1337) Global Warming?: not so fast, not so extensive...

IPCC: cherish it, tweak it or scrap it?
Nature, February 2010

Abstract As calls for reform intensify following recent furores about e-mails, conflicts of interest, glaciers and extreme weather, five climatologists propose ways forward for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Their suggestions range from reaffirming the panel' governing principles to increasing the number and speed of its publications to replacing the volunteer organization with a permanently staffed structure.

Split into three panels Mike Hulme Coordinating lead author, lead author, review editor (AR3), University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK Much has changed since the late 1980s when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was designed, notably the nature of scientific practice and its relationship with society. How the world's knowledge communities are mobilized to enlighten policy deliberations also needs to be different. The assessments published by the IPCC have firmly elevated anthropogenic climate change to one of the major international political issues of our time. But they have made this impact by drawing in an ever-widening subset of the social, technological, environmental and ethical dimensions of climate change - well beyond the physical sciences. The IPCC is no longer fit for purpose. It is not feasible for one panel under sole ownership - that of the world's governments, but operating under the delegated management of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) - to deliver an exhaustive 'integrated' assessment of all relevant climate-change knowledge. As I remarked three years ago in these pages, "The IPCC needs a complete overhaul. The structure and process are past their sell-by dates." My suggestion for radical reform is to dissolve the IPCC after the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) in 2014. The work would be split into three types of assessment and evaluation, each rather different to the three existing IPCC working groups. The first would be a Global Science Panel (GSP). An IPCC-like assessment process should continue to operate for the physical sciences that observe and predict the Earth system. Rather than comprehensive reports every six years, this panel would commission, on a rolling basis, a larger number of smaller, sharply focused syntheses of knowledge on fast-moving topics that have great scientific or policy salience. Perhaps two or three would be in production at any one time and each would be no more than 50 pages in length. These would need to be globally coordinated and could be governed either through an intergovernmental process as now, or devolved to a governing council of representative national academies of science. The second group would be made up of Regional Evaluation Panels (REPs). The cultural, social, economic and development dimensions of climate change are essentially regional in nature. Each region - five to ten continental or sub-continental regions in all - should conduct its own evaluation of relevant knowledge. This should use the work of the GSP, but also draw in a much more diverse set of expertise, knowledge and scholarship. As well as being structured according to the concerns of each region, the ownership and governance patterns of these REPs would vary regionally, but should ideally involve a consortium of national governments, civil-society organizations and businesses. The third group would be the Policy Analysis Panel (PAP) - a standing panel of expertise, global in reach, with interdisciplinary skills and a diverse analytical capacity. Perhaps 50-100 strong, this panel would undertake focused and rapid (6-12 months) analyses of specific proposed policy options and measures that have global significance. These could be subjects such as environmental effectiveness of controlling black carbon, economic implications of carbon border tariffs or new financing options for reducing emissions from deforestation. The policy options to be analysed can be brought forward by UN bodies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), businesses and groupings of national governments. The PAP could be governed by a council of women and men of international stature and strong cultural significance to represent the breadth of civil society around the world. Such high quality and transparent policy evaluation would broaden the options available for national and international deliberations. This restructuring would allow clearer distinctions to be made in areas that have been troublesome for the IPCC: assessments of published knowledge versus policy analysis and evaluation; the globalized physical sciences versus more geographically and culturally nuanced knowledge; a one-size, top-down model of ownership and governance versus more inclusive, representative and regionally varying forms of governance. It would better serve the world, and its peoples, in understanding and responding to anthropogenic climate change.

Independent agency needed
Eduardo Zorita Contributing author (AR4), GKSS Research Center in Geesthacht, Germany

Like the financial sector last year, the IPCC is currently experiencing a failure of trust that reveals flaws in its structure. This presents the climate-change community with the opportunity to address these faults. The IPCC currently performs as a diffuse community of government-nominated academic volunteers occupying a blurred space between science and politics, issuing self-reviewed reports under great stresses and unmanageable deadlines. Its undefined structure puts it at the mercy of pressure from advocates. The IPCC should be made stronger and independent. We do not need to reinvent the wheel; there are excellent examples of agencies that society has set up when credibility is of the utmost importance. The European Central Bank, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the International Energy Agency and the US Congressional Budget Office all independently navigate their way through strong political pressures, delivering valuable assessments, advice, reports and forecasts, tapping academic research when necessary. These agencies are accountable and respected. An international climate agency (ICA) along such lines would have a staff of around 200 full-time scientists who would be independent of government, industry and academia. Such an agency should be resourced and empowered to do the following: issue streamlined biennial state-of-the-climate reports; be a repository and quality-controller of observational climate data; advise governments on regional assessments of climate impacts; and coordinate the suite of future-climate simulations by research institutes. An ICA could be built, for instance, on the IAEA template, encompassing many more countries than the IAEA but with a smaller staff. ICA reports should be independently reviewed in a transparent process, draw only on established, peer-reviewed literature, and highlight research gaps. External reviews would then be incorporated into the reports to form white papers to include possible opposing views in a transparent way. The process of moving towards such an ICA could start now, alongside the preparation of the next IPCC assessment report, and culminate after its completion. Those climate researchers in the IPCC Bureau who have widely recognized credibility could initiate this transformation, supported by lead authors and review editors more numerous and with a bigger say than presently. These review editors should be elected not by governments but directly by scientific unions, for instance the American Geophysical Union, the European Geosciences Union and similar associations from Asia. As with finance, climate assessment is too important to be left in the hands of advocates.

