Arquivo da tag: Mudanças climáticas

ONU quer garantir que temperatura global não se eleve mais que 2ºC (Globo Natureza)

13/09/2012Uncategorizedciência, Clima, Desastre, Economia, Enquadramento, Incerteza, Matemática, Mediação tecnológica, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, ONU, Política, Previsãorenzotaddei

JC e-mail 4582, de 13 de Setembro de 2012

As negociações climáticas da Organização das Nações Unidas (ONU) devem continuar pressionando por atitudes mais ambiciosas para garantir que o aquecimento global não ultrapasse os 2 graus, disse um negociador da União Europeia nesta semana, um mês depois de os EUA terem sido acusados de apresentar um retrocesso na meta.

Quase 200 países concordaram em 2010 em limitar o aumento das temperaturas para abaixo de 2 graus Celsius, acima da era pré-industrial para evitar os impactos perigos da mudança climática, como enchentes, secas e elevação do nível das marés.

Para desacelerar o ritmo do aquecimento global, as conversações climáticas da ONU na África do Sul concordaram em desenvolver um acordo climático legalmente vinculante até 2015, que poderia entrar em vigor no máximo até 2020.

Entretanto, especialistas advertem que a chance de limitar o aumento da temperatura global para menos de 2 graus está ficando cada vez menor, à medida que aumenta a emissão dos gases de efeito estufa por causa da queima de combustíveis fósseis.

“Está muito claro que devemos pressionar nas negociações de que a meta de 2 graus não é suficiente. A razão pela qual não estamos fazendo o bastante se deve à situação política em algumas partes do mundo”, disse Peter Betts, o diretor para mudança climática internacional da Grã-Bretanha e negociador sênior da UE, a um grupo de mudança climática no Parlamento britânico.

Na última semana, cientistas e diplomatas se reuniram em Bangcoc para a reunião da Convenção da ONU sobre Mudança Climática (UNFCCC, na sigla em inglês), a última antes do encontro anual que será realizado entre novembro e dezembro em Doha, no Qatar.

Flexibilidade nas metas – No mês passado, os EUA foram criticados por dizer que apoiavam uma abordagem mais flexível para um novo acordo climático – que não necessariamente manteria o limite de 2 graus -, mas depois acrescentaram que a flexibilidade daria ao mundo uma chance maior de chegar a um novo acordo.

Diversos países, incluindo alguns dos mais vulneráveis à mudança climática, dizem que o limite de 2 graus não é suficiente e que um limite de 1,5 graus seria mais seguro. As emissões do principal gás de efeito estufa, o dióxido de carbono, subiram 3,1% em 2011, em um recorde de alta. A China foi a maior emissora do mundo, seguida pelos EUA.

As negociações para a criação de um novo acordo global para o clima, nos mesmos moldes de Kyoto, já iniciaram. Na última conferência climática foi aprovada uma série de medidas que estabelece metas para países desenvolvidos e em desenvolvimento.

O documento denominado “Plataforma de Durban para Ação Aumentada” aponta uma série de medidas que deverão ser implementadas, mas na prática, não há medidas efetivas urgentes para conter em todo o planeta o aumento dos níveis de poluição nos próximos oito anos.

Obrigação para todos no futuro – Ele prevê a criação de um acordo global climático que vai compreender todos os países integrantes da UNFCCC e irá substituir o Protocolo de Kyoto. Será desenhado pelos países “um protocolo, outro instrumento legal ou um resultado acordado com força legal” para combater as mudanças climáticas.

Isso quer dizer que metas de redução de gases serão definidas para todas as nações, incluindo Estados Unidos e China, que não aceitavam qualquer tipo de negociação se uma das partes não fosse incluída nas obrigações de redução.

O delineamento deste novo plano começará a ser feito a partir das próximas negociações da ONU, o que inclui a COP 18, que vai acontecer em 2012 no Catar. O documento afirma que um grupo de trabalho será criado e que deve concluir o novo plano em 2015.

As medidas de contenção da poluição só deverão ser implementadas pelos países a partir de 2020, prazo estabelecido na Plataforma de Durban, e deverão levar em conta as recomendações do relatório do Painel Intergovernamental sobre Mudanças Climáticas (IPCC, na sigla em inglês), que será divulgado entre 2014 e 2015.

Em 2007, o organismo divulgou um documento que apontava para um aumento médio global das temperaturas entre 1,8 ºC e 4,0 ºC até 2100, com possibilidade de alta para 6,4 ºC se a população e a economia continuarem crescendo rapidamente e se for mantido o consumo intenso dos combustíveis fósseis.

Entretanto, a estimativa mais confiável fala em um aumento médio de 3ºC, assumindo que os níveis de dióxido de carbono se estabilizem em 45% acima da taxa atual. Aponta também, com mais de 90% de confiabilidade, que a maior parte do aumento de temperatura observado nos últimos 50 anos foi provocada por atividades humanas.

O esvaziamento da discussão ecológica atual que não questiona o modelo econômico e de desenvolvimento (EcoDebate)

07/09/2012UncategorizedCapitalismo, Cidadania, Clima, Desastre, discurso ambiental, Economia, Educação, Enquadramento, Incerteza, Mídia, Mediação tecnológica, Mudanças climáticas, Opinião pública, participatividade, Política, Políticas públicas, Previsão, sociedade civil, Violênciarenzotaddei

Publicado em setembro 6, 2012 por HC

“A pergunta passa a ser ‘o que eu devo fazer para ajudar?’ (…) enquanto a questão principal deveria ser ‘contra quem e contra o quê eu devo lutar?’”

Vladimir Safatle faz parte de uma nova leva de intelectuais de esquerda que não se intimida diante da diversidade de questões trazidas pelo mundo contemporâneo. Nessa entrevista, o professor do Departamento de Filosofia da Universidade de São Paulo (USP) mostra que a crise da democracia representativa pode ser a chave para compreender melhor fatos que à primeira vista não estão relacionados, desvelando mecanismos que ligam islandeses a pescadores brasileiros, ecologistas a jovens que voltam a reivindicar as ruas como espaço do fazer político. Um dos autores de ‘Occupy’ (Boitempo, 2012), Safatle defende que vivemos um momento em que a crítica da democracia, longe de balizar o totalitarismo, reacende a capacidade de reinvenção democrática na perspectiva da soberania popular. Com o lançamento de ‘A esquerda que não teme dizer seu nome’ (Três Estrelas, 2012), o filósofo propõe a urgência da saída do “cômodo e depressivo fatalismo”, que, desde a queda do muro de Berlim, alimenta a falsa impressão de que nenhuma ruptura radical está na pauta do campo político.

No seu livro, o senhor defende que falta à esquerda mostrar o que é inegociável. Abandonar o pragmatismo, superar os impasses da ‘governabilidade’, dentre outros elementos, seriam caminhos para isso. Em contrapartida, paira uma dúvida sobre os próprios partidos, sindicatos e estruturas semelhantes: será que serão capazes de se transformar? Os jovens que ocupam as ruas do mundo parecem não se identificar com esse tipo de organização da vida política. Por que isso acontece?

O que aconteceu com os partidos de esquerda?

Os partidos de esquerda passaram por duas fases. A primeira, muito marcada pela polaridade entre os partidos socialdemocratas e os partidos comunistas, sustentou o desenvolvimento dos Estados de bem-estar social na Europa nos anos 1950 e 1960. O segundo momento dos partidos de esquerda é resultado das ideias libertárias de maio de 1968, que vai gerar uma miríade de partidos libertários, sendo o mais importante deles o partido verde. Os partidos verdes vão conseguir impor uma pauta ecológica fundamental no debate político, mas este movimento também se esgotou. Talvez o último relance dele esteja acontecendo na Alemanha com o Partido Pirata. Só que falta uma terceira leva de partidos que sejam capazes de processar a situação fim de linha da crise de 2008, que ainda vai se perpetuar durante muito tempo.

Como esses partidos se caracterizariam?

Falta uma geração de partidos que tenha consciência de problemas vinculados à desigualdade econômica, coisa que esses partidos de segunda geração não têm. Diga-se de passagem, o Partido Verde alemão foi responsável pela lei que desregulamentou e flexibilizou o mercado de trabalho, votada na época do Gerhard Schröder [premier alemão de 1998 a 2005]. Falta uma geração de partidos com a coragem de radicalizar os processos de institucionalização da soberania popular. Partidos que não funcionem como partidos. Isso pode parecer uma coisa estranha, mas no fundo é muito importante. Partidos que não tenham essa estrutura centralizada, estrategicamente orientada, em que as discussões se submetem às estratégias político-partidárias eleitorais do dia. Por que os jovens não querem entrar em partidos hoje? Porque não querem ter a sua capacidade crítica instrumentalizada por cálculos eleitorais. Ninguém mais quer ficar fazendo uma aliança política com fulano para garantir a eleição de sicrano. Esse tipo de raciocínio de mercador, que conseguiu monopolizar a política em todos os seus níveis – inclusive no campo das esquerdas – é o que boa parte dos jovens de hoje se recusa veementemente a seguir, com todas as razões.

O que se coloca no lugar disso?

É fundamental encontrar um modelo de participação eleitoral em que esse tipo de posição não seja rifada. Ninguém aqui está fazendo a profissão de fé que vigorou nos anos 1990 de mudar o mundo sem tomar o poder. Isso não funcionou nem funcionará, o Egito é um exemplo. O grupo que realmente mobilizou o processo revolucionário chama-se Movimento 6 de abril. Eles decidiram não entrar no jogo eleitoral e estão cada vez mais isolados. Essa coisa da força que vem das ruas e vai pressionar o regime de fora tem limite. Então, não se trata de uma crítica abstrata do processo eleitoral, mas da constatação de que é necessário saber entrar nesse processo de uma maneira diferente da que vimos até hoje. Talvez a criação de alianças flexíveis para uma eleição que depois se dissolvem, como a Frente de Esquerda na França, coisas desse tipo. É difícil saber o que vai aparecer, mas uma coisa é certa: o que temos hoje não dá mais conta. Há uma fixação muito grande na democracia representativa. Desde os anos 1970 vivemos nas Ciências Políticas uma espécie de deleite em ficar discutindo como deve ser o jogo democrático, a estrutura dos partidos, dos poderes e blá, blá, blá. Esse tipo de perspectiva bloqueia radicalmente a ideia de que uma das questões centrais da democracia é fazer a crítica da democracia. Quando a democracia perde sua capacidade de reinvenção, ela morre. É o que está acontecendo agora.

O que contribuiu para a recomposição do espaço público das ruas e por que ele foi abandonado durante tanto tempo?

Para você ter crítica social e mobilização é necessário desencanto. Vários níveis de desencanto foram necessários para que as pessoas voltassem às ruas. Quando eu tinha vinte e poucos anos, o discurso era de que nunca mais veríamos grandes mobilizações populares. Poderia haver mobilizações pontuais sobre questões pontuais, mas nunca uma mobilização que colocasse em xeque o modelo de funcionamento e gestão da vida social no interior das sociedades capitalistas avançadas. Hoje vemos que quem fez essas previsões não só errou como tinha interesses ideológicos inconfessáveis. As pessoas que saíram às ruas em 2011 queriam discutir o modelo de funcionamento da estrutura econômica e social das nossas sociedades. No momento em que isso aconteceu, muitos, principalmente da imprensa, se deleitaram em dizer que eles não tinham propostas, o que é falso. Quem foi às ruas buscou o direito de colocar os problemas em questão. Muitas vezes, a pior maneira de se pensar em um problema é “solucioná-lo” muito rapidamente. Também houve quem não tenha ido às ruas e, diante da crise financeira, apareceu com soluções prontas. Essas ‘soluções’ só pioraram os problemas.

No que diz respeito à agenda ambiental, existem muitas ‘soluções’ que, na verdade, provocam um esvaziamento deliberado do potencial político das questões ecológicas. Vemos a individualização da responsabilidade pela poluição presente no discurso das sacolas plásticas, do tempo que as pessoas devem gastar tomando banho, etc. e também um esforço em afastar a população da discussão travestindo-a como eminentemente técnica. Como vê isso?

É uma tentativa de retirar a força política da questão ecológica transformando-a em uma questão moral. A discussão gira em torno dos atos dos indivíduos, que precisam ser modificados. Você precisa gastar menos tempo no banho, comprar produtos bio e coisas desse tipo. É uma maneira muita astuta de operar um deslocamento que é mortal para o problema ecológico, porque a pergunta passa a ser “o que eu devo fazer para ajudar?” – e, a princípio, parece legal todo mundo fazer alguma coisa para ajudar –, enquanto a questão principal deveria ser “contra quem e contra o quê eu devo lutar?”. Sem isso, a tendência é esvaziar completamente a dimensão da discussão ecológica, não se questiona o modelo econômico e de desenvolvimento. E o forte potencial político dessa discussão reside justamente nesse questionamento do modelo de desenvolvimento das sociedades capitalistas avançadas, colocando em xeque o modelo de organização e gestão das cidades, dos transportes, dos resíduos, da energia… Como resultado desse deslocamento da dimensão política para a moral, nada disso é colocado em questão, por mais que todo mundo defenda com a mão no coração “as florestas”, a questão que a ecologia trouxe está fora do debate.

A retórica do discurso técnico na qual as pessoas não conseguem ter acesso aos fatos sem a mediação de especialistas é um obstáculo para a reconstrução do campo político nas bases dessa democracia direta, estreitamente ligada aos reais interesses das populações, não?

Posso dar um exemplo sobre esse tipo de problema. A Islândia foi um dos primeiros países a entrar na crise financeira de 2008. Bancos islandeses venderam fundos de investimento na Holanda e na Inglaterra e quando esses bancos quebraram, os governos holandês e inglês exigiram que o governo da Islândia bancasse a dívida dos bancos. Diante disso, o parlamento islandês resolveu votar uma lei de ajuda aos bancos falidos e a lei passou. Mas o presidente da Islândia, que era um sujeito mais esclarecido, lembrou que a Constituição do país previa a convocação de um referendo popular em casos como aquele. Resumindo, ele lembrou que o princípio central da democracia é: quem paga a orquestra, escolhe a música. Quem pagaria aquela dívida não seria o parlamento, mas a população, que teria seus recursos e salários expropriados por uma série de impostos destinados ao pagamento da dívida dos bancos. A população islandesa decidiu que não queria isso. Depois do resultado do referendo, aconteceu a coisa mais fantástica, que é a essência da democracia parlamentar atual: o parlamento votou e aprovou mais uma vez a mesma lei de ajuda aos bancos. Então, novamente, o presidente acionou o mecanismo do referendo popular e, pela segunda vez, os islandeses disseram não. O que isso significa? Alguns podem questionar “como uma questão ‘técnica’ dessas vai parar em referendo popular?”, acusar o presidente de demagogia, etc., o que é absolutamente surreal. Não é possível que parlamentares que têm suas campanhas pagas por bancos definam o que vai acontecer com o dinheiro da população em relação ao pagamento ou não da dívida destes bancos. Não faltaram economistas prevendo que a Islândia iria quebrar. No entanto, de todos os países que entraram na crise, a Islândia é um dos que está em melhor situação atualmente. A tentativa de retirar a força política da decisão era simplesmente uma construção ideológica para legitimar os “técnicos”, que, no fundo, de técnicos não têm nada porque representantes do poder financeiro que conseguiu tomar conta de todas as instituições das democracias avançadas. Esse é o limite da democracia atual. O sistema financeiro é o grande inimigo da democracia.

Existe um tipo de agenda ambiental apoiada na entrada de bens comuns para o mercado que vem sendo denunciada como a solução encontrada pelo sistema financeiro para sair da crise ao mesmo tempo em que, também apoiada na retórica da crise, Angela Merkel lidera na zona do Euro políticas de austeridade que deslegitimam a vontade soberana dos povos, como no caso grego. Como ‘a esquerda que não teme dizer seu nome’ se coloca nesse processo?

Os problemas ligados à ecologia têm um forte potencial não só mobilizador como também transformador. No entanto, nós temos hoje duas ecologias. Uma tem um potencial transformador, mas a outra é conservadora. O capitalismo vê na ecologia um dos elementos de sua renovação. Hoje, qualquer liberal, qualquer analista de Wall Street vai admitir o discurso ecológico. Há alguns autores que falam que depois da bolha imobiliária, nós temos agora a bolha verde. Uma vez escrevi um pequeno texto sobre o filme Wall Street [2010], de Oliver Stone, que me impressionou pela agudez da metáfora. Um jovem analista do mercado aposta no potencial financeiro das energias renováveis. Ele era um visionário porque, de certa maneira, pregava uma reconciliação entre o setor mais rentista da economia e algumas exigências presentes na pauta ecológica. Isso só pode ser feito rifando completamente a dimensão em que a reflexão ecológica aparece como um elemento fundamental de afirmação da soberania popular. Existe uma tendência bizarra, mas muito concreta, de articulação entre um determinado setor de lutas ecológicas e o capital financeiro. Inclusive, do ponto de vista eleitoral, acontece muita coisa complicada. Os partidos verdes europeus preferem se aliar a partidos de centro do que aos partidos de esquerda. Por exemplo, na Alemanha, o Partido Verde prefere uma aliança com a CDU [partido democrata-cristão da primeira-ministra Angela Merkel] do que uma aliança com a Die LINK, que é um partido de esquerda mais dura. Na França foi a mesma coisa. Tudo isso me parece muito preocupante. É necessário livrar a agenda ecológica dessa tendência à justificativa de um liberalismo renovado para recolocá-la no lugar onde ela sempre esteve, ou seja, como elemento fundamental da reflexão da esquerda sobre o caráter deletério dos processos de desenvolvimento do capitalismo avançado.

Como o novo pensamento de esquerda pode articular uma mirada filosófica diferente para a questão do uso produtivista da natureza, característico do neodesenvolvimentismo aqui no Brasil?

Eu reconheço que esse produtivismo em relação à natureza também esteve muito presente em certos setores da esquerda que, durante muito tempo, entenderam a natureza como fonte de recursos e só. Basta lembrar que nos países comunistas a política ambiental foi catastrófica. Isso, inclusive, tem base teórica, vem de uma leitura do pensamento marxista em que a natureza era um discurso reificado, sem realidade ontológica em si. Em última instância, a natureza era o fruto do trabalho humano então a intervenção humana na natureza já estava justificada de antemão, sem maiores contradições. Mas acredito que do ponto de vista da esquerda hoje existe uma consciência tácita a respeito da centralidade da agenda ecológica. Não foram poucos os filósofos no século 20 que nos alertaram para o impacto negativo da redução da relação com a natureza a sua dimensão eminentemente técnica. Por mais que o desenvolvimento técnico pareça nos assegurar a dominação da natureza, o fato de compreender a relação humana com a natureza sob o signo da dominação já é um problema grave. Então, essa ideia de que, sim, vivemos em um país que tem necessidades de desenvolvimento maiores porque há urgências de inclusão social não invalida o fato de estarmos no interior de um processo de reflexão sobre o que significa riqueza social. Será que riqueza social significa ter um conjunto determinado de bens de consumo, ter transporte individual, ter uma relação extrativista da energia natural? Ou significa ser capaz de criar um modelo de relação com a natureza que garanta de maneira fundamental a qualidade de vida? Essa é uma bela questão que só o debate ecológico foi capaz de colocar.

Assim como em movimentos urbanos, a exemplo do Ocuppy, a pauta ecológica delineia um horizonte onde outro modelo de sociedade é possível, fazendo cada vez mais a crítica ao poder do sistema financeiro para bloqueá-lo?

A pauta ecológica atinge o modelo na sua esfera econômica mais clara ao afirmar que nós não queremos uma situação na qual todos os agentes econômicos estejam submetidos aos interesses de uma meia dúzia de multinacionais que detém não só a estrutura de produção, mas também o desenvolvimento da técnica. Quando se fala em agricultura familiar, o que isso quer dizer? Que, enquanto modelo econômico, não é possível estabelecer uma brutal concentração de terras, de tecnologia, de insumos. Insistir na agricultura familiar é, dentre outras coisas, insistir na pulverização radical da posse não só da terra, mas dos bens e das técnicas. Porque se isso não ocorrer, você tem não só consequências demográficas muito brutais, como o inchaço das periferias urbanas, mas também uma espécie de situação na qual a criatividade inerente à pulverização das técnicas é perdida. Milhares de produtores não vão produzir as mesmas coisas, nem sob as mesmas condições.

