Arquivo da tag: Previsão

Global Warming Caused by CFCs, Not Carbon Dioxide, Researcher Claims in Controversial Study (Science Daily)

06/06/2013Uncategorizedciência, Clima, Incerteza, Mediação tecnológica, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Previsãorenzotaddei

May 30, 2013 — Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) are to blame for global warming since the 1970s and not carbon dioxide, according to a researcher from the University of Waterloo in a controversial new study published in the International Journal of Modern Physics B this week.

Annual global temperature over land and ocean. (Credit: Image by Q.-B. Lu)

CFCs are already known to deplete ozone, but in-depth statistical analysis now suggests that CFCs are also the key driver in global climate change, rather than carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions, the researcher argues.

“Conventional thinking says that the emission of human-made non-CFC gases such as carbon dioxide has mainly contributed to global warming. But we have observed data going back to the Industrial Revolution that convincingly shows that conventional understanding is wrong,” said Qing-Bin Lu, a professor of physics and astronomy, biology and chemistry in Waterloo’s Faculty of Science. “In fact, the data shows that CFCs conspiring with cosmic rays caused both the polar ozone hole and global warming.”

“Most conventional theories expect that global temperatures will continue to increase as CO₂ levels continue to rise, as they have done since 1850. What’s striking is that since 2002, global temperatures have actually declined — matching a decline in CFCs in the atmosphere,” Professor Lu said. “My calculations of CFC greenhouse effect show that there was global warming by about 0.6 °C from 1950 to 2002, but the earth has actually cooled since 2002. The cooling trend is set to continue for the next 50-70 years as the amount of CFCs in the atmosphere continues to decline.”

The findings are based on in-depth statistical analyses of observed data from 1850 up to the present time, Professor Lu’s cosmic-ray-driven electron-reaction (CRE) theory of ozone depletion and his previous research into Antarctic ozone depletion and global surface temperatures.

“It was generally accepted for more than two decades that the Earth’s ozone layer was depleted by the sun’s ultraviolet light-induced destruction of CFCs in the atmosphere,” he said. “But in contrast, CRE theory says cosmic rays — energy particles originating in space — play the dominant role in breaking down ozone-depleting molecules and then ozone.”

Lu’s theory has been confirmed by ongoing observations of cosmic ray, CFC, ozone and stratospheric temperature data over several 11-year solar cycles. “CRE is the only theory that provides us with an excellent reproduction of 11-year cyclic variations of both polar ozone loss and stratospheric cooling,” said Professor Lu. “After removing the natural cosmic-ray effect, my new paper shows a pronounced recovery by ~20% of the Antarctic ozone hole, consistent with the decline of CFCs in the polar stratosphere.”

By demonstrating the link between CFCs, ozone depletion and temperature changes in the Antarctic, Professor Lu was able to draw almost perfect correlation between rising global surface temperatures and CFCs in the atmosphere.

“The climate in the Antarctic stratosphere has been completely controlled by CFCs and cosmic rays, with no CO₂ impact. The change in global surface temperature after the removal of the solar effect has shown zero correlation with CO₂ but a nearly perfect linear correlation with CFCs — a correlation coefficient as high as 0.97.”

Data recorded from 1850 to 1970, before any significant CFC emissions, show that CO₂ levels increased significantly as a result of the Industrial Revolution, but the global temperature, excluding the solar effect, kept nearly constant. The conventional warming model of CO₂, suggests the temperatures should have risen by 0.6°C over the same period, similar to the period of 1970-2002.

The analyses support Lu’s CRE theory and point to the success of the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer.

“We’ve known for some time that CFCs have a really damaging effect on our atmosphere and we’ve taken measures to reduce their emissions,” Professor Lu said. “We now know that international efforts such as the Montreal Protocol have also had a profound effect on global warming but they must be placed on firmer scientific ground.”

“This study underlines the importance of understanding the basic science underlying ozone depletion and global climate change,” said Terry McMahon, dean of the faculty of science. “This research is of particular importance not only to the research community, but to policy makers and the public alike as we look to the future of our climate.”

Professor Lu’s paper, “Cosmic-Ray-Driven Reaction and Greenhouse Effect of Halogenated Molecules: Culprits for Atmospheric Ozone Depletion and Global Climate Change,” also predicts that the global sea level will continue to rise for some years as the hole in the ozone recovers increasing ice melting in the polar regions.

“Only when the effect of the global temperature recovery dominates over that of the polar ozone hole recovery, will both temperature and polar ice melting drop concurrently,” says Lu.

The peer-reviewed paper published this week not only provides new fundamental understanding of the ozone hole and global climate change but has superior predictive capabilities, compared with the conventional sunlight-driven ozone-depleting and CO₂-warming models, Lu argues.

Journal Reference:

Q.-B. Lu. Cosmic-Ray-Driven Reaction and Greenhouse Effect of Halogenated Molecules: Culprits for Atmospheric Ozone Depletion and Global Climate Change. International Journal of Modern Physics B, 2013; 1350073 DOI: 10.1142/S0217979213500732

Subcommittee Reviews Legislation to Improve Weather Forecasting (Subcommittee on Environmen, House of Representatives, USA)

31/05/2013Uncategorizedciência, Clima, Desastre, Incerteza, Mediação tecnológica, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Política, Políticas públicas, Previsãorenzotaddei

MAY 23, 2013

Washington, D.C. – The Subcommittee on Environment today held a hearing to examine ways to improve weather forecasting at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Witnesses provided testimony on draft legislation that would prioritize weather-related research at NOAA, in accordance with its critical mission to protect lives and property through enhanced weather forecasting. The hearing was timely given the recent severe tornadoes in the mid-west and super-storms like Hurricane Sandy.

Environment Subcommittee Chairman Chris Stewart (R-Utah): “We need a world-class system of weather prediction in the United States – one, as the National Academy of Sciences recently put it, that is ‘second to none.’ We can thank the hard-working men and women at NOAA and their partners throughout the weather enterprise for the great strides that have been made in forecasting in recent decades. But we can do better. And it’s not enough to blame failures on programming or sequestration or lack of other resources. As the events in Moore, Oklahoma have demonstrated, we have to do better. But the good news is that we can.”

Experts within the weather community have raised concern that the U.S. models for weather prediction have fallen behind Europe and other parts of the world in predicting weather events.The Weather Forecasting Improvement Act, draft legislation discussed at today’s hearing, would build upon the down payment made by Congress following Hurricane Sandy and restore the U.S. as a leader in this field through expanded computing capacity and data assimilation techniques.

Rep. Stewart: “The people of Moore, Oklahoma received a tornado warning 16 minutes before the twister struck their town. Tornado forecasting is difficult but lead times for storms have become gradually better. The draft legislation would prioritize investments in technology being developed at NOAA’s National Severe Storms Laboratory in Oklahoma, which ‘has the potential to provide revolutionary improvements in… tornado… warning lead times and accuracy, reducing false alarms’ and could move us toward the goal of being able to ‘warn on forecast.’”

The following witnesses testified today:

Mr. Barry Myers, Chief Executive Officer, AccuWeather, Inc.

Mr. Jon Kirchner, President, GeoOptics, Inc.

Geoengineering: Can We Save the Planet by Messing with Nature? (Democracy Now!)

23/05/2013UncategorizedClima, Desastre, Economia, Geoengenharia, Incerteza, Mediação tecnológica, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Política, Previsãorenzotaddei

Video: http://www.democracynow.org/2013/5/20/geoengineering_can_we_save_the_planet

Clive Hamilton, professor of public ethics at Charles Sturt University in Canberra, Australia. He is the author of the new book, Earthmasters: The Dawn of the Age of Climate Engineering.

Overheated rhetoric on climate change doesn’t make for good policies (Washington Post)

23/05/2013UncategorizedClima, Economia, Incerteza, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Política, Previsãorenzotaddei

By Lamar Smith, Published: May 19, 2013

Lamar Smith, a Republican, represents Texas’s 21st District in the U.S. House and is chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology.

Climate change is an issue that needs to be discussed thoughtfully and objectively. Unfortunately, claims that distort the facts hinder the legitimate evaluation of policy options. The rhetoric has driven some policymakers toward costly regulations and policies that will harm hardworking American families and do little to decrease global carbon emissions. The Obama administration’s decision to delay, and possibly deny, the Keystone XL pipeline is a prime example.

The State Department has found that the pipeline will have minimal impact on the surrounding environment and no significant effect on the climate. Recent expert testimony before the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology confirms this finding. In fact, even if the pipeline is approved and is used at maximum capacity, the resulting increase in carbon dioxide emissions would be a mere 12 one-thousandths of 1 percent (0.012 percent). There is scant scientific or environmental justification for refusing to approve the pipeline, a project that the State Department has also found would generate more than 40,000 U.S. jobs.

Contrary to the claims of those who want to strictly regulate carbon dioxide emissions and increase the cost of energy for all Americans, there is a great amount of uncertainty associated with climate science. These uncertainties undermine our ability to accurately determine how carbon dioxide has affected the climate in the past. They also limit our understanding of how anthropogenic emissions will affect future warming trends. Further confusing the policy debate, the models that scientists have come to rely on to make climate predictions have greatly overestimated warming. Contrary to model predictions, data released in October from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit show that global temperatures have held steady over the past 15 years, despite rising greenhouse gas emissions.

Among the facts that are clear, however, are that U.S. emissions contribute very little to global concentrations of greenhouse gas, and that even substantial cuts in these emissions are likely to have no effect on temperature. Data from the Energy Information Administration show, for example, that the United States cut carbon dioxide emissions by 12 percent between 2005 and 2012 while global emissions increased by 15 percent over the same period.

Using data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a Science and Public Policy Institute paper published last month found that if the United States eliminated all carbon dioxide emissions, the overall impact on global temperature rise would be only 0.08 degrees Celsius by 2050.

Further confounding the debate are unscientific and often hyperbolic claims about the potential effects of a warmer world. In his most recent State of the Union address, President Obama said that extreme weather events have become “more frequent and intense,” and he linked Superstorm Sandy to climate change.

But experts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have told the New York Times that climate change had nothing to do with Superstorm Sandy. This is underscored by last year’s IPCC report stating that there is “high agreement” among leading experts that trends in weather disasters, floods, tornados and storms cannot be attributed to climate change. While these claims may make for good political theater, their effect on recent public policy choices hurts the economy.

Last spring the Environmental Protection Agency proposed emissions standards that virtually prohibit new coal-fired power plants. As we await implementation of these strict new rules, additional regulations that will affect existing power plants, refineries and other manufactures are sure to follow. Analyses of these measures by the American Council for Capital Formation, which studies economic and environmental policy, show that they will raise both electricity rates and gas prices — costing jobs and hurting the economy — even as the EPA admits that these choices will have an insignificant impact on global climate change (a point former EPA administrator Lisa Jackson confessed during a Senate hearing in 2009).

Instead of pursuing heavy-handed regulations that imperil U.S. jobs and send jobs (and their emissions) overseas, we should take a step back from the unfounded claims of impending catastrophe and think critically about the challenge before us. Designing an appropriate public policy response to this challenge will require that we fully assess the facts and the uncertainties surrounding this issue, and that we set aside the hyped rhetoric.

Read more from PostOpinions: Greg Sargent: Now can we talk about climate change? The Post’s View: Carbon tax is best option Congress has Matthew Stepp: The limits of renewable energy Stephen Stromberg: In State of the Union, Obama threatens Congress on climate change. And that’s a good thing.

“eScience revoluciona a forma como se faz ciência” (Fapesp)

23/05/2013Uncategorizedciência, Mediação tecnológica, Previsãorenzotaddei

Novas ferramentas de computação possibilitam fazer ciência de forma melhor, mais rápida e com maior impacto, diz Tony Hey, vice-presidente da Microsoft Research (foto:E.Cesar/FAPESP)

16/05/2013

Por Elton Alisson

Agência FAPESP – Um software de visualização de dados astronômicos pela internet permite que cientistas em diversas partes do mundo acessem milhares de imagens de objetos celestes, coletadas por grandes telescópios espaciais, por observatórios e por instituições internacionais de pesquisa em astronomia.

Por meio desses dados, os usuários podem realizar análises temporais e combinar observações realizadas em vários comprimentos de onda de energia irradiada pelos corpos celestes, como raios X, radiação infravermelha, ultravioleta e gama e ondas de rádio, para elucidar os processos físicos que ocorrem no interior desses objetos e compartilhar suas conclusões.

Denominado World Wide Telescope, o software, que começou a ser desenvolvido em 2002 pela Microsoft Research, em parceria com pesquisadores da Universidade Johns Hopkins, nos Estados Unidos, é um exemplo de como as novas tecnologias da informação e comunicação (TICs) mudaram a forma como os dados científicos passaram a ser gerados, administrados e compartilhados, além da própria maneira como se faz ciência hoje, afirma Tony Hey, vice-presidente da Microsoft Research.

“Os telescópios espaciais, assim como as máquinas de sequenciamento genético e aceleradores de partículas, estão gerando um volume de dados até então nunca visto. Para lidar com esse fenômeno e possibilitar que os cientistas possam manipular e compartilhar esses dados, precisamos de uma série de tecnologias e ferramentas de ciência da computação que possibilitem fazer ciência de forma melhor, mais rápida e com maior impacto. É isso o que chamamos deeScience”, disse Hey durante o Latin American eScience Workshop 2013, realizado nos dias 14 e 15 de maio no Espaço Apas, em São Paulo.

Promovido pela FAPESP e pela Microsoft Research, o evento reuniu pesquisadores e estudantes da Europa, da América do Sul e do Norte, da Ásia e da Oceania para discutir avanços em diversas áreas do conhecimento possibilitados pela melhoria na capacidade de análise de grandes volumes de informações produzidas por projetos de pesquisa.

A cerimônia de abertura do evento foi presidida por Celso Lafer, presidente da FAPESP, e contou com a presença de Michel Levy, presidente da Microsoft Brasil, e de José Tadeu de Faria, superintendente do Ministério da Agricultura, Pecuária e Abastecimento no Estado de São Paulo, representando o ministro.

Também conhecida como ciência orientada por dados, a área de eScience integra pesquisas em computação a estudos nas mais variadas áreas por meio do desenvolvimento de softwares específicos para visualização e análise de informações.

A integração permite a interpretação dos dados, a formulação de teorias, testes por simulação e o levantamento de novas hipóteses de pesquisa com base em correlações difíceis de serem observadas sem o apoio da tecnologia da informação.

“Algumas tecnologias utilizadas na ciência da computação vão ajudar a resolver problemas científicos. Em contrapartida, a utilização dessas ferramentas para solucionar problemas científicos também possibilitará o próprio desenvolvimento da ciência da computação”, disse Hey, que foi professor da Universidade de Southampton, no Reino Unido.

Segundo Hey, a análise, visualização, prospecção (data mining, na expressão em inglês), preservação e compartilhamento de grandes volumes de dados representam grandes desafios não só na ciência hoje, mas também no setor privado.

Por isso, na opinião dele, é preciso treinar os cientistas para lidar com o big data – como é chamado o conjunto de soluções tecnológicas capaz de lidar com a acumulação contínua de dados pouco estruturados, capturados de diversas fontes e da ordem de petabytes (quatrilhões de bytes) – tanto para realização de projetos científicos, como também para atuarem, eventualmente, em empresas. “O data scientist [cientista capaz de lidar com grandes volumes de dados] será um requisito imprescindível para o cientista”, disse Hey.

A ciência intensiva em dados não é nova, mas as escalas espaciais e temporais de estudos realizados atualmente sobre temas relacionados às mudanças climáticas globais, por exemplo, são cada vez maiores, exigindo novas ferramentas. Por meio de novas tecnologias da informação, também é possível analisar dados gerados em tempo real, como no monitoramento de hábitats.

De acordo com Hey, desde 1950 se começou a utilizar computadores para explorar, por meio de simulações, áreas da ciência até então inacessíveis. “No início, no entanto, os cientistas não sabiam o que era ciência da computação e os profissionais da computação não entendiam a complexidade dos problemas científicos”, disse.

“Foi necessária a realização de um trabalho conjunto, de longo prazo, para que os dois lados entendessem qual era a contribuição que cada um poderia dar em suas respectivas áreas, e iniciar o desenvolvimento de novos algoritmos, hardware, software e da programação de linguagens para possibilitar a realização de experimentos em diversas áreas”, contou.

Oportunidades em temas ousados

Durante o evento da FAPESP e da Microsoft Research foram apresentados diversos projetos por pesquisadores que utilizam o eScience em diversos países, em áreas como energias renováveis, mudanças climáticas globais, transformações sociais, econômicas e políticas nas metrópoles contemporâneas, caracterização, conservação, recuperação e uso sustentável da biodiversidade, medicina e saúde pública.

Um desses projetos, coordenado pela professora Glaucia Mendes Souza, coordenadora do Programa FAPESP de Pesquisa em Bioenergia (BIOEN), pretende desenvolver um algoritmo para o sequenciamento do genoma da cana-de-açúcar e, com isso, possibilitar o desenvolvimento de variedades da planta com maior quantidade de sacarose e mais resistente a pragas e às mudanças climáticas.

“A colaboração entre a FAPESP e a Microsoft tem aberto para a comunidade científica do Estado de São Paulo inúmeras oportunidades de realizar pesquisas em temas ousados relacionados com o uso de tecnologias da informação em áreas como a de energia e meio ambiente”, disse Carlos Henrique de Brito Cruz, diretor científico da FAPESP, na sessão de abertura do workshop.