Apply best practice rules Thomas F. Stocker Co-chair IPCC Working Group I (AR5), coordinating lead author (AR3, AR4), University of Bern, Switzerland

The basis of the IPCC is the voluntary contributions of thousands of dedicated scientists from all over the world. The Principles Governing IPCC Work (IPCC, 1998) provide a clear framework for an open, transparent and robust process. This bottom-up endeavour is a unique model of providing scientific information, mainly from the peer-reviewed scientific literature, for decision-making on a challenging problem. It has worked extremely successfully for the past 21 years. Recent controversies have demonstrated both the value and the limitations of these procedures. The team structure of the chapter authors, the multiple reviews by peers and governments, and the full and public documentation of this process largely eliminate personal views or biases in the science assessment. But procedures are only as strong as their enforcement at all levels of the assessment process. When I served as a coordinating lead author of Working Group I in the Third and Fourth Assessment Reports (AR3 and AR4), I was deeply impressed by the strict adherence to these principles by the co-chairs who ensured that these standards were applied at all levels. The combination of the best scientists and clear procedures constitute the authority of the IPCC. Calls for reform of the IPCC have been made before. Changes were discussed after the completion of the Fourth Assessment Report in 2007. One possibility mooted was the production of more frequent assessments, more limited in scope. Fast-track assessments in support of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change process were also considered. However, the panel concluded that the production of comprehensive reports roughly every six years is preferable because it ensures the robustness required for a thorough and rigorous assessment. Faster turnover would jeopardize the multi-stage review and thus compromise authority and comprehensiveness. In asking scientists to produce reports and assessments every year, say, we could lose their support rather quickly. The IPCC has served as an honest broker in the past and will do so, hopefully, in the future. Now that the problem of climate change is on the radar screen of the world, there are many NGOs and other groups, even groups of scientists and institutions, that provide climate-change information in various forms and quality, often lacking comprehensiveness and proper recognition of uncertainties. There is a strong pressure to provide 'just-in-time' scientific updates for policy-makers and stakeholders, as was the case in the preparations for the 2009 climate-change conference in Copenhagen. The IPCC must not yield to this pressure. In this field of different and divergent forces, confusion may arise. An honest broker therefore is an asset. From my perspective, the IPCC has fulfilled this role with remarkable rigour and integrity. This role is now at risk, as the stakes are higher than ever before. The requirement that assessments are policy relevant but never policy prescriptive, as formulated in the Principles Governing IPCC Work, is of paramount importance. Our task is to inform the policy-makers and the public strictly in a 'what if' mode. Any other approach must be left to NGOs, negotiators or individuals. Only with strict adherence to procedures and to scientific rigour at all stages will the IPCC continue to provide the best and most robust information that is needed so much.

Produce more reports faster Jeff Price Lead author (AR3, AR4), director, climate-change adaptation, WWF United States

The IPCC is accepting nominations (until 12 March 2010) from governments and participating organizations for authors for its Fifth Assessment Report. One recommendation for the IPCC that could be implemented immediately is in how its coordinating lead authors and review editors are selected.
A new class of short, rapidly prepared, peer-reviewed reports is needed. Currently, authors are selected to represent "a range of views, expertise, gender and geographical representation". However, given the importance placed on these assessments, the most senior positions should be filled by the nominees most expert in their field, regardless of balance. These authors should be the most knowledgeable nominee about the range of topics in their chapter, best able to cooperatively work with a team of international scholars. Preferably, they should have previously been involved in an IPCC assessment and be familiar with IPCC standards and methodologies. Geographic and gender balance should then be used in selection of lead authors. The level of work required in preparing an assessment is large. Increasing the number of lead authors would provide better balance and give more scientists the ability to participate in the process. A new class of short, rapidly prepared, peer-reviewed reports is also needed. At present, publication options include supplemental material (no peer review required), technical papers (based on existing assessments) or assessments and special reports that undergo two reviews (expert and government/expert, usually taking more than two years to complete) (fig. 1). For topics of emerging importance or uncertainty, we need reports based on expert meetings and literature synthesis that undergo only a single round of extensive peer review with review-editor oversight before publication. The IPCC should also expand the number of specialist task forces, task groups and hold more expert meetings to provide additional scientific review and oversight for the broadening array of models (including model comparisons and validation) and methodologies used in emissions reporting, estimating and monitoring impacts, and in developing assessments and adaptation plans. Finally, the current period between assessments is too long. One option would be for the IPCC, or another body, to produce an annual review, assessment and synthesis of the literature for policy-makers (for example, three annual review volumes with a synthesis chapter in each volume) prepared by experts in the field. Although the editors of the volumes should ideally be drawn from past IPCC authors and editors, the review articles could be submitted by any author, as they would for a journal, with appropriate peer review and assessment for publication.

Open debate: Wikipedia-style

John R. Christy Lead author (AR3), University of Alabama in Huntsville, USA

Since 1992 I have served as an IPCC contributor and in 2001, as a lead author. My experience has left me of the firm conviction that the IPCC should be removed from UN oversight. The IPCC selects lead authors from the pool of those nominated by individual governments. Over time, many governments nominated only authors who were aligned with stated policy. Indeed, the selections for the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report represented a disturbing homogeneity of thought regarding humans and climate. Selected lead authors have the last word in the review cycle and so control the message, often ignoring or marginalizing dissenting comments. 'Consensus' and manufactured-confidence ensued. The recent leaking of e-mails from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK, put on display the unsavoury cycle of marginalizing different viewpoints. Now several errors of overstatement, such as that of the melting rate of the Himalayan glaciers, have been exposed. Unfortunately, prestigious media, including Nature, became cheerleaders for these official reports, followed then by governments trying to enact policies that drastically reduced emissions to 'stop global warming' while increasing energy costs. I recommended last year that the next IPCC report invites published authors to write about the evidence for low climate sensitivity and other issues. The IPCC then would be a true reflection of the heterogeneity of scientific views, an 'honest broker', rather than an echo chamber. My recommendation assumed a business-as-usual IPCC process. However, voluminous printed reports, issued every six years by government-nominated authors, cannot accommodate the rapid and chaotic development of scientific information today. An idea we pitched a few years ago that is now worth reviving was to establish a living, 'Wikipedia-IPCC'. Groups of four to eight lead authors, chosen by learned societies, would serve in rotating, overlapping three-year terms to manage sections organized by science and policy questions (similar to the Fourth Assessment Report). The authors would strike a balance between the free-for-all of true science and the need for summary statements. Controversies would be refereed by the lead authors, but with input from all sides in the text, with links to original documents and data. The result would be more useful than occasional big books and would be a more honest representation of what our fledgling science can offer. Defining and following rules for this idea would be agonizing, but would provide greater openness. The truth, and this is frustrating for policy-makers, is that scientists' ignorance of the climate system is enormous. There is still much messy, contentious, snail-paced and now, hopefully, transparent work to do.

