Energia mais cara matou mais europeus do que a covid-19 no inverno passado - The Economist

Energia mais cara matou mais europeus do que a covid-19 no inverno passado

Por The Economist

11/05/2023 | 22h00

Depois que a Rússia invadiu a Ucrânia em fevereiro de 2022, Vladimir Putin transformou o fornecimento de energia de seu país para o continente em arma: cortando as exportações de gás para a Europa e fazendo com que os preços disparassem. Embora os custos no atacado tenham caído em todo o continente agora, os preços domésticos da electricidade e do gás, em comparação com dois anos anteriores subiram espantosos 69% e 145% no inverno passado.

Os altos preços da energia podem custar vidas. Eles desencorajam as pessoas a aquecer suas casas adequadamente, e viver em condições de frio aumenta o risco de problemas cardíacos e respiratórios. Em novembro, a The Economist previu que a energia cara poderia levar entre 22.000 e 138.000 pessoas à morte durante um inverno ameno na Europa. Infelizmente, estávamos certos.

Para avaliar como as mortes no inverno passado se comparam às anteriores, usamos uma medida comum de mortalidade: o excesso de mortes. Comparando as mortes reais com o número que poderíamos esperar dada a mortalidade nas mesmas semanas de 2015-19, descobrimos que as mortes na Europa foram maiores do que o esperado. Nos 28 países europeus que investigamos, houve 149.000 mortes em excesso entre novembro de 2022 e fevereiro de 2023, o equivalente a um aumento de 7,8%.

Vários fatores podem explicar esse aumento. Entre os que morreram no inverno passado, quase 60.000 foram registrados como mortes por covid-19. A doença provavelmente contribuiu - direta ou indiretamente - para mais mortes, mas é improvável que seja responsável por todo o aumento do inverno passado. Entre março de 2020 e setembro de 2022, a contagem oficial de mortes por covid foi de 79% do total de mortes em excesso entre os 28 países da Europa. No inverno passado, era de 40%.

O clima também influenciou no número de mortes. Uma onda de frio em dezembro foi acompanhada por um aumento na mortalidade. Uma queda de 1°C na temperatura média em um período de três semanas está associada a um aumento de 2,2% no total de mortes. No entanto, o inverno passado foi mais ameno do que a média de 2015-19, então o frio por si só não pode ser responsável pelas mortes adicionais.

É provável que os altos preços da energia podem ter tido um efeito preponderante. Analisar os países caso a caso revela que aqueles com o maior número de mortes em excesso geralmente experimentaram os maiores aumentos nos custos de combustível. Para separar os custos de energia de mudanças climáticas e de temperatura, construímos um modelo estatístico. Nosso modelo também considera a demografia de um país, o número de mortes por covid antes do inverno passado e a subnotificação histórica dessas mortes.

Estimamos que um aumento de preço de cerca de € 0,10 por kwh – cerca de 30% do preço médio da eletricidade no inverno passado na Europa – esteja relacionado a um aumento na mortalidade semanal de um país em cerca de 2,2%. Se a eletricidade no inverno passado tivesse custado o mesmo que em 2020, nosso modelo indica que haveria 68.000 mortes a menos em toda a Europa, uma queda de 3,6%.

As mortes na Europa poderiam ter sido maiores se os governos não tivessem intervindo nos mercados de energia (embora os preços mais baixos aumentem a demanda, causando problemas em outras partes do mundo).

Usando dados da consultoria Vaasaett, o modelo estátistico da The Economist estima quantas mortes em excesso teriam ocorrido se as contas não tivessem sido reduzidas por preços máximos ou impostos de vendas mais baixos.

Em 23 países, nosso modelo descobriu que esses subsídios salvaram 26.600 vidas. À medida que os preços da energia no atacado caem e as temperaturas sobem, a ameaça imediata pode ter acabado, mas está claro que o uso do fornecimento de energia como arma por Putin é mortal.

https://www.estadao.com.br/internacional/energia-mais-cara-matou-mais-europeus-do-que-a-covid-19-no-inverno-passado/

Putin's hidden war: the Russians fighting back - The Economist

 Uma frase, de uma resistente, que permanece na Rússia, traduz o sentimento dos poucos que ficaram ou que não estão em prisão: "É importante permanecer, para testemunhar sobre estes tempos".