Por exemplo?

Por exemplo, quando essas questões ecológicas se vinculam ao problema da soberania alimentar. O fato de que você tem uma política agrícola que vai eliminando completamente a diversidade alimentar não é só uma questão de garantia das tradições – eu seria o último a fazer aqui a defesa abstrata da particularidade das tradições. Dentre outras coisas, é preciso reconhecer que a tradição tem uma dimensão de experiência que será muito importante para nós quando tivermos condições de compreender como os saberes alimentares se constituíram e o que eles garantem. Há uma tendência monopolista muito forte, nós vemos nas últimas décadas algo que está na base da tradição marxista, a ideia de que vai chegar um momento em que a própria noção de concorrência começa a desaparecer. Esse processo concentracionista toma a relação com a natureza de assalto, da maneira mais brutal possível. Todos esses movimentos camponeses, como a Via Campesina, insistem que há um risco não só econômico como social em se permitir a concentração das atividades agrícolas na mão de multinacionais. As sociedades pagarão caro se não conseguirem bloquear esse processo.

Pegando carona nesse exemplo da Via Campesina, cada vez mais surgem relatos de populações tradicionais emparedadas por esse modelo de desenvolvimento, mas, ainda sim, estes relatos bastante concretos e verificáveis são deslegitimados…

Tenta-se desqualificar essas resistências como uma espécie de arcaísmo. É como se dissessem “vocês precisam entender que têm uma visão absolutamente romântica do mundo”. É um discurso que condena “a crítica às luzes”, no final das contas. Diz muito a tentativa de retirar dessas lutas uma espécie de prova maior do conservadorismo de certas populações que no fundo são as populações mais vulneráveis, pois sabem que quando essas empresas chegam eles vão para o espaço simplesmente. Quando a Petrobrás chega para fazer a exploração de petróleo nas bacias, a vida dos pescadores é a última coisa na qual ela vai pensar. “Imagina você ficar preocupado com peixe quando o país quer se transformar em uma grande potência petrolífera?”. Ou seja, eles querem vender essa perspectiva, mas uma questão fundamental da esquerda é saber defender as alas mais vulneráveis da sociedade. Existe um modelo retórico que procura nos fazer acreditar que toda resistência seja, no fundo, uma recusa do progresso. Acho importante recolocar de maneira clara o que significa ‘progresso’ no interior desse contexto. O progresso procuraria dar conta de certas exigências fundamentais de bem-estar. O progresso científico não é simplesmente um processo de dominação da natureza, mas também um processo de otimização do bem-estar humano. Mas esse dito ‘progresso’ promete uma maior qualidade de vida para as populações e acaba produzindo o inverso. Para que essa inversão não ocorra, é necessária uma reconstituição brutal dos modelos de relação com a natureza. E, nesse processo, o interessante é que nasce outra consciência da organização social.

* Entrevista realizada por Maíra Mathias para a revista Poli n° 24, de julho e agosto de 2012

** Entrevista socializada pela Escola Politécnica de Saúde Joaquim Venâncio(EPSJV/Fiocruz), publicada pelo EcoDebate, 06/09/2012

[ O conteúdo do EcoDebate é “Copyleft”, podendo ser copiado, reproduzido e/ou distribuído, desde que seja dado crédito ao autor, ao Ecodebate e, se for o caso, à fonte primária da informação ]

Ecosystems Cope With Stress More Effectively the Greater the Biodiversity (Science Daily)

06/09/2012UncategorizedBiodiversidade, Clima, Desastre, Ecologia, Incerteza, Mudanças climáticasrenzotaddei

ScienceDaily (Sep. 5, 2012) — Ecosystems with a high degree of biodiversity can cope with more stress, such as higher temperatures or increasing salt concentrations, than those with less biodiversity. They can also maintain their services for longer, as botanists and ecologists from the universities of Zurich and Göttingen have discovered. Their study provides the first evidence of the relationship between stress intensity and ecosystem functioning.

Higher average temperatures and increasing salt concentrations are stress factors that many ecosystems face today in the wake of climate change. However, do all ecosystems react to stress in the same way and what impact does stress have on ecosystem services, such as biomass production? Botanists and ecologists from the universities of Zurich and Göttingen demonstrate that a high level of biodiversity aids stress resistance.

Higher number of species leads to greater stress resistance

The scientists studied a total of 64 species of single-celled microalgae from the SAG Culture Collection of Algae in Göttingen. These are at the bottom of the food chain and absorb environmentally harmful CO₂via photosynthesis. “The more species of microalgae there are in a system, the more robust the system is under moderate stress compared to those with fewer species,” says first author Bastian Steudel, explaining one of the results. Systems with a higher number of species can thus keep their biomass production stable for longer than those with less biodiversity.

In all, the researchers studied six different intensities of two stress gradients. In the case of very high intensities, the positive effects of biodiversity decreased or ceased altogether. However, increasing stress in systems with few species had a considerably more negative impact than in those with high biodiversity levels. “The study shows that a high degree of biodiversity under stress is especially important to maintain biomass production,” says Steudel’s PhD supervisor Michael Kessler, summing up the significance of the research project.

Journal Reference:

Bastian Steudel, Andy Hector, Thomas Friedl, Christian Löfke, Maike Lorenz, Moritz Wesche, Michael Kessler.Biodiversity effects on ecosystem functioning change along environmental stress gradients. Ecology Letters, 2012; DOI: 10.1111/j.1461-0248.2012.01863.x

Salamanders Display Survival Techniques in Period of Extreme Drought (Science Daily)

06/09/2012UncategorizedAnimais, Clima, Desastre, Mudanças climáticas, Seca, Vulnerabilidaderenzotaddei

ScienceDaily (Sep. 5, 2012) — The stress of drought is acutely felt by aquatic animals such as salamanders. The extreme drought in the southeastern United States in 2007-2008 provided an opportunity to study how salamanders react and survive during such dry conditions. It also gave us clues as to how salamanders and other aquatic organisms may react to global warming.

The journal Herpetologica reports on a 5-year study of the Northern Dusky Salamander, common to eastern North America. From 2005 to 2009, including two severe drought years, the presence of salamanders was recorded at 17 first-order streams in the Piedmont region of North Carolina. Data on the amphibians’ presence were established by capturing, marking, and recapturing salamanders over the course of the study.

Researchers found that the adult salamanders had a high rate of survival over the course of the study, even during the drought years. The abundance of larval salamanders, however, decreased by an average of 30 percent during the drought. This differential mortality suggests a between-generation survival strategy, with the high survival rate of adults mitigating the effect of drought on the numbers of larvae.

During the extreme drought, water levels reached a 110-year low. Many streams were dry for periods of 2 to 3 months at a time, reduced to pools rather than flowing water. These conditions brought about another survival strategy, temporary migration of adult salamanders — at twice the rate of non-drought years. They moved from stream beds to underground or high-humidity refuges. Crayfish burrows and rocks provided shelter from the hot and dry conditions.

Because climate change is expected to bring warming trends and more drought, this study offers implications for the survival of stream-dwelling salamanders. An increase in the mortality of larvae, or early metamorphosis, could mean declines in salamander fitness and size.

Journal Reference:

Steven J. Price, Robert A. Browne, and Michael E. Dorcas.Resistance and Resilience of A Stream Salamander To Supraseasonal Drought. Herpetologica:, September 2012; 68 (3): 312-323 DOI: 10.1655/HERPETOLOGICA-D-11-00084.1

Mulheres são mais vulneráveis aos impactos das mudanças climáticas globais (Fapesp)

06/09/2012UncategorizedClima, Desastre, Enquadramento, Gênero, Incerteza, Mudanças climáticas, participatividade, Políticas públicas, Previsão, sociedade civil, Vulnerabilidaderenzotaddei

Fatores socioeconômicos e culturais potencializam as vulnerabilidades do sexo feminino aos desastres provocados pelos eventos climáticos extremos, avalia pesquisadora mexicana que integra o IPCC (foto:Eduardo Cesar/FAPESP)

06/09/2012

Por Elton Alisson

Agência FAPESP – As mulheres e meninas representam atualmente 72% do total de pessoas que vivem em condições de extrema pobreza no mundo. Em função disso e da combinação de uma série de outros fatores socioeconômicos e culturais, elas representam hoje as maiores vítimas de desastres provocados por eventos climáticos extremos, como inundações e furacões.

Os dados foram apresentados pela médica e antropóloga mexicana Úrsula Oswald Spring durante o workshop “Gestão dos riscos dos extremos climáticos e desastres na América do Sul – O que podemos aprender com o Relatório Especial do IPCC sobre os extremos?”, realizado em agosto pela FAPESP, em São Paulo.

Professora da Universidade Nacional Autônoma do México, a pesquisadora mexicana, que é membro do IPCC, explica em entrevista concedida à Agência FAPESP as razões e quais ações são necessárias para diminuir a vulnerabilidade das mulheres e meninas aos impactos das mudanças climáticas.

Agência FAPESP – Quais são os grupos humanos mais vulneráveis aos impactos das mudanças climáticas globais?
Úrsula Oswald Spring – Primeiro, as mulheres e meninas. Em segundo lugar, os grupos indígenas refugiados em comunidades com línguas e culturas diferentes das suas. E em terceiro todas as pessoas que vivem em cidades em pobreza extrema, em zonas de alto risco e de violência, sem apoio governamental, ilegais, sem emprego e expostas às intempéries climáticas. Coincidentemente, esses três grupos humanos também são os mais discriminados. Há um problema de discriminação estrutural e uma combinação catastrófica de fatores socioeconômicos, ambientais e culturais que potencializam as vulnerabilidades desses três grupos humanos aos impactos das mudanças climáticas.

Agência FAPESP – O que torna as mulheres e meninas mais vulneráveis aos impactos das mudanças climáticas?
Úrsula Oswald Spring – Mundialmente, elas representam 72% dos pobres extremos e, sem recursos financeiros, é muito difícil enfrentar os impactos dos eventos climáticos extremos. Além disso, as mulheres foram educadas a cuidar dos outros e, por isso, assumimos o papel de “mãe de todos”. Esse processo, que chamo de teoria das representações sociais, também nos torna mais vulneráveis, porque temos o papel de proteger primeiramente os outros, para depois nos preocuparmos conosco. Por trás de tudo isso também persiste há milhares de anos um sistema político excludente, reforçado por todas as crenças religiosas, denominado sistema patriarcal, que preceitua a autoridade de um ser – o homem –, resultando em muita violência, exclusão e discriminação contra as mulheres. O capitalismo, por sua vez, se aproveitou do sistema patriarcal e construiu um sistema vertical, excludente, autoritário e violento, que permitiu que hoje 1,2 mil homens comandem a metade de todo o planeta e que as mulheres tivessem pouco poder de decisão e de veto em questões que lhes afetam diretamente.

Agência FAPESP – Diante desta realidade, o que é preciso fazer para diminuir a vulnerabilidade das mulheres e meninas aos impactos dos eventos climáticos extremos?
Úrsula Oswald Spring – Não vale a pena destruir, por exemplo, essa capacidade das mulheres em querer ser a mãe de todos. Mas é necessário treiná-las para que esse processo de cuidar dos outros seja mais eficiente e que não seja realizado ao custo de sua própria vida, mas que possa beneficiar todo um conjunto de pessoas, incluindo ela e suas filhas. E isto implica em mais condições para que possam ter maior poder de decisão.

Agência FAPESP – Como seria possível realizar esse processo?
Úrsula Oswald Spring – Sobretudo, possibilitando o maior acesso das mulheres à educação. De acordo com o Banco Mundial, todo país islâmico que investe na educação de suas mulheres aumenta imediatamente 1% de seu PIB. Outra ação é dar mais visibilidade ao trabalho das mulheres, que muitas vezes não é valorizado. Nos Estados Unidos o trabalho feminino representa 38% do PIB. É preciso dar visibilidade a essa participação econômica das mulheres. Alem disso, são necessárias leis que garantam maior equidade e participação das mulheres em todos os processos decisórios. Teríamos que usar sistemas de cotas para mulheres para reverter a discriminação, que seria um passo para garantir maior equidade. Desgraçadamente, as catástrofes e os desastres provocados pelos eventos climáticos extremos irão ajudar no processo de dar maior poder às mulheres.

Agência FAPESP – De que maneira?
Úrsula Oswald Spring – No México, por exemplo, a produção campesina está nas mãos dos homens. Mas está passando para as mãos das mulheres, porque os homens migraram para os Estados Unidos em busca de emprego. Na nova condição de chefes de família, elas estão tendo que tomar decisões sobre as mais variadas questões. Nós precisamos ajudá-las nesse processo de “empoderamento”, possibilitando que elas tenham acesso a tecnologias sustentáveis, que lhes permitam, por exemplo, se proteger dos riscos de desastres causados pelos eventos climáticos extremos.

Agência FAPESP – Além da questão do “empoderamento”, que é um processo que demanda longo prazo, que ações mais urgentes devem ser tomadas para preparar as mulheres para enfrentar os eventos climáticos extremos?
Úrsula Oswald Spring – É preciso possibilitar e treinar as mulheres para que em um momento de perigo iminente, por exemplo, elas tenham o direito de sair de casa. Muitas comunidades proíbem que uma mulher saia de casa se não está acompanhada por um homem. Isso é uma discriminação e uma forma de controle que é preciso superar com leis de equidade de gênero. Além disso, é preciso treinar mulheres para aprender a nadar, a correr, a trepar em uma árvore, e permitir que possam usar uma roupa mais adequada para realizar essas atividades. Eu assisti os Jogos Olímpicos de Londres e me chamou a atenção a vestimenta das atletas da natação e de corrida da Arábia Saudita. Apesar de estarem vestidas de forma diferente das atletas de outros países, ao menos elas vestiam uma calça que lhes permitia correr, sem infringir os códigos religiosos. Esse é um tipo de ação que poderíamos socializar. Poderíamos aproveitar os Jogos Olímpicos para promover em todos os países islâmicos esse tipo de ação, e dar cursos de natação e de corrida para as mulheres.

Agência FAPESP – Dentre os três grupos humanos que a senhora aponta como os mais vulneráveis aos impactos das mudanças climáticas, qual apresenta maior resiliência?
Úrsula Oswald Spring – Só os indígenas têm a capacidade adquirida ao longo de milhares de anos de administrar situações muito difíceis sem contar com ajuda internacional, nacional ou estatal, mas sim sozinhos. Eles se adaptaram às mudanças climáticas e cultivaram durante milhares de anos e da mesma maneira vegetais, como batatas, resistentes à seca, ao frio e ao calor, e desenvolveram sistemas muito eficientes e baratos de irrigação e fertilização da terra. É preciso aproveitar esses conhecimentos tradicionais e vinculá-los às tecnologias modernas para nos adaptarmos às mudanças climáticas. Mas estamos perdendo esses conhecimentos tradicionais porque a última geração de indígenas que ainda detêm esses conhecimentos, que são jovens, já passou pela escola, fala outras línguas que não a materna e está perdendo sua cultura indígena. Se não fizermos nada, vamos perder mundialmente esses conhecimentos tradicionais que permitiriam desenvolver soluções locais para enfrentar as mudanças climáticas.

Agência FAPESP – Que iniciativas existem hoje para promover essa aproximação de conhecimentos tradicionais com os científicos?
Úrsula Oswald Spring – No México, por exemplo, foi criada a Universidade Campesina do Sul. Lá são integrados grupos locais, que são constituídos hoje basicamente por mulheres – há 20 anos eram formados, em sua maioria, por homens –, e com base nas necessidades desses grupos nós disseminamos um processo de educação baseado no método de Paulo Freire, em que eles aprendem a partir de sua própria realidade.

Agência FAPESP – O que é ensinado na Universidade Campesina do Sul?
Úrsula Oswald Spring – Um dos temas com os quais trabalhamos é agricultura orgânica, ensinando as mulheres a trabalhar com hortas familiares, para garantir seus próprios alimentos e de sua família. Outro tema é o manejo de água. Há muita água não potável, como a utilizada para lavar as mãos, por exemplo, que é muito fácil de tratar e que pode ser utilizada junto com dejetos orgânicos de sanitários secos como melhoradores de solo para ajudar a recuperar a fertilidade natural do solo. Outro tema ao qual temos nos dedicado é o da medicina alternativa. A medicina moderna é muito cara e a maior parte das pessoas não tem recursos para utilizar o sistema de saúde. Em função disso, estamos criando modos de integrar a medicina tradicional mexicana, que utiliza ervas e métodos tradicionais de cura, como vapores, com a medicina moderna. É um conjunto de ações voltadas para potencializar o uso dos conhecimentos científico e tradicional e tentar buscar soluções para enfrentar coletivamente problemas das mais variadas ordens, como o das mudanças climáticas. Porque não são grandes obras que protegem as pessoas de uma catástrofe provocada por um evento climático extremo, como uma inundação, mas sim pequenas obras, contanto que sejam muito eficientes.

Agência FAPESP – Na opinião da senhora, como será possível enfrentar os riscos das mudanças climáticas em escala mundial, em um momento em que diversos países passam por graves crises econômicas e têm problemas mais urgentes para resolver?
Úrsula Oswald Spring – Há condições de grande incerteza em relação às mudanças climáticas porque, além das crises econômicas, grande parte das pessoas no mundo nunca presenciou uma situação de desastre causado por um evento climático extremo. Mas se algumas pessoas ainda não passaram por uma situação dessas, é preciso justamente pensar em maneiras de se preparar para enfrentar os eventos climáticos extremos, que ocorrerão com maior frequência nos próximos anos. E uma das formas de se fazer isso é descentralizando a gestão dos riscos das mudanças climáticas, levando em contas as condições próprias de cada região. O problema climático na Amazônia, por exemplo, não é o mesmo que ocorre na parte alta dos Andes. Os tipos de manejos nessas regiões são muito diferentes. Por isso, os países precisam descentralizar as ações. A gestão dos riscos de mudanças climáticas pelos países irá depender de uma boa gestão local. Os primeiros 10 minutos de uma situação de risco, como uma inundação ou deslizamento, são cruciais e não há ajuda internacional que possa socorrer. Por isso, é preciso investir fortemente em prevenção e treinamento em nível local para enfrentar os riscos de um evento climático extremo.

Realistically What Might the Future Climate Look Like? (Skeptical Science)

04/09/2012UncategorizedClima, Enquadramento, Incerteza, Mídia, Mediação tecnológica, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Opinião pública, Política, Previsão, Visualidaderenzotaddei

Posted on 31 August 2012 by dana1981

Robert Watson, former Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), recently made headlines by declaring that it is unlikely we will be able to limit global warming to the 2°C ‘danger limit’. This past April, the International Energy Agency similarly warnedthat we are rapidly running out of time to avoid blowing past 2°C global warming compared to late 19th Century temperatures. The reason for their pessimism is illustrated in the ‘ski slopes’ graphic, which depicts how steep emissions cuts will have to be in order to give ourselves a good chance to stay below the 2°C target, given different peak emissions dates (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Three scenarios, each of which would limit the total global emission of carbon dioxide from fossil-fuel burning and industrial processes to 750 billion tonnes over the period 2010–2050. Source: German Advisory Council on Global Change, WBGU (2009)

Clearly our CO2 emissions have not yet peaked – in fact they increased by 1 billion tonnes between 2010 and 2011 despite a continued global economic recession; therefore, the green curve is no longer an option. There has also been little progress toward an international climate accord to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which suggests that the blue curve does not represent a likely scenario either – in order to achieve peak emissions in 2015 we would have to take serious steps to reduce emissions today, which we are not. The red curve seems the most likely, but the required cuts are so steep that it is unlikely we will be able to achieve them, which means we are indeed likely to surpass the 2°C target.

