‘Violência na Amazônia pode crescer’, afirma diretor do Greenpeace Brasil

Novo Código Florestal pode elevar conflito agrário, diz Paulo Adario ao G1. Ele foi escolhido pela ONU como ‘Herói da Floresta’ na última semana.

Escolhido pela Organização das Nações Unidas (ONU) como “Herói da Floresta”, devido aos 15 anos de trabalho para preservar a Amazônia, o diretor do Greenpeace no Brasil, Paulo Adario, afirma que durante este período já sofreu ameaças de morte e precisou de proteção.

Segundo ele, as mortes de pessoas que lutavam pela floresta, como a irmã Dorothy Stang e o casal de extrativistas, José Cláudio Ribeiro, e sua companheira, Maria do Espírito Santo, foram momentos difíceis. Porém, Adario afirma que a violência e a impunidade ainda existem no interior da Amazônia e pode piorar.

Em entrevista ao Globo Natureza, ele criticou o “desmonte de conquistas” e bons resultados para a floresta e disse que a aprovação do Código Florestal pode elevar os conflitos. “A sociedade está aceitando isto com naturalidade”.

Confira os principais trechos da entrevista a seguir:

Desde 1995, Paulo Adario realiza expedições de pesquisa e documentação na Amazônia. (Foto: Divulgação / Greenpeace)

G1 – Quais foram os momentos mais difíceis nesses 15 anos de trabalho na Amazônia?
Paulo Adario – Houve muitos momentos difíceis. Sofri ameaças de morte, em 2001 e 2002, que foram muito complicadas. Recebi proteção do governo brasileiro, durante 24 horas. A morte da Dorothy [Stang, missionária americana assassinada no Pará em 2005] foi outro momento duríssimo. A gente se sentiu muito tocado, porque ela estava condenada a morrer e nossa ajuda não chegou a tempo. Ia me encontrar com ela no dia que ela morreu. Foi um dia de desespero, de medo. Várias outras lideranças que eram nossos parceiros morreram, como o Dema e o Brasília. Agora, o Zé Cláudio [assassinado no Pará em 2011, junto com Maria do Espírito Santo].

G1 – Você trabalha no limite?
Adario – O tempo todo foi sempre trabalhar no limite. Isso leva a um aprendizado sobre como manejar o risco. E isso estabelece recompensas. Em áreas madeireiras, por exemplo, me perguntam: você é o Paulo Adario, aquele que adora se amarrar na árvore? Uma vez, um madeireiro falou que ia me cortar junto com a árvore. Eu comecei a rir e disse: você vai estragar sua motosserra, porque minha cara é dura. Começamos todos a rir e pudemos dialogar. O ambientalista tem preconceito que o cara é bandido, que ele vai te matar. Já o cara pensa que você é um louco varrido, muitas vezes ele acha que você não é do Brasil, acredita que tem um discurso contra o desenvolvimento. Mas, de repente não é nada disso. Você senta e conversa. Somos todos brasileiros.

G1 – Além do senhor, José Cláudio e Maria do Espírito Santo também foram homenageados pela ONU. A irmã de Maria do Espírito Santo discursou que a Amazônia é manchada de sangue e essa mancha continua se espalhando. Ainda existe um clima de medo entre os “heróis da floresta”, inclusive os anônimos?
Adario – Existe, principalmente nas áreas remotas da Amazônia. Hoje já está melhorando, existe uma governança crescente, o que faz você se sentir bem. Mas a violência ainda existe, porque ainda existem os mesmos problemas históricos que levam à violência. Como a disputa é resultado do avanço da expansão madeireira ou agropecuária, essas comunidades [tradicionais e povos indígenas] tendem a defender seu território e são as primeiras vítimas. Além disso, [a Amazônia] é uma área remota, distante da opinião publica. E existe a impunidade. A chance da pessoa que mata ser condenada é muito pequena. Então, vale a pena matar quem está na floresta. Os dados de violência no Pará são assustadores. Com o Código Florestal, a violência deve aumentar porque o conflito vai aumentar.

Imagem aérea da floresta amazônica. Para Adario, mudança no Código Florestal pode aumentar a violência na floresta. (Foto: Divulgação/UEA)

G1 – Quais são as maiores ameaças à Amazônia hoje?
Adario – Está havendo um processo de desmonte de conquistas que estavam dando resultados muito bons para o Brasil e para a floresta. Uma série de legislações foi colocada em funcionamento, além do próprio Código Florestal, como o projeto pelo qual o Senado evoca para si a palavra final sobre a demarcação de terras indígenas. Outra grande ameaça é o aumento da ilegalidade na extração madeireira. Além disso, o agronegócio brasileiro ficou mais sofisticado do ponto de vista operacional, tomou comissões de meio ambiente do Congresso. E a sociedade está aceitando com naturalidade.

