution, climate change doesn’t have a U.S. Supreme Court ruling requiring that teaching efforts be accurate.

Some recent conflicts around the nation:

  • This spring the Tennessee Legislature passed a bill, with broad, bi-partisan support, to protect teachers who do not agree with accepted climate science and want to teach alternative explanations. Gov. Bill Haslam, acknowledging the veto-proof majority in a press release, allowed the bill to become law without his signature but noted that the measure won’t change state education standards.
  • Last year the southern California town of Los Alamitos, the school board passed but then rescinded a policy identifying climate science as a controversial topic requiring special instructional oversight.
  • Earlier this year an Oklahoma House committee approved a bill permitting teachers to review “scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories” such as evolution, the origins of life, global warming and human cloning. It remains stuck in the Senate, with the Legislature adjourning this week.
  • A 2007 study found that 20 percent of Colorado’s earth science teachers disagreed that “recent global warming is caused mostly by things people do,” while nearly half agreed that “there is substantial disagreement among scientists about the cause of recent global warming.” Meanwhile in Mesa County, in western Colorado, tea party activists tried to prohibit the teaching of manmade climate change.
  • An earth science teacher in Clifton Park, N.Y., taught a global warming unit but inserted his own view that climate change is not caused by humans. A parent complained, pointing to the New York State Regents science standards, considered among the best in the nation. The teacher relented after the school’s science administrator clarified what was expected according to the standards.

Earlier this year the National Center for Science Education stepped into the climate arena, announcing it would apply techniques it honed in the evolution wars to defend and promote climate science education.

McCaffrey-150“It’s one thing to have climate in the standards and assessments, and another thing altogether to make sure the teachers are well prepared, are not teaching the debate, if they teach about climate change at all, and are using effective practices,” said Mark McCaffrey, the center’s program director. 

The Oakland-based nonprofit’s effort hit a snag in February after Peter Gleick, a prominent scientist recruited to help advise the organization’s climate education effort, disclosed that he had improperly obtained internal strategy documents from the Heartland Institute, a libertarian think tank. Gleick withdrew his nomination to the NCSE’s board a few days before his term was scheduled to begin.

But the Heartland memos show that the institute, known for undermining climate science in political and scientific arenas, is working to influence climate education in schools, too. The budget memos Gleick obtained indicated the group had raised an initial $100,000 for a “global warming curriculum” designed by a part-time consultant at the Department of Energy.

The curriculum, designed for grades 10 through 12, according to the Heartland memos, would emphasize that climate change is a “major scientific controversy” and that models underlying the science are questionable.

Lisa Palmer is a freelance reporter in Maryland. Her work has appeared in Scientific American, Nature Climate Change, Fortune, and The Yale Forum, among other outlets. DailyClimate.org is a foundation-funded news service that covers climate change.

Photos: “No” icon created by Paula Spence for the National Center for Science Education. Photo of Mark McCaffrey courtesy NCSE.

Heartland Institute facing uncertain future as staff depart and cash dries up (The Guardian)

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Free-market thinktank’s conference opens in Chicago with president admitting defections are hurting group’s finances

, US environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 20 May 2012 17.09 BST

Leo blog : The Heartland Institute conference billboard in Chicago

The billboard ads comparing climate change believers to the Unabomber Ted Kaczunski. Photograph: The Heartland Institute

The first Heartland Institute conference on climate change in 2008 had all the trappings of a major scientific conclave – minus large numbers of real scientists. Hundreds of climate change contrarians, with a few academics among them, descended into the banquet rooms of a lavish Times Square hotel for what was purported to be a reasoned debate about climate change.

But as the latest Heartland climate conference opens in a Chicago hotel on Monday, the thinktank’s claims to reasoned debate lie in shreds and its financial future remains uncertain.

Heartland’s claims to “stay above the fray” of the climate wars was exploded by a billboard campaign earlier this month comparing climate change believers to the Unabomer Ted Kaczynski, and a document sting last February that revealed a plan to spread doubt among kindergarteners on the existence of climate change.

Along with the damage to its reputation, Heartland’s financial future is also threatened by an exodus of corporate donors as well as key members of staff.

In a fiery blogpost on the Heartland website, the organisation’s president Joseph Bast admitted Heartland’s defectors were “abandoning us in this moment of need”.

Over the last few weeks, Heartland has lost at least $825,000 in expected funds for 2012, or more than 35% of the funds its planned to raise from corporate donors, according to the campaign group Forecast the Facts, which is pushing companies to boycott the organisation.

The organisation has been forced to make up those funds by taking its first publicly acknowledged donations from the coal industry. The main Illinois coal lobby is a last-minute sponsor of this week’s conference, undermining Heartland’s claims to operate independently of fossil fuel interests.

Its entire Washington DC office, barring one staffer, decamped, taking Heartland’s biggest project, involving the insurance industry, with them.

Board directors quit, conference speakers cancelled at short-notice, and associates of long standing demanded Heartland remove their names from its website. The list of conference sponsors shrank by nearly half from 2010, and many of those listed sponsors are just websites operating on the rightwing fringe.

“It’s haemorrhaging,” said Kert Davies, research director of Greenpeace, who has spent years tracking climate contrarian outfits. “Heartland’s true colours finally came through, and now people are jumping ship in quick order.”

It does not look like Heartland is about to adopt a corrective course of action.

In his post, Bast defended the ads, writing: “Our billboard was factual: the Unabomber was motivated by concern over man-made global warming to do the terrible crimes he committed.” He went on to describe climate scientist Michael Mann and activist Bill McKibben as “madmen”.

The public unravelling of Heartland began last February when the scientist Peter Gleick lied to obtain highly sensitive materials, including a list of donors.

The publicity around the donors’ list made it difficult for companies with public commitment to sustainability, such as the General Motors Foundation, to continue funding Heartland. The GM Foundation soon announced it was ending its support of $15,000 a year.

But what had been a gradual collapse gathered pace when Heartland advertised its climate conference with a billboard on a Chicago expressway comparing believers in climate science to the Unabomber.

The slow trickle of departing corporate donors turned into a gusher.

Even Heartland insiders, such as Eli Lehrer, who headed the organisation’s Washington group, found the billboard too extreme. Lehrer, who headed the biggest project within Heartland, on insurance, immediately announced his departure along with six other staff.

“The ad was ill advised,” he said. “I’m a free-market conservative with a long rightwing resumé and most, if not all, of my team fits the same description and of us found it very problematic. Staying with Heartland was simply not workable in the wake of this billboard.”

Heartland took down the billboard within 24 hours, but by then the ad had gone viral.

Lehrer, who maintains the split was amicable, said the billboard had undermined Heartland’s claims to be a serious conservative thinktank.

“It didn’t reflect the seriousness which I want to bring to public policy,” Lehrer said in the telephone interview. “As somebody who deals mostly with insurance I believe all risk have to be taken seriously and there certainly are some important climate and global warming related risks that must be taken account of in the insurance market. Trivialising them is not consistent with free-market thought. Suggesting they are only thought about by people who are crazy is not good for the free market.”

