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2011-08-02T09:19:00.001-07:00

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Brazil

Brazilian televangelist tells followers to embark on media 'fast'

Bishop Edir Macedo's request to refrain from television, radio or the web criticised as diversion tactic from bad press

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Tom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 28 July 2011 14.06 BST
Article history

macedo cult brazil
Followers of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, one of the richest evangelical cults in South America Photograph: Carlos Magno/AP

He is one of South America's most powerful televangelists, a billionaire preacher and media mogul who presides over one of the world's fastest-growing and most controversial Pentecostal churches.

But despite controlling one of Brazil's largest communications empires, Bishop Edir Macedo, the head of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, is urging his followers to embark on a complete media fast. Twitter and Facebook-obsessed Christians have been told to log-off and get closer to God.

"It will be a fast from each and every kind of secular information: TV, internet, newspapers, magazines, radios … from everything that is not Godly," Macedo wrote.

Many suspect the move, however, is a tactic to divert followers' attention from bad press.

The Christian news website Gospel+ noted that Macedo had called for "media fasts" twice in the past. On both occasions, the fasts coincided with negative stories about the Universal Church that were widely disseminated in the Brazilian media.

Earlier this month the Universal Church came under attack after claims that a nine-year-old boy had been coerced into selling his toys during one televised service. As his mother underwent a violent exorcism on stage, the boy told the preacher he hoped selling his toys and donating the proceeds to the church would stop his parents fighting at home.

Promoting the media fast his popular blog, the Blog do Macedo, the preacher claimed: "The spirit of the Lord will descend upon all sincere participants."

"In the first 21 days of August we will carry out a veritable spiritual clean-up," he added, calling on believers to "abstain from all forms of media and entertainment ... from all the trash of this world."

His numerous critics believe that while the fast will prevent churchgoers from following the latest developments on spicy telenovelas shown by Brazil's Globo media giant, they will be allowed to tune in to programmes on Macedo's rival Record network, as well as religious services.

Followers will also have access to Macedo's websites, radio stations, record label and the church's weekly newspaper, the Folha Universal.

One blogger suggested Macedo himself was unlikely to adhere to the media blackout since people who worked for or depended on the media were exempt.

Macedo's church was founded in 1977 in Rio de Janeiro and has since grown at a breakneck speed. Today it claims to have some 8 million followers worldwide, including "temples" in Africa, Asia, Europe and the US. Brazilian authorities have claimed that bishop Macedo is worth at least $2bn.

Earlier this month, the church opened its latest temple in the UK, inside a former cinema in Leicester. "This is no longer a cinema, but a church, a spiritual intensive care unit," Bishop Celso Júnior, one of the Church's UK leaders, reportedly said at the launch. The "gates of hell would never close on the city of Leicester", he added, according to the Arca Universal website, one of Macedo's numerous media outlets.

The church's hostile stance towards gay and lesbian people mean the church has become one of Brazil's most controversial.

2011-07-12T04:34:00.001-07:00

The viewer (test person) sees a picture representing a Venetian mask and is asked if he/she notices something special in it. A surprising number don’t notice that the main features of the mask are actually composed of two distinct faces: a man and a woman kissing one another.
Once the viewer discerns two individual faces, his/her brain will ‘flip’ between two possible interpretations of the mask, making the viewer perceive two faces or one face in alternation.
This kind of illusion, where the viewer experiences two equally possible interchangeable stable states in perception, is called “bistable illusion”.

2011-07-04T17:48:00.001-07:00

The chief science legacy of NASA's space shuttle program may be the International Space Station, the gigantic orbiting lab that shuttle missions helped build over the past 13 years. But lots of interesting research has also been done aboard the shuttles themselves since they started flying in 1981.

Long before the station was up and running, space shuttle missions broke new ground in many different fields of research, taking advantage of the microgravity environment to perform studies that couldn't be done on terra firma.

As the last-ever shuttle launch nears — NASA's STS-135 mission aboard Atlantis will blast off July 8 — here's an admittedly subjective countdown at six of the coolest experiments ever done aboard NASA's iconic space plane.
Experiments aboard the space shuttle have shown that Salmonella bacteria, a common and sometimes deadly source of food poisoning, get more virulent in space. [9 Weird Things Flown On NASA's Space Shuttles]

Researchers first noticed this characteristic in studies performed aboard Atlantis' STS-115 flight in 2006 and the STS-123 mission of Endeavour two years later. And it's not a subtle change; Salmonella becomes three to seven times more virulent in microgravity conditions, researchers have said.

Scientists believe that the bacteria get ramped up because spaceflight tricks them into behaving as if they're inside the human gut. The shuttle missions also identified dozens of genes that seem to be involved in the hyper-virulence, as well as a "master switch" protein that regulates many of these genes.