“Temos grandes expectativas em relação à eScience. Se soubermos utilizá-la adequadamente, ela poderá trazer grandes avanços não só em pesquisas mas também na própria maneira de se fazer ciência”, disse Brito Cruz.

Ele disse que a FAPESP planeja lançar em breve um programa voltado para apoiar pesquisas na área de eScience.

“Temos a clara convicção de que um papel importante da FAPESP é estar na vanguarda da inovação e do conhecimento, e consideramos muito importante o apoio à pesquisas em eScience, cuja aplicação em áreas como a de meio ambiente é inequívoca, mas que também apresenta um grande potencial de utilização nas Ciências Humanas, por exemplo”, disse Celso Lafer, presidente da FAPESP.

Levy destacou a parceria da Microsoft com a FAPESP e os investimentos em pesquisa e desenvolvimento realizados pela empresa no país. “A Microsoft tem aumentado seus investimentos na área de pesquisa e desenvolvimento no Brasil nos últimos anos e um dos mais importantes exemplos disso é a parceria bem sucedida que mantemos com a FAPESP”, afirmou.

Climate research nearly unanimous on human causes, survey finds (The Guardian)

23/05/2013Uncategorizedciência, Clima, Incerteza, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Opinião pública, Política, Previsãorenzotaddei

Of more than 4,000 academic papers published over 20 years, 97.1% agreed that climate change is anthropogenic

Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent

guardian.co.uk, Thursday 16 May 2013 00.01 BST

An iceberg melts in Greeland in 2007. Climate change. Environment. Global warming. Photograph: John McConnico/AP

‘Our findings prove that there is a strong scientific agreement about the cause of climate change, despite public perceptions to the contrary’. Photograph: John McConnico/AP

A survey of thousands of peer-reviewed papers in scientific journals has found 97.1% agreed that climate change is caused by human activity.

Authors of the survey, published on Thursday in the journal Environmental Research Letters, said the finding of near unanimity provided a powerful rebuttal to climate contrarians who insist the science of climate change remains unsettled.

The survey considered the work of some 29,000 scientists published in 11,994 academic papers. Of the 4,000-plus papers that took a position on the causes of climate change only 0.7% or 83 of those thousands of academic articles, disputed the scientific consensus that climate change is the result of human activity, with the view of the remaining 2.2% unclear.

The study described the dissent as a “vanishingly small proportion” of published research.

“Our findings prove that there is a strong scientific agreement about the cause of climate change, despite public perceptions to the contrary,” said John Cook of the University of Queensland, who led the survey.

Public opinion continues to lag behind the science. Though a majority of Americans accept the climate is changing, just 42% believed human activity was the main driver, in a poll conducted by the Pew Research Centre last October.

“There is a gaping chasm between the actual consensus and the public perception,” Cook said in a statement.

Guardian partners Climate Desk interview John Cook on his new paper

The study blamed strenuous lobbying efforts by industry to undermine the science behind climate change for the gap in perception. The resulting confusion has blocked efforts to act on climate change.

The survey was the most ambitious effort to date to demonstrate the broad agreement on the causes of climate change, covering 20 years of academic publications from 1991-2011.

In 2004, Naomi Oreskes, an historian at the University of California, San Diego,surveyed published literature, releasing her results in the journal Science. She too came up with a similar finding that 97% of climate scientists agreed on the causes of climate change.

She wrote of the new survey in an email: “It is a nice, independent confirmation, using a somewhat different methodology than I used, that comes to the same result. It also refutes the claim, sometimes made by contrarians, that the consensus has broken down, much less ‘shattered’.”

The Cook survey was broader in its scope, deploying volunteers from theSkepticalScience.com website to review scientific abstracts. The volunteers also asked authors to rate their own views on the causes of climate change, in another departure from Oreskes’s methods.

The authors said the findings could help close the gap between scientific opinion and the public on the causes of climate change, or anthropogenic global warming, and so create favourable conditions for political action on climate.

“The public perception of a scientific consensus on AGW [anthropogenic, ie man-made, global warming] is a necessary element in public support for climate policy,” the study said.

However, Prof Robert Brulle, a sociologist at Drexel University who studies the forces underlying attitudes towards climate change, disputed the idea that educating the public about the broad scientific agreement on the causes of climate change would have an effect on public opinion – or on the political conditions for climate action.

He said he was doubtful that convincing the public of a scientific consensus on climate change would help advance the prospects for political action. Having elite leaders call for climate action would be far more powerful, he said.

“I don’t think people really want to come around to grips with the fact that climate change is a highly ideological issue and it is not amenable to the information deficit model,” he said.

“The information deficit model, this idea that if you just pile on more information people will get convinced, is just completely inadequate, he said. “It strengthens the people who actually read and pay attention but it is certainly not going to change or shift the opinions of others.”

Jon Krosnick, professor in humanities and social sciences at Stanford university and an expert on public opinion on climate change, said: “I assume that sceptics would say that there is bias in the editorial process so that the papers ultimately published are not an accurate reflection of the opinions of scientists.”

“It’s happening now… The village is sinking” (The Guardian)

23/05/2013UncategorizedClima, Desastre, Incerteza, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Previsãorenzotaddei

Residents of Newtok, Alaska, know they must evacuate, but who will pay the $130m cost of moving them?

› Children jump over ground affected by erosion in Newtok. Natural erosion has accelerated due to climate change, with large areas of land lost to the Ninglick River each year. Photograph: Brian Adams

Suzanne Goldenberg in Newtok, Alaska, with video by Richard Sprenger

One afternoon in the waning days of winter, the most powerful man in Newtok, Alaska, hopped on a plane and flew 1,000 miles to plead for the survival of his village. Stanley Tom, Newtok’s administrator, had a clear purpose for his trip: find the money to move the village on the shores of the Bering Sea out of the way of an approaching disaster caused by climate change.

Village administrator Stanley Tom stands at Mertarvik, the site of relocated Newtok. Photograph: Brian Adams Photography

Newtok was rapidly losing ground to erosion. The land beneath the village was falling into the river. Tom needed money for bulldozers to begin preparing a new site for the village on higher ground. He needed funds for an airstrip, He came back from his meetings in Juneau, the Alaskan state capital, with expressions of sympathy – but nothing in the way of the cash he desperately needed. “It’s really complicated,” he said. “There are a lot of obstacles.”

Those obstacles – financial, legal and a supremely frustrating bureaucratic process – had slowed down the move for so long that some in Newtok, which is about 400 miles south of the Bering Strait that separates the US from Russia, feared they would be stuck as the village went down around them, houses swallowed up by the river.

“It’s really alarming,” said Tom, slumped in an armchair a few hours after his return to the village. “I have a hard time sleeping, and I’m getting up early in the morning. I am worried about it every day.”

The uncertainty was tearing the village apart. It also began to turn the village against Tom.

Over the winter, a large group of villagers decided that their administrator was not up to the job. By the time he returned from this particular trip, the dissidents had voted to replace the village council and to sack Tom – a vote that he ignored.

“The way I see it, we need someone who knows how to do the work,” said Katherine Charles, one of Tom’s most vocal critics. “I feel like we are being neglected. We are still standing here and we don’t know when we are going to move. For years now we have been frustrated. I have to ask myself: why are we even still here?”

It’s been more than a decade since Tom took charge of running Newtok, and leading the village out of climate disaster to higher ground.

The ground beneath Newtok is disappearing. Natural erosion has accelerated due to climate change, with large areas of land lost to the Ninglick river each year. A study by the Army Corps of Engineers found the highest point in the village would be below water level by 2017. The proximity of the threat to Newtok means that its villages are likely to be America’s first climate refugees.

Officials in Anchorage say Tom has worked tirelessly to move the village out of the way of a rampaging river. Among the relatively small circle of bureaucrats and lawyers who concern themselves with the problems of small and remote indigenous Alaskan villages, the Newtok administrator has a stellar reputation. He has won leadership awards from Native American groups in the rest of the country.

Tom said he hoped to make a big push this summer, acquiring heavy equipment that locals could use to begin moving some of the existing houses over to the new village site at Mertarvik nine miles to the south.

“It’s really happening right now. The village is sinking and flooding and eroding,” he said. He said he was planning to move his own belongings to the new village site this summer – and that villagers should start doing the same.

But Tom, despite his lobbying missions to Juneau and strong reputation with government officials, has failed to inject federal and state officials with that same sense of urgency.

Melting permafrost, sea-level rise, erosion – these are some of the worst consequences of climate change for Alaska. But none of those elements in Newtok’s slow destruction are recognised as disasters under existing legislation.

That means there is no designated pot of money set aside for those affected communities – unlike cities or towns destroyed by floods or tornados.

We weren’t thinking of climate change when federal disaster relief legislation was passed.

Robin Bronen, a human rights lawyer in Anchorage. ‘This is completely a human rights issue’ Photograph: Richard Sprenger

“We weren’t thinking of climate change when federal disaster relief legislation was passed,” said Robin Bronen, a human rights lawyer in Anchorage who has made a dozen visits to Newtok. “Our legal system is not set up. The institutions that we have created to respond to disasters are not up to the task of responding to climate change.”

In Bronen’s view, Congress needed to rewrite existing disaster legislation to take account of climate change. Communities needed to be able to access those disaster funds — if not to rebuild in place, which is not feasible in Newtok’s case, then to move.

The authorities also had responsibility under the treaty agreements with indigenous Alaskan tribes to guarantee the safety and wellbeing of indigenous communities, she argued.

“This is completely a human rights issue,” Bronen said. “When you are talking about a people who have done the least to contribute to our climate crisis facing such dramatic consequences as a result of climate change, we have a moral and legal responsibility to respond and provide the funding needed so that these communities are not in danger.”

Until then, however, it was up to Tom to find new ways to prise funds out of an unresponsive bureaucracy. It turned out that he had a knack for it.

Government officials praised Tom for finding other sources of funds, such as development grants, and putting them to use for building the new village site. But it has been a laborious process for the remote village to find its way through the different funding agencies and a maze of competing regulations.

As Tom found out, each agency had its own set of rules. The state government would not build a school for fewer than 10 children. The federal government would not build an airstrip at a village without a post office. But the rules, from Newtok’s vantage point, appeared to have at least one point in common. They seemed to conspire against the village ever getting its move off the ground.

In 2011, Alaska’s government published a timetable for Newtok’s move, setting out dates for building an emergency centre, housing, an airstrip – all items on Tom’s list. Two years later, the plan is already behind schedule and the official who oversaw that original timetable said there was little chance of getting back on track.

Newtok is something that is probably going to play out over several decades unless it reaches a dire point where something has to be done immediately to keep the people safe

Larry Hartig, who heads Alaska’s Department of Environmental Conservation

“Newtok is something that is probably going to play out over several decades unless it reaches a dire point where something has to be done immediately to keep the people safe,” said Larry Hartig, who heads Alaska’s Department of Environmental Conservation.

Officially, the government of Alaska remains committed to helping Newtok and all the other indigenous Alaskan villages that are threatened by climate change.

Almost all of Alaska’s indigenous villages – more than 180 – are experiencing the effects of climate change, including severe flooding and erosion. Some may be able to hold back rivers and sea, but others will have to move. About half a dozen villages, including Newtok, face extreme risks.

A mosaic of sea ice shifts across the Bering Sea, west of Alaska on 5 February, 2008. On either side of the Bering Strait (top centre) the land is blanketed with snow. Anchorage is located in the middle right-hand side of the image, at the top of the Cook Inlet. The village of Newtok is located north of Nunivak Island (middle), close to the coast on the lowland plain of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, one of the largest river deltas in the world, which mostly consists of tundra. Photograph: NASA/Aqua/MODIS

“I am not going to tell any community that they are not going to survive. If the residents want to survive, we will help them,” said Mead Treadwell, the state’s lieutenant governor.

But the cost of relocating just one village — Newtok — could run as high as $130m, according to an estimate by the Army Corps of Engineers. That’s more than $350,000 per villager. Multiply that by half a dozen, or several more times, and the cost of protecting indigenous Alaskan villages from climate change soon soars into the billions.

So far, Newtok has received a total of about $12m in state funds over the past four years, according to George Owletuck, a consultant hired by Tom to help with the move. Much of that has already gone, to build a barge landing, a few new homes, and an emergency evacuation centre – in case the village does not manage to move in time.

Officially, federal and state government agencies have spent some $27m getting Mertarvik ready, although a considerable share of that figure, some $6m, did not go directly to the relocation, said Sally Russell Cox, the state official overseeing the move. And there is still no major infrastructure completed at Mertarvik.

Would the government of Alaska commit to picking up the rest of the tab for Newtok and the other villages?

Alaska’s oil revenues have fallen off over the years. In 2012, the state slipped into second place for oil production behind North Dakota. Treadwell admitted the state government would not cover the entire cost of fortifying or moving all of the villages threatened by climate change.

“On the question of is there money to help them with one cheque? That is something there clearly is not,” he said.

Treadwell suggested some of the at-risk villages could raise funds by setting themselves up as hubs for oil companies hoping to drill in Arctic waters.

However, a number of oil companies have put their Arctic drilling plans on hold for 2013 and 2014. Treadwell admitted there was as yet no comprehensive climate change plan for Newtok and other villages. “I think it’s going to be piece by piece with each community and many different pots of money,” he said.

In the case of Newtok, Owletuck, the consultant, had big ideas for financing the move: growing fruit and vegetables hydroponically in green houses, or testing the possibilities of producing biofuels from algae.

He let it be known the village may even have found a mysterious benefactor. Owletuck said he’d had an approach from private individuals, whom he declined to name, wanting to donate $22m to the move.

None of those propositions have materialised, however. And after more than a decade of uncertainty about the future under climate change, the basic infrastructure of Newtok is coming apart.

The impact on Newtok

The rising sea due to erosion and climate change has dramatically altered Newtok Village and by 2027 is expected to cover nearly a third of the village. Historic shorelines digitized from USGS topographic maps and aerial photos. Source: Army Corps of Engineers

Snow covers up a lot of Newtok’s flaws: the open sewage pits, the broken board walk over mudflats, some of the abandoned snowmobile wrecks.

Newtok has for years been considered a “distressed village”, with average income of $16,000, well below the rest of the state. Fewer than half of adults in the village have paid work. But even within those dismal measures, conditions have sharply deteriorated in the years since the village has been planning to move.

Aside from the clinic and the school, most buildings are in a state of advanced dilapidation. The floor in the community hall sags like an old mattress. The community laundry is out of order.

In the cramped offices of the traditional council, where Tom works, the furniture dates from the 1970s or 1980s, mid-brown vinyl chairs where the casing has split open, revealing the dirty foam inside. It’s not unheard of to find families of 10 or 12 children living in houses of less than 800 sq ft – and none of those homes have flush toilets or running water.

Early mornings find the men of the household trudging out of their homes with 5 gallon buckets of waste, which get dumped at various spots on the edges of the village, including a small stream.

The diesel-powered generator was nearing the end of its life span. The water treatment plant was shut down last October after people began getting sick. Tom said there was contamination from leaking jet fuel at the airport.

For now, villagers are drawing water from the school, which had a separate system. But the school principal said he would have to cut that off in May to preserve the system for the schoolchildren.

Tom said there was nothing he could do. Government agencies would not fund improvements at the current village site, because of the plan to move. “There is no money to improve our community,” he said. “We are suspended from federal and state agencies and there is no way of improving our lives over here. The agencies do not want to work on both villages at once.”

By last October, frustration with the stalled move and conditions in the village exploded. Villagers accused their own council of failing to hold regular elections, and raised a petition to throw out the leaders and replace Tom.

Some accused him of presiding over a dictatorship in the village. Others speculated that he and the paid consultant, Oweituck, were plotting to rob the relocation funds.

One of the dissidents, a relative newcomer to the village, posted ferocious criticism of Tom on Facebook calling for rebellion.

The dissidents organised elections, voted out the old council and installed their own leaders. Tom ignored the result. “Let them cry all they want,” he said. “I don’t care. They are not going to help my community. I am way ahead of these guys.”

The upheavals in Newtok are sadly familiar to those who have worked with indigenous Alaskan villages confronting climate change. “I don’t think you would find one community that says they are happy with the pace that’s gone on,” said Patricia Cochran, director of the Alaska Native Science Commission.

“To be honest with you, I think the state and the feds have done a terrible job, not only in assessing the conditions that communities are living within but in responding to them,” she said. “Because these communities are listed as threatened and may potentially be relocated, they are not able to get any funds now for infrastructure that is being damaged right now.”

That leaves communities stuck in a limbo that can carry for years or even decades.

That’s what has become of Newtok. The effects are devastating, said Charles. Beyond all her anger she admitted was an all-enveloping fear. “Sometimes I get scared. I’m scared for my own family. How will I take care of them if the relocation doesn’t start right away?”

She had been waiting for years to see the beginnings of any new settlement in rural Alaska rising up on the rocky hill of Mertarvik: the airport, the barge landing, the school, the houses. None of it was there yet, and Charles said she was coming close to despair.

“It’s been going on for I don’t know how long, and I am beginning to lose hope.”