G1 – E quais foram as melhores notícias sobre a Amazônia nesses últimos 15 anos?
Adario – São várias. Uma delas é que a sociedade civil passou a ter acesso a sistemas de monitoramento do desmatamento. Antes, o INPE [Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais] era uma caixa preta. Isso também ajudou a mídia brasileira a ficar muito mais consciente sobre o desmatamento, o tamanho do impacto, suas causas. Outras coisas positivas são o aumento da consciência dos setores empresariais, a criação de áreas protegidas e a demarcação de áreas indígenas, a melhoria da articulação entre grupos locais e lideranças comunitárias com os governos.

G1 – Ao receber o prêmio, o senhor disse “occupy Rio”. Há uma conexão entre os movimentos “occupy” e a pauta ambiental a ser tratada na Rio+20?
Adario – O “occupy Rio” saiu na hora do discurso, não foi previsto. Mas acho que é isso mesmo. Os governos estão muito pouco envolvidos com o processo da Rio+20. Há um desânimo geral, ninguém está nem aí, porque o foco é a crise econômica. Então, não existe ainda uma mobilização suficiente para que a Rio+20 seja um sucesso. A gente tem que trazer as pessoas para a rua, levá-las para o Rio, para que digam aos governantes que eles sabem o que tem que ser feito e que elas estão lá para cobrar. Essa é a única maneira de levar importantes líderes mundiais para o Rio e de fazer com que eles levem a sério a agenda da reunião.

G1 – Em outro momento do seu discurso, o senhor falou que os governos sabem o que precisa ser feito, mas falta força e liderança. O que é preciso para que isso ocorra?
Adario – Falta uma decisão coletiva. Cada país empurra o problema para o outro. Está faltando uma compreensão dos governos de que vivemos em uma comunidade global. Também faltam decisões concretas para priorizar medidas e recursos sustentáveis. É preciso parar de colocar dinheiro em energia nuclear e em carvão e investir em energias limpas.

Autor: Amanda Rossi
Fonte: Globo Natureza
Original: http://glo.bo/xDwa8u

---

FOLLOW US / SIGA-NOS:
              

Blue planet prize winners call for transformational change to achieve sustainable development

A group of the world’s leading scientists and experts in sustainable development today called for urgent changes to policies and institutions to enable humanity to tackle environmental crises and improve human wellbeing.
The group – all past winners of the Blue Planet Prize – have gathered in London to finalise a paper that will be launched at the UN Environment Programme’s Governing Council meeting in Nairobi on 20-22 February.

In a press briefing today at the International Institute for Environment and Development, co- author Bob Watson unveiled the paper’s main conclusions and recommendations.

The paper will emphasise transformational solutions to key environment and development challenges. It highlights the policies, technologies and behaviour changes required to protect the local, regional and global environment, stimulate the economy and enhance the livelihoods of the poor.

The paper Environmental and Development Challenges: The imperative to act comes ahead of the Rio+20 conference in Brazil in June, which marks the 20th anniversary of the historic UN Conference on Environment and Development (Rio Earth Summit).

“The challenges facing the world today need to be addressed immediately if we are to solve the problem of climate change, loss of biodiversity and poverty,” says Bob Watson, who is the Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK government’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), a Blue Planet Prize winner in 2010 and a co-author of the new paper.

Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director, said:

“The paper by the Blue Planet laureates will challenge governments and society as a whole to act to limit human-induced climate change, the loss of biodiversity and the degradation of ecosystem services in order to ensure food, water energy and human security. I would like to thank Professor Watson and colleagues for eloquently articulating their vision on how key development challenges can be addressed, emphasizing solutions; the policies, technologies and behaviour changes required to grow green economies, generate jobs and lift people out of poverty without pushing the world through planetary boundaries.”

The Blue Planet laureates who gathered in London to work on the paper are:

– Professor Sir Bob Watson, Chief Scientific Adviser of the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra)

– Lord (Robert) May of Oxford, former Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government and President of Royal Society of London

– Professor Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University

– Professor Harold Mooney, Stanford University

– Dr. Gordon Hisashi Sato, President, Manzanar Project Corporation

– Professor José Goldemberg, secretary for the environment of the State of São Paulo, Brazil and Brazil’s interim Secretary of Environment during the Rio Earth Summit in 1992

– Dr Emil Salim, former Environment Minister of the Republic of Indonesia

– Dr Camilla Toulmin, Director of the International Institute for Environment and Development

– Bunker Roy, Founder of Barefoot College

– Dr Syukuro Manabe, Senior Scientist, Princeton University

– Julia Marton-Lefevre, Director-General of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

– Dr Simon Stuart, Chair of the Species Survival Commission of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

– Dr Will Turner, Vice President of Conservation Priorities and Outreach, Conservation International

– Dr Karl-Henrik Robert, Founder of The Natural Step, Sweden

ABOUT THE BLUE PLANET PRIZE

In 1992, the year of the Rio Earth Summit, the Asahi Glass Foundation established the Blue Planet Prize, an award presented to individuals or organizations worldwide in recognition of outstanding achievements in scientific research and its application that have helped provide solutions to global environmental problems.

