Old Hippies

26/02/07, Leonardo Boff, O desafio amazônico, (Source).
26/02/07. Fausto Wolff, Olhe-se no espelho e pense, (Source).


26/02/07, Leonardo Boff, O desafio amazônico, (Back).

O tema da Campanha da Fraternidade da Igreja Católica do Brasil desta Quaresma é sobre a Amazônia. Milhões de fiéis durante as quatro semanas irão refletir sobre sua importância para nós e para o futuro da Terra.

A Amazônia abriga o maior patrimônio hídrico e genético do planeta. De um de nossos melhores estudiosos, Eneas Salati, sabemos: "Em poucos hectares da floresta amazônica existe um número de espécies de plantas e de insetos maior que em toda a flora e fauna da Europa". Mas esta floresta luxuriante é extremamente frágil, pois se ergue sobre um dos solos mais pobres e lixiviados da Terra. Se não controlarmos o desmatamento, em dezenas de anos a Amazônia poderá se transformar numa imensa savana.

Ela não é terra virgem e intocável. Em milhares de anos, dezenas de povos indígenas que ali viveram e vivem, atuaram como verdadeiros ecologistas. Grande parte de toda a floresta amazônica, especialmente de várzea, foi manejada pelos índios, promovendo "ilhas de recursos", criando condições favoráveis para o desenvolvimento de espécies vegetais úteis como o babaçu, a palmeira, o bambu, os bosques de castanheiras e frutas de toda espécie, plantadas ou cuidadas para si e para aqueles que, porventura, por lá passassem. As famosas "terras pretas de índios" remetem para esse manejo.

A idéia de que o índio é genuinamente natural representa uma ecologização errônea dele, fruto do imaginário urbano, fatigado pela artificialização da vida. Ele é um ser cultural. Como atesta o antropólogo Viveiros de Castro: "A Amazônia que vemos hoje é a que resultou de séculos de intervenção social, assim como as sociedades que ali vivem são resultado de séculos de convivência com a Amazônia". O mesmo diz E. E. Moraes em seu instrutivo livro Quando o Amazonas corria para o Pacífico (Vozes 2007): "Resta pouca natureza intocada e não alterada pelos humanos na Amazônia". Por 1.100 anos os tupi-guaranis dominaram vastíssimo território que ia dos contrafortes andinos do rio Amazonas até as bacias do Paraguai e do Paraná.

Índio e floresta, portanto, se condicionam mutuamente. As relações não são naturais mas culturais, numa teia intrincada de reciprocidades. Eles sentem e vêem a natureza como parte de sua sociedade e cultura, como prolongamento de seu corpo pessoal e social. Para eles a natureza é um sujeito vivo e carregado de intencionalidades. Não é como para nós, modernos, algo objetal, mudo e sem espírito. A natureza fala, e o indígena entende sua voz e mensagem. Por isso ele está sempre auscultando a natureza e se adequando a ela num jogo complexo de inter-retro-relações. Encontraram um sutil equilíbrio sócio-cósmico e uma integração dinâmica, embora houvesse também guerras e verdadeiros extermínios como aqueles dos sambaquieiros e de outras tribos.

Mas há sábias lições que precisamos aprender deles face às atuais ameaças ambientais. Importa entender a Terra não como algo inerte, com recursos ilimitados, disponíveis a nosso bel-prazer. Mas como algo vivo, a Mãe do índio a ser respeitada em sua integridade. Se uma árvore é derrubada, faz-se um rito de desculpa para resgatar a aliança de amizade. Precisamos de uma relação sinfônica com a comunidade de vida, pois, como foi comprovado, Gaia já ultrapassou seu limite de suportabilidade. Se deixarmos as coisas correrem e não fizermos nada, as ameaças se tornarão devastadora realidade.


26/02/07. Fausto Wolff, Olhe-se no espelho e pense, (Back).

O movimento hippie chegou ao fim junto com os anos 70. Na ocasião, escrevi no jornal Aktuelt, do Partido Socialista Dinamarquês, que deveríamos utilizar o melhor do seu legado: a busca da sabedoria, a luta pela liberdade, a procura da integridade com a natureza, a simplicidade no trajar, as comunidades familiares, a guerra a preconceitos odiosos e assim por diante. Ocorreu exatamente o contrário. O sistema, que fatura até com seus inimigos e usou o movimento para glamourizar suas roupas despojadas, esqueceu-se de suas propostas de paz e liberdade para enfatizar a anarquia, as barbas e cabelos longos, a irresponsabilidade e até mesmo tatuagens em hemorróidas expostas.

O estômago do sistema é como o do urubu: suporta tudo. Ganhou dinheiro com Einstein e Soljenitsin, ganhou dinheiro com os campos de concentração nazistas e ainda ganhará com a morte dos ciganos. Levará algum tempo, mas faturará sobre os últimos sobreviventes de Hiroshima. Os filhos dos hippies já nasceram subgerentes de bancos e os netos já entram para a universidade sabendo em que companhia comercial, industrial ou digital pretendem passar a vida.

Hoje, comprovadas as minhas palavras - vivemos num mundo fascista que domina homens alienados -, verifico que as mudanças políticas e econômicas acabaram por destruir as conquistas culturais que vão de Homero a Norman Mailer, para citar um grande escritor vivo. Nos últimos 35 anos, vem se tentando destruir o pensamento em favor do lucro. Quem pensa não compra o que lhe é imposto, e quem não compra o que é imposto é inútil para o sistema.

Depois dos genocídios proporcionados pela Alemanha e pelos EUA, o grande crime do século 20 foi o genocídio mental. Não estou dizendo que devemos voltar à Grécia Antiga, ao Império Egípcio ou Romano, à Idade Média, à Renascença, ao Iluminismo, ao Existencialismo. Acho porém que, quanto mais distante no passado formos buscar respostas para nossos problemas, mais nos projetaremos num futuro melhor. Repito o que escrevi em 1979: devemos dar à juventude uma chance de voltar sua atenção para os clássicos, porque estou certo de que eles nos ajudariam a viver como seres humanos e não como feras gananciosas e mesquinhas.

O que vemos atualmente é uma educação ocidental deteriorada. Caso contrário, não acharíamos natural Kennedy, Johnson e Nixon (três loucos) invadirem o Vietnam como este Édipo Tampinha, Bush, invade o Afeganistão e o Iraque. É verdade que, para os que tinham algum dinheiro, a vida melhorou bastante, pois o cérebro pouco exigente nada mais pede que casa, carro e novela de TV.

Como vêem, o homem não tem por que se orgulhar da alimentação moral, intelectual e espiritual que recebeu. Mas não é este homem medíocre, no sentido de médio, que deve ser responsabilizado, e sim aqueles que manipulam o seu cérebro e o põem na linha de montagem.

Os próprios distribuidores da peste acham honestamente que estão certos. Receberam a realidade de uma certa forma e acham que esta forma é a verdadeira. O próprio jornalismo que fazem é sobre as informações enviadas por esta falsa realidade. E se ela é falsa cabe aos meios de comunicação honestos que ainda existem denunciar esta falsidade. Perderiam dinheiro se fizessem isso? Não creio, pois você pode enganar alguns leitores algum tempo, outros por outro tempo, mas não todos ao mesmo tempo.

Proponho uma volta a Homero, Sócrates, Platão, Aristóteles, Virgílio, Plotino, Plutarco, Marco Aurélio, Dante, Erasmo, Maquiavel, Rabelais, Copérnico, Montaigne, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Galileu, Molière, Descartes, Spinoza até Marx, Freud, Wittgenstein e Chomsky para citar o mínimo do máximo.

Os livros desses autores mostram onde se originaram nossas dificuldades e são mais necessários hoje do que nunca. Reduzir o cidadão a objeto da propaganda pública e privada é o maior dos riscos que corremos. O primeiro passo - no caso dos meios de comunicação - é respeitar o leitor em vez de acreditar que ele é uma criatura boba e previsível, um objeto montável e desmontável.

(Back)

Cargill Santarém

19/05/06, Manoel Francisco Brito, A Batalha do Tapajós, (Source).
26/02/07, Helena Palmquist, MPF/PA requisita embargo urgente do porto da Cargill em Santarém, (Source).


19/05/06, Manoel Francisco Brito, A Batalha do Tapajós, (Back).

Eram 8:30 da manhã desta sexta-feira, 19 de maio, quando o Arctic Sunrise, navio do Greenpeace, despontou nas águas do rio Tapajós em frente ao terminal da Cargill no porto de Santarém, Oeste do Pará, e baixou três botes infláveis com 15 pessoas à bordo, entre eles seis alpinistas. Tinham a missão de escalar as torres do terminal para abrir uma imensa faixa com os dizeres “fora Cargill”. Foi o início de um dia de intensas escaramuças entre os ativistas da Ong, sojicultores e funcionários da multinacional que terminou com a prisão de 21 pessoas – 18 ativistas do Greenpeace, um funcionário da empresa e um sojicultor – e a certeza de que o fim de semana na cidade provavelmente continuará tenso.

Os alpinistas da Ong, que há dois meses plantou um pequeno exército de militantes em Santarém para denunciar os desmatamentos ilegais provocados pelo avanço da fronteira da soja na Amazônia, alcançaram seu primeiro objetivo. Mas, segundo o Greenpeace, a reação dos adversários foi violenta. Atingidos por jatos d’água lançados do chão, eles não conseguiram abrir a faixa. Um deles, Artur Esteves, foi forcado a descer de uma das torres e levou um soco tão logo tocou o solo. Ficou com o nariz quebrado. O embate chegou ao rio Tapajós. Voadeiras com sojicultores tentaram tomar de assalto um dos botes e quebraram um dedo do fotógrafo Ricardo Beliel, que estava à bordo.

A ação da tropa de escalada atraiu a atenção de sojicultores e empregados da Cargill. A Polícia Federal estima que juntos, eles somavam cerca de 250 pessoas. Distraídos com o que acontecia em torno das torres do terminal, esqueceram-se momentâneamente do Sunrise. “Foi a deixa para nós o colocarmos em ação”, contou Paulo Adario, coordenador da Campanha Amazônia do Greenpeace. O capitão, Valdemar Wittman, manobrou a embarcação de modo a deixá-la entre uma balsa que se preparava para desembarcar soja e o terminal. Teve sucesso na manobra, mas o navio, com 23 pessoas à bordo, passou a ser alvejado pela oposição que estava em terra com rojões, pedras e, novamente jatos d’água disparados do pátio da empresa.

Em São Paulo e Manaus, membros do Greenpeace, informados do que acontecia em Santarém, começaram a disparar e-mails relatando o início do confronto e pedindo aos seus destinatários que se mobilizassem para garantir a segurança da turma que fazia os protestos no terminal da Cargill. O ministro da Justiça, Marcio Thomaz Bastos, foi avisado e colocou a Polícia Federal em alerta. João Paulo Capobianco, secretário de Biodiversidade e Florestas do Ministério do Meio Ambiente, deslocou-se até o Palácio do Planalto para expressar sua preocupação.

A oposição invade o navio

No porto, os seis alpinistas receberam ordem de prisão de um destacamento da PM estadual. Junto com eles foi preso o funcionário da Cargill. A tripulação dos botes, mais nove pessoas, também foram em cana. Mas como entre os ativistas havia estrangeiros, e diante da manobra do navio que impedia o descarregamento da soja no porto, área sob jurisdição federal, a Polícia Federal foi mobilizada. Os agentes demoraram a chegar porque estavam envolvidos desde cedo numa operação para capturar traficantes da região de Santarém. “Estávamos fazendo oito prisões quando recebemos a ordem de nos deslocar para o porto”, disse o delegado Ualame Machado, que depois de deixar os bandidos na delegacia, adentrou o terminal da Cargill com uma equipe de 50 agentes.

Lá, Machado, que é lotado na Superintendência da Federal de Belém e já debateu ações policiais com Adario, subiu à bordo do Arctic Sunrise seguido por 20 policiais federais e alguns PMs. Sua presença acalmou a fúria da multidão aglomerada na área do terminal da Cargill. O delegado aproximou-se da ponte de comando da embarcação, onde estavam Adario e Wittman e, enquanto pedia que eles retirassem o navio do Greenpeace do local, tentou conter um grupo sojicultores que, em cinco embarcações, rondavam o navio tentando invadí-lo. Dez deles chegaram ao convés. Mas foram convencidos a recuar.

“Eu conversava com os sojicultores, pedindo calma e dizendo que a situação estava sob contrôle, sugerindo que eles fossem embora”, disse Machado. “Mas eles não paravam de rondar o navio. A coisa estava ficando tensa e voltei a pedir ao pessoal do Greenpeace para levar a embarcação para longe do porto”. Em vão. Os policiais não tiveram outra opção a não ser iniciar uma operação para invadir o navio. “Não tinha jeito. A pressão dos sojicultores nos barcos estava aumentando. Se não fizesse algo, iríamos ter que enfrentar os atacantes”. Os agentes federais começaram a tentar quebrar uma das escotilhas da ponte.

Adario e Wittman foram para o porão do navio, onde estavam outros 23 militantes da Ong, e os dois se acorrentaram ao casco. Os agentes conseguiram acesso à ponte de comando e chegaram até a sala de rádio, onde encontraram o operador e uma assessora de imprensa do Greenpeace. Ambos receberam ordem de prisão. Já passava de 10:30 e o saldo da refrega naquele momento, além dos feridos, era de 19 prisioneiros. Os políciais foram atrás do outros militantes que estavam no barco, tarefa razoavelmente complicada para quem não está habituado a navegar pelo labirinto de escotilhas e corredores que é o Arctic Sunrise.

Sojicultores soltam nota

Enquanto os policiais tentavam se orientar dentro do navio, dois rebocadores, enviados pela Capitania dos Portos, começaram a rebocá-lo para cerca de 1, 5 milha náutica de distância da Cargill, onde ele foi fundeado. Dando marretadas nas escotilhas para abrí-las, os agentes federais finalmente chegaram ao porão. Os ativistas que não estavam acorrentados receberam ordem de subir para o convés. Adario ouviu de uma agente um apelo. “Poxa, Paulo, a gente já fez tanta operação juntos. Se solta e vamos sair”. Mas nem ele e nem o capitão tinham mais as chaves. As correntes foram cortadas com alicates e os dois foram levados presos para o porto.

Quando entrava no carro da polícia, Adario foi ameaçado de morte por um homem que saiu da multidão de sojicultores. Era cerca de uma da tarde e a ação se transferiu para a delegacia da Polícia Federal em Santarém. Enquanto os ativistas eram fichados e indiciados por desobediência civil, cerca de 40 sojicultores cercaram o prédio. Gritaram contra a presença de Adário e da Ong em Santarém, jogaram pedras, mas acabaram convencidos pelos policiais a sair de lá.