E o encerramento do vídeo pela Economist: "A year after the invasion, it is becoming clear that change in Russia may not be brought by activists in the country, but by losses in Ukraine. The most dangerous for Putin is when the perception of his position changes on the battlefield. If the Russians start feeling that he has actually lost the war, I think the political situation in Russia could change very, very fast." 

(Arkady Ostrowsky, Russian specialist at The Economist)

Putin's hidden war: the Russians fighting back

The Economist

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LJV5nOSjCE

2.052.967 visualizações 23 de fev. de 2023 #nowar

The invasion of Ukraine left Russians with a stark choice: carry on as normal or make a stand against the war. But speaking out in Russia carries huge risks. How is the opposition managing to resist the regime – and at what personal cost? 00:00 - One year on 01:37 - The first wave of protests 05:43 - Crackdown on dissent 10:04 - Individual acts of rebellion 13:51 - Partial mobilisation 16:20 - Russia’s mass exodus 23:06 - The future of Russian rebellion

A democracia chinesa, versão do PCC, a única autorizada - The Economist

 China says it is more democratic than America

Western dysfunction tempts the Communist Party to make risky boasts

China | Chaguan, The Economist (04/12/2021)

The leaders of China’s Communist Party have spent a long time waiting for liberal democracy to look as fragile as it does today. Now, filled with scorn for a dysfunctional West, they think that their moment has come. Angered, specifically, by President Joe Biden’s summoning of over 100 countries to a virtual Summit for Democracy on December 9th and 10th—including Taiwan, an island that China claims as its territory—China is responding with fighting talk. Officials are seizing every chance to explain why their always-controlling, sometimes-ruthless political system is not just a good fit for a large country trying to become prosperous and strong: the party’s defensive line for four decades. Increasingly, they are on the offensive. They insist that China’s political model is so effective, and so responsive to the people’s wishes, that it is more perfectly democratic than America’s.

In the words of a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, American democracy is in a “disastrous state”, calling into doubt that country’s legitimacy as host of such a summit. In a video call, China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, commiserated with his counterpart from Hungary, whose increasingly autocratic government is also not invited. Mr Wang condemned America for excluding some countries, adding that the yardstick of a democracy should be whether a government “meets the people’s needs, and gives them enough of a sense of participation, satisfaction and gain”.

The free world—meaning, broadly, societies in which governments can lose elections, and in which even the rich and powerful are (sometimes) held to account by independent judges, uncensored news outlets, opposition politicians and civic groups—should not underestimate this Chinese challenge.

Chinese talking points about one-party rule hold some appeal in more countries than Mr Biden may care to admit. That is not just true in states wooed with Chinese money or diplomatic backing for local despots. Lots of countries feel little nostalgia for the post-1945 era dominated by the American-led world order, and are eager for alternatives. In an online address to African leaders on November 29th, President Xi Jinping blended promises to send covid-19 vaccines and further open Chinese markets to African exports with talk of “true multilateralism” that delivers freedom, justice, democracy and development. He also criticised “intervention in domestic affairs, racial discrimination and unilateral sanctions”. Mr Xi’s audience will have heard a coded reference to China’s willingness to block or water down American-led attempts to put pressure on rights abusers or kleptocrats in such forums as the un. In an article attacking Mr Biden’s summit, co-written with Russia’s ambassador to America, China’s man in Washington, Qin Gang, went further. The pair called it a breach of the un Charter for any power to interfere in other countries’ affairs in the name of fighting corruption or protecting human rights.

It is not new for autocrats to co-opt benign-sounding labels. During the cold war a quick route to a labour camp was to express dissent in a country with “democratic” in its official name, from North Korea to East Germany. Contrary to Mr Qin’s state-centric description of the un Charter, tensions between state sovereignty and the protection of individual freedoms have lurked, unresolved, in that body’s founding documents from the start. China’s version of multilateralism ignores those tensions. But the swagger that lies behind China’s claims to be “an extensive, whole-process socialist democracy”, to quote Mr Qin’s clunky phrase, is growing. That confident talk of Chinese-style democracy rests on some tendentious claims about the extent to which the public is consulted about new policies, and about the legitimacy that the party draws from much-vaunted successes, from controlling covid within China’s borders to managing decades of economic growth.