Thus it is worth exploring the question, what would a world with >2°C global surface warming look like?

Global Warming Impacts

The 2007 IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) summarizes the magnitudes of impact of various degrees of warming here, and graphically in Figure 2, relative to ~1990 temperatures (~0.6°C above late 19th Century temperatures).

Figure 2: Illustrative examples of global impacts projected for climate changes (and sea level and atmospheric carbon dioxide where relevant) associated with different amounts of increase in global average surface temperature in the 21st century. The black lines link impacts, dotted arrows indicate impacts continuing with increasing temperature. Entries are placed so that the left-hand side of the text indicates the approximate onset of a given impact. Quantitative entries for water stress and flooding represent the additional impacts of climate change relative to the conditions projected across the range of Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) scenarios. Adaptation to climate change is not included in these estimations. Confidence levels for all statements are high. IPCC AR4 WGII Figure SPM.2. Click the image for a larger version.

Some adverse impacts are expected even before we reach the 2°C limit, for example hundreds of millions of people being subjected to increased water stress, increasing drought at mid-latitudes (as we recently discussed here), increased coral bleaching, increased coastal damage from floods and storms, and increased morbidity and mortality from more frequent and intense heat waves (see here), floods, and droughts. However, by and large these are impacts which we should be able to adapt to, at a cost, but without disastrous consequences.

Once we surpass the 2°C target, the impacts listed above are exacerbated, and some new impacts will occur. Most corals will bleach, and widespread coral mortality is expected ~3°C above late 19th Century temperatures. Up to 30% of global species will be at risk for extinction, and the figure could exceed 40% if we surpass 4°C, as we continue on the path toward the Earth’s sixth mass extinction. Coastal flooding will impact millions more people at ~2.5°C, and a number of adverse health effects are expected to continue rising along with temperatures.

Reasons for Concern

Smith et al. (2009) (on which the late great Stephen Schneider was a co-author) updated the IPCC impact assessment, arriving at similar conclusions. For example,

“There is medium confidence that ~20–30% of known plant and animal species are likely to be at increased risk of extinction if increases in global average temperature exceed 1.5 °C to 2.5 °C over 1980–1999”

“increases in drought, heat waves, and floods are projected in many regions and would have adverse impacts, including increased water stress, wildfire frequency, and flood risks (starting at less than 1 °C of additional warming above 1990 levels) and adverse health effects (slightly above 1 °C)”

“climate change over the next century is likely to adversely affect hundreds of millions of people through increased coastal flooding after a further 2 °C warming from 1990 levels; reductions in water supplies (0.4 to 1.7 billion people affected with less than a 1 °C warming from 1990 levels); and increased health impacts (that are already being observed”

Smith et al. updated the 2001 IPCC report ‘burning embers’ diagram to reflect their findings (Figure 3). On this figure, white regions indicate neutral or low impacts or risks, yellow indicates negative impacts for some systems or more significant risks, and red indicates substantial negative impacts or risks that are more widespread and/or severe. They have grouped the various climate change consequences into ‘reasons for concern’ (RFCs), summarized below.

Figure 3: Risks from climate change, by reason for concern (RFC). Climate change consequences are plotted against increases in global mean temperature (°C) after 1990. Each column corresponds to a specific RFC and represents additional outcomes associated with increasing global mean temperature. The color scheme represents progressively increasing levels of risk and should not be interpreted as representing ‘‘dangerous anthropogenic interference,’’ which is a value judgment. The historical period 1900 to 2000 warmed by 0.6 °C and led to some impacts. It should be noted that this figure addresses only how risks change as global mean temperature increases, not how risks might change at different rates of warming. Furthermore, it does not address when impacts might be realized, nor does it account for the effects of different development pathways on vulnerability.

Risk to Unique and Threatened Systems addresses the potential for increased damage to or irreversible loss of unique and threatened systems, such as coral reefs, tropical glaciers, endangered species, unique ecosystems, biodiversity hotspots, small island states, and indigenous communities.
Risk of Extreme Weather Events tracks increases in extreme events with substantial consequences for societies and natural systems. Examples include increase in the frequency, intensity, or consequences of heat waves, floods, droughts, wildfires, or tropical cyclones.
Distribution of Impacts concerns disparities of impacts. Some regions, countries, and populations face greater harm from climate change, whereas other regions, countries, or populations would be much less harmed—and some may benefit; the magnitude of harm can also vary within regions and across sectors and populations.
Aggregate Damages covers comprehensive measures of impacts. Impacts distributed across the globe can be aggregated into a single metric, such as monetary damages, lives affected, or lives lost. Aggregation techniques vary in their treatment of equity of outcomes, as well as treatment of impacts that are not easily quantified.
Risks of Large-Scale Discontinuities represents the likelihood that certain phenomena (sometimes called tipping points) would occur, any of which may be accompanied by very large impacts. These phenomena include the deglaciation (partial or complete) of the West Antarctic or Greenland ice sheets and major changes in some components of the Earth’s climate system, such as a substantial reduction or collapse of the North Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation.

All of these reasons for concern enter the red (substantial negative impact, high risk) region by 4°C. Aggregate impacts are in the red region by 3°C, and some types of concerns are in the red region by 1°C.

For more details we also recommend Mark Lynas’ book Six Degrees, which goes through the climate impacts from each subsequent degree of warming, based on a very thorough review of the scientific literature. A brief review of the book by Eric Steig and summary of some key impacts is available here. National Geographic also did a series of videos on the Six Degrees theme, which no longer seem to be available on their websites, but which can still be found on YouTube.

This is Why Reducing Emissions is Critical

We’re not yet committed to surpassing 2°C global warming, but as Watson noted, we are quickly running out of time to realistically give ourselves a chance to stay below that ‘danger limit’. However, 2°C is not a do-or-die threshold. Every bit of CO2 emissions we can reduce means that much avoided future warming, which means that much avoided climate change impacts. As Lonnie Thompson noted, the more global warming we manage to mitigate, the less adaption and suffering we will be forced to cope with in the future.

Realistically, based on the current political climate (which we will explore in another post next week), limiting global warming to 2°C is probably the best we can do. However, there is a big difference between 2°C and 3°C, between 3°C and 4°C, and anything greater than 4°C can probably accurately be described as catastrophic, since various tipping points are expected to be triggered at this level. Right now, we are on track for the catastrophic consequences (widespread coral mortality, mass extinctions, hundreds of millions of people adversely impacted by droughts, floods, heat waves, etc.). But we’re not stuck on that track just yet, and we need to move ourselves as far off of it as possible by reducing our greenhouse gas emissions as soon and as much as possible.

There are of course many people who believe that the planet will not warm as much, or that the impacts of the associated climate change will be as bad as the body of scientific evidence suggests. That is certainly a possiblity, and we very much hope that their optimistic view is correct. However, what we have presented here is the best summary of scientific evidence available, and it paints a very bleak picture if we fail to rapidly reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

If we continue forward on our current path, catastrophe is not just a possible outcome, it is the most probable outcome. And an intelligent risk management approach would involve taking steps to prevent a catastrophic scenario if it were a mere possibility, let alone the most probable outcome. This is especially true since the most important component of the solution – carbon pricing – can be implemented at a relatively low cost, and a far lower cost than trying to adapt to the climate change consequences we have discussed here (Figure 4).

Figure 4: Approximate costs of climate action (green) and inaction (red) in 2100 and 2200. Sources: German Institute for Economic Research andWatkiss et al. 2005

Climate contrarians will often mock ‘CAGW’ (catastrophic anthropogenic global warming), but the sad reality is that CAGW is looking more and more likely every day. But it’s critical that we don’t give up, that we keep doing everything we can do to reduce our emissions as much as possible in order to avoid as many catastrophic consequences as possible, for the sake of future generations and all species on Earth. The future climate will probably be much more challenging for life on Earth than today’s, but we still can and must limit the damage.

Research Reveals Contrasting Consequences of a Warmer Earth (Science Daily)

04/09/2012UncategorizedBiodiversidade, Clima, discurso ambiental, Enquadramento, Incerteza, Mediação tecnológica, Mudanças climáticas, Previsãorenzotaddei

ScienceDaily (Sep. 3, 2012) — A new study, by scientists from the Universities of York, Glasgow and Leeds, involving analysis of fossil and geological records going back 540 million years, suggests that biodiversity on Earth generally increases as the planet warms.

New research involving analysis of fossil and geological records going back 540 million years suggests that biodiversity on Earth generally increases as the planet warms. (Credit: © mozZz / Fotolia)

But the research says that the increase in biodiversity depends on the evolution of new species over millions of years, and is normally accompanied by extinctions of existing species. The researchers suggest that present trends of increasing temperature are unlikely to boost global biodiversity in the short term because of the long timescales necessary for new forms to evolve. Instead, the speed of current change is expected to cause diversity loss.

The study which is published inProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) says that while warm periods in the geological past experienced increased extinctions, they also promoted the origination of new species, increasing overall biodiversity.

The new research is a refinement of an earlier study that analysed biodiversity over the same time interval, but with a less sophisticated data set, and concluded that a warming climate led to drops in overall diversity. Using the improved data that are now available, the researchers re-examined patterns of marine invertebrate biodiversity over the last 540 million years.

Lead author, Dr Peter Mayhew, of the Department of Biology at York, said: “The improved data give us a more secure picture of the impact of warmer temperatures on marine biodiversity and they show that, as before, there is more extinction and origination in warm geological periods. But, overall, warm climates seem to boost biodiversity in the very long run, rather than reducing it.”

Dr Alistair McGowan, of the School of Geographical and Earth Sciences at the University of Glasgow said: “The previous findings always seemed paradoxical. Ecological studies show that species richness consistently increases towards the Equator, where it is warm, yet the relationship between biodiversity and temperature through time appeared to be the opposite. Our new results reverse these conclusions and bring them into line with the ecological pattern.”

Professor Tim Benton, of the Faculty of Biological Sciences at the University of Leeds, added: “Science progresses by constantly re-examining conclusions in the light of better data. Our results seem to show that temperature improves biodiversity through time as well as across space. However, they do not suggest that current global warming is good for existing species. Increases in global diversity take millions of years, and in the meantime we expect extinctions to occur.”

Wild Weather A New Normal And Insurance Companies Must Act (Forbes)

04/09/2012UncategorizedClima, Desastre, Economia, Incerteza, Mediação tecnológica, Mudanças climáticas, Previsão, Secarenzotaddei

GREEN TECH

Mindy Lubber, Contributor – President, Ceres and Director, Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR)

8/30/2012 @ 9:01AM

Severe weather has been clobbering insurance companies, and the headlines just keep coming. “Drought to cost insurers billions in losses,” said the Financial Times a few days ago. “Many U.S. hurricanes would cause $10b or more in losses in 2012 dollars,” the Boston Globe said about the latest hurricane forecasts. “June’s severe weather losses near $2 billion in U.S.,” said the Insurance Journal earlier this year.

This year’s extreme events follow the world’s costliest year ever for natural catastrophe losses, including $32 billion in 2011 insured losses in the United States due to extreme weather events. This is no short-term uptick: insured losses due to extreme weather have been trending upward for 30 years, as the climate has changed and populations in coastal areas and other vulnerable places have grown.

The U.S. insurance industry continues to be “surprised” by extreme weather losses. But the truth is that weather extremes are no longer surprising. Back-to-back summers of devastating droughts, record heat waves and raging wildfires are clear evidence of this. Last year’s crazy weather triggered near record underwriting losses and numerous credit rating downgrades among U.S. property and casualty insurers.

And in the face of a changing climate, such events can be expected to increase in number, and severity. It’s time for insurance companies to recognize this new normal, and incorporate it into their business planning—for the sake of their shareholders, their industry’s survival, and the stability of the U.S. economy.

Ceres, a business sustainability leadership organization, has been researching the effects of climate change and severe weather on the insurance sector. In a report to be released next month, titled Stormy Future for U.S. Property and Casualty Insurers, we will detail our recommendations for insurance companies, investors and regulators to help strengthen the insurance sector so it can better weather the challenges ahead.

For insurance companies, using catastrophe models that can better anticipate probable effects of climate change on extreme weather events are key. And especially in vulnerable markets, insurers’ guidance on insurability should inform decisions that communities make on land-use planning, infrastructure decisions, and building codes.

Insurers can also encourage the transition to a low-carbon economy—one built to forestall the worst effects of climate change—by offering products and services that encourage clean and efficient energy, encouraging customers to adopt climate-change mitigation plans, and encouraging policymakers to act to reduce carbon pollution.

This would not be the first time insurance companies have helped change American society. By making insurance contingent on smoke detectors, insurers cut down on deaths and losses from building fires. By backing seat belt laws and including seat belt violations in rate calculations, they helped save lives on the road.

By engaging fully on climate change and energy policy—inside and outside of the boardroom – insurance companies can lead the way once again. It would be the right thing to do, both for their business, and for our future.

Lula climatólogo

03/09/2012UncategorizedClima, Desastre, Discriminação, Incerteza, Mídia, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Política, Poluição, Previsão, Sensacionalismorenzotaddei

Lançamento do programa Arco Verde Terra Legal, 19/06/2009

Biodiversity Conservation Depends On Scale: Lessons from the Science–policy Dialogue (Science Daily)

02/09/2012UncategorizedAnimais, Biodiversidade, discurso ambiental, Ecologia, Incerteza, Mudanças climáticas, Políticas públicasrenzotaddei

ScienceDaily (Aug. 30, 2012) — The year 2010 marked the deadline for the political targets to significantly reduce and halt biodiversity loss. The failure to achieve the 2010 goal stimulated the setting up of new targets for 2020. In addition, preventing the degradation of ecosystems and their services has been incorporated in several global and the EU agendas for 2020. To successful meet these challenging targets requires a critical review of the existing and emerging biodiversity policies to improve their design and implementation, say a team scientists in a paper published in the open access journal Nature Conservation.

These and other questions of increasing the “scale-awareness” of policy makers have been actively discussed at a special SCALES symposium at the 3rd European Congress of Conservation Biology (ECCB) in Glasgow on 28th-31st of August 2012. The lead author Dr Riikka Paloniemi from the Environmental Policy Centre, Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE), in Helsinki, Finland, said: “The policies that regulate biodiversity protection and management operate at many administrative levels, employ a range of instruments at different scales, and involve a variety of governmental and non-governmental actors. These actors often have different insights as to what constitutes a scale-challenge and how to deal with it, inevitably leading to contrasting opinions.”

“The question of scale has never been so acute before. Neglecting the spatial and temporal scale at which ecosystems functions when designing conservation measures may lead to long-standing negative consequences, and the failure of the 2010 target is one of the best examples of that” added Dr Klaus Henle from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research — UFZ in Leipzig, Germany and coordinator of SCALES.

The main conclusion of the scientists is that scale-related problems, and their potential solutions, are all about improving our understanding of complexity of the processes. Dealing with a number of different scales and scale-mismatches in biodiversity conservation is challenging; it requires an analytical and political framework that is able to assess the adverse impacts of global change, and to implement the relevant policies at the relevant scale.

Journal Reference:

Riikka Paloniemi, Evangelia Apostolopoulou, Eeva Primmer, Malgorzata Grodzinska-Jurcak, Klaus Henle, Irene Ring, Marianne Kettunen, Joseph Tzanopoulos, Simon Potts, Sybille van den Hove, Pascal Marty, Andrew McConville, Jukka Simila. Biodiversity conservation across scales: lessons from a science–policy dialogue. Nature Conservation, 2012; 2 (0): 7 DOI:10.3897/natureconservation.2.3144

Shading Earth: Delivering Solar Geoengineering Materials to Combat Global Warming May Be Feasible and Affordable (Science Daily)

02/09/2012UncategorizedClima, Desastre, Economia, Enquadramento, Geoengenharia, Incerteza, Mediação tecnológica, Mudanças climáticas, Política, Previsãorenzotaddei

ScienceDaily (Aug. 29, 2012) — A cost analysis of the technologies needed to transport materials into the stratosphere to reduce the amount of sunlight hitting Earth and therefore reduce the effects of global climate change has shown that they are both feasible and affordable.

A cost analysis of the technologies needed to transport materials into the stratosphere to reduce the amount of sunlight hitting Earth and therefore reduce the effects of global climate change has shown that they are both feasible and affordable. (Credit: © mozZz / Fotolia)

Published August 31, 2012, in IOP Publishing’s journal Environmental Research Letters, the study has shown that the basic technology currently exists and could be assembled and implemented in a number of different forms for less than USD $5 billion a year.

Put into context, the cost of reducing carbon dioxide emissions is currently estimated to be between 0.2 and 2.5 per cent of GDP in the year 2030, which is equivalent to roughly USD $200 to $2000 billion.

Solar radiation management (SRM) looks to induce the effects similar to those observed after volcanic eruptions; however, the authors state that it is not a preferred strategy and that such a claim could only be made after the thorough investigation of the implications, risks and costs associated with these issues.

The authors caution that reducing incident sunlight does nothing at all to reduce greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere, nor the resulting increase in the acid content of the oceans. They note that other research has shown that the effects of solar radiation management are not uniform, and would cause different temperature and precipitation changes in different countries.

Co-author of the study, Professor Jay Apt, said: “As economists are beginning to explore the role of several types of geoengineering, it is important that a cost analysis of SRM is carried out. The basic feasibility of SRM with current technology is still being disputed and some political scientists and policy makers are concerned about unilateral action.”

In the study, the researchers, from Aurora Flight Sciences, Harvard University and Carnegie Mellon University, performed an engineering cost analysis on six systems capable of delivering 1-5 million metric tonnes of material to altitudes of 18-30 km: existing aircraft, a new airplane designed to perform at altitudes up to 30 km, a new hybrid airship, rockets, guns and suspended pipes carrying gas or slurry to inject the particles into the atmosphere.

Based on existing research into solar radiation management, the researchers performed their cost analyses for systems that could deliver around one million tonnes of aerosols each year at an altitude between 18 and 25 km and between a latitude range of 30°N and 30°S.

The study concluded that using aircraft is easily within the current capabilities of aerospace engineering, manufacturing and operations. The development of new, specialized aircraft appeared to be the cheapest option, with costs of around $1 to $2 billion a year; existing aircraft would be more expensive as they are not optimized for high altitudes and would need considerable and expensive modifications to do so.

Guns and rockets appeared to be capable of delivering materials at high altitudes but the costs associated with these are much higher than those of airplanes and airships due to their lack of reusability.

Although completely theoretical at this point in time, a large gas pipe, rising to 20 km in the sky and suspended by helium-filled floating platforms, would offer the lowest recurring cost-per-kilogram of particles delivered but the costs of research into the materials required, the development of the pipe and the testing to ensure safety, would be high; the whole system carries a large uncertainty.

Professor Apt continued: “We hope our study will help other scientists looking at more novel methods for dispersing particles and help them to explore methods with increased efficiency and reduced environmental risk.”

The researchers make it clear that they have not sought to address the science of aerosols in the stratosphere, nor issues of risk, effectiveness or governance that will add to the costs of solar radiation management geoengineering.

Journal Reference:

Justin McClellan, David W Keith, Jay Apt. Cost analysis of stratospheric albedo modification delivery systems.Environmental Research Letters, 2012; 7 (3): 034019 DOI:10.1088/1748-9326/7/3/034019

Conflitos pela água surgem no horizonte (IPS)

02/09/2012Uncategorizedágua, Desastre, Economia, Guerra civil, Incerteza, Mudanças climáticas, Política, Previsão, Violênciarenzotaddei

Inter Press Service – Reportagens

31/8/2012 – 10h21

por Thalif Deen, da IPS

Participantes das atividades da Semana Mundial da Água, em Estocolmo. Foto: Peter Tvärberg, SIWI/CC by 2.0

Estocolmo, Suécia, 31/8/2012 – Diante da provável escassez de água nas próximas décadas, a comunidade de inteligência dos Estados Unidos já previu um cenário futuro cinza: conflitos étnicos, tensões regionais, instabilidade política e inclusive matanças. Nos próximos dez anos, “muitos países importantes para os Estados Unidos seguramente experimentarão problemas relacionados à água, como escassez, má qualidade ou inundações, que alimentarão riscos de instabilidade e de fracassos no funcionamento dos Estados, aumentando as tensões regionais”, alerta a Avaliação Nacional de Inteligência, publicada em março.