For Insurers, No Doubts on Climate Change (N.Y.Times)

23/05/2013UncategorizedCapitalismo, Clima, Desastre, Economia, Incerteza, Mediação tecnológica, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Previsãorenzotaddei

Master Sgt. Mark Olsen/U.S. Air Force, via Associated Press. Damage in Mantoloking, N.J., after Hurricane Sandy. Natural disasters caused $35 billion in private property losses last year.

By EDUARDO PORTER

Published: May 14, 2013

If there were one American industry that would be particularly worried about climate change it would have to be insurance, right?

From Hurricane Sandy’s devastating blow to the Northeast to the protracted drought that hit the Midwest Corn Belt, natural catastrophes across the United States pounded insurers last year, generating$35 billion in privately insured property losses, $11 billion more than the average over the last decade.

And the industry expects the situation will get worse. “Numerous studies assume a rise in summer drought periods in North America in the future and an increasing probability of severe cyclones relatively far north along the U.S. East Coast in the long term,” said Peter Höppe, who heads Geo Risks Research at the reinsurance giant Munich Re. “The rise in sea level caused by climate change will further increase the risk of storm surge.” Most insurers, including the reinsurance companies that bear much of the ultimate risk in the industry, have little time for the arguments heard in some right-wing circles that climate change isn’t happening, and are quite comfortable with the scientific consensus that burning fossil fuels is the main culprit of global warming.

“Insurance is heavily dependent on scientific thought,” Frank Nutter, president of the Reinsurance Association of America, told me last week. “It is not as amenable to politicized scientific thought.”

Yet when I asked Mr. Nutter what the American insurance industry was doing to combat global warming, his answer was surprising: nothing much. “The industry has really not been engaged in advocacy related to carbon taxes or proposals addressing carbon,” he said. While some big European reinsurers like Munich Re and Swiss Re support efforts to reduce CO₂ emissions, “in the United States the household names really have not engaged at all.” Instead, the focus of insurers’ advocacy efforts is zoning rules and disaster mitigation.

Last week, scientists announced that the concentration of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere had reached 400 parts per million — its highest level in at least three million years, before humans appeared on the scene. Back then, mastodons roamed the earth, the polar ice caps were smaller and the sea level was as much as 60 to 80 feet higher.

The milestone puts the earth nearer a point of no return, many scientists think, when vast, disruptive climate change is baked into our future. Pietr P. Tans, who runs the monitoring program at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told my colleague Justin Gillis: “It symbolizes that so far we have failed miserably in tackling this problem.” And it raises a perplexing question: why hasn’t corporate America done more to sway its allies in the Republican Party to try to avert a disaster that would clearly be devastating to its own interests?

Mr. Nutter argues that the insurance industry’s reluctance is born of hesitation to become embroiled in controversies over energy policy. But perhaps its executives simply don’t feel so vulnerable. Like farmers, who are largely protected from the ravages of climate change by government-financed crop insurance, insurers also have less to fear than it might at first appear.

The federal government covers flood insurance, among the riskiest kind in this time of crazy weather. And insurers can raise premiums or even drop coverage to adjust to higher risks. Indeed, despite Sandy and drought, property and casualty insurance in the United States was more profitable in 2012 than in 2011, according to the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America.

But the industry’s analysis of the risks it faces is evolving. One sign of that is how some top American insurers responded to a billboard taken out by the conservative Heartland Institute, a prominent climate change denier that has received support from the insurance industry.

The billboard had a picture of Theodore Kaczynski, the Unabomber, who asked: “I still believe in global warming. Do you?”

Concerned about global warming and angry to be equated with a murderous psychopath, insurance companies like Allied World, Renaissance Re, State Farm and XL Groupdropped their support for Heartland.

Even more telling, Eli Lehrer, a Heartland vice president who at the time led an insurance-financed project, left the group and helped start the R Street Institute, a standard conservative organization in all respects but one: it believes in climate change and supports a carbon tax to combat it. And it is financed largely with insurance industry money.

Mr. Lehrer points out that a carbon tax fits conservative orthodoxy. It is a broad and flat tax, whose revenue can be used to do away with the corporate income tax — a favorite target of the right. It provides a market-friendly signal, forcing polluters to bear the cost imposed on the rest of us and encouraging them to pollute less. And it is much preferable to a parade of new regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency.

“We are having a debate on the right about a carbon tax for the first time in a long time,” Mr. Lehrer said.

Bob Inglis, formerly a Republican congressman from South Carolina who lost his seat in the 2010 primary to a Tea Party-supported challenger, is another member of this budding coalition. Before he left Congress, he proposed a revenue-neutral bill to create a carbon tax and cut payroll taxes.

Changing the political economy of a carbon tax remains an uphill slog especially in a stagnant economy. But Mr. Inglis notices a thaw. “The best way to do this is in the context of a grand bargain on tax reform,” he said. “It could happen in 2015 or 2016, but probably not before.”

He lists a dozen Republicans in the House and eight in the Senate who would be open to legislation to help avert climate change. He notes that Exelon, the gas and electricity giant, is sympathetic to his efforts — perhaps not least because a carbon tax would give an edge to gas over its dirtier rival, coal. Exxon, too, has also said a carbon tax would be the most effective way to reduce emissions. So why hasn’t the insurance industry come on board?

Robert Muir-Wood is the chief research officer of Risk Management Solutions, one of two main companies the insurance industry relies on to crunch data and model future risks. He argues that insurers haven’t changed their tune because — with the exception of 2004 and 2005, when a string of hurricanes from Ivan to Katrina caused damage worth more than $200 billion — they haven’t yet experienced hefty, sustained losses attributable to climate change.

“Insurers were ready to sign up to all sorts of actions against climate change,” Mr. Muir-Wood told me from his office in London. Then the weather calmed down.

Still, Mr. Muir-Wood notes that the insurance industry faces a different sort of risk: political action. “That is the biggest threat,” he said. When insurers canceled policies and raised premiums in Florida in 2006, politicians jumped on them. “Insurers in Florida,” he said, “became Public Enemy No. 1.”

And that’s the best hope for those concerned about climate change: that global warming isn’t just devastating for society, but also bad for business.

Climate slowdown means extreme rates of warming ‘not as likely’ (BBC)

21/05/2013UncategorizedClima, Economia, Enquadramento, Incerteza, Mídia, Mediação tecnológica, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Política, Políticas públicas, Previsãorenzotaddei

19 May 2013 Last updated at 17:31 GMT

By Matt McGrath – Environment correspondent, BBC News

The impacts of rising temperature are being felt particularly keenly in the polar regions

Scientists say the recent downturn in the rate of global warming will lead to lower temperature rises in the short-term.

Since 1998, there has been an unexplained “standstill” in the heating of the Earth’s atmosphere.

Writing in Nature Geoscience, the researchers say this will reduce predicted warming in the coming decades.

But long-term, the expected temperature rises will not alter significantly.

“The most extreme projections are looking less likely than before” – Dr Alexander Otto, University of Oxford

The slowdown in the expected rate of global warming has been studied for several years now. Earlier this year, the UK Met Office lowered their five-year temperature forecast.

But this new paper gives the clearest picture yet of how any slowdown is likely to affect temperatures in both the short-term and long-term.

An international team of researchers looked at how the last decade would impact long-term, equilibrium climate sensitivity and the shorter term climate response.

Transient nature

Climate sensitivity looks to see what would happen if we doubled concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere and let the Earth’s oceans and ice sheets respond to it over several thousand years.

Transient climate response is much shorter term calculation again based on a doubling of CO2.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported in 2007 that the short-term temperature rise would most likely be 1-3C (1.8-5.4F).

But in this new analysis, by only including the temperatures from the last decade, the projected range would be 0.9-2.0C.

Ice The report suggests that warming in the near term will be less than forecast

“The hottest of the models in the medium-term, they are actually looking less likely or inconsistent with the data from the last decade alone,” said Dr Alexander Otto from the University of Oxford.

“The most extreme projections are looking less likely than before.”

The authors calculate that over the coming decades global average temperatures will warm about 20% more slowly than expected.

But when it comes to the longer term picture, the authors say their work is consistent with previous estimates. The IPCC said that climate sensitivity was in the range of 2.0-4.5C.

Ocean storage

This latest research, including the decade of stalled temperature rises, produces a range of 0.9-5.0C.

“It is a bigger range of uncertainty,” said Dr Otto.

“But it still includes the old range. We would all like climate sensitivity to be lower but it isn’t.”

The researchers say the difference between the lower short-term estimate and the more consistent long-term picture can be explained by the fact that the heat from the last decade has been absorbed into and is being stored by the world’s oceans.

Not everyone agrees with this perspective.

Prof Steven Sherwood, from the University of New South Wales, says the conclusion about the oceans needs to be taken with a grain of salt for now.

“There is other research out there pointing out that this storage may be part of a natural cycle that will eventually reverse, either due to El Nino or the so-called Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, and therefore may not imply what the authors are suggesting,” he said.

The authors say there are ongoing uncertainties surrounding the role of aerosols in the atmosphere and around the issue of clouds.

“We would expect a single decade to jump around a bit but the overall trend is independent of it, and people should be exactly as concerned as before about what climate change is doing,” said Dr Otto.

Is there any succour in these findings for climate sceptics who say the slowdown over the past 14 years means the global warming is not real?

“None. No comfort whatsoever,” he said.

World Bank turns to hydropower to square development with climate change (Washington Post)

17/05/2013UncategorizedBanco Mundial, Capitalismo, Clima, Desastre, Economia, Incerteza, Mudanças climáticas, Política, Políticas públicas, Previsãorenzotaddei

Michael Reynolds/European Photopress Agency – World Bank President Jim Yong Kim attends the Fragility Forum this month in Washington. The forum discussed ways for fragile nations to improve their economies, their infrastructure and the well-being of their citizens.

By Howard Schneider, Published: May 8, 2013

The World Bank is making a major push to develop large-scale hydropower projects around the globe, something it had all but abandoned a decade ago but now sees as crucial to resolving the tension between economic development and the drive to tame carbon use.

Major hydropower projects in Congo, Zambia, Nepal and elsewhere — all of a scale dubbed “transformational” to the regions involved — are a focus of the bank’s fundraising drive among wealthy nations. Bank lending for hydropower has scaled up steadily in recent years, and officials expect the trend to continue amid a worldwide boom in water-fueled electricity.

Such projects were shunned in the 1990s, in part because they can be disruptive to communities and ecosystems. But the World Bank is opening the taps for dams, transmission lines and related infrastructure as its president, Jim Yong Kim, tries to resolve a quandary at the bank’s core: how to eliminate poverty while adding as little as possible to carbon emissions.

“Large hydro is a very big part of the solution for Africa and South Asia and Southeast Asia. . . . I fundamentally believe we have to be involved,” said Rachel Kyte, the bank’s vice president for sustainable development and an influential voice among Kim’s top staff members. The earlier move out of hydro “was the wrong message. . . . That was then. This is now. We are back.”

It is a controversial stand. The bank backed out of large-scale hydropower because of the steep trade-offs involved. Big dams produce lots of cheap, clean electricity, but they often uproot villages in dam-flooded areas and destroy the livelihoods of the people the institution is supposed to help. A 2009 World Bank review of hydropower noted the “overwhelming environmental and social risks” that had to be addressed but also concluded that Africa and Asia’s vast and largely undeveloped hydropower potential was key to providing dependable electricity to the hundreds of millions of people who remain without it.

“What’s the one issue that’s holding back development in the poorest countries? It’s energy. There’s just no question,” Kim said in an interview.

Advocacy groups remain skeptical, arguing that large projects, such as Congo’s long-debated network of dams around Inga Falls, may be of more benefit to mining companies or industries in neighboring countries than poor communities.

“It is the old idea of a silver bullet that can modernize whole economies,” said Peter Bosshard, policy director of International Rivers, a group that has organized opposition to the bank’s evolving hydro policy and argued for smaller projects designed around communities rather than mega-dams meant to export power throughout a region.

“Turning back to hydro is being anything but a progressive climate bank,” said Justin Guay, a Sierra Club spokesman on climate and energy issues. “There needs to be a clear shift from large, centralized projects.”

The major nations that support the World Bank, however, have been pushing it to identify such projects — complex undertakings that might happen only if an international organization is involved in sorting out the financing, overseeing the performance and navigating the politics.

The move toward big hydro comes amid Kim’s stark warning that global warming will leave the next generation with an “unrecognizable planet.” That dire prediction, however, has left him struggling to determine how best to respond and frustrated by some of the bank’s inherent limitations.

In his speeches, Kim talks passionately about the bank’s ability to “catalyze” and “leverage” the world to action by mobilizing money and ideas, and he says he is hunting for ideas “equal to the challenge” of curbing carbon use. He has criticized the “small bore” thinking that he says has hobbled progress on the issue.

However, the bank remains in the business of financing traditional fossil-fuel plants, including those that use the dirtiest form of coal, as well as cleaner but carbon-based natural gas infrastructures.

Among the projects likely to cross Kim’s desk in coming months, for example, is a 600-megawatt power plant in Kosovo that would be fired by lignite coal, the bottom of the barrel when it comes to carbon emissions.

The plant has strong backing from the United States, the World Bank’s major shareholder. It also meshes with one of the bank’s other long-standing imperatives: Give countries what they ask for. The institution has 188 members to keep happy and can go only so far in trying to impose its judgment over that of local officials. Kim, who in his younger days demonstrated against World Bank-enforced “orthodoxy” in economic policy, now may be hard-pressed to enforce an energy orthodoxy of his own.

Kosovo’s domestic supplies of lignite are ample enough to free the country from imported fuel. Kim said there is little question that Kosovo needs more electricity, and the new plant will allow an older, more polluting facility to be shut down.

“I would just love to never sign a coal project,” Kim said. “We understand it is much, much dirtier, but . . . we have 188 members. . . . We have to be fair in balancing the needs of poor countries . . . with this other bigger goal of tackling climate change.”

The bank is working on other ideas. Kim said he is considering how it might get involved in creating a more effective world market for carbon, allowing countries that invest in renewable energy or “climate friendly” agriculture to be paid for their carbon savings by industries that need to use fossil fuels. Existing carbon markets have been plagued with volatile pricing — Europe’s cost of carbon has basically collapsed — or rules that prevent carbon trading with developing countries.

“We’ve got to figure out a way to establish a stable price of carbon,” Kim said. “Everybody knows that.”

He has also staked hope for climate progress on developments in agriculture.

Hydropower projects, however, seem notably inside what Kim says is the bank’s sweet spot — complex, high-impact, green and requiring the sort of joint public and private financing Kim says the bank can attract.

The massive hydropower potential of the Congo River, estimated at about 40,000 megawatts, is such a target. Its development is on a list of top world infrastructure priorities prepared by the World Bank and other development agencies for the Group of 20 major economic powers.

Two smaller dams on the river have been plagued by poor performance and are being rehabilitated with World Bank assistance. A third being planned would represent a quantum jump — a 4,800-megawatt, $12 billion giant that would move an entire region off carbon-based electricity.

The African Development Bank has begun negotiations over the financing, and the World Bank is ready to step in with tens of millions of dollars in technical-planning help.

“In an ideal world, we start building in 2016. By 2020, we switch on the lights,” said Hela Cheikhrouhou, energy and environment director for the African Development Bank.

It is the sort of project that the World Bank had stayed away from for many years — not least because of instability in the country. But as the country tries to move beyond its civil war and the region intensifies its quest for the power to fuel economic growth, the bank seems ready to move. Kim will visit Congo this month for a discussion about development in fragile and war-torn states.

Kyte, the World Bank vice president, said the Inga project will be high on the agenda.

“People have been looking at the Inga dam for as long as I have been in the development business,” she said. “The question is: Did the stars align? Did you have a government in place? Did people want to do it? Are there investors interested? Do you have the ability to do the technical work? The stars are aligned now. Let’s go.”

Câmara de São Paulo aprova envio de torpedo para alertar chuvas (Folha de S.Paulo)

17/05/2013UncategorizedClima, Desastre, Incerteza, Meteorologia, Políticas públicas, Previsãorenzotaddei

16/05/2013 – 17h01

GIBA BERGAMIM JR., DE SÃO PAULO

Atualizado às 17h54.

A Câmara de São Paulo aprovou um projeto que obriga a prefeitura a enviar mensagens de texto aos celulares dos paulistanos com alertas sobre a chegada de chuvas e de iminentes alagamentos.

De autoria do vereador Ricardo Young (PPS), o projeto agora precisa ser sancionado pelo prefeito Fernando Haddad (PT) para começar a valer.

Hoje, a única maneira de se informar sobre isso é acompanhando o noticiário nas rádios e emissoras de TV ou por meio do site do CGE (Centro de Gerenciamento de Emergências), da prefeitura, que monitora as chuvas na cidade.

O vereador diz que se inspirou em iniciativas do tipo nos Estados Unidos e Europa para dar informações sobre nevascas, por exemplo.

Em 2011, a prefeitura deu início a um projeto semelhante, mas apenas para os moradores da região da favela Pantanal, na zona leste de São Paulo, que sofreu com as enchentes durante quase dois meses inteiros durante o verão.

De acordo com o texto de Young, o município terá que celebrar convênios com empresas de telefonia móvel. As informações terão que ser passadas com antecedência de pelo menos duas horas aos paulistanos.

Segundo o parlamentar, o projeto permitiria que empresas, repartições públicas e escolas pudessem antecipar o fim do expediente para que os paulistanos cheguem em casa antes das chuvas.