Other Heartland allies came to a similar conclusion. In a letter to Heartland announcing he was backing out from the conference, Ross McKitrick, a Canadian economist wrote: “You can not simultaneously say that you want to promote a debate while equating the other side to terrorists and mass murderers.”

A number of other experts meanwhile began cutting their ties with Heartland, according to a tally kept by a Canadian blogger BigCityLiberal.

Meanwhile, there was growing anger that Bast failed to consult with colleagues before ordering up the Kaczynski attack ads.

Four board members told the Guardian they had not been consulted in advance about the ad. “I did not have prior approval of the billboard and was in favor of discontinuing the billboard when I was made aware of it,” Jeff Judson, a Texas lobbyist and board member wrote in an email.

Could the turmoil and discontent at Heartland eventually prove its undoing? Campaigners would certainly hope so. “We are watching the consequences of organisation that acts quite randomly and that is actually an extremist organisation in the end,” said Davies. “They are not built to be at the hump of the climate denial movement.”

But while more mainstream corporate entities are deserting Heartland, others are stepping into the breach, including the coal lobby and conservative groups such as the Heritage Foundation.

Both the Illinois Coal Association and Heritage stepped in to fund this week’s conference, after other corporate donors began backing out in protest at the offensive Kaczynski ad.

Meanwhile, a Greenpeace analysis of the other smaller conference sponsors suggests they have collectively received $5m in funds from Exxon and other oil companies.

The Coal Association and Heritage were not listed on the original conference sponsor list, but appeared to come in about a week or so after the appearance of the offending Kaczynski ad.

Phil Gonet, the chief lobbyist for the 20 coal companies in the association, said he had no qualms about stepping in to fund the Heartland conference.

“We support the work they are doing and so we thought we would finally make a contribution to the organisation,” he said, calling criticism of the ad “moot”, “pointless” and “absurd”.

Gonet went on: “I made a contribution mainly in support of a conference that is designed to make balanced information available to the public on the issue of global warming … In general, the message of the Heartland Institute is something the Illinois Coal Association supports.”

Perspective: Troubled by Interdisciplinarity? (Science)

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Career Advice

By Stephanie Pfirman, Melissa Begg

April 06, 2012

Do program managers and senior faculty tell you “that idea is not really in my bailiwick, and I’m not sure where else to send you”? Do you spend more time choosing a publication venue than writing your paper? Are you asked to be on committees and panels to provide a “fresh perspective” — and then told you spend too much time on service? Is your e-mail full of correspondence about how to handle overhead, subawards, and subcontracts on collaborative proposals?

If any of these descriptions apply to you, you may be suffering from the pain and inconvenience of interdisciplinarity, one of the fastest-growing problems among researchers today. It’s not a problem that goes away on its own. Rather, it festers if it’s not addressed, diminishing creativity and productivity.

Despite the pain and inconvenience, increasing numbers of scientists are pursuing interdisciplinary career paths, and a growing proportion of research funding opportunities from federal granting agencies is interdisciplinary. In May 2011, 30% to 40% of all requests for proposals from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health explicitly required an interdisciplinary approach.

Interdisciplinarity can be wonderfully rich and rewarding, but there are dangers attendant to choosing this non-traditional route. Interdisciplinary scholars go “out on a limb” and “often must fight for identity, recognition, roles, legitimacy, and standing.” This takes a personal — as well as a professional — toll: While the status of their peers grows with accomplishments within the disciplinary community, interdisciplinary scholars have to “live without the comfort of expertise” and often without the comfort of community. Scholars report that they no longer fit in as well after they leave their disciplinary base.

This connection between research direction and community fit is supported by the 2003 Faculty Worklife Survey conducted by the University of Wisconsin, Madison’s Women in Science and Engineering Leadership Institute. The belief that their colleagues did not perceive their research to be “mainstream” left people feeling more negative about colleagues’ valuation of their research, their respect in the workplace, departmental decision-making, informal departmental interactions, and overall isolation and “fit.”

The messages from a number of recent publications can be distilled to this: Interdisciplinary research doesn’t fit into traditional academic structures. Therefore, if you choose this route, the onus is on you to take additional steps to become aware of the pitfalls and prepare yourself to succeed in this arena.

What kinds of steps are we talking about? Our recommendations include building skills for interdisciplinary collaboration, extending your mentorship team, bolstering your interdisciplinary CV for disciplinary review, and preparing for the complications of writing and submitting interdisciplinary grant proposals.

Recommendations for interdisciplinary scholars

Prepare yourself for new ways of working, thinking, and interacting.

• Specialize within your interdisciplinary research area. Avoid the tendency of many interdisciplinary scholars to branch out too quickly and in too many directions, which can diffuse your impact.

• Focus on your disciplinary strength and skills. It may sound counterintuitive, but in many situations your value as an interdisciplinary colleague is directly proportional to your skills in your own discipline. Keep up with the latest literature and theoretical developments in your disciplinary field so that you will be prepared to apply new knowledge and skills in diverse areas.

• Build core competencies that sustain interdisciplinary research by taking courses or learning on your own. For example, you could take courses that use the case study method to enhance interdisciplinary skills or include practice reviewing interdisciplinary papers and proposals.

• Attend seminars and workshops in other disciplines. Participating in research seminars outside your own department is a great way to expand your thinking, add a new batch of colleagues to your network, and develop expertise in new research areas.

• Seek new mentorship. The old model of one scholar, one mentor is fast becoming a distant memory. Find a mentor or two from beyond your field to help broaden your mindset and approaches.

When preparing manuscripts and grant applications, enhance your credibility as a successful researcher whose work crosses traditional disciplinary boundaries.

• Include a cover letter with your paper or proposal that highlights its interdisciplinary nature and suggests reviewers with complementary expertise so that all of your research aims receive appropriate review.

• Frame research aims to satisfy the needs of both disciplinary-leaning reviewers and interdisciplinary-eager granting agencies. Incorporating conceptual models and grounding your ideas within the disciplines establishes common ground with diverse reviewers.

• Involve respected colleagues with expertise in the techniques you plan to use.

• Try to have at least one publication in each field in which you propose to work. If the work requires an area you haven’t published in, get a letter of support from a well-known investigator in that field offering assistance.

• Start early on budget preparation for collaborative proposals. Most interdisciplinary endeavors are collaborative — and collaborative grant activities have financial implications, with potential revenue losses to departments due to diversion of overhead costs to other units. It may sound like a minor issue, but the most aggravating problem identified in the 2004 report of the National Academies Committee on Facilitating Interdisciplinary Research (CFIR) was the logistics of interdisciplinary research: budget control, institutional cost recovery, space, unit reporting, and award agreements. More than 40% of scholars and provosts picked one of these as the top impediment to interdisciplinary projects. A recent study found that faculty and administrators at universities with overhead-sharing policies reported satisfaction with their policies, and most felt that they indeed helped to foster interdisciplinary science.