Voltaram por volta das cinco da tarde em carreata. Pararam, fizeram discuros e se postaramnovamente diante da delegacia. “Não sei se é seguro sairmos. Acho que vamos passar a noite aqui”, informava ao cair da noite o advogado do Greenpeace, José Maria Vieira Jr. Ao saber dessa possibilidade, o delegado Machado disse que nem pensava no assunto. “Eles vão sair. Os sojicultores estão indo embora e eu também quero acabar o dia”, disse. O Sindicato dos Produtores Rurais de Santarém soltou uma nota assinada pelo seu presidente, Adinor dos Santos.

O texto afirma que o Greenpeace violou a lei paralisando o porto e acusa seus ativistas de agressão contra um funcionário da Cargill. A nota reconhece que a Ong tem o direito a fazer protestos e lamenta que algumas das pessoas ligadas aos sojicultores incorreram no que chamou de excessos. Diz que o sindicato não recomendou reprimir a manifestação da Ong e promete expulsar qualquer sojicultor envolvido em violências de seus quadros, se forem identificados. A nota prossegue afirmando que a entidade é a favor do plantio da soja e que rejeita a condição de que os sojicultores são os novos “vilões” do desmatamento na região.

Louro sem destino

Pouco antes de deixar a delegacia rumo ao barco do Greenpeace, onde ele os ativistas iriam passar a noite, Adario recebeu de um dos agentes um papagaio apreendido com os traficantes que foram presos cedo de manhã. Os policiais não tinham idéia para onde poderiam levá-lo. Deixá-lo no escritório regional do Ibama, nem pensar. Seus funcionários aderiram à greve nacional decretada pelo sindicato que representa os empregados do órgão. Os agentes imaginaram que Adario, como bom ambientalista, saberia o que fazer com ele. Como não sabia, o bicho ficou na delegacia.

Adario acha que a ação do Greenpeace na sexta–feira no porto de Santarém foi um estrondoso sucesso. “Paralisamos o desembarque da soja e chamamos, mais uma vez, atenção para os desmatamentos que estão sendo provocados pela expansão da fronteira agrícola”, disse. A reação violenta dos sojicultores só fez aumentar a reverberação dos protestos da Ong, sempre marcados por ações teatrais para atrair a atenção da mídia. Ao partirem para o confronto, a Cargill e os plantadores de grãos da região de Santarém acabaram ajudando a ampliar o palco armado pelo Greenpeace. Apesar dos perigos que andam encarando em Santarém, Adário e seus ativistas estão adorando.


26/02/07, Helena Palmquist, MPF/PA requisita embargo urgente do porto da Cargill em Santarém, (Back).

Terminal graneleiro funciona há 4 anos sem Estudo de Impactos Ambientais e deve ser fechado pelo Ibama. Justiça já confirmou irregularidades em todas as instâncias

O Ministério Público Federal requisitou ao Instituto Brasileiro do Meio Ambiente e dos Recursos Naturais Renováveis (Ibama) uma inspeção urgente no porto da Cargill Agrícola S.A, em Santarém (oeste do Pará). O pedido é para fiscalização por analistas ambientais e paralisação imediata das atividades do porto, além de autuação da empresa por operação irregular. O ofício foi enviado hoje (26 de fevereiro) ao gerente do Ibama em Santarém e deve ser atendido no prazo de 10 dias.

O embargo a ser imposto pelo Ibama é consequência das sucessivas derrotas judiciais da Cargill, empresa com sede em Minneapolis (EUA) que construiu e colocou em operação um terminal graneleiro no rio Tapajós sem elaborar Estudos de Impacto Ambiental (EIA-Rima). A irregularidade foi apontada pelo MPF em processo ajuizado em 2000 ( 2000.39.02.000141-0), que obteve liminar favorável do juiz federal Dimis da Costa Braga, antes da construção do porto. Na tentativa de reverter a decisão, a empresa impetrou sete recursos e foi derrotada em todas as instâncias do judiciário - Tribunal Regional Federal da 1ª Região, Superior Tribunal de Justiça e Supremo Tribunal Federal. Agora, a decisão transitou em julgado, ou seja, não cabem mais recursos e a ordem deve ser cumprida.

Na liminar, Costa Braga, à época juiz federal em Santarém, não só suspendeu o alvará de autorização emitido pela Secretaria Estadual de Ciência, Tecnologia e Meio Ambiente (Sectam) como a proibiu de expedir qualquer outra autorização para o funcionamento do polêmico terminal, sem que fosse "efetivada a competente aprovação do EIA-Rima demonstrando a viabilidade ambiental do projeto". Baseada no fato de que ainda havia recursos judiciais em tramitação, a Sectam deixou de exigir os Estudos e emitiu, desde 2000, sucessivas licenças favorecendo a Cargill.

Riscos empresariais - "Decerto que, pelo quadro apresentado, a empresa iniciou suas atividades empresariais (grãos) sustentada em decisão precária, transitória, sendo verdadeiro risco na forma em que conduziram suas atividades na região. Sabiam, pois, que, cedo ou tarde, os agravos seriam apreciados pelo Tribunal. Risco empresarial deliberado", diz o ofício enviado ao Ibama pelo procurador da República em Santarém, Felipe Fritz Braga.

A partir do dia 24 de fevereiro de 2006, quando todos os sete recursos ajuizados pela empresa já tinham sido derrotados, o porto não poderia ter licença renovada. Ainda assim, no último dia 23 de fevereiro, a Sectam voltou a licenciar as atividades da Cargill, ato considerado ilegal pelo MPF, porque desobedece expressamente uma ordem judicial.

"As irregularidades crescem como uma bola de neve nesse processo. Todas as obras e a operação do porto foram e continuam sendo feitas sem observar as leis brasileiras de proteção ao meio-ambiente. A situação é insustentável", afirma o procurador Felipe Braga. As ações judiciais contra a Cargill começaram a partir de queixas da população de Santarém ao MPF. Os movimentos sociais organizados denunciaram não ter sido ouvidos no processo de licenciamento ambiental nem tido acesso a nenhum estudo sobre o empreendimento.

Cargill terá que medir impactos - A questão central dos processos judiciais do porto da Cargill é o EIA-Rima, obrigatório pela legislação brasileira para qualquer atividade econômica de maior envergadura. O EIA é o instrumento essencial do licenciamento ambiental, citado na própria constituição brasileira, que diz, no artigo 225, inciso IV, ser obrigação do poder público "exigir, na forma da lei, para instalação de obra ou atividade potencialmente causadora de significativa degradação do meio ambiente, estudo prévio de impacto ambiental a que se dará publicidade".

A própria Sectam, em seu site na internet (www.sectam.pa.gov.br), informa a necessidade de EIA-Rima para portos e cais, tipo de atividade da Cargill em Santarém. O estudo é o que permite avaliar possíveis impactos, determinar se o empreendimento é viável e como poderão ser compensados os prejuízos à sociedade.

Após a confecção do Eia, por exemplo, é que se inicia a participação mais efetiva da população atingida no processo de licenciamento. Derrotada na Justiça, a Cargill terá que cumprir a partir de agora a legislação brasileira, e realizar não só os estudos como as audiências públicas com a população de Santarém, atingida desde 2004 por impactos nunca mensurados.

Veja como deve ser feito o licenciamento ambiental pelas leis brasileiras:

O empreendedor solicita ao órgão ambiental (federal, estadual ou municipal) uma Licença Prévia (LP), apresentando nessa etapa o Estudo de Impacto Ambiental.

O Estudo é elaborado às custas do empreendedor e obedecendo um Termo de Referência elaborado pelo órgão ambiental. Ele deve ser amplamente debatido com a sociedade através de audiências públicas que podem ser solicitadas por qualquer cidadão.

Se aprovada, a LP ainda não autoriza a instalação do projeto, apenas sua localização e concepção tecnológica.

Com a LP, o empreendimento pode obter a Licença de Instalação (LI), que autoriza o início da obra ou instalação do empreendimento. Nessa fase, o poder público também deve exigir relatórios e estudos para garantir o respeito ao ambiente.

Só então, é emitida a Licença de Operação (LO), que autoriza o funcionamento da obra/empreendimento. Está condicionada à vistoria para verificar se todas as exigências e detalhes técnicos descritos no projeto foram desenvolvidos e atendidos na instalação.

(Back)

Amazonia CNBB

23/02/07, Papa pede atenção para a Amazônia, (Source).
22/02/07, Campanha da Fraternidade recebe críticas, (Source).
22/02/07, Rogério Rocco, Sustentabilidade e soberania na Amazônia, (Source).
22/02/07, Sócio-ambientalismo, (Source).
22/02/07, Maurício Savarese, Igreja mira Amazônia para acertar governos e globalização, (Source).
22/02/07, Amazônia: ministra rebate críticas da CNBB, (Source).
21/02/07, Amazônia é tema da Campanha da Fraternidade 2007., (Source).


23/02/07, Papa pede atenção para a Amazônia, (Back).

Brasília. O papa Bento XVI pediu às autoridades e à Igreja do Brasil que dediquem atenção especial à preservação da Floresta Amazônica, em uma mensagem divulgada ontem pelo Vaticano. A Amazônia é o tema da Campanha da Fraternidade deste ano, promovida pela Igreja Católica e algumas agremiações evangélicas do Brasil.

Na mensagem, Bento XVI, que vem ao Brasil em maio, diz desejar que "as diversas instâncias da sociedade civil sejam cada vez mais sensíveis à questão amazônica, no respeito das exigências éticas da Justiça e do respeito à vida".

O pontífice observa que "a iniciativa se insere no marco mais amplo da defesa do meio ambiente, porque esse vasto território constitui um patrimônio comum, que por sua realidade humana sócio-política, econômica e ambiental, requer uma atenção especial por parte da Igreja e da sociedade brasileiras".

Segundo o papa, a Igreja tem que fomentar um processo de ampla evangelização, que estimule a missão e as condições favoráveis para o descobrimento e o crescimento da fé de toda a população amazônica.

A campanha acabou gerando crise entre a Conferência Nacional dos Bispos do Brasil (CNBB) e o governo. No discurso de lançamento da campanha, quarta-feira, no Pará, o secretário-geral da CNBB, dom Odilo Pedro Scherer, disse que na Amazônia as ações do governo Lula são "ineficientes ou ausentes".

A ministra do Meio Ambiente, Marina Silva, presente na abertura do evento, não gostou do tom do discurso. Mas só ontem defendeu-se das críticas do bispo. Disse que dom Odilo não dispõe de dados atualizados. Marina disse também que os autores da cartilha da campanha não sabem, por exemplo, que houve queda de 52% no desmatamento da região desde 2004.

E lembrou que, há quatro anos, o governo criou um sistema de detecção do desmatamento em tempo real, o que permite antepor-se a ações predatórias.

- Acho que dom Odilo se refere ao processo histórico de como as coisas aconteciam - rebateu Marina. - Temos que permanecer com esse trabalho, mas, só para se ter uma idéia, evitamos a derrubada de 1 bilhão de árvores, a morte de 40 milhões de aves e 1 milhão de primatas. Evitamos que fossem lançados na atmosfera 430 milhões de toneladas de CO2.

O texto-base da campanha foi alvo até de críticas de nove organizações católicas. A principal crítica é o fato de a Campanha da Fraternidade ser patrocinada pela Companhia Vale do Rio Doce, "uma das principais responsáveis pela destruição ambiental e por conflitos com populações tradicionais da Amazônia".


22/02/07, Campanha da Fraternidade recebe críticas, (Back).

Brasília. Nove pastorais sociais e organismos ligados à Igreja Católica divulgaram manifesto criticando a programação do lançamento da Campanha da Fraternidade 2007, que ocorreu ontem, em Belém.

As organizações argumentam que existe uma contradição "entre o discurso do texto-base da campanha" - que destaca a reflexão sobre as comunidades tradicionais da Amazônia - e a forma como o evento foi programado.

Segundo o manifesto lançado pelas entidades católicas, "o mais grave" é que o lançamento seja patrocinado pela Companhia Vale do Rio Doce, "uma das principais responsáveis pela destruição ambiental e por conflitos com as populações tradicionais da Amazônia".

"A imprensa nacional noticiou nos últimos meses as ações dos índios Xicrin contra a Vale", diz o manifesto. segundo o documento, a empresa cortou todos os repasses de recursos contratados com os indígenas, só voltando a efetuá-los por decisão judicial.

O tema deste ano é Fraternidade e Amazônia. Pela primeira vez o lançamento da Campanha da Fraternidade não é realizado em Brasília. A CNBB escolheu a cidade de Belém porque o Pará, segundo um estudo do IBGE é o Estado que tem o maior índice de desmatamento.

Segundo o presidente do Conselho Nacional do Laicato do Brasil, Carlos Francisco Signorelli, as entidades católicas não participaram do lançamento da campanha de 2007.

- Diante disto, decidimos não participar do evento que lançou a campanha, como protesto pela forma como foi organizado, sobretudo pela ausência do povo, principal sujeito da Campanha da Fraternidade".

Apesar das críticas, as entidades não são contra a Campanha da Fraternidade Segundo o manifesto, a campanha é um "gesto profético" da Igreja no Brasil que ajuda os cristãos e toda a sociedade a refletirem sobre temas da maior relevância social.

Para Signorelli, a Campanha da Fraternidade é fundamental e as entidades contribuem muito para a difusão do evento por todo país.

- Achamos que houve falta de sintonia entre a campanha e a forma de lançamento, pois ela prega que os povos da Amazônia têm muito a dizer pela sua simplicidade.

Assinam o manifesto das entidades acatólicas a Articulação Nacional da Pastoral da Mulher Marginalizada, a Comissão Dominicana de Justiça e Paz, a Pastoral da Terra, o Conselho Nacional do Laicato, o Grito dos Excluídos, o Grito dos Excluídos/Continental, Pastoral da Juventude Rural (PJR), a Pastoral do Menor e Pastoral dos Migrantes.


22/02/07, Rogério Rocco, Sustentabilidade e soberania na Amazônia, (Back).

Em meados da década de 80, as preocupações dos brasileiros com uma suposta possibilidade de internacionalização da Amazônia ganhavam grandes repercussões. Imaginavam-se formas de ocupação territorial por tropas estrangeiras, o domínio econômico dos elementos do solo e do subsolo amazônico e prováveis guerras pelo controle sobre as reservas de água.

Ecologistas e membros das Forças Armadas tinham nesse cenário um dos raros pontos de convergência entre suas convicções ideológicas. Porém, assim como vários alertas divulgados com relação às perspectivas negativas do modelo de desenvolvimento adotado pelo Brasil, este pareceu envolvido numa elucubração catastrófica, sustentada por profetas do apocalipse. Pouco mais de duas décadas foi suficiente para indicar que a situação da Amazônia não variou muito quanto a algumas das piores previsões.