The Prize is offered in the hopes of encouraging efforts to bring about the healing of the Earth’s fragile environment. A full list of its past winners is online here.

The award’s name was inspired by the remark “the Earth was blue,” uttered by the first human in space, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, upon viewing our planet. The Blue Planet Prize was so named in the hopes that our blue planet will be a shared asset capable of sustaining human life far into the future.

2012 is the 20th anniversary of the Blue Planet Prize. The Asahi Glass Foundation wishes to mark this anniversary with a fresh start in its efforts to help build an environmentally friendly society.

Source: UNEP – United Nations Environment Programme
Original: http://bit.ly/AdkAAZ

---

FOLLOW US / SIGA-NOS:
              

Recuperadas 47 mil toneladas de materiais dos veículos entregues para abate em 2011

Tubos de escape para reciclar. (Foto: Pedro Cunha)

Os 50.782 veículos em fim de vida que foram entregues para abate em 2011 permitiram reaproveitar 47 mil toneladas de materiais, a maioria metais, segundo a Valorcar, responsável pela maior rede de centros de abate de veículos em final de vida (VFV) de Portugal.

No ano passado foi ultrapassada a meta comunitária de reciclagem de veículos em final de vida (VFV): em média, cada VFV recebido foi reciclado em 84,6 por cento do seu peso e valorizado em 89,7 por cento, “ultrapassando largamente a meta comunitária” de reciclagem e valorização em pelo menos 80 a 85 por cento do seu peso, respectivamente, destaca.

Segundo a Valorcar, que hoje divulga os dados relativos a 2011, os VFV recebidos foram despoluídos, desmantelados e fragmentados, tendo os seus diversos componentes e materiais totalizado 47 mil toneladas.

Os metais foram o material mais reutilizado, reciclado ou valorizado (35.000 toneladas), seguidos das peças usadas (1990 toneladas), pneus (1680 toneladas), vidros (880 toneladas), baterias (692 toneladas), plásticos (265 toneladas) e óleos (241 toneladas).

Depois de, em 2009, dados do Eurostat colocarem Portugal no 9.º lugar em reutilização/valorização de VFV entre os 27 Estados-membros da União Europeia, a Valorcar destaca que “os resultados agora alcançados deixam boas perspectivas que o país continue a subir nesta tabela”.

Os centros da rede Valorcar recolheram, em 2011, 24.752 toneladas de baterias de veículos usadas, menos 5,9% do que em 2010. As baterias foram enviadas para reciclagem em quatro unidades especializadas. Aqui, é neutralizado o ácido das baterias, recuperado o plástico das caixas (polipropileno) para posterior produção de vasos de plantas, tubos de rega ou mobiliário urbano e é ainda recuperado o chumbo para produção de lingotes. De acordo com a Valorcar, cerca de 90 por cento deste chumbo é utilizado na produção de novas baterias, sendo o restante, de menor grau de pureza, encaminhado para o fabrico de munições, barreiras de protecção contra radiações, lastros de navios e contrapeso de elevadores, entre outros.

Ainda assim, o total de automóveis entregues para abate na Valorcar caiu 35,2% em 2011. A Valorcar atribuiu esta quebra à extinção do Programa de Incentivo Fiscal ao Abate de VFV, que representava mais de 30 por cento das unidades entregues, e ao recuo nas vendas de veículos novos, já que os consumidores conservam por mais tempo o mesmo automóvel. Segundo a Valorcar, esta tendência de decréscimo já se verifica desde 2008, sendo actualmente a idade média dos VFV entregues de 18,1 anos.

A Valorcar é uma entidade privada, sem fins lucrativos, cuja rede engloba actualmente 75 centros licenciados pelo Ministério do Ambiente, localizados em todos os distritos do continente e nas regiões autónomas dos Açores e da Madeira. Totalmente gratuita, a entrega de um VFV nestes centros garante um tratamento ambientalmente adequado para o veículo e assegura que os respectivos registos de propriedade e matrícula serão cancelados, sendo a única forma de deixar de pagar o Imposto Único de Circulação (segundo a Valorcar, se o veículo for abandonado ou entregue a centros não licenciados, o titular do registo continuará a pagar este imposto).