Em julho, o presidente do Conselho Nacional de Inteligência dos Estados Unidos, Chris Kojm, previu que até 2030 cerca de metade da população mundial (atualmente mais de sete bilhões de pessoas) viverá em áreas com severos problemas de água, elevando a probabilidade de assassinatos em massa. No entanto, o jornal The New York Timescitou Timothy Snyder, professor de história na Universidade de Yale, afirmando em um simpósio que “o pânico ecológico levará a matanças nas próximas décadas”.

Por sua vez, o diretor do Centro da Água da Universidade de Columbia, Upmanu Lall, foi mais cauteloso. “Não estou certo de que seja possível prever assassinatos em massa como resultado” da falta de água, disse à IPS. Lall afirmou que não prevê guerras ou conflitos internacionais por recursos hídricos. “Contudo, creio que a competição dentro de alguns dos maiores países, como a Índia, poderia levar a uma luta interna e ao aumento do terrorismo e dos conflitos sectários”, opinou. Porém, “evitar este futuro é possível se trabalharmos nele hoje”, ressaltou.

Este é um dos temas analisados na conferência internacional realizada em Estocolmo por ocasião da Semana Mundial da Água, que termina hoje. Lall considera realista a projeção de que, se tudo continuar igual, quase metade da população mundial viverá em “forte tensão pela água” até 2030. “É um desafio urgente, especialmente se considerarmos a possibilidade de grandes secas, por exemplo, as deste ano nos Estados Unidos e na Índia”, afirmou.

Os impactos serão muito graves e duradouros, alertou Lall. Porém, “se pudermos traduzir esta preocupação em ação, especialmente sobre com melhorar o uso da água na agricultura, de longe o setor consumidor mais ineficiente, então poderemos evitar este desastre”, aponto o especialista. No momento, há conversações nessa direção, mas não existem mandatos nem metas internacionais. Lall acrescentou que “é importante que isto seja assumido nos mais altos níveis para evitar uma considerável angústia na população e nas economias do mundo”.

Gary White, chefe-executivo e cofundador da organização Water.Org, acredita que o acesso aos recursos hídricos poderia ser motivo de conflitos nos próximos anos. “Particularmente em áreas pressionadas pela falta de água e nas quais há grandes concentrações de população pobre”, disse à IPS. “Entretanto, também acredito que a maioria dos governos que virão atuarão e adotarão políticas, regulações e acordos transitórios corretos e necessários para impedir grandes conflitos”, ressaltou.

White alertou que podem ocorrer casos de escassez aguda que teriam como consequência grandes perdas humanas e econômicas, mas acrescentou acreditar que “um conflito declarado seria algo excepcional”. Em geral, as crises regionais da água são geradas de forma relativamente lenta em comparação com a maioria dos desastres naturais, e, portanto, pode-se aprender lições para evitar impactos semelhantes em outros lugares, acrescentou.

“No entanto, essas crises e esses conflitos terão um impacto muito maior nos pobres, porque as populações mais abastadas sempre têm opções de utilizar tecnologia para tratar os recursos hídricos locais (como a dessalinização) ou para transportar água por aquedutos ao longo de grandes distâncias”, pontuou White. “Sempre afirmei que o direito básico deve ser de todos poderem pagar para obter água potável”, disse à IPS, referindo-se à decisão da Assembleia Geral da Organização das Nações Unidas (ONU) de, em 2010, declarar a água e o saneamento um direito humano.

Hoje os pobres pagam mais pela água do que os ricos, seja em dinheiro ou em trabalho investido para adquiri-la. Tampouco os primeiros têm assegurada uma qualidade decente do recurso, lamentou White. “Aqui, quando digo pobres me refiro aos desfavorecidos economicamente em uma sociedade particular, e também às nações que não são tão ricas”, explicou. A menos que sejam estendidos serviços a essas pessoas, elas sofrerão, advertiu. E, para fazer isso, é preciso investimentos para desenvolvê-los e mantê-los.

“De fato, todos deveriam pagar um preço pela água, mas segundo seus meios, assim fortaleceriam seu direito de acesso a uma oferta confiável e de qualidade”, observou Lall, acrescentando que essa deveria ser a grande meta, e não apenas a declaração da água como um direito humano. Envolverde/IPS

Árvores ‘semeiam’ chuva na região da Amazônia, diz estudo da USP (G1)

31/08/2012UncategorizedClima, Incerteza, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Previsãorenzotaddei

Sem as plantas, clima da área seria drasticamente alterado, afirma cientista. Estudo publicado na ‘Science’ foi feito junto com a Universidade Harvard.

Rafael SampaioDo Globo Natureza, em São Paulo

Vista aérea da floresta amazônica (Foto: AFP)

Vista aérea da vegetação na Amazônia; árvores ‘criam’ condições para chuva, segundo pesquisa (Foto: AFP)

Cientistas da Universidade de São Paulo (USP) descobriram que a formação das chuvas na região da Amazônia está muito mais ligada à floresta do que o imaginado anteriormente. Um estudo inédito, publicado na revista “Science”, aponta que as plantas emitem sais de potássio que “semeiam” as nuvens, formando as partículas aerossóis responsáveis por causar chuva.

Sem a floresta, o clima e as chuvas na região seriam alterados de forma drástica, disse para o G1 o professor de física da USP Paulo Artaxo, coordenador brasileiro do estudo. A pesquisa foi realizada em conjunto com cientistas das tradicionais universidades de Berkeley e Harvard (nos Estados Unidos) e com o Instituto Max Planck, na Alemanha.

Antes do estudo, acreditava-se que os aerossóis responsáveis pelas chuvas eram gerados por reações químicas no ar, afirma Artaxo. A pesquisa revelou que este conceito está errado.

“Uma quantidade significativa das gotículas [de chuva] contém potássio, elemento de emissão direta das plantas, que não é formado na atmosfera”, diz o cientista. A descoberta significa, segundo o pesquisador, que os processos biológicos das árvores controlam as chuvas na Amazônia “muito mais do que se pensava”.

Esta “ligação íntima” entre a biodiversidade da floresta e o clima não existe em áreas de vegetação rasteira, diz Artaxo. No cerrado e na caatinga, por exemplo, o elo entre clima e as plantas é bem menor. Isso acontece porque os sais de potássio são emitidos pelas folhas das árvores. “A floresta tem um índice de área folhada muito maior do que as gramíneas”, afirma.

Árvore destruída em área de queimada ilegal na floresta amazônica (Foto: Antonio Scorza/AFP)

Planeta
Para o professor, a descoberta adiciona um elemento à forma como a vida controla a formação da atmosfera e do clima no planeta. “Não é só através da fotossíntese e da respiração, não é só pela emissão dos gases de efeito estufa, mas também as partículas aerossóis são controladas por processos biológicos”, diz ele.

O processo de criação das chuvas pelas plantas existe em todas as áreas de mata tropical, segundo o pesquisador. “Esse mecanismo não é peculiar nem único da floresta amazônica. Ele vale para qualquer vegetação arbórea, mas não gramínea.”

A descoberta só foi possível graças ao uso de grandes equipamentos científicos conhecidos como aceleradores de partículas, similares ao Grande Colisor de Hádrons (LHC, na sigla em inglês). Um acelerador pode fazer com que partículas atinjam velocidade próxima à da luz, como é o caso do LHC, um túnel circular de 27 km localizado entre a Suíça e a França.

Os aparelhos usados no estudo coordenado por Artaxo ficam nos EUA e na Alemanha, e são batizados de Advanced Light Source (ALS, na sigla em inglês) e Bessy 2, respectivamente.

O equipamento, segundo o cientista, acelera elétrons em uma energia muito alta. Eles batem em um alvo e produzem raio-X, que pode ser colidido com as partículas aerossóis e permitir que elas sejam analisadas. Com essa “radiografia” foi possível descobrir o potássio contido nas gotículas. Sem esta tecnologia, avalia Artaxo, a descoberta não aconteceria.

Skeptical Uses of ‘Religion’ in Debate on Climate Change (The Yale Forum on Climate Change & The Media)

30/08/2012Uncategorizedciência, Clima, Cognição, comunicação científica, Enquadramento, Incerteza, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Opinião pública, Política, Políticas públicas, Previsão, Psicologia, Religiãorenzotaddei

Michael Svoboda August 27, 2012

Religion’ and religion-inspired terms — savior, prophet, priests, heretic, dogma, crusade — are regularly used in efforts to influence public attitudes about climate change. But how does this language work, and on whom?

Over the past several months The Yale Forum has published a series of articles describing how major religious groups across America address climate change. Within the broader societal debate on this issue, however, the voices heard in these pieces may be outnumbered by those of a group with a very different take on the connections between religion and the environment: climate skeptics.

Since 2005, in op-eds published in newspapers (The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Examiner, The Washington Post, and The Washington Times), in magazines (Forbes, National Review, The Weekly Standard), and online (Fox News and Townhall and also climate-specific websites like Watts Up with That), conservative commentators have repeatedly described global warming as a religion.

So how does this use of religious language affect the public understanding of climate change? To answer this question, the Forum analyzed more than 250 op-eds, blog posts, and books published between 2005 and the present. The results suggest that this religious language may be most effective in fortifying the opinions of those using it: Calling global warming a “religion” effectively neutralizes appeals to “the scientific consensus.”

Taking the Measure of the Meme

To take your own quick measure of the global-warming-as-religion (hereafter GWAR) meme, try two related searches at Google: first search for “climate change” and “religion,” then for “global warming” and “religion.” The top ten items from the Forum‘s two most recent searches (20 items in all) broke down as follows:

10% were by religious groups calling for action on climate change,
25% were about religious groups calling for action on climate change,
10% were against religious groups opposed to action on climate,
50% described concern for global warming as a religion, and
5% rebutted those who described concern for global warming as a religion.

Based on this sample, one is more likely to encounter an article or op-ed about global warming as a religion than an article or op-ed explaining how or whether a particular religious group addresses climate change.

The dominance of the GWAR meme is even greater when one looks specifically at conservative venues. Over the past year, approximately 100 op-ed pieces that touched on global warming were published in nationally recognized conservative newspapers and/or by nationally syndicated columnists whose work is aggregated by Townhall. Ten of these pieces equated accepting the science on global warming with religious belief; none offered a religious argument for action on climate change.

During the peak years of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth (2006–2008), the ratio was far higher. Roughly 40% of the more than 150 conservative op-eds penned in response to the documentary, to its Academy Award, or to Al Gore’s Nobel Peace Prize included language (prophet, priests, savior, crusade, faith, dogma, heresy, faith, etc.) that framed concern for climate change as a religious belief. Some drew that analogy explicitly. (See, for example, Richard Lindzen’s March 8, 2007, op-ed piece forThe Wall Street Journal and The Daily Mail (UK) — “Global Warming: The Bogus Religion of Our Age.”)

And since then several climate skeptics — Christopher Horner (2007), Iain Murray (2008), Roy Spencer (2008), Christopher Booker (2009), Ian Wishart (2009), Steve Goreham (2010), Larry Bell (2011), Brian Sussman (2012), and Robert Zubrin (2012) — have included the GWAR meme in their books.

A Brief History of the Global-Warming-as-Religion Meme

The global-warming-as-religion meme is an offshoot of the environmentalism-as-religion meme, which, according to New American Foundation fellow and Arizona State University Law Professor Joel Garreau, can be traced back to religious critiques of Lynn White’s 1967 essay in Science, “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis.” By pinning the ecological blame on the Judaeo-Christian tradition’s instrumental view of nature, these authors argued, White seemed to call for the revival of nature worship.

Elements of these early critiques were reworked in what is perhaps the most well-known instance of the environmentalism-as-religion argument, Michael Crichton’s speech to the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco in 2003.

The first* example of the more specific global-warming-as-religion claim appears to be the aside in Republican Senator James Inhofe’s January 4, 2005, “update” to his “greatest hoax” speech: “Put simply, man-induced global warming is an article of religious faith.” Using slightly different language, Inhofe repeated this charge a few months later in his “Four Pillars of Climate Alarmism” speech.**

In between these two speeches, in a February 16, 2005, editorial for Capitalism Magazine by American Policy Center President Tom DeWeese, the GWAR meme gained titular status: “The New Religion Is Global Warming.”

But the most fully developed version of the global-warming-as-religion analogy is the nearly 5,000-word essay published on the Web in 2007 by retired British mathematician John Brignell — who cites Crichton’s 2003 speech in his opening paragraph.

The more generic environmentalism-as-religion meme now seems confined to Earth Day, which Emory University economics professor Paul Rubin described in an April 22, 2010, WSJ op-ed piece as environmentalism’s “holy day.” Two recent examples, from this past April, were provided by former business consultant W.A. Beatty and by Dale Hurd, a “news veteran” for the Christian Broadcasting Network.

The GWAR meme appears as opportunities — cool summers; early, late, or heavy snowstorms; or scandals — arise. And its meaning can vary accordingly.

Nature/Climate as Sacred

Some of the first American “environmentalists” — David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, John Muir — often used religious language. Nature was where they most vividly experienced the presence of God. But when contemporary environmentalists use quasi-religious language without explicitly avowing a particular faith, their opponents may suspect that nature itself has become the object of their worship. When James Lovelock named his homeostatic model of the planet and its atmosphere after the ancient Greek earth goddess, Gaia, he provided a new ground for this suspicion.

For conservatives, there are strong and weak versions of this charge.

The strong charge is “paganism,” that environmentalists or climate activists/scientists worship nature in ways akin to the practices of the Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Greek, and Roman empires in which the ancient Jews and early Christians lived. This strong charge is typically leveled by evangelicals who publicly profess their own faith. Physicist James Wanliss and his colleagues — whose book and dvd,Resisting the Green Dragon, offer “A Biblical Response to One of the Greatest Deceptions of the Day” — provide perhaps the most vivid example.

The weak version reduces the charge of paganism to misplaced values. Very arch religious language may still be used, but the meaning is now metaphorical. In these more frequent instances of the GWAR meme, conservatives accuse climate activists/scientists of essentializing climate, of being too willing to slow or even disable our economic engine because they believe Earth has an “optimal climate.”

Climate Science as Cult

“Cult” implies that a given set of beliefs or practices is arcane, outside the mainstream, and insular. Someone embedded in a cult will not acknowledge conflicting evidence. So whenever new facts or dramatic events challenge the validity of climate science, at least in the minds of conservative skeptics, “cult of global warming” op-eds appear. Major snowstorms, cold snaps, and years that fail to surpass 1998′s average annual temperature provide these new “facts.”

Odd religious news can also prompt “cult of global warming” op-eds. The third no-show of Harold Camping’s apocalypse provided the prompt, last fall, for op-eds by Michael Barone and Derek Hunter. (The “cult” in the title of Michael Barone’s piece, however, may be the work of the Post’s editor; thesame piece appeared under a different title in The Washington Examiner.)

Climate Science as Corrupt Orthodoxy

But it’s hard to depict a thoroughly institutionalized effort like climate science as a cult. The international undertaking that is science is more plausibly compared with the Roman Catholic Church. And for climate skeptics, the best of the many possible instances of that church is the Roman Catholic Church of the late Renaissance, the church that condemned both Luther and Galileo.

The very Nobel public profiles of Al Gore and the IPCC, from 2006 to 2008, prompted many comparisons with priests and popes, cardinals and curia. Add in carbon offsets and the Reformation riffs practically wrote themselves. Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer’s March 16, 2007,column in Time exemplifies this subgenre:

In other words, the rich reduce their carbon output by not one ounce. But drawing on the hundreds of millions of net worth in the Kodak theatre [for the “carbon-neutral” 2007 Academy Awards], they pull out lunch money to buy ecological indulgences. The last time the selling of pardons was prevalent — in a predecessor religion to environmentalism called Christianity — Martin Luther lost his temper and launched the Reformation.

(It should be noted, however, that climate activists and environmental journalists have themselves sometimes written about their ecological “sins.”)

While green hypocrisy was the primary target of Krauthammer’s 2007 column, orthodoxy and dogma are always at least secondary targets in this use of the GWAR meme. And shots were taken at them in a February 9, 2007, National Review column by Rich Lowry; a May 30, 2008, Washington Post column by Charles Krauthammer; a March 9, 2009, Townhall piece by Robert Knight; a January 13, 2010, Townhallcolumn by Walter E. Williams; a November 29, 2011, Wall Street Journal column by Bret Stephens; and, most recently, an April 26, 2012, post by David Solway. This is the most common use of the GWAR meme.

Dissenting Religions and the Scientific Consensus

But one might argue that by depicting climate scientists and activists as members of an aloof and self-serving (and possibly self-deluding) priesthood, conservatives are themselves engaged in religious posturing, for self-righteous dissent is part of the DNA of the western religious tradition.

Ancient Israel was a small country surrounded by much more powerful empires. Some heroes of the Bible — e.g., Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego — worked as trusted bureaucrats within state-ecclesiastical systems based on cosmologies they did not believe in. When ordered to consent to the beliefs of their rulers, they refused.

During the Protestant Reformation religious dissent often became political dissent. Today’s evangelicals are dissenters from mainstream denominations that dissented first from the Church of England and then from King George. Now they dissent from Washington.

But in the U.S., Roman Catholics too can view themselves as a dissenting minority, as, for example, when the Catholic Bishops objected to parts of the new healthcare law.

In fact, Americans are so primed for dissensus that both sides in the climate debate find it plausible to claim the mantle of Galileo.

In the run-up to the December 2009 conference in Copenhagen, cartoonists Michael Ramirez and David Horsey published cartoons that drew exactly opposite conclusions from the history of science, including Galileo’s conflict with the Roman Catholic Church regarding Copernicus’s heliocentric model of the solar system.

Within this charged religious history, a steadfast minority (of Jews, early Christians, Protestants, or Puritans) has been correct more often than the majority, than the broader cultural consensus (of Egyptians/Assyrians/Babylonians/Persians, Greeks/Romans, Roman Catholics, or Anglicans). Thus the GWAR meme not only legitimizes dissent (because everyone is entitled to his or her own religious views), it also provides emotional reinforcement for it (because the “official” religion is almost always “false”). The Protestant vs. Catholic variant of the meme also reinforces climate skeptics’ narratives about greedy and scheming scientists and/or self-serving elites. For those who use it, the GWAR meme effectively inoculates them against “the scientific consensus.”

Managing the Meme

Much has been said and published by religious leaders trying to promote action on climate change. But these messages must compete against the global-warming-as-religion meme reinforced regularly in op-eds sent out by The Wall Street Journal to its two million plus subscribers and, more frequently, in columns posted by Townhall for its two million unique monthly visitors.

Are there counter-measures for this meme?

In his summer 2010 article in The New Atlantis, Joel Garreau, New American Foundation fellow and Lincoln Professor of Law, Culture and Values (Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, Arizona State University), traced the emergence of environmentalism as a secular religion. In that piece, Gerreau speculated that “the two faces of religious environmentalism — the greening of mainstream religion and the rise of carbon Calvinism — may each transform the political and policy debate over climate change.” In response to an e-mailed query from The Yale Forum, after stressing that he did not “conflate faith-based environmentalism with the scientific study of climate,” Garreau explained his “pragmat[ic]” outlook: ”I just lay out the facts (as startling as they may be to some), observe that faith-based systems are ubiquitous in history, and then ask, in public policy terms, how you deal with this situation.”

Garreau said he is not surprised that “climate change deniers [might] wish to point out the ironies of faith-based environmentalism rising up in parallel with scientific environmentalism.” But he said he does not think that would have much effect. He suggested no countermeasures but did anticipate a possible line of attack: “It would hardly be surprising if there were a few under-examined pieties in their own world view.”