• Use the Kulage study to support budget negotiations. Your colleagues and administrators may be resistant at first to innovations like overhead sharing, so showing them evidence of the effectiveness of overhead sharing may help you close the deal and reach an agreement that recognizes and rewards the contributions of the interdisciplinary collaborators involved in your proposal.

It’s never too early to start thinking about tenure and promotion. You need to plan for a portfolio that withstands the scrutiny of discipline-oriented review committees while also allowing you to pursue interdisciplinary interests. You can take steps to prepare yourself for rigorous evaluation by disciplinary and interdisciplinary reviewers.

• Annotate your CV to explain your contributions to collaborative publications and grants. While this task may seem onerous, if you don’t do it, people have to guess, and they often guess wrong. Increasingly, journals require people to clarify their roles in publications, and some institutions now require that CVs articulate not only specific roles but also the percentage of effort devoted to various activities. Use such policies to your advantage.

• Ground your research statement. As with proposals, incorporating conceptual models and explaining connections to key disciplinary theories and approaches helps to contextualize your work for reviewers with diverse backgrounds.

• Seek a spectrum of reviewers. If asked to suggest reviewers to evaluate your work and advise your tenure or promotion review panel, be sure to include experts from multiple departments or from outside of the institution. Choose experts who can address the particular research areas you work in. For example, you might propose one letter writer who could attest to your disciplinary strength. Another might emphasize how another field is using your research. This could broaden the perspective of the review panel and permit consideration of less traditional CVs.

If you’re on the job market, look for institutions and departments that really value interdisciplinarity. In 2004, more than 10% of scholars identified “strategic plans” as the top impediment to interdisciplinary research. Seven years later, some institutions are finally tackling this: Take a look at the case studies of Ohio University and Macalester College in the National Council for Science and the Environment report. Fostering interdisciplinarity is a strategic decision at the institutional level, but integration of interdisciplinarity into departmental missions is key. Check to see if these pieces are in place at the institution you’re thinking of working for. You can use the NIH template for interdisciplinary offer letters as a mental checklist as you discuss expectations with the chair of the search. You don’t want to come across as too demanding, but having this model letter in mind will help you think of questions to ask about the position.

When push comes to shove, department chairs and supervisors often look askance at activities they perceive to be “extra-departmental.” As noted in a 2011 article in the Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences,

There is a significant and growing need for interdisciplinary … scholars to develop, teach, and apply successful problem-solving approaches and to educate the next generation of scholars and professionals. Yet such professionals often work in departments where most of their colleagues are disciplinarians and the reward and incentive system is based on disciplines or is at best multidisciplinary. They need diverse strategies and support to overcome the many difficulties that they face day to day in research, teaching, and administration, as well as over the course of their careers.

Increasingly, institutions are addressing what is perhaps the single most vexing problem identified by the 2004 CFIR report: promotion criteria, which 15% of provosts and faculty members identified as the top impediment. Some institutions have turned to using the Boyer criteria of discovery, integration, application, and teaching, rather than focusing mainly on discovery (often with passing reference to teaching). Beyond these traditional criteria, Boyer’s “integration” criterion, in particular, is important in the evaluation of interdisciplinary research. “Application” can also be important. These are all positive signs that smoother sailing may be ahead.

Interdisciplinary research is laudable and undeniably enriching. But until academia’s reward system catches up to its desire for interdisciplinary collaboration, researchers — especially early-career investigators — must take additional steps to prepare for and protect themselves from choppy waters ahead.

References

Boyer E.L. (1990) Scholarship reconsidered: Priorities of the professoriate. Jossey-Bass, New York

Clark, S.G., M.M. Steen-Adams, S. Pfirman, R.L. Wallace (2011) Professional Development of Interdisciplinary Environmental Scholars, Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences.

Collins, J.P. (2002). May you live in interesting times: Using multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary programs to cope with change in the life sciences. BioScience 52:75-83.

Committee on Facilitating Interdisciplinary Research (2004). Committee on Facilitating Interdisciplinary Research, National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine.

Heemskerk, M., K. Wilson, and M. Pavao-Zuckerman. 2003. Conceptual models as tools for communication across disciplines. Conservation Ecology 7(3): 8. [online]

Kulage, K.M., E.L. Larson, and M.D. Begg (2011). Sharing facilities and administrative cost recovery to facilitate interdisciplinary research. Academic Medicine 86: 394-401.

Larson, E.L., T.F. Landers, and M.D. Begg (2011) Building Interdisciplinary Research Models: A Didactic Course to Prepare Interdisciplinary Scholars and Faculty. Clinical and Translational Science (4)1: 38–41.

Lattuca, L.R. (2001). Creating interdisciplinarity: interdisciplinary research and teaching among college and university faculty. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press.

Pfirman, S. and P. Martin (2010). Fostering Interdisciplinary Scholars. Chapter in Oxford Handbook on Interdisciplinarity, Editors: R. Frodeman, J. Thompson Klein, and C. Mitcham, Oxford University Press, 624 pp.

Pfirman, S.; Martin, P.; Danielson, A.; Goodman, R.M.; Steen-Adams, M.; Waggett, C.; Mutter, J.; Rikakis, T.; Fletcher, M.; Berry, L.; Hornbach, D.; Hempel, M.; Morehouse, B.; Southard, R. (2011). Interdisciplinary Hiring and Career Development: Guidance for Individuals and Institutions. National Council for Science and the Environment.

Porter, A.L., Cohen, A.S., Roessner, J.D., and Perreault, M. (2007) Measuring Researcher Interdisciplinarity, Scientometrics, 72(1): 117-147

WISELI (2003) Study of Faculty Worklife at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

Stephanie Pfirman is Hirschorn Professor and co-chair of the environmental science department at Barnard College and a member of Columbia University’s Earth Institute faculty, both in New York City. Melissa Begg is Professor and Vice Dean for Education at the Mailman School of Public Health and Co-Director of the Irving Institute for Clinical and Translational Research at Columbia University in New York.
10.1126/science.caredit.a1200040

Bom da Rio+20 é a sociedade, dizem especialistas (O Estado de São Paulo)

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JC e-mail 4501, de 21 de Maio de 2012.

A um mês da Rio+20, membros da sociedade civil reunidos em debate ontem (20) em São Paulo disseram que o melhor que se pode esperar da conferência para o desenvolvimento sustentável é que ela sirva para fortalecer a mobilização da sociedade.

“Os temas que estão colocados na Rio+20 – economia verde, governança e erradicação da pobreza – são como recomeçar o mundo. Sem dúvida são coisas que dependem de acordos entre governos, mas temos a sensação de que esses acordos vão demorar cada vez mais. Então é fundamental a sociedade se mobilizar por esses temas, pressionar”, afirmou o pesquisador da USP Pedro Roberto Jacobi, do Programa de Pós Graduação em Ciência Ambiental. Ele falou durante debate no evento Viva a Mata, que celebra o Dia Nacional da Mata Atlântica, no domingo (20).