See also Perspectives, page 747. Have your say on the future of the IPCC here.

FOX NEWS On line - analysis

Top Science Journal Calls for Climate Science Reform AP A steady drip of errors in the top report on global warming -- and the erosion they are causing in public confidence of the science behind it -- have some scientists calling for drastic changes in how future United Nations climate reports are done. WASHINGTON -- A steady drip of errors in the top report on global warming -- and the erosion they are causing in public confidence of the science behind it -- have some scientists calling for drastic changes in how future United Nations climate reports are done. A push for reform being published in Thursday's issue of the prestigious scientific journal Nature comes on top of a growing clamor for the resignation of the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The work of the climate change panel, or IPCC, is often portrayed as one massive tome. But it really is four separate reports on different aspects of global warming, written months apart by distinct groups of scientists. No errors have surfaced in the first and most well-known of the reports, which said the physics of a warming atmosphere and rising seas is man-made and incontrovertible. So far, four mistakes have been discovered in the second report, which attempts to translate what global warming might mean to daily lives around the world. "A lot of stuff in there was just not very good," said Kevin Trenberth, head of climate analysis at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and a lead author of the first report. "A chronic problem is that on the whole area of impacts, getting into the realm of social science, it is a softer science. The facts are not as good." It's been a dismal winter for climate scientists after the high point of winning the 2007 Nobel, along with former Vice President Al Gore, for championing efforts to curb global warming and documenting its effects. --In November, stolen private e-mails from a British university climate center embarrassed a number of scientists for their efforts to stonewall climate skeptics. The researchers were found to have violated Britain's Freedom of Information laws. --In December, the much anticipated climate summit of world leaders in Copenhagen failed to produce a meaningful mandatory agreement to curb greenhouse gases. --Climate legislation in the United States, considered key to any significant progress in slowing global warming, is stalled. --Some Republican U.S. senators, climate skeptics and British newspapers have called for Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC, to resign. They contend he has financial conflicts of interest involving his role with the climate panel and a green-energy foundation he set up. He has vigorously denied any conflicts. --And in recent weeks, a batch of mistakes have been uncovered in the second of the four climate research reports produced in 2007. That second report -- which examines current effects of global warming and forecasts future ones on people, plants, animals and society -- at times relied on government reports or even advocacy group reports instead of peer-reviewed research. Scientists say that's because there is less hard data on global warming's effects. Nine different experts told The Associated Press that the second report -- because of the nature of what it examines -- doesn't rely on standards as high or literature as deep as the more quoted first report. And they say communication problems between lead authors of different reports make it harder to spot errors. The end result is that the document on the effects of climate change promotes the worst of nightmares and engages in purposeful hyping, said longtime skeptic John Christy of the University of Alabama, Huntsville. David King, Britain's former chief scientific adviser who once lectured at the University of East Anglia, home to the climate center where scientist e-mails were hacked, said that scandal laid bare the weaknesses in the IPCC. In a telephone interview, he said those who challenged the IPCC's assessment "are seen to be rocking the boat, and this in my view is extremely unfortunate." Scientists -- including top U.S. government officials -- argue that the bulk of the reports are sound. "The vast majority of conclusions in the IPCC are credible, have been through a very rigorous process and are absolutely state of the science, state of the art about what we know of the climate system," said National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief Jane Lubchenco, who runs the agency that oversees much of the U.S. government's climate research. The problems found in the IPCC 2007 reports so far are mostly embarrassing: --In the Asian chapter, five errors in a single entry on glaciers in Himalayas say those glaciers would disappear by 2035 -- hundreds of years earlier than other information suggests -- with no research backing it up. It used an advocacy group as a source. It also erroneously said the Himalayan glaciers were melting faster than other glaciers. --A sentence in the chapter on Europe says 55 percent of the Netherlands is below sea level, when it's really about half that amount. --A section in the Africa chapter that talks about northern African agriculture says climate change and normal variability could reduce crop yields. But it gets oversimplified in later summaries so that lower projected crop yields are blamed solely on climate change. --There's been a longstanding dispute about weather extremes and economics. The second report says that there are more weather disasters than before because of climate change and that it is costing more. The debate continues over whether it is fair to say increased disaster costs are due to global warming or other societal factors such as increased development in hurricane prone areas. Scientists say the nature of the science and the demands of governments for a localized tally of climate change effects and projections of future ones make the second report a bit more prone to mistakes than the first report. Regional research is more often done by governments or environmental groups; using that work is allowed by IPCC rules even if it is seen as less rigorous than traditional peer-reviewed research, said Martin Parry, chairman in charge of the report on climate effects. The second report includes chapters on each region, which governments want to be mostly written by local experts, some of whom may not have the science credentials of other report authors. That's where at least three of the errors were found. In Thursday's issue of the journal Nature, four IPCC authors call for reform, including Christy, who suggests the outright dumping of the panel itself in favor of an effort modeled after Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia. A fifth author, writing in Nature, argues the IPCC rules are fine but need to be better enforced. In response, Chris Field of Stanford University, the new head of the second report team, said that he welcomes the scrutiny and vows stricter enforcement of rules to check sources to eliminate errors in future reports; those are to be produced by the IPCC starting in 2013. Many IPCC scientists say it's impressive that so far only four errors have been found in 986 pages of the second report, with the overwhelming majority of the findings correct and well-supported. However, former IPCC Chairman Bob Watson said, "We cannot take that attitude. Any mistakes do allow skeptics to have a field day and to use it to undermine public confidence, private sector confidence, government confidence in the IPCC."