The biotech firm Astrogenetix worked with NASA to conduct and extend this research, and the company recently developed a Salmonella vaccine based on it. Astrogenetix is also performing space-based studies of other pathogens, such as dangerous methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteria, with the aim of finding better treatments down the road.

13-Mile Space Tether Tryout
Tethered Satellite System deployment

Credit: NASA
The experiment, called the Tethered Satellite System (TSS), was a joint effort between NASA and the Italian space agency. The idea was to show that tethered satellites could generate electric current as they cruised through Earth's magnetic field.

During STS-46, the tether unspooled just 840 feet (256 meters) from Atlantis before the reel jammed. Four years later, 12.2 miles (19.7 km) of cable were released before the 0.1-inch (0.25 centimeter) tether snapped, sending the probe shooting away into a higher orbit.

Though neither attempt was 100 percent successful, the TSS belongs on this list for its scale and ambition alone. And the 1996 experiment did return some interesting results. Before the tether snapped, the TSS had been generating 3,500 volts and up to 0.5 amps of current, according to NASA officials.

2011-06-25T21:23:00.001-07:00

On the Mechanical Equivalent of Heat (historical)
Published: September 4, 2007, 4:41 pm
Edited: September 4, 2007, 4:41 pm
Lead Author: Ida Kubiszewski
Topics: Physics & Chemistry, Energy
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This article has been reviewed by the following Topic Editor: Cutler Cleveland

Originally Published As:
Title: On the Existence of an Equivalent Relation between Heat and the ordinary Forms of Mechanical Power
Author: James Prescott Joule
Source: Philosophical Magazine, series 3, vol. xxvii, p. 205
Year published: 1845

EDITOR'S NOTE: In a classic experiment in 1843, James Joule showed the energy equivalence of heating and doing work by using the change in potential energy of falling masses to stir an insulated container of water with paddles. Joule reported this and other related work in a letter to th editors of the Philosophical Magazine. Although German physicist Julius Robert von Mayer had made the same discovery independently of Joule a few years earlier, it was Joule who received the credit. Joule made a series of measurements and found that, on average, a weight of 772 pounds falling through a distance of one foot would raise the temperature of one pound of water by 1° F. This corresponds to 772 ft lbs × 1.356 J/ft lb = 59,453.6 Calories or 1 cal = 4.15 Joules; this is in close agreement with the current accepted value of 1 cal = 4.184 J. These findings contradicted the "caloric theory,” which embodied the day's widespread belief that heat was a fluid that could be neither created nor destroyed. Joule, on the other hand, claimed that heat was only one of many forms of energy and only the sum of all forms was conserved. This formed the basis for the theory of conservation of energy (the First Law of Thermodynamics).

Gentlemen,

The principal part of this letter was brought under the notice of the British association at its last meeting at Cambridge. I have hitherto hesitated to give it further publication, not because I was in any degree doubtful of the conclusions at which I had arrived, but because I intended to make a slight alteration in the apparatus calculated to give still greater precision to the experiments. Being unable, however, just at present to spare time necessary to fulfil this design, and being at the same time most anxious to convince the scientific world of the truth of the positions I have maintained, I hope you will do me the favour of publishing this letter in your excellent Magazine.

The apparatus exhibited before the Association consisted of a brass paddle-wheel working horizontally in a can of water. Motion could be communicated to this paddle by means of weights, pulleys, &c., exactly in the matter described in a previous paper.*

The paddle moved with great resistance in the can of water, so that the weights (each of four pounds) descended at the slow rate of about one foot per second. The height of the pulleys from the ground was twelve yards, and consequently, when the weights had descended through that distance, they had to be wound up again in order to renew the motion of the paddle. After this operation had been repeated sixteen times, the increase of the temperature of the water was ascertained by means of a very sensible and accurate thermometer.

A series of nine experiments was performed in the above manner, and nine experiments were made in order to eliminate the cooling or heating effects of the atmosphere. After reducing the result to the capacity for heat of a pound of water, it appeared that for each degree of heat evolved by the friction of water a mechanical power equal to that which can raise a weight of 890 lb. to the height of one foot had been expended.

The equivalents I have already obtained are; -- 1st, 823 lb., derived from magneto-electrical experiments (Phil. Mag. ser. 3 vol. xxiii. pp. 263, 347); 2nd, 795 lb., deduced from the cold produced by the rarefaction of air (Ibid. May 1845, p. 369); and 3rd, 774 lb. from experiments (hitherto unpublished) on the motion of water through narrow tubes. This last class of experiments being similar to that with the paddle wheel, we may take the mean of 774 and 890, or 832 lb., as the equivalent derived from the friction of water. In such delicate experiments, where one hardly ever collects more than one another than that above exhibited could hardly have been expected. I may therefore conclude that the existence of an equivalent relation between heat and the ordinary forms of mechanical power is proved; and assume 817 lb., the mean of the results of three distinct classes of experiments, as the equivalent, until more accurate experiments shall have been made.