From the title of University of Maryland School of Public Policy professor Robert H. Nelson’s 2010 book,The New Holy Wars: Economic Religion vs. Environmental Religion in Contemporary America, one might infer that the playing field for climate policy might be leveled by calling attention to the equally religious faith in economics, in economic growth in particular. But what would be gained from a “religious” standoff between economics and environmentalism? In response to an e-mail question, Nelson listed three benefits:

First, … it helps us to understand … the … intensity of the disagreements about climate policy. Second, it offers a note of caution to all participants, given [that past] religious disagreements have too often escalated beyond all reason …. Third, … [s]eeing economics and environmentalism as religions, and discussing them as such, [would bring their] core value assumptions to the surface.

In other words, pushing back with the same religious language might be an effective countermeasure, at least initially. Then, Nelson added, ”a secular religious ‘ecumenical movement’” could perhaps resolve the tensions between economics and environmentalism.

One clearly should proceed with caution in pursuing any “religious” countermeasures. The cultural and historical associations evoked by religious language do not necessarily favor “consensus,” especially a consensus presented in authoritative terms. In American history, religious groups have splintered far more often than they have united.

Bottom line: Climate communicators should expect and prepare for religious language. But they should weigh the subtle cultural messages religious language carries before deciding whether or how to use or respond to it.

*If readers know of an earlier example, please send the reference and/or the link to the author.
**Brian McCammack’s September 2007 American Quarterly article, “Hot Damned America: Evangelicalism and the Climate Policy Debate,” pointed the way to these two speeches by Senator Inhofe.

Michael Svoboda

Michael Svoboda (PhD, Hermeneutics) is an Asst. Prof. of Writing at The George Washington University. Previously the owner of an academic bookstore, he now tracks and analyzes efforts to communicate climate change, including the stream of research and policy published by NGOs. E-mail: msvoboda@yaleclimatemediaforum.org

Intriguing Habitats, and Careful Discussions of Climate Change (N.Y.Times)

30/08/2012Uncategorizedciência, discurso ambiental, Educação, Mudanças climáticas, Opinião pública, Visualidaderenzotaddei

THE ANIMAL LIFEBOAT

Gretchen Ertl for The New York TimesPacific Sea nettle jellyfish at the New England Aquarium in Boston. Zoos and aquariums are working to include educational elements about the environment without alienating visitors.

By LESLIE KAUFMAN

Published: August 26, 2012

BOSTON — Sitting on an artificial mangrove island in the middle of the ray and shark “touch tank,” Lindsay Jordan, a staff member at the New England Aquarium, explained the rays’ eating habits as children and their parents trailed fingers through the water. “Does anyone know how we touch these animals when we are not at the aquarium?” she asked.

The children’s faces turned up expectantly.

“The ocean absorbs one-third of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions,” Ms. Jordan said, explaining that it upsets the food chain. “When you turn on your car, it affects them.”

Downstairs, next to the jellyfish tanks, a rhyming video told how the jellyfish population was exploding in the wild because they thrive in warmer waters. In the main room, a staff member pointed to a rare blue lobster, saying that some lobsters have been scuttling out of Massachusetts and settling in cooler climes to the north.

With many zoos and aquariums now working with conservation organizations and financed by individuals who feel strongly about threatened habitats and species, managers have been wrestling with how aggressive to be in educating visitors on the perils of climate change.

Surveys show that American zoos and aquariums enjoy a high level of public trust and are ideally positioned to teach.

Yet many managers are fearful of alienating visitors — and denting ticket sales — with tours or wall labels that dwell bleakly on damaged coral reefs, melting ice caps or dying trees.

“You don’t want them walking away saying, ‘I paid to get in, I bought my kid a hot dog, I just want to show my kid a fish — and you are making me feel bad about climate change,’ ” said Paul Boyle, the senior vice president for conservation and education at the Association of Zoos and Aquariums.

Some zoos and aquariums have therefore held back, relegating the theme to, say, a sign about Arctic melting in the polar bear exhibit. But many have headed in the other direction, putting climate change front and center in a way that they hope will inspire a young generation of zoogoers.

Working with cognitive scientists and experts in linguistics and anthropology, a coalition of aquariums set out in 2008 to develop a patter that would intrigue rather than daunt or depress the average visitor. After the group was pleased with the script, it secured a grant of about $1 million last year from the National Science Foundation to train staffs across the nation. This month, the foundation awarded the group an additional $5.5 million for a five-year education effort.

Dr. Boyle said that most of the association’s 224 members now have some sort of climate message.

The form varies from subtle to pointed. The zoos in Cincinnati and Toledo, Ohio, for instance, have installed prominent solar arrays over their parking lots to power exhibits and set an example. The San Diego Zoo and the Brookfield Zoo near Chicago have made their exhibits of polar bears and other Arctic species more direct about the threats posed by global warming.

So far the feedback has largely been positive, officials at most zoos say.

Ariella Camera, a counselor with a summer program run by Boston Rising, an antipoverty group, said some of her charges recently took part in a game at the New England Aquarium that taught them what emits carbon dioxide (many factories, most cars) and what absorbs it (trees and the ocean). They were then challenged to balance the two.

Afterward the students struck up a lively conversation about their carbon footprints, Ms. Camera said. “It was a very engaging presentation,” she said.

Such anecdotes gratify Howard Ris, the aquarium’s president. “We would like as many people, if not everyone, to leave encouraged to take action,” he said.

Others are dubious that it will work. “Zoos have been making claims about their educational value for 150 years,” said Jeffrey Hyson, a cultural historian and the director of the American studies program at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. The zoos “say a lot more about what they think they are doing than they can really demonstrate.”

Zoo managers acknowledge that they initially struggled with the challenge of delivering bad news.

In the 1980s and ’90s, Dr. Boyle noted, some zoos and aquariums made a big push to emphasize threats like the depletion of the earth’s ozone layer, the razing of rain forests by loggers and farmers and the overfishing of the Pacific. Electronic boards toted up the numbers of acres being cleared, and enlarged photographs depicted denuded landscapes.

Surveys of visitors showed a backlash. “For lots of reasons, the institutions tended to approach the issues by talking about the huge scale of the problems,” Dr. Boyle said. “They wanted to attract people’s attention, but what we saw happening over time was that everyday people were overwhelmed.” It did not help that a partisan split had opened in the United States over whether global warming was under way, and whether human activity was the leading cause.

At the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta, Brian Davis, the vice president for education and training, says to this day his institution ensures its guests will not hear the term global warming. Visitors are “very conservative,” he said. “When they hear certain terms, our guests shut down. We’ve seen it happen.”

Such hesitancy inspired the group of leading aquariums to develop, test and refine their model, which comes off as casual and chatty.

Word choices matter, research showed. The FrameWorks Institute, a nonprofit organization that studies how people process abstract concepts, found the phrase “greenhouse gas effect” perplexed people. “They think it is a nice place for plants to grow,” said FrameWorks’ president, Susan Bales. So her group advised substituting “heat-trapping blanket” to describe the accumulation of gases in the atmosphere.

Today’s guides also make a point of encouraging groups to focus first on the animals, leaving any unpleasant message for later.

At the New England Aquarium’s giant reef tank, visitors peered over the side and watched sand tiger sharks, sea turtles and tropical fish swim around a giant coral reef. As a diver entered the tank to feed the fish, a guide explained that the smaller ones tend to hide in coral for safety.

A few minutes passed before she told the crowd that corals around the world are bleaching and dying because of a pronounced rise in ocean temperature and acidity.

Upon leaving, the visitors were briefed on positive steps they could take, like using public transportation or bikes and being cautious about energy consumption.

Yet sometimes, the zoo animals are so entrancing that a climate-related message may fall on deaf ears.

Leanne Gaffney, who recently brought four high school students from a summer enrichment program to the New England Aquarium, said they were fascinated by creatures like leafy sea dragons and tropical snakes, but not so much by how their habitats were faring.

“They are teenage boys,” she said. “Mostly they just wanted to see the anacondas.”

Climate Science as Culture War (Stanford Social Innovation Review)

30/08/2012UncategorizedCidadania, Clima, Cultura, discurso ambiental, Economia, Enquadramento, Incerteza, Marketing, Mídia, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Opinião pública, Política, Previsão, Visualidaderenzotaddei

ENVIRONMENT

The public debate around climate change is no longer about science—it’s about values, culture, and ideology.

By Andrew J. Hoffman | 18 | Fall 2012

South Florida Earth First members protest outside the Platts Coal Properties and Investment Conference in West Palm Beach. (Photo by Bruce R. Bennett/Zum Press/Newscom)

In May 2009, a development officer at the University of Michigan asked me to meet with a potential donor—a former football player and now successful businessman who had an interest in environmental issues and business, my interdisciplinary area of expertise. The meeting began at 7 a.m., and while I was still nursing my first cup of coffee, the potential donor began the conversation with “I think the scientific review process is corrupt.” I asked what he thought of a university based on that system, and he said that he thought that the university was then corrupt, too. He went on to describe the science of climate change as a hoax, using all the familiar lines of attack—sunspots and solar flares, the unscientific and politically flawed consensus model, and the environmental benefits of carbon dioxide.

As we debated each point, he turned his attack on me, asking why I hated capitalism and why I wanted to destroy the economy by teaching environmental issues in a business school. Eventually, he asked if I knew why Earth Day was on April 22. I sighed as he explained, “Because it is Karl Marx’s birthday.” (I suspect he meant to say Vladimir Lenin, whose birthday is April 22, also Earth Day. This linkage has been made by some on the far right who believe that Earth Day is a communist plot, even though Lenin never promoted environmentalism and communism does not have a strong environmental legacy.)

I turned to the development officer and asked, “What’s our agenda here this morning?” The donor interrupted to say that he wanted to buy me a ticket to the Heartland Institute’s Fourth Annual Conference on Climate Change, the leading climate skeptics conference. I checked my calendar and, citing prior commitments, politely declined. The meeting soon ended.

I spent the morning trying to make sense of the encounter. At first, all I could see was a bait and switch; the donor had no interest in funding research in business and the environment, but instead wanted to criticize the effort. I dismissed him as an irrational zealot, but the meeting lingered in my mind. The more I thought about it, the more I began to see that he was speaking from a coherent and consistent worldview—one I did not agree with, but which was a coherent viewpoint nonetheless. Plus, he had come to evangelize me. The more I thought about it, the more I became eager to learn about where he was coming from, where I was coming from, and why our two worldviews clashed so strongly in the present social debate over climate science. Ironically, in his desire to challenge my research, he stimulated a new research stream, one that fit perfectly with my broader research agenda on social, institutional, and cultural change.

Scientific vs. Social Consensus

Today, there is no doubt that a scientific consensus exists on the issue of climate change. Scientists have documented that anthropogenic sources of greenhouse gases are leading to a buildup in the atmosphere, which leads to a general warming of the global climate and an alteration in the statistical distribution of localized weather patterns over long periods of time. This assessment is endorsed by a large body of scientific agencies—including every one of the national scientific agencies of the G8 + 5 countries—and by the vast majority of climatologists. The majority of research articles published in refereed scientific journals also support this scientific assessment. Both the US National Academy of Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science use the word “consensus” when describing the state of climate science.

And yet a social consensus on climate change does not exist. Surveys show that the American public’s belief in the science of climate change has mostly declined over the past five years, with large percentages of the population remaining skeptical of the science. Belief declined from 71 percent to 57 percent between April 2008 and October 2009, according to an October 2009 Pew Research Center poll; more recently, belief rose to 62 percent, according to a February 2012 report by the National Survey of American Public Opinion on Climate Change. Such a significant number of dissenters tells us that we do not have a set of socially accepted beliefs on climate change—beliefs that emerge, not from individual preferences, but from societal norms; beliefs that represent those on the political left, right, and center as well as those whose cultural identifications are urban, rural, religious, agnostic, young, old, ethnic, or racial.

Why is this so? Why do such large numbers of Americans reject the consensus of the scientific community? With upwards of two-thirds of Americans not clearly understanding science or the scientific process and fewer able to pass even a basic scientific literacy test, according to a 2009 California Academy of Sciences survey, we are left to wonder: How do people interpret and validate the opinions of the scientific community? The answers to this question can be found, not from the physical sciences, but from the social science disciplines of psychology, sociology, anthropology, and others.

To understand the processes by which a social consensus can emerge on climate change, we must understand that people’s opinions on this and other complex scientific issues are based on their prior ideological preferences, personal experience, and values—all of which are heavily influenced by their referent groups and their individual psychology. Physical scientists may set the parameters for understanding the technical aspects of the climate debate, but they do not have the final word on whether society accepts or even understands their conclusions. The constituency that is relevant in the social debate goes beyond scientific experts. And the processes by which this constituency understands and assesses the science of climate change go far beyond its technical merits. We must acknowledge that the debate over climate change, like almost all environmental issues, is a debate over culture, worldviews, and ideology.

This fact can be seen most vividly in the growing partisan divide over the issue. Political affiliation is one of the strongest correlates with individual uncertainty about climate change, not scientific knowledge.¹ The percentage of conservatives and Republicans who believe that the effects of global warming have already begun declined from roughly 50 percent in 2001 to about 30 percent in 2010, while the corresponding percentage for liberals and Democrats increased from roughly 60 percent in 2001 to about 70 percent in 2010.² (See “The Growing Partisan Divide over Climate Change,” below.)

Climate change has become enmeshed in the so-called culture wars. Acceptance of the scientific consensus is now seen as an alignment with liberal views consistent with other “cultural” issues that divide the country (abortion, gun control, health care, and evolution). This partisan divide on climate change was not the case in the 1990s. It is a recent phenomenon, following in the wake of the 1997 Kyoto Treaty that threatened the material interests of powerful economic and political interests, particularly members of the fossil fuel industry.³ The great danger of a protracted partisan divide is that the debate will take the form of what I call a “logic schism,” a breakdown in debate in which opposing sides are talking about completely different cultural issues.⁴

This article seeks to delve into the climate change debate through the lens of the social sciences. I take this approach not because the physical sciences have become less relevant, but because we need to understand the social and psychological processes by which people receive and understand the science of global warming. I explain the cultural dimensions of the climate debate as it is currently configured, outline three possible paths by which the debate can progress, and describe specific techniques that can drive that debate toward broader consensus. This goal is imperative, for without a broader consensus on climate change in the United States, Americans and people around the globe will be unable to formulate effective social, political, and economic solutions to the changing circumstances of our planet.

Cultural Processing of Climate Science

When analyzing complex scientific information, people are “boundedly rational,” to use Nobel Memorial Prize economist Herbert Simon’s phrase; we are “cognitive misers,” according to UCLA psychologist Susan Fiske and Princeton University psychologist Shelley Taylor, with limited cognitive ability to fully investigate every issue we face. People everywhere employ ideological filters that reflect their identity, worldview, and belief systems. These filters are strongly influenced by group values, and we generally endorse the position that most directly reinforces the connection we have with others in our referent group—what Yale Law School professor Dan Kahan refers to as “cultural cognition.” In so doing, we cement our connection with our cultural groups and strengthen our definition of self. This tendency is driven by an innate desire to maintain a consistency in beliefs by giving greater weight to evidence and arguments that support preexisting beliefs, and by expending disproportionate energy trying to refute views or arguments that are contrary to those beliefs. Instead of investigating a complex issue, we often simply learn what our referent group believes and seek to integrate those beliefs with our own views.

Over time, these ideological filters become increasingly stable and resistant to change through multiple reinforcing mechanisms. First, we’ll consider evidence when it is accepted or, ideally, presented by a knowledgeable source from our cultural community; and we’ll dismiss information that is advocated by sources that represent groups whose values we reject. Second, we will selectively choose information sources that support our ideological position. For example, frequent viewers of Fox News are more likely to say that the Earth’s temperature has not been rising, that any temperature increase is not due to human activities, and that addressing climate change would have deleterious effects on the economy.⁵ One might expect the converse to be true of National Public Radio listeners. The result of this cultural processing and group cohesion dynamics leads to two overriding conclusions about the climate change debate.

First, climate change is not a “pollution” issue. Although the US Supreme Court decided in 2007 that greenhouse gases were legally an air pollutant, in a cultural sense, they are something far different. The reduction of greenhouse gases is not the same as the reduction of sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, or particulates. These forms of pollution are man-made, they are harmful, and they are the unintended waste products of industrial production. Ideally, we would like to eliminate their production through the mobilization of economic and technical resources. But the chief greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, is both man-made and natural. It is not inherently harmful; it is a natural part of the natural systems; and we do not desire to eliminate its production. It is not a toxic waste or a strictly technical problem to be solved. Rather, it is an endemic part of our society and who we are. To a large degree, it is a highly desirable output, as it correlates with our standard of living. Greenhouse gas emissions rise with a rise in a nation’s wealth, something all people want. To reduce carbon dioxide requires an alteration in nearly every facet of the economy, and therefore nearly every facet of our culture. To recognize greenhouse gases as a problem requires us to change a great deal about how we view the world and ourselves within it. And that leads to the second distinction.

Climate change is an existential challenge to our contemporary worldviews. The cultural challenge of climate change is enormous and threefold, each facet leading to the next. The first facet is that we have to think of a formerly benign, even beneficial, material in a new way—as a relative, not absolute, hazard. Only in an imbalanced concentration does it become problematic. But to understand and accept this, we need to conceive of the global ecosystem in a new way.

This challenge leads us to the second facet: Not only do we have to change our view of the ecosystem, but we also have to change our view of our place within it. Have we as a species grown to such numbers, and has our technology grown to such power, that we can alter and manage the ecosystem on a planetary scale? This is an enormous cultural question that alters our worldviews. As a result, some see the question and subsequent answer as intellectual and spiritual hubris, but others see it as self-evident.

If we answer this question in the affirmative, the third facet challenges us to consider new and perhaps unprecedented forms of global ethics and governance to address it. Climate change is the ultimate “commons problem,” as ecologist Garrett Hardin defined it, where every individual has an incentive to emit greenhouse gases to improve her standard of living, but the costs of this activity are borne by all. Unfortunately, the distribution of costs in this global issue is asymmetrical, with vulnerable populations in poor countries bearing the larger burden. So we need to rethink our ethics to keep pace with our technological abilities. Does mowing the lawn or driving a fuel-inefficient car in Ann Arbor, Mich., have ethical implications for the people living in low-lying areas of Bangladesh? If you accept anthropogenic climate change, then the answer to this question is yes, and we must develop global institutions to reflect that recognition. This is an issue of global ethics and governance on a scale that we have never seen, affecting virtually every economic activity on the globe and requiring the most complicated and intrusive global agreement ever negotiated.

Taken together, these three facets of our existential challenge illustrate the magnitude of the cultural debate that climate change provokes. Climate change challenges us to examine previously unexamined beliefs and worldviews. It acts as a flash point (albeit a massive one) for deeper cultural and ideological conflicts that lie at the root of many of our environmental problems, and it includes differing conceptions of science, economics, religion, psychology, media, development, and governance. It is a proxy for “deeper conflicts over alternative visions of the future and competing centers of authority in society,” as University of East Anglia climatologist Mike Hulme underscores in Why We Disagree About Climate Change. And, as such, it provokes a violent debate among cultural communities on one side who perceive their values to be threatened by change, and cultural communities on the other side who perceive their values to be threatened by the status quo.

Three Ways Forward

If the public debate over climate change is no longer about greenhouse gases and climate models, but about values, worldviews, and ideology, what form will this clash of ideologies take? I see three possible forms.

The Optimistic Form is where people do not have to change their values at all. In other words, the easiest way to eliminate the common problems of climate change is to develop technological solutions that do not require major alterations to our values, worldviews, or behavior: carbon-free renewable energy, carbon capture and sequestration technologies, geo-engineering, and others. Some see this as an unrealistic future. Others see it as the only way forward, because people become attached to their level of prosperity, feel entitled to keep it, and will not accept restraints or support government efforts to impose restraints.⁶Government-led investment in alternative energy sources, therefore, becomes more acceptable than the enactment of regulations and taxes to reduce fossil fuel use.