1336) Surpresas da geografia... ou a falta que faz um bom mapa do mundo...

Esse pessoal não consultou nem o Google Earth, sairam sem GPS.
E o pior é que não levaram calção de banho ou prancha de surf.
Vejam vocês mesmos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQMP7d4Qqr4

1335) As voltas da História - Martin Wolf

No dia 10 de fevereiro de 2010, eu postei neste blog o link para um podcast do jornalista econômico Martin Wolf, sobre os desafios de nosso mundo pos-crise:

The challenges of managing our post crisis world (December 29, 2009)

Bem, continuei, nas noites seguintes, aproveitando as promenades philosophiques avec mon chien, para ouvir outros podcasts do Martin Wolf, certamente um dos melhores comentaristas da economia global, obviamente do Financial Times (FT) que, junto com o Wall Street Journal e a Economist, não é apenas um dos melhores jornais econômicos do mundo, mas um dos melhores jornais, tout court.

Foi assim que ouvi mais um podcast que recomendo vivamente aos meus habituais visitantes, este aqui:

How the noughties were a hinge of History (23 December 2009)

A despeito do que pedem os editores do FT (Please don't cut articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web), vou contrariar essa recomendação e não apenas dar o link para o podcast, como transcrever o teor do mesmo.

Antes, porém, cabe esclarecer por que o estou fazendo, já que não pretendo me converter em promotor publicitário do jornalista em questão.
A razão é que encontrei inúmeros pontos de contato e alguma similaridade conceitual entre esse podcast, ou esse ensaio de natureza histórica, e um trabalho meu já concluido desde o final de 2009 -- portanto, na mesma época em que Martin Wolf escrevia o seu texto -- mas que não foi ainda publicado.
O trabalho é este aqui:

O Bric e a substituição de hegemonias: um exercício analítico
(perspectiva histórico-diplomática sobre a emergência de um novo cenário global)
Paulo Roberto de Almeida
(Brasília, 31 dezembro 2009, 32 p.)
Trata-se de um ensaio preparado para um livro sobre o Brasil e os outros Brics e que, se não encontrar objeção de certas cabeças iluminadas, deveria, em princípio, ser publicado em meados de 2010, sob a coordenação de um economista conhecido.

Transcrevo o sumário e os dados de indexação:

1. Introdução: por que o Bric e apenas o Bric?
2. Bric: uma nova categoria conceitual ou apenas um acrônimo apelativo?
3. O Bric na ordem global: um papel relevante, ou apenas uma instância formal?
4. O Bric e a economia política da nova ordem mundial: contrastes e confrontos
5. Grandezas e misérias da substituição hegemônica: lições da História
6. Conclusão: um acrônimo talvez invertido

Resumo: Exercício analítico de caráter histórico-prospectivo sobre o grupo Bric a partir de um exame sobre os fundamentos conceituais da iniciativa diplomática e de uma discussão acerca de suas peculiaridades econômicas e políticas, nos contextos regionais e mundial. Argumentos reflexivos e considerações de natureza histórica sobre as implicações diplomáticas do processo de substituição de hegemonias globais.
Palavras-chave: Bric, Brasil, Rússia, Índia, China, G7, Ordem global, Governança mundial, Substituição de hegemonias.
(quem tiver curiosidade em lê-lo, pode me pedir em mensagem particular)

Agora, Martin Wolf:

How the noughties were a hinge of history
By Martin Wolf
Financial Times, December 23 2009

The only truly global power was in rapid relative decline. Not long before, it had won a pyrrhic victory in a costly colonial war. New great powers were on the rise. An arms race was under way, as was competition for markets and resources in undeveloped areas of the world. Yet people still believed in the durability of the free trade and free capital flows that had nurtured prosperity and, many believed, had also underpinned peace.

That was how the world looked to many at the end of the “noughties” of the 20th century. Yet catastrophe lay ahead: a world war; a communist revolution; a Great Depression; fascism; and then another world war. The world order – built on competing great powers, imperialism and liberal markets – proved incapable of providing the public goods of peace and prosperity. It took calamity, the cold war and the replacement of the UK by the US as hegemonic power to re-establish stability. That then facilitated decolonisation, unprecedented economic expansion, the collapse of communism and yet another epoch of market-led global integration.

“History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes,” as Mark Twain is supposed to have said. The noughties of the 21st century now have the same fin de regime feeling as those of a century ago. Then the US, Germany, Russia and Japan were on the rise; now it is China and India. Then it was the Boer war; now it is the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Then it was an arms race between Germany and the UK; now it is the military build-up in China. Then the protectionism of the US undermined liberal trade; now conflicts between the US and China undermine our ability to tackle climate change. Then the US was isolationist; now China and other rising powers demand untrammelled sovereignty.

The noughties of the 21st century were marked by historic changes.

First, we are seeing at least the beginning of the end not just of an illusory “unipolar moment” for the US, but of western supremacy, in general, and of Anglo-American power, in particular. The UK was the only power with global reach in the 19th century. The US held the same role in the second half of the 20th. The transition between these two eras was a catastrophe. Now we have a possibly even more difficult transition of power to manage.

Second, the west, in general, and the US, in particular, have suffered a disastrous loss of authority. Assertion of an unchecked right to intervene destroyed trust in the US. The chaos that followed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and, far more, the financial crisis have destroyed the west’s reputation for competence. The rest of the world was inclined to believe that the west, whatever its faults, knew what it was doing, particularly where running a market economy was concerned. But then the teacher failed the examination.