O Plano Colômbia viabilizou uma ocupação territorial parcial da região por tropas militares norte-americanas, comprovando o desejo das superpotências no domínio espacial dessas áreas. Por outro lado, temos presenciado inúmeras detenções de estrangeiros que tentam sair do Brasil com amostras de espécimes da fauna e da flora brasileiras - numa ação que se convencionou chamar de biopirataria: levam exemplares para laboratórios e desenvolvem tecnologias a partir de nosso patrimônio genético. Na atualidade, várias empresas por todo o planeta possuem patentes de produtos cosméticos, alimentícios ou farmacêuticos constituídos à base da genética de elementos de nossa biodiversidade.

Há uma farta lista de outras questões que poderiam ser usadas como exemplo do que não queremos para a Amazônia, relacionadas à água, à ocupação territorial, à violência e à exploração de madeira, pelo menos. A série de reportagens publicadas pelo Jornal do Brasil sobre o assunto trouxe à tona questões cruciais para os interesses nacionais, ressaltando o histórico de omissão do Estado brasileiro na região. Porém, não podemos deixar de lado os processos que pressionam para a mudança desse quadro e que já demonstram viabilidade política e ecológica.

O Programa Arpa - Áreas Protegidas na Amazônia (MMA / Funbio) - trabalha com um universo de investimentos em unidades de conservação na ordem de US$ 400 milhões, pelo prazo de dez anos. Já foram investidos US$ 90 milhões e somente em 2006 foram criados 18 milhões de hectares e consolidados outros 7 milhões de hectares de áreas protegidas na região. A meta é atingir 50 milhões de hectares até o final do programa.

No campo normativo há avanços importantes, como a edição da MP 2.166/01 - que passou a dispor sobre o acesso ao patrimônio genético, aos conhecimentos tradicionais e à repartição dos benefícios da atividade, instrumentalizando o Estado brasileiro e a sociedade para uma justa equação do problema. Não há como não citar a aprovação da Lei de Gestão de Florestas Públicas - dispondo dos meios para que o poder público ordene adequadamente o uso do solo e o manejo sustentável da floresta. A soberania brasileira na Amazônia depende da existência de instrumentos legais que viabilizem uma gestão pública da região, minimizando as possibilidades da manutenção das práticas ilícitas existentes desde muito tempo.

No campo administrativo, as operações promovidas pelo Ibama e pela Polícia Federal no combate aos crimes de falsificação de documentos de manejo e de transporte de madeira desvendaram quadrilhas que saqueavam elementos do bioma amazônico há várias décadas. E por outro lado, a execução do Plano de Combate ao Desmatamento na Amazônia - coordenado pela Casa Civil, com a participação de 14 ministérios, alcançou resultados significativos, reduzindo em cerca de 50% o desmatamento registrado nos últimos anos.

Vinculadas ao princípio da sustentabilidade, essas transformações em curso na região amazônica não podem abstrair dos processos participativos, onde o dissenso registra as diversidades sociais e culturais das comunidades envolvidas. A participação social em grande parte se manifesta através das ONGs e dos movimentos sociais, que são fundamentais na evolução das políticas públicas para a Amazônia.

Portanto, dado o diagnóstico atual de um dos principais biomas do Planeta, cabe à atual geração - em especial aos brasileiros - construir as políticas, os instrumentos e a cultura da sustentabilidade socioambiental da Amazônia, zelando pela soberania e pela paz, para o bem de toda forma de existência. Os primeiros passos para alcançar estes objetivos estão sendo dados e é fundamental que isso seja reconhecido.


22/02/07, Sócio-ambientalismo, (Back).

Mas não foi só o governo que saiu arranhado da cerimônia, realizada na ilha do Combu, próxima a Belém (PA). Segundo o jornal O Globo, a própria CNBB foi alvo de críticas de pastorais sociais e outras entidades religiosas. É que o lançamento foi restrito a convidados e financiado pela Companhia Vale do Rio Doce, que é apontada por eles como responsável por conflitos com populações tradicionais da Amazônia. A igreja pretende, entre suas principais ações, acolher quilombolas e companhia debaixo de suas asas. E alardeia uma mobilização nacional contra os latifúndios na região.


22/02/07, Maurício Savarese, Igreja mira Amazônia para acertar governos e globalização, (Back).

Texto da CNBB diz que a Campanha da Fraternidade é um convite para se repensar, a partir da realidade amazônica, o modelo de desenvolvimento para o País

Após vários anos usando temas mais distantes da política e uma retórica mais amena, a Igreja Católica brasileira iniciou nesta quarta-feira, 21, a Campanha da Fraternidade de 2007 com críticas aos governos e aos efeitos da globalização, tendo como mote a defesa da Amazônia.

"(A campanha) é um convite para que toda a sociedade brasileira repense, a partir da realidade amazônica, o modelo de desenvolvimento que se quer para o País como um todo", diz o texto base da Confederação Nacional dos Bispos do Brasil (CNBB) para a campanha, que começou nesta Quarta-Feira de Cinzas com uma celebração na Ilha do Cumbu, na região de Belém.

Nas mais recentes edições do evento, os assuntos discutidos foram os portadores de deficiência, a terceira idade e a paz. "Esta riquíssima ´sociobiodiversidade´ ... é também um chamado à responsabilidade do Estado e da sociedade para que não continuem financiando ou tolerando um modelo de desenvolvimento predador", afirma o documento.

Entre as propostas dos religiosos, que serão debatidas na capital paraense nesta quinta-feira, 22, com deputados e senadores de Estados da Amazônia Legal, estão o fim da reintegração de posse a fazendeiros que têm terras invadidas e políticas de desenvolvimento sustentável, com ênfase na questão da água.

´Idas e vindas´ Composta por nove Estados - Amazonas, Acre, Amapá, Pará, Rondônia, Roraima, Maranhão, Tocantins e Mato Grosso -, a Amazônia Legal é morada de muitas autoridades católicas próximas à Teologia da Libertação, que propõe a visão de um Jesus Cristo revolucionário e que vê necessidade de a Igreja se envolver na transformação social.

O arcebispo de Belém, d. Orani Tempesta, vê boa vontade na sociedade para debater as questões da Amazônia, apesar do que chama de "idas e vindas" na atuação dos governos. Mas critica, com discrição religiosa.

"Nós todos, de um lado e do outro, vamos nos aprofundar nessa questão com essa oportunidade que abrimos. Nós sabemos que não tem como voltar atrás da globalização, somos realistas. Mas ela precisa ser mais bem orientada e ter mais respeito pelas culturas locais. Isso ainda está por acontecer", disse ele à Reuters por telefone.

Na Região Norte do País, onde está a maior parte da Amazônia, a Igreja Católica tem perdido fiéis para religiões neopentecostais. A CNBB, no entanto, nega que isso tenha pesado para a escolha do tema e para o local de lançamento da campanha, sediado fora de Brasília pela primeira vez.

Protestos Dez organizações católicas se uniram para assinar um manifesto contra a forma de lançamento da campanha, a qual chamaram de elitista e distante da vida das populações amazônicas. O evento foi organizado em uma ilha por uma empresa de eventos e teve o patrocínio da Companhia Vale do Rio Doce.

"É a primeira vez que isso acontece, de ter um início de campanha tão longe do povo. Ali só entrou quem tinha convite", disse à Reuters Madalena Santos, uma das coordenadoras nacionais da Comissão Pastoral da Terra.

No manifesto, a pastoral e os outros grupos dizem que "o caso da Vale é tão gritante que a própria Igreja, através do Grito dos Excluídos e da 4ª Semana Social Brasileira ... se comprometeu em propor um plebiscito popular para a anulação do leilão" que privatizou a companhia.

Responsável pela organização do evento, o arcebispo de Belém considerou equivocado o teor do manifesto e lamentou que os autores não tenham conversado com ele antes de divulgá-lo.

"A abertura da Campanha da Fraternidade sempre foi uma entrevista coletiva. Sempre. E aqui tivemos mais do que isso, tivemos convidados porque as autoridades se interessaram, o que poderia nos dar mais visibilidade. Com uma conversa eles teriam entendido isso, mas preferiram demonstrar que desconhecem o funcionamento do evento", afirmou.

"A empresa patrocina quem ela quiser e existe Judiciário e Ministério Público para apurar se houver algo de errado relacionado a ela ou ao trabalho que ela faz. O que a gente não pode é condenar de antemão, eleger alvo de expurgo desse jeito", acrescentou.

A primeira Campanha da Fraternidade foi feita em 1964 para discutir problemas com a sociedade e propor soluções. Após o lançamento, serão feitos debates também nas dioceses de todo o País até a quinta-feira anterior à Páscoa.


22/02/07, Amazônia: ministra rebate críticas da CNBB, (Back).

Para Marina Silva, dados sobre desmatamento de entidade só vão até 2004.
Bispo disse que ações do governo são "ineficientes ou ausentes".

Em entrevista à rádio CBN (ouça aqui), a ministra do Meio Ambiente, Marina Silva, respondeu às críticas do secretário-geral da CNBB (Conferência Nacional dos Bispos do Brasil), dom Odilo Pedro Scherer, que disse ontem, no lançamento da Campanha da Fraternidade 2007, que as ações do governo na Amazônia são “ineficientes ou ausentes”.

Para a ministra, os dados compilados pela CNBB sobre a Amazônia se referem até o ano de 2004 e não incluiriam a redução de 52% do desmatamento nos dois últimos anos.

“Acho que dom Odilo se refere ao processo histórico de como as coisas aconteciam. Até 17 anos atrás, mesmo as informações que eram produzidas pelo Inpe (Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Especiais), que são altamente importantes, quando eram processadas, de fato o desmatamento já tinha acontecido. Nos últimos quatro anos, mudamos isso: criamos um sistema de detecção do desmatamento em tempo real e isso nos permitiu ter algum nível de antecipação”, disse.

A ministra, que também participou do lançamento da Campanha da Fraternidade, cujo lema este ano é “Fraternidade e Amazônia”, voltou a admitir que as ações do governo são “apenas o começo”.

“Como eu disse, com essa redução, que é inicial, não podemos cantar vitória. Temos que permanecer com esse trabalho. Mas, para só para se ter uma idéia, [a ação] evitou a derrubada de 1 bilhão de árvores, a morte de 40 milhões de aves e de 1 milhão de primatas. Além disso, evitou que fossem lançados na atmosfera 430 milhões de toneladas de CO2”, disse.

Para a ministra, o fato de a CNBB transformar a Amazônia em tema de campanha tem um impacto positivo para o trabalho de preservação da floresta.

“Se formos verificar o que aconteceu com relação à percepção que se tinha da Amazônia há 18 anos, antes do assassinato de Chico Mendes, ela cresceu de forma gigantesca. Isso não significa que se traduzam em novas atitudes por parte de pessoas, empresas e até de políticas públicas. A campanha ajuda em capilaridade e na sustentabilidade política e ética. As coisas não mudam por ato de vontade externa, mas da mobilização das pessoas”, disse.

Reforma ministerial

Marina Silva disse não ter conversado ainda com o presidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva sobre sua permanência à frente do Ministério do Meio Ambiente. “O presidente Lula não conversou comigo, mas não vamos baixar a guarda. Vamos trabalhar como começamos no dia 1º de janeiro de 2003. Se continuarmos, precisamos estar com as máquinas já quentes. Se tivermos de sair, vamos deixar aquecidas para aqueles que virão. Este não é trabalho que depende de pessoas, mas de projetos e de visão.


21/02/07, Amazônia é tema da Campanha da Fraternidade 2007., (Back).

Campanha será lançada no Pará nesta quarta-feira de cinzas.
Conferência Nacional dos Bispos do Brasil quer revelar problemas locais.

A onda de discussões sobre temas ambientais, iniciada há três semanas com a divulgação de um estudo internacional sobre o aquecimento do planeta, ganha um novo reforço nesta quarta-feira (21), com o lançamento da Campanha da Fraternidade 2007. Neste ano, a Igreja escolheu como tema 'Fraternidade e Amazônia - Vida e missão neste chão'. Pura coincidência. O tema estava definido havia dois anos.

Cartaz da Campanha Fraternidade (Foto: Ag.Brasil)A idéia da Conferência Nacional dos Bispos do Brasil (CNBB) é revelar a seus fiéis a realidade da Amazônia, as dificuldades em que vivem seus habitantes e, sobretudo, mostrar como a mudança de hábitos pode trazer benefícios para a região. "A revisão dos padrões de consumo e a ênfase para que governos adotem políticas que proporcionem o desenvolvimento sustentável da Amazônia são uma forma de fraternidade", diz o secretário-executivo da campanha, cônego José Carlos Dias Toffoli, o padre Carlão.

O texto básico da campanha é um verdadeiro libelo. Traz desde as estatísticas que retratam as desigualdades entre os habitantes da Amazônia e o restante do país à lista das conseqüências nefastas da militarização, do tráfico de drogas, os problemas da ocupação de terra e a disputa por territórios.

No trecho sobre os objetivos da campanha, o documento recomenda: "Denunciar as situações que agridem a vida, ameaçam os povos e projetos de dominação que perpetuam modelos econômicos colonialistas".

Esta é a terceira vez, em 43 anos, que a CNBB aborda um tema ligado a questões ambientais. Em 1979, o lema foi 'Preserve o que é de todos' e, em 2004, a água e seu uso racional. Desta vez, no entanto, há uma mescla entre a preservação do ambiente e a necessidade de melhorar as condições de vida da população da Amazônia - uma campanha sócio-ambiental.

Lançamento
O lançamento oficial da campanha será em uma ilha próxima a Belém (PA). Estarão presentes a ministra do Meio Ambiente, Marina Silva, e a secretária de coordenação da Amazônia, Muriel Saragoussi. "Antes de mais nada, é uma campanha educativa", avalia Muriel.

Ela observa que, entre seus muitos mitos, o Brasil perpetua o da Amazônia e seu povo. "É preciso ir além do folclore. Há uma relação muito especial entre o homem e a natureza naquela região", afirma Muriel. "E não há apenas um povo, não é uma Amazônia, são várias: a das águas, a da terra firme, a das cidades."

Para Muriel, o tema da campanha representa mais do que uma coincidência. É um importante aliado num momento em que o meio ambiente passou a ser tratado como a pedra no sapato para o desenvolvimento. "Desenvolvimento não é sinônimo de obra. É muito mais que isso. E é algo que tentamos colocar em prática, por exemplo, com o projeto da BR-163."