Any of your readers who are so fortunate as to reside amid the romantic scenery of Wales or Scotland could, I doubt not, confirm my experiments by trying the temperature of the water at the top and at the bottom of a cascade. If my views be correct, a fall of 817 feet will course generate one degree of heat, and the temperature of the river Niagra will be raised about one fifth of a degree by its fall of 160 feet.

Admitting the correctness of the equivalent I have named, it is obvious that the vis viva of the particles of a pound water at (say) 51° is equal to the vis viva possessed by a pound of water at 50° plus the vis viva which would be acquired by a weight of 817 lb. after falling through the perpendicular height of one foot.

Assuming that the expansion of elastic fluids on the removal of pressure is owing to the centrifugal force of revolving atmospheres of electricity, we can easily estimate the absolute quantity of heat in matter. For in an elastic fluid the pressure will be proportional to the square of the velocity of the revolving atmosphere, and the vis viva of the atmospheres will also be proportional to the square of their velocity; consequently the pressure of elastic fluids at the temperatures 32° and 33° is 480 : 481; consequently the zero of temperature must be 480° below the freezing-point of water.

We see then what an enormous quantity of vis viva exists in matter. A single pound of water at 60° must possess 480° + 28° = 508° of heat; in other words, it must possess a vis viva equal to that acquired bt a weight of 415036 lb. after falling through the perpendicular height of one foot. The velocity with which the atmosphere of electricity must revolve in order to present this enormous amount of vis viva must of course be prodigious, and equal probably to the velocity of light in the planetary space, or to that of an electric discharge as determined by the experiments of Wheatstone.

* Phil. Mag. ser. 3, vol. xxiii, p. 436. The paddle-wheel used by Rennie in his experiments on the friction of water (Phil. Trans. 1831, plate xi, fig, 1) was somewhat similar to mine. I have employed, however, a greater number of "floats," and also a corresponding number of stationary floats, in order to prevent the rotatory motion of the can.

I remain, Gentlemen,
Yours Respectfully,
James P Joule.
Citation

Ida Kubiszewski (Lead Author);Cutler Cleveland (Topic Editor) "On the Mechanical Equivalent of Heat (historical)". In: Encyclopedia of Earth. Eds. Cutler J. Cleveland (Washington, D.C.: Environmental Information Coalition, National Council for Science and the Environment). [First published in the Encyclopedia of Earth September 4, 2007; Last revised Date September 4, 2007; Retrieved June 25, 2011
The Author

Ida Kubiszewski Stewardship Committee The Encyclopedia of Earth Dr. Ida Kubiszewski is a co-founder and former-Managing Editor the Encyclopedia of Earth. She is currently working as the Managing Editor for a new magazine/journal hybrid called Solutions. Solutions is an outlet for discussions focusing on solutions to the complex problems we are now facing in the context of whole systems design for a sustainable and desirable future. Dr. Kubiszewski is also the managing editor of Ecological E ... (Full Bio)

2011-06-24T10:11:00.000-07:00

http://melloayres.blogspot.com/2011/03/parabens-aos-nossos-alunos-aprovados.html

2011-06-24T10:07:00.001-07:00

2011-06-24T09:56:00.001-07:00

2011-02-15T13:39:00.001-08:00

What's behind the Belo Monte dam

The hydroelectric project encapsulates national ambitions, but it's time for a debate about the kind of development Brazil needs

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* Rodrigo Nunes
* guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 15 February 2011 14.30 GMT
* Article history

Indigenous peoples protest at Belo Monte dam, in Brasilia, Brazil Indigenous people and social movements from the Amazonian region affected by the Belo Monte dam protest in front of the presidential palace in Brasília. Photograph: Eduardo Seidl

I recently witnessed a conversation between someone working for the Brazilian federal government and an environmentalist; both were Workers' party (PT) supporters (the ruling party of President Dilma Rousseff).

"I'm in favour of the construction of the Belo Monte hydroelectric plant," the former said, "but I concede it's not a 'left versus right' issue."

"It isn't," the latter replied. "Or if it is, maybe the left isn't who you think."

The scene encapsulates a dimension that the Belo Monte issue could yet acquire: a watershed moment for a number of people who have supported the PT government so far; the crossing of a line that would make them question their future allegiances. This, however, is not yet the case; and while the issue has been getting growing coverage abroad, its impact in Brazil has so far been somewhat dulled. To understand why that is allows us to think through some of the deeper genealogies of the Latin American left, as well as some of the contradictions of its present predicament.