Jacobi resumiu um sentimento que prevalece na academia, entre organizações não governamentais e até entre os negociadores de alto nível de certo pessimismo que a conferência não resulte em compromissos mais concretos para que o mundo se encaminhe para o tão falado desenvolvimento sustentável.

A comparação inevitável é com a Rio-92, vista como um momento que representou uma mudança de paradigma. “A Rio+20 significa um nada, um vazio. De 92 para cá o que aconteceu foi a não implementação de tudo o que foi acordado. Só que passados 20 anos, temos hoje muito mais dados e certezas de que caminhamos para um desastre ambiental e o que acontece? Nada”, disse João Paulo Capobianco, do Instituto Democracia e Sustentabilidade.

“É uma reunião sem entendimento mínimo sobre o que se espera dela, marcada pela falta de líderes, e que não vai enfrentar nosso pior problema, que é a falta de governança, a incapacidade de implementar acordos que nós mesmos fizemos”,

Para o economista Ricardo Abramovay, também da USP, só uma forte pressão social poderia levar a conferência a alcançar pelo menos uma nova forma de medir e avaliar o crescimento econômico que seja alternativa ao Produto Interno Bruto (PIB). “Precisamos entrar no mérito do que o sistema econômico de fato está oferecendo para a sociedade para podermos julgar se essa oferta aumenta o bem-estar das pessoas ou não e se está comprometendo os serviços ofertados pela natureza ou não.”

Rio+20: ONU lista 56 recomendações para um mundo sustentável (Folha de São Paulo)

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JC e-mail 4501, de 21 de Maio de 2012/Folha de São Paulo – 19/5

Documento apresentado no Rio foi preparado por 22 especialistas convocados pelas Nações Unidas.

A ONU lançou, na última sexta-feira (18), no Rio, a versão em português de um relatório com 56 recomendações para que o mundo avance em direção ao desenvolvimento sustentável. O documento, elaborado por 22 especialistas ao longo de um ano e meio, traz sugestões mais ousadas do que aquelas que devem ser acordadas na Rio+20, a conferência da ONU sobre o tema que ocorre em junho na cidade.

Entre as propostas estão o fim dos subsídios aos combustíveis fósseis e a precificação do carbono, com a cobrança, por exemplo, de impostos sobre as emissões de gases do efeito estufa. Espera-se assim estimular a disseminação de tecnologias verdes. “É um relatório com frases e recomendações muito diretas”, diz o embaixador André Corrêa do Lago, negociador-chefe do Brasil para a Rio+20.

Para ele, o documento final do encontro de cúpula da ONU deverá trazer formulações “mais sóbrias”.

Outras medidas sugeridas são a criação de um fundo apoiado por governos, ONGs e empresas para garantir acesso universal à educação primária até 2015 e a inclusão dos temas consumo e desenvolvimento sustentáveis nos currículos escolares.

As recomendações são divididas em três grupos, de acordo com seus objetivos principais. O primeiro visa a capacitar as pessoas a fazerem escolhas sustentáveis; o segundo, a tornar a economia sustentável; e o terceiro, a fortalecer a governança institucional para o desenvolvimento sustentável.

“As pessoas participaram desse painel a título pessoal, ou seja, elas não estavam representando governos. Isso dá mais força [ao documento], porque o painel pode dizer certas coisas que não são consenso [entre os mais de 190 países da ONU]”, diz Corrêa do Lago.

O coordenador do relatório, porém, disse esperar que as recomendações sejam levadas em consideração pelos negociadores da Rio+20. Janos Pasztor citou o estabelecimento de metas numéricas para o desenvolvimento sustentável como uma sugestão que pode ser adotada no curto prazo. O tema está em discussão na Rio+20.

A ex-primeira-ministra da Noruega Gro Brundtland, considerada “mãe” do conceito de desenvolvimento sustentável, participou da elaboração do relatório.

O documento completo pode ser acessado pelo link http://www.onu.org.br/docs/gsp-integra.pdf.

José Goldemberg: Cotas raciais – quem ganha, quem perde? (OESP)

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JC e-mail 4501, de 21 de Maio de 2012.

José Goldemberg é professor emérito da Universidade de São Paulo. Artigo publicado no jornal O Estado de São Paulo de hoje (21).

O Supremo Tribunal Federal (STF) decidiu recentemente, por unanimidade, que a introdução de cotas raciais no acesso às universidades públicas federais não viola a Constituição da República, seguindo a linha adotada nos Estados Unidos há algumas décadas de introduzir “ações afirmativas” para corrigir injustiças feitas no passado. A decisão flexibiliza a ideia básica de que todos são iguais perante a lei, um dos grandes objetivos da Revolução Francesa.

Ela se origina na visão de que é preciso aceitar a “responsabilidade histórica” dos malefícios causados pela escravidão e compensar, em parte, as vítimas e seus descendentes. A mesma ideia permeia negociações entre países, entre ex-colônias e as nações industrializadas, na área comercial e até nas negociações sobre o clima.

Sucede que, de modo geral, “compensar” povos ou grupos sociais por violências, discriminações e até crimes cometidos no passado raramente ocorreu ao longo da História. Um bom exemplo é o verdadeiro “holocausto” resultante da destruição dos Impérios Inca e Asteca, na América Latina, ou até da destruição de Cartago pelos romanos, que nunca foram objeto de compensações. Se o fossem, a Espanha deveria estar compensando até hoje o que Hernán Cortez fez ao conquistar o México e destruir o Império Asteca.

É perfeitamente aceitável e desejável que grupos discriminados, excluídos ou perseguidos devam ser objeto de tratamento especial pelos setores mais privilegiados da sociedade e do próprio Estado, por meio de assistência social, educação, saúde e criação de oportunidades. Contudo, simplificar a gravidade dos problemas econômicos e sociais que afligem parte da população brasileira, sobretudo os descendentes de escravos, estabelecendo cotas raciais para acesso às universidades públicas do País, parece-nos injustificado e contraprodutivo, porque revela uma falta de compreensão completa do papel que essas instituições de ensino representam.

Universidades públicas e gratuitas atendem apenas a um terço dos estudantes que fazem curso superior no Brasil, que é uma rota importantíssima para a progressão social e o sucesso profissional. As demais universidades são pagas, o que prejudica a parte mais pobre da população estudantil. Essa é uma distorção evidente do sistema universitário do País. Mas o custo do ensino superior é tão elevado que apenas países ricos como a França, a Suécia ou a Alemanha podem oferecer ensino superior gratuito para todos. Não é o nosso caso. Essa é a razão por que existem vestibulares nas universidades públicas, onde a seleção era feita exclusivamente pelo mérito até recentemente.

A decisão recente do Supremo Tribunal Federal deixa de reconhecer o mérito como único critério para admissão em universidades públicas. E abre caminho para a adoção de outras cotas, além das raciais, talvez, no futuro.