O texto da CNBB faz coro ao discurso de Muriel: "Mesmo sabendo que as populações da Amazônia precisam de estradas, de energia, de comunicação, preocupa-nos que as prioridades de investimento sejam direcionadas aos interesses do capital. A abertura de estradas não pode continuar estimulando o aumento do desmatamento, a invasão das terras indígenas e o incentivo à grilagem. As barragens não podem continuar significando remoção de povoados inteiros, alagamento de vastas áreas de florestas, ocupações de terras. As hidrovias não podem trazer o desequilíbrio ambiental, o assoreamento dos rios, o prejuízo à fauna e à flora aquática".

Ponto de Partida
A coordenadora da ONG WWF-Brasil, Denise Hamu, elogiou a iniciativa da CNBB. "A Igreja tem uma influência, uma capilaridade muito grande. E a mensagem pode não só alertar para a importância da preservação da região, mas despertar o orgulho dela."

Denise afirma que o país precisa encontrar variáveis inovadoras para o desenvolvimento e despertar para o fato de que meio ambiente não é entrave, mas uma oportunidade. "O modelo predatório há muito não serve mais. Claro que na nova linha é preciso planejamento", observa. Isso leva tempo. Mas poderia ser muito menos se a lógica dos empreendimentos fosse revertida. "Depois de pronto o projeto, empreendedores vão pensar na parte ambiental. A lógica deveria ser outra: o meio ambiente como ponto de partida."

(Back)

Percy Saltzman - No More Nudies

No More Nudies

All my long life I have doted on the female form divine. It’s a sort of madness, an all-consuming passion, persisting now into my tenth decade.

I welcome the frenzy. It maketh the juices to flow, the mouth to salivate, the throat to tickle and tighten, the eyes to glitter and bulge, the crotch also, the pulse to race, the heart to drum like an all-steel band.

It all began when I was three. On that sunny Sunday morn, I caught my mother and father in flagrante delicto making the beast with two backs (thank you, Willy boy).

It seems in retrospect awfully premature of me but I swear I realized in a flash the awesome beauty and sacred privacy of the occasion. I crawled away in some confusion, but the image of love in full bloom has never dimmed across the decades.

Of course, it was not a succulent topic for table talk, so I never mentioned what I saw then or since to ma and pa until their dying day.

Many many years later my junior son Paul in the full maturity of his fumbling adolescence burst into our bedroom when Rose and I were beavering away at the beast with two backs, and I was highly resentful of his boorish behavior.

He knew, or ought to have known, what goes on behind closed doors, but he was born a boor beyond belief. I feel he did it with malice aforethought and I resent his intrusion to this very day. Not that I ever mentioned it. It was not a succulent topic suitable for idle table talk.

As I myself grew into addled adolescence, hormonal surges drove me into an unremitting sexual frenzy, and with no natural female outlet handy, I took myself in hand, hardly the most satisfying of solutions. Definitely second hand.

It was not until my wedding night, I then at the inept age of 20, that I did taste for the first time the raptures of the deep, and I have never been the same since.

Her scent of a woman penetrated the very depths of my soul. I walked around for days in a daze. I kept savoring that first flush, repeatedly smelling my five fingers. I refrained from washing my right hand for days. It was, after all, the primal culminating fulminating cataclysm of my life.

It was also my wife’s introduction to the primal experience and it was not a happy one. She suffered severe pain. She was a virgin with as it happened a case-hardened maidenhead made of solid steel. There was no way I could penetrate despite urgent and repeated thrustings. I could not force entrance, and the result was impotence, frustration and bitter disappointment. So much so that she was forced to flee the nuptial bed and seek surcease in her mother’s comforting arms.

Thus passed the night of our dreary nightmare. Soon thereafter our doctor performed the defloration with the swift nick of a steel scalpel, a procedure we should have insisted on before the first night, but we were innocent babes in arms, and stupid withal.

As the many years of our marriage passed, we managed to slake our thirst a thousand times, not always with satisfying results for my wife, for she suffered my ejaculatory incompetences with steely stoicism.

Now flash forward a few decades and I am invited to my first visit to a nudist camp. I accepted with alacrity at the prospect of mass female pulchritude, and I wondered over and over if my public image would be harmed by my walking around in broad daylight with a semi leading the way. I knew it would be impolite to point, but could I help myself?

After all, all my life I had difficulty controlling my erotic urges, easily provoked by a whole host of stimuli, not limited to poetry, music, dancing, dreams, trim ankles, pendulous breasts, round little tummies, bulging buttocks, and even the passing parade of fully clothed females in shameless attire.

I talked it over with my wife who very reluctantly agreed to accompany me but who firmly declined to disrobe. I too wondered whether I would have the nerve given that I was a well-known public figure, prominent in the public eye owing to my many years of exposure on the boob-tube. Moreover, I was not a fully-fashioned prime example of the Atlas type. Showing my short-comings would hardly add to my fandom. On the contrary, I feared opening myself to public ridicule.

Be that as it may, as we drove up to that den of sin, and I parked the car, even at that last moment before disembarking, I was consumed by a turmoil of doubt. Would I or wouldn’t I? To strip or not to strip, that was the question.

But not for my Rose. For her it was a no-brainer. Strip she would not, come what may.

In any event, no sooner had I parked the car, and stepped outside, then a frenzy overtook me, and I stripped to the bone, in an instant, ready to take on all comers, and be one myself. To this day I do not understand what overcame me. It was as if I had been pitched into automatic, autistic overdrive, a prisoner of my manifest destiny, not unlike the feeding frenzy of a horde of circling sharks eager for the delights of the kill.

We entered the gates where money was demanded but I hardly noticed for the cashier was a buxom, strapping, statuesque bimbo with all the marvelous accouterments readily manifest beneath a clear see-through plastic robe. I gaped and gawked, frozen and transfixed by my first fully fashioned female nude in all its magnificence.

And as we spent the lazy afternoon wandering around the grounds of this modern Garden of Eden, wonders of wonders, I had no trouble from down under. I had wondered in the run-up if I would disgrace myself. I was worried and feared the worst.

But I need not have worried a whit. I wonder to this day why it was so. How could it be, horny as I was, (and still am) highly arousable by even the faintest sexual stimulus, that I had not risen to the occasion at all. Mind you, all the lovely sights, as round above as they were below, gave me a semi- permanent buzz. My mind was pleasantly guddled. The flesh was not. Curious. A minor miracle.

And as I perambulated, taking in the forbidden fruit, as so much eye candy, I was thunderstruck by the infinite variety of shape and size and figure and configuration the female flesh is heir to.

But I was also repelled by the immense variation in the disfigurations and deviations from norm. So much of what I saw was frankly ugly, off-putting, disgusting even. A panoply of purulent pustules, of warts and moles and disfiguring discolorations.

Too many pimples on too many bare bums (my own included). Too much ugly hair in the wrong places. Too many unappetizing vistas, as when a lady upslope from me on the grassy incline hoisted herself from a prone position to present me with a stunning view of her gaping rear. Man, the horn drained right out of me.

Or the flapping of flaccid tits as the gals bumped up and down playing volley ball in the buff. I feared mass trauma.

From a lifetime of endless fascination with the female form, I was confronted with a suffocating superfluity. From a famine hereto, now suddenly a choking feast that stuck in my craw. Too much, too satiating. Massive engorgement. It was to vomit.

I now fully for the first time thoroughly appreciated the beauty of the semi-clothed, the artfully concealed, the fleeting glance, the teasing glimpse, the mere hint of sweet treats to come. Not a plethora of pulchritude, thrown into the face like a pail of slop.

Ah, the dance of the seven veils. How much more arousing. Let the perfervid imagination do the excoriation of the ecdysiast.

Meanwhile, all the while I had been lost in thought, my wife, mirabile dictu, had quietly stripped, piece by piece, right to her rugged bottom. She amazed me.

And you know what, of all the ladies presented to my greedy gaze, she was the most alluring. Her finely crafted face and figure, her milk-white perfect skin, her shapely breasts and bum, her beautiful slender legs, her thick black head of hair – her crowning glory – her breath always so fragrant and fresh, her clear uncluttered gaze – all, all roused me more than all the other ladies combined, and I hastily retreated into the folds of my bath towel, just in the nick of time.

The memory of her light and tantalizing kisses all added to the allure. I fell in love with her all over again. I had to go to a nudist camp to learn that the best body of all had been in my own bed and bedroom all along.

Many years later, after the death of my sweet Rose, I took my wife Audrey to visit Nude Beach at Hove Actually, near Brighton in England. There were loads and loads of lovely ladies scattered up and down the strand, only a few steps away, but I was so pooped, so drained, I had not the oomph to saunter over for a free peak. Imagine, turning down such a surfeit for sore eyes. But I had to. I had no strength, no desire to move a muscle. What’s more, I didn’t even want to look.

Where had all my flowers gone? What happened to the old horn of yesteryear? Gone, gone with the wind. Born a generation or two, too soon. I had missed the boat. The old goat had missed the boat. It is to weep. I wept.

20/02/07, Jens Glüsing, Anarchy in Rio - Carnival of Death

Shoot-outs on the street may be common in Rio de Janeiro, but the current wave of violence has shocked even Brazilians. The horror has cast a shadow over this year's carnival.

The blue chemical toilets at the Sambadrome, where Rio's carnival schools stage their annual parade, have many uses. Drunk foliões -- as the carnival fools in Brazil are known -- relieve their bladders while sweat-soaked dancers check if the glitter on their silicone-enhanced breasts is still in place -- and particularly merry revellers snort a quick line of cocaine to help them dance until dawn.

Cocaine and carnival go together in Rio. Beer vendors and drug dealers sell papelotes, small paper envelopes containing white pó (powder), for 10 reais (about €4 or $5) all around the Sambadrome. The police look the other way; officers often pocket a share of the earnings.

The dealers make as much during the four days of carnival as they normally do in two months, one police officer told the Brazilian daily Jornal do Brasil. Drug use is considered a peccadillo: Those who are caught with a few grams of cocaine or marijuana for "personal consumption" usually get off scot-free.

So it seemed pretty scandalous to most Brazilians when Estácio de Sá, the samba school that started the parade, called for a minute of silence in memory of the victims of violent crime. After all, the revellers in the Sambadrome are among the drug mafia's best customers -- which means they're also partly responsible for the wave of violence that has recently swept Rio. Most crimes in the city are directly or indirectly related to drug trafficking.

Unusually brutal

The series of recent crimes has been unusually brutal even by Brazilian standards. The police have found dozens of mutilated corpses in stolen cars -- the remains of people who had been tortured, most of them victims of the war between rival drug gangs. Heavily armed drug dealers drove at high speed through neighborhoods in northern Rio, speading terror. They shot at policemen and members of the so-called "militias" -- armed groups who claim to be acting in self-defense and which have driven the drug dealers away from many favelas.

Special police forces and drug dealers recently faced off in a firefight that lasted two nights in a favela complex in northern Rio. The access road to the airport and the Linha Amarela, one of the city's main traffic arteries, have to be closed almost every day due to shoot-outs.

But no crime has shaken the city as much as the death of little João Hélio Fernandes. His mother was assaulted when she stopped her car at a red light. She was hauled from the car, but wasn't able to open her six-year-old son's seat belt in time. The gangsters slammed the car door shut and sped away at full speed with the boy hanging outside the car like a doll.

The criminals dragged the child through the city for seven kilometers (3.4 miles), and kept going even though horrified onlookers alerted the driver to what was happening. By the time they stopped the car, the boy was already dead.

Spoiling the party

Brazil was in a state of shock for days. The crime, which occurred just a few days before carnival, casts its shadow on what is often called "the biggest party in the world." Now Rio is experiencing a carnival marked by minutes of silence to commemorate the murder. In the street carnival in Ipanema, the procession of the "Cordão da Bola Preta" carnival block in the city center or the "official" carnival in the Sambadrome -- the drums went quiet for a minute everywhere, in remembrance of the victims of violence.

And yet the samba schools themselves are often linked to organized crime, and many are in the grip of the gangster bosses who control illegal gambling in Rio. Just a few days before the carnival parade, contract killers shot the vice president of the Salgueiro samba school and his wife; they were probably the victims of a feud between hostile family members within the gambling mafia.

Most samba schools are located close to poor neighborhoods which are controlled by drug dealers. The escape route taken by the gangsters who dragged João Hélio to his death also led through neighborhoods romanticized as the "cradle of samba."

The city as battleground

Now the boy's parents have appealed to the general public not to forget the crime. They want the child's death to mark a turning point in the war that has transformed the Cidade Maravilhosa ("Marvelous City") into a battleground.

Governor Sérgio Cabral has announced a first step to address the problem: He wants to travel to Colombia after the carnival in order to learn what was done to reduce the murder rate in Bogotá and Medellin, cities formerly plagued by similar violence but now considered among the safest on the continent.

But one of their recipes for success will hardly be feasible in hard-partying Rio -- early closing time for bars and restaurants.

Rônei Cândido Resende

17/2/07, Bruno Menezes, Morte de federal foi filmada, (Source).
16/02/07, Carlos Brito, PF prende suspeito da morte de colega, (Source).


17/2/07, Bruno Menezes, Morte de federal foi filmada, (Back).

Bandidos do Engenho da Rainha pretendiam exibir em bailes funk imagem de escrivão da PF, que foi torturado e assassinado após assalto na Linha Amarela. Um criminoso foi capturado.

Rio - Agentes da Delegacia da Polícia Federal (PF) do Aeroporto Internacional Antônio Carlos Jobim prenderam, na manhã de ontem, um dos envolvidos na morte do escrivão Rônei Cândido Resende, 32 anos, executado com nove tiros de fuzil durante tentativa de assalto na noite do dia 9, na Linha Amarela. Carlos Henrique Martins Gonçalves, o Peixe, 21 anos, foi preso em casa, no Morro do Engenho, no Engenho da Rainha. De acordo com as investigações, o assassinato teria sido filmado pelos criminosos num celular e as imagens seriam exibidas em um baile funk.

O escrivão deixou a delegacia do aeroporto e seguia para casa, em Todos os Santos. Entre as saídas 2 e 3 da Linha Amarela, o policial foi cercado por pelo menos quatro homens armados, que queriam levar seu carro, um Vectra quatro portas. “É um carro veloz e ágil, de muito interesse para quem pratica os chamados bondes (comboio de bandidos)”, explicou a delegada Ana Maria Pompílho da Hora, responsável pelas investigações.

Pelo relato de testemunhas, os bandidos descobriram que Rônei era policial federal por causa de sua carteira funcional e pela credencial de acesso ao aeroporto, que estava escondida embaixo da camisa. Ao ser identificado como agente, ele foi levado pelos criminosos para o Morro do Engenho, onde foi torturado na presença de mais de 15 homens.