PROJETOS

Também foi aprovado projeto dos vereadores Antonio Goulart (PSD) e Roberto Trípoli (PV) que permite que os animais de estimação sejam enterrados no mesmo jazigo de seus donos em cemitérios municipais. O projeto irá a segunda votação.

A um ano da Copa do Mundo, os vereadores também deram o título de cidadão paulistano para o presidente da Fifa, Joseph Blatter

Climate Change Will Cause Widespread Global-Scale Loss of Common Plants and Animals, Researchers Predict (Science Daily)

13/05/2013UncategorizedAnimais, Clima, Desastre, Extinção, Incerteza, Meio ambiente, Mudanças climáticas, Previsãorenzotaddei

May 12, 2013 — More than half of common plants and one third of the animals could see a dramatic decline this century due to climate change, according to research from the University of East Anglia.

Frog. Plants, reptiles and particularly amphibians are expected to be at highest risk. (Credit: © Anna Omelchenko / Fotolia)

Research published today in the journal Nature Climate Change looked at 50,000 globally widespread and common species and found that more than one half of the plants and one third of the animals will lose more than half of their climatic range by 2080 if nothing is done to reduce the amount of global warming and slow it down.

This means that geographic ranges of common plants and animals will shrink globally and biodiversity will decline almost everywhere.

Plants, reptiles and particularly amphibians are expected to be at highest risk. Sub-Saharan Africa, Central America, Amazonia and Australia would lose the most species of plants and animals. And a major loss of plant species is projected for North Africa, Central Asia and South-eastern Europe.

But acting quickly to mitigate climate change could reduce losses by 60 per cent and buy an additional 40 years for species to adapt. This is because this mitigation would slow and then stop global temperatures from rising by more than two degrees Celsius relative to pre-industrial times (1765). Without this mitigation, global temperatures could rise by 4 degrees Celsius by 2100.

The study was led by Dr Rachel Warren from UEA’s school of Environmental Sciences and the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. Collaborators include Dr.Jeremy VanDerWal at James Cook University in Australia and Dr Jeff Price, also at UEA’s school of Environmental Sciences and the Tyndall Centre. The research was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).

Dr Warren said: “While there has been much research on the effect of climate change on rare and endangered species, little has been known about how an increase in global temperature will affect more common species.

“This broader issue of potential range loss in widespread species is a serious concern as even small declines in these species can significantly disrupt ecosystems.

“Our research predicts that climate change will greatly reduce the diversity of even very common species found in most parts of the world. This loss of global-scale biodiversity would significantly impoverish the biosphere and the ecosystem services it provides.

“We looked at the effect of rising global temperatures, but other symptoms of climate change such as extreme weather events, pests, and diseases mean that our estimates are probably conservative. Animals in particular may decline more as our predictions will be compounded by a loss of food from plants.

“There will also be a knock-on effect for humans because these species are important for things like water and air purification, flood control, nutrient cycling, and eco-tourism.

“The good news is that our research provides crucial new evidence of how swift action to reduce CO₂ and other greenhouse gases can prevent the biodiversity loss by reducing the amount of global warming to 2 degrees Celsius rather than 4 degrees. This would also buy time — up to four decades — for plants and animals to adapt to the remaining 2 degrees of climate change.”

The research team quantified the benefits of acting now to mitigate climate change and found that up to 60 per cent of the projected climatic range loss for biodiversity can be avoided.

Dr Warren said: “Prompt and stringent action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions globally would reduce these biodiversity losses by 60 per cent if global emissions peak in 2016, or by 40 per cent if emissions peak in 2030, showing that early action is very beneficial. This will both reduce the amount of climate change and also slow climate change down, making it easier for species and humans to adapt.”

Information on the current distributions of the species used in this research came from the datasets shared online by hundreds of volunteers, scientists and natural history collections through the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF).

Co-author Dr Jeff Price, also from UEA’s school of Environmental Studies, said: “Without free and open access to massive amounts of data such as those made available online through GBIF, no individual researcher is able to contact every country, every museum, every scientist holding the data and pull it all together. So this research would not be possible without GBIF and its global community of researchers and volunteers who make their data freely available.”

Journal Reference:

R. Warren, J. VanDerWal, J. Price, J. A. Welbergen, I. Atkinson, et al. Quantifying the benefit of early climate change mitigation in avoiding biodiversity loss. Nature Climate Change, 2013 DOI: 10.1038/nclimate1887

Global Networks Must Be Redesigned, Experts Urge (Science Daily)

11/05/2013UncategorizedCapitalismo, Desastre, Globalização, Incerteza, Mediação tecnológica, Políticas públicas, Previsão, Redes, Riscorenzotaddei

May 1, 2013 — Our global networks have generated many benefits and new opportunities. However, they have also established highways for failure propagation, which can ultimately result in human-made disasters. For example, today’s quick spreading of emerging epidemics is largely a result of global air traffic, with serious impacts on global health, social welfare, and economic systems.

Our global networks have generated many benefits and new opportunities. However, they have also established highways for failure propagation, which can ultimately result in human-made disasters. For example, today’s quick spreading of emerging epidemics is largely a result of global air traffic, with serious impacts on global health, social welfare, and economic systems. (Credit: © Angie Lingnau / Fotolia)

Helbing’s publication illustrates how cascade effects and complex dynamics amplify the vulnerability of networked systems. For example, just a few long-distance connections can largely decrease our ability to mitigate the threats posed by global pandemics. Initially beneficial trends, such as globalization, increasing network densities, higher complexity, and an acceleration of institutional decision processes may ultimately push human-made or human-influenced systems towards systemic instability, Helbing finds. Systemic instability refers to a system, which will get out of control sooner or later, even if everybody involved is well skilled, highly motivated and behaving properly. Crowd disasters are shocking examples illustrating that many deaths may occur even when everybody tries hard not to hurt anyone.

Our Intuition of Systemic Risks Is Misleading

Networking system components that are well-behaved in separation may create counter-intuitive emergent system behaviors, which are not well-behaved at all. For example, cooperative behavior might unexpectedly break down as the connectivity of interaction partners grows. “Applying this to the global network of banks, this might actually have caused the financial meltdown in 2008,” believes Helbing.

Globally networked risks are difficult to identify, map and understand, since there are often no evident, unique cause-effect relationships. Failure rates may change depending on the random path taken by the system, with the consequence of increasing risks as cascade failures progress, thereby decreasing the capacity of the system to recover. “In certain cases, cascade effects might reach any size, and the damage might be practically unbounded,” says Helbing. “This is quite disturbing and hard to imagine.” All of these features make strongly coupled, complex systems difficult to predict and control, such that our attempts to manage them go astray.

“Take the financial system,” says Helbing. “The financial crisis hit regulators by surprise.” But back in 2003, the legendary investor Warren Buffet warned of mega-catastrophic risks created by large-scale investments into financial derivatives. It took 5 years until the “investment time bomb” exploded, causing losses of trillions of dollars to our economy. “The financial architecture is not properly designed,” concludes Helbing. “The system lacks breaking points, as we have them in our electrical system.” This allows local problems to spread globally, thereby reaching catastrophic dimensions.

A Global Ticking Time Bomb?

Have we unintentionally created a global time bomb? If so, what kinds of global catastrophic scenarios might humans face in complex societies? A collapse of the world economy or of our information and communication systems? Global pandemics? Unsustainable growth or environmental change? A global food or energy crisis? A cultural clash or global-scale conflict? Or will we face a combination of these contagious phenomena — a scenario that the World Economic Forum calls the “perfect storm”?

“While analyzing such global risks,” says Helbing, “one must bear in mind that the propagation speed of destructive cascade effects might be slow, but nevertheless hard to stop. It is time to recognize that crowd disasters, conflicts, revolutions, wars, and financial crises are the undesired result of operating socio-economic systems in the wrong parameter range, where systems are unstable.” In the past, these social problems seemed to be puzzling, unrelated, and almost “God-given” phenomena one had to live with. Nowadays, thanks to new complexity science models and large-scale data sets (“Big Data”), one can analyze and understand the underlying mechanisms, which let complex systems get out of control.

Disasters should not be considered “bad luck.” They are a result of inappropriate interactions and institutional settings, caused by humans. Even worse, they are often the consequence of a flawed understanding of counter-intuitive system behaviors. “For example, it is surprising that we didn’t have sufficient precautions against a financial crisis and well-elaborated contingency plans,” states Helbing. “Perhaps, this is because there should not be any bubbles and crashes according to the predominant theoretical paradigm of efficient markets.” Conventional thinking can cause fateful decisions and the repetition of previous mistakes. “In other words: While we want to do the right thing, we often do wrong things,” concludes Helbing. This obviously calls for a paradigm shift in our thinking. “For example, we may try to promote innovation, but suffer economic decline, because innovation requires diversity more than homogenization.”

Global Networks Must Be Re-Designed

Helbing’s publication explores why today’s risk analysis falls short. “Predictability and controllability are design issues,” stresses Helbing. “And uncertainty, which means the impossibility to determine the likelihood and expected size of damage, is often man-made.” Many systems could be better managed with real-time data. These would allow one to avoid delayed response and to enhance the transparency, understanding, and adaptive control of systems. However, even all the data in the world cannot compensate for ill-designed systems such as the current financial system. Such systems will sooner or later get out of control, causing catastrophic human-made failure. Therefore, a re-design of such systems is urgently needed.

Helbing’s Nature paper on “Globally Networked Risks” also calls attention to strategies that make systems more resilient, i.e. able to recover from shocks. For example, setting up backup systems (e.g. a parallel financial system), limiting the system size and connectivity, building in breaking points to stop cascade effects, or reducing complexity may be used to improve resilience. In the case of financial systems, there is still much work to be done to fully incorporate these principles.

Contemporary information and communication technologies (ICT) are also far from being failure-proof. They are based on principles that are 30 or more years old and not designed for today’s use. The explosion of cyber risks is a logical consequence. This includes threats to individuals (such as privacy intrusion, identity theft, or manipulation through personalized information), to companies (such as cybercrime), and to societies (such as cyberwar or totalitarian control). To counter this, Helbing recommends an entirely new ICT architecture inspired by principles of decentralized self-organization as observed in immune systems, ecology, and social systems.

Coming Era of Social Innovation

A better understanding of the success principles of societies is urgently needed. “For example, when systems become too complex, they cannot be effectively managed top-down” explains Helbing. “Guided self-organization is a promising alternative to manage complex dynamical systems bottom-up, in a decentralized way.” The underlying idea is to exploit, rather than fight, the inherent tendency of complex systems to self-organize and thereby create a robust, ordered state. For this, it is important to have the right kinds of interactions, adaptive feedback mechanisms, and institutional settings, i.e. to establish proper “rules of the game.” The paper offers the example of an intriguing “self-control” principle, where traffic lights are controlled bottom-up by the vehicle flows rather than top-down by a traffic center.

Creating and Protecting Social Capital

“One man’s disaster is another man’s opportunity. Therefore, many problems can only be successfully addressed with transparency, accountability, awareness, and collective responsibility,” underlines Helbing. Moreover, social capital such as cooperativeness or trust is important for economic value generation, social well-being and societal resilience, but it may be damaged or exploited. “Humans must learn how to quantify and protect social capital. A warning example is the loss of trillions of dollars in the stock markets during the financial crisis.” This crisis was largely caused by a loss of trust. “It is important to stress that risk insurances today do not consider damage to social capital,” Helbing continues. However, it is known that large-scale disasters have a disproportionate public impact, in part because they destroy social capital. As we neglect social capital in risk assessments, we are taking excessive risks.

Journal Reference:

Dirk Helbing. Globally networked risks and how to respond. Nature, 2013; 497 (7447): 51 DOI:10.1038/nature12047

European carbon market in trouble (Washington Post)

07/05/2013UncategorizedCapitalismo, Clima, Economia, Incerteza, Mudanças climáticas, Políticas públicas, Previsãorenzotaddei

By Anthony Faiola, Published: May 5

LONDON — As the centerpiece of Europe’s pledge to lead the global battle against climate change, the region’s market for carbon emissions effectively turned pollution into a commodity that could be traded like gold or oil. But the once-thriving pollution trade here has turned into a carbon bust.Under the system, 31 nations slapped emission limits on more than 11,000 companies and issued carbon credits that could be traded by firms to meet their new pollution caps. More efficient ones could sell excess carbon credits, while less efficient ones were compelled to buy more. By August 2008, the price for carbon emission credits had soared above $40 per ton — high enough to become an added incentive for some companies to increase their use of cleaner fuels, upgrade equipment and take other steps to reduce carbon footprints.

Europe's carbon-trading market

Europe’s carbon-trading market

That system, however, is in deep trouble. A drastic drop in industrial activity has sharply reduced the need for companies to buy emission rights, causing a gradual fall in the price of carbon allowances since the region slipped into a multi-year economic crisis in the latter half of 2008. In recent weeks, however, the price has appeared to have entirely collapsed — falling below $4 as bickering European nations failed to agree on measures to shore up the program.The collapsing price of carbon in Europe is darkening the outlook for a greener future in a part of the world that was long the bright spot in the struggle against climate change. It is also presenting new challenges for those who once saw Europe’s program as the natural anchor for what would eventually be a linked network of cap-and-trade systems worldwide.

Carbon “started as the commodity of the future, but it has now deteriorated,” said Matthew Gray, a trader at Jefferies Bache in London and one of a diminishing breed of carbon dealers in Europe. “Its future is uncertain.”

The problems plaguing Europe’s cap-and-trade system underscore the uphill battle for international cooperation in the global-warming fight. After middling progress at various summits, officials from more than 190 countries have been charged with forging a global accord by 2015 aimed at cutting carbon emissions. But critics point to the inability of even the European Union — a largely progressive region bound by open borders and a shared bureaucracy — to come together on a fix for its cap-and-trade system as evidence of how difficult consensus building on climate change has become.

Negotiations to launch a similar system across the United States collapsed in 2010, replaced with a regional approach in which California, for instance, moved forward with its own program. Aided by a boom in cheaper and cleaner shale gas as well as the spread of more renewable energies, including wind and solar, the United States has — like Europe — nevertheless seen a continuing drop in its overall emission levels.

But there are also signs that years of increasing investment in clean energies are ebbing on both sides of the Atlantic. In 2012, overall clean-energy investment in the United States fell 37 percent,to $35.6 billion, compared with a year earlier, according to a new report by the Pew Charitable Trusts. European countries, including green leaders such as Germany, also saw declines, leading analysts to call the problems with the region’s cap-and-trade system that much more troubling.

“Obviously, what’s happening now is very disheartening for people who have been involved in trying to cut carbon emissions,” said Agustin Silvani, managing director of carbon finance at Conservation International in Arlington, Va. “The European system was at the center of the global fight, and the fact that it is collapsing is definitely a blow. Maybe a moral one more than anything else.”Lost incentive

The cap-and-trade program is based on a system of carbon allowances for large emitters such as utilities and manufacturers, with some bought and others awarded for free. Companies are allowed to draw on global mitigation projects — such as planting trees in tropical rain forests — to offset a small portion of their emissions. But for the most part, they must meet targets through carbon credits issued by European authorities.A number of other factors, including mandates and subsidies for renewable energy, have coaxed European companies to reduce their emissions in recent years. But in the early stages of the cap-and-trade program, “higher carbon prices were a big incentive for companies to take action,” said Marcus Ferdinand, senior market analyst for Thomson Reuters Point Carbon. “Now, they’ve lost that incentive.”

At the core of the problem is a massive oversupply of carbon allowances. Demand for carbon began to fade in the late 2000s as a recession set in and factories across Europe dramatically curbed production. But there were also built-in flaws. Unlike newer cap-and-trade programs such as the one in California, Europe’s system never established a price floor that could have prevented a market collapse. In addition, too many free allowances were given to too many companies. Some, in fact, never had to pay for allowances at all, allowing them to hoard them or even sell their carbon credits at a profit.

On April 16, the European Parliament was on the verge of temporarily tightening the supply of allowances to boost the price of carbon and shore up the ailing market. But opposition by countries led by Poland — a nation strongly dependent on heavy-emitting coal power plants — defeated the measure. The rejection sent the price of carbon plummeting to a historic low of roughly $3.60.

Shoring up prices

A bright future for cap-and-trade systems may yet exist. Promising new programs, for instance, are being rolled out in California, Australia, Quebec and a few provinces in China, with officials in some areas setting a minimum price for carbon credits to prevent the kind of market collapse seen in Europe.

But if Europe is unable to shore up the price for carbon credits here, observers say, it could complicate hopes down the line of linking various programs together. The price per ton in California, for instance, is above $10 — about two and half times the price in Europe.

Large emitters such as the steel industry, however, say the system is working just fine. With a price determined by supply and demand, industry groups say, it is only fitting for the price to be low now. Also, given the region’s weaker economic activity, they note that the European Union is still virtually assured of meeting its pledge to cut carbon emissions — a reduction of 20 percent by 2020 compared with 1990 levels — even with the cap-and-trade system faltering.

Yet critics argue that the low price of carbon has removed the incentive for European companies to reduce their carbon footprints. They point to a boom in the use of cheap imported American coal in European power plants. In addition, many fear that the lack of an incentive to make more green upgrades will create a boom in emissions if and when European economies recover.