Acontece que o sistema universitário tem sérios problemas de qualidade e desempenho, como bem o demonstra o resultado dos exames da Ordem dos Advogados do Brasil (OAB) – garantia da qualidade dos profissionais dessa área -, que reprova sistematicamente a maioria dos que se submetem a ele, o mesmo ocorrendo com os exames na área médica.

Órgãos do governo como a Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (Capes), do Ministério da Educação, ou o Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq), do Ministério de Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação, têm feito esforços para melhorar o desempenho das universidades brasileiras por meio de complexos processos de avaliação, que têm ajudado, mas não se mostraram suficientes.

Esses são mecanismos externos às universidades. Na grande maioria delas, os esforços internos são precários em razão da falta de critérios e de empenho do Ministério da Educação, que escolhe os reitores, alguns dos quais, como os da Universidade de Brasília, iniciaram o processo de criação de cotas raciais como se esse fosse o principal problema das universidades e do ensino superior no Brasil.

O populismo que domina muitas dessas universidades, há décadas, é a principal razão do baixo desempenho das universidades brasileiras na classificação mundial. Somente a Universidade de São Paulo (USP) conseguiu colocar-se entre as melhores 50 nesse ranking.

O problema urgente das universidades brasileiras é, portanto, melhorar de nível, e não resolver problemas de discriminação racial ou corrigir “responsabilidades históricas”, que só poderão ser solucionadas por meio do progresso econômico e educacional básico.

O governo federal parece ter tomado consciência desse problema ao lançar o programa Ciência sem Fronteiras, que se propõe a enviar ao exterior, anualmente, milhares de estudantes universitários, imitando o que o Japão fez no século 19 ou a China no século 20 e foi a base da modernização e do rápido progresso desses países.

Daí o desapontamento com a decisão da Suprema Corte não só por ter sido unânime, mas também por não ter sido objeto de uma tomada de posição de muitos intelectuais formadores de opinião, exceto notáveis exceções, como Eunice R. Durham, Simon Schwartzman, Demétrio Magnoli e poucos outros que se manifestaram sobre a inconveniência da decisão.

O único aspecto positivo na decisão do Supremo Tribunal Federal foi o de que simplesmente aceitou a constitucionalidade das cotas raciais, cabendo aos reitores, em cada universidade, adotá-las e implementá-las.

Há aqui uma oportunidade para que os professores mais esclarecidos assumam a liderança e se esforcem para manter elevado o nível de suas universidades sem descuidar de tornar o acesso pelo mérito mais democrático, e sem a adoção de cotas raciais, como algumas universidades estaduais de São Paulo estão fazendo.

* A equipe do Jornal da Ciência esclarece que o conteúdo e opiniões expressas nos artigos assinados são de responsabilidade do autor e não refletem necessariamente a opinião do jornal.

The Beginning of the End of the Census? (N.Y.Times)

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By 

Published: May 19, 2012

THE American Community Survey may be the most important government function you’ve never heard of, and it’s in trouble.

This survey of American households has been around in some form since 1850, either as a longer version of or a richer supplement to the basic decennial census. It tells Americans how poor we are, how rich we are, who is suffering, who is thriving, where people work, what kind of training people need to get jobs, what languages people speak, who uses food stamps, who has access to health care, and so on.

It is, more or less, the country’s primary check for determining how well the government is doing — and in fact what the government will be doing. The survey’s findings help determine how over $400 billion in government funds is distributed each year.

But last week, the Republican-led House voted to eliminate the survey altogether, on the grounds that the government should not be butting its nose into Americans’ homes.

“This is a program that intrudes on people’s lives, just like the Environmental Protection Agency or the bank regulators,” said Daniel Webster, a first-term Republican congressman from Florida who sponsored the relevant legislation.

“We’re spending $70 per person to fill this out. That’s just not cost effective,” he continued, “especially since in the end this is not a scientific survey. It’s a random survey.”

In fact, the randomness of the survey is precisely what makes the survey scientific, statistical experts say.

Each year the Census Bureau polls a representative, randomized sample of about three million American households about demographics, habits, languages spoken, occupation, housing and various other categories. The resulting numbers are released without identifying individuals, and offer current demographic portraits of even the country’s tiniest communities.

It is the largest (and only) data set of its kind and is used across the federal government in formulas that determine how much funding states and communities get for things like education and public health.

For example, a question on flush toilets — one that some politicians like to cite as being especially invasive — is used to help assess groundwater contamination for rural parts of the country that do not have modern waste disposal systems, according to the Census Bureau.

Law enforcement agencies have likewise used the data to predict criminal activities like methamphetamine production.

Their recent vote aside, members of Congress do seem to realize how useful these numbers are. After all, they use the data themselves.

A number of questions on the survey have been added because Congress specifically demanded their inclusion. In 2008, for example, Congress passed a lawrequiring the American Community Survey to add questions about computer and Internet use. Additionally, recent survey data are featured on the Web sites of many representatives who voted to kill the program — including Mr. Webster’s own home page.

The legislation is expected to go to the Senate this week, and all sorts of stakeholders are coming out of the woodwork.

“Knowing what’s happening in our economy is so desperately important to keeping our economy functioning smoothly,” said Maurine Haver, the chief executive and founder of Haver Analytics, a data analysis company. “The reason the Great Recession did not become another Great Depression is because of the more current economic data we have today that we didn’t have in the 1930s.”

She added that having good data about the state of the economy was one of America’s primary competitive advantages. “The Chinese are probably watching all this with glee,” she said, noting that the Chinese government has also opted not to publish economic data on occasion, generally when the news wasn’t good.

Other private companies and industry groups — including the United States Chamber of Commerce, the National Retail Federation and the National Association of Home Builders — are up in arms.

Target recently released a video explaining how it used these census data to determine where to locate new stores. Economic development organizations and otherbusiness groups say they use the numbers to figure out where potential workers are.

Mr. Webster says that businesses should instead be thanking House Republicans for reducing the government’s reach.

“What really promotes business in this country is liberty,” he said, “not demand for information.”

Mr. Webster and other critics have gone so far as to say the American Community Survey is unconstitutional. Of course, the basic decennial census is specifically enumerated in the United States Constitution, and courts have ruled that this longer form of the census survey is constitutional as well.

Some census watchers — like Andrew Reamer, a research professor at the George Washington University Institute of Public Policy — say they do not expect the Senate to agree on fully eliminating the American Community Survey (as well as the Economic Census, which would also be effectively destroyed by the House bill).

Rather, Mr. Reamer suspects, Republicans may hope that when the Senate and House bills go to a conference committee, a final compromise will keep the survey, but make participation in it voluntary. Under current law, participation is mandatory.

If the American Community Survey were made voluntary, experts say, the census would have to spend significantly more money on follow-up phone calls and in-person visits to get enough households to answer.

But Congress also plans to cut the census budget, making such follow-ups prohibitively expensive.

“If it’s voluntary, then we’ll just get bad data,” saidKenneth Prewitt, a former director of the census who is now at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. “That means businesses will make bad decisions, and government will make bad decisions, which means we won’t even know where we actually are wasting our tax dollars.”