Fonte: Ecosfera – Público / LUSA
Original: http://bit.ly/Aucs3R

---

FOLLOW US / SIGA-NOS:
              

Ladybird decline driven by ‘invading’ harlequin

Ladybirds native to the UK and other European countries are declining fast as the invasive harlequin species spreads, scientists have shown.

Bestriding the countryside; harlequins breed more frequently than many native European species

Researchers found that seven out of the eight native British species they studied have declined, with issues also identified in Belgium and Switzerland.

The harlequin is an Asian species brought in for pest control, but which has now become a pest itself.

Some UK species are “near the threshold of detection”, the scientists write.

Scientists are warning of potential damage to ecosystems’ “resilience”.

In an unrelated study released at the same time, researchers found that the colour of ladybirds shows how toxic they are to predators.

The harlequin (Harmonia axyridis) was first spotted in Belgium in 2001, and in the UK and Switzerland in 2004.

Scientists have warned since it appeared that native species were likely to be vulnerable, but this study, reported in the journal Diversity and Distributions, measures the scale of the impact and ties it squarely to the alien’s arrival.

“This study provides strong evidence of a link between the arrival of the harlequin and declines in other species of ladybird,” said Helen Roy from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Wallingford, Oxfordshire, who worked with colleagues at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge as well as Belgian and Swiss research institutes.

“This result would not have been possible without the participation of so many members of the public gathering ladybird records across Britain, Belgium and Switzerland.”

The UK database contains nearly 90,000 observations of ladybirds made between 2006 and 2010.

The Belgian sample is somewhat smaller but began earlier.

Surveying the same batch of species in the same locality year after year enables researchers to make a good estimate of the rate of change.

And for some native species, the rate is spectacularly high.

Numbers of the two-spotted ladybird (Adalia bipunctata), they estimate, fell by 44% in the UK and 30% in Belgium in the five years following the harlequin’s arrival.

The harlequin and the two-spot share a habitat of deciduous trees and as the harlequin is larger, it is able to out-compete its smaller rival for food, and prey on its larvae.

The only UK species apparently unaffected by the harlequin’s arrival was the seven-spotted ladybird (Coccinella septempunctata) which is of a similar size and does not share the same habitat.

Declines were also seen in Switzerland, but the data was not as comprehensive.

The researchers warn that potentially serious consequences lie ahead if the harlequin continues its rampant march.

“Ladybirds provide an incredibly useful ecological function by keeping aphids in check,” said Tim Adriaens, from the Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO) in Belgium.

“At the continental scale, the arrival of the harlequin could impact on the resilience of ecosystems and severely diminish the vital services that ladybirds deliver.”

Currently, there is no way of selectively killing the harlequin. Gardeners are advised to take care if they decide to squish them, as their highly variable colour pattern means they can be hard to distinguish from native species.

The big seven-spot is able to hang on

Red signal

Another reason why the harlequin is able to out-compete native species appears to be because it is more toxic to birds and other animals that may try to eat it.

Working with the seven-spot, researchers discovered that individual ladybirds with red wings are more toxic than others.

As they detail in the journal Functional Ecology, the reason seems to be that these individuals are well-fed, enabling them to produce relatively large amounts of their defensive chemicals and the red pigment that probably warns predators off.

“Producing warning signals and chemical defences is costly, so when individuals lack access to an abundant supply of food they produce relatively weak chemical defences,” said lead scientist Jon Blount from Exeter University.

There is no explicit link to the harlequin study; however, if the harlequins are eating better than the native species, as appears to be the case, that could increase the difference in toxicity between the natives and the invaders.

Author: Richard Black
Source: BBC
Original: http://bbc.in/yCcICP

---

FOLLOW US / SIGA-NOS:
              

Aviação: Congresso dos EUA condena taxa de carbono europeia

O Congresso dos Estados Unidos condenou na segunda-feira a legislação europeia sobre as emissões de carbono dos aviões e pediu ao governo americano para fazer tudo o que for possível para combater a taxa de carbono europeia.

Na discussão de uma lei sobre o financiamento da Administração de Aviação Civil (FAA), o Congresso deparou-se com um artigo sobre a diretiva que entrou em vigor a 01 de janeiro e que obriga todas as companhias aéreas que entrarem no espaço aéreo europeu a pagar o equivalente a 15 por cento das suas emissões de carbono, ou 32 milhões de toneladas, para combater o aquecimento global.

O Congresso americano considera que a medida “não está em conformidade com a Convenção relativa à aviação civil internacional” de 1944 e é “contrária à cooperação internacional para regulamentar eficazmente o problema das emissões de gás de efeito estufa pela aviação”.

Fonte: Expresso / LUSA
Original: http://bit.ly/yCSMEW

---

FOLLOW US / SIGA-NOS:
              

After Early Gallop, Albany Slows to Crawl in Making Decision on Gas Drilling

When Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo took office last year, his administration seemed to be in hurry-up mode as it decided whether to allow hydraulic fracturing, a controversial gas drilling process. State regulators kept to tight deadlines to produce for public review an environmental impact study and proposed drilling rules, and the state’s top environmental official said drilling permits could be granted as early as this year.