Third, globalisation has also fallen into difficulty. Thirty years of surging growth in private sector leverage, in the balance sheets of the financial sector and in notional profitability of the financial sector in the US and other high-income countries has ended in calamity. The emergence of massive global current account “imbalances” has proved highly destabilising. Friction over exchange rates threatens even the maintenance of liberal trade.

Fourth, the provision of basic global public goods now demands co-operation between the established powers and emerging countries. This was shown in the inability to complete the Doha round of multilateral trade negotiations; in the rising influence of the Group of 20 leading countries and the parallel decline of the Group of Seven high-income countries during the financial crisis; and in the centrality of China, the world’s leading emitter of greenhouse gases, in the climate change negotiations in Copenhagen.

Yet, quite rightly, the world also demands the provision of far more public goods than a century ago. Then a modicum of peace, monetary stability and open markets was all that was expected. Now the world demands that leaders not only sustain peace and prosperity, but also promote development and environmental sustainability. All this is to be achieved via co-operation among some 200 states of vastly different capacities. Meanwhile, a host of non-state actors, some benign and many malign, impose conflicting pressures. Sometimes, they subvert states entirely.

The good news is that the world has not made mistakes as big as those that followed the noughties of a century ago: thanks, partly, to nuclear weapons, direct conflicts among great powers have been avoided; a liberal world economy has survived, so far; the lessons of the 1930s were applied to the financial crisis of the 2000s, with at least short-run success; climate change negotiations remain open; and many developing countries – though far from all – have made economic progress. While the movement towards democracy of the early 1990s has slowed, the number of grossly malign totalitarian regimes is now small, at least by the worst standards of the 20th century.

So where should we go in the next decade? For all its difficulties, the US is not the UK of 1910. Its economy remains the world’s most productive and innovative and its military capacity remains unmatched. The western world, as a whole, remains potent, with about 40 per cent of global output, at purchasing power parity. But other countries and forces are now on the rise, while the challenges ahead are also more complex and global than ever before.

“We must all hang together or assuredly we shall hang separately.” All countries – above all, incumbent and rising great powers – must recognise this truth, enunciated by Benjamin Franklin at the signing of the US declaration of independence. History has hardly been dominated by the benign spirits of co-operation, foresight and self-restraint. I would at least give Barack Obama credit for trying to provide the right sort of leadership. But will the world produce sufficient followers, at home or abroad? Alas, I rather doubt it.

To comment on Martin Wolf’s column, please visit his Economists’ Forum
Send your comments to martin.wolf@ft.com
More columns at www.ft.com/martinwolf

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009. You may share using our article tools.

1334) Sitemeter: estatisticas do blog na semana

Toda sexta-feira recebo um pequeno relatório do Sitemeter -- o medidor de visitas neste blog -- com a movimentação da semana, como transcrevo mais abaixo.
Mais interessante do que os número em si, que só podem sensibilizar estatísticos ou outros fanáticos por dados, são as indicações complementares, que se referem a links de entrada e links de saída, suscetíveis de denotar os interesses específicos dos visitantes. Transcrevo alguns mais abaixo.
Como se pode ver, tem muita gente preocupada com a questão dos salários dos "conselheiros" da Petrobra: ou são funcionários ou prepostos da firma, tentando detectar o que se publica de bom a favor, e de mau contra, a dita estatal, ou são simples cidadãos interessados numa das "intransparências" desse paquiderme.

Diplomatizzando -- Site Summary ---
Visits
Total ........................ 4,586
Average per Day ................ 335
Average Visit Length .......... 2:24
This Week .................... 2,346

Page Views
Total ........................ 6,977
Average per Day ................ 494
Average per Visit .............. 1.5
This Week .................... 3,458

http://www.sitemeter.com/stats.asp?site=s33allbooks

--- Visits this Week ---
Day
Hour 2/5 2/6 2/7 2/8 2/9 2/10 2/11 Total
---- ----- ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ -------
1 12 11 13 12 16 15 18 97
(...)
24 12 18 14 13 17 18 14 106
------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ -------
316 260 264 381 385 389 351 2,346

--- Page Views this Week ---
Day
Hour 2/5 2/6 2/7 2/8 2/9 2/10 2/11 Total
---- ----- ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ -------
1 34 12 19 15 16 25 18 139
(...)
24 16 25 23 21 20 21 20 146
------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ -------
509 382 407 544 598 534 484 3,458

Links de entrada:
1 http://diplomatizzando.blogspo...eiros-da-petrobras-76-mil.html
4 http://diplomatizzando.blogspo...eiros-da-petrobras-76-mil.html
5 http://diplomatizzando.blogspo...ura-de-alunos-de-relacoes.html
7 http://diplomatizzando.blogspo...como-fazer-um-bom-parecer.html
8 http://diplomatizzando.blogspo...samuel-pinheiro-guimaraes.html
11 http://diplomatizzando.blogspo...como-fazer-um-bom-parecer.html
12 http://diplomatizzando.blogspo...-informaes-sobre-carreira.html
13 http://diplomatizzando.blogspo...de-desculpaspaises-coreia.html
14 http://diplomatizzando.blogspo...o-e-carreira-do-diplomata.html
15 http://diplomatizzando.blogspo...para-carreira-diplomatica.html
16 http://diplomatizzando.blogspo...eiros-da-petrobras-76-mil.html
17 http://diplomatizzando.blogspo...de-desculpaspaises-coreia.html
20 http://diplomatizzando.blogspo...a-publica-deterioracao-no.html
(...)
81 http://diplomatizzando.blogspo...uador-avante-para-tras-na.html
82 http://diplomatizzando.blogspo...rofisso-internacionalista.html
83 http://diplomatizzando.blogspo...eiros-da-petrobras-76-mil.html
84 http://diplomatizzando.blogspo...ida-dois-textos-otimistas.html
85 http://diplomatizzando.blogspo...-do-concurso-do-itamaraty.html
86 http://diplomatizzando.blogspo...eiros-da-petrobras-76-mil.html
87 http://diplomatizzando.blogspo...onomist-constata-falta-de.html
88 http://diplomatizzando.blogspo...eiros-da-petrobras-76-mil.html
89 http://diplomatizzando.blogspot.com/2006_07_01_archive.html
92 http://diplomatizzando.blogspo...eiros-da-petrobras-76-mil.html
95 http://diplomatizzando.blogspo...onferencia-de-ialta-11-de.html
96 http://diplomatizzando.blogspo...eiros-da-petrobras-76-mil.html
97 http://diplomatizzando.blogspo...eiros-da-petrobras-76-mil.html
99 http://diplomatizzando.blogspo...eiros-da-petrobras-76-mil.html
100 http://diplomatizzando.blogspo...eiros-da-petrobras-76-mil.html