Catherine Rampell is an economics reporter for The New York Times.

Ellen Cantarow: “… bizarre weather that seemed to be sending a meteorological message” (Tom Dispatch)

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Tomgram: Ellen Cantarow, The New Eco-Devastation in Rural America

Posted by Ellen Cantarow at 5:25pm, May 20, 2012.

When workers drilling tunnels at Gauley Bridge, West Virginia, began to die, Union Carbide had an answer.  It hadn’t been taking adequate precautions against the inhalation of silica dust, a known danger to workers since the days of ancient Greece.  Instead, in many cases, a company doctor would simply tell the families of the workers that they had died of “tunnelitis,” and a local undertaker would be paid $50 to dispose of each corpse.  A few years later, in 1935, a congressional subcommittee discovered that approximately 700 workers had perished while drilling through Hawk’s Nest Mountain, many of them buried in unmarked graves at the side of the road just outside the tunnel.  The subcommittee concluded that Union Carbide’s project had been accomplished through a “grave and inhuman disregard of all considerations for the health, lives and future of the employees.”

Despite the “Hawk’s Nest Incident” and thousands of Depression-era lawsuits against foundries, mines, and construction companies, silicosis never disappeared.  In the decades since, asTomDispatch authors David Rosner and Jerry Markowitz have repeatedly demonstrated, industry worked tirelessly to label silicosis a “disease of the past,” even while ensuring that it would continue to be a disease of the present.  By the late 1990s, the Columbia University researchers found that from New York to California, from Texas all the way back to West Virginia, millions of workers in foundries, shipyards, mines, and oil refineries, among other industries, were endangered by silica dust.

Today, there’s a new silicosis scare on the horizon and a new eco-nightmare brewing in the far corners of rural America.  Like the Hawk’s Nest disaster it has flown under the radar — until now.

Once upon a time, mining companies tore open hills or bored through or chopped off mountain tops to get at vital resources inside.  They were intent on creating quicker paths through nature’sobstacles, or (as at Gauley Bridge) diverting the flow of mighty rivers. Today, they’re doing it merely to find the raw materials — so-called frac sand — to use in an assault on land several states away.  Multinational corporations are razing ancient hills of sandstone in the Midwest and shipping that silica off to other pastoral settings around the United States.  There, America’s prehistoric patrimony is being used to devastating effect to fracture shale deposits deep within the earth — they call it “hydraulic fracturing” — and causing all manner of environmental havoc.  Not everyone, however, is keen on this “sand rush” and coalitions of small-town farmers, environmentalists, and public health advocates are now beginning to stand firm against the big energy corporations running sand-mining operations in their communities.

Ground zero in this frac-fight is the rural Wisconsin towns to which TomDispatch’s rovingenvironmental reporter Ellen Cantarow traveled this spring to get the biggest domestic environmental story that nobody knows about.  Walking the fields of family farms under siege and talking to the men and women resisting the corporations, Cantarow offers up a shocking report of vital interest.  There’s a battle raging for America’s geological past and ecological future — our fresh food and clean water supplies may hinge on who wins it. Nick Turse

How Rural America Got Fracked

The Environmental Nightmare You Know Nothing About

By Ellen Cantarow

If the world can be seen in a grain of sand, watch out.  As Wisconsinites are learning, there’s money (and misery) in sand — and if you’ve got the right kind, an oil company may soon be at your doorstep.

March in Wisconsin used to mean snow on the ground, temperatures so cold that farmers worried about their cows freezing to death. But as I traveled around rural townships and villages in early March to interview people about frac-sand mining, a little-known cousin of hydraulic fracturing or “fracking,” daytime temperatures soared to nearly 80 degrees — bizarre weather that seemed to be sending a meteorological message.

In this troubling spring, Wisconsin’s prairies and farmland fanned out to undulating hills that cradled the land and its people. Within their embrace, the rackety calls of geese echoed from ice-free ponds, bald eagles wheeled in the sky, and deer leaped in the brush. And for the first time in my life, I heard the thrilling warble of sandhill cranes.

Yet this peaceful rural landscape is swiftly becoming part of a vast assembly line in the corporate race for the last fossil fuels on the planet. The target: the sand in the land of the cranes.

Five hundred million years ago, an ocean surged here, shaping a unique wealth of hills and bluffs that, under mantles of greenery and trees, are sandstone. That sandstone contains a particularly pure form of crystalline silica.  Its grains, perfectly rounded, are strong enough to resist the extreme pressures of the technology called hydraulic fracturing, which pumps vast quantities of that sand, as well as water and chemicals, into ancient shale formations to force out methane and other forms of “natural gas.”

That sand, which props open fractures in the shale, has to come from somewhere.  Without it, the fracking industry would grind to a halt. So big multinational corporations are descending on this bucolic region to cart off its prehistoric sand, which will later be forcefully injected into the earth elsewhere across the country to produce more natural gas.  Geology that has taken millions of years to form is now being transformed into part of a system, a machine, helping to drive global climate change.

“The valleys will be filled… the mountains and hills made level”

Boom times for hydraulic fracturing began in 2008 when new horizontal-drilling methods transformed an industry formerly dependent on strictly vertical boring. Frac-sand mining took off in tandem with this development.

“It’s huge,” said a U.S. Geological Survey mineral commodity specialist in 2009. “I’ve never seen anything like it, the growth. It makes my head spin.” That year, from all U.S. sources, frac-sand producers used or sold over 6.5 million metric tons of sand — about what the Great Pyramid of Giza weighs.  Last month, Wisconsin’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Senior Manager and Special Projects Coordinator Tom Woletz said corporations were hauling at least 15 million metric tons a year from the state’s hills.

By July 2011, between 22 and 36 frac-sand facilities in Wisconsin were either operating or approved. Seven months later, said Woletz, there were over 60 mines and 45 processing (refinement) plants in operation. “By the time your article appears, these figures will be obsolete,” claims Pat Popple, who in 2008 founded the first group to oppose frac-sand mining, Concerned Chippewa Citizens (now part of The Save the Hills Alliance).

Jerry Lausted, a retired teacher and also a farmer, showed me the tawny ridges of sand that delineated a strip mine near the town of Menomonie where he lives. “If we were looking from the air,” he added, “you’d see ponds in the bottom of the mine where they dump the industrial waste water. If you scan to the left, you’ll see the hills that are going to disappear.”

Those hills are gigantic sponges, absorbing water, filtering it, and providing the region’s aquifer with the purest water imaginable. According to Lausted, sand mining takes its toll on “air quality, water quality and quantity. Recreational aspects of the community are damaged. Property values [are lowered.] But the big thing is, you’re removing the hills that you can’t replace.  They’re a huge water manufacturing factory that Mother Nature gave us, and they’re gone.”

It’s impossible to grasp the scope of the devastation from the road, but aerialvideos and photographs reveal vast, bleak sandy wastelands punctuated with waste ponds and industrial installations where Wisconsin hills once stood.