The Pessimistic Form is where people fight to protect their values. This most dire outcome results in a logic schism, where opposing sides debate different issues, seek only information that supports their position and disconfirms the others’, and even go so far as to demonize the other. University of Colorado, Boulder, environmental scientist Roger Pielke in The Honest Broker: Making Sense of Science in Policy and Politics describes the extreme of such schisms as “abortion politics,” where the two sides are debating completely different issues and “no amount of scientific information … can reconcile the different values.” Consider, for example, the recent decision by the Heartland Institute to post a billboard in Chicago comparing those who believe in climate change with the Unabomber. In reply, climate activist groups posted billboards attacking Heartland and its financial supporters. This attack-counterattack strategy is symptomatic of a broken public discourse over climate change.

The Consensus-Based Form involves a reasoned societal debate, focused on the full scope of technical and social dimensions of the problem and the feasibility and desirability of multiple solutions. It is this form to which scientists have the most to offer, playing the role of what Pielke calls the “honest broker”—a person who can “integrate scientific knowledge with stakeholder concerns to explore alternative possible courses of action.” Here, resolution is found through a focus on its underlying elements, moving away from positions (for example, climate change is or is not happening), and toward the underlying interests and values at play. How do we get there? Research in negotiation and dispute resolution can offer techniques for moving forward.

Techniques for a Consensus-Based Discussion

In seeking a social consensus on climate change, discussion must move beyond a strict focus on the technical aspects of the science to include its cultural underpinnings. Below are eight techniques for overcoming the ideological filters that underpin the social debate about climate change.

Know your audience | Any message on climate change must be framed in a way that fits with the cultural norms of the target audience. The 2011 study Climate Change in the American Mind segments the American public into six groups based on their views on climate change science. (See “Six Americas,” below.) On the two extremes are the climate change “alarmed” and “dismissive.” Consensus-based discussion is not likely open to these groups, as they are already employing logic schism tactics that are closed to debate or engagement. The polarity of these groups is well known: On the one side, climate change is a hoax, humans have no impact on the climate, and nothing is happening; on the other side, climate change is an imminent crisis that will devastate the Earth, and human activity explains all climate changes.

The challenge is to move the debate away from the loud minorities at the extremes and to engage the majority in the middle—the “concerned,” the “cautious,” the “disengaged,” and the “doubtful.” People in these groups are more open to consensus-based debate, and through direct engagement can be separated from the ideological extremes of their cultural community.

Ask the right scientific questions | For a consensus-based discussion, climate change science should be presented not as a binary yes or no question,⁷ but as a series of six questions. Some are scientific in nature, with associated levels of uncertainty and probability; others are matters of scientific judgment.

Are greenhouse gas concentrations increasing in the atmosphere? Yes. This is a scientific question, based on rigorous data and measurements of atmospheric chemistry and science.
Does this increase lead to a general warming of the planet? Yes. This is also a scientific question; the chemical mechanics of the greenhouse effect and “negative radiative forcing” are well established.
Has climate changed over the past century? Yes. Global temperature increases have been rigorously measured through multiple techniques and strongly supported by multiple scientific analyses.In fact, as Yale University economist William Nordhaus wrote in the March 12, 2012, New York Times, “The finding that global temperatures are rising over the last century-plus is one of the most robust findings in climate science and statistics.”
Are humans partially responsible for this increase? The answer to this question is a matter of scientific judgment. Increases in global mean temperatures have a very strong correlation with increases in man-made greenhouse gases since the Industrial Revolution. Although science cannot confirm causation, fingerprint analysis of multiple possible causes has been examined, and the only plausible explanation is that of human-induced temperature changes. Until a plausible alternative hypothesis is presented, this explanation prevails for the scientific community.
Will the climate continue to change over the next century? Again, this question is a matter of scientific judgment. But given the answers to the previous four questions, it is reasonable to believe that continued increases in greenhouse gases will lead to continued changes in the climate.
What will be the environmental and social impact of such change? This is the scientific question with the greatest uncertainty. The answer comprises a bell curve of possible outcomes and varying associated probabilities, from low to extreme impact. Uncertainty in this variation is due to limited current data on the Earth’s climate system, imperfect modeling of these physical processes, and the unpredictability of human actions that can both exasperate or moderate the climate shifts. These uncertainties make predictions difficult and are an area in which much debate can take place. And yet the physical impacts of climate change are already becoming visible in ways that are consistent with scientific modeling, particularly in Greenland, the Arctic, the Antarctic, and low-lying islands.

In asking these questions, a central consideration is whether people recognize the level of scientific consensus associated with each one. In fact, studies have shown that people’s support for climate policies and action are linked to their perceptions about scientific agreement. Still, the belief that “most scientists think global warming is happening” declined from 47 percent to 39 percent among Americans between 2008 and 2011.⁸

Move beyond data and models | Climate skepticism is not a knowledge deficit issue. Michigan State University sociologist Aaron McCright and Oklahoma State University sociologist Riley Dunlap have observed that increased education and self-reported understanding of climate science have been shown to correlate with lower concern among conservatives and Republicans and greater concern among liberals and Democrats. Research also has found that once people have made up their minds on the science of the climate issue, providing continued scientific evidence actually makes them more resolute in resisting conclusions that are at variance with their cultural beliefs.⁹ One needs to recognize that reasoning is suffused with emotion and people often use reasoning to reach a predetermined end that fits their cultural worldviews. When people hear about climate change, they may, for example, hear an implicit criticism that their lifestyle is the cause of the issue or that they are morally deficient for not recognizing it. But emotion can be a useful ally; it can create the abiding commitments needed to sustain action on the difficult issue of climate change. To do this, people must be convinced that something can be done to address it; that the challenge is not too great nor are its impacts preordained. The key to engaging people in a consensus-driven debate about climate change is to confront the emotionality of the issue and then address the deeper ideological values that may be threatened to create this emotionality.

Focus on broker frames | People interpret information by fitting it to preexisting narratives or issue categories that mesh with their worldview. Therefore information must be presented in a form that fits those templates, using carefully researched metaphors, allusions, and examples that trigger a new way of thinking about the personal relevance of climate change. To be effective, climate communicators must use the language of the cultural community they are engaging. For a business audience, for example, one must use business terminology, such as net present value, return on investment, increased consumer demand, and rising raw material costs.

More generally, one can seek possible broker frames that move away from a pessimistic appeal to fear and instead focus on optimistic appeals that trigger the emotionality of a desired future. In addressing climate change, we are asking who we strive to be as a people, and what kind of world we want to leave our children. To gain buy-in, one can stress American know-how and our capacity to innovate, focusing on activities already under way by cities, citizens, and businesses.¹⁰

This approach frames climate change mitigation as a gain rather than a loss to specific cultural groups. Research has shown that climate skepticism can be caused by a motivational tendency to defend the status quo based on the prior assumption that any change will be painful. But by encouraging people to regard pro-environmental change as patriotic and consistent with protecting the status quo, it can be framed as a continuation rather than a departure from the past.

Specific broker frames can be used that engage the interests of both sides of the debate. For example, when US Secretary of Energy Steven Chu referred in November 2010 to advances in renewable energy technology in China as the United States’ “Sputnik moment,” he was framing climate change as a common threat to US scientific and economic competitiveness. When Pope Benedict XVI linked the threat of climate change with threats to life and dignity on New Year’s Day 2010, he was painting it as an issue of religious morality. When CNA’s Military Advisory Board, a group of elite retired US military officers, called climate change a “threat multiplier” in its 2006 report, it was using a national security frame. When the Lancet Commission pronounced climate change to be the biggest global health threat of the 21st century in a 2009 article, the organization was using a quality of life frame. And when the Center for American Progress, a progressive Washington, D.C., think tank, connected climate change to the conservation ideals of Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Richard Nixon, they were framing the issue as consistent with Republican values.

One broker frame that deserves particular attention is the replacement of uncertainty or probability of climate change with the risk of climate change.¹¹ People understand low probability, high consequence events and the need to address them. For example, they buy fire insurance for their homes even though the probability of a fire is low, because they understand that the financial consequence is too great. In the same way, climate change for some may be perceived as a low risk, high consequence event, so the prudent course of action is to obtain insurance in the form of both behavioral and technological change.

Recognize the power of language and terminology | Words have multiple meanings in different communities, and terms can trigger unintended reactions in a target audience. For example, one study has shown that Republicans were less likely to think that the phenomenon is real when it is referred to as “global warming” (44 percent) rather than “climate change” (60 percent), but Democrats were unaffected by the term (87 percent vs. 86 percent). So language matters: The partisan divide dropped from 43 percent under a “global warming” frame to 26 percent under a “climate change” frame.¹²

Other terms with multiple meanings include “climate denier,” which some use to refer to those who are not open to discussion on the issue, and others see as a thinly veiled and highly insulting reference to “Holocaust denier”; “uncertainty,” which is a scientific concept to convey variance or deviation from a specific value, but is interpreted by a lay audience to mean that scientists do not know the answer; and “consensus,” which is the process by which the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) forms its position, but leads some in the public to believe that climate science is a matter of “opinion” rather than data and modeling.

Overall, the challenge becomes one of framing complex scientific issues in a language that a lay and highly politicized audience can hear. This becomes increasingly challenging when we address some inherently nonintuitive and complex aspects of climate modeling that are hard to explain, such as the importance of feedback loops, time delays, accumulations, and nonlinearities in dynamic systems.¹³ Unless scientists can accurately convey the nature of climate modeling, others in the social debate will alter their claims to fit their cultural or cognitive perceptions or satisfy their political interests.

Employ climate brokers | People are more likely to feel open to consider evidence when a recognized member of their cultural community presents it.¹⁴ Certainly, statements by former Vice President Al Gore and Sen. James Inhofe evoke visceral responses from individuals on either side of the partisan divide. But individuals with credibility on both sides of the debate can act as what I call climate brokers. Because a majority of Republicans do not believe the science of climate change, whereas a majority of Democrats do, the most effective broker would come from the political right. Climate brokers can include representatives from business, the religious community, the entertainment industry, the military, talk show hosts, and politicians who can frame climate change in language that will engage the audience to whom they most directly connect. When people hear about the need to address climate change from their church, synagogue, mosque, or temple, for example, they w ill connect the issue to their moral values. When they hear it from their business leaders and investment managers, they will connect it to their economic interests. And when they hear it from their military leaders, they will connect it to their interest in a safe and secure nation.

Recognize multiple referent groups | The presentation of information can be designed in a fashion that recognizes that individuals are members of multiple referent groups. The underlying frames employed in one cultural community may be at variance with the values dominant within the communities engaged in climate change debate. For example, although some may reject the science of climate change by perceiving the scientific review process to be corrupt as part of one cultural community, they also may recognize the legitimacy of the scientific process as members of other cultural communities (such as users of the modern health care system). Although someone may see the costs of fossil fuel reductions as too great and potentially damaging to the economy as members of one community, they also may see the value in reducing dependence on foreign oil as members of another community who value strong national defense. This frame incongruence emerged in the 2011 US Republican primary as candidate Jon Huntsman warned that Republicans risk becoming the “antiscience party” if they continue to reject the science on climate change. What Huntsman alluded to is that most Americans actually do trust the scientific process, even if they don’t fully understand it. (A 2004 National Science Foundation report found that two thirds of Americans do not clearly understand the scientific process.)

Employ events as leverage for change | Studies have found that most Americans believe that climate change will affect geographically and temporally distant people and places. But studies also have shown that people are more likely to believe in the science when they have an experience with extreme weather phenomena. This has led climate communicators to link climate change to major events, such as Hurricane Katrina, or to more recent floods in the American Midwest and Asia, as well as to droughts in Texas and Africa, to hurricanes along the East Coast and Gulf of Mexico, and to snowstorms in Western states and New England. The cumulative body of weather evidence, reported by media outlets and linked to climate change, will increase the number of people who are concerned about the issue, see it as less uncertain, and feel more confident that we must take actions to mitigate its effects. For example, in explaining the recent increase in belief in climate change among Americans, the 2012 National Survey of American Public Opinion on Climate Change noted that “about half of Americans now point to observations of temperature changes and weather as the main reasons they believe global warming is taking place.”¹⁵

Ending Climate Science Wars

Will we see a social consensus on climate change? If beliefs about the existence of global warming are becoming more ideologically entrenched and gaps between conservatives and liberals are widening, the solution space for resolving the issue will collapse and the debate will be based on power and coercion. In such a scenario, domination by the science-based forces looks less likely than domination by the forces of skepticism, because the former has to “prove” its case while the latter merely needs to cast doubt. But such a polarized outcome is not a predetermined outcome. And if it were to form, it can be reversed.

Is there a reason to be hopeful? When looking for reasons to be hopeful about a social consensus on climate change, I look to public opinion changes around cigarette smoking and cancer. For years, the scientific community recognized that the preponderance of epidemiological and mechanistic data pointed to a link between the habit and the disease. And for years, the public rejected that conclusion. But through a process of political, economic, social, and legal debate over values and beliefs, a social consensus emerged. The general public now accepts that cigarettes cause cancer and governments have set policy to address this. Interestingly, two powerful forces that many see as obstacles to a comparable social consensus on climate change were overcome in the cigarette debate.

The first obstacle is the powerful lobby of industrial forces that can resist a social and political consensus. In the case of the cigarette debate, powerful economic interests mounted a campaign to obfuscate the scientific evidence and to block a social and political consensus. Tobacco companies created their own pro-tobacco science, but eventually the public health community overcame pro-tobacco scientists.

The second obstacle to convincing a skeptical public is the lack of a definitive statement by the scientific community about the future implications of climate change. The 2007 IPCC report states that “Human activities … are modifying the concentration of atmospheric constituents … that absorb or scatter radiant energy. … [M]ost of the observed warming over the last 50 years is very likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas emissions.” Some point to the word “likely” to argue that scientists still don’t know and action in unwarranted. But science is not designed to provide a definitive smoking gun. Remember that the 1964 surgeon general’s report about the dangers of smoking was equally conditional. And even today, we cannot state with scientific certainty that smoking causes lung cancer. Like the global climate, the human body is too complex a system for absolute certainty. We can explain epidemiologically why a person could get cancer from cigarette smoking and statistically how that person will likely get cancer, but, as the surgeon general report explains, “statistical methods cannot establish proof of a causal relationship in an association [between cigarette smoking and lung cancer]. The causal significance of an association is a matter of judgment, which goes beyond any statement of statistical probability.” Yet the general public now accepts this causal linkage.

What will get us there? Although climate brokers are needed from all areas of society—from business, religion, military, and politics—one field in particular needs to become more engaged: the academic scientist and particularly the social scientist. Too much of the debate is dominated by the physical sciences in defining the problem and by economics in defining the solutions. Both fields focus heavily on the rational and quantitative treatments of the issue and fail to capture the behavioral and cultural aspects that explain why people accept or reject scientific evidence, analysis, and conclusions. But science is never socially or politically inert, and scientists have a duty to recognize its effect on society and to communicate that effect to society. Social scientists can help in this endeavor.

But the relative absence of the social sciences in the climate debate is driven by specific structural and institutional controls that channel research work away from empirical relevance. Social scientists limit involvement in such “outside” activities, because the underlying norms of what is considered legitimate and valuable research, as well as the overt incentives and reward structures within the academy, lead away from such endeavors. Tenure and promotion are based primarily on the publication of top-tier academic journal articles. This is the signal of merit and success. Any effort on any other endeavor is decidedly discouraged.

The role of the public intellectual has become an arcane and elusive option in today’s social sciences. Moreover, it is a difficult role to play. The academic rules are not clear and the public backlash can be uncomfortable; many of my colleagues and I are regular recipients of hostile e-mail messages and web-based attacks. But the lack of academic scientists in the public debate harms society by leaving out critical voices for informing and resolving the climate debate. There are signs, however, that this model of scholarly isolation is changing. Some leaders within the field have begun to call for more engagement within the public arena as a way to invigorate the discipline and underscore its investment in the defense of civil society. As members of society, all scientists have a responsibility to bring their expertise to the decision-making process. It is time for social scientists to accept this responsibility.

Notes

¹ Wouter Poortinga et al., “Uncertain Climate: An Investigation into Public Skepticism
About Anthropogenic Climate Change,” Global Environmental Change, August 2011.
² Aaron McCright and Riley Dunlap, “The Politicization of Climate Change and Polarization
in the American Public’s Views of Global Warming, 2001-2010,” The Sociological
Quarterly 52, 2011.
³ Clive Hamilton, “Why We Resist the Truth About Climate Change,” paper presented
to the Climate Controversies: Science and Politics conference, Brussels, Oct. 28, 2010.
⁴ Andrew Hoffman, “Talking Past Each Other? Cultural Framing of Skeptical and Convinced
Logics in the Climate Change Debate,” Organization & Environment 24(1), 2011.
⁵ Jon Krosnick and Bo MacInnis, “Frequent Viewers of Fox News Are Less Likely to
Accept Scientists’ Views of Global Warming,” Woods Institute for the Environment,
Stanford University, 2010.
⁶ Jeffrey Rachlinski, “The Psychology of Global Climate Change,” University of Illinois
Law Review 1, 2000.
⁷ Max Boykoff, “The Real Swindle,” Nature Climate Change, February 2008.
⁸ Ding Ding et al., “Support for Climate Policy and Societal Action Are Linked to Perceptions
About Scientific Agreement,” Nature Climate Change 1, 2011.
⁹ Matthew Feinberg and Robb Willer, “Apocalypse Soon? Dire Messages Reduce Belief in
Global Warming by Contradicting Just-World Beliefs,” Psychological Science 22(1), 2011.
¹⁰ Thomas Vargish, “Why the Person Sitting Next to You Hates Limits to Growth,”
Technological Forecasting and Social Change 16, 1980.
¹¹ Nick Mabey, Jay Gulledge, Bernard Finel, and Katherine Silverthorne, Degrees of Risk:
Defining a Risk Management Framework for Climate Security, Third Generation Environmentalism,
2011.
¹² Jonathan Schuldt, Sara H. Konrath, and Norbert Schwarz, “‘Global Warming’ or
‘Climate Change’? Whether the Planet Is Warming Depends on Question Wording,”
Public Opinion Quarterly 75(1), 2011.
¹³ John Sterman, “Communicating Climate Change Risks in a Skeptical World,” Climatic
Change, 2011.
¹⁴ Dan Kahan, Hank Jenkins-Smith, and Donald Braman, “Cultural Cognition of Scientific
Consensus,” Journal of Risk Research 14, 2010.
¹⁵ Christopher Borick and Barry Rabe, “Fall 2011 National Survey of American Public
Opinion on Climate Change,” Brookings Institution, Issues in Governance Studies,
Report No. 45, Feb. 2012.

George Will, Doomsday, and the Straw-Man Sighting (steadystate.org)

28/08/2012UncategorizedClima, discurso ambiental, Economia, Enquadramento, Incerteza, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Opinião pública, Política, Previsão, Sensacionalismorenzotaddei

by Brian Czech

A funny thing happened on the way to this column. Right when I was ready to accuseWashington Post columnist George Will of building another straw man to tear apart, one of Will’s straw men appeared! It’s as if Will himself cued it up, as I’ll describe in a bit.

Meanwhile don’t get me wrong. Will isn’t right about a lot. He has long been loose with the facts on environmental issues, denying the causes and effects of resource scarcity, pollution, and climate change. His vision of perpetual economic growth is neoclassical naiveté. He displayed it again with “Calls for doomsday remain unheeded.”

Will stubbornly remains a fawning fan of the late perpetual growther Julian Simon. No one likes to criticize the deceased, and Will counts on this and other social conventions to protect himself from critique. (Recently he hid behind society’s respect for Native American tribes to shoot at federal government clean-air efforts.) But it’s not a fair tactic, I’m not falling for it, and Simon was no saint anyway. Simon’s culminating book (The Ultimate Resource 2) was the shoddiest semblance of “scholarship” I’ve ever seen, as I described at length in Shoveling Fuel for a Runaway Train. For Will to stick with Simon after all this time is a red flag over the teeny terrain of his scientific credentials.