TORTURADO E QUEIMADO

Depois da tortura, Rônei foi morto e teve a parte de cima do corpo carbonizada, para dificultar a identificação. “Depois, os bandidos o colocaram no porta-malas do Vectra, que foi abandonado em área de facção criminosa rival, para prejudicar as investigações”, contou a delegada Ana Maria. “Uma testemunha viu a ação dos criminosos e ligou para o Disque-Denúncia (2253-1177), que recebeu diversas informações sobre o crime e nos ajudou muito na investigação”, completou a policial.

O veículo do escrivão teve os vidros quebrados e foi todo danificado. “Eles quebraram o carro todo para facilitar na hora de atear fogo ao veículo. O que não esperavam era que uma testemunha fosse jogar água no carro para apagar o incêndio, o que também nos ajudou muito na apuração do crime”, disse a delegada.

De acordo com a PF, Peixe é gerente de uma das bocas-de-fumo do Morro do Engenho, dominado pela facção criminosa Comando Vermelho (CV). No depoimento prestado na tarde de ontem na delegacia do aeroporto, Peixe deu os nomes dos comparsas e confessou como matou o policial. A Polícia Federal agora tenta localizar os outros criminosos e o celular em que foi feito o vídeo da execução.

GAROTA DE 13 ANOS SUSPEITA EM MORTE DE POLICIAL

Uma adolescente de 13 anos foi apreendida na manhã de ontem na Praia de Mauá, em Magé, acusada de participação na morte do policial reformado Darli de Abreu Costa, 66 anos. O crime aconteceu na segunda-feira, durante um assalto à casa do ex-PM, no bairro de Fragoso, em Magé. A vítima morreu asfixiada depois de ter sido amordaçada. Outros acusados de participar do crime, Luiz Carlos de Oliveira Lima Júnior, 18 anos, e o comerciante André Luiz dos Santos Mesquita, 31, também foram presos ontem em Mauá.
Luiz Carlos confessou ter assaltado a casa do PM reformado com a ajuda da adolescente. Ele contou que roubou um DVD e dinheiro da vítima, que foi dominada e amarrada. Ele disse também que vendeu o DVD roubado ao comerciante André Luiz, que foi preso por receptação.

“A menor era conhecida do PM reformado e, através dela, o outro rapaz teve acesso à vítima. Depois, ela saiu da casa da mãe, em Fragoso, e foi para a casa de amigos na Praia de Mauá, onde foram feitas as prisões e a apreensão da menor”, relatou o tenente Marco Antônio, chefe do Serviço Reservado (P-2) do 34º BPM (Magé). O caso foi registrado na 66ª DP (Piabetá). A adolescente foi levada para o Juizado da Infância.


16/02/07, Carlos Brito, PF prende suspeito da morte de colega, (Back).

RIO - Agentes da Polícia Federal, lotados no Aeroporto Internacional Tom Jobim, prenderam na tarde desta sexta-feira Carlos Henrique Martins Gonçalves, de 21 anos, conhecido como Peixe, no Morro Engenho da Rainha, onde seria gerente do tráfico de drogas. Ele é acusado do assassinato do escrivão da Polícia Federal Ronei Cândido Resende, de 32 anos, em assalto na Linha Amarela. Segundo a investigação da PF, o escrivão teria sido morto com 9 tiros de fuzil depois de ter sido reconhecido como policial federal.

(Back)

Globe: The New Climate Almanac

The implications of climate change can be overwhelming. They touch every field, from science to economics to culture. Our New Climate Almanac 2007 breaks down the complexity with a concise miscellany of the latest ideas, facts and predictions.

ACID SEAS

Pumping carbon dioxide into the air changes the climate, but that's hardly the end of the story. Eventually, about half of the gas is absorbed by the oceans (since burning fossil fuels began in earnest, roughly the weight of 140 million Volkswagen Beetles), and it makes the water more acidic. This is not a good idea for creatures that depend on shells, which an acid bath could start to dissolve. And Britain's Royal Society has issued a report predicting that, even if emissions are reduced, coral may become a rare commodity. — Martin Mittelstaedt

AL GORE EFFECT, THE

According to urbandictionary.com, this is "the phenomenon that leads to unseasonably cold temperatures, driving rain, hail, or snow whenever Al Gore visits an area to discuss global warming." It was spotted in New York City in 2004 and again in Australia last November, when his arrival there on his "Inconvenient Truth" tour was marked by an unexpected late-winter snowstorm.

It happened in Canada this year, sort of, when tickets to a Feb. 21 speech by Mr. Gore at the University of Toronto went on sale — on the coldest Feb. 7 on record for downtown Toronto. — Peter Scowen

ASSISTED MIGRATION

When the Earth shifted from icy to tropical periods in the past, fossil records show that species shifted too. Today, climate change is moving the butterflies of Europe northward — as well as holly plants in Britain.

But what happens to those that can't move, or that find major cities or highways block their way? Enter assisted migration, a sort of emergency-relief service that springs species from global warming danger zones.

Such an interventionist approach is not without controversy, however. The key issue: how to deal with naturally invasive species that reproduce quickly and can adapt easily to a new environment. Moving beavers is out, for instance, since they drastically alter their surroundings.

"If you aren't careful," Jessica Hellman says, "you could release a species that could do more harm than good."

The researcher at the University of Notre Dame, who started thinking about assisted migration while she was doing work on endangered species on Vancouver Island, is about publish a paper framing the debate in the journal Conservation Biology. — Anne McIlroy

BEHIND THE CARBON CURTAIN

By mid-afternoon most days, the giant traffic circle serving Belorusskaya railway station in central Moscow is hopelessly gridlocked, and the number of luxury cars trapped with all the aging Lada clunkers is growing steadily. Despite President Vladimir Putin's stated commitment to Kyoto, environmental issues barely impinge on the public consciousness.

Mark Ames, an American who has lived in Moscow since 1993, says Russians either don't connect what spews out their tailpipes with the fact that December was the warmest in recent memory, or to them "it's like global warming is a tragic fate" because "they learn from a young age they have no effect on anything."

This indifference has global consequences. According to Greenpeace Russia, worldwide carbon-dioxide emissions would be slashed by 3 per cent if Soviet-era, gas-fired power plants were brought up to European standards.

China's contribution to global warming is also a big worry — but few outsiders realize just how much the world's most populous nation is a victim of the changing climate. Virtually all of its glaciers show signs of substantial melting, which will increase the risk of floods and, in the long term, could reduce its water supply dramatically. According to one report, major crops such as rice, wheat and corn could be reduced by 37 per cent in this century.

Experts predict the Yellow River will be severely affected, and last year the mighty Yangtze was at its lowest level in 140 years.

As well, heat could make it easier for infectious diseases to spread, and rising sea levels will heighten the risk of coastal flooding. — Paul Tadich and Geoffrey York

BIG APPLE, DUNKING OF THE

If sea levels continue to rise as predicted, the Big Apple will be 50 centimetres closer to getting dunked by 2050. Much of New York City is only three metres above sea level, so it is susceptible to storm surges — walls of water pushed onto land when low pressure and high winds converge. In December, 1992, a fierce Nor'easter delivered a 2.3-metre storm surge, flooding the city's tunnels and subways. A nine-metre surge could flood parts of Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and Manhattan; waste-treatment plants would back up and fragile ecosystems would be decimated.

Malcolm Bowman, head of the Storm Surge Research Group at Stony Brook University, is recommending that the city adapt to long-term climate change by installing flood barriers at strategic points — the Verrazano Narrows, Throgs Neck and the Arthur Kill — to save lives and millions of dollars.

Worldwide, these barriers are becoming commonplace. The Thames River Barrier has protected London from flooding since 1984. Italy plans to complete the installation of a series of inflatable pontoons to protect the Venice Lagoon by 2011. But in New York, Prof. Bowman doesn't expect construction to begin soon.

"I think it will take a catastrophe," he says. "People will drown and Wall Street will flood." — Hannah Hoag




BOREAL BONFIRE

If you turn up the thermostat, it stands to reason that wood will catch fire.

In fact, the boreal forest, the world's most important carbon saver, is already getting smoked, says Mike Flannigan, a senior research scientist with the Canadian Forest Service.

In the 1970s, about a million hectares of Canadian forest burned annually. By 2000, the national total reached a high of three million hectares, or an area half the size of Nova Scotia. By the end of this century, Canada could lose twice that — equivalent to all of Nova Scotia — every year.

This gathering inferno will have dire consequences for the $40-billion forest industry, as well as a surprising environmental impact. For instance, boreal peat bogs contain 15 times more mercury than forest soils do, so intense blazes could release extremely high amounts of the neurotoxin into the atmosphere.

And, of course, burning forests no longer serve as carbon savers. In the past 40 years, forest fires have released carbon equal to 20 per cent of the nation's fossil-fuel pollution. — Andrew Nikiforuk

CALLED IT

The weather was a hobby for the British steam engineer who gets the credit for first linking smokestacks to warmer winters — in 1938. Guy Stewart Callendar fastidiously tracked temperatures in his spare time, and his numbers showed that the world had been heating up for the previous four decades. His theory, based on the research of earlier scientists who had been ignored, argued that human CO2 production was making the temperatures rise. His claims were pooh-poohed: "The idea that a man's actions could influence so vast a complex," he wrote, "is very repugnant to some." — Erin Anderssen

CARBON CREDIT CARDS

Small plastic cards have become an inextricable part of our lives — bank cards, credit cards, loyalty cards, air-miles cards. Within the decade, Brits (and then, perhaps, others) may be swiping one more card — a carbon credit card — to purchase airline tickets or gasoline, or to pay an energy bill. Each citizen would receive a carbon allowance to use or to sell to others; the national carbon allotment would drop annually, reducing emissions over time. "It gives carbon a currency and stimulates carbon consciousness," says Simon Roberts, chief executive for the Centre for Sustainable Energy, which carried out a feasibility study for the British government. — Hannah Hoag

CARBON-CREDIT SPECULATION

Speculators who have no clue about life on the farm can nonetheless make a profit or lose a bundle from investing in futures contracts that promise delivery of frozen pork bellies at some later date. In the same way, the Chicago Climate Exchange is building toward the day when investors will be able to buy and sell greenhouse-gas-emissions credits, as part of an effort to establish a market that would finance the most efficient reductions.

At the three-year-old Chicago exchange, members ranging from Ford Motor Co. to Manitoba Hydro pledge in a voluntary but legally binding contract to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases by a certain amount over a period of years. They can choose to reduce their own emissions or to purchase credits from other members who have exceeded their own targets. Or else they buy from so-called aggregators, who amass credits from individuals or companies that have cut emissions.

One dairy farmer from Minnesota, for example, earned $10,000 by selling credits that he earned by capturing methane from an animal-waste lagoon.

In Canada, the Montreal Exchange is hoping to mimic the success in Chicago, but is still waiting for federal rules that might encourage a market to develop. — Shawn McCarthy

CLIMATE PORN

The language sometimes used to describe global warming is tantamount to "climate porn," according to two linguistic experts in Britain. Gill Ereaut and Nat Segnit were hired by the Institute for Public Policy Research to study how climate change is being communicated and discussed. They say advocates and the media are adopting tones familiar from disaster movies, and are depicting climate change "as awesome, terrible, immense and beyond control." This may be "secretly thrilling," they say, but ineffective, since it leaves people feeling that there is nothing that they can do. — Anne McIlroy

CLIMATE REFUGEES

As the climate changes, so will the world and, for many people, not for the better. It won't be long before "environmental refugees" outnumber those displaced by war and genocide — scientists predict that by 2050 as many as 200 million people will be displaced. Long-term, scientists are concerned about the potential for coastal flooding of densely populated regions, such as New York and Bangladesh. Meanwhile, the sea is creeping up on low-lying islands, especially in the South Pacific.

"Tuvalu will suffer in the future, but very slowly," says Brian Cannon, a former resident of the island now living in Vancouver. The Tuvaluan government is trying to plan for an evacuation, but as yet they have not secured a home for the 11,000 islanders.

But more immediate is the threat of droughts, which could turn huge tracts of the Earth into desert. "Desertification is one of the greatest environmental threats we face today," says Zafar Adeel, director of the International Network on Water, Environment and Health at the United Nations University in Hamilton. "Currently, 100 to 200 million people are affected by desertification, and about 2.1 billion people are at risk."

He says sub-Saharan Africa and central Asia, such as "the five 'Stans,'." will suffer some of the worst effects from climate change, and they lack the resources and infrastructure to cope. Water shortages are guaranteed to spark violent conflicts around the world, similar to the drought-related violence in Darfur, Dr. Adeel says.

"Addressing desertification is one of the most effective ways to deal with climate change — you get the biggest bang for your buck. Unfortunately," Dr. Adeel adds, "there is a lack of understanding on the part of policy-makers." At the last meeting of its international contributors, the UN's land-degradation convention had its budget cut 15 per cent. — Zoe Cormier

COOKING THE CARBON BOOKS

Carbon offsets have become a booming industry — but the concept isn't without controversy. Offsets let companies and individuals counter their CO2 emissions by buying credits from projects such as wind farms and tree-planting companies, which cut the amount of dioxide in the atmosphere, in order to become "carbon neutral."

But environmental groups such as Carbon Trade Watch say offsetting is little more than a licence to keep polluting. And some offsetting projects may do more harm than good. In 2002, the popular band Coldplay said it would offset the environmental costs of putting out its second album by planting 10,000 mango trees in southern India. Journalists discovered last year that almost half the trees had died. Some offsetting projects in developing countries have caused forced resettlements and old-growth forests to be cut.

Last month, Britain launched an inquiry, aiming to be the first country to establish offsetting standards. Closer to home, Vancouver City Savings Credit Union said it plans to go carbon-neutral by 2010 — and that it will buy only credits that are Canadian and transparent and meet the credit union's criteria for lower emissions.

"There's a lack of information" about overseas projects, says Amanda Pitre-Hayes, the senior sustainability-programs manager at Vancity. "We want to bring in local verifiers, who help us understand the full impact that our investment is having." — Tavia Grant

CRADLE TO CRADLE DESIGN

Imagine if the byproducts of buildings and industrial processes were beneficial fuels instead of pollution and garbage. That's the idea behind Cradle to Cradle, a philosophy developed by green-architecture guru William McDonough and chemist Michael Braungart that's about more than simply reducing environmental harm. The pair advocate moving from our current "cradle to grave" patterns, where resources are used up and products ultimately get buried in a dump, to regenerative architecture and materials that mimic nature, where the waste of one organism provides fuel for another. One example is a solar-powered building with a green roof that purifies air and water while serving its inhabitants. Another is organic, compostable textiles that enrich the earth when they're thrown away. As McDonough likes to say, "Waste equals food." — Tim McKeough

CULTURAL CLIMATE

"We hear about climate change, but we don't think it really affects us," says Linda Mackay, founder of the Polar Artists Group. "There is an urgency to show how fragile the Arctic is." And that is the mission of climate art.