Vários outros cliques se interessam pela carreira diplomática.
Por "location", tenho uma predominância de localidades brasileiras, mas algumas internacionais também. Não é o caso de fazer estatísticas ou copiar os dados.
Até a próxima sexta...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida (12.02.2010)

1333) Japao pede desculpas a Coreia pela ocupacao colonial

Leio, no excelente blog do colega acadêmico Jefferson Tolentino, esta nota, pequena em palavras, mas extraordinariamente importante em sua dimensão política e histórica:

Japão pede desculpas à Coréia do Sul por ações coloniais

Desculpas sempre são bem vindas, não é?
Pois bem, o Ministro de Relações Exteriores do Japão, Katsuya Okada pediu desculpas nesta quinta-feira a Coréia do Sul por mais de três décadas de submissão. Segundo o diplomata, esse período é descrito como um “tragic incident“
Okada fez esse pedido, inusitado, durante uma conferencia de notícias ao lado do Ministro de Relações Exteriores da Coréia do Sul, Yu Myung-hwan.

“I believe it was a tragic incident for Koreans when they were deprived of their nation and their identity,” Okada said, according to the Yonhap news agency.
“I can fully understand the feelings of (Koreans) who were deprived of their identity and nation. I believe we must never forget the victims,” he added.

Para relembrá-los, o incidente trágico descrito ocorreu entre 1910 e 1945.
Esse período de expansão militar nipônico é marcado pelos relatos de mulheres que serviram de escravas sexuais para os soldados japoneses. Cerca de 200.000 mulheres, entre chinesas e coreanas, foram escravizadas e até hoje tentam ver reconhecidas essas barbaridades e indenizadas.

1332) Construindo o atraso educacional do Brasil

Desconstruindo a educação no Brasil
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Sou terrivelmente pessimista quanto ao itinerário presente E FUTURO da educação no Brasil. Alguns diriam que sou excessivamente pessimista. Acho que não, inclusive porque não sou do setor, não acompanho em detalhes todas as bobagens que vem sendo cometidas pelas pedagogas "freireanas" (e delirantes) que atuam supostamente em nome do MEC para deformar as orientações curriculares do ensino nos dois primeiros graus da educação pública no Brasil e por todos os demais responsáveis pelo setor no Brasil.
Impossível não ser pessimista, mesmo não sendo especialista da área, apenas sabendo daquilo que se proclama como obrigatório aqui e ali.
O Brasil, na verdade, é o país das coisas obrigatórias, das leis que tornam compulsório aquilo que poderia (ou deveria) ser apenas voluntário, funcionar como sugestão, enfim, abrir uma oportunidade de ampliação das oportunidades educacionais, mas que acaba sendo um peso nos orçamentos de estados e municípios e que serve apenas para afundar ainda mais o nível de conhecimento médio dos alunos dos ciclos básicos.

Bem, toda essa introdução, para dizer que estou cada vez mais impressionado como as autoridades educacionais (Ok, autoridades é apenas uma deferência indevida) se empenham em deteriorar cada vez mais as chances de as crianças brasileiras aprenderem o que é verdadeiramente essencial, desviando-as para matérias absolutamente secundárias e até "desviantes" em relação ao que deveria ser um ensino adequado aos desafios da globalização.

Digo isto porque acabo de ler numa propaganda de uma grande editora educacional -- que obviamente ganha muito dinheiro com as exigências e obrigatoriedades inúteis que o governo impõe às escolas estaduais e municipais -- que o Espanhol passou a fazer parte do currículo escolar do ensino médio.
Permito lembrar que a língua espanhola já era obrigatória, desde o início da presente administração do currículo escolar do ensino fundamental, isso por uma suposta preparação para a integração com os vizinhos do Mercosul (sendo que NENHUM vizinho do Mercosul tornou o Português obrigatório, ou sequer opcional, nas suas escolas fundamentais ou de nível médio).

O Brasil, que vai ser obrigado a formar alguns milhares -- não sei quantos, talvez dezenas de milhares -- de professores de "Portunhol", oferece uma chance única, estupidamente auto-assumida, de desviar ainda mais os estudantes brasileiros de uma real concentração naquilo que é, ou deveria, ser, o foco essencial dos estudos: língua nacional, matemáticas elementares, ciências básicas, sendo todo o resto opcional e voluntário, inclusive estudos sociais e matérias afins (Ok, concedo em que história e geografia poderiam ser obrigatórias, mas não tenho muita certeza).