As the regional plan falters, some countries are going it alone on domestic initiatives. This year, for instance, Britain introduced a carbon tax on emissions that British manufacturers say has put them at a competitive disadvantage with their counterparts on the continent. It suggests the potential pitfalls ahead as countries and even smaller jurisdictions such as states, provinces and cities introduce a disparate patchwork of climate-change measures.

Optimists point to hope that the European Parliament will once again vote on a measure to tighten the supply of carbon credits in the coming months, thus shoring up the price. They also note that the European Commission is studying more ambitious proposals for a bigger overhaul of the region’s cap-and-trade system.

But given the growing resistance in some European countries to anything that might drive energy costs up further, others wonder whether Europe’s leaders still have the political will to take aggressive action.

“We’re risking the credibility of European politicians by not fixing this system,” said Johannes Teyssen, chief executive of German energy giant E.ON. “How can they travel to world climate-change conferences claiming others should do more when our own system is on its deathbed and they do nothing?”

Eliza Mackintosh contributed to this report.

* * *

In Europe, Paid Permits for Pollution Are Fizzling (N.Y.Times)

Andrew Testa for The International Herald Tribune. The trading floor at CF Partners in West London. The market for carbon permits is more volatile than its founders envisioned.

By STANLEY REED and MARK SCOTT

Published: April 21, 2013

LONDON — On a showery afternoon last week in West London, a ripple of enthusiasm went through the trading floor of CF Partners, a privately owned financial company. The price of carbon allowances, shown in green lights on a board hanging from the ceiling, was creeping up toward three euros.

*The Emissions Trading System began with a test phase that ended in 2007. Note: Data are for the futures contract expiring in mid-December each year. Phase 2 price was initially for the December 2008 futures contract.

That is pretty small change — $3.90, or only about 10 percent of what the price was in 2008. But to the traders it came as a relief after the market had gone into free fall to record lows two days earlier, after the European Parliament spurned an effort to shore up prices by shrinking the number of allowances.

“The market still stands,” said Thomas Rassmuson, a native of Sweden who founded the company with Jonathan Navon, a Briton, in 2006.

Still, Europe’s carbon market, a pioneering effort to use markets to regulate greenhouse gases, is having a hard time staying upright. This year has been stomach-churning for the people who make their living in the arcane world of trading emissions permits. The most recent volatility comes on top of years of uncertainty during which prices have fluctuated from $40 to nearly zero for the right to emit one ton of carbon dioxide.

More important, though, than lost jobs and diminished payouts for traders and bankers, the penny ante price of carbon credits means the market is not doing its job: pushing polluters to reduce carbon emissions, which most climate scientists believe contribute to global warming.

The market for these credits, officially called European Union Allowances, or E.U.A.’s, has been both unstable and under sharp downward pressure this year because of a huge oversupply and a stream of bad political and economic news. On April 16, for instance, after the European Parliament voted down the proposed reduction in the number of credits, prices dropped about 50 percent, to 2.63 euros from nearly 5, in 10 minutes.

“No one was going to buy” on the way down, said Fred Payne, a trader with CF Partners.

Europe’s troubled experience with carbon trading has also discouraged efforts to establish large-scale carbon trading systems in other countries, including the United States, although California and a group of Northeastern states have set up smaller regional markets.

Traders do not mind big price swings in any market — in fact, they can make a lot of money if they play them right.

But over time, the declining prices for the credits have sapped the European market of value, legitimacy and liquidity — the ease with which the allowances can be traded — making it less attractive for financial professionals.

A few years ago, analysts thought world carbon markets were heading for the $2 trillion mark by the end of this decade.

Today, the reality looks much more modest. Total trading last year was 62 billion euros, down from 96 billion in 2011, according to Thomson Reuters Point Carbon, a market research firm based in Oslo. Close to 90 percent of that activity was in Europe, while North American trading represented less than 1 percent of worldwide market value.

Financial institutions that had rushed to increase staff have shrunk their carbon desks. Companies have also laid off other professionals who helped set up greenhouse gas reduction projects in developing countries like China and India.

When the emissions trading system was started in 2005, the goal was to create a global model for raising the costs of emitting greenhouse gases and for prodding industrial polluters to switch from burning fossil fuels to using clean-energy alternatives like wind and solar.

When carbon prices hit their highs of more than 30 euros in 2008 and companies spent billions to invest in renewables, policy makers hailed the market as a success. But then prices began to fall. And at current levels, they are far too low to change companies’ behaviors, analysts say. Emitting a ton of carbon dioxide costs about the same as a hamburger.

“At the moment, the carbon price does not give any signal for investment,” said Hans Bünting, chief executive of RWE, one of the largest utilities in Germany and Europe.

This cap-and-trade system in Europe places a ceiling on emissions. At the end of each year, companies like electric utilities or steel manufacturers must hand over to the national authorities the permits equivalent to the amount gases emitted.

Until the end of 2012, these credits were given to companies free according to their estimated output of greenhouse gases. Policy makers wanted to jump-start the trading market and avoid higher costs for consumers.

Beginning this year, energy companies must buy an increasing proportion of their credits in national auctions. Industrial companies like steel plants will follow later this decade.

Companies and other financial players like banks and hedge funds can also acquire and trade the allowances on exchanges like the IntercontinentalExchange, based in Atlanta. Over time the number of credits is meant to fall gradually, theoretically raising prices and cutting pollution.

The reality has been far different because of serious flaws in the design of the system. To win over companies and skeptical countries like Poland, which burn a lot of coal, far too many credits have been handed out.

At the same time, Europe’s debilitating economic slowdown has sharply curtailed industrial activity and reduced the Continent’s overall carbon emissions.

Steel making in Europe, for instance, has fallen about 30 percent since 2007, while new car registrations were at their lowest level last year since 1995.

Big investments in renewable energy sources like wind and solar also reduced carbon emissions, which have fallen about 10 percent in Europe since 2007.

As a result, there is a vast surplus of permits — about 800 million tons’ worth, according to Point Carbon. That has caused prices to plunge.

The cost of carbon is far too low to force electric utilities in Europe to switch from burning coal, a major polluter, to much cleaner natural gas. Just the opposite: Britain increased coal burning for electricity more than 30 percent last year, while cutting back gas use a similar amount, and other West European nations increased their coal use as well.

“The European energy scene is not a good one,” said Andrew Brown, head of exploration and production at Royal Dutch Shell. “They haven’t got the right balance in terms of promoting gas.”

Fearing that prices might go to zero because of the huge oversupply, the European authorities proposed a short-term solution known as backloading, which would have delayed the scheduled auctioning of a large portion of the credits that were supposed to be sold over the next three years. But the European Parliament in Strasbourg voted the measure down on April 16.

Lawmakers were worried about tampering with the market as well as doing anything that might increase energy costs in the struggling economy.

“It was the worst possible moment to try to implement something like that,” said Francesco Starace, chief executive of Enel Green Power, one of the largest European green-energy companies, which is based in Rome.

The European authorities, led by Connie Hedegaard, the European commissioner for climate change, have not given up on fixing the system. But analysts like Stig Scholset, at Point Carbon, say that there is not much the authorities can do in the short term and that prices may slump for months, if not years.

That means more tough times for financial institutions. Particularly troubled is the business of investing in greenhouse gas abatement projects like wind farms orhydroelectric dams in developing countries like China. JPMorgan Chase paid more than $200 million for one of the largest investors in these projects, EcoSecurities, in 2009.

Financiers say these projects used to be gold mines, generating credits that industrial companies could use to offset their emissions elsewhere. But so many credits have been produced by these projects — on top of the existing oversupply of credits in Europe — that they are trading at about a third of a euro.

Market participants say they see many rivals pulling back from world carbon markets. Deutsche Bank, the largest bank in Germany, has cut back its carbon trading. Smaller outfits like Mabanaft, based in Rotterdam, have also left the business.

Anthony Hobley, a lawyer in London and president of the Climate Market and Investors Association, an industry group, estimates that among the traders, analysts and bankers who flocked to the carbon markets in the early days, half may now be gone.

But carbon trading is unlikely to fade completely.

For one thing, European utilities and other companies now must buy the credits to comply with the rules. And they can buy credits to save for later use, when their emissions increase and the price of credits rises.

Despite Europe’s sputters, carbon trading is beginning to gain traction in places like China, Australia and New Zealand.

In London, Mr. Rassmuson concedes that the business has turned out to be more up-and-down than he anticipated when he and his partner set up their firm in a tiny two-man office in 2006.

But he said his firm was benefiting from others’ dropping out. He is also branching out into trading electric power and natural gas.

Like many in the carbon markets, he says what he is doing is not just about money.

“Trying to make the world more sustainable is important to us,” he said. “It is a good business opportunity that makes us proud.”

A version of this article appeared in print on April 22, 2013, on page B1 of the New York edition with the headline: In Europe, Paid Permits For Pollution Are Fizzling.

Hidrelétricas podem afetar sistema hidrológico do Pantanal (Fapesp)

23/04/2013Uncategorizedágua, Capitalismo, Economia, Hidrelétricas, Hidrologia, Meio ambiente, Políticas públicas, Previsãorenzotaddei

Projeto para construção de mais 87 pequenas centrais hidrelétricas na bacia do Alto Paraguai pode afetar conectividade da área de planalto com a de planície do bioma pantaneiro e dificultar fluxo migratório de peixes e outras espécies aquáticas, alertam pesquisadores (Walfrido Tomas)

23/04/2013

Por Elton Alisson

Agência FAPESP – O projeto de construção de mais 87 Pequenas Centrais Hidrelétricas (PCHs) na Bacia do Alto Paraguai, em discussão atualmente, pode afetar a conectividade do planalto – onde nasce o Rio Paraguai e seus afluentes – e a planície inundada do Pantanal – por onde as águas desses rios escoam –, dificultando o fluxo migratório de peixes e outras espécies aquáticas e semiaquáticas pelo sistema hidrológico.

O alerta foi feito por pesquisadores durante o terceiro evento do Ciclo de Conferências 2013 do BIOTA Educação, que teve como tema o Pantanal. O evento foi realizado pelo programa BIOTA-FAPESP no dia 18 de abril, na sede da FAPESP.

De acordo com José Sabino, professor da Universidade Anhanguera-Uniderp, o impacto das PCHs já existentes na região da Bacia do Alto Paraguai não são tão grandes porque, em geral, baseiam-se em uma tecnologia denominada “a fio d’água” – que dispensa a necessidade de manter grandes reservatórios de água.

A somatória das cerca de 30 PCHs existentes com as 87 planejadas, no entanto, pode impactar a hidrologia e a conectividade das águas do planalto e da planície da Bacia do Alto Paraguai e dificultar processos migratórios de espécies de peixes do Pantanal, alertou o especialista.

“A criação dessas PCHs pode causar a quebra de conectividade hidrológica de populações e de processos migratórios reprodutivos, como a piracema, de algumas espécies de peixes”, disse Sabino.

Durante a piracema, o período de procriação que antecede as chuvas do verão, algumas espécies de peixes, como o curimbatá (Prochilodus lineatus) e o dourado (Salminus brasiliensis), sobem os rios até as nascentes para desovar.

Se o acesso às cabeceiras dos rios for interrompido por algum obstáculo, como uma PCH, a piracema pode ser dificultada. “A construção de mais PCHs na região do Pantanal pode ter uma influência sistêmica sobre o canal porque, além de mudar o funcionamento hidrológico, também deve alterar a força da carga de nutrientes carregada pelas águas das nascentes dos rios no planalto que entram na planície pantaneira”, disse Walfrido Moraes Tomas, pesquisador do Centro de Pesquisa Agropecuária do Pantanal (CPAP) da Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária (Embrapa), no Mato Grosso do Sul, palestrante na conferência na FAPESP.

“Isso também poderá ter impactos nos hábitats de espécies aquáticas ou semiaquáticas”, reiterou Tomas. De acordo com o pesquisador, o Pantanal é uma das áreas úmidas mais ricas em espécies do mundo, distribuídas de forma abundante, mas não homogênea, pela planície pantaneira.

Alguns dos últimos levantamentos de espécies apontaram que o bioma possui 269 espécies de peixes, 44 de anfíbios, 127 de répteis, 582 de aves e 152 de mamíferos.

São necessários, no entanto, mais inventários de espécies para preencher lacunas críticas de conhecimento sobre outros grupos, como o dos invertebrados – sobre os quais ainda não há levantamento sobre o número de espécies –, além de crustáceos, moluscos e lepidópteros (ordem de insetos que inclui as borboletas), que ainda são pouco conhecidos.

“Uma iniciativa que vai nos dar uma grande contribuição nesse sentido será o programa Biota Mato Grosso do Sul, que começou ser implementado há três anos”, disse Tomas.

Inspirado no BIOTA-FAPESP, o programa Biota Mato Grosso do Sul pretende consolidar a infraestrutura de coleções e acervos em museus, herbários, jardins botânicos, zoológicos e bancos de germoplasma do Mato Grosso do Sul para preencher lacunas de conhecimento, taxonômicas e geográficas, sobre a diversidade biológica no estado.

Para atingir esse objetivo, pesquisadores pretendem informatizar os acervos e coleções científicas e estabelecer uma rede de informação em biodiversidade entre todas as instituições envolvidas com a pesquisa e conservação de biodiversidade do Mato Grosso do Sul.

“Começamos agora a fazer os primeiros inventários de espécies de regiões- chave do estado e estamos preparando um volume especial da revista Biota Neotropica sobre a biodiversidade de Mato Grosso do Sul, que será um passo fundamental para verificarmos as informações disponíveis sobre a biota do Pantanal e direcionar nossas ações”, disse Tomas à Agência FAPESP.

“Diferentemente do Estado de São Paulo, que tem coleções gigantescas, Mato Grosso do Sul não dispõe de grandes coleções para fazermos mapeamentos de diversidade. Por isso, precisaremos ir a campo para fazer os inventários”, explicou.

Espécies ameaçadas

Segundo Tomas, das espécies de aves ameaçadas, vulneráveis ou em perigo de extinção no Brasil, por exemplo, 188 podem ser encontradas no Pantanal. No entanto, diminuiu muito nos últimos anos a ocorrência de caça de espécies como onça-pintada, onça-parda, ariranha, arara-azul – ave símbolo do Pantanal – e jacaré.

E não há indícios de que a principal atividade econômica da região – a pecuária, que possibilitou a ocupação humana do bioma em um primeiro momento em razão de o ambiente ser uma savana inundada com pastagem renovada todo ano – tenha causado impactos na biota pantaneira.

“Pelo que sabemos até agora, nenhuma espécie da fauna do Pantanal foi levada a risco de extinção por causa da pecuária”, afirmou Tomas. Já a pesca – a segunda atividade econômica mais intensiva no Pantanal – pode ter impactos sobre algumas espécies de peixes.

Isso porque a atividade está focalizada em 20 das 270 espécies de peixes do bioma pantaneiro, em razão do tamanho, sabor da carne e pela própria cultura regional.

Entre elas, estão o dourado, o curimbatá, a piraputanga (Brycon hilarii), o pacu (Piaractus mesopotamicus) e a cachara (Pseudoplatystoma reticulatum) – um peixe arisco encontrado em rios como Prata e Olho D’água, que pode chegar a medir 1,20 metro e pesar 40 quilos.

“Há indícios de que, pelo fato de a pesca no Pantanal ser direcionada a algumas espécies, a atividade possa reduzir algumas populações de peixes”, disse Sabino.

Além de Sabino e Tomas, o professor Arnildo Pott, da Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso do Sul (UFMS), de Campo Grande, também proferiu palestra, sobre a origem, evolução e diversidade da vegetação do Bioma Pantanal.

Estratégias de conservação

Os pesquisadores também chamaram a atenção para o fato de que, atualmente, apenas cerca de 5% do Pantanal está protegido por unidades de conservação. E que muitas das espécies de animais da região, como a onça- pintada, a ariranha e a arara-azul, por exemplo, não são protegidas efetivamente, porque ficam fora dessas unidades de conservação.

“A conservação de espécies ameaçadas no Pantanal requer estratégias mais amplas do que apenas a implantação ou gestão das unidades de conservação”, destacou Tomas. “São necessárias políticas de gestão de bacias hidrográficas e de remuneração por serviços ecossistêmicos para assegurar a conservação de espécies ameaçadas.”

Organizado pelo Programa BIOTA-FAPESP, o Ciclo de Conferências 2013 tem o objetivo de contribuir para o aperfeiçoamento do ensino de ciência. A quarta etapa será no dia 16 de maio, quando o tema será “Bioma Cerrado”. Seguem-se conferências sobre os biomas Caatinga (20 de junho), Mata Atlântica (22 de agosto), Amazônia (19 de setembro), Ambientes Marinhos e Costeiros (24 de outubro) e Biodiversidade em Ambientes Antrópicos – Urbanos e Rurais (21 de novembro).

Earth’s Current Warmth Not Seen in the Last 1,400 Years or More, Says Study (Science Daily)

23/04/2013UncategorizedClima, Incerteza, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Previsãorenzotaddei

Apr. 21, 2013 — Fueled by industrial greenhouse gas emissions, Earth’s climate warmed more between 1971 and 2000 than during any other three-decade interval in the last 1,400 years, according to new regional temperature reconstructions covering all seven continents. This period of humanmade global warming, which continues today, reversed a natural cooling trend that lasted several hundred years, according to results published in the journalNature Geoscience by more than 80 scientists from 24 nations analyzing climate data from tree rings, pollen, cave formations, ice cores, lake and ocean sediments, and historical records from around the world.