During the International Polar Year (March, 2007, to March, 2008), artists and scientists will collaborate to promote awareness of the polar regions and record the effects of climate change. The PAG is one of several international artists' groups that are patrolling the globe and documenting global warming using paint, photography, sound and installation art.

For four years, the Cape Farewell Project has invited artists to the High Arctic. Many of these works have been compiled in a book, Burning Ice: Art & Climate Change. And in San Francisco, climate-art activists tacked a seven-metre "waterline" around the Aquarium of the Bay — one of the many buildings near the city's famed Fisherman's Wharf — with emergency tape printed with blue waves. "Art can bring those future consequences into today's world," says the Sierra Club's Eric Antebi, who organized the event in partnership with the San Francisco environment department. — Hannah Hoag

DESMOGGING THE BLOGOSPHERE

There are those who call global warming a big hoax, which so irked Vancouver public-relations consultant Jim Hoggan that he decided to fight back. Believing that those denying the existence of climate change were using unscrupulous PR tactics to confuse and befog the public, he founded DeSmogBlog to turn the tables.

So, www.desmogblog.com keeps a running list of prominent skeptics, or "deniers," and puts their credentials under a microscope. Who uses the site? Mr. Hoggan says the most frequent hits come from Calgary, Ottawa and Washington, D.C. — Martin Mittelstaedt

ECO-TOON AGIT-PROP

Does the best hope of saving the Earth rest in hands of sixth-graders? Environmental groups are relying on kids to unleash what advertisers call the "nag factor" — only instead of badgering their parents for iPods and Game Boys, they will bug them to turn down the thermostat.

Kids are the perfect way to influence energy-guzzling adults — they're idealistic, they watch heaps of television and they whine. They'll watch the DVD of The Hedge, with its not-so-subtle attack on urban sprawl, 10 times in a weekend. They'll drag their moms and dads to the theatre to sympathize with the plight of the dancing penguins in the movie Happy Feet.

Maria Ellingson is a campaign director at the Alliance to Save Energy in the U.S., which has developed a multimedia marketing strategy around the Energy Hog, a villainous pig that gleefully invades wasteful homes. In an online game, kids can defeat the Hog and his gang by clicking off lights; the website urges them to get their dads to insulate the attic. "Kids like feeling like they're smarter than their parents," Ms. Ellingson says.

But creating the next generation of conservationists is not without controversy. This month, Scholastic announced plans to publish a kids' book on climate change written by the producer of Al Gore's documentary An Inconvenient Truth. The conservative World Ahead Publishing immediately launched an open call for manuscripts to "debunk the fabrication, hysteria and anti-growth agenda propagated by the far left." In the politics of climate change, even sixth graders can be pawns. — Erin Anderssen

EMPTY RICE BOWLS

Because of global warming, the food supply for more than half of the world's population could be in jeopardy. Shallow waters such as rice paddies heat up quickly, and that can stunt the growth of the plant. According to Kenneth Cassman, director of the Nebraska Center for Energy Sciences Research, an increase of just one degree in nighttime summer temperatures could lead to a 10-per-cent drop in rice yield. Scientists around the world are scrambling to breed new rice varieties better able to cope with the effects of climate change, including heat waves, droughts and floods. Meanwhile, anybody want a Wheat Krispie square? — Zoe Cormier

FLY THE FRIENDLY SEAS

Marine shipping burns up 5.5 million barrels of oil a day, 80 per cent of it high-emission heavy fuel oil. So German company SkySails is turning back the clock with its "towing kite system." An enormous, precision-guided sail unfurls once a vessel reaches cruising speed, leveraging wind power to cut fuel consumption (and greenhouse-gas emissions) by half.

If the kite really catches on, the company reckons it could reduce carbon emissions by 146 million tons a year. — Chris Turner

GEO-ENGINEERING

If it gets really hot, we can always build a volcano. Or at least mimic the eruption of Mount Pinatubo. In 1991 it spewed so much sulphur into the atmosphere that the Earth cooled 0.5 degrees in a year.

That's because sulphur particles act like tiny mirrors, deflecting light and heat back into space. Which is why Nobel Prize-winning chemist Paul Crutzen has proposed scattering the particles in the upper atmosphere — either with artillery guns or a fleet of high-altitude balloons — at a cost of $25-billion to $50-billion (U.S).

In case global warming hits faster and harder than expected (by the end of this century, temperatures could rise 1.7 to 4 degrees over 1980 levels), scientists have pitched other large-scale engineering schemes to deflect sunlight as well.

These include deploying silver balloons in the upper atmosphere, sending 55,000 mirrors, each bigger than Manhattan, into space or pumping CO2 deep into the ocean.

Or perhaps John Bennett at the Sierra Club has it right: It may be easier just to burn less oil, coal and gas. — Anne McIlroy

GREENING OF GREENLAND, THE

As global warming takes hold, the world's largest island could start living up to its name.

When settled by Erik the Red around 980, the southern fringes were indeed green, although it is often claimed the name was just false advertising to lure more colonists from Iceland.

Today, the place is 85 per cent covered by ice, more than three kilometres thick in places, but the Norse farmed there with some success for more than four centuries before mysteriously disappearing during the Little Ice Age, a long cold spell that began in the 1500s.

The island has about 60 farmers, and climate change has them grinning. Temperatures have risen only about one degree, but the growing season is two weeks longer. Not enough to make it the Vineland of yore, but maybe enough to add apples, broccoli and strawberries to the potatoes being grown. — Martin Mittelstaedt

GREENWASHING

A recent Hummer commercial depicts an assembly line running to the soundtrack of trilling birds and crickets, a mechanical arm inserting bolts in time with the chirping of a tree frog. The environment has become the auto and oil industries' version of the "scantily clad beer babe," says Chris MacDonald, a business-ethics professor at Saint Mary's University.

The term "greenwashing" was coined in the 1990s to describe misleading eco-friendly advertising by corporations with poor environmental records. So a car company might boast about producing a handful of hybrid SUVs. An oil company might runs TV ads with vistas of windmills twisting in corn fields.

Expect the green-is-good sales pitch to become more prominent in advertising campaigns as concerns about climate change grow among consumers.

Companies obviously think that it works, Dr. MacDonald says, and in some cases it might be a first step to better environmental practices. "But if you're turning over a new leaf," he says, "you might want to turn it over, before you brag about it." — Erin Anderssen

GROW YOUR OWN HOME

A team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has developed a tree house for grownups — a proper home constructed almost entirely from living trees and plants.

The "Fab Tree Hab" uses an ancient gardening technique called pleaching — where live tree branches are woven together to form lattice structures — to literally grow a building from the ground up.

"This stuff has been around for centuries," says Mitchell Joachim, one of the architects behind the project. "Our only contribution that's really innovative is adding an element of computation to it."

The technology in question is called rapid prototyping. This allows computer users to print digital designs as three-dimensional forms — which then become templates that guide growing trees into a desired base shape. Soil, vines and other plants can then be woven into the framework to create exterior walls. Clay and straw composites are used to finish the interior.

While such biotecture may seem far-fetched, the team says the tools to build a tree house already exist. And Mr. Joachim has an idea for its initial real-world application: a carport. "It could protect your Hummer or SUV," he says, "and account for the damage it's doing to the environment." — Tim McKeough

HIP SUSTAINABILITY

If you ask Graham Hill, the Canadian founder of treehugger.com, sustainability issues have long suffered from an image problem. "The green movement was represented by the hippies," he says. "The hippies are great, but they're a really small part of the market. If green living is going to be big — and it needs to be big and mainstream — it has to be really compelling."

As a result, Hill and his ironically named blog are leading the charge to make sustainability hip, along with similar websites like inhabitat.com and worldchanging.com. "I figured there was a lot of cool green stuff out there, and thought that if you could aggregate it, you could really help people visualize a green future," he says.

A look at the data indicates that his approach is working. Technorati recently ranked Treehugger as the 50th most popular blog on the web (out of more than 60 million). In January alone, the site was visited by more than a million unique users. Hill even turned up in a photo spread in Vanity Fair's green issue last year. Still, he's staying focussed on his original objective. "At the end of the day, it's about environmental content," he says, "not gadgets or celebrity or sex." — Tim McKeough

HOT PROPERTIES

Forget any midday suntanning on the Mediterranean coast. In fact, forget walking in the midday sun along the luxury shoreline — worst-case scenarios predict scorching temperatures, water shortages and jellyfish invasions. For the perfect tan a century from now, you might be better off spreading your blanket atop the cliffs of Dover.

Of course, predicting what regions will be good and bad bets for investment and travel in a hotter future is not so simple. Hadi Dowlatabadi, an environmental professor at the University of British Columbia, points out that rich countries will adapt better than poor ones. The mansions will always fare better than the slums, regardless of how low they sit at sea level.

But it's a good bet that coveted coastal property will become more risky and expensive, as insurance costs rise and infrastructure needs upgrading. In Richmond, B.C., residents may need dikes within several decades, and Vancouver may be searching for a new airport. On Prince Edward Island, live inland. On the East Coast, they had better brace for a swell of hurricanes, and you may want to avoid Florida entirely. And as for the vacation home, best not to buy one that requires a flight on an airplane; those CO2 taxes might break the bank. — Erin Anderssen

HOUSES OF HORRORS

Buildings, not the cars in their parking lots, are the largest contributors to global warming. That puts architects and their clients on the hot seat for the devastation of the environment — and has pushed sustainable design to the forefront at the Royal Architecture Institute of Canada.

According to RAIC president Vivian Manasc, an Edmonton-based architect who is an authority on green design, whether you are "building buildings, operating buildings, heating them, cooling them, making the materials that go into them, or demolishing them," the built environment accounts for 48 per cent of greenhouse-gas emissions.

Still, that urgent reality didn't stop the government from cutting the Commercial Building Incentive Program last month — the only federally sponsored program to fund energy-performance innovations in commercial design.

In response, Ms. Manasc is pushing for an immediate goods and services tax rebate for building owners who can demonstrate a 50-per-cent energy reduction below current energy codes. She would also like to see changes to the building codes themselves, but she warns that this process could take 10 years — providing too little too late for the environment.

There is currently $35-billlion to $40-billion in building projects on the boards or under construction, including hospitals, schools, housing projects and multi-family residential units. — Lisa Rochon

HYPER-EVOLUTION, POTENTIAL OF

Will global warming speed the pace of evolution as plants and animals adapt to a hotter world? Scientists such as Andrew McAdamÖ, a Canadian researcher at Michigan State University, say they don't know the answer to that question — but there is evidence that changes are already occurring.

A 10-year study he and his colleagues did near Kluane Lake reveals that, because of rising temperatures, red squirrels are now having babies in late April instead of mid-May. The change is at least in part genetic — the offspring of mothers who gave birth earlier in the season have daughters who do the same — making this the first mammal to evolve in response to climate change.

However, even if this doesn't prove the tipping point for hyper-evolution, prepare yourself for a weedier world. Weeds (as well as pests) may be able to adapt more quickly to a changing environment because they often have shorter life cycles and can go through many generations in rapid time. — Anne McIlroy

IMAGINING THE AFTERMATH

For climate-change science fiction, 2004 was a bumper-crop year: Michael Crichton's skeptical State of Fear, a novel about a global-warming conspiracy, and Roland Emmerich's abrupt-climate-change movie The Day After Tomorrow were crowd-pleasers, though scientists criticized the science in each as faulty at best, misleading at worst.

Climate fiction isn't a new phenomenon, says James Gunn, an author and director of the Center for the Study of Science Fiction at the University of Kansas. It began to make its mark in the 1920s, when Will F. Jenkins wrote Mad Planet under the pen name Murray Leinster: The book imagines an Earth with elevated carbon-dioxide levels where vegetation grows to such heights that it overpowers humans.

Anna Kavan (Ice, 1967), Ernest Callenbach (Ecotopia, 1975), J.G. Ballard (The Drowned World, 1962), Bruce Sterling (Heavy Weather, 1995), Ronald Wright (A Scientific Romance, 1997), Norman Spinrad (Greenhouse Summer, 1999) and Mark Tushingham (Hotter than Hell, 2006) followed with novels that describe the social consequences of a frozen/wet/hot Earth.

Mr. Tushingham, who is also an Ottawa environmental scientist, says he aimed for accuracy, but the story is about the human implications of climate change. "Hopefully it is just a work of fiction," he says. — Hannah Hoag

JESUS LOVES CARBON REDUCTION

The latest push for action on climate change in the U.S. is not coming from any of the usual suspects. Religious groups across the country have taken on the issue as their own, particularly some camps of evangelical Christians. "The Republican Party is 40 per cent evangelical, so we have the capacity to move policy-makers who have until now resisted any action," says Rev. Richard Cizik, a vice-president of the National Association of Evangelicals.

In perhaps the first coalition of its kind, the NAE and other evangelical organizations have teamed with scientists to collectively lobby Washington on climate change. One key selling point will ring a bell for other evangelicals: "Climate change is a sanctity-of-life issue," Mr. Cizik says. "We have taken seriously the consequences of taking unborn human life — we need to be just as serious about taking advantage of this Earth."

The crisis, he says, is not simply an environmental and humanitarian concern — it is also a spiritual one. "If we, the evangelical Christians, are willing to stand by and witness the destruction of creation, then something about our own capacity to see the truth has become deadened. We dare not tempt the Lord." — Zoe Cormier

JESUS LOVES GLOBAL WARMING

Though some Christians say they must act as stewards of the Earth and prevent climate change, not all of the faithful think alike. In a school district in Seattle, controversy erupted recently over the screening of the Al Gore documentary An Inconvenient Truth in a seventh-grade science class.

Some parents objected to the film's message, with one outraged father dismissing it as "propagandist" and demanding a "balance" of alternative viewpoints. And just what alternatives would he like his daughter's class to hear? A warming planet, he suggested to the local school board, is "one of the signs" of the imminent return of Jesus Christ on Judgment Day. Such objections led, briefly, to a local ban on the film.

The incident also triggered a flood of calls and e-mails from across the country, accusing the school board of scientific ignorance. Eugenie Scott, director of the California-based National Center for Science Education — a veteran of the ongoing battles over evolution in U.S. schools, says the argument feels familiar: Public understanding of science is at risk, she says, "when ideological views are given preference over the empirical data." — Dan Falk

KYOTO, MY OWN PRIVATE

Just by breathing, the average person emits one kilogram of carbon dioxide a day. A round-trip flight from Vancouver to Toronto can release 0.73 tonnes of the greenhouse gas per person, according to websites such as www.climatecare.org.