As soon as it appeared as a discourse in the 1930s and 1940s, "national developmentalism" became the middle ground for a very wide spectrum of political forces in the region. One of the characteristics of the phenomenon of historical populism (as opposed to the loose term of abuse the word has become today) was precisely its capacity to ride on the back of contradictory interests; its central operation consisted in making "national development" mean all things to all people. The cycle of military governments in the region, inaugurated by the Brazilian coup of 1964, can be understood as the moment when the contradictions became too intense for the middle to hold, and a decision was forced between leftwing (radical reformism) and rightwing (conservative modernisation) national development projects.

The recent rise of progressive governments in the region is, in one sense, a resumption of that moment – an opportunity, at a very different conjuncture, to partially recover the path then violently blocked. That is certainly the case in generational terms: even as yesterday's young revolutionaries, presidents like Brazil's Dilma Rousseff and Uruguay's Pepe Mujica, were formed politically by the developmentalist "consensus".

It is symptomatic that Belo Monte was first idealised by the military regime, as part of its 1970s "Big Brazil" policy – a programme of state-sponsored development based on gigantic flagship projects such as the Transamazonian highway, a black hole of money and men, unfinished to this day. "Development" here meant centralised planning and an ideal of absolute mastery over nature where the environment figured as an obstacle to growth. "National" meant managing people and nature as so many variables to be manipulated in the name of the national interest.

But there was more. The state's capacity to bend things to its will was ultimately premised on the power to enforce this will at any cost. The model tended to reinforce extreme concentrations of wealth, with spectacular riches going to a few economic groups while wages generally were kept down by force.

With the PT in power, though, Brazil has seen its first period of sustained economic growth since the 1970s. Savvy foreign policy nous has made it a big international player, and there is widespread optimism that Brazil will finally make good on its longstanding promise to be a "country of the future". What is more, it has managed to do so while distributing wealth, and boasts remarkable records in poverty reduction and enhancing access to basic rights. National development, then, is not only back up in the agenda, but this time, it seems to work.

You'd therefore excuse PT members, government supporters and voters who feel they have never had it so good for thinking that, sad as the loss of 60,000 hectares of forest and the displacement of 40,000 people may be, building Belo Monte is a national necessity. Now the country is growing, it cannot stop. And for it not to stop, it needs energy. This energy must come from somewhere. The interest of the many trumps that of the few; rational pragmatism overrides romantic idealism.

The problem, many argue, is that it is the very rationality of the project that is questionable. The installed capacity of 11GW, which would place it as the third largest hydroelectric plant in the world, will not be effective for most of the year; on average, it will run at 39% of that. Private-sector analysts suggest its cost, currently estimated at BR20bn (approximately $12bn), could go up by 50% before completion. This will essentially come from BNDES, a public bank, as the project is deemed too risky and unpredictable to invest in.

Still, the progressive developmentalist argument goes, to oppose the production of more energy is to oppose the economic progress of Brazil's poor, which in turns fuels increased consumption. Besides, Belo Monte means clean energy.

There are two problems with that. The first is that hydropower is not as clean as thought. Reservoirs have high emissions of CO2 and methane (with a warming effect 25 times stronger than CO2) as a consequence of decaying matter underwater; not to mention the dark irony of calling "clean" the impact on the area's fauna, flora and people, especially indigenous people, both contacted and uncontacted. (It does not help that, as far as variables to be manipulated in the national interest go, the rights of indigenous peoples rank very low in the Brazilian imaginary.)

The second is that the bulk of Belo Monte's output seems destined not to supply consumers, but to power energy-intensive industries in the region, mostly mining and aluminium. This means not only more future deforestation and displacement, but also a model of development that entrenches inequalities of wealth and reinforces the country's position in the international market as an exporter of low added-value primary commodities.

These tensions have been there since the beginning of the Latin American "Pink Tide": the social and political advances of the last decade have had primary exports as their economic condition. This has meant both a return to the old dreams of centrally-planned rapid modernisation, and a compromise between increased state participation in the economy and big business, such as mining and agribusiness. In Brazil, many now wonder if the emphasis on "making it big", evidenced in large-scale projects such as Belo Monte or the BNDES policy of creating "Brazilian worldbeaters" (large transnationals in fields such as mining and food) might not be putting the country on a path that will, in the long run, undo the social achievements of the last decade.

Brazil's stance in climate negotiations has often been highly commended, although that is arguably a case of looking good by comparison. One of the tenets of its negotiating position has been the basic principle of climate justice that the heavier burden of emission reductions must fall on the shoulders of those countries with a historically higher emission record, thus allowing developing countries room to industrialise, develop infrastructure and grow – presumably (or hopefully) eradicating poverty in the process. Opponents see the flagship status Belo Monte has acquired – including the way in which the government has ridden roughshod over environmental legislation and local consultations to make the project viable – as signalling a choice for a model of development that is both environmentally more aggressive and socially less fair.