Describing how governments earn mandates to rule, political scientists distinguish between input legitimacy (eg, an election victory), and output or performance legitimacy (ie, successful policies). China’s rulers claim to enjoy input legitimacy based on public consultation, overseen by local and national “people’s congresses”. Yet the party does not permit elections that it could lose. Journalists who report errors hidden by state media are silenced or imprisoned, making it hard to talk of informed public consent. In Hong Kong, which formerly enjoyed many Western-style freedoms, the government is busy crushing a semi-democratic parliament and local councils with laws requiring members to be pro-government “patriots”, while opposition politicians are jailed.

When the people’s democratic dictatorship doesn’t work

If hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue, rigged elections are a dictator’s homage to real democracy: an admission that popular mandates offer moral authority. Bold claims for performance legitimacy are risky, too. If controlling covid gives Mr Xi a mandate, were his predecessors illegitimate when officials spent months mishandling an earlier deadly disease, sars? If the economy slows will the party, by its own logic, still deserve to rule?

The China Public Diplomacy Association held a “dialogue on democracy” in Beijing on December 2nd about what democracy is and who defines it. “China’s democracy is not for the few, it is for the whole people,” Lu Yucheng, a deputy foreign minister, told attendees. Alas, the system he described practices majoritarianism, not democracy. It is a form of tyranny in which individuals are crushed for displeasing the party, whether feminists, human-rights lawyers, gay activists, creators of art deemed “unhealthy”, underground Christians or Uyghurs.

China is creating a zero-sum contest between autocracy and democracy. The timing is odd, for China still needs foreign know-how to complete its rise. If countries know that Chinese success will be called proof of their decline, some may ask why they should help. Liberal democracies are in trouble. But as they ponder how to engage with an assertive China, they have a vote.

Um número inteiro da Economist dedicado às teorias da conspiração: besteirol, mas perigoso...

 

The Economist this week A special edition on conspiracy theories

Most people like to think that conspiracy theories are confined to the margins of society, but they have never been merely peripheral. They are expressions of something important about the cultures from which they emerge. From the Manchester United superfan who believes that covid-19 was engineered by global elites to the 4chan-dwelling adherents of the “Great Replacement” theory, the people who invent and spread conspiracy theories are channelling the preoccupations of the societies in which they live. Three centuries ago Jonathan Swift wrote that “falsehood flies, and the truth comes limping after it; so that when men come to be undeceived, it is too late; the jest is over, and the tale has had its effect.” No-one will ever put an end to such theories—but as our coverage explains, by looking closely at them, and the reasons why some people are so keen to share them, something useful may be learned about real-world anxieties.

Adam Roberts Digital editor

Editor’s picks A selection of must-read articles

Conspiracy theories  How a Manchester United superfan became a conspiracy theorist  Is the internet to blame for the rise of conspiracy theories or are they a symptom of political malaise?

The Economist explains  What is the “Great Replacement” right-wing conspiracy theory?  And why has it spread to mainstream politics?

It’s all connected, man  From Congo to the Capitol, conspiracy theories are surging  Covid and the internet are fuelling a global boom in bonkers beliefs

Political fiction  In “The Unfolding”, A.M. Homes imagines a right-wing conspiracy  The novelist seeks to explain America’s current tumult. She falls short

Brave new word  From plandemic to breadcrumbs: conspiracy-theory slang  Those who think the world is full of intrigue and plots often have their own language

Extreme goes mainstream  The insurrection failed. What now for America’s far right?  Extremists are adapting to a post-January 6th America—by entering electoral politics

Distorting reality  The Alex Jones defamation case was less about the money than the truth  A conspiracy-monger at last faces the consequences of warping the facts

Rest in pieces  Georgia loses a bizarre landmark  Conspiracy theories about the Georgia Guidestones were common

Open Future  Conspiracy theories are dangerous—here’s how to crush them  An interview with Nancy L. Rosenblum and Russell Muirhead, authors of “A Lot of People Are Saying”