But some people are doing more than just estimating their carbon footprints. In the past year, a small but growing number of Britons have formed "carbon rationing action groups" (CRAGs), whose members agree on an annual emissions target, or "carbon ration." Most groups are going for 4.5 tonnes per person a year, compared with the national average of five tonnes. Then they record household energy use, and private car and plane travel. At the end of the year, anyone over the limit pays into the CRAG "carbon fund" — usually 4 or 5 pence (9 to 11 cents) per extra kilogram.

Making lifestyle changes can be tough. "We're already seeing Kyoto-type negotiations in miniature in the groups," CRAG member Andy Ross tells The London Observer. "It underlines how difficult it will be [for countries] to cut emissions if we can't get 10 people to agree across a table." — Michael Kesterton

LAST-CHANCE TOURISM

The thawing of Canada's Arctic has contributed to a mini-boom in tourism in Nunavut and Nunavik (Quebec's Arctic region), as curious travellers rush to see the north before it changes. Cruise North, a three-year-old, Inuit-held company, runs 10 summer cruises on the 122-passenger ship Lyubov Orlova in the Eastern Arctic. It expects demand to double this season.

"Bookings have been very strong and there is certainly an element of curiosity and concern for the environment on the part of most of our guests," Cruise North president Dugald Wells says. "People call us and ask if the polar bears are okay, and if they will see any on their cruise. They will see bears for sure, but we don't know how healthy their population will be in the future."

What they may not see is sea ice. "Up until five years ago, there was always sea ice at the entrance to Cumberland Sound as late as early August," he says. "Now, it's gone by the time we cruise through there the first week of that month."

A popular trip to Baffin Island last year was themed "Polar Bears on Thin Ice," and was led by environmental activist and Inuit leader Sheila Watt-Cloutier. In 2008, Cruise North will host a 12-day expedition by an international group of environmental activists and scientists as part of a 15-month project called Polar Catalyst. — Laszlo Buhasz

MICRO-ECO-NOMICS

Harish Hande emerged from graduate school in India eager to test his doctoral dissertation's hypothesis. So he founded a company to bring non-polluting solar power to the tiny villages of the southern state of Karnataka.

"SELCO basically started with three myths," Mr. Hande says. "The three myths being that poor people cannot afford technology, poor people cannot maintain technology, and you cannot run a social venture commercially."

To get the first of Karnataka's rural banks to help with the financing, Mr. Hande literally had to camp out on the front stoop until the manager caved. A decade later, with 23 branch offices, 140 employees and more than 30,000 small-scale photovoltaic panels installed, the company has debunked all three myths, using ultra-flexible microcredit financing to bring sustainable light and power to pre-industrial villages.

Now, kids can study in the evening and entrepreneurial women can run their sewing machines; some customers have even turned themselves into tiny independent electric companies, selling the energy they produce to neighbours. — Chris Turner

MOULDY HISTORY

It's not just the polar bears and butterflies that are at risk in a warmer world, but Mauritanian mosques, Spanish churches and the graveyards of Arctic whalers. Besides threatening the world's natural wonders, climate change threatens to flood, rot and erode away some of its most significant history. Termites, lichens and moulds may spread and thrive in new regions, eating away at old timbers and masking stone buildings and prehistoric paintings. Creeping deserts, rising sea levels and melting permafrost also put artifacts at risk.

"We need to be able to understand what impact climate change will have on cultural heritage so we can make the right decisions," says May Cassar, director of the Centre for Sustainable Heritage at University College London and a partner in the Noah's Ark Project, which has produced a series of maps that lay out the hazards to cultural heritage in various climate scenarios. "But we have to look beyond Europe and do the same for the other regions of the world."

Still, the conservation community is beginning to recognize that some historical buildings and sites may be history, Ms. Cassar admits. "We may have to leave some sites to their fate." — Hannah Hoag

NEGAWATTS

For years, Rocky Mountain Institute guru Amory Lovins preached the benefits of "negawatts" — how investing in energy efficiency is not only environmentally sound but economically smart.

Once seen as something of a counter-culture figure, Mr. Lovins has gone mainstream of late, winning contracts to advise companies such as Wal-Mart and San Diego Gas & Electric on how to reduce energy demand and lower their greenhouse-gas emissions.

He persuaded Wal-Mart to invest in more efficient trucks, so that by 2015 the world's largest retailer will have a fleet that consumes half the fuel the current one does, saving $300-million (U.S.) a year.

Unlike many environmentalists, Mr. Lovins argues that market economics, not government fiat, will lead society to a more sustainable path. "Decisive evidence will emerge that stabilizing the Earth's climate is not costly, but profitable," he wrote recently in The Economist, "because saving fuel costs less than buying it." — Shawn McCarthy

NOT-SO PERMAFROST

One of climate change's big nightmares is the melting of the permafrost, the vast polar expanse of ever-frozen ground. The thaw has already caused houses to collapse in some Arctic areas and introduced the North to the "drunken forest" of toppling trees. But what makes the melt truly scary is the vast quantity of methane (natural gas) that is trapped in the permafrost's icy depths.

Methane packs an extra wallop when it comes to global warming. Each molecule is more than 20 times as powerful a warming gas as carbon dioxide, and there is so much of the stuff, it could rival the impact of man-made greenhouse gases. It could even trigger such a vicious circle — warming that melts more frost and releases more gas — that reducing man-made emissions altogether could fail to stem the tide.

But the melt will cause problems well before that happens. In fact, it could make the long-awaited Mackenzie Valley Pipeline the first mega-project stymied by climate change.

The 1,220-kilometre natural-gas pipeline from Inuvik to Alberta would run through a region that has warmed on average 2.5 degrees since the 1970s. Carleton University geographer Christopher Burn says the impact has been measured 15 metres underground and about 2,000 landslides have occurred in recent years. "If the ice melts and hill slopes lose their strength, the soil may slide down and damage the pipeline."

Even worse, the melting permafrost, combined with rising sea levels and increased coastal storms, in time could submerge the low-lying gas fields supplying the pipeline. An Environment Canada official recently told a public meeting that the climate "poses a serious threat" to the project, and there is now talk of bringing out the gas on giant air ships similar to the ill-fated Hindenberg. — Martin Mittelstaedt, Andrew Nikiforuk

ONE THAT GOT AWAY, THE

Rising temperatures are stretching the fishing season, but that's not welcome news to Canada's ice anglers. They shun open water — and consider hooking trout on a frozen lake or river a social event as much as a sport.

For example, the community that pops up along the Kennebecasis River in Rothesay, N.B., takes great pride in the construction of about 70 wooden ice shacks. The one-room structures are warmed with everything from wood stoves to generators, making it comfortable for fishers to wander from bobhouse to bobhouse sharing tall tales and a few drinks.

However, warmer winters are cutting the time for friendly get-togethers from 10 weeks to as few as six, according to Lloyd Hofford, past president of the Renforth Ice-Fishing Association. The 75-year-old notes that he once could have his shanty on seven-inch ice in the early new year. Now, he's lucky if the surface support is strong enough by the end of January. "In the last three years, it's way late," he says.

Of course, Mr. Hofford and his buddies could gather on the shore and cast lines. But their bonhomie — not to mention their beer — might be a bit chilled in the open air. — Charles Mandel

PAINT-ON SOLAR

For decades, policy-makers have dismissed solar energy, with its rigid, fragile and costly silicon panels, as impractical. But a new generation of scientists is working toward solar cells that are light, flexible and cheap. At the front of the pack is University of Toronto engineer Ted Sargent, who has invented "liquid" solar cells that could be painted onto a portable electronic device or the roof of a building.

Traditional solar cells catch only visible light, but Dr. Sargent's material captures the half of the sun's rays that are infrared. "Even if we could convert only 1 per cent of the sun's infrared power reaching the Earth into useful energy," he says, "we'd still be able to power the Earth's present-day energy needs 50 times over."

Of course, Silicon Valley is the capital of high-tech Next Big Things, and since last spring, a new solar approach has been attracting the kind of interest not seen since the dotcom boom.

Called "thin-film solar," it consists of microscopic photovoltaic cells that are "printed" on sheets of metal a hundred times thinner than conventional silicon cells — so thin they one day may come pre-installed in windows. The cells are set to enter the market in the next couple of years, at a fifth to a tenth the cost of current solar-energy technologies. The early leader appears to be a Valley company called Nanosolar, with seed capital courtesy of Google's founders and a manufacturing plant to open this year in a former Cisco Systems facility in San Jose. "New technology is going to make a difference in solar," founder Martin Roscheisen said, "and that's what we do best here." — Zoe Cormier and Chris Turner

PEE PRINT

Call it an incommodious truth:It turns out that powdering our proverbial noses has a disquieting impact on the environment. Urine is composed of water, salts and proteins. This means that before wastewater is released into a river or lake, chemical nutrients (about 50 to 80 per cent of which come from pee) must be stripped away by a sewage-treatment plant — a process that uses 11.5 watts of power per person. While this is the equivalent of running just two nightlights per person, picture an entire city burning tiny beacons of excess.

But we don't have to flush away energy. Jac Wilsenach, a researcher at the Delft University of Technology, says separating even half of our urine from the sewage stream would save about 25 per cent of the energy used at purification plants. Once urine has been separated (and treated), it can be recycled into fertilizer.

All of which makes a powerful sell for "green latrines" such as the No Mix toilet — currently being tested in Germany, Austria, Sweden and Switzerland. These feature two pipes: One to collect pee and another to collect other waste.

The only downside? To use this johnny, men have to sit down to urinate. (And to some who live with them, even that may be a bonus.) — Julie Traves

PESTS AND PARASITES, THE RISE OF

Insects love the warmth, especially when it allows them to conquer new territory. Witness the dreaded B.C. pine beetle, which has moved steadily north as warmer winters have failed to hit the minus 40 needed to keep it in check. Even so, scientists felt the beetle's inability to fly much higher than the trees it eats would keep it from crossing the Rockies.

Then, while checking out some new radar gear, Peter Jackson, a meteorologist with the University of Northern British Columbia in Prince George, noticed an echo coming from a "cloud" where there shouldn't have been one. He wondered whether he was seeing something unheard of: a high-altitude swarm of beetles.

An expert in wind flow, he suspected that beetles might be riding updrafts high enough to catch a ride across the mountains. To test his theory, he attached a net to a small plane that flew into the source of the radar echo. When it landed, dozens of beetles were in the net; they had been caught 850 metres above the treetops — 300 metres higher than the CN Tower. Although spread over a vast area, there were millions up there — all heading east. To help Alberta forestry officials prepare a suitable welcome, Mr. Jackson has projected the routes the beetles are taking and where they're likely to land.

Another lover of warm weather is the parasitic lung worm. Not long ago, it had to develop for two years before it could make life miserable for the North's musk-ox. But rising temperatures have cut that time in half, says University of Calgary parasite expert Susan Kutz.

According to University of Alberta biologist Andy Derocher, an explosion of pathogens could well be climate change's biggest "wild card." — Mark Hume and Andrew Nikiforuk

PORTENTS IN THE STARS

Does the zodiac predict climate change? Last year, Indian astrologers warned that Mercury's transit across the sun on Nov. 9 could mean bad news. One forecaster told The Times of India: "Mercury does not work alone. ..... Since Oct. 22, it has been conjoined with Venus, Moon, Mars and Jupiter. The world will therefore face a lot of bad weather, strong winds, global warming and several earthquakes."

South African astrologer Mahesh Bang said the lingering effect of six planets in Libra last October will disrupt the Earth's plates this year, causing the worst catastrophes the planet has ever experienced. Climate change will be intensified, he said, when Saturn enters Leo on July 15. — Michael Kesterton

PUTTING OUT THE STARS

Scientists fear that astronomy with Earth-based telescopes will be almost impossible by 2050, as global warming causes a dramatic increase in cloud cover.

Aircraft condensation trails (contrails) and smog clouds already hamper observations, says Gerry Gilmore, an astronomer at the University of Cambridge.

For years, researchers have charted the growth of air travel and tried to predict its effects; their study last year showed the scale of the problem.

Contrails and global warming feed off each other, Prof. Gilmore says. "Contrails increase global warming and global warming helps larger contrails form." Contrails look wispy and flimsy, "but they can last quite a long time actually — up to a couple of days."

Astronomers can't control the future of cheap airplane transport or of climate change, Prof. Gilmore says. But he warns that you can have cheap holiday flights to popular destinations, or you can have astronomy — but you probably can't have both. — Michael Kesterton

QUARRY FACTOR, THE

Concrete is not only paving over paradise, the process required to make it is dramatically warming the globe.

About 20 billion tons of concrete — made from cement combined with sand, gravel and water — are used every year to construct everything from schools to bridges. The rub: Cement's base paste of limestone and calcium must be heated at 1,500 degrees.

According to Franz-Josef Ulm, an engineering professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, this extreme temperature releases roughly two billion tons of carbon dioxide a year. Or the equivalent of driving a car eight trillion kilometres. But changing the way concrete is mixed is tricky. "It is the material most used on this planet, but probably the least known," says Prof. Ulm, who likens the complex, highly dense way in which cement is packed to that of human bone.

So, he and nuclear physicists at MIT are studying the nanoparticles of cement instead of the material itself. Their ambition is to change its geological DNA (possibly replacing calcium with magnesium) to avoid the need to heat cement's base so much.

If this sustainable cement reduces current CO2 emissions by even 20 per cent, Prof. Ulm says, it could meet half of the Kyoto targets. — Lisa Rochon

REEFER MADNESS

Between limestone mining, dynamite fishing and clumsy tourists, we have already lost about a quarter of all coral reefs worldwide. And about half of the remaining reefs are threatened by human activity. But the biggest threat isn't drills, explosives or cruise ships — it's carbon dioxide.

For one thing, corals simply can't take the rising heat that comes from CO2 emissions. Water that is even a bit too warm will cause coral to "bleach," changing it from a vibrant rainbow to a ghostly sea of white. In 1998, one of the hottest years on record, 16 per cent of all reefs bleached. This year is predicted to be even worse. And there's the "acid seas" problem — the extra carbon dioxide being absorbed by the ocean makes it difficult for corals to build their limestone skeletons.

Little surprise, then, that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change thinks Australia's Great Barrier Reef could be "functionally extinct" by 2030. Dire news, since 4,000 species of fish live in a typical reef, along with other organisms.

But there is still hope. Brian Huse, head of the Coral Reef AllianceÖ, says that establishing about 3,500 conservation areas to keep reefs free from pollution reef conservation areas could save them from extinction. "A healthy reef," Mr. Huse says, "is more resilient to the effects of increased temperature." — Zoe Cormier

RENEWABLE REGULATION

There's surely nothing less remarkable than senior bureaucrats who tout the policies of their governments. And so there was Astrid Klug of Germany's Environment Ministry, dutifully informing a crowd of energy mandarins in Mexico City last February that her administration had set "ambitious goals" for its renewable-energy industries, to be enabled by "effective" and "cost-efficient" legislation.