They call, instead, for a more decentralised and diversified energetic and productive matrix, less in thrall to size for size's sake. (One argument is that more energy could be produced by making existing plants more efficient.) Appropriating a much-vaunted element of the PT's style of doing politics, some demand that participatory democracy be extended to this field as well, and call for a national conference on energy.

Given how much Latin America's left has "national development" in its genes, and how it is untarnished by the failed rightwing experiments of the 1970s, these are difficult discussions to have, especially when the country seems faced with a unique window of opportunity. Yet, contrary to how some have tried to reduce it, the watershed moment that Belo Monte could yet become does not pose a choice between development and no development. Most opponents recognise the important achievements of the last decade, and nobody is arguing that Brazil should go back to being a land of permanently unfulfilled potential.

The question is what kind of "big" Brazil should become.

2011-02-10T07:29:00.001-08:00

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/readings/french.html

2011-02-08T15:57:00.001-08:00


Santa Maria station

Azorean station to track Ariane launch

8 February 2011
When ATV Johannes Kepler is lofted into space on 15 February, an ESA tracking station on Portugal's Santa Maria island will watch closely, gathering crucial data as Ariane 5 streaks overhead.

In 2008, the Santa Maria station, located five kilometres from the town of Vila do Porto on the Portuguese island of Santa Maria, in the Azores, became the latest station to join ESA's global ESTRACK tracking network. Santa Maria's 5.5 m-diameter antenna provides crucial tracking services for Ariane 5 rockets as they boost Europe's Automated Transfer Vehicles (ATVs) into orbit. With a total launch mass of some 20 tonnes, including fuel, food and cargo for the International Space station, the ATV vessels are the largest and most sophisticated spacecraft ever built in Europe. The next one, ATV Johannes Kepler, is due for launch on 15 February. It will dock automatically with the ISS eight days later, on 23 February, and remain attached to the Station until June, providing critical orbit reboosts.


	Artist's view of ATV Johannes Kepler under Ariane fairing

Santa Maria: geostrategic location

In order to place ATVs into the correct orbit, Ariane launchers must follow a special flight path that takes them almost directly over Santa Maria island just a few minutes after launch from Europe's Spaceport at Kourou, French Guiana. This particular trajectory made it necessary to set up a specific network of tracking stations to receive real-time data during all critical launch events. For ATV launches, ESA stations provide launcher tracking services to CNES, the French space agency, which oversees the Ariane tracking network.


	Santa Maria station - view of island landscape

Santa Maria is one of the first ESA stations that can track a launcher during powered flight, and the geography of the Azores provides an ideal location to acquire signals from launchers climbing northeast from Kourou. Next week, during the first powered phase, Ariane V200 with ATV on board will pass 130 km above the island and sweep into view of the station's tracking antenna for about eight minutes. During this pass, the station will receive crucial telemetry data via radio containing up-to-the-second information on the status of Ariane's systems such as propulsion, guidance and navigation.

Station is ready for Ariane launch

"We performed a series of technical tests with the Santa Maria station in August and September 2010, followed by a full operational test in January. We are fully qualified for next week's Ariane flight and are looking forward to an intense day with excellent results," said Gerhard Billig, ESA's lead engineer responsible for launcher tracking.
After passing over the Azores, Europe and South-East Asia, Ariane will pass over Australia, where it will be similarly tracked by ESA's 15-m station at Perth and by a station at Awarura, New Zealand.

Ariane 5 with ATV-2 launch trajectory

Ariane will loop around Earth, gaining altitude, and make a second pass near Santa Maria, this time at an altitude of 250 km. By this time, ATV will have separated from Ariane, and the launcher will subsequently head toward its planned destructive reentry, which will take place later in its second orbit. "The Santa Maria station takes advantage of the geostrategic position of the Azorean islands, an important resource for ESA and Portugal – as an ESA Member State – for the implementation of European space projects," said Mario Amaral, coordinator of the Portuguese Space Office.
"We trust the station continues to contribute significantly to ESA and to EU Earth observation programmes, particularly for the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security initiative."