When corporations apply to counties for mining permits, they must file “reclamation” plans. But Larry Schneider, a retired metallurgist and industrial consultant with a specialized knowledge of mining, calls the reclamation process “an absolute farce.”

Reclamation projects by mining corporations since the 1970s may have made mined areas “look a little less than an absolute wasteland,” he observes. “But did they reintroduce the biodiversity? Did they reintroduce the beauty and the ecology? No.”

Studies bear out his verdict. “Every year,” wrote Mrinal Ghose in the Journal of Scientific and Industrial Research, “large areas are continually becoming unfertile in spite of efforts to grow vegetation on the degraded mined land.”

Awash in promises of corporate jobs and easy money, those who lease and sell their land just shrug. “The landscape is gonna change when it’s all said and done,” says dairy farmer Bobby Schindler, who in 2008 leased his land in Chippewa County to a frac-sand company called Canadian Sand and Proppant. (EOG, the former Enron, has since taken over the lease.) “Instead of being a hill it’s gonna be a valley, but all seeded down, and you’d never know there’s a mine there unless you were familiar with the area.”

Of the mining he adds, “It’s really put a boost to the area. It’s impressive the amount of money that’s exchanging hands.” Eighty-four-year-old Letha Webster, who sold her land 100 miles south of Schindler’s to another mining corporation, Unimin, says that leaving her home of 56 years is “just the price of progress.”

Jamie and Kevin Gregar — both 30-something native Wisconsinites and military veterans — lived in a trailer and saved their money so that they could settle down in a pastoral paradise once Kevin returned from Iraq. In January 2011, they found a dream home near tiny Tunnel City. (The village takes its name from a nearby rail tunnel). “It’s just gorgeous — the hills, the trees, the woodland, the animals,” says Jamie. “It’s perfect.”

Five months after they moved in, she learned that neighbors had leased their land to “a sand mine” company. “What’s a sand mine?” she asked.

Less than a year later, they know all too well.  The Gregars’ land is now surrounded on three sides by an unsightly panorama of mining preparations. Unimin is uprooting trees, gouging out topsoil, and tearing down the nearby hills. “It looks like a disaster zone, like a bomb went off,” Jamie tells me.

When I mention her service to her country, her voice breaks. “I am devastated. We’ve done everything right. We’ve done everything we were supposed to. We just wanted to raise our family in a good location and have good neighbors and to have it taken away from us for something we don’t support…” Her voice trails off in tears.

For Unimin, the village of Tunnel City in Greenfield township was a perfect target. Not only did the land contain the coveted crystalline silica; it was close to a rail spur. No need for the hundreds of diesel trucks that other corporations use to haul sand from mine sites to processing plants. No need, either, for transport from processing plants to rail junctions where hundreds of trains haul frac-sand by the millions of tons each year to fracture other once-rural landscapes. Here, instead, the entire assembly line operates in one industrial zone.

There was also no need for jumping the hurdles zoning laws sometimes erect. Like many Wisconsin towns where a culture of diehard individualism sees zoning as an assault on personal freedom, Greenfield and all its municipalities, including Tunnel City, are unzoned. This allowed the corporation to make deals with individual landowners. For the 8.5 acres where Letha Webster and her husband Gene lived for 56 years, assessed in 2010 at $147,500, Unimin paid $330,000. Overall, between late May and July 2011, it paid $5.3 million for 436 acres with a market value of about $1.1 million.

There was no time for public education about the potential negative possibilities of frac-sand mining: the destruction of the hills, the decline in property values, the danger of silicosis (once considered a strictly occupational lung disease) from blowing silica dust, contamination of ground water from the chemicals used in the processing plants, the blaze of lights all night long, noise from hundreds of train cars, houses shaken by blasting. Ron Koshoshek, a leading environmentalist who works with Wisconsin’s powerful Towns Association to educate townships about the industry, says that “frac-sand mining will virtually end all residential development in rural townships.” The result will be “a large-scale net loss of tax dollars to towns, increasing taxes for those who remain.”

Town-Busting Tactics

Frac-sand corporations count on a combination of naïveté, trust, and incomprehension in rural hamlets that previously dealt with companies no larger than Wisconsin’s local sand and gravel industries. Before 2008, town boards had never handled anything beyond road maintenance and other basic municipal issues.  Today, multinational corporations use their considerable resources to steamroll local councils and win sweetheart deals.  That’s how the residents of Tunnel City got taken to the cleaners.

On July 6, 2011, a Unimin representative ran the first public forum about frac-sand mining in the village.  Other heavily attended and often heated community meetings followed, but given the cascades of cash, the town board chairman’s failure to take a stand against the mining corporation, and Unimin’s aggressiveness, tiny Tunnel City was a David without a slingshot.

Local citizens did manage to get the corporation to agree to give the town $250,000 for the first two million tons mined annually, $50,000 more than its original offer. In exchange, the township agreed that any ordinance it might pass in the future to restrict mining wouldn’t apply to Unimin. Multiply the two million tons of frac-sand tonnage Unimin expects to mine annually starting in 2013 by the $300 a ton the industry makes and you’ll find that the township only gets .0004% of what the company will gross.

For the Gregars, it’s been a nightmare.  Unimin has refused five times to buy their land and no one else wants to live near a sand mine. What weighs most heavily on the couple is the possibility that their children will get silicosis from long-term exposure to dust from the mine sites. “We don’t want our kids to be lab rats for frac-sand mining companies,” says Jamie.

Drew Bradley, Unimin’s senior vice president of operations, waves such fears aside. “I think [citizens] are blowing it out of proportion,” he told a local publication. “There are plenty of silica mines sited close to communities. There have been no concerns exposed there.”

That’s cold comfort to the Gregars. Crystalline silica is a known carcinogen and the cause of silicosis, an irreversible, incurable disease. None of the very few rules applied to sand mining by the state’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) limit how much silica gets into the air outside of mines. That’s the main concern of those living near the facilities.

So in November 2011, Jamie Gregar and ten other citizens sent a 35-page petitionto the DNR. The petitioners asked the agency to declare respirable crystalline silica a hazardous substance and to monitor it, using a public health protection level set by California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment. The petition relies on studies, including one by the DNR itself, which acknowledge the risk of airborne silica from frac-sand mines for those who live nearby.

The DNR denied the petition, claiming among other things that — contrary to its own study’s findings — current standards are adequate. One of the petition’s signatories, Ron Koshoshek, wasn’t surprised. For 16 years he was a member of, and for nine years chaired, Wisconsin’s Public Intervenor Citizens Advisory Committee.  Created in 1967, its role was to intercede on behalf of the environment, should tensions grow between the DNR’s two roles: environmental protector and corporate licensor. “The DNR,” he says, “is now a permitting agency for development and exploitation of resources.”