O Brasil continua a afundar mais um pouco seu sistema educacional, depois de outras medidas igualmente deletérias para a boa sanidade mental dos alunos.
Na presente administração, já se tornou obrigatória no ensino primário uma coisa chamada "estudos afrobrasileiros", que provavelmente vai ser uma mistura de reconstrução ideológico-mistificadora de um suposto passado glorioso africano que faz parte de nossa herança cultural e social. Certo, mas os imigrantes europeus também construíram este país, e eles não tem direito a "estudos eurobrasileiros".
Na presente administração, também foi tornado obrigatório -- sempre compulsório, não opcional, ou voluntário -- o ensino de sociologia e filosofia no ensino médio, o que nada mais é do que uma reserva de mercado para marxistas desempregados.

Em face de todos esses exemplos de má administração educacional, eu só posso prever um itinerário desastroso parda o ensino no Brasil, pelos próximos 25 anos, talvez um pouco mais.
Espero estar errado, mas temo que não...

Brasília, 11.02.2010.

1331) Terrorismo e armas de destruicao em massa

The Jihadist CBRN Threat
Global Security and Intelligence Report
By Scott Stewart
STRATFOR, February 10, 2010

In an interview aired Feb. 7 on CNN, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she considers weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the hands of an international terrorist group to be the largest threat faced by the United States today, even bigger than the threat posed by a nuclear-armed Iran. “The biggest nightmare that many of us have is that one of these terrorist member organizations within this syndicate of terror will get their hands on a weapon of mass destruction,” Clinton said. In referring to the al Qaeda network, Clinton noted that it is “unfortunately a very committed, clever, diabolical group of terrorists who are always looking for weaknesses and openings.”

Clinton’s comments came on the heels of a presentation by U.S. Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. In his Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community on Feb. 2, Blair noted that, although counterterrorism actions have dealt a significant blow to al Qaeda’s near-term efforts to develop a sophisticated chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) attack capability, the U.S. intelligence community judges that the group is still intent on acquiring the capability. Blair also stated the obvious when he said that if al Qaeda were able to develop CBRN weapons and had the operatives to use them it would do so.

All this talk about al Qaeda and WMD has caused a number of STRATFOR clients, readers and even friends and family members to ask for our assessment of this very worrisome issue. So, we thought it would be an opportune time to update our readers on the topic.

Realities Shaping the Playing Field

To begin a discussion of jihadists and WMD, it is first important to briefly re-cap STRATFOR’s assessment of al Qaeda and the broader jihadist movement. It is our assessment that the first layer of the jihadist movement, the al Qaeda core group, has been hit heavily by the efforts of the United States and its allies in the aftermath of 9/11. Due to the military, financial, diplomatic, intelligence and law enforcement operations conducted against the core group, it is now a far smaller and more insular organization than it once was and is largely confined geographically to the Afghan-Pakistani border. Having lost much of its operational ability, the al Qaeda core is now involved primarily in the ideological struggle (which it seems to be losing at the present time).

The second layer in the jihadist realm consists of regional terrorist or insurgent groups that have adopted the jihadist ideology. Some of these have taken up the al Qaeda banner, such as al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), and we refer to them as al Qaeda franchise groups. Other groups may adopt some or all of al Qaeda’s jihadist ideology and cooperate with the core group, but they will maintain their independence for a variety of reasons. In recent years, these groups have assumed the mantle of leadership for the jihadist movement on the physical battlefield.

The third (and broadest) component of the jihadist movement is composed of grassroots jihadists. These are individuals or small groups of people located across the globe who are inspired by the al Qaeda core and the franchise groups but who may have little or no actual connection to these groups. By their very nature, the grassroots jihadists are the hardest of these three components to identify and target and, as a result, are able to move with more freedom than members of the al Qaeda core or the regional franchises.

As long as the ideology of jihadism exists, and jihadists at any of these three layers embrace the philosophy of attacking the “far enemy,” there will be a threat of attacks by jihadists against the United States. The types of attacks they are capable of conducting, however, depend on their intent and capability. Generally speaking, the capability of the operatives associated with the al Qaeda core is the highest and the capability of grassroots operatives is the lowest. Certainly, many grassroots operatives think big and would love to conduct a large, devastating attack, but their grandiose plans often come to naught for lack of experience and terrorist tradecraft.

Although the American public has long anticipated a follow-on attack to 9/11, most of the attacks directed against the United States since 9/11 have failed. In addition to incompetence and poor tradecraft, one of the contributing factors to these failures is the nature of the targets. Many strategic targets are large and well-constructed, and therefore hard to destroy. In other words, just because a strategic target is attacked does not mean the attack has succeeded. Indeed, many such attacks have failed. Even when a plot against a strategic target is successfully executed, it might not produce the desired results and would therefore be considered a failure. For example, the detonation of a massive truck bomb in a parking garage of the World Trade Center in 1993 failed to achieve the jihadists’ aims of toppling the two towers and producing mass casualties, or of causing a major U.S. foreign policy shift.

Many strategic targets, such as embassies, are well protected against conventional attacks. Their large standoff distances and physical security measures (like substantial perimeter walls) protect them from vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIEDs), while these and other security measures make it difficult to cause significant damage to them using smaller IEDs or small arms.

To overcome these obstacles, jihadists have been forced to look at alternate means of attack. Al Qaeda’s use of large, fully fueled passenger aircraft as guided missiles is a great example of this, though it must be noted that once that tactic became known, it ceased to be viable (as United Airlines Flight 93 demonstrated). Today, there is little chance that a flight crew and passengers of an aircraft would allow it to be seized by a small group of hijackers.

CBRN

Al Qaeda has long plotted ways to overcome security measures and launch strategic strikes with CBRN weapons. In addition to the many public pronouncements the group has made about its desire to obtain and use such weapons, we know al Qaeda has developed crude methods for producing chemical and biological weapons and included such tactics in its encyclopedia of jihad and terrorist training courses.