The surprise, though, was that Ms. Klug hinted (modestly) that those goals might be exceeded. For example, drawing 20 per cent of Germany's electricity from renewable sources by 2020 — why not make it 25 per cent? The rate was already 10 per cent, 2006 was shaping up to be a record year, and the country clearly will surpass its 2010 target of 12.5 per cent.

Ms. Klug can afford to boast. Germany's pioneering Renewable Energy Sources Act (best known by its German-language acronym, EEG) has vaulted the country to the front of the renewable ranks in nearly every sector. By obliging German electrical-grid operators to buy power from renewable sources at far above market rates, the EEG has spurred explosive growth since it was passed in 2000 — particularly in solar power, which received an even greater subsidy in a 2004 amendment to the act.

Germany's installed photovoltaic capacity spiked almost 400 per cent from 2003 to the end of 2005, and since Ms. Klug's speech, the three largest solar power plants on the planet have come online — generating power by the megawatt out of all that hot air. — Chris Turner




SEABIRD EMPTY-NEST SYNDROME

The trend is unmistakable. From penguin colonies in Antarctica to auklet rookeries near Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula, seabird populations have declined as the temperature of the Pacific has risen.

The ocean's temperature changes whenever El Nino, a warm water current that usually resides off South America, pushes north. In El Nino years, the sea surface warms, cold water upsurges that usually drive nutrients to the surface decline, and plankton production drops. That loss of a link in the food chain soon sparks a crash in seabird populations.

In the spring of 2005, biologists were given a shocking reminder of how closely linked all these factors are. On Triangle Island off the northern tip of Vancouver Island, on Tatoosh Island off the coast of Washington State and on the Farallon Islands west of San Francisco, the ocean warmed, plankton blooms failed to appear and seabirds experienced the most severe nesting failures ever witnessed.

One bad breeding season doesn't spell the end of a colony, but biologists are worried that global warming has started a trend: As surface temperatures go up, bird populations go down. Historically, El Nino has been cyclical, arriving every two to seven years. But global warming could change that and heat the North Pacific permanently. — Mark Hume

SECULAR RAPTURE, THE

If climate change did not exist, we might have to invent it: Humans like to have an apocalypse looming. Since the Second World War, a chorus line of apocalyptic threats has strutted across the stage of global awareness — domino-style communism, nuclear annihilation, the spread of AIDS, millennialism, global terrorism and now climate change.

Each bears all the trademarks of the granddaddy of apocalypses, the one in the Book of Revelation. The New Standard Bible Dictionary defines that apocalypse as the uncovering of the "inner and hidden arrangements of the universe [and] the method and original conditions of the creation, but pre-eminently the future of the world and the destinies of God's people" — exactly what the scientists who study million-year old ice cores have been trying to figure out.

The standard human response in each case has been the same — panic that our survival is threatened, and a blind refusal to believe that our survival is threatened. Ditto the eventual solutions, which always reach beyond mere reason and technology to embrace "respect for creation, the unity of nature, sharing, moderation, compassion [and] holiness," as Ron Graham lists in 1990's God's Dominion, one of the first books to describe environmentalism as a religious impulse, a way of restoring moral order in a world rendered godless by science.

But two details make the climate-change Judgment Day different —quite apart from its scientific inevitability. Most apocalyptic panics have been orchestrated by political elites to control the masses. The atom bomb and Joe McCarthy's Red Scare justified U.S. imperialism; the threat of AIDS is still used to control sexual activity. But the growing awareness of climate change, Mr. Graham says today, "if anything, is not convenient to the elites, to industry and governments, but is instead a populist, grassroots movement."

The second quirk is that science and technology are both the cause of the problem and our best route to correcting it. "What's interesting about global warming," Mr. Graham suggests, "is that science has come along and attached itself to the spiritualism of the new age, and the notion of Gaia, whereas before that, science had been lagging."

You might even say that science has seen the light. — Ian Brown

SOLAR SUBURBIA

With its starter-home pricing, standard floor plans and free picket fences, the 52-house Drake Landing development near Okotoks looks like just another bedroom community for Calgary, booming 18 kilometres to the north. However, the two-car garages are crowned with solar-thermal panels. They capture the heat of southern Alberta's 300-plus days of sunshine, which is then stored in 144 glycol-filled boreholes and distributed as needed to heat every house in the neighbourhood. No furnaces, no emissions — the average household's largest energy demand deleted from the climate-change equation.

There's nothing new about the technology — but as the first of its kind in North America, Drake Landing is both a landmark and a bit of an experiment.

The municipality has been pursuing a "Sustainable Okotoks" growth strategy since the mid-1990s. The scheme began with careful water management and has turned the town into something of a solar-energy hub.

"We very much want to become a solar-demonstration community of excellence, with a concentration of different solar applications that could then lead to economic spinoffs," says Okotoks municipal manager Rick Quail. "We don't want to be a bedroom community." — Chris Turner

SUSTAINABLE SPORTS CAR, THE

"Right now, the general perception is that electric cars are slow, ugly, glorified golf carts," says Darryl Siry, vice-president of marketing at Tesla Motors. But that's about to change. The Silicon Valley startup is introducing a fully electric roadster that can go head-to-head with a Lamborghini Murcielago, accelerating from zero to 60 in about four seconds. Yet the Tesla Roadster is a zero-emissions vehicle that delivers extremely high energy efficiency. When you're done joyriding, just drive it home and plug it in to recharge the batteries. The company is taking orders now — prices start at $93,000 (U.S.) — and expects to deliver its first cars to buyers later this year. — Tim McKeough

TAR-SAND TRAP

Before long, the tar sands of northern Alberta will produce more greenhouse pollution than many countries do. To squeeze just one barrel of oil from the sands, two tonnes of dirt must be dug up and "upgraded," a process that requires two to three times the energy needed to produce a barrel of conventional oil. The result: 30 to 70 per cent more CO2 emissions, says energy expert Alex Farrell of the University of California at Berkeley.

In 2003, the tar sands produced 25 megatonnes of carbon dioxide, and the Pembina Institute, an Alberta-based energy watchdog, calculates the project could saturate the skies with 113 to 142 megatonnes by 2020.

What does this mean? Based on 2000 emissions data, collected by the U.S.-based World Resources Institute, the tar sands could soon match the CO2 output of the Czech Republic, while producing twice as much as Peru, three times as much as Qatar and 10 times as much as Costa Rica. Last year, Canada's Environment Commissioner warned that tar-sands pollution "could counter efforts to reduce emissions in other areas of society." — Andrew Nikiforuk

THE TROUBLE WITH CATS

Q: How are a poor rural labourer and a Royal Bengal tiger alike?

A: Both inhabit the world's largest delta — the Sundarbans, where the mighty Ganges and two other big rivers empty into the Bay of Bengal — and soon both will be looking for new homes.

Amod Mandal has already lost four houses to a rising sea level being blamed on climate change, and No.5 is about to follow suit. "I was a rich farmer," he says, looking out at the water where his yard used to be. "But now all the island's agricultural land has vanished."

He lives on Ghoramara, an island that has given up more than two-thirds of its original 90 square kilometres, and scientists at Calcutta's Jadavpur University say the entire delta, 25,000 square kilometres of mangrove swamp on India's border with Bangladesh, is under threat.

With the sea rising 3.14 millimetres a year (more than half again the global average), "the Sundarbans appear to be a lost cause," Jadavpur oceanographer Sugata Hazra explains. "In the next two decades ..... more than 200,000 people will lose their homes."

As will at least 400 of the Royal Bengals, and it is feared that, as the big cats are flooded out of their remote reserves, they will flee north into the very same region the "climate refugees" will occupy.

Which is a problem because these tigers are especially nasty — they're the only unrepentant man-eaters still on the loose. — Umarah Jamali




UNBUCKLING THE WHEAT BELT

The growing season is already 10 to 15 days longer on the Prairies than it used to be, and that may just be the beginning.

In its report, Can Wheat Beat The Heat?, the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research forecasts that within 50 years wheat will grow as far as north as 65 degrees latitude, from Ketchikan in Alaska to Cape Harrison in Labrador.

Meanwhile, much of the U.S. wheat belt will dry up. But temperature isn't everything in farming. "They paint a pretty picture," Saskatchewan Research Council climatologist Elaine Wheaton says of the group's optimism, "but forgot about the Canadian Shield and soil capability." — Andrew Nikiforuk

VERBAL ABUSE

"Global warming" — we might be talking about hugging the Earth, not destroying it. That's one reason why it took the public so long to get worried, says George Lakoff, a linguistics professor at Berkeley: The name didn't scare us enough.

"If you mention 'global warming'," he says, "some people will say, 'Hey, that's good. It's cold up here'."

Language is a persuasive tool: Governments, for instance, took to using the term "climate change" — a benign phrase suggesting a gradual and neutral shift. Most significantly for politicians, observes Gurprit Kindra, a marketing professor at the University of Ottawa, it makes no reference to cause and effect. "It is a term that denies any responsibility."

The language is getting stronger. Many European countries, leading support for the Kyoto accord, have now named it "climate chaos," bringing up images of sudden tidal waves and mass panic (a tone some critics call "climate porn"). Or they will say "climate crisis," to emphasize that we'd better act now before it gets worse.

It's a marketing nightmare: How do you distill a complex subject into one perfect, catchy, action-inspiring phrase? "It's hard to do it in a sound bite," Dr. Lakoff says. "You need at least five sentences." — Erin Anderssen

VIDEO VIGILANTES

Rising global temperatures, hurricanes, and testy world leaders are just a few of the things you have to juggle when you gamble with the world's climate. Two board games let you carry out negotiations in the comfort of your living room.

Antarctica: Global WARming presents a dystopic vision of the future. Glaciers and ice sheets have melted, causing sea levels to rise by 80 meters. The only safe place in this waterlogged world is Antarctica, which you must capture. "The game is based on Risk, but we chose the global warming theme because the land reduction was quite dramatic and could spark this mass movement," says Frank Zuuring, president of Savita Games. In Keep Cool, things don't have to get that bad. Klaus Eisenack and his co-developer Gerhard Petschel-Held, both from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, interviewed politicians, economists, and climate scientists and boiled down their knowledge to develop the rules. The aim of the Diplomacy-like game is to meet individual secret economic or political targets. Players' choices can bring them closer to victory — or to the planet's collapse. A dirty power station is cheap, but its emissions increase the risk of environmental disaster. The pair hoped the game would communicate the risks of climate change to the public. "When climate exceeds a global mean temperature every player loses," says Eisenack. — Hannah Hoag

WEATHER-PROOFING THE NATION

Climate change is battering Canada's $5-trillion worth of critical infrastructure with more floods, hail, ice, heat waves and windstorms than it has ever known.

Global losses from wicked weather are rising rapidly (to more than $40-billion a year), and Canada's "vulnerability to extreme events is becoming high" as well, says Environment Canada climatologist Heather Auld.

True volatility obviously exacts a heavy toll on bridges, roads and buildings that haven't been designed for flash floods or a regular onslaught of hurricane-force winds.

But subtle changes are also shortening the lifespan of Canada's aging infrastructure — just the increased freezing and thawing as winter warms up can weaken concrete and pavement.

Given the billions at stake, Ms. Auld says, "insurance companies and municipalities are watching the weather like hawks." But thinking will have to change radically if the updating is to be done in time.

Michel Girard of the Canadian Standards Association says engineers, contractors and governments need revised building codes and road designs to prepare for the weather of the future — but the national data needed to create those standards aren't available yet.

Quebec has taken the lead, he says, by preventing new development in high-risk areas along the St. Lawrence, and by announcing plans to expand the province's culverts over the next several years.

But the Far North worries him most: With the melting permafrost, airport runways are sinking, and housing, which is already below standards in many communities, must be adapted to the changing weather.

"It's not acceptable," he says. "If we have new information, we need to use it." — Andrew Nikiforuk and Erin Anderssen

YEAR-ROUND ISOLATION

Last May, the largest helicopter in the world, a Russian Mi26, flew to Yellowknife to airlift a piece of heavy equipment to the Diavik diamond mine.

The winter road the mine was depending on wasn't solid, says company spokesman Tom Hoefer — the lake ice too thin for trucks to safely carry the "shovel" (which looks sort of like a backhoe, only much larger).

Instead, workers had to cut the 500-tonne piece of machinery into small pieces to fit into the helicopter and then reassemble it at the mine. Diavik also had to fly in fuel, cement and other heavy items it normally would have trucked in. The cost: millions of dollars.

This winter is colder, so frozen highways are open across the North. But climate change could mean hardship for many in isolated Northern communities.

When the swamps and lakes don't ice up, residents of places such as Garden Hill First Nation in Manitoba can pay $16 for a four-litre jug of milk and double the normal price for gas. A single green pepper can go for $13. — Anne McIlroy

ZERO HOUR FOR THE AMAZON

For decades, people have wrung their hands over deforestation in the Amazon. Now, scientists fear that climate change alone may turn the massive rain forest into a baking desert. If droughts and forest fires intensify and the rain forest shrinks, it creates less rain, leading to more droughts and fires, and so on, in a vicious cycle. Just as in the boreal forests, the Amazon's burning trees will release stored carbon into the air, further speeding global warming. If the entire Amazon went up in smoke — which may happen within decades — it would release 100 billion tonnes of carbon, says Daniel Nepstad, who studies rain-forest droughts and fires. (Humans currently release about six billion tonnes a year by burning fossil fuels.)

"This," Dr. Nepstad says, "really is frightening." — Zoe Cormier

ALMANAC CONTRIBUTORS

Erin Anderssen and Ian Brown are Globe and Mail feature writers.

Laszlo Buhasz is The Globe's assistant travel editor.

Zoe Cormier and Dan Falk are Toronto science writers.

Tavia Grant is a reporter with the Report on Business.

Hannah Hoag is a science writer in Montreal.

Umarah Jamali is a freelance writer in New Delhi.

Mark Hume is a Globe reporter in Vancouver.

Michael Kesterton writes Social Studies for the Facts and Arguments page.

Charles Mandel is a writer living in Rothesay, N.B.

Shawn McCarthy is The Globe's energy reporter and Anne McIlroy is its science reporter, both based in Ottawa.

Tim McKeough is a Canadian writer living in New York.

Martin Mittelstaedt is The Globe and Mail's environment reporter.

Andrew Nikiforuk is an award-winning science writer in Calgary.

Lisa Rochon writes on architecture for The Globe.

Peter Scowen is the paper's deputy features editor.

Paul Tadich is a Canadian writer in Moscow.

Julie Traves is a Focus editor.

Calgary-based writer Chris Turner's next book is titled The Geography of Hope.

Geoffrey York is the paper's correspondent in Beijing.