In 2010, Cathy Stepp, a confirmed anti-environmentalist who had previously railedagainst the DNR, belittling it as “anti-development, anti-transportation, and pro-garter snakes,” was appointed to head the agency by now-embattled Governor Scott Walker who explained: “I wanted someone with a chamber-of-commerce mentality.”

As for Jamie Gregar, her dreams have been dashed and she’s determined to leave her home. “At this point,” she says, “I don’t think there’s a price we wouldn’t accept.”

Frac-Sand vs. Food

Brian Norberg and his family in Prairie Farm, 137 miles northwest of Tunnel City, paid the ultimate price: he died while trying to mobilize the community against Procore, a subsidiary of the multinational oil and gas corporation Sanjel. The American flag that flies in front of the Norbergs’ house flanks a placard with a large, golden NORBERG, over which pheasants fly against a blue sky.  It’s meant to represent the 1,500 acres the family has farmed for a century.

“When you start talking about industrial mining, to us, you’re violating the land,” Brian’s widow, Lisa, told me one March afternoon over lunch.  She and other members of the family, as well as a friend, had gathered to describe Prairie Farm’s battle with the frac-sanders. “The family has had a really hard time accepting the fact that what we consider a beautiful way to live could be destroyed by big industry.”

Their fight against Procore started in April 2011: Sandy, a lifelong friend and neighbor, arrived with sand samples drillers had excavated from her land, and began enthusiastically describing the benefits of frac-sand mining. “Brian listened for a few minutes,” Lisa recalls. “Then he told her [that]… she and her sand vials could get the heck — that’s a much nicer word than what he used  — off the farm.  Sandy was hoping we would also be excited about jumping on the bandwagon. Brian informed her that our land would be used for the purpose God intended, farming.”

Brian quickly enlisted family and neighbors in an organizing effort against the company. In June 2011, Procore filed a reclamation plan — the first step in the permitting process — with the county’s land and water conservation department. Brian rushed to the county office to request a public hearing, but returned dejected and depressed. “He felt completely defeated that he could not protect the community from them moving in and destroying our lives,” recalls Lisa.

He died of a heart attack less than a day later at the age of 52. The family is convinced his death was a result of the stress caused by the conflict. That stress is certainly all too real.  The frac-sand companies, says family friend Donna Goodlaxson, echoing many others I interviewed for this story, “go from community to community. And one of the things they try to do is pit people in the community against each other.”

Instead of backing off, the Norbergs and other Prairie Farm residents continued Brian’s efforts. At an August 2011 public hearing, the town’s residents directly addressed Procore’s representatives. “What people had to say there was so powerful,” Goodlaxson remembers. “Those guys were blown out of their chairs. They weren’t prepared for us.”

“I think people insinuate that we’re little farmers in a little community and everyone’s an ignorant buffoon,” added Sue Glaser, domestic partner of Brian’s brother Wayne. “They found out in a real short time there was a lot of education behind this.”

“About 80% of the neighborhood was not happy about the potential change to our area,” Lisa adds. “But very few of us knew anything about this industry at [that] time.” To that end, Wisconsin’s Farmers’ Union and its Towns Association organized a day-long conference in December 2011 to help people “deal with this new industry.”

Meanwhile, other towns, alarmed by the explosion of frac-sand mining, were beginning to pass licensing ordinances to regulate the industry. In Wisconsin, counties can challenge zoning but not licensing ordinances, which fall under town police powers.  These, according to Wisconsin law, cannot be overruled by counties or the state. Becky Glass, a Prairie Farm resident and an organizer with Labor Network for Sustainability, calls Wisconsin’s town police powers “the strongest tools towns have to fight or regulate frac-sand mining.” Consider them so many slingshots employed against the corporate Goliaths.

In April 2012, Prairie Farm’s three-man board voted 2 to 1 to pass such an ordinance to regulate any future mining effort in the town. No, such moves won’t stop frac-sand mining in Wisconsin, but they may at least mitigate its harm. Procore finally pulled out because of the resistance, says Glass, adding that the company has since returned with different personnel to try opening a mine near where she lives.

“It takes 1.2 acres per person per year to feed every person in this country,” says Lisa Norberg. “And the little township that I live in, we have 9,000 acres that are for farm use. So if we just close our eyes and bend over and let the mining companies come in, we’ll have thousands of people we can’t feed.”

Food or frac-sand: it’s a decision of vital importance across the country, but one most Americans don’t even realize is being made — largely by multinational corporations and dwindling numbers of yeoman farmers in what some in this country would call “the real America.”  Most of us know nothing about these choices, but if the mining corporations have their way, we will soon enough — when we check out prices at the supermarket or grocery store. We’ll know it too, as global climate change continues to turn Wisconsin winters balmy and supercharge wild weather across the country.

While bucolic landscapes disappear, aquifers are fouled, and countless farms across rural Wisconsin morph into industrial wastelands, Lisa’s sons continue to work the Norberg’s land, just as their father once did. So does Brian’s nephew, 32-year-old Matthew, who took me on a jolting ride across his fields. The next time I’m in town, he assured me, we’ll visit places in the hills where water feeds into springs. Yes, you can drink the water there. It’s still the purest imaginable. Under the circumstances, though, no one knows for how long.

Ellen Cantarow’s work on Israel/Palestine has been widely published for over 30 years. Her long-time concern with climate change has led her to investigate the global depredations of oil and gas corporations atTomDispatch. Many thanks to Wisconsin filmmaker Jim Tittle, whosedocumentary, “The Price of Sand,” will appear in August 2012, and who shared both his interviewees and his time for this article.

Follow TomDispatch on Twitter @TomDispatch and join us on Facebook. 

Copyright 2012 Ellen Cantarow

Bill Maher: “… praying away hurricanes is (not) meteorology” (TheHuffington Post)

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Bill Maher: Liberty University Is Not A Real School

By  Posted: 05/19/2012 11:10 pm Updated: 05/20/2012 11:18 am

Bill Maher Liberty University

At the end of “Real Time” Friday night, Bill Maher lambasted Liberty University, the Virginia religious university that has become a mandatory stop for Republican presidential candidates. (Watch above.)

“You can’t expect me to believe anything Mitt Romney said last week at Liberty University, because a) he’s a liar and b) Liberty University isn’t really a university,” Maher began. “It’s not like an actual statesman visited a real college. It’s more like the Tupac hologram visited Disneyland and said what he would do as president during the Main Street Electrical Parade.”

Romney delivered Liberty’s commencement speech on May 12.

Maher noted that Liberty teaches “creation science,” and the idea that earth was created 5,000 years ago. “This is a school you flunk out of when you get the answers right,” he joked.

Much as conservatives believe gay marriage cheapens their own vows, “I think a diploma from Liberty cheapens my diploma from a real school,” he continued. “I worked really hard for four years and sold a lot of drugs to get that thing.”

Liberty’s diploma may look real, Maher said, but “when you confuse a church with a school, Maher went on, “it mixes up the things you believe — religion — with the things we know — education. Then you start thinking that creationism is science, and gay aversion is psychology, and praying away hurricanes is meteorology.”