However, as STRATFOR has repeatedly pointed out, chemical and biological weapons are expensive and difficult to use and have proved to be largely ineffective in real-world applications. A comparison of the Aum Shinrikyo chemical and biological attacks in Tokyo with the March 2004 jihadist attacks in Madrid clearly demonstrates that explosives are far cheaper, easier to use and more effective in killing people. The failure by jihadists in Iraq to use chlorine effectively in their attacks also underscores the problem of using improvised chemical weapons. These problems were also apparent to the al Qaeda leadership, which scrapped a plot to use improvised chemical weapons in the New York subway system due to concerns that the weapons would be ineffective. The pressure jihadist groups are under would also make it very difficult for them to develop a chemical or biological weapons facility, even if they possessed the financial and human resources required to launch such a program.

Of course, it is not unimaginable for al Qaeda or other jihadists to think outside the box and attack a chemical storage site or tanker car, or use such bulk chemicals to attack another target — much as the 9/11 hijackers used passenger- and fuel-laden aircraft to attack their targets. However, while an attack using deadly bulk chemicals could kill many people, most would be evacuated before they could receive a lethal dose, as past industrial accidents have demonstrated. Therefore, such an attack would be messy but would be more likely to cause mass panic and evacuations than mass casualties. Still, it would be a far more substantial attack than the previous subway plot using improvised chemical weapons.

A similar case can be made against the effectiveness of an attack involving a radiological dispersion device (RDD), sometimes called a “dirty bomb.” While RDDs are easy to deploy — so simple that we are surprised one has not already been used within the United States — it is very difficult to immediately administer a lethal dose of radiation to victims. Therefore, the “bomb” part of a dirty bomb would likely kill more people than the device’s “dirty,” or radiological, component. However, use of an RDD would result in mass panic and evacuations and could require a lengthy and expensive decontamination process. Because of this, we refer to RDDs as “weapons of mass disruption” rather than weapons of mass destruction.

The bottom line is that a nuclear device is the only element of the CBRN threat that can be relied upon to create mass casualties and guarantee the success of a strategic strike. However, a nuclear device is also by far the hardest of the CBRN weapons to obtain or manufacture and therefore the least likely to be used. Given the pressure that al Qaeda and its regional franchise groups are under in the post-9/11 world, it is simply not possible for them to begin a weapons program intended to design and build a nuclear device. Unlike countries such as North Korea and Iran, jihadists simply do not have the resources or the secure territory on which to build such facilities. Even with money and secure facilities, it is still a long and difficult endeavor to create a nuclear weapons program — as is evident in the efforts of North Korea and Iran. This means that jihadists would be forced to obtain an entire nuclear device from a country that did have a nuclear weapons program, or fissile material such as highly enriched uranium (enriched to 80 percent or higher of the fissile isotope U-235) that they could use to build a crude, gun-type nuclear weapon.

Indeed, we know from al Qaeda defectors like Jamal al-Fadl that al Qaeda attempted to obtain fissile material as long ago as 1994. The organization was duped by some of the scammers who were roaming the globe attempting to sell bogus material following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Several U.S. government agencies were duped in similar scams.

Black-market sales of military-grade radioactive materials spiked following the collapse of the Soviet Union as criminal elements descended on abandoned Russian nuclear facilities in search of a quick buck. In subsequent years the Russian government, in conjunction with various international agencies and the U.S. government, clamped down on the sale of Soviet-era radioactive materials. U.S. aid to Russia in the form of so-called “nonproliferation assistance” — money paid to destroy or adequately secure such nuclear and radiological material — increased dramatically following 9/11. In 2009, the U.S. Congress authorized around $1.2 billion for U.S. programs that provide nonproliferation and threat reduction assistance to the former Soviet Union. Such programs have resulted in a considerable amount of fissile material being taken off the market and removed from vulnerable storage sites, and have made it far harder to obtain fissile material today than it was in 1990 or even 2000.

Another complication to consider is that jihadists are not the only parties who are in the market for nuclear weapons or fissile material. In addition to counterproliferation programs that offer to pay money for fissile materials, countries like Iran and North Korea would likely be quick to purchase such items, and they have the resources to do so, unlike jihadist groups, which are financially strapped.

Some commentators have said they believe al Qaeda has had nuclear weapons for years but has been waiting to activate them at the “right time.” Others claim these weapons are pre-positioned inside U.S. cities. STRATFOR’s position is that if al Qaeda had such weapons prior to 9/11, it would have used them instead of conducting the airline attack. Even if the group had succeeded in obtaining a nuclear weapon after 9/11, it would have used it by now rather than simply sitting on it and running the risk of it being seized.

There is also the question of state assistance to terrorist groups, but the actions of the jihadist movement since 9/11 have served to steadily turn once quietly supportive (or ambivalent) states against the movement. Saudi Arabia declared war on jihadists in 2003 and countries such as Yemen, Pakistan and Indonesia have recently gone on the offensive. Indeed, in his Feb. 2 presentation to the Senate committee, Blair said: “We do not know of any states deliberately providing CBRN assistance to terrorist groups. Although terrorist groups and individuals have sought out scientists with applicable expertise, we have no corroborated reporting that indicates such experts have advanced terrorist CBRN capability.” Blair also noted that, “We and many in the international community are especially concerned about the potential for terrorists to gain access to WMD-related materials or technology.”

Clearly, any state that considered providing WMD to jihadists would have to worry about blow-back from countries that would be targeted by that material (such as the United States and Russia). With jihadists having declared war on the governments of countries in which they operate, officials in a position to provide CBRN to those jihadists would also have ample reason to be concerned about the materials being used against their own governments.

Efforts to counter the proliferation of nuclear materials and technology will certainly continue for the foreseeable future, especially efforts to ensure that governments with nuclear weapons programs do not provide weapons or fissile material to jihadist groups. While the chance of such a terrorist attack is remote, the devastation one could cause means that it must be carefully guarded against.