2011-02-06T11:19:00.000-08:00

Carl Sagan ataca pseudociências com a Espaçonave da Imaginação

2011-02-06T06:57:00.000-08:00

aqui

FLC

2011-02-03T08:10:00.001-08:00

Outside looking in: the Amazon's isolated tribe

Photos of an Amazon tribe show the effectiveness of modern aerial imaging, while recalling a history of colonisation

- John Perivolaris
- guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 2 February 2011 10.17 GMT
- Article history

One of a series of photos released to bring attention to the plight of an Amazon tribe under threat from loggers. Photograph: Gleison Miranda/Funai/EPA The aerial photograph or video is one of the dominant visual genres of our age. It is certainly the most domineering. Newly released, vibrant colour images of a previously uncontacted Amazonian tribe have been photographed by a Brazilian Indian affairs department aircraft near the border with Peru. In collaboration with the Brazilian government, these have been released by Survival International, an NGO that is campaigning for the tribe's protection.One of the most widely circulated shows an adult male and four children by their hut. They are at a loss as to what to do about the intruder above. The man has his bow half-raised. One child points. Another holds a machete defensively to their chest. I take in, but cannot reciprocate, the stunned gaze of those swooped upon by this camera from the air.Transfixed by their looks, I spontaneously recall similar images. There are Francis Ford Coppola's Wagnerian helicopters strafing a Vietnamese village, shot in even more amplified colour, in Apocalypse Now. While in the spring of 2010, the WikiLeaks release of US classified footage of an Apache helicopter's strafing of innocent civilians in Iraq again made visible the loss of foreign bodies to war. It was these that were absent from the CNN missile-head camera images of precision bombing in the first Gulf war and the satellite images presented by Colin Powell to the UN security council as evidence of supposed Iraqi WMD. Nevertheless, the post-facto relaying of atrocity footage by WikiLeaks, seen through the cross-hairs of the gunner who shot it, sickeningly replayed the inevitable fixing, classification and punishment of those videoed from above.In the age of the drone and the satellite, being viewed from above is the first step to being considered a worthy subject to be viewed, controlled, or worse. In our own urban environment in the UK, the prerequisite of being a citizen with a legitimate right to occupy public space is to be placed under the surveillance of countless cameras looking down at us.Taken at the moment, that brief pause, before the risk of contact or contamination is encountered, these nostalgic images of a lost tropical world tantalise us with the vain prospect that there are still undiscovered corners of the planet. In fact, it is the tribe's very connectedness with the economic dynamics of its region that puts it at risk. Illegal loggers on the Peruvian side of the border have displaced the tribe into Brazil, motivating the release of the images by the Brazilian authorities.The photographs also recall a history of mapping and colonisation.The photographs also recall a history of mapping and colonisation. The invention of photography in the first half of the 19th century precedes the emergence later in the same century of anthropology as an academic discipline. Photography thus provided one of the latter's key instruments in identifying and classifying the human subjects of newly colonised territories. The founding of National Geographic magazine in 1888 is symptomatic; more or less coinciding with the colonial expansion of the United States abroad from 1898 onwards, a high proportion of its early issues were devoted to the Caribbean, Central America, the Philippines, Guam and Hawaii. Detailed maps, high-quality photography and writing often resembling a descriptive inventory of human and natural resources, assessing the potential of profitable development for the burgeoning superpower.These vivid but detached photographs are currently being distributed relatively indifferently through social networks, somewhat eclipsed by aerial images of the crowds in Tahrir Square. On Twitter, @tearfuldogs writes: "Couldn't someone have given that lost tribe a map?". Bearing in mind that discovery has a dreadful history in Latin America, photography will certainly fix this Amazonian tribe as a co-ordinate on the maps of those who would protect, integrate, exploit, or erase them. Whether the tribe itself will have its own maps to enable it to navigate its newly found visibility is a moot point. For the moment, as a photograph of two tribesmen resplendent in war paint shows, firing arrows at the aeroplane above is their only active response.• This article was amended on 2 February 2011. It originally stated that photography was invented at the end of the 19th century, rather later than was in fact the case. This has now been corrected

2011-02-03T08:07:00.001-08:00

The aerial photograph or video is one of the dominant visual genres of our age. It is certainly the most domineering. Newly released, vibrant colour images of a previously uncontacted Amazonian tribe have been photographed by a Brazilian Indian affairs department aircraft near the border with Peru. In collaboration with the Brazilian government, these have been released by Survival International, an NGO that is campaigning for the tribe's protection.