But now, a decision on the process, known as hydrofracking — its scope, its timing or whether it will happen at all — seems much more uncertain, and the approval process has slowed considerably despite almost four years of study, debate and intense lobbying on both sides of the issue.

Mr. Cuomo did not mention hydrofracking in his State of the State address last month, and did not provide money in his proposed budget for the 2013 fiscal year for regulating the new industry.

The governor’s office declined to answer questions Monday on the slowing of the approval calendar, but cited a statement by Mr. Cuomo in the fall of 2011 that a decision on hydrofracking should be based “on the facts and on the science.”

“This is not an issue to be decided by politics or emotion,” the governor added.

State regulators say they need more time to deal with the unprecedented volume of public comments about the drilling plan by the Department of Environmental Conservation — more than 46,000 for or against, or pointing out unresolved concerns. Others say there is less urgency given the low market price of natural gas and a recent announcement by some major drilling companies that they plan to curtail production.

Even some of the most outspoken advocates for hydrofracking are showing patience, including Tom Libous, the second-ranking Republican in the State Senate, who represents the natural-gas-rich Southern Tier, on the Pennsylvania border.

“I wouldn’t say it’s a given,” he said of the state’s permitting hydrofracking. “Economically, we need it desperately. But at the end of the day, if the scientists and geologists at the D.E.C. say ‘this is not a good thing to do,’ I’m not going to challenge it.”

New York officials have been cautious from the start, revising and twice submitting for public review an environmental impact document incorporating the lessons learned from other states that allow hydrofracking on the Marcellus Shale. The extraction process uses vast amounts of water, chemicals and sand to release gas from tight rock and has posed environmental risks, some of them still under study by the Environmental Protection Agency. As New York decides, new concerns have surfaced, including the fear of water contamination and seismic activity related to the disposal of drilling waste.

Opposition to hydrofracking has grown and organized. Some elected officials said the controversy had raised new political considerations, especially during this election year.

“It’s causing everybody to say, ‘Let’s not rush into this,’ ” said Assemblyman Robert K. Sweeney, a Democrat from Suffolk County who has sponsored a bill calling for a moratorium on hydrofracking until June 2013, to allow more time for study.

Mr. Sweeney, who leads the Assembly’s Environmental Conservation Committee, said the strong public sentiment could not be lost on the Cuomo administration.

“The first time something bad happens,” he said of the consequences of drilling, “it’s going to come right back to them.”

Last month, in his most recent remarks on the subject, Mr. Cuomo indicated that hydrofracking was very much an “if.”

“You would not be hiring staff to regulate hydrofracking unless you believed you were going ahead with hydrofracking,” he told reporters. “And we haven’t made that determination. So the budget won’t anticipate hydrofracking approval.”

An 18-member advisory panel convened by Joseph Martens, the state environmental commissioner, to determine how to pay for state workers overseeing hydrofracking postponed issuing its recommendations, missing the Nov. 1 deadline. The panel has been on hiatus since December. Two of its meetings have been canceled since the public comment period closed Jan. 11, as the Environmental Conservation Department reviews the mounds of feedback, sifting for any information that would warrant further revisions.

Robert Moore, a panel member and executive director of Environmental Advocates of New York, said the costs of minimizing hydrofracking’s risks had become a bigger issue now that some gas companies have gone into a retrenchment in response to the glut of natural gas. The industry would ultimately be responsible for the fees and taxes necessary to defray the costs of hiring and training state regulatory workers.

“With gas prices being what they are, it’s unclear what profits can be made,” he said. “If there’s no profit, there’s no tax revenue.”

Another panel member, Assemblywoman Donna A. Lupardo, a Democrat from Broome County, said, “It all boils down to two questions: what level of risk are we willing to accept, and at what cost?”

Gas companies are fighting New York’s proposed rules, arguing that they go too far and impose unnecessary restrictions and costs on the industry. Companies already estimate that they would have to spend an extra $1 million per well to drill in the state because of tougher requirements, including a rule that would require an extra layer of cemented well casing to prevent the gas from seeping out. Despite the market and the regulatory challenges, companies remain eager to drill, and to determine how much shale gas New York wells might yield.

“We don’t even know the quality of the resource in New York, and how New York production compares to neighboring states,” said Thomas S. West, an Albany lawyer who represents oil and gas companies. “If we opened the door, it’ll be a very slow ramp-up, and that’s a good thing.”

Environmental advocates note that the industry has every incentive to pursue drilling in the state, since it anticipates a bright future in the long term, particularly as it pursues federal approvals for exporting liquefied natural gas overseas. Lawsuits challenging what the state does could also alter the timeline.