During Europe’s 2003 heat wave, July temperatures in France were as much as 18 degrees F hotter than in 2001. (Credit: NASA)

“This paper tells us what we already knew, except in a better, more comprehensive fashion,” said study co-author Edward Cook, a tree-ring scientist at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory who led the Asia reconstruction.

The study also found that Europe’s 2003 heat wave and drought, which killed an estimated 70,000 people, happened during Europe’s hottest summer of the last 2,000 years. “Summer temperatures were intense that year and accompanied by a lack of rain and very dry soil conditions over much of Europe,” said study co-author Jason Smerdon, a climate scientist at Lamont-Doherty and one of the lead contributors to the Europe reconstruction. Though summer 2003 set a record for Europe, global warming was only one of the factors that contributed to the temperature conditions that summer, he said.

The study is the latest to show that the Medieval Warm Period, from about 950 to 1250, may not have been global, and may not have happened at the same time in places that did grow warmer. While parts of Europe and North America were fairly warm between 950 and 1250, South America stayed relatively cold, the study says. Some people have argued that the natural warming that occurred during the medieval ages is happening today, and that humans are not responsible for modern day global warming. Scientists are nearly unanimous in their disagreement “If we went into another Medieval Warm Period again that extra warmth would be added on top of warming from greenhouse gases,” said Cook.

Temperatures varied less between continents in the same hemisphere than between hemispheres. “Distinctive periods, such as the Medieval Warm Period or the Little Ice Age stand out, but do not show a globally uniform pattern,” said co-author Heinz Wanner, a scientist at the University of Bern. By 1500, temperatures dropped below the long-term average everywhere, though colder temperatures emerged several decades earlier in the Arctic, Europe and Asia.

The most consistent trend across all regions in the last 2,000 years was a long-term cooling, likely caused by a rise in volcanic activity, decrease in solar irradiance, changes in land-surface vegetation, and slow variations in Earth’s orbit. With the exception of Antarctica, cooling tapered off at the end of the 19th century, with the onset of industrialization. Cooler 30-year periods between 830 and 1910 were particularly pronounced during weak solar activity and strong tropical volcanic eruptions. Both phenomena often occurred simultaneously and led to a drop in the average temperature during five distinct 30- to 90-year intervals between 1251 and 1820. Warming in the 20th century was on average twice as large in the northern continents as it was in the Southern Hemisphere. During the past 2000 years, some regions experienced warmer 30-year intervals than during the late 20th century. For example, in Europe the years between 21 and 80 AD were likely warmer than the period 1971-2000.

Mathematical Models Out-Perform Doctors in Predicting Cancer Patients’ Responses to Treatment (Science Daily)

22/04/2013UncategorizedEnquadramento, Incerteza, Matemática, Mediação tecnológica, medicina, Previsão, Saúderenzotaddei

Apr. 19, 2013 — Mathematical prediction models are better than doctors at predicting the outcomes and responses of lung cancer patients to treatment, according to new research presented today (Saturday) at the 2nd Forum of the European Society for Radiotherapy and Oncology (ESTRO).

These differences apply even after the doctor has seen the patient, which can provide extra information, and knows what the treatment plan and radiation dose will be.

“The number of treatment options available for lung cancer patients are increasing, as well as the amount of information available to the individual patient. It is evident that this will complicate the task of the doctor in the future,” said the presenter, Dr Cary Oberije, a postdoctoral researcher at the MAASTRO Clinic, Maastricht University Medical Center, Maastricht, The Netherlands. “If models based on patient, tumour and treatment characteristics already out-perform the doctors, then it is unethical to make treatment decisions based solely on the doctors’ opinions. We believe models should be implemented in clinical practice to guide decisions.”

Dr Oberije and her colleagues in The Netherlands used mathematical prediction models that had already been tested and published. The models use information from previous patients to create a statistical formula that can be used to predict the probability of outcome and responses to treatment using radiotherapy with or without chemotherapy for future patients.

Having obtained predictions from the mathematical models, the researchers asked experienced radiation oncologists to predict the likelihood of lung cancer patients surviving for two years, or suffering from shortness of breath (dyspnea) and difficulty swallowing (dysphagia) at two points in time:

1) after they had seen the patient for the first time, and

2) after the treatment plan was made. At the first time point, the doctors predicted two-year survival for 121 patients, dyspnea for 139 and dysphagia for 146 patients.

At the second time point, predictions were only available for 35, 39 and 41 patients respectively.

For all three predictions and at both time points, the mathematical models substantially outperformed the doctors’ predictions, with the doctors’ predictions being little better than those expected by chance.

The researchers plotted the results on a special graph [1] on which the area below the plotted line is used for measuring the accuracy of predictions; 1 represents a perfect prediction, while 0.5 represents predictions that were right in 50% of cases, i.e. the same as chance. They found that the model predictions at the first time point were 0.71 for two-year survival, 0.76 for dyspnea and 0.72 for dysphagia. In contrast, the doctors’ predictions were 0.56, 0.59 and 0.52 respectively.

The models had a better positive predictive value (PPV) — a measure of the proportion of patients who were correctly assessed as being at risk of dying within two years or suffering from dyspnea and dysphagia — than the doctors. The negative predictive value (NPV) — a measure of the proportion of patients that would not die within two years or suffer from dyspnea and dysphagia — was comparable between the models and the doctors.

“This indicates that the models were better at identifying high risk patients that have a very low chance of surviving or a very high chance of developing severe dyspnea or dysphagia,” said Dr Oberije.

The researchers say that it is important that further research is carried out into how prediction models can be integrated into standard clinical care. In addition, further improvement of the models by incorporating all the latest advances in areas such as genetics, imaging and other factors, is important. This will make it possible to tailor treatment to the individual patient’s biological make-up and tumour type

“In our opinion, individualised treatment can only succeed if prediction models are used in clinical practice. We have shown that current models already outperform doctors. Therefore, this study can be used as a strong argument in favour of using prediction models and changing current clinical practice,” said Dr Oberije.

“Correct prediction of outcomes is important for several reasons,” she continued. “First, it offers the possibility to discuss treatment options with patients. If survival chances are very low, some patients might opt for a less aggressive treatment with fewer side-effects and better quality of life. Second, it could be used to assess which patients are eligible for a specific clinical trial. Third, correct predictions make it possible to improve and optimise the treatment. Currently, treatment guidelines are applied to the whole lung cancer population, but we know that some patients are cured while others are not and some patients suffer from severe side-effects while others don’t. We know that there are many factors that play a role in the prognosis of patients and prediction models can combine them all.”

At present, prediction models are not used as widely as they could be by doctors. Dr Oberije says there are a number of reasons: some models lack clinical credibility; others have not yet been tested; the models need to be available and easy to use by doctors; and many doctors still think that seeing a patient gives them information that cannot be captured in a model. “Our study shows that it is very unlikely that a doctor can outperform a model,” she concluded.

President of ESTRO, Professor Vincenzo Valentini, a radiation oncologist at the Policlinico Universitario A. Gemelli, Rome, Italy, commented: “The booming growth of biological, imaging and clinical information will challenge the decision capacity of every oncologist. The understanding of the knowledge management sciences is becoming a priority for radiation oncologists in order for them to tailor their choices to cure and care for individual patients.”

[1] For the mathematicians among you, the graph is known as an Area Under the Curve (AUC) of the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC).

[2] This work was partially funded by grants from the Dutch Cancer Society (KWF), the European Fund for Regional Development (INTERREG/EFRO), and the Center for Translational Molecular Medicine (CTMM).

Carbon bubble will plunge the world into another financial crisis – report (The Guardian)

22/04/2013UncategorizedClima, Desastre, Enquadramento, Incerteza, Mídia, Mediação tecnológica, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Opinião pública, Política, Políticas públicas, Previsão, Sensacionalismorenzotaddei

Trillions of dollars at risk as stock markets inflate value of fossil fuels that may have to remain buried forever, experts warn

Damian Carrington – The Guardian, Friday 19 April 2013

Carbon bubble : carbon dioxide polluting power plant : coal-fired Bruce Mansfield Power Plant

Global stock markets are betting on countries failing to adhere to legally binding carbon emission targets. Photograph: Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images

The world could be heading for a major economic crisis as stock marketsinflate an investment bubble in fossil fuels to the tune of trillions of dollars, according to leading economists.

“The financial crisis has shown what happens when risks accumulate unnoticed,” said Lord (Nicholas) Stern, a professor at the London School of Economics. He said the risk was “very big indeed” and that almost all investors and regulators were failing to address it.

The so-called “carbon bubble” is the result of an over-valuation of oil,coal and gas reserves held by fossil fuel companies. According to a report published on Friday, at least two-thirds of these reserves will have to remain underground if the world is to meet existing internationally agreed targets to avoid the threshold for “dangerous” climate change. If the agreements hold, these reserves will be in effect unburnable and so worthless – leading to massive market losses. But the stock markets are betting on countries’ inaction on climate change.

The stark report is by Stern and the thinktank Carbon Tracker. Their warning is supported by organisations including HSBC, Citi, Standard and Poor’s and the International Energy Agency. The Bank of England has also recognised that a collapse in the value of oil, gas and coal assets as nations tackle global warming is a potential systemic risk to the economy, with London being particularly at risk owing to its huge listings of coal.

Stern said that far from reducing efforts to develop fossil fuels, the top 200 companies spent $674bn (£441bn) in 2012 to find and exploit even more new resources, a sum equivalent to 1% of global GDP, which could end up as “stranded” or valueless assets. Stern’s landmark 2006 reporton the economic impact of climate change – commissioned by the then chancellor, Gordon Brown – concluded that spending 1% of GDP would pay for a transition to a clean and sustainable economy.

The world’s governments have agreed to restrict the global temperature rise to 2C, beyond which the impacts become severe and unpredictable. But Stern said the investors clearly did not believe action to curb climate change was going to be taken. “They can’t believe that and also believe that the markets are sensibly valued now.”

“They only believe environmental regulation when they see it,” said James Leaton, from Carbon Tracker and a former PwC consultant. He said short-termism in financial markets was the other major reason for the carbon bubble. “Analysts say you should ride the train until just before it goes off the cliff. Each thinks they are smart enough to get off in time, but not everyone can get out of the door at the same time. That is why you get bubbles and crashes.”

Paul Spedding, an oil and gas analyst at HSBC, said: “The scale of ‘listed’ unburnable carbon revealed in this report is astonishing. This report makes it clear that ‘business as usual’ is not a viable option for the fossil fuel industry in the long term. [The market] is assuming it will get early warning, but my worry is that things often happen suddenly in the oil and gas sector.”

HSBC warned that 40-60% of the market capitalisation of oil and gas companies was at risk from the carbon bubble, with the top 200 fossil fuel companies alone having a current value of $4tn, along with $1.5tn debt.

Lord McFall, who chaired the Commons Treasury select committee for a decade, said: “Despite its devastating scale, the banking crisis was at its heart an avoidable crisis: the threat of significant carbon writedown has the unmistakable characteristics of the same endemic problems.”

The report calculates that the world’s currently indicated fossil fuel reserves equate to 2,860bn tonnes of carbon dioxide, but that just 31% could be burned for an 80% chance of keeping below a 2C temperature rise. For a 50% chance of 2C or less, just 38% could be burned.

Carbon capture and storage technology, which buries emissions underground, can play a role in the future, but even an optimistic scenario which sees 3,800 commercial projects worldwide would allow only an extra 4% of fossil fuel reserves to be burned. There are currently no commercial projects up and running. The normally conservativeInternational Energy Agency has also concluded that a major part of fossil fuel reserves is unburnable.

Citi bank warned investors in Australia’s vast coal industry that little could be done to avoid the future loss of value in the face of action on climate change. “If the unburnable carbon scenario does occur, it is difficult to see how the value of fossil fuel reserves can be maintained, so we see few options for risk mitigation.”

Ratings agencies have expressed concerns, with Standard and Poor’s concluding that the risk could lead to the downgrading of the credit ratings of oil companies within a few years.

Steven Oman, senior vice-president at Moody’s, said: “It behoves us as investors and as a society to know the true cost of something so that intelligent and constructive policy and investment decisions can be made. Too often the true costs are treated as unquantifiable or even ignored.”

Jens Peers, who manages €4bn (£3bn) for Mirova, part of €300bn asset managers Natixis, said: “It is shocking to see the report’s numbers, as they are worse than people realise. The risk is massive, but a lot of asset managers think they have a lot of time. I think they are wrong.” He said a key moment will come in 2015, the date when the world’s governments have pledged to strike a global deal to limit carbon emissions. But he said that fund managers need to move now. If they wait till 2015, “it will be too late for them to take action.”

Pension funds are also concerned. “Every pension fund manager needs to ask themselves have we incorporated climate change and carbon risk into our investment strategy? If the answer is no, they need to start to now,” said Howard Pearce, head of pension fund management at the Environment Agency, which holds £2bn in assets.

Stern and Leaton both point to China as evidence that carbon cuts are likely to be delivered. China’s leaders have said its coal use will peak in the next five years, said Leaton, but this has not been priced in. “I don’t know why the market does not believe China,” he said. “When it says it is going to do something, it usually does.” He said the US and Australia were banking on selling coal to China but that this “doesn’t add up”.

Jeremy Grantham, a billionaire fund manager who oversees $106bn of assets, said his company was on the verge of pulling out of all coal and unconventional fossil fuels, such as oil from tar sands. “The probability of them running into trouble is too high for me to take that risk as an investor.” He said: “If we mean to burn all the coal and any appreciable percentage of the tar sands, or other unconventional oil and gas then we’re cooked. [There are] terrible consequences that we will lay at the door of our grandchildren.”

Politicians Found to Be More Risk-Tolerant Than the General Population (Science Daily)

22/04/2013UncategorizedAversão a risco, Incerteza, Política, Previsão, Psicologia, Riscorenzotaddei

Apr. 16, 2013 — According to a recent study, the popularly elected members of the German Bundestag are substantially more risk-tolerant than the broader population of Germany. Researchers in the Cluster of Excellence “Languages of Emotion” at Freie Universität Berlin and at DIW Berlin (German Institute for Economic Research) conducted a survey of Bundestag representatives and analyzed data on the general population from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP). Results show that risk tolerance is even higher among Bundestag representatives than among self-employed people, who are themselves more risk-tolerant than salaried employees or civil servants. This was true for all areas of risk that were surveyed in the study: automobile driving, financial investments, sports and leisure activities, career, and health. The authors interpret this finding as positive.

The full results of the study were published in German in the SOEPpapers series of the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin).

The authors of the study, Moritz Hess (University of Mannheim), Prof. Dr. Christian von Scheve (Freie Universität Berlin and DIW Berlin), Prof. Dr. Jürgen Schupp (DIW Berlin and Freie Universität Berlin), and Prof. Dr. Gert G. Wagner (DIW Berlin and Technische Universität Berlin) view the above-average risk tolerance found among Bundestag representatives as positive. According to sociologist and lead author of the study Moritz Hess: “Otherwise, important societal decisions often wouldn’t be made due to the almost incalculable risks involved. This would lead to stagnation and social standstill.” The authors do not interpret the higher risk-tolerance found among politicians as a threat to democracy. “The results show a successful and sensible division of labor among citizens, voters, and politicians,” says economist Gert G. Wagner. Democratic structures and parliamentary processes, he argues, act as a brake on the individual risk propensity of elected representatives and politicians.

For their study, the research team distributed written questionnaires to all 620 members of the 17th German Bundestag in late 2011. Twenty-eight percent of Bundestag members responded. Comparisons with the statistical characteristics of all current Bundestag representatives showed that the respondents comprise a representative sample of Bundestag members. SOEP data were used to obtain a figure for the risk tolerance of the general population for comparison with the figures for Bundestag members.

The questions posed to Bundestag members were formulated analogously to the questions in the standard SOEP questionnaire. Politicians were asked to rate their own risk tolerance on a scale from zero (= not at all risk-tolerant) to ten (= very risk-tolerant). They rated both their general risk tolerance as well as their specific risk tolerance in the areas of driving, making financial investments, sports and leisure activities, career, health, and trust towards strangers. They also rated their risk tolerance in regard to political decisions. No questions on party affiliation were asked in order to exclude the possibility that results could be used for partisan political purposes.

References:

Hess, M., von Scheve, C., Schupp, J., Wagner. G. G. (2013): Members of German Federal Parliament More Risk-Loving Than General Population, in: DIW Economic Bulletin, Vol. 3, No. 4, 2013, pp. 20-24.

Hess, M., von Scheve, C., Schupp, J., Wagner. G. G. (2013): Sind Politiker risikofreudiger als das Volk? Eine empirische Studie zu Mitgliedern des Deutschen Bundestags, SOEPpaper No. 545, DIW Berlin.

Ocean’s Future Not So Bleak? Resilience Found in Shelled Plants Exposed to Ocean Acidification (Science Daily)

16/04/2013UncategorizedEcologia, Ecologia marinha, Ecologia Política, Incerteza, Meio ambiente, Mudanças climáticas, Previsãorenzotaddei

Apr. 12, 2013 — Marine scientists have long understood the detrimental effect of fossil fuel emissions on marine ecosystems. But a group led by a UC Santa Barbara professor has found a point of resilience in a microscopic shelled plant with a massive environmental impact, which suggests the future of ocean life may not be so bleak.

This shows cells of the coccolithophore species Emiliania huxleyi strain NZEH under present-day, left, and future high, right, carbon dioxide conditions. (Credit: UCSB)

As fossil fuel emissions increase, so does the amount of carbon dioxide oceans absorb and dissolve, lowering their pH levels. “As pH declines, there is this concern that marine species that have shells may start dissolving or may have more difficulty making calcium carbonate, the chalky substance that they use to build shells,” said Debora Iglesias-Rodriguez, a professor in UCSB’s Department of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology.

Iglesias-Rodriguez and postdoctoral researcher Bethan Jones, who is now at Rutgers University, led a large-scale study on the effects of ocean acidification on these tiny plants that can only be seen under the microscope. Their research, funded by the European Project on Ocean Acidification, is published in the journal PLoS ONE and breaks with traditional notions about the vitality of calcifiers, or creatures that make shells, in future ocean conditions.

“The story years ago was that ocean acidification was going to be bad, really bad for calcifiers,” said Iglesias-Rodriguez, whose team discovered that one species of the tiny single celled marine coccolithophore, Emiliania huxleyi, actually had bigger shells in high carbon dioxide seawater conditions. While the team acknowledges that calcification tends to decline with acidification, “we now know that there are variable responses in sea corals, in sea urchins, in all shelled organisms that we find in the sea.”

These E. huxleyi are a large army of ocean-regulating shell producers that create oxygen as they process carbon by photosynthesis and fortify the ocean food chain. As one of Earth’s main vaults for environmentally harmful carbon emissions, their survival affects organisms inside and outside the marine system. However, as increasing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide causes seawater to slide down the pH scale toward acidic levels, this environment could become less hospitable.

The UCSB study incorporated an approach known as shotgun proteomics to uncover how E. huxleyi‘s biochemistry could change in future high carbon dioxide conditions, which were set at four times the current levels for the study. This approach casts a wider investigative net that looks at all changes and influences in the environment as opposed to looking at individual processes like photosynthesis.

Shotgun proteomics examines the type, abundance, and alterations in proteins to understand how a cell’s machinery is conditioned by ocean acidification. “There is no perfect approach,” said Iglesias-Rodriguez. “They all have their caveats, but we think that this is a way of extracting a lot of information from this system.”

To mirror natural ocean conditions, the team used over half a ton of seawater to grow the E. huxleyi and bubbled in carbon dioxide to recreate both present day and high future carbon levels. It took more than six months for the team to grow enough plants to accumulate and analyze sufficient proteins.

The team found that E. huxleyi cells exposed to higher carbon dioxide conditions were larger and contained more shell than those grown in current conditions. However, they also found that these larger cells grow slower than those under current carbon dioxide conditions. Aside from slower growth, the higher carbon dioxide levels did not seem to affect the cells even at the biochemical level, as measured by the shotgun proteomic approach.

“The E. huxleyi increased the amount of calcite they had because they kept calcifying but slowed down division rates,” said Iglesias-Rodriguez. “You get fewer cells but they look as healthy as those under current ocean conditions, so the shells are not simply dissolving away.”

The team stresses that while representatives of this species seem to have biochemical mechanisms to tolerate even very high levels of carbon dioxide, slower growth could become problematic. If other species grow faster, E. huxleyi could be outnumbered in some areas.

“The cells in this experiment seemed to tolerate future ocean conditions,” said Jones. “However, what will happen to this species in the future is still an open question. Perhaps the grow-slow outcome may end up being their downfall as other species could simply outgrow and replace them.”

Journal Reference:

Bethan M. Jones, M. Debora Iglesias-Rodriguez, Paul J. Skipp, Richard J. Edwards, Mervyn J. Greaves, Jeremy R. Young, Henry Elderfield, C. David O’Connor. Responses of the Emiliania huxleyi Proteome to Ocean Acidification. PLoS ONE, 2013; 8 (4): e61868 DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0061868

Carbon Dioxide Removal Can Lower Costs of Climate Protection (Science Daily)

13/04/2013UncategorizedClima, Desastre, discurso ambiental, Economia, Enquadramento, Geoengenharia, Incerteza, Mediação tecnológica, Mudanças climáticas, Política, Políticas públicas, Previsãorenzotaddei

Apr. 12, 2013 — Directly removing CO₂ from the air has the potential to alter the costs of climate change mitigation. It could allow prolonging greenhouse-gas emissions from sectors like transport that are difficult, thus expensive, to turn away from using fossil fuels. And it may help to constrain the financial burden on future generations, a study now published by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) shows. It focuses on the use of biomass for energy generation, combined with carbon capture and storage (CCS). According to the analysis, carbon dioxide removal could be used under certain requirements to alleviate the most costly components of mitigation, but it would not replace the bulk of actual emissions reductions.

Directly removing CO2 from the air has the potential to alter the costs of climate change mitigation. It could allow prolonging greenhouse-gas emissions from sectors like transport that are difficult, thus expensive, to turn away from using fossil fuels. And it may help to constrain the financial burden on future generations, a new study shows. It focuses on the use of biomass for energy generation, combined with carbon capture and storage. (Credit: © Jürgen Fälchle / Fotolia)

“Carbon dioxide removal from the atmosphere allows to separate emissions control from the time and location of the actual emissions. This flexibility can be important for climate protection,” says lead-author Elmar Kriegler. “You don’t have to prevent emissions in every factory or truck, but could for instance plant grasses that suck CO₂ out of the air to grow — and later get processed in bioenergy plants where the CO₂ gets stored underground.”

In economic terms, this flexibility allows to lower costs by compensating for emissions which would be most costly to eliminate. “This means that a phase-out of global emissions by the end of the century — that we would need to hold the 2 degree line adopted by the international community — does not necessarily require to eliminate each and every source of emissions,” says Kriegler. “Decisions whether and how to protect future generations from the risks of climate change have to be made today, but the burden of achieving these targets will increase over time. The costs for future generations can be substantially reduced if carbon dioxide removal technologies become available in the long run.”

Balancing the financial burden across generations

The study now published is the first to quantify this. If bioenergy plus CCS is available, aggregate mitigation costs over the 21st century might be halved. In the absence of such a carbon dioxide removal strategy, costs for future generations rise significantly, up to a quadrupling of mitigation costs in the period of 2070 to 2090. The calculation was carried out using a computer simulation of the economic system, energy markets, and climate, covering a range of scenarios.

Options for carbon dioxide removal from the atmosphere include afforestation and chemical approaches like direct air capture of CO₂ from the atmosphere or reactions of CO₂ with minerals to form carbonates. But the use of biomass for energy generation combined with carbon capture and storage is less costly than chemical options, as long as sufficient biomass feedstock is available, the scientists point out.

Serious concerns about large-scale biomass use combined with CCS

“Of course, there are serious concerns about the sustainability of large-scale biomass use for energy,” says co-author Ottmar Edenhofer, chief-economist of PIK. “We therefore considered the bioenergy with CCS option only as an example of the role that carbon dioxide removal could play for climate change mitigation.” The exploitation of bioenergy can conflict with land-use for food production or ecosystem protection. To account for sustainability concerns, the study restricts the bioenergy production to a medium level, that may be realized mostly on abandoned agricultural land.

Still, global population growth and changing dietary habits, associated with an increased demand for land, as well as improvements of agricultural productivity, associated with a decreased demand for land, are important uncertainties here. Furthermore, CCS technology is not yet available for industrial-scale use and, due to environmental concerns, is controversial in countries like Germany. Yet in this study it is assumed that it will become available in the near future.

“CO₂ removal from the atmosphere could enable humankind to keep the window of opportunity open for low-stabilization targets despite of a likely delay in international cooperation, but only under certain requirements,” says Edenhofer. “The risks of scaling up bioenergy use need to be better understood, and safety concerns about CCS have to be thoroughly investigated. Still, carbon dioxide removal technologies are no science fiction and need to be further explored.” In no way should they be seen as a pretext to neglect emissions reductions now, notes Edenhofer. “By far the biggest share of climate change mitigation has to come from a large effort to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions globally.”

Journal Reference:

Elmar Kriegler, Ottmar Edenhofer, Lena Reuster, Gunnar Luderer, David Klein. Is atmospheric carbon dioxide removal a game changer for climate change mitigation? Climatic Change, 2013; DOI: 10.1007/s10584-012-0681-4

Maya Long Count Calendar Calibrated to Modern European Calendar Using Carbon-14 Dating (Science Daily)

13/04/2013UncategorizedAntropologia, Índios, Enquadramento, Incerteza, Mediação tecnológica, Previsão, Tempo, Temporalidaderenzotaddei

Apr. 11, 2013 — The Maya are famous for their complex, intertwined calendric systems, and now one calendar, the Maya Long Count, is empirically calibrated to the modern European calendar, according to an international team of researchers.

Elaborately carved wooden lintel or ceiling from a temple in the ancient Maya city of Tikal, Guatemala, that carries a carving and dedication date in the Maya calendar. (Credit: Courtesy of the Museum der Kulturen)

“The Long Count calendar fell into disuse before European contact in the Maya area,” said Douglas J. Kennett, professor of environmental archaeology, Penn State.

“Methods of tying the Long Count to the modern European calendar used known historical and astronomical events, but when looking at how climate affects the rise and fall of the Maya, I began to question how accurately the two calendars correlated using those methods.”

The researchers found that the new measurements mirrored the most popular method in use, the Goodman-Martinez-Thompson (GMT) correlation, initially put forth by Joseph Goodman in 1905 and subsequently modified by others. In the 1950s scientists tested this correlation using early radiocarbon dating, but the large error range left open the validity of GMT.

“With only a few dissenting voices, the GMT correlation is widely accepted and used, but it must remain provisional without some form of independent corroboration,” the researchers report in today’s (April 11) issue of Scientific Reports.

A combination of high-resolution accelerator mass spectrometry carbon-14 dates and a calibration using tree growth rates showed the GMT correlation is correct.

The Long Count counts days from a mythological starting point. The date is composed of five components that combine a multiplier times 144,000 days — Bak’tun, 7,200 days — K’atun, 360 days — Tun, 20 days — Winal, and 1 day — K’in separated, in standard notation, by dots.

Archaeologists want to place the Long Count dates into the European calendar so there is an understanding of when things happened in the Maya world relative to historic events elsewhere. Correlation also allows the rich historical record of the Maya to be compared with other sources of environmental, climate and archaeological data calibrated using the European calendar.

The samples came from an elaborately carved wooden lintel or ceiling from a temple in the ancient Maya city of Tikal, Guatemala, that carries a carving and dedication date in the Maya calendar. This same lintel was one of three analyzed in the previous carbon-14 study.

Researchers measured tree growth by tracking annual changes in calcium uptake by the trees, which is greater during the rainy season.

The amount of carbon-14 in the atmosphere is incorporated into a tree’s incremental growth. Atmospheric carbon-14 changes through time, and during the Classic Maya period oscillated up and down.

The researchers took four samples from the lintel and used annually fluctuating calcium concentrations evident in the incremental growth of the tree to determine the true time distance between each by counting the number of elapsed rainy seasons. The researchers used this information to fit the four radiocarbon dates to the wiggles in the calibration curve. Wiggle-matching the carbon-14 dates provided a more accurate age for linking the Maya and Long Count dates to the European calendars.

These calculations were further complicated by known differences in the atmospheric radiocarbon content between northern and southern hemisphere.

“The complication is that radiocarbon concentrations differ between the southern and northern hemisphere,” said Kennett. “The Maya area lies on the boundary, and the atmosphere is a mixture of the southern and northern hemispheres that changes seasonally. We had to factor that into the analysis.”

The researchers results mirror the GMT European date correlations indicating that the GMT was on the right track for linking the Long Count and European calendars.

Events recorded in various Maya locations “can now be harmonized with greater assurance to other environmental, climatic and archaeological datasets from this and adjacent regions and suggest that climate change played an important role in the development and demise of this complex civilization,” the researchers wrote.

Journal Reference:

Douglas J. Kennett, Irka Hajdas, Brendan J. Culleton, Soumaya Belmecheri, Simon Martin, Hector Neff, Jaime Awe, Heather V. Graham, Katherine H. Freeman, Lee Newsom, David L. Lentz, Flavio S. Anselmetti, Mark Robinson, Norbert Marwan, John Southon, David A. Hodell, Gerald H. Haug. Correlating the Ancient Maya and Modern European Calendars with High-Precision AMS 14C Dating. Scientific Reports, 2013; 3 DOI:10.1038/srep01597

Segue o Seco (Rolling Stone)

07/04/2013UncategorizedClima, Desastre, Economia, Incerteza, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Nordeste, Opinião pública, Política, Políticas públicas, Previsão, Secarenzotaddei

Edição 77 – Fevereiro de 2013

Enquanto a Bahia sofre com “a pior seca dos últimos 50 anos”, os habitantes do sertão se desdobram para superar os percalços. A esperança persiste, mas é minguada como a água da chuva

Foto: Flavio Forner

Por MAÍRA KUBÍK MANO

“Para o carro! para o carro! olha ali, em cima das pedras! Tá vendo?” Não, eu não via nada. A paisagem parecia exatamente a mesma da última meia hora. Toda cor de terra, com uma ou outra catingueira no horizonte e os mandacarus, sempre em maior número, acompanhando o traçado da estrada de chão. “Lembra da cena em que o Fabiano vai tentar pegar um preá? Olha ali!”, o interlocutor insiste, apontando. Vidro abaixado, olhos a postos. Dois bichos pequenos, amarronzados e amendoados, de focinho pontudo, se mexem e se fazem notar. Pronto, lá estão os preás. Júlio César Santos fica satisfeito. Afinal, ele fora parar no sertão justamente depois de ler Vidas Secas.

“Eu sou da Zona da Mata, mas quando li Graciliano Ramos quis vir para cá”, conta Santos, um engenheiro agrônomo que se encantou pela caatinga quando ainda era estudante da Universidade Federal do Recôncavo Baiano (UFRB). Hoje, é chefe do escritório da EBDA (Empresa Baiana de Desenvolvimento Agrícola) em Ipirá, um dos 258 municípios da Bahia em situação de emergência por causa da seca. Junto com outros 17 órgãos e secretarias do governo de Jaques Wagner (PT), a EDBA faz parte do Comitê Estadual de Ações de Convivência com a Seca.

Estamos a caminho da cidade vizinha, Pintadas, onde a estiagem é ainda mais crítica. No percurso, cruzamos quatro rios. Três deles, secos. O céu nublado ao longe parece o prenúncio da mudança. Um chuvisco havia caído naquela madrugada, algo que não acontecia há muito tempo. As marcas ainda estavam na terra, em alguns sulcos rasos que provavelmente abrigaram fios de água corrente. Santos parece aliviado. “Agora precisa chover mais”, diz.

Em uma curva à esquerda surge a casa de Messias e Ginalva Jesus Pereira. A plantação de palmas logo se destaca da monocromia – é verde-escura, com nenhum tom de marrom. Na seca, o vegetal tem sido fonte de alimento imprescindível para garantir a sobrevivência dos animais, que já não têm mais pasto. “O povo vem, visita, admira. Outros ficam com usura”, fala Ginalva, sobrancelhas levantadas, há cerca de 20 anos vivendo naquele roçado.

Como era de se esperar, a conversa envereda para o clima e as gotas que caíram à noite. “Choveu em Ipirá, foi? Ah, aqui foi só uma neblina”, rebate o pequeno Matheus, filho do meio de Ginalva. “Aqui não chove mesmo há três anos. Perdemos dois bezerros e dois umbuzeiros para a seca. Painho está pedindo a Deus para esse resto de palma pegar”, diz, referindo-se a uma área mais distante da casa, plantada há pouco, onde o verde já está quase desbotando.

O cálculo de Matheus não é exagerado. Geralmente, chove na caatinga entre janeiro e maio, justamente a época do plantio. Em 2012, porém, a água não caiu e um período de estiagem emendou no outro, fazendo desta a maior seca dos últimos 50 anos, segundo a Coordenação de Defesa Civil da Bahia (Cordec). A previsão é que ela se estenda por mais um ou dois anos. “Agora, com a chuva, vai ser outra coisa. Vai mudar tudo”, avalia uma experiente Ginalva. Assim como o protagonista Fabiano da obra de Graciliano Ramos, ela sabe que a caatinga ressuscita.

Na casa dela, canos estrategicamente posicionados aguardam a próxima precipitação para recolher a água em cisternas. Enquanto isso não ocorre, Ginalva mantém, por meio de irrigação artificial, a produção – que inclui também feijão de corda, cebolinha, coentro, mamão, batata-doce e quiabo, além da criação de ovinos, caprinos e bovinos. O poço, recém-construído, foi financiado via Pronaf (Programa Nacional de Fortalecimento da Agricultura Familiar) Emergencial.

Assim como Ginalva, outros 6 mil agricultores da região apresentaram projetos para acessar o Programa. Segundo o Banco do Nordeste do Brasil (BNB), foram liberados R$ 10 milhões do Pronaf Emergencial até janeiro de 2013 para os 17 municípios do entorno de Feira de Santana, entre eles Pintadas e Ipirá. “São pequenos agricultores que você vê aqui, solicitando financiamento para plantar palmas ou fazer aguada para recuperar o pasto”, diz José Wilson Junqueira Queiroz, gerente de negócios do BNB. Em todo o Brasil, entre maio e dezembro de 2012, o governo federal autorizou R$ 656,2 milhões em linhas de crédito emergenciais para atender os atingidos pela seca.

“São essas políticas públicas que estão segurando as famílias no campo”, avalia Jeane de Almeida Santiago. Agrônoma que trabalha em uma ONG chamada Fundação Apaeba, ela presta assistência técnica para os produtores de Pintadas, Ipirá, Riachão do Jacuípe, Pé de Serra, Baixa Grande e Nova Fátima, todas na Bahia. “Antes, tinha muito mais gente que ia para São Paulo e outros estados para fazer migração.”

O relato é de alguém que conhece de perto a situação. Jeane nasceu em Pintadas. Estudou na escola agrícola e saiu para fazer curso técnico em Juazeiro e faculdade no Recôncavo Baiano. Voltou quando se formou, querendo transmitir os conhecimentos aprendidos. Olhos vivos e atentos, ela muda o tom e reavalia sua afirmação: “É, mas este ano muitos jovens estão indo. Com a seca, a rentabilidade das propriedades está zero. E as pessoas não vão ficar aqui sem ter dinheiro. Infelizmente, são obrigadas a sair, de coração partido, para São Paulo em busca de trabalho, ver se conseguem mandar dinheiro para a família que ficou aqui manter o rebanho vivo”.

De fato, o ponto de ônibus de Pintadas estava cheio naquela manhã. A cidade ainda não tem rodoviária e o asfalto que a conecta com o resto do mundo foi inaugurado há apenas um ano, como avisam as placas do governo do estado logo na entrada. Todos aguardavam na calçada o próximo transporte para a capital paulista, malas e parentes em pé, sol a pino. Há cerca de três semanas, Ginalva se despedia ali mesmo do filho mais velho, de 18 anos, que decidiu tentar a vida fora dali. “Me ligou ontem dizendo que já arrumou um emprego numa fábrica. É temporário, mas é um emprego”, ela conta. É a famosa ponte aérea Pintadas-São Paulo.

“O pior é que não temos previsão boa para este ano”, lamenta Jeane. Ela conta que até a palma e o mandacaru, também usados para alimentar o rebanho, começaram a desaparecer, e que a maioria das terras da região está na mão de pequenos agricultores de subsistência ou pecuaristas. “Já faz mais de um ano que o município está dando ração aos animais porque não tem mais pasto. Mas agora a ração esgotou. Você procura e não acha. Quando acha, é um valor que não dá para colocar no orçamento.”

Jeane preocupa-se: “Tem produtores que estão pagando três ou quatro projetos. Vai chegar uma hora que ninguém vai conseguir pegar mais [crédito], de tanto que devem. E aí, não sei como vai ser. Porque a propriedade não está tendo rentabilidade para pagar os empréstimos que já deve. Sem crédito, eu acredito que na zona rural fica impossível.”

“A causa desta seca é a destruição do meio ambiente”, ela sentencia, citando uma pesquisa recente que constata que 90% da mata nativa da região havia desaparecido. “A natureza está respondendo. O território está descoberto. E a partir daí vêm as queimadas. Muitos solos já se perderam ou estão enfraquecidos. O pessoal não tem a cultura de adubar e vão explorando e explorando. Os rios que tínhamos morreram. As nascentes estão desmatadas.”

Em Ipirá, logo ao lado, a realidade é semelhante. No lugar da caatinga, estão os bois. A cena mais comum é ver o gado ou os cavalos amontoados embaixo das poucas árvores que restam para escapar do sol escaldante – cabeça na sombra, lombo de fora. “Ipirá era um município cheio de minifúndios”, explica Orlando Cintra, gerente de Agricultura e Cooperativismo da Prefeitura. “Os grandes criadores começaram a chegar nos anos 1960. Este pessoal comprou a terra barata e empurrou o homem que produzia a batata, a mandioca e a mamona para a periferia daqui ou para São Paulo, Mato Grosso e Paraná.” Outros tantos foram trabalhar no corte da cana-de-açúcar. “Aqui não tinha boi e os pequenos produtores não desmatavam”, continua. “O que criávamos mais era o bode. Foi com a chegada dos grandes fazendeiros que o clima em Ipirá começou a mudar mais rapidamente. Desmataram para plantar capim.”

“A caatinga não é uma área para agropecuária. É para criação de caprinos, ovinos, animais de médio porte. Trouxeram a cultura do Sul, de pecuarista, e todo mundo quis ter fazenda de boi aqui”, completa Meire Oliveira, assessora da Secretaria de Agricultura e Meio Ambiente de Ipirá.

Meire passou a infância na zona rural do município e ainda se lembra do cheiro dessa mata. Conta que, quando criança, fazia burros a partir de umbus: enfiava quatro pedaços de galhinhos na fruta, representando as quatro patas. “Pena que, muitas vezes, quando eu digo para não desmatar, nem meu pai me ouve”, lamenta. Ela parece conhecer todas as plantas da caatinga. Quando encontra um cacto coroa-de-frade, mostra que é possível comer seu fruto, pequenino e vermelho. Caminhando pelas propriedades da região, cruza as cercas de arame farpado com desenvoltura. Pega um punhado de maxixe ainda verde e explica como cozinhá-lo. “Igualzinho a quiabo, sabe?” No sertão, tudo pode ser aproveitado. “A caatinga tem um poder de regeneração incrível”, explica. “A solução seria deixá-la descansar. Algumas áreas no entorno do Rio do Peixe já estão em processo de desertificação.”

Um exemplo de preservação ambiental é o assentamento D. Mathias, que completou sete anos de existência. Ali, a caatinga aos poucos renasce entre bodes, cabras e ovelhas. As árvores são podadas apenas o suficiente para não machucarem os animais, que circulam livremente pelas aroeiras, xique-xiques e umbuzeiros. Organizado pelo Movimento Luta Camponesa (MLC), o símbolo do assentamento é uma família de retirantes desenhada em preto e vermelho. A fila é puxada por uma mulher com uma foice nas mãos. Em seguida vem um homem, com uma enxada nos ombros. Dois filhos, um menino e uma menina seguem-nos de mãos dadas. Por último, um cachorro que, quiçá, se chama Baleia.

Júlio César Santos, dirigente da EBDA, presta assistência aos assentados e explica que os camponeses estão muito atentos às políticas públicas e linhas de crédito oferecidas pelos governos estadual e federal. Com isso, já conseguiram construir casas, comprar uma resfriadeira de leite e ampliar a criação de ovelhas. Entre as últimas iniciativas no local está a plantação adensada de palmas, mais rentável do que a tradicional. Em um primeiro momento, os agricultores não confiaram na técnica e continuaram plantando os cactos distantes uns dos outros, como sempre fizeram. Para contornar as dificuldades, Santos utilizou o “método de Paulo Freire”. Plantou dois roçados: de um lado, as palmas, adensadas; de outro, as tradicionais. Agora, as duas estão crescendo e ele espera, em breve, provar sua teoria. “Tomara que a falta de chuva não queime elas”, diz.

O sucesso do assentamento motivou, há 11 meses, um acampamento no latifúndio vizinho. Leidinaura Souza Santana, ou simplesmente Leila, é uma das moradoras do acampamento Elenaldo Teixeira. “O problema maior aqui é a água para beber e cozinhar. Ficamos quase 15 dias sem água. O caminhão-pipa chegou só ontem”, reclama. “A Embasa [Empresa Baiana de Águas e Saneamento] suspendeu o pipa por causa do rio, que já estava muito baixo, e também porque deu um problema na bomba”, explica Meire, que acompanha a visita. “Tivemos que tomar uma água que não é boa para beber”, murmura Leila.

Leila nasceu em Coração de Maria, ao norte de Feira de Santana. O marido trabalhava como vaqueiro em Malhador, povoado no município de Ipirá, quando souberam dos boatos da ocupação. Vieram logo participar. “Estamos esperando chegar a hora para entrar dentro da fazenda e acabar com o sofrimento. A área já foi atestada como improdutiva. O assentamento aqui do lado é uma maravilha. Me animei de ver que esse pessoal era acampado como a gente. Não desisto, não”, afirma. Meire aproveita para dar uma injeção de ânimo: “Eu acompanhei o outro acampamento desde o começo e era igualzinho. Acho que era até mais quente que este. Este é mais fresco. E olha como estão hoje”.

A conversa acontece na escola do acampamento, onde jovens e adultos são alfabetizados. A pequena construção de palha e madeira da escola fica no início daquela que foi batizada de “Avenida Brasil”, uma sequência bem aprumada de cerca de 15 barracos de lona. Leila acabou de passar para a 4a série do ensino fundamental e soletra o nome para mim. “L-E-I-D-I-N-A-U-R-A.” “Não é com ‘l’, não?”, pergunta Meire. “Não, é com ‘u’ mesmo”, Leila responde.

Em Tamanduá, povoado do entorno de Ipirá, motos e jegues passam com gente e baldes na garupa. Tudo lembra a estiagem. Egecivaldo Oliveira Nunes está à beira da estrada, ao volante do caminhão-pipa estacionado em frente à casa azul e branca. “Só trabalho particular, não trabalho com Exército nem Prefeitura. Pegamos água das barragens porque os açudes estavam secos”, ele conta, afirmando que nos piores dias da seca não “acha tempo” para as entregas solicitadas. O pagamento é por distância, e a cada quilômetro rodado muda o valor: 5 quilômetros são equivalentes a 9 mil litros e custam R$ 80. Quem não puder pagar (como os acampados) pode esperar pela Defesa Civil estadual – que afirma ter investido R$ 4 milhões em caminhões-pipa – ou pelo Exército, que mensalmente abastece de água 137 municípios.

“A cada ano, a seca vem mais intensa e a tendência é sempre durar mais”, lamenta Orlando Cintra, gerente de Agricultura e Cooperativismo de Ipirá. “A perspectiva é a de que em cinco ou seis anos ninguém vá produzir mais nada aqui, na área da agricultura. O clima vem se transformando. A cada ano piora.”

“Já tivemos tantas previsões, e nada”, diz Jeane Santiago. “Passa a previsão de chuva no jornal e as pessoas dizem: ‘Não tenho mais fé, só acredito se eu vir’. O pessoal da zona rural tem simpatias, como ‘se a flor do mandacaru desabrochar é sinal de que vai chover’. Mas todas deram errado até agora. A fé está acabando.” Os mandacarus já florearam. O vermelho-forte chama atenção. Agora é esperar.

In Big Data, We Hope and Distrust (Huffington Post)

05/04/2013UncategorizedBases de dados, Desastre, Economia, Enquadramento, Incerteza, Interatividade, Matemática, Mediação tecnológica, Política, Previsão, Redes sociais, Riscorenzotaddei

By Robert Hall

Posted: 04/03/2013 6:57 pm

“In God we trust. All others must bring data.” — W. Edwards Deming, statistician, quality guru

Big data helped reelect a pesident, find Osama bin Laden, and contributed to the meltdown of our financial system. We are in the midst of a data revolution where social media introduces new terms like Arab Spring, Facebook Depression and Twitter anxiety that reflect a new reality: Big data is changing the social and relationship fabric of our culture.

We spend hours installing and learning how to use the latest versions of our ever-expanding technology while enduring a never-ending battle to protect our information. Then we labor while developing practices to rid ourselves of technology — rules for turning devices off during meetings or movies, legislation to outlaw texting while driving, restrictions in classrooms to prevent cheating, and scheduling meals or family time where devices are turned off. Information and technology: We love it, hate it, can’t live with it, can’t live without it, use it voraciously, and distrust it immensely. I am schizophrenic and so am I.

Big data is not only big but growing rapidly. According to IBM, we create 2.5 quintillion bytes a day and that “ninety percent of the data in the world has been created in the last two years.” Vast new computing capacity can analyze Web-browsing trails that track our every click, sensor signals from every conceivable device, GPS tracking and social network traffic. It is now possible to measure and monitor people and machines to an astonishing degree. How exciting, how promising. And how scary.

This is not our first data rodeo. The early stages of the customer relationship management movement were filled with hope and with hype. Large data warehouses were going to provide the kind of information that would make companies masters of customer relationships. There were just two problems. First, getting the data out of the warehouse wasn’t nearly as hard as getting it into the person or device interacting with the customers in a way that added value, trust and expanded relationships. We seem to always underestimate the speed of technology and overestimate the speed at which we can absorb it and socialize around it.

Second, unfortunately the customers didn’t get the memo and mostly decided in their own rich wisdom they did not need or want “masters.” In fact as providers became masters of knowing all the details about our lives, consumers became more concerned. So while many organizations were trying to learn more about customer histories, behaviors and future needs — customers and even their governments were busy trying to protect privacy, security, and access. Anyone attempting to help an adult friend or family member with mental health issues has probably run into well-intentioned HIPAA rules (regulations that ensure privacy of medical records) that unfortunately also restrict the ways you can assist them. Big data gives and the fear of big data takes away.

Big data does not big relationships make. Over the last 20 years as our data keeps getting stronger, our customer relationships keep getting weaker. Eighty-six percent of consumers trust corporations less than they did five years ago. Customer retention across industries has fallen about 30 percent in recent years. Is it actually possible that we have unwittingly contributed in the undermining of our customer relationships? How could that be? For one thing, as companies keep getting better at targeting messages to specific groups and those groups keep getting better at blocking their messages. As usual, the power to resist trumps the power to exert.

No matter how powerful big data becomes, if it is to realize its potential, it must build trust on three levels. First, customers must trust our intentions. Data that can be used for us can also be used against us. There is growing fear institutions will become a part of a “surveillance state.” While organizations have gone to great length to promote protection of our data — the numbers reflect a fair amount of doubt. For example, according to MainStreet, “87 percent of Americans do not feel large banks are transparent and 68 percent do not feel their bank is on their side.:

Second, customers must trust our actions. Even if they trust our intentions, they might still fear that our actions put them at risk. Our private information can be hacked, then misused and disclosed in damaging and embarrassing ways. After the Sandy Hook tragedy a New York newspaper published the names and addresses of over 33,000 licensed gun owners along with an interactive map that showed exactly where they lived. In response names and addresses of the newspaper editor and writers were published on-line along with information about their children. No one, including retired judges, law enforcement officers and FBI agents expected their private information to be published in the midst of a very high decibel controversy.

Third, customers must trust the outcome — that sharing data will benefit them. Even with positive intentions and constructive actions, the results may range from disappointing to damaging. Most of us have provided email addresses or other contact data — around a customer service issue or such — and then started receiving email, phone or online solicitations. I know a retired executive who helps hard-to-hire people. She spent one evening surfing the Internet to research about expunging criminal records for released felons. Years later, Amazon greets her with books targeted to the felon it believes she is. Even with opt-out options, we felt used. Or, we provide specific information, only to repeat it in the next transaction or interaction — not getting the hoped for benefit of saving our time.

It will be challenging to grow the trust at anywhere near the rate we grow the data. Information develops rapidly, competence and trust develop slowly. Investing heavily in big data and scrimping on trust will have the opposite effect desired. To quote Dolly Parton who knows a thing or two about big: “It costs a lot of money to look this cheap.”

Uma (in)certa antropologia

An (un)certain anthropology

Arquivo da tag: Previsão

Global Warming Caused by CFCs, Not Carbon Dioxide, Researcher Claims in Controversial Study (Science Daily)

Subcommittee Reviews Legislation to Improve Weather Forecasting (Subcommittee on Environmen, House of Representatives, USA)

Geoengineering: Can We Save the Planet by Messing with Nature? (Democracy Now!)

Overheated rhetoric on climate change doesn’t make for good policies (Washington Post)

“eScience revoluciona a forma como se faz ciência” (Fapesp)

Climate research nearly unanimous on human causes, survey finds (The Guardian)

“It’s happening now… The village is sinking” (The Guardian)

Residents of Newtok, Alaska, know they must evacuate, but who will pay the $130m cost of moving them?

The impact on Newtok

For Insurers, No Doubts on Climate Change (N.Y.Times)

Climate slowdown means extreme rates of warming ‘not as likely’ (BBC)

World Bank turns to hydropower to square development with climate change (Washington Post)

Câmara de São Paulo aprova envio de torpedo para alertar chuvas (Folha de S.Paulo)

Climate Change Will Cause Widespread Global-Scale Loss of Common Plants and Animals, Researchers Predict (Science Daily)

Global Networks Must Be Redesigned, Experts Urge (Science Daily)

European carbon market in trouble (Washington Post)

In Europe, Paid Permits for Pollution Are Fizzling (N.Y.Times)

Hidrelétricas podem afetar sistema hidrológico do Pantanal (Fapesp)

Earth’s Current Warmth Not Seen in the Last 1,400 Years or More, Says Study (Science Daily)

Mathematical Models Out-Perform Doctors in Predicting Cancer Patients’ Responses to Treatment (Science Daily)

Carbon bubble will plunge the world into another financial crisis – report (The Guardian)

Politicians Found to Be More Risk-Tolerant Than the General Population (Science Daily)

Ocean’s Future Not So Bleak? Resilience Found in Shelled Plants Exposed to Ocean Acidification (Science Daily)

Carbon Dioxide Removal Can Lower Costs of Climate Protection (Science Daily)

Maya Long Count Calendar Calibrated to Modern European Calendar Using Carbon-14 Dating (Science Daily)

Segue o Seco (Rolling Stone)

In Big Data, We Hope and Distrust (Huffington Post)