2011-02-01T15:51:00.001-08:00

oldbrew
1 February 2011 11:39AM

The licence obtained last week by Norte Energia SA – a consortium almost entirely funded by state money – allows 238 hectares of forest to be cut down in order to open roads and basic infrastructure for the workers. And this is just the beginning; when it starts operating, Belo Monte's reservoir is expected to flood almost 6,000 hectares of land.
Doesn't look much like 'speedy growth without destroying the environment' does it?
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ItsLudovic
1 February 2011 1:00PM
It would really help if those who say that projects like this shouldn't go ahead would put forward a practical and green alternative. Would coal or nuclear power be preferable, because you're just going to get ignored if you suggest that a country like Brazil should use less energy at all times, even if this prevents it from developing and raising the standard of living of its population.
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fivemack
1 February 2011 1:36PM
This dam will provide 11GW of hydroelectric power - that is, the power that would be produced by a coal-fired power station generating eighty million tons of CO2 a year - at a price of 2% of the amount of Amazon that would be illegally logged this year if the action against illegal logging works as well as possible.
I can't see how you cannot support the dam unless you're prepared to deny the validity of cost-benefit analysis entirely.
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smuglyfrombrazil
1 February 2011 1:48PM
Bitch. I knew this was coming!
Brazil's doing fine without this extra electricity, thank you
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shundarnagin
1 February 2011 2:05PM
@fivemack
I can't see how you cannot support the dam unless you're prepared to deny the validity of cost-benefit analysis entirely.
And what exactly is the cost-benefit analysis of 11GW versus the rights of indigenous people and the environment. I do not know about this dam but for other dams they do deny the cost-benefit analysis.
There is more information here
http://www.internationalrivers.org/
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EwanB
1 February 2011 2:37PM
According to good old wikipedia the Dam would produce about 4.4GW on average throughout the year (39% capacity) I would personally say that 6,000 hectares of forest is a small area to lose for such a large amount of electricity and I understand why it might seem an attractive option.

The biggest problem however, is surely that the area which will be flooded and indirectly affected is home to tribes who rely on that forest and its ecosystem to sustain themselves. If history teaches us anything it's that they won't be the ones to benefit from its construction.
There are alternative ways to generate the electricity such as wind power on the coast and nuclear which wouldn't have to mean the rapid and bewildering change of life for the Amazonians.
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PhilipD
1 February 2011 3:09PM

And this is just the beginning; when it starts operating, Belo Monte's reservoir is expected to flood almost 6,000 hectares of land.
In the earlier Guardian article linked to, it says it will flood 500 square km - thats 50,000 hectares. A bit of a difference! Which is it?
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gufalei
1 February 2011 3:34PM
PhilipD, thanks for spoting the mistake. It is actually 60,000 hectares that should be there. The correction is coming soon. The last estimatives showed that roughly 600 sq km of land will be flooded
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EwanB
1 February 2011 3:41PM
PhilipD
I think it might actually be 60,000 hectares. As a reference Wikipedia tells us:
Though it is the seventh largest reservoir in size in Brazil, the Itaipu's reservoir has the best relation between electricity production and flooded area. For the 14,000 MW installed power, 1350 square kilometres were flooded.
Since Itaipu produces over twice the energy output estimated for Belo Monte it seems likely that 600km2 or 60,000 hectares is the right figure! Wouldn't be the first time guardian have done this. They told us last year you could get a Tesla Roadster for about $10,000!
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Graham65
1 February 2011 3:58PM
If Roussef's campaign contained false promises to get her into power in the wake of Brazil's own version of Boris Yeltsin, this is another sign that Brazil is now truly a developed country - it is following the lead of our own dear leaders in the UK.
We should look forward to seeing her administration continue to lie, bribe and bludgeon its way to a 19th-century version of industrialisation in the way the PT has done since it came to power.
If you want alternative sources of clean energy, put more dams on the River Sao Francisco where it runs through semi-arid lands (and at the same time, use its reservoirs for irrigation).
The problem is, once people cut down rainforests they never re-plant them. The Brazilian government's proud claim to have 'reduced the rate of deforestation' is laughable - why not STOP deforestation - full stop? Then reverse it by means of RE-forestation.
Loggers are quite simply breaking the law and intimidating the environmental agency's officers with guns, so what is the Brazilian army for, if it is not to protect the country's patrimony?
After 21 years of dictatorship Brazil is trying to run on 'soft power' and avoid internal military intervention. Unfortunately, the anti-social elements in its society are not playing by the same rules and they do not give a damn (no pun intended) for the wildlife, habitats, indigenous peoples or environmental activists they trample underfoot to make their money.
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Thumbjack
1 February 2011 8:54PM
Its Ludovic
It would really help if those who say that projects like this shouldn't go ahead would put forward a practical and green alternative...
It's been done. Google's the word.

2011-02-01T06:53:00.001-08:00

Brazilian president's promises crumble under weight of Belo Monte dam

Dilma Rousseff pleased environmentalists with her inaugural speech, but they're not so happy now

Hundreds of people including Indians and activists participate in a protest against the proposed Belo Monte dam in the Brazilian Amazon, in Brasilia, Brazil, on 12 April 2010. Photograph: Fernando Bizerra Jr/EPA Brazil's new president, Dilma Rousseff, has never been popular among environmentalists.
Since the early days of predecessor Luis Inácio Lula da Silva's presidency, when she occupied the post of minister of mining and energy, many activists have seen her as a leader with an old-fashioned view of development. Something like "economic growth is priority number one, no matter if some hectares of Amazon rainforest has to be chopped down".
The animosity increased even more after Rousseff was promoted, in 2005, to the ministry of internal affairs – the post that paved her way to the presidency. With the second most important job in the republic, she was responsible for coordinating the government action plan, the Plano de Aceleração do Crescimento (PAC) – the "plan of growth acceleration".
It was a period when almost every infrastructure project – from offshore oil drilling to roads in the middle of the forest – were given licences, despite civil society criticism.
Nevertheless, in her first day in the job, the new president gave an impression that something could have changed. After being sworn as the 40th Brazilian president and the first woman to assume the post in the country, Rousseff told the crowd: "Brazil has the holy mission to prove to the world that it is possible to have speedy growth without destroying the environment." The speech was interpreted as a sign that the new administration would act on issues such as clean energy and deforestation.
But less than a month on from the inaugural speech, non-governmental organisations are saying they were no more than empty words: the new administration soon sacked the president of the country's environmental agency (Ibama) and then authorised the construction of the controversial Belo Monte hydroelectric power plant.
First conceived by the military government in the 1980s, the dam will be located in the heart of the Xingu river, a place known for its unique coverage of rainforest and numerous indigenous tribes.
The licence obtained last week by Norte Energia SA – a consortium almost entirely funded by state money – allows 238 hectares of forest to be cut down in order to open roads and basic infrastructure for the workers. And this is just the beginning; when it starts operating, Belo Monte's reservoir is expected to flood almost 6,000 hectares of land.
The problem is that Norte Energia has not yet figured out how to avoid all the indirect environmental impacts that the promise of jobs and wealth will bring to the region. Some estimates claim 10,000 people are already moving into the Xingu area and up to 100,000 are expected to arrive in the next few years.
Felício Pontes, a public attorney from the state of Pará, said the new licence could not, by law, be issued without a solution being found for the problems it will cause. In other words, green light for construction cannot legally happen without more hospitals, sanitation and security in the region. Pontes and his team have already petitioned the federal court asking for the suspension of the licence.
But even if the law stops the project, Belo Monte seems to be a point of no return for Rousseff: the dam is supposed to be one of the biggest achievements of her government and it is considered, after all, clean energy.
Back in 2004, when she was Lula's minister of mining and energy, Rousseff represented Brazil at the World Renewable Energy Conference, called by the German government. During negotiations, she announced that Brazil would block the consensus if big hydroelectric dams were not considered a form of clean energy. The Germans, who had previously only wanted to put small-scale dams in the renewable category, ended up accepting the Brazilian demand.
At that time, I had the opportunity of interviewing the future president and I asked her why she was taking that combative posture. "We have to be watchful, because it seems to me that some countries are trying to push technology to the developing countries," she said. Not surprisingly, in 2009, when Rousseff was the head of Brazil's delegation to the Copenhagen climate summit, she adopted a similar narrative, claiming the north was depriving the south of its right to develop.
However, like Lula, Rousseff's performance on environmental issues will be mainly assessed by the Amazon deforestation rates. Controlling deforestation means curbing the main source of greenhouse gas emissions in Brazil and, to the public, it is also a demonstration of a strong hand over the land tenure chaos that still reigns in the forest.
By toughening the police and drying financial credit for illegal loggers, Lula managed considerable advances, cutting two thirds of deforestation in less than six years. The positive trend even allowed his government to offer an ambitious target within the UN climate change convention: an 80% reduction of Amazon deforestation by 2020 compared with the average of the five previous years.
It seems very likely that the Brazil's target will be reached. Last year, the country announced the lowest deforestation rate to date – 650,000 hectares. Nevertheless, it is Rousseff's administration that will need to guarantee that destruction in the Amazon will not return and that it will drop by a further 300,000 hectares, as stated by the national target.
While Lula emphasised police tactics, Rousseff will have to deal with the pressures that are increasing within the national congress. The group of congressman defending the interests of the agricultural sector – the bancada ruralista – is asking for changes in one of the most important environmental laws of the country, the forest code.
Join these pressures coming from the congress with the eagerness of the government to create large infrastructure in the Amazon and you understand the bitterness of the greens in Brazil. The question is: will it really be possible for the new president to fulfil her pledge of making the country grow without destroying the environment?
Gustavo Faleiros is the editor of Brazilian environmental news agency O Eco

TESTES

Series: Framing the debate

Outside looking in: the Amazon's isolated tribe

Brazilian president's promises crumble under weight of Belo Monte dam