“If the D.E.C. doesn’t adequately respond to the comments, there’ll likely be litigation,” said Deborah Goldberg, a lawyer with the environmental law firm Earthjustice.

Among those seeking a drilling ban, some have said they are prepared to engage in civil disobedience if it will stop the new drilling technique.

“People are ready to take unusual action,” said Assemblywoman Barbara Lifton, a Democrat from Tompkins County and a vocal hydrofracking opponent. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Author: Mireya Navarro
Source: The New York Times
Original: http://nyti.ms/AD3SAc

---

FOLLOW US / SIGA-NOS:
              

Petrobras anuncia descoberta de petróleo e gás na Amazônia

A companhia informou que a reserva, localizada no Município de Coari, a 25 km da província petrolífera de Urucu, indicou capacidade de produção diária de 1.400 barris

Plataforma petrolífera da Petrobras em alto mar. (Fotografia: Divulgação)

A Petrobras anunciou nesta sexta-feira a descoberta de uma nova acumulação de óleo e gás na Bacia do Solimões, no Amazonas.

Em comunicado ao mercado, a companhia informou que a reserva, localizada no Município de Coari, a 25 km da província petrolífera de Urucu (AM), indicou capacidade de produção diária de 1.400 barris de óleo de boa qualidade (41º API) e 45 mil m3 de gás, na Formação Juruá.

O poço foi perfurado a uma profundidade final de 3.295 metros.

“Este é o segundo sucesso exploratório no Bloco SOL-T-171, onde já está em andamento, desde 2010, o Plano de Avaliação da Descoberta do poço 1-BRSA-769-AM, informalmente conhecido como Igarapé Chibata”, afirmou a Petrobras.

Segundo a companhia, confirmada a viabilidade econômica das descobertas, elas viabilizarão a criação de um novo polo produtor de petróleo e gás natural na Bacia do Solimões.

A empresa detém 100 por cento dos direitos de exploração e produção na concessão. A companhia produz diariamente no Amazonas 53 mil barris de óleo e 11 milhões de m3 de gás natural além de 1,3 mil toneladas de GLP.

Fonte: Exame / Reuters
Original: http://bit.ly/yv7Ajb

---

FOLLOW US / SIGA-NOS:
              

Tianjin Eco-City In China: The Future Of Urban Development? (PICTURES)

Green building is becoming so prevalent these days that it may not be enough to erect individual eco buildings anymore – the newest trend is entire eco-cities. Expected to be up and running in 2020, Tianjin Eco-City is one of these real-life sustainable communities, spanning 30 square kilometers and showcasing the hottest energy-saving technologies. Designed by Surbana Urban Planning Group, the city will have an advanced light rail transit system and varied eco-landscapes ranging from a sun-powered solarscape to a greenery-clad earthscape for its estimated 350,000 residents to enjoy.

Tianjin Eco-City is a fascinating, 30 square kilometer development designed to showcase the hottest new green technologies and to serve as a model for future developing Chinese cities. Designed by Surbana Urban Planning Group, the city is being built just 10 minutes away from the business parks at the Tianjin Economic-Development Area, making for a commute that should be a breeze with the development’s advanced light rail transit system. Even cooler, the community’s expected 350,000 residents will be able to choose different landscapes ranging from a sun-powered solarscape to a greenery-clad earthscape to enjoy.

Eco-City will make use of the latest sustainable technologies such as solar power, wind power, rainwater recycling, and wastewater treatment/desalination of sea water.

In order to reduce the city’s carbon emissions, residents will be encouraged to use an advanced light rail system, and China has also pledged that 90 percent of traffic within the city will be public transport.

The development also features some beautiful public green spaces.

The city will be divided into seven distinct sectors – a Lifescape, an Eco-Valley, a Solarscape, an Urbanscape, a Windscape, an Earthscape and Eco-Corridors.

Surrounded by greenery, the Lifescape will consist of a series of soil-topped mounds that will counteract the towering apartment buildings of the other communities.

To the north of the Lifescape, the Solarscape will act as the administrative and civic center of the Eco-City.

Demonstrating the concept of a compact, multilayered city, the Urbanscape will be the core of the Eco-City, featuring stacked programs interconnected by sky-bridges at multiple levels to make efficient use of vertical space.

An aerial view of the Urbanscape.

In contrast to the Urbanscape, the Earthscape will act as a sort of suburb of the city, with stepped architecture that will maximize public green space.

The Windscape corridor.

Last but not least, the Windscape will transform Qingtuozi, a century-old village surrounded by a small lake, into a venue for citizens to relax and recreate.