Will has even been sucked into the junk-science vortex of Bjorn Lomborg, Simon’s disciple and darling of pro-growth propagandists like the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Will thinks “potential U.S. gas resources have doubled in the last six years,” as if even potential (not just economic) gas resources change with technology! No stranger to bad facts, Will says, “One of [Paul] Ehrlich’s advisers, John Holdren, is President Barack Obama’s science adviser.” In reality it was the other way around: Ehrlich was Holdren’s adviser. In other words Will uses a mistaken claim to unleash a twice-removed, guilt-by-association attack, all in one sentence!

Despite the fact that Will has the combined credibility of Barry Bonds and BP Oil on environmental and sustainability affairs, there are reasons for empathizing with him at times. In fact, one reason plopped in my inbox this morning! The sender, a sustainability activist, first quoted from a website of the Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy, “The CASSE position calls for a desirable solution — a steady state economy with stabilized population and consumption — beginning in the wealthiest nations and not with extremist tactics.” Then he went on to complain:

“Unfortunately, there is no ‘desirable solution’ — I wish there were… Industrialism is by its very nature a temporary phenomenon; in the process of perpetuating it we consume the natural resources — primarily finite, non-replenishing, and increasingly scarce NNRs — that enable it. Unfortunately the chickens are coming home to roost now — instead of 1,000 years from now — and there’s nothing that we as a species can or will do about it, except suffer the inevitable consequences.”

So when George Will talks pejoratively about “calls for doomsday,” he’s got that one legitimate point, at least. For someone (a sustainability activist no less) to claim there is no desirable solution to the problem of uneconomic growth is defeatist at best, and patently false besides. Just because a solution — such as a steady state economy running at optimal size — is difficult to achieve does not mean it is out of the question or undesirable. What we should all agree on is that perpetual growth is out of the question, and then strive for the best alternative, handling the growing pains (or in this case, the de-growing pains) along the way.

Next, to paint “industrialism” with such a broad brush that it cannot be sustained, period, is another target on the straw man’s back. We should expect Mr. Will to hit that bulls-eye every time. First of all, de-industrializing is no panacea; it’s easy to envision an unsustainable, non-industrial economy hell-bent on growth. More to the point, who is to say we cannot sustain some industrial capital and production, especially with the use of renewable resources (picture a sawmill running on hydropower), for such a very long time that no one would consider it unsustainable. The problem is perpetual growth — always expanding the capital base and trying to produce more — regardless of the mechanical means by which that growth occurs.

And then, to top it off with, “there’s nothing that we as a species can or will do about it, except suffer the inevitable consequences,” almost makes me wonder who is farther from the truth: Will or the sustainability activist. After all, the activist is either not doing anything “about it” after all, or considers himself too exceptional to be part of the human species. But I don’t, and CASSE doesn’t. We are trying to do something about it. That is, we’re advancing the steady state economy — a desirable solution — instead of sitting on our doomed derrières while lamenting the forces of “industrialism.”

I never thought I’d agree with George Will on a matter of sustainability, but I’ll admit one thing: The caricatures he constructs are not always comprised of straw. Doomsday straw does exist but, unfortunately, some sustainability activists wear it too well.

Calls for doomsday remain unheeded (Washington Post)

28/08/2012UncategorizedClima, discurso ambiental, Economia, Enquadramento, Incerteza, Mídia, Mediação tecnológica, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Opinião pública, Política, Previsão, Sensacionalismorenzotaddei

By George Will

11:15 PM, Aug 20, 2012

WASHINGTON — Sometimes the news is that something was not newsworthy. The United Nation’s Rio+20 conference — 50,000 participants from 188 nations — occurred in June, without consequences. A generation has passed since the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio, which begat other conferences and protocols (e.g., Kyoto). And, by now, apocalypse fatigue — boredom from being repeatedly told the end is nigh.

This began two generations ago, in 1972, when we were warned (by computer models developed at MIT) that we were doomed. We were supposed to be pretty much extinct by now, or at least miserable. We are neither. So, what when wrong?

That year begat “The Limits to Growth,” a book from the Club of Rome, which called itself “a project on the predicament of mankind.” It sold 12 million copies, staggered The New York Times (“one of the most important documents of our age”) and argued that economic growth was doomed by intractable scarcities. Bjorn Lomborg, the Danish academic and “skeptical environmentalist,” writing in Foreign Affairs, says it “helped send the world down a path of worrying obsessively about misguided remedies for minor problems while ignoring much greater concerns,” such as poverty, which only economic growth can ameliorate.

MIT’s models foresaw the collapse of civilization because of “nonrenewable resource depletion” and population growth. “In an age more innocent of and reverential toward computers,” Lomborg writes, “the reams of cool printouts gave the book’s argument an air of scientific authority and inevitability” that “seemed to banish any possibility of disagreement.” Then — as now, regarding climate change — respect for science was said to require reverential suspension of skepticism about scientific hypotheses. Time magazine’s story about “The Limits to Growth” exemplified the media’s frisson of hysteria:

“The furnaces of Pittsburgh are cold; the assembly lines of Detroit are still. In Los Angeles, a few gaunt survivors of a plague desperately till freeway center strips … Fantastic? No, only grim inevitability if society continues its present dedication to growth and ‘progress.’”

The modelers examined 19 commodities and said 12 would be gone long before now — aluminum, copper, gold, lead, mercury, molybdenum, natural gas, oil, silver, tin, tungsten and zinc. Lomborg says:

Technological innovations have replaced mercury in batteries, dental fillings and thermometers, mercury consumption is down 98 percent and its price was down 90 percent by 2000. Since 1970, when gold reserves were estimated at 10,980 tons, 81,410 tons have been mined and estimated reserves are 51,000 tons. Since 1970, when known reserves of copper were 280 million tons, about 400 million tons have been produced globally and reserves are estimated at almost 700 million tons. Aluminum consumption has increased 16-fold since 1950, the world has consumed four times the 1950 known reserves, and known reserves could sustain current consumption for 177 years. Potential U.S. gas resources have doubled in the last six years. And so on.

The modelers missed something — human ingenuity in discovering, extracting and innovating. Which did not just appear after 1972.

Aluminum, Lomborg writes, is one of earth’s most common metals. But until the 1886 invention of the Hall-Heroult process, it was so difficult and expensive to extract that “Napoleon III had bars of aluminum exhibited alongside the French crown jewels, and he gave his honored guests aluminum forks and spoons while lesser visitors had to make do with gold utensils.”

Forty years after “The Limits to Growth” imparted momentum to environmentalism, that impulse now is often reduced to children indoctrinated to “reduce, reuse, and recycle.” Lomborg calls recycling “a feel-good gesture that provides little environmental benefit at a significant cost.” He says “we pay tribute to the pagan god of token environmentalism by spending countless hours sorting, storing and collecting used paper, which, when combined with government subsidies, yields slightly lower-quality paper in order to secure a resource” — forests — “that was never threatened in the first place.”

In 1980, economist Julian Simon made a wager in the form of a complex futures contract. He bet Paul Ehrlich (whose 1968 book “The Population Bomb” predicted “hundreds of millions of people” would starve to death in the 1970s as population growth swamped agricultural production) that by 1990 the price of any five commodities Ehrlich and his advisers picked would be lower than in 1980. Ehrlich’s group picked five metals. All were cheaper in 1990.

The bet cost Ehrlich $576.07. But that year he was awarded a $345,000 MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant and half of the $240,000 Crafoord Prize for ecological virtue. One of Ehrlich’s advisers, John Holdren, is President Barack Obama’s science adviser.

George F. Will writes about foreign and domestic politics and policy for the Washington Post Writers Group. Email:georgewill@washpost.com.

Extreme Weather Linked to Global Warming, Nobel Prize-Winning Scientist Says (Science Daily)

21/08/2012UncategorizedClima, Enquadramento, Incerteza, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Previsãorenzotaddei

New scientific analysis strengthens the view that record-breaking summer heat, crop-withering drought and other extreme weather events in recent years do, indeed, result from human activity and global warming, Nobel Laureate Mario J. Molina, Ph.D. explains. (Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Image by Reto Stöckli (land surface, shallow water, clouds). Enhancements by Robert Simmon (ocean color, compositing, 3D globes, animation). Data and technical support: MODIS Land Group; MODIS Science Data Support Team; MODIS Atmosphere Group; MODIS Ocean Group Additional data: USGS EROS Data Center (topography); USGS Terrestrial Remote Sensing Flagstaff Field Center (Antarctica); Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (city lights).)

ScienceDaily (Aug. 20, 2012) — New scientific analysis strengthens the view that record-breaking summer heat, crop-withering drought and other extreme weather events in recent years do, indeed, result from human activity and global warming, Nobel Laureate Mario J. Molina, Ph.D., said at a conference in Philadelphia on August 20.

Molina, who shared the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for helping save the world from the consequences of ozone depletion, presented the keynote address at the 244^thNational Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society.

“People may not be aware that important changes have occurred in the scientific understanding of the extreme weather events that are in the headlines,” Molina said. “They are now more clearly connected to human activities, such as the release of carbon dioxide ― the main greenhouse gas ― from burning coal and other fossil fuels.”

Molina emphasized that there is no “absolute certainty” that global warming is causing extreme weather events. But he said that scientific insights during the last year or so strengthen the link. Even if the scientific evidence continues to fall short of the absolute certainly measure, the heat, drought, severe storms and other weather extremes may prove beneficial in making the public more aware of global warming and the need for action, said Molina.

“It’s important that people are doing more than just hearing about global warming,” he said. “People may be feeling it, experiencing the impact on food prices, getting a glimpse of what everyday life may be like in the future, unless we as a society take action.”

Molina, who is with the University of California, San Diego, suggested a course of action based on an international agreement like the Montreal Protocol that phased out substances responsible for the depletion of the ozone layer.

“The new agreement should put a price on the emission of greenhouse gases, which would make it more economically favorable for countries to do the right thing. The cost to society of abiding by it would be less than the cost of the climate change damage if society does nothing,” he said.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Molina, F. Sherwood Rowland, Ph.D., and Paul J. Crutzen, Ph.D., established that substances called CFCs in aerosol spray cans and other products could destroy the ozone layer. The ozone layer is crucial to life on Earth, forming a protective shield high in the atmosphere that blocks potentially harmful ultraviolet rays in sunlight. Molina, Rowland and Crutzen shared the Nobel Prize for that research. After a “hole” in that layer over Antarctica was discovered in 1985, scientists established that it was indeed caused by CFCs, and worked together with policymakers and industry representatives around the world to solve the problem. The result was the Montreal Protocol, which phased out the use of CFCs in 1996.

Adopted and implemented by countries around the world, the Montreal Protocol eliminated the major cause of ozone depletion, said Molina, and stands as one of the most successful international agreements. Similar agreements, such as the Kyoto Protocol, have been proposed to address climate change. But Molina said these agreements have largely failed.

Unlike the ozone depletion problem, climate change has become highly politicized and polarizing, he pointed out. Only a small set of substances were involved in ozone depletion, and it was relatively easy to get the small number of stakeholders on the same page. But the climate change topic has exploded. “Climate change is a much more pervasive issue,” he explained. “Fossil fuels, which are at the center of the problem, are so important for the economy, and it affects so many other activities. That makes climate change much more difficult to deal with than the ozone issue.”

In addition to a new international agreement, other things must happen, he said. Scientists need to better communicate the scientific facts underlying climate change. Scientists and engineers also must develop cheap alternative energy sources to reduce dependence on fossil fuels.

Molina said that it’s not certain what will happen to Earth if nothing is done to slow down or halt climate change. “But there is no doubt that the risk is very large, and we could have some consequences that are very damaging, certainly for portions of society,” he said. “It’s not very likely, but there is some possibility that we would have catastrophes.”

Cloud Brightening to Control Global Warming? Geoengineers Propose an Experiment (Science Daily)

21/08/2012Uncategorizedciência, Clima, Enquadramento, Geoengenharia, Incerteza, Mediação tecnológica, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Previsão, Riscorenzotaddei

A conceptualized image of an unmanned, wind-powered, remotely controlled ship that could be used to implement cloud brightening. (Credit: John McNeill)

ScienceDaily (Aug. 20, 2012) — Even though it sounds like science fiction, researchers are taking a second look at a controversial idea that uses futuristic ships to shoot salt water high into the sky over the oceans, creating clouds that reflect sunlight and thus counter global warming.

University of Washington atmospheric physicist Rob Wood describes a possible way to run an experiment to test the concept on a small scale in a comprehensive paper published this month in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.

The point of the paper — which includes updates on the latest study into what kind of ship would be best to spray the salt water into the sky, how large the water droplets should be and the potential climatological impacts — is to encourage more scientists to consider the idea of marine cloud brightening and even poke holes in it. In the paper, he and a colleague detail an experiment to test the concept.

“What we’re trying to do is make the case that this is a beneficial experiment to do,” Wood said. With enough interest in cloud brightening from the scientific community, funding for an experiment may become possible, he said.

The theory behind so-called marine cloud brightening is that adding particles, in this case sea salt, to the sky over the ocean would form large, long-lived clouds. Clouds appear when water forms around particles. Since there is a limited amount of water in the air, adding more particles creates more, but smaller, droplets.

“It turns out that a greater number of smaller drops has a greater surface area, so it means the clouds reflect a greater amount of light back into space,” Wood said. That creates a cooling effect on Earth.

Marine cloud brightening is part of a broader concept known as geoengineering which encompasses efforts to use technology to manipulate the environment. Brightening, like other geoengineering proposals, is controversial for its ethical and political ramifications and the uncertainty around its impact. But those aren’t reasons not to study it, Wood said.

“I would rather that responsible scientists test the idea than groups that might have a vested interest in proving its success,” he said. The danger with private organizations experimenting with geoengineering is that “there is an assumption that it’s got to work,” he said.

Wood and his colleagues propose trying a small-scale experiment to test feasibility and begin to study effects. The test should start by deploying sprayers on a ship or barge to ensure that they can inject enough particles of the targeted size to the appropriate elevation, Wood and a colleague wrote in the report. An airplane equipped with sensors would study the physical and chemical characteristics of the particles and how they disperse.

The next step would be to use additional airplanes to study how the cloud develops and how long it remains. The final phase of the experiment would send out five to 10 ships spread out across a 100 kilometer, or 62 mile, stretch. The resulting clouds would be large enough so that scientists could use satellites to examine them and their ability to reflect light.

Wood said there is very little chance of long-term effects from such an experiment. Based on studies of pollutants, which emit particles that cause a similar reaction in clouds, scientists know that the impact of adding particles to clouds lasts only a few days.

Still, such an experiment would be unusual in the world of climate science, where scientists observe rather than actually try to change the atmosphere.

Wood notes that running the experiment would advance knowledge around how particles like pollutants impact the climate, although the main reason to do it would be to test the geoengineering idea.

A phenomenon that inspired marine cloud brightening is ship trails: clouds that form behind the paths of ships crossing the ocean, similar to the trails that airplanes leave across the sky. Ship trails form around particles released from burning fuel.

But in some cases ship trails make clouds darker. “We don’t really know why that is,” Wood said.

Despite increasing interest from scientists like Wood, there is still strong resistance to cloud brightening.

“It’s a quick-fix idea when really what we need to do is move toward a low-carbon emission economy, which is turning out to be a long process,” Wood said. “I think we ought to know about the possibilities, just in case.”

The authors of the paper are treading cautiously.

“We stress that there would be no justification for deployment of [marine cloud brightening] unless it was clearly established that no significant adverse consequences would result. There would also need to be an international agreement firmly in favor of such action,” they wrote in the paper’s summary.

There are 25 authors on the paper, including scientists from University of Leeds, University of Edinburgh and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. The lead author is John Latham of the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the University of Manchester, who pioneered the idea of marine cloud brightening.

Wood’s research was supported by the UW College of the Environment Institute.

Journal Reference:

J. Latham, K. Bower, T. Choularton, H. Coe, P. Connolly, G. Cooper, T. Craft, J. Foster, A. Gadian, L. Galbraith, H. Iacovides, D. Johnston, B. Launder, B. Leslie, J. Meyer, A. Neukermans, B. Ormond, B. Parkes, P. Rasch, J. Rush, S. Salter, T. Stevenson, H. Wang, Q. Wang, R. Wood. Marine cloud brightening. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 2012; 370 (1974): 4217 DOI:10.1098/rsta.2012.0086

Cientistas apontam problemas da cobertura da imprensa sobre mudanças climáticas (Fapesp)

21/08/2012UncategorizedClima, comunicação científica, Enquadramento, Incerteza, jornalismo, Mídia, Mediação tecnológica, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Opinião pública, Políticas públicas, Previsão, Sensacionalismo, Visualidaderenzotaddei

Especialistas reunidos em São Paulo para debater gestão de riscos dos extremos climáticos manifestam preocupação com dificuldades enfrentadas por jornalistas para lidar com a complexidade do tema (Wikimedia)

21/08/2012

Por Fábio de Castro

Agência FAPESP – Na avaliação de especialistas reunidos em São Paulo para discutir a gestão de riscos dos extremos climáticos e desastres, para que seja possível gerenciar de forma adequada os impactos desses eventos, é fundamental informar a sociedade – incluindo os formuladores de políticas públicas – sobre as descobertas das ciências climáticas.

No entanto, pesquisadores estão preocupados com as dificuldades encontradas na comunicação com a sociedade. A complexidade dos estudos climáticos tende a gerar distorções na cobertura jornalística do tema e o resultado pode ser uma ameaça à confiança do público em relação à ciência.

A avaliação foi feita por participantes do workshop “Gestão dos riscos dos extremos climáticos e desastres na América Central e na América do Sul – o que podemos aprender com o Relatório Especial do IPCC sobre extremos?”, realizado na semana passada na capital paulista.

O evento teve o objetivo de debater as conclusões do Relatório Especial sobre Gestão dos Riscos de Extremos Climáticos e Desastres (SREX, na sigla em inglês) – elaborado e recentemente publicado pelo Painel Intergovernamental sobre Mudanças Climáticas (IPCC) – e discutir opções para gerenciamento dos impactos dos extremos climáticos, especialmente nas Américas do Sul e Central.

O workshop foi realizado pela FAPESP e pelo Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (Inpe), em parceria com o IPCC, o Overseas Development Institute (ODI) e a Climate and Development Knowledge (CKDN), ambos do Reino Unido, e apoio da Agência de Clima e Poluição do Ministério de Relações Exteriores da Noruega.

Durante o evento, o tema da comunicação foi debatido por autores do IPCC-SREX, especialistas em extremos climáticos, gestores e líderes de instituições de prevenção de desastres.

De acordo com Vicente Barros, do Centro de Investigação do Mar e da Atmosfera da Universidade de Buenos Aires, o IPCC, do qual é membro, entrou há três anos em um processo de reestruturação que compreende uma mudança na estratégia de comunicação.

“A partir de 2009, o IPCC passou a ser atacado violentamente e não estávamos preparados para isso, porque nossa função era divulgar o conhecimento adquirido, mas não traduzi-lo para a imprensa. Temos agora um grupo de jornalistas que procura fazer essa mediação, mas não podemos diluir demais as informações e a última palavra na formulação da comunicação é sempre do comitê executivo, porque o peso político do que é expresso pelo painel é muito grande”, disse Barros.

A linguagem é um grande problema, segundo Barros. Se for muito complexa, não atinge o público. Se for muito simplificada, tende a distorcer as conclusões e disseminar visões que não correspondem à realidade.

“O IPCC trata de problemas muito complexos e admitimos que não podemos fazer uma divulgação que chegue a todos. Isso é um problema. Acredito que a comunicação deve permanecer nas mãos dos jornalistas, mas talvez seja preciso investir em iniciativas de treinamento desses profissionais”, disse.

Fábio Feldman, do Fórum Paulista de Mudanças Climáticas, manifestou preocupação com as dificuldades de comunicação dos cientistas com o público, que, segundo ele, possibilitam que os pesquisadores “céticos” – isto é, que negam a influência humana nos eventos de mudanças climáticas – ganhem cada vez mais espaço na mídia e no debate público.

“Vejo com preocupação um avanço do espaço dado aos negacionistas no debate público. A imprensa acha que é preciso usar necessariamente o princípio do contraditório, dando espaço e importância equânimes para as diferentes posições no debate”, disse.

De acordo com Feldman, os cientistas – especialmente aqueles ligados ao IPCC – deveriam ter uma atitude mais pró-ativa no sentido de se contrapor aos “céticos” no debate público.

Posições diferentes

Para Reynaldo Luiz Victoria, da Coordenação do Programa FAPESP de Pesquisa em Mudanças Climáticas Globais, é importante que a imprensa trate as diferentes posições de modo mais equitativo.

“Há casos específicos em que a imprensa trata questões de maneira pouco equitativa – e eventualmente sensacionalista –, mas acho que nós, como pesquisadores, não temos obrigação de reagir. A imprensa deveria nos procurar para fazer o contraponto e esclarecer o público”, disse Victoria à Agência FAPESP.

Victoria, no entanto, destacou a importância de que os “céticos” também sejam ouvidos. “Alguns são cientistas sérios e merecem um tratamento equitativo. Certamente que não se pode ignorá-los, mas, quando fazem afirmações passíveis de contestação, a imprensa deve procurar alguém que possa dar um contraponto. Os jornalistas precisam nos procurar e não o contrário”, disse.

De modo geral, a cobertura da imprensa sobre mudanças climáticas é satisfatória, segundo Victoria. “Os bons jornais publicam artigos corretos e há jornalistas muito sérios produzindo material de alta qualidade”, destacou.

Para Luci Hidalgo Nunes, professora do Departamento de Geografia da Universidade Estadual de Campinas (Unicamp), os negacionistas ganham espaço porque muitas vezes o discurso polêmico tem mais apelo midiático do que a complexidade do conhecimento científico.

“O cientista pode ter um discurso bem fundamentado, mas que é considerado enfadonho pelo público. Enquanto isso, um pesquisador com argumentos pouco estruturados pode fazer um discurso simplificado, portanto atraente para o público, e polêmico, o que rende manchetes”, disse à Agência FAPESP.

Apesar de a boa ciência ter, em relação ao debate público, uma desvantagem inerente à sua complexidade, Nunes acredita ser importante que a imprensa continue pluralista. A pesquisadora publicou um estudo no qual analisa a cobertura do jornal O Estado de S. Paulo sobre mudanças climáticas durante um ano. Segundo Nunes, um dos principais pontos positivos observados consistiu em dar voz às diferentes posições.

“Sou favorável a que a imprensa cumpra seu papel e dê todos os parâmetros, para que haja um debate democrático. Acho que isso está sendo bem feito e a própria imprensa está aberta para nos dar mais espaço. Mas precisamos nos manifestar para criar essas oportunidades”, disse.

Nunes também considera que a cobertura da imprensa sobre mudanças climáticas, de modo geral, tem sido satisfatória, ainda que irregular. “O tema ganha vulto em determinados momentos, mas não se mantém na pauta do noticiário de forma permanente”, disse.

Segundo ela, o assunto sobressaiu especialmente em 2007, com a publicação do primeiro relatório do IPCC, e em 2012 durante a RIO+20.

“Em 2007, a cobertura foi intensa, mas a popularização do tema também deu margem a distorções e exageros. O sensacionalismo é ruim para a ciência, porque faz o tema ganhar as manchetes rapidamente por algum tempo, mas no médio prazo o efeito é inverso: as pessoas percebem os exageros e passam a olhar com descrédito os resultados científicos de modo geral”, disse.

Gastos no País com desastres crescem 15 vezes em seis anos (O Estado de são Paulo)

17/08/2012UncategorizedClima, Desastre, Incerteza, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Políticas públicas, Previsão, Vulnerabilidaderenzotaddei

JC e-mail 4564, de 17 de Agosto de 2012.

Relatório do IPCC aponta que eventos extremos aliados à alta exposição humana a situações de risco podem aumentar tragédias.

Nos últimos 30 anos, o aumento da ocorrência de desastres naturais no mundo foi responsável por perdas que saltaram de poucos bilhões de dólares em 1980 para mais de 200 bilhões em 2010. No Brasil, em somente seis anos (2004-2010), os gastos das três esferas governamentais com a reconstrução de estruturas afetadas nesses eventos evoluíram de US$ 65 milhões para mais de US$ 1 bilhão – um aumento de mais de 15 vezes.

Os dados foram citados ontem durante evento de divulgação do Relatório Especial sobre Gestão de Riscos de Extremos Climáticos e Desastres (SREX), do Painel Intergovernamental de Mudanças Climáticas (IPCC). A elaboração do documento foi motivada justamente por conta dessa elevação já observada de desastres e perdas. O alerta, porém, é para o futuro – a expectativa é de que essas situações ocorram com frequência cada vez maior em consequência do aquecimento global.

Alguns dos autores do relatório estiverem presentes ontem em São Paulo, em evento promovido pela Fapesp e pelo Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (Inpe), para divulgar para a comunidade científica e tomadores de decisão os resultados específicos de América Latina e Caribe. A principal conclusão é que para evitar os desastres naturais, os cuidados vão muito além de lidar com o clima.

Vulnerabilidade – “O desastre natural não tem nada de natural. É a conjunção do evento natural com a vulnerabilidade e a exposição das populações a situações críticas”, afirma Vicente Barros, da Universidade de Buenos Aires e um dos coordenadores do relatório.

Segundo ele, desde 1950 vem ocorrendo um aumento do número de dias extremamente quentes e com chuvas extremas. Apesar disso, afirma o climatologista Carlos Nobre, co-autor do trabalho, o que foi considerado como fator determinante para os desastres foi a maior exposição dos seres humanos por conta do aumento do adensamento urbano. No final das contas, acaba sendo um problema de planejamento urbano.

Com base nas pesquisas existentes, ainda não dá para dizer com elevado grau de confiança que esse aumento de eventos extremos já seja resultado das mudanças climáticas. Mas para o futuro a indicação é de que o aquecimento possivelmente irá impulsioná-los. Situações consideradas hoje extremas poderão se tornar mais comuns – chuvas ou secas que acontecem a cada 20 anos, poderão aparecer a cada cinco, dois ou até anualmente. Outra tendência também é que elas possam se inverter, chuva forte num ano, seca em outro.

Independentemente do clima, porém, o relatório alerta que o risco de desastres continuará subindo uma vez que mais pessoas estarão em situação vulnerável. “É daí que virão os problemas. É um alerta para pensarmos em formas de adaptação. O Nordeste teve uma grande seca neste ano e o que o governo fez? Mandou cesta básica. A população, assim, não se adapta”, afirma o pesquisador José Marengo, do Inpe.

Além de alertar para ações dos governos, os pesquisadores chamaram a atenção também para a necessidade de mais estudos regionais. A confiança sobre o que é mais provável de acontecer, principalmente na Amazônia, ainda não é alta. Uma das ferramentas para isso é o desenvolvimento de modelos climáticos regionais. O projeto de um está sendo coordenado pelo Inpe e pela Fapesp, que pode estar pronto em até um ano, adaptado para a realidade brasileira.

Climate change and the Syrian uprising (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists)

17/08/2012Uncategorizedágua, Clima, Desastre, Guerra civil, Mudanças climáticas, Previsão, Síria, Seca, Violênciarenzotaddei

BY SHAHRZAD MOHTADI | 16 AUGUST 2012

Article Highlights

A drought unparalleled in recent Syrian history lasted from 2006 to 2010 and led to an unprecedented mass migration of 1.5 million people from farms to urban centers.
Because the Assad regime’s economic policies had largely ignored water issues and sustainable agriculture, the drought destroyed many farming communities and placed great strain on urban populations.
Although not the leading cause of the Syrian rebellion, the drought-induced migration from farm to city clearly contributed to the uprising and serves as a warning of the potential impact of climate change on political stability.

Two days short of Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak’s resignation, Al Jazeera published anarticle, headlined “A Kingdom of Silence,” that contended an uprising was unlikely in Syria. The article cited the country’s “popular president, dreaded security forces, and religious diversity” as reasons that the regime of Bashar al-Assad would not be challenged, despite the chaos and leadership changes already wrought by the so-called Arab Spring. Less than one month later, security forces arrested a group of schoolchildren in the Syrian city of Dara’a, the country’s southern agricultural hub, for scrawling anti-government slogans on city walls. Subsequent protests illustrated the chasm between the regime’s public image — encapsulated in the slogan “Unity, Freedom and Socialism” — and a reality of widespread public disillusion with Assad and his economic policies.

Among the many historical, political, and economic factors contributing to the Syrian uprising, one has been devastating to Syria, yet remains largely unnoticed by the outside world. That factor is the complex and subtle, yet powerful role that climate change has played in affecting the stability and longevity of the state.

The land now encompassed by Syria is widely credited as being the place where humans first experimented with agriculture and cattle herding, some 12,000 years ago. Today, the World Bank predicts the area will experience alarming effects of climate change, with the annual precipitation level shifting toward a permanently drier condition, increasing the severity and frequency of drought.

From 1900 until 2005, there were six droughts of significance in Syria; the average monthly level of winter precipitation during these dry periods was approximately one-third of normal. All but one of these droughts lasted only one season; the exception lasted two. Farming communities were thus able to withstand dry periods by falling back on government subsidies and secondary water resources. This most recent, the seventh drought, however, lasted from 2006 to 2010, an astounding four seasons — a true anomaly in the past century. Furthermore, the average level of precipitation in these four years was the lowest of any drought-ridden period in the last century.

While impossible to deem one instance of drought as a direct result of anthropogenic climate change, a 2011 report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration regarding this recent Syrian drought states: “Climate change from greenhouse gases explained roughly half the increased dryness of 1902-2010.” Martin Hoerling, the lead researcher of the study, explains: “The magnitude and frequency of the drying that has occurred is too great to be explained by natural variability alone. This is not encouraging news for a region that already experiences water stress, because it implies natural variability alone is unlikely to return the region’s climate to normal.” The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts that global warming will induce droughts even more severe in this region in the coming decades.

It is estimated that the Syrian drought has displaced more than 1.5 million people; entire families of agricultural workers and small-scale farmers moved from the country’s breadbasket region in the northeast to urban peripheries of the south. The drought tipped the scale of an unbalanced agricultural system that was already feeling the weight of policy mismanagement and unsustainable environmental practices. Further, lack of contingency planning contributed to the inability of the system to cope with the aftermath of the drought. Decades of poorly planned agricultural policies now haunt Syria’s al-Assad regime.

An unsustainable history. Hafez al-Assad — the father of the current president, Bashar al-Assad — ruled Syria for three decades in a fairly non-religious and paradoxical way. To some degree, he modernized the nation’s economy and opened it to the outside world; at the same time, his regime was infamous for repression and the murder of citizens. The elder al-Assad relied on support from the rural masses to maintain his authority, and during his rule, the agricultural sector became one of the most important pillars of the economy. In a 1980 address to the nation, he said: “I am first and last — and of this I hope every Syrian citizen and every Arab outside of Syria will take cognizance — a peasant and the son of a peasant. To lie amidst the spikes of grain or on the threshing floor is, in my eyes, worth all the palaces in the world.” Hafez al-Assad assured the Syrian people of their right to food security and economic stability, granting subsidies to reduce the price of food, oil, and water. The regime emphasized food self-sufficiency, first achieved with wheat in the 1980s. Cotton, a water-intensive crop requiring irrigation, was heavily promoted as a “strategic crop,” at one point becoming Syria’s second-largest export, after oil. As agricultural production swelled, little to no attention was paid to the environmental effects of such short-term, unsustainable agricultural goals.

With a steadfast emphasis on quick agricultural and industrial advancements, the Baathist regime did little to promote the sustainable use of water. In the two decades before the current drought, the state invested heavily in irrigation systems — yet they remain underdeveloped, extremely inefficient, and insufficient. The majority of irrigation systems use groundwater as their main source, because the amount of water from rivers is inadequate. As of 2005, the government began requiring licenses to dig agricultural wells. There are claims that the regime wishes to keep the Kurdish-majority region in the northeast of the country underdeveloped and has denied licenses to some farmers in the region. Whatever the reasons, well licenses are generally difficult to obtain; as a result, more than half the country’s wells are dug illegally and are therefore unregulated. Groundwater reserves PDF in the years leading up to the drought were rapidly depleted.

Unheeded warnings. In 2001, the World Bank warned PDF, “The (Syrian) Government will need to recognize that achieving food security with respect to wheat and other cereals in the short-term as well as the encouragement of water-intensive cotton appear to be undermining Syria’s security over the long-term by depleting available groundwater resources.” With energy and water heavily subsidized by the state, farmers were further encouraged to increase production rather than set sustainable goals.

The price of wheat skyrocketed in 2005, and an overconfident Syrian government sold much of its emergency wheat reserve. In 2008, due to the drought, the Syrian government was forced to concede that its policy of self-sufficiency had failed, and for the first time in two decades it began importing wheat. Meanwhile, nearly 90 percent of the barley crop failed, doubling the price of animal feed in the first year of the drought alone. Small livestock herders in the northeast have lost 70 percent and more of their herds, and many have been forced to migrate. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, one-fourth of the country’s herds were lost as a result of the drought.

In recent years, Assad’s promises of food security have vanished; the United Nationsreports that the diet of 80 percent of those severely affected by the drought now consists largely of bread and sugared tea. For those who have remained in the nearly deserted rural communities of Syria’s northeast, food prices have skyrocketed, and 80 percent of residents in the drought-stricken regions are living under the poverty threshold. In 2003, agriculture accounted for one-fourth of Syria’s gross domestic product; in 2008, a year into the drought, that fraction was just 17 percent. The government’s drought management has been reactive, untimely, poorly coordinated, and poorly targeted, according to the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction. PDF

The chaotic result. Since the drought began, temporary settlements composed largely of displaced rural people have formed on the outskirts of Damascus, Hama, Homs, Aleppo, and Dara’a — the latter city being the site of the first significant protest in the country in March 2011. This migration has exacerbated economic strains already caused by nearly two million refugees from neighboring Iraq and Palestine. A confidential cable from the American embassy in Damascus to the US State Department, written shortly after the drought began, warned of the unraveling social and economic fabric of Syria’s rural farming communities due to the drought. It noted that the mass migration “could act as a multiplier on social and economic pressures already at play and undermine stability in Syria.” Reporting during the uprising in late 2011, the late New York Times correspondent Anthony Shadid recounts: “There’s that sense of corruption in the society itself, that the society itself is falling apart, being pulled apart; that the countryside is miserable; that there’s nothing being done to make lives better there.” Reports show that the earliest points of unrest were those that were most economically devastated by the drought and served as migratory settlement points.

“The regime’s failure to put in place economic measures to alleviate the effects of drought was a critical driver in propelling such massive mobilizations of dissent,” concludes Suzanne Saleeby, a contributor to Jadaliyya, a digital magazine produced by the Arab Studies Institute. “In these recent months, Syrian cities have served as junctures where the grievances of displaced rural migrants and disenfranchised urban residents meet and come to question the very nature and distribution of power.”

The considerations that impel an individual to protest in streets that are known to be lined by armed security forces extend beyond an abstract desire for democracy. Only a sense of extreme desperation and hopelessness can constitute the need — rather than a mere desire — to bring change to a country’s economic, political, and social systems. A combination of stress factors resulting from policies of economic liberalization — including growing income disparities and the geographic limitations of the economic reforms — shattered the Syrian regime’s projected image of stability. Even if it was not the leading cause of the Syrian rebellion, the drought and resulting migration played an important role in triggering the civil unrest now underway in Syria.

The drought in Syria is one of the first modern events in which a climactic anomaly resulted in mass migration and contributed to state instability. This is a lesson and a warning for the greater catalyst that climate change will become in a region already under the strains of cultural polarity, political repression, and economic inequity.

No Vale do Ribeira, Defensoria Pública defende comunidades tradicionais contra corrupção e mercado de carbono (Racismo Ambiental)

17/08/2012UncategorizedÉtica, Índios, Capitalismo, Cidadania, Clima, Conhecimento tradicional, Economia, Enquadramento, Incerteza, Justiça, Mudanças climáticas, Previsão, sociedade civil, Violênciarenzotaddei

Por racismoambiental, 24/06/2012 11:45

Tania Pacheco*

“Posto diante de todos estes homens reunidos, de todas estas mulheres, de todas estas crianças (sede fecundos, multiplicai-vos e enchei a terra, assim lhes fora mandado), cujo suor não nascia do trabalho que não tinham, mas da agonia insuportável de não o ter, Deus arrependeu-se dos males que havia feito e permitido, a um ponto tal que, num arrebato de contrição, quis mudar o seu nome para um outro mais humano. Falando à multidão, anunciou: “A partir de hoje chamar-me-eis Justiça”. E a multidão respondeu-lhe: “Justiça, já nós a temos, e não nos atende”. Disse Deus: “Sendo assim, tomarei o nome de Direito”. E a multidão tornou a responder-lhe: “Direito, já nós o temos, e não nos conhece”. E Deus: “Nesse caso, ficarei com o nome de Caridade, que é um nome bonito”. Disse a multidão: “Não necessitamos de caridade, o que queremos é uma Justiça que se cumpra e um Direito que nos respeite”. José Saramago (Prefácio à obra Terra, de Sebastião Salgado).

O trecho acima foi retirado de uma peça jurídica. Um mandado de segurança com pedido de liminar impetrado no dia 6 de junho pelos Defensores Thiago de Luna Cury e Andrew Toshio Hayama, respectivamente da 2ª e da 3ª Defensorias Publicas de Registro, São Paulo, contra o Prefeito de Iporanga, região de Lageado, Vale do Ribeira. Seu objetivo: impedir que, seguindo uma prática que vem se tornando constante no estado, a autoridade municipal expulse comunidades tradicionais e desaproprie vastas extensões de terras, transformando-as em Parques Naturais a serem transacionados no mercado de carbono.

Para ganhar dinheiro a qualquer custo, não interessa investigar se nessas terras há comunidades tradicionais, quilombolas e camponeses. Não interessa se o Direito à Consulta Prévia e Informada estipulado pela Convenção 169 da OIT foi respeitado. Não interessa, inclusive, se, caso audiências públicas tivessem sido realizadas, as comunidades teriam condições de entender plenamente o que estava sendo proposto e decidir se seria de seu interesse abandonar seus territórios, suas tradições, suas gentes, uma vez que nesse tipo de unidade de conservação integral não pode haver moradores. Em parcerias com empresas e ONGs fajutas, o esquema é montado; de uma penada decretado; e o lucro é garantido e dividido entre os integrantes das quadrilhas.

Mas não foi bem assim que aconteceu em Iporanga. A Defensoria Pública agiu, e agiu pela Justiça e pelo Direito, de forma indignada, culta, forte, poética e, sempre, muito bem fundamentada nas leis. E coube ao Juiz Raphael Garcia Pinto, de Eldorado, São Paulo, reconhecê-lo em decisão do dia 11 de junho de 2012.

Este Blog defende intransigentemente a “democratização do sistema de Justiça”. E tanto no mandado como na decisão é um exemplo disso que temos presente: da prática da democracia pelos operadores do Direito. Por isso fazemos questão de socializá-los, não só como uma homenagem aos Defensores Thiago de Luna Cury e Andrew Toshio Hayama (e também ao Juiz Raphael Garcia Pinto), mas também como um exemplo a ser seguido Brasil afora, como forma de defender as comunidades e honrar a tod@s nós.

Para ver o mandado de segurança clique AQUI. Para ver a decisão clique AQUI. Boa leitura.

* Com informações enviadas por Luciana Zaffalon.