Source: The Huff Post Green
Original: http://huff.to/oE9uyq

---

FOLLOW US / SIGA-NOS:
              

Carbono da UE está barato demais e não há menção para intervenção

As permissões de carbono da União Europeia estão baratas demais para encorajar os investimentos ambientais, diz um projeto visto pela Reuters. No entanto, o documento não chega a pedir por políticas de intervenção de mercado, o que as companhias de energia argumentam que é urgentemente necessário.

O projeto de resolução a ser debatido pela UE em nível governamental apenas comentou que “um preço forte de permissões” era vital para uma economia de baixo carbono e que “os atuais preços das permissões do ETS fornecem incentivos substancialmente menores do que o previsto”.

O projeto também “reconhece a necessidade de dar atenção ao risco de vazamento de carbono”, em referência ao risco de que o carbono não emitido na zona do euro seja emitido em outro lugar se as regulamentações forem mal calculadas.

Organizações ambientais não-governamentais declararam que as conclusões desse projeto, que devem ser discutidas em um grupo de trabalho a ser adotado formalmente ainda neste ano, não confrontam o peso da opinião que apoia a intervenção para fortalecer o mercado de carbono.

“O projeto não conseguiu reconhecer o ímpeto político criado em torno do ETS”, disse Sanjeev Kumar, do grupo ambiental E3G.

EFICIÊNCIA PODE AUMENTAR O EXCEDENTE

Os preços do carbono podem diminuir ainda mais se a União Europeia conseguir melhorar seus recordes em eficiência energética, o que aumentaria o excedente de permissões de carbono.

A Dinamarca, que atualmente preside a UE, tem um compromisso nacional com a agenda verde do bloco e afirmou que incentivaria uma aplicação mais rigorosa das metas de eficiência da UE.

Mas o país também admitiu a dificuldade de atingir um acordo político com todos os 27 membros da UE e declarou que não tinha certeza se um acordo para cortar as permissões de carbono poderia ser concluído durante sua presidência de seis meses.

A melhoria da eficiência energética é a única meta não-obrigatória que a UE estabeleceu entre os três objetivos para 2020. Eles são: cortar as emissões de carbono em 20% e aumentar a participação das fontes de energia renovável para 20%, bem como melhorar a eficiência energética em 20%.

A UE está a caminho de atingir suas duas metas obrigatórias, mas por enquanto espera-se que atinja apenas cerca de metade da meta de eficiência não-obrigatória.

“Se a UE alcançar seus objetivos de eficiência energética, isso poderia permitir à UE superar a atual meta de 20% de redução de emissões e atingir 25% de redução até 2020”, apontam as conclusões do projeto visto pela Reuters.

Uma referência à possibilidade de um corte de 25% suscitou um debate tempestuoso no ano passado, quando a Polônia, que então detinha a presidência rotativa da UE, bloqueou o estabelecimento dessa meta.

Outro projeto visto pela Reuters mostrou que o aumento da meta de redução de emissões da UE para 30% até 2020 seria muito menos custoso do que se pensava, embora fosse mais caro para nações do leste da Europa, como a Polônia, que é fortemente dependente de carvão, fonte intensa de carbono.

Traduzido: Jéssica Lipinski
Autor: Barbara Lewis
Fonte: Reuters
Original: http://bit.ly/yDsk1t

---

FOLLOW US / SIGA-NOS:
              

Wishing Upon an Atom in a Tiny French Village

A nuclear power station, in background, is the center of the livelihood of Fessenheim. It also happens to sit in a seismic zone. (Photography: Pascal Bastien for The New York Times)

FESSENHEIM, France — The protesters who periodically descend upon this rural village say the aging nuclear power station here, in the woods beyond the cornfields, is a calamity in waiting.

They note that its twin reactors, the country’s oldest, were built 30 feet below the dike of the canal that runs alongside the Rhine River — the water serves as the station’s coolant — but that France’s national utility, which runs the plant, has declined to study the consequences of a break in the embankment.

The plant also sits in a seismic zone — in 1356, an earthquake decimated the Swiss city of Basel, just 30 miles south — and atop one of Europe’s largest aquifers. The concrete containment vessels that surround the reactors at Fessenheim are just a fraction of the thickness of those at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan, at least one of which was shown to have cracked in the disaster there.

The front-runner in this year’s presidential race, the Socialist François Hollande, has pledged to close the plant if he is elected in May.

Candidates for France’s presidency differ on the future of nuclear power. (The New York Times)

Given France’s decades of heavy investment in nuclear power, however, and the feelings of national pride and independence that are wrapped up in it, that stance is controversial across the country, and anathema in Fessenheim.

Even in the wake of the meltdown in Japan, as France’s European neighbors have begun to close nuclear plants, this village quite likes its power station. Just a mile or so from the border with Germany — which closed its eight oldest reactors within days of the Fukushima disaster — Fessenheim seems a fitting symbol of France’s attachment to the atom.

The village’s 2,341 inhabitants pay little heed to the warnings of catastrophe from antinuclear types. They are far more interested, they say, in the doctors and nurses who have chosen to work here, the bike lanes and freshly paved roads, the pharmacy, the supermarket, the public pool, media center and athletic complex, as well as the day care center, the nursery school, the elementary and middle schools — all of them subsidized by the millions of euros in taxes that flow from the plant each year.

“Everything depends on the power plant,” said Fabienne Stich, 53, the mayor. Her office overlooks Fessenheim’s main intersection, where new traffic lights and a conspicuously modern electronic information display were installed last year.

The 1,800-megawatt power station, which entered into service in 1977, is the center of the village’s livelihood. To close it, Ms. Stich said, would be “catastrophic.”

France’s 58 nuclear reactors produce nearly 75 percent of the country’s electricity — the largest proportion for any nation in the world — with a total installed capacity second only to that of the United States. The nuclear industry accounts for an estimated 400,000 jobs, and France sells and builds nuclear plants abroad. The country is the world’s largest net exporter of electricity.

Just over the Rhine, Germany’s remaining nine reactors are scheduled for closing by 2022. Switzerland’s government banned the construction of new nuclear plants last May. Spain has had a similar ban in place for years, while in Italy, where the last nuclear plant ceased operation in 1990, voters last year repealed a government plan for new sites.

France, meanwhile, has shut not a single reactor in the wake of the disaster in Japan, and it is building a next-generation plant on the northern coast. In a report released this week, the government auditing agency advised that the country’s reliance on nuclear energy is such that France has little choice but to continue operating all its nuclear stations for at least the coming decade.

President Nicolas Sarkozy has pledged to protect the industry from his presidential opponents. “Our nuclear industry constitutes a force — an economic force, a considerable strategic source for France,” he said in November. “To destroy it would have consequences that would be — I dare to use the word — dramatic.”

With the exception of the Greens, however, who call for the immediate closing of all French plants, Mr. Sarkozy and his opponents in fact largely agree on the nuclear question. Mr. Hollande has suggested only a gradual drawdown of just one-third of the country’s installed capacity, despite his pledge to close the Fessenheim plant.

That promise outraged labor unions and the town. While they are the oldest in France, the reactors are newer than many others across the world and have undergone continual renovation, they note.

“It’s certain that ‘zero risk’ does not exist,” Ms. Stich said. “But nothing would justify this closure.”

Those opposed to nuclear power, however, joined by a number of regional politicians, maintain that the station at Fessenheim constitutes an unreasonable risk. “It’s a veritable sword of Damocles over the heads of the local populace,” said André Hatz, a member of the antinuclear group Stop Fessenheim.

EDF, the French national utility, says it has always taken adequate steps to protect the plant from all reasonable hypothetical dangers. But in January, the French nuclear safety agency ordered it to study the potential consequences of a break in the dike. Last summer, the agency ordered the reinforcement of the containment vessel for one of the reactors.

And while the plant was constructed to withstand a magnitude-6.7 tremor, Mr. Hatz worries that the region may once have seen a more powerful earthquake: Swiss and German experts estimate that the 1356 Basel earthquake was of a magnitude of 6.9. (French experts have estimated it at 6.2.)

“This is what we call the policy of the ostrich,” with its head in the sand, Mr. Hatz said.

As for the lack of worry among local inhabitants, he added, “When you get so much money, your vision is clouded, you don’t see things clearly anymore.”

Of 900 workers at the plant, about 250 are residents of the village, Ms. Stich said; dozens of local and regional companies depend upon it for business.

“It keeps the village alive,” said Angélique Busser, 32, who works at the village bakery, where sandwiches for plant workers account for a major part of business. Ms. Busser, who once worked as a cleaner at the power station, has no concerns about safety there. “It’s all watched incredibly closely, after all,” she said.

“We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for the power plant,” said Josiane Ruthmann, 48, who runs the Hôtel Restaurant Ruthmann with her husband, Bernard, a chef. The couple moved to Fessenheim two decades ago after several years in Los Angeles, Washington and Montreal.

“I recognize it, it’s true — we need to get out of nuclear,” said Ms. Ruthmann, citing concerns about radioactive waste. “But they need to find an alternative before they close it down.”

Her husband has little patience for the protesters. “I don’t know how many of them read their books by candlelight or do their laundry in a bucket,” he said, laughing. Still, he said, “It’s good for me when they come to demonstrate.” A businessman at heart, he assures the protesters that he shares their convictions, and business booms at the bar.

Author: Scott Sayare
Source: The New York Times
Original: http://nyti.ms/y6tpxA

---

FOLLOW US / SIGA-NOS: