“Nones” Most Likely to Oppose Torture, US Pew Survey Says
Positive correlation found between religious piety and support for torture
The US Pew Research Center for the People and the Press released results of its most recent survey on US public support for torture this week. Conducted the week of April 14-21, this survey confirmed a similar study by Pew conducted in 2008.
US white evangelical protestants (61%) and white non-hispanic Catholics (51%), the categories with the highest levels of support, believed torture was often or sometimes justified, whereas only 46% of white mainline protestants and 40% of unaffiliated / nones believed so. Among those who felt that torture was rarely or never justifiable, 55% of unaffiliated / nones held this view, whereas 53% of mainline protestants, 47% of white non-hispanic Catholics, and only 33% of white evangelical protestants agreed.
These proportions also correlated with frequency of US church attendance: 54% of those who attended church weekly believed torture was often or sometimes justified as did 51% of those who attended infrequently. Only 42% of those who rarely or never attended church felt that torture was often or sometimes justified.
For more information, visit: http://pewforum.org/docs/?DocID=156.

What Is Education For?
Six myths about the foundations of modern education, and six new principles to replace them
by David Orr

One of the articles in The Learning Revolution (IC#27)Winter 1991, Page 52Copyright (c)1991, 1996 by Context Institute
We are accustomed to thinking of learning as good in and of itself. But as environmental educator David Orr reminds us, our education up till now has in some ways created a monster. This essay is adapted from his commencement address to the graduating class of 1990 at Arkansas College. It prompted many in our office to wonder why such speeches are made at the end, rather than the beginning, of the collegiate experience.
David Orr is the founder of the Meadowcreek Project, an environmental education center in Fox, AR, and is currently on the faculty of Oberlin College in Ohio. Reprinted from Ocean Arks International's excellent quarterly tabloid Annals of Earth, Vol. VIII, No. 2, 1990. Subscriptions $10/year from 10 Shanks Pond Road, Falmouth, MA 02540.

If today is a typical day on planet Earth, we will lose 116 square miles of rainforest, or about an acre a second. We will lose another 72 square miles to encroaching deserts, as a result of human mismanagement and overpopulation. We will lose 40 to 100 species, and no one knows whether the number is 40 or 100. Today the human population will increase by 250,000. And today we will add 2,700 tons of chlorofluorocarbons to the atmosphere and 15 million tons of carbon. Tonight the Earth will be a little hotter, its waters more acidic, and the fabric of life more threadbare.
The truth is that many things on which your future health and prosperity depend are in dire jeopardy: climate stability, the resilience and productivity of natural systems, the beauty of the natural world, and biological diversity.
It is worth noting that this is not the work of ignorant people. It is, rather, largely the result of work by people with BAs, BSs, LLBs, MBAs, and PhDs. Elie Wiesel made a similar point to the Global Forum in Moscow last winter when he said that the designers and perpetrators of the Holocaust were the heirs of Kant and Goethe. In most respects the Germans were the best educated people on Earth, but their education did not serve as an adequate barrier to barbarity. What was wrong with their education? In Wiesel's words: "It emphasized theories instead of values, concepts rather than human beings, abstraction rather than consciousness, answers instead of questions, ideology and efficiency rather than conscience."
The same could be said of the way our education has prepared us to think about the natural world. It is a matter of no small consequence that the only people who have lived sustainably on the planet for any length of time could not read, or, like the Amish, do not make a fetish of reading. My point is simply that education is no guarantee of decency, prudence, or wisdom. More of the same kind of education will only compound our problems. This is not an argument for ignorance, but rather a statement that the worth of education must now be measured against the standards of decency and human survival - the issues now looming so large before us in the decade of the 1990s and beyond. It is not education that will save us, but education of a certain kind.
SANE MEANS, MAD ENDS
What went wrong with contemporary culture and with education? There is some insight in literature: Christopher Marlowe's Faust, who trades his soul for knowledge and power; Mary Shelley's Dr. Frankenstein, who refuses to take responsibility for his creation; Herman Melville's Captain Ahab, who says "All my means are sane, my motive and object mad." In these characters we encounter the essence of the modern drive to dominate nature.
Historically, Francis Bacon's proposed union between knowledge and power foreshadows the contemporary alliance between government, business, and knowledge that has wrought so much mischief. Galileo's separation of the intellect foreshadows the dominance of the analytical mind over that part given to creativity, humor, and wholeness. And in Descartes' epistemology, one finds the roots of the radical separation of self and object. Together these three laid the foundations for modern education, foundations now enshrined in myths we have come to accept without question. Let me suggest six.
First, there is the myth that ignorance is a solvable problem. Ignorance is not a solvable problem, but rather an inescapable part of the human condition. The advance of knowledge always carries with it the advance of some form of ignorance. In 1930, after Thomas Midgely Jr. discovered CFCs, what had previously been a piece of trivial ignorance became a critical, life-threatening gap in the human understanding of the biosphere. No one thought to ask "what does this substance do to what?" until the early 1970s, and by 1990 CFCs had created a general thinning of the ozone layer worldwide. With the discovery of CFCs knowledge increased; but like the circumference of an expanding circle, ignorance grew as well.
A second myth is that with enough knowledge and technology we can manage planet Earth.. "Managing the planet" has a nice a ring to it. It appeals to our fascination with digital readouts, computers, buttons and dials. But the complexity of Earth and its life systems can never be safely managed. The ecology of the top inch of topsoil is still largely unknown, as is its relationship to the larger systems of the biosphere.
What might be managed is us: human desires, economies, politics, and communities. But our attention is caught by those things that avoid the hard choices implied by politics, morality, ethics, and common sense. It makes far better sense to reshape ourselves to fit a finite planet than to attempt to reshape the planet to fit our infinite wants.
A third myth is that knowledge is increasing and by implication human goodness. There is an information explosion going on, by which I mean a rapid increase of data, words, and paper. But this explosion should not be taken for an increase in knowledge and wisdom, which cannot so easily by measured. What can be said truthfully is that some knowledge is increasing while other kinds of knowledge are being lost. David Ehrenfeld has pointed out that biology departments no longer hire faculty in such areas as systematics, taxonomy, or ornithology. In other words, important knowledge is being lost because of the recent overemphasis on molecular biology and genetic engineering, which are more lucrative, but not more important, areas of inquiry. We still lack the the science of land health that Aldo Leopold called for half a century ago.
It is not just knowledge in certain areas that we're losing, but vernacular knowledge as well, by which I mean the knowledge that people have of their places. In the words of Barry Lopez:
"[I am] forced to the realization that something strange, if not dangerous, is afoot. Year by year the number of people with firsthand experience in the land dwindles. Rural populations continue to shift to the cities.... In the wake of this loss of personal and local knowledge, the knowledge from which a real geography is derived, the knowledge on which a country must ultimately stand, has come something hard to define but I think sinister and unsettling."
In the confusion of data with knowledge is a deeper mistake that learning will make us better people. But learning, as Loren Eiseley once said, is endless and "In itself it will never make us ethical [people]." Ultimately, it may be the knowledge of the good that is most threatened by all of our other advances. All things considered, it is possible that we are becoming more ignorant of the things we must know to live well and sustainably on the Earth.
A fourth myth of higher education is that we can adequately restore that which we have dismantled. In the modern curriculum we have fragmented the world into bits and pieces called disciplines and subdisciplines. As a result, after 12 or 16 or 20 years of education, most students graduate without any broad integrated sense of the unity of things. The consequences for their personhood and for the planet are large. For example, we routinely produce economists who lack the most rudimentary knowledge of ecology. This explains why our national accounting systems do not subtract the costs of biotic impoverishment, soil erosion, poisons in the air or water, and resource depletion from gross national product. We add the price of the sale of a bushel of wheat to GNP while forgetting to subtract the three bushels of topsoil lost in its production. As a result of incomplete education, we've fooled ourselves into thinking that we are much richer than we are.
Fifth, there is a myth that the purpose of education is that of giving you the means for upward mobility and success. Thomas Merton once identified this as the "mass production of people literally unfit for anything except to take part in an elaborate and completely artificial charade." When asked to write about his own success, Merton responded by saying that "if it so happened that I had once written a best seller, this was a pure accident, due to inattention and naiveté, and I would take very good care never to do the same again." His advice to students was to "be anything you like, be madmen, drunks, and bastards of every shape and form, but at all costs avoid one thing: success."
The plain fact is that the planet does not need more "successful" people. But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every shape and form. It needs people who live well in their places. It needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane. And these needs have little to do with success as our culture has defined it.
Finally, there is a myth that our culture represents the pinnacle of human achievement: we alone are modern, technological, and developed. This, of course, represents cultural arrogance of the worst sort, and a gross misreading of history and anthropology. Recently this view has taken the form that we won the cold war and that the triumph of capitalism over communism is complete. Communism failed because it produced too little at too high a cost. But capitalism has also failed because it produces too much, shares too little, also at too high a cost to our children and grandchildren. Communism failed as an ascetic morality. Capitalism failed because it destroys morality altogether. This is not the happy world that any number of feckless advertisers and politicians describe. We have built a world of sybaritic wealth for a few and Calcuttan poverty for a growing underclass. At its worst it is a world of crack on the streets, insensate violence, anomie, and the most desperate kind of poverty. The fact is that we live in a disintegrating culture. In the words of Ron Miller, editor of Holistic Review:
"Our culture does not nourish that which is best or noblest in the human spirit. It does not cultivate vision, imagination, or aesthetic or spiritual sensitivity. It does not encourage gentleness, generosity, caring, or compassion. Increasingly in the late 20th Century, the economic-technocratic-statist worldview has become a monstrous destroyer of what is loving and life-affirming in the human soul."
WHAT EDUCATION MUST BE FOR
Measured against the agenda of human survival, how might we rethink education? Let me suggest six principles.
First, all education is environmental education. By what is included or excluded we teach students that they are part of or apart from the natural world. To teach economics, for example, without reference to the laws of thermodynamics or those of ecology is to teach a fundamentally important ecological lesson: that physics and ecology have nothing to do with the economy. That just happens to be dead wrong. The same is true throughout all of the curriculum.
A second principle comes from the Greek concept of paideia. The goal of education is not mastery of subject matter, but of one's person. Subject matter is simply the tool. Much as one would use a hammer and chisel to carve a block of marble, one uses ideas and knowledge to forge one's own personhood. For the most part we labor under a confusion of ends and means, thinking that the goal of education is to stuff all kinds of facts, techniques, methods, and information into the student's mind, regardless of how and with what effect it will be used. The Greeks knew better.
Third, I would like to propose that knowledge carries with it the responsibility to see that it is well used in the world. The results of a great deal of contemporary research bear resemblance to those foreshadowed by Mary Shelley: monsters of technology and its byproducts for which no one takes responsibility or is even expected to take responsibility. Whose responsibility is Love Canal? Chernobyl? Ozone depletion? The Valdez oil spill? Each of these tragedies were possible because of knowledge created for which no one was ultimately responsible. This may finally come to be seen for what I think it is: a problem of scale. Knowledge of how to do vast and risky things has far outrun our ability to use it responsibly. Some of it cannot be used responsibly, which is to say safely and to consistently good purposes.
Fourth, we cannot say that we know something until we understand the effects of this knowledge on real people and their communities. I grew up near Youngstown, Ohio, which was largely destroyed by corporate decisions to "disinvest" in the economy of the region. In this case MBAs, educated in the tools of leveraged buyouts, tax breaks, and capital mobility have done what no invading army could do: they destroyed an American city with total impunity on behalf of something called the "bottom line." But the bottom line for society includes other costs, those of unemployment, crime, higher divorce rates, alcoholism, child abuse, lost savings, and wrecked lives. In this instance what was taught in the business schools and economics departments did not include the value of good communities or the human costs of a narrow destructive economic rationality that valued efficiency and economic abstractions above people and community.
My fifth principle follows and is drawn from William Blake. It has to do with the importance of "minute particulars" and the power of examples over words. Students hear about global responsibility while being educated in institutions that often invest their financial weight in the most irresponsible things. The lessons being taught are those of hypocrisy and ultimately despair. Students learn, without anyone ever saying it, that they are helpless to overcome the frightening gap between ideals and reality. What is desperately needed are faculty and administrators who provide role models of integrity, care, thoughtfulness, and institutions that are capable of embodying ideals wholly and completely in all of their operations.
Finally, I would like to propose that the way learning occurs is as important as the content of particular courses. Process is important for learning. Courses taught as lecture courses tend to induce passivity. Indoor classes create the illusion that learning only occurs inside four walls isolated from what students call without apparent irony the "real world." Dissecting frogs in biology classes teaches lessons about nature that no one would verbally profess. Campus architecture is crystallized pedagogy that often reinforces passivity, monologue, domination, and artificiality. My point is simply that students are being taught in various and subtle ways beyond the content of courses.
AN ASSIGNMENT FOR THE CAMPUS
If education is to be measured against the standard of sustainability, what can be done? I would like to make four propsals. First, I would like to propose that you engage in a campus-wide dialogue about the way you conduct your business as educators. Does four years here make your graduates better planetary citizens or does it make them, in Wendell Berry's words, "itinerant professional vandals"? Does this college contribute to the development of a sustainable regional economy or, in the name of efficiency, to the processes of destruction?
My second suggestion is to examine resource flows on this campus: food, energy, water, materials, and waste. Faculty and students should together study the wells, mines, farms, feedlots, and forests that supply the campus as well as the dumps where you send your waste. Collectively, begin a process of finding ways to shift the buying power of this institution to support better alternatives that do less environmental damage, lower carbon dioxide emissions, reduce use of toxic substances, promote energy efficiency and the use of solar energy, help to build a sustainable regional economy, cut long-term costs, and provide an example to other institutions. The results of these studies should be woven into the curriculum as interdisplinary courses, seminars, lectures, and research. No student should graduate without understanding how to analyze resource flows and without the opportunity to participate in the creation of real solutions to real problems.
Third, reexamaine how your endowment works. Is it invested according to the Valdez principles? Is it invested in companies doing responsible things that the world needs? Can some part of it be invested locally to help leverage energy efficiency and the evolution of a sustainable economy throughout the region?
Finally, I propose that you set a goal of ecological literacy for all of your students. No student should graduate from this or any other educational institution without a basic comprehension of:
the laws of thermodynamics
the basic principles of ecology
carrying capacity
energetics
least-cost, end-use analysis
how to live well in a place
limits of technology
appropriate scale
sustainable agriculture and forestry
steady-state economics
environmental ethics
Do graduates of this college, in Aldo Leopold's words, know that "they are only cogs in an ecological mechanism such that, if they will work with that mechanism, their mental wealth and material wealth can expand indefinitely (and) if they refuse to work with it, it will ultimately grind them to dust." Leopold asked: "If education does not teach us these things, then what is education for?"

A desconexão de hábitats e o declínio global de anfíbios
De um lado, o topo dos morros da Mata Atlântica, com suas florestas que servem de moradia para diversas espécies de anfíbios (sapos, rãs e pererecas). Do outro, os vales, com seus rios, lagoas e lagos, que são um ambiente favorável para esses animais se reproduzirem. E entre esses dois ambientes, surge uma “desconexão”: áreas desmatadas, pastagens e plantações que deixam as populações de anfíbios vulneráveis, podendo até levar à extinção de algumas espécies menos resistentes, durante as viagens obrigatórias para a reprodução.
Essa hipótese — desconexão de habitats — é a explicação proposta pelos pesquisadores Carlos Guilherme Becker (Unicamp), Carlos Roberto Fonseca (UNISINOS), Célio Haddad (UNESP), Rômulo Batista (Unicamp, SDS-AM) e Paulo Inácio Prado (USP) para o problema do declínio global dos anfíbios.
Esse problema começou a ser percebido pelos cientistas a partir das décadas de 1980/1990 em todo o mundo. A idéia dos cientistas brasileiros foi bem aceita na comunidade científica. Em Dezembro último, a Revista Science publicou um artigo desses pesquisadores.
“Muitos animais adultos morrem antes de se reproduzirem. E os filhotes morrem antes de conseguirem chegar às matas”, afirma o professor Paulo Inácio Prado, do Instituto de Biociências da USP.
Ele explica que, quanto maior for a desconexão entre os cursos d’água e o topo das matas, maior será a redução da riqueza de espécies de anfíbios locais. “Além disso, as espécies que dependem de rios, lagos e lagoas para se reproduzirem sofrem mais do que aqueles anfíbios que não são tão dependentes dos cursos d’água para reprodução.”
Segundo Prado, várias hipóteses já haviam sido levantadas para explicar o fenômeno do declínio global de anfíbios: a ação de agrotóxicos, de poluentes, do desmatamento e até o buraco na camada de ozônio (que prejudicaria a sensível pele desses animais).
A hipótese da desconexão de habitats começou com a pesquisa realizada por Carlos Guilherme Becker, na Unicamp. O mestrado, realizado entre 2005 e 2006 (defesa em 2007), foi feito na região rural de São Luis do Paraitinga (cidade do Vale do Paraíba a 171 km a Leste da Capital paulista). Becker montou armadilhas entre o topo das matas e o vale dos rios, o que comprovou que de fato ocorria a migração de anfíbios entre aqueles habitats.
Prado, Becker e Fonseca decidiram levar os dados para análise do professor Célio Haddad (UNESP, Rio Claro), reconhecido especialista em anfíbios. “Segundo o professor Haddad, aquelas conclusões eram bastante plausíveis e inovadoras, pois nunca havia sido feita uma pesquisa semelhante”, conta Prado. O professor Haddad realizou o inventário de 12 trabalhos de anfíbios na Mata Atlântica, abrangendo desde áreas fragmentadas, como São Luis do Paraitinga, até locais com extensa cobertura florestal, como a Reserva de Boracéia. Foi a partir daí que o artigo enviado à Revista Science foi tomando forma.
O professor Prado explica que os anfíbios têm um importante papel nos ecossistemas. Eles tanto exercem o papel de predadores de insetos e de outros invertebrados, como também fazem parte da alimentação de uma série de outros animais.
No aspecto aplicado, há também um grande potencial farmacêutico, por meio do uso de algumas substâncias encontradas em sua pele e órgãos.
Outro dado interessante apontado pelo professor Prado é que anfíbios são um dos grupos de vertebrados mais diversificados. “No Brasil, existem cerca de 550 espécies de mamíferos (5 mil no mundo). Já em relação aos anfíbios, são cerca de 700 no Brasil (6 mil no mundo). Um terço de todas as espécies está sob algum tipo de ameaça”, conclui.
As pesquisas reuniram pesquisadores dos projetos “Biodiversidade e Processos Sociais em São Luiz do Paraitinga” e “Diversidade de Anfíbios Anuros do Estado de São Paulo”, ambos do Projeto Biota-FAPESP. Também contou com o apoio do Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) e da Universidade Vale dos Sinos (UNISINOS-RS).
Por: Valéria Dias Jornalista da Agência USP
Fonte: Revista Eco 21




Insetos: Sumiço de abelhas e o caos no trânsito
O que tem a ver o recente sumiço das abelhas em várias partes do mundo com os imensos congestionamentos que infernizam a vida dos cidadãos das grandes cidades? Mais do que parece. O caos do trânsito, resultado da primazia do transporte individual, tem dramáticos efeitos sobre o tempo e a saúde das pessoas. Ao lado da emissão de gases e toxinas industriais, a poluição do ar por veículos é variável crítica tanto do aquecimento global e dos efeitos no clima como de doenças.

A British Air Foundation conduziu pesquisas provando que bastam seis horas pedalando no tráfego intenso para causar danos aos vasos sangüíneos, tornando-os menos flexíveis, reduzindo proteínas que previnem coágulos e favorecendo riscos cardíacos.

O Laboratório de Poluição Atmosférica da USP estima que a poluição ambiental encurte em média dois anos da vida do paulistano.

O índice de abortos também aumenta, porque o fluxo arterial na placenta diminui; e há suspeitas de efeitos severos na fertilidade. Dados do banco de sêmen do hospital Albert Einstein confirmam que a concentração de espermatozóides no sêmen dos paulistanos caiu significativamente nos últimos dez anos. Entre as hipóteses estão poluição, excessivo consumo de produtos industrializados, estresse, medicamentos, produtos para queda de cabelo, exposição à radiação, substâncias tóxicas dos plásticos de embalagem, pesticidas e outros venenos da vida moderna.

"São coisas que as pessoas vão incorporando em sua dieta e fazem um estrago tremendo nas mitocôndrias e no DNA, causando não só a morte celular como também danos à motilidade e à morfologia", afirma Dirceu Mendes Pereira, da Sociedade Brasileira de Reprodução Humana. Porém, o século 21 ficará conhecido como a era do automóvel popular.

Carros de US$ 6.000, produzidos no padrão chinês, abarrotarão o mundo e farão crescer a degradação ambiental gerada ao fabricá-los e usá-los. Logo agora, quando questões vitais relativas ao clima e à saúde humana exigiriam o abandono radical do transporte individual em benefício do coletivo.

Mas, como convencer o cidadão chinês, indiano ou brasileiro de que a festa vai acabar justo quando ela chega à sua porta? Ou as grandes corporações globais, que já fazem os cálculos dos lucros em grande escala propiciados por essa nova fronteira de acumulação no "mercado dos pobres"?

Mas o que têm abelhas com isso? Muito. No último outono do hemisfério Norte, elas deram para desaparecer. O mesmo fenômeno foi notado em vários países, inclusive no Brasil, causando perplexidade entre cientistas, apicultores, que chegaram a perder 50% de suas colméias, e ecologistas, todos alarmados com os danos ao ambiente e à agricultura se uma crise permanente ocorrer.

Afinal, abelhas são os grandes polinizadores naturais que viabilizam a formação de frutos e sementes. Cientistas da Universidade Harvard fazem hipóteses que incluem intoxicação por inseticidas, infecções por vírus e até radiação de telefones celulares.

Quanto aos pesticidas, há inúmeras tragédias humanas que alguns já causaram. Por que não atingiriam as abelhas? Nos anos 1970-80, utilizados nos bananeirais da América Central, esterilizaram 30 mil homens.

Na ilha de Kyushu, no Japão, milhares de pessoas que consumiram óleo de arroz contaminado por dibromo cloropropano ficaram doentes e 112 morreram de intoxicação aguda, câncer e outras afecções; seus filhos herdaram distúrbios imunológicos e do desenvolvimento.

A OMS estimou em 3 milhões o número de casos de contaminação desse tipo no mundo. Resíduos tóxicos como metais pesados são encontrados em animais das regiões mais distantes do mundo, numa poluição sistêmica global que atinge vegetais e humanos.

Quanto às ondas magnéticas, o planeta se tornou um imenso emissor delas, produto das múltiplas transmissões de rádio, TV, celular e radar, cujas conseqüências exatas sobre o meio ambiente e a saúde humana estamos longe de conhecer.

Basta imaginar a brutal quantidade de emissão de ondas que poluem o espaço para que funcionem os 2 bilhões de celulares que abarrotam nosso globo. É razoável supor que afetem as abelhas?

Aprendiz de feiticeiro, nossa civilização só desperta para os perigos de seus caminhos tecnológicos quando tragédias acontecem. O sumiço temporário das abelhas pode ser mais um grave sintoma para que fiquemos em estado de alerta.


Autoria: Gilberto Dupas, 64, é presidente do Instituto de Estudos Econômicos e Internacionais (IEEI) e coordenador-geral do Grupo de Conjuntura Internacional da USP. É autor de "O Mito do Progresso", entre outras obras.

Los niños necesitan naturaleza
Para crecer de manera armoniosa, estar sanos y adquirir auténtica conciencia ecológica, hace falta que los niños puedan jugar y vivir en contacto con la naturaleza.

Por Claudina Navarro y Manuel Núñez
Debemos tomar medidas para conservar la naturaleza que nos queda y no dejar un planeta desastrado e insalubre a las próximas generaciones. Es un argumento que se utiliza con frecuencia para promover los comportamientos responsables desde el punto de vista ambiental. Sin embargo, raramente nos preguntamos cómo será la relación de las futuras generaciones con la naturaleza. ¿La maltratarán, como lo han hecho las cuatro últimas, o la respetarán y amarán? Seguramente dependerá de cuán fuerte sea el vínculo que establezcan con el medio natural durante su infancia.
Si permitimos que los niños crezcan en contacto íntimo con la naturaleza, su bienestar y el del planeta están casi garantizados. No es una idea romántica, sino una conclusión basada en conocimientos pedagógicos y psicológicos. Los niños forman su visión del mundo de una forma completamente diferente a los adultos. Necesitan que el tipo de entorno y los estímulos se correspondan con sus fases de desarrollo, intereses, habilidades y modos personales de aprendizaje. Porque los niños son por naturaleza aprendices activos, investigadores. Nada más erróneo que mantenerlos atados a un pupitre, dentro de un espacio cerrado, para que escuchen las lecciones del profesor. Aprenden más y mejor cuando tienen la posibilidad de interactuar y adquirir conocimientos llevados por su curiosidad, sus juegos y su lógica.
“Los niños tienen sus propios modos de ver, pensar y sentir y no hay nada más loco que intentar sustituir los suyos por los nuestros”, escribió Jean Jacques Rousseau. El psicólogo de la Universidad de Harvard Howard Gardner afirma que la autoeducación al aire libre produce “conocimiento conectado” que forma parte de la vida. En relación con la educación ambiental, ésta sólo puede tener lugar en entornos naturales informales, donde los niños tengan la posibilidad de aventurarse y realizar sus propios hallazgos sin intermediarios.

Un mundo por descubrir
Adultos y niños están en la naturaleza de manera diferente. Para los primeros, en general, la naturaleza es el fondo visual de las actividades que están realizando en ella. Para los niños, no es sólo un marco, es una fuente de estímulos y un territorio a descubrir. Les ofrece una experiencia sensorial completa e insustituible a través del tacto, el olor, los sonidos y las imágenes, que impactan sobre su imaginación y sus emociones.
Los niños conservan una tendencia biológica, instintiva, a establecer un vínculo con el mundo natural, donde encuentran una serie de cualidades únicas y que no se hallan en otros entornos. Según Randy White, experto en aprendizaje en entornos naturales, estas cualidades son: una diversidad sin fin; una realidad que no ha sido creada por el ser humano; la sensación de atemporalidad (experimentan los mismos paisajes, árboles y ríos que aparecen en el mundo mítico de los cuentos); y ser el hogar de los animales libres. Mientras que muchos adultos se encuentran incómodos en la naturaleza, como sacados de su “natural” medio artificial, los niños sienten una inclinación institinva hacia la naturaleza –biofilia– y necesitan oportunidades para aprender y crecer en ella, sobre todo en los primeros años de vida para sentirse seguros y cómodos, y para que se establezca un vínculo afectivo con los seres vivos.
El concepto biofilia fue utilizado por primera vez por el psicólogo Erich Fromm para describir la atracción hacia todo aquello que está vivo. El reconocido biólogo Edward O. Wilson lo emplea para referirse a la búsqueda subconsciente de conexiones con el resto de las especies.
Si la biofilia parece haberse extinguido en muchos adultos, en los niños exhibe su máxima potencia. Expresarla es importante para su desarrollo armonioso y también para el futuro del planeta, pues la deficiencia de contacto con la naturaleza puede traducirse en una “biofobia” que se caracteriza por una ausencia de empatía para con los demás seres vivos y por el tratamiento de la naturaleza como una mera fuente de recursos materiales.
En las escuelas existen actualmente planes de educación ambiental, pero tienen poco que ver con la formación de la biofilia. Están diseñados desde una perspectiva adulta. Adolecen de exceso de abstracción y proporcionan informaciones irrelevantes para los pequeños. Apenas tienen en cuenta que no adquieren la capacidad plena de razonamiento abstracto hasta los nueve años. No tiene mucho sentido enseñarles las consecuencias de procesoso complejos como la destrucción forestal, la lluvia ácida, el agujero de ozono o la captura de ballenas. Cuando se pide a los niños que entiendan problemas que están más allá de sus habilidades cognitivas y de su control, pueden reaccionar con ansiedad y aversión a esos temas.

El cultivo de la empatía
John Burroughs sostiene que primero hay que cultivar el amor, y sobre esta emoción, el conocimiento intelectual. Entre los tres y los siete años, el niño descubre lo que ha sido definido como el “ego ecopsicológico” o percepción armoniosa del yo en relación con el mundo natural. Gracias a que el ser humano ha evolucionado formando parte de la naturaleza, todos nacemos genéticamente capacitados para desarrollar un vínculo afectivo y psicológico con ella. En los niños esto se manifiesta como tendencia innata a la biofilia.
El objetivo principal en esta etapa es desarrollar el la empatía del niño hacia el mundo natural. Una de las maneras más eficaces de conseguirlo es cultivar las relaciones con los animales, sean domésticos, silvestres o imaginados. Un hecho poco conocido y demostrado a través de estudios es que los animales protagonizan el 90 por ciento de los sueños en los niños menores de seis años, lo que revela su especial vinculación. Los creadores de cuentos de todos los tiempos y culturas se han dado cuenta del fenómeno y recurren a los animales como protagonistas de las narraciones.
El contacto con los animales es, bajo la vigilancia de los adultos, una escuela de educación emocional. Es normal que los niños hablen con los animales y que los traten con cautela y respeto. Los niños sienten una cercanía especial con las crías, que les despiertan sentimientos de ternura e instinto de protección.
Los animales más adecuados para la relación temprana son los que viven en el entorno cercano del niño. Gatos, perros y especies de granja satisfacen la necesidad infantil de contacto. A otro nivel, también son apropiadas las fábulas, las canciones, el teatro con personajes animales y experiencias similares. La humanización de los animales no es un inconveniente en esta etapa.

Edad de exploraciones
De los ocho a los once años transcurre la etapa de las exploraciones. Los niños deben tener acceso a áreas silvestres y semisilvestres en los alrededores de su lugar de residencia. Las actividades apropiadas incluyen la creación de pequeños mundos imaginarios, “cazar” (pequeños insectos, que luego devuelven a la libertad, por ejemplo), “recolectar” (piedras, conchas marinas, etc), buscar tesoros, seguir caminos, cuidar un huerto o un jardín, encontrar o construir escondrijos.
Los espacios de juego con plantas bien integradas –no segregadas o aisladas en islas y parterres, como prefieren los urbanistas amantes de plazas y parques tan limpios como duros y fríos– son también adecuados para los pequeños exploradores. Las instalaciones educativas también debieran contar con lugares ricos en especies vegetales y animales, pero por desgracia el objetivo de los patios y campos de deporte es que los niños quemen su exceso de “energía” para que vuelvan tranquilos a las aulas. El juego al aire libre aún es visto como una actividad secundaria cuando en realidad resulta esencial para el aprendizaje y el desarrollo.
Entre los doce y los quince años, los preadolescentes maduran sus habilidades sociales. Empiezan a interesarse por los grandes problemas de tipo político y desean hacer todo lo posible para mejorar su entorno. Lo más adecuado es que utilicen esta energía positiva en su entorno cercano, donde podrán comprobar la eficacia de sus acciones. El contacto con el medio natural no sólo hace posible el vinculo afectivo con el entorno, sino que favorece el equilibrio psicológico y la salud física.
Existe una abundante literatura científica que describe los efectos positivos del contacto con la naturaleza. Se ha demostrado, por ejemplo, que los niños que sufren trastornos de la concentración e hiperactividad –cuya incidencia está aumentando– mejoran después de las salidas al campo. En general, los niños del medio rural obtienen mejores resultados en los tests que miden la capacidad de concentración y la autodisciplina. Muestran también mejor coordinación física, equilibrio y agilidad. Sus juegos son más diversos e imaginativos que los de los urbanitas. Poseen más habilidad para divertirse y colaborar en grupo, y enferman con menos frecuencia.
El contacto con medios naturales mejora las habilidades cognitivas, agudizando especialmente la capacidad de observación y de razonamiento. También tiene efectos positivos sobre la psicología profunda. Según el pedagogo William Crain, los niños, en medio de la naturaleza, adquieren paz interior, refuerzan sus sentimientos positivos hacia las demás personas y experimentan la sensación de formar parte armoniosa del mundo. El impacto de lo natural ayuda a desarrolla la curiosidad, la autonomía personal, el autoaprendizaje durante toda la vida y la capacidad de apreciar lo extraordinario.

Cada día más lejos
Durante 120.000 años, niños y adultos vivieron en contacto íntimo con los bosques, los ríos, el mar, la sabana y las montañas. Pero la invención de la agricultura propició la aparición de ciudades y de una clase dirigente alejada de la naturaleza. A lo largo de los siglos posteriores, las personas se han autorrecluido progresivamente en las ciudades. La crisis ambiental planetaria, caracterizada por la contaminación, el cambio climático y la desaparición de ecosistemas y especies ha crecido al mismo tiempo que los niños dejaban de jugar al aire libre.
Hasta no hace mucho, los chicos tenían acceso libre a parques, descampados, arroyos y límites entre el campo y la ciudad, con poca o ninguna restricción. Podían encontrarse chicos de edades similares e interactuar con el medio. Cualquier oportunidad de acercarse a la vida silvestre, fuera un gran árbol o un charco con renacuajos, era aprovechada. Actualmente viven controlados en todo momento, y constreñidos entre paredes y vallas. Han visto reducido su territorio y su libertad, de manera que la infancia se ha convertido en una especie de prisión donde los niños están desconectados del entorno natural.
La cultura del miedo se ha apoderado de los padres y los niños ya no pueden moverse ajenos a su mirada vigilante. Según las encuestas, el 80 por ciento de los padres con hijos de tres a doce años tienen miedo a los secuestros, la violencia y los accidentes, y por todo ello no les permiten jugar solos en espacios abiertos. Incluso el miedo a los rayos solares y a las picaduras de insectos sirven como argumento para mantener a los niños en sitios cerrados. Como consecuencia, en lugar de tiempo y lugares para explorar, los niños poseen una agenda cada vez más repleta de actividades organizadas por los adultos.
El escritor y periodista Richard Louv, interesado en cómo serán los niños del futuro, ha entrevistado a jóvenes, padres, asociaciones y educadores y ha concluido que los niños pasan cada vez menos tiempo cerca de la tierra, las plantas y los animales. No obstante, están cada vez más preocupados por la extinción de las especies y otros problemas ecológicos. Pero cuando se les pregunta dónde prefieren jugar, muchos responden que en casa, cerca de los enchufes donde pueden conectar sus consolas y ordenadores.
Todo esto presagia un futuro de personas comprometidas con las causas ambientales, pero que no conocerán de primera mano los medios naturales y que actuarán a través de internet y los medios de comunicación. Es decir, se producirá una sustitución de lo real por lo virtual. Los documentales televisivos o las campañas de internet harán pensar a los niños y a la sociedad que la naturaleza es algo exótico, lejano e imposible de experimentar, cuando en realidad nos rodea por todas partes.
Expertos en psicología y pedagogía han descrito este proceso de alejamiento de la naturaleza y sus consecuencias. Robert Michael Pyle habla de una “extinción de la experiencia natural” que lleva a la indiferencia hacia los problemas ambientales y al malestar psicológico. Stephen R. Kellert, de la Universidad de Yale (Estados Unidos) y coautor de Children and Nature (Niños y naturaleza), afirma que la sociedad ha devenido tan ajena a sus orígenes que ya no puede reconocer que su madurez intelectual y psicológica depende de una apropiada experiencia de la naturaleza.
Los niños que crecen con una carencia de contacto con entornos naturales acaban percibiéndose como individuos separados del mundo natural y ésta se valora como algo que está ahí para ser utilizado y dominado, en lugar de amado y preservado. No sólo son indiferentes hacia la naturaleza, sino que desarrollan temor y disgusto en los espacios naturales, lejos de las cosas creadas por las personas. Los problemas ambientales no son los que más les preocupan y en lugar de afecto por animales y plantas es fácil que tengan predilección por las cosas, lo que les lleva hacia el consumismo y la acaparación.

El papel de padres y colegios
Para contrarrestar la inercia social negativa, padres y centros educativos se están esforzando por reparar los lazos entre los niños y la naturaleza. En varios países se están desarrollando programas específicos que trascienden la educación ambiental típica sobre asuntos como el reciclaje o la conservación de los ecosistemas.
En el Reino Unido, por ejemplo, existe desde los años ochenta el programa Aprendiendo a Través de los Paisajes, cuyo objetivo va encaminado a hacer más verdes los espacios al aire libre de todos los colegios del país. Proyectos similares son Evergreen, en Canadá, Learnscapes, en Australia, o Skolans Uterum, en Suecia. Varios estudios muestran que estos proyectos mejoran además el comportamiento de los chicos, los niveles de lectura y escritura así como la adquisición de conocimientos en matemáticas o ciencias sociales. Los proyectos sociales, junto con la voluntad de las familias, permiten unir a los niños con la naturaleza.

Mais um poema candidato a “clássico” da poesia libertária/revolucionária/ecologista/luddita/ateia/iconoclasta..... A porra é que, se alguém se molestar em o ler (o que é duvidoso), o mais provável que não o entenda, podendo até acusar-me de ser mais hermético, obscuro e pedante do que Heráclito (de Éfeso). Por outro lado, parece-me um mau gosto algo castrante (com respeito à interpretação criativa e idiossincrática dos leitores) encher poemas de asteriscos e notas de rodapé.

Apesar de ser quase certo que ele vai achar este poema uma merda, quero dedicá-lo ao Júlio Henriques – a pessoa mais inteligente, culta, literata, idealista, generosa, cordial, gentil e leal [de] que eu já tive o privilégio de ser amigo. Bem haja!










Excursão de vegetarianos ao matadouro


Na submissão, as fomes expandem-se
Pelos territórios consagrados ao amor.
Por falta de apelos de outras bocas,
Os lábios recolhem-se para o interior das suas cavernas
(E o amor não correspondido é um desperdício?)


Na charada insolvível do infinito
(que aborrece a primeva angústia de morte),
Truques de logomaquia conjurando as trevas
Que nos suga para o passado mais recenado,
Na contagiante vilania do exército de cegos
Que carrega o andor do deus otiosus
- divertindo-se com as nossas desgraças...
Escravos dos escravos mecânicos,
Marcham rumo ao final sem juízo.
Achando que assim cantam melhor,
Há quem fure os olhos aos canários...

Ergue a cabeça! Até os olhos enfrentarem o céu,
Com destemor de chorar pelo leite derramado
Sobre a espinha dorsal da noite.
De lá não vêm juízos nem punições;
Tampouco revelações da Alethéia.
Com os pés na Terra, imuniza-te
Contra o sobrenatural
E contra o desespero
Da orfandade cósmica.

O reflexo míope das estrelas
Nas águas que me serviram de berço.
Como o sulco dos passos erráticos numa jaula,
Erodiram-se as margens do rio que seria a minha fuga.
- Mas não me deixarei escoar pelo ralo do matadouro!
Por aí foi esvaziada a espiritualidade
Dos vossos ritos que oprimem
Por não passarem de propaganda política
Pretendendo justificar assimetrias sociais.

Que notícias chegam da finisterra?
Não me falem de crendice supersticiosa;
Sou crescidinho e livre para saber o essencial!
A bíblia nem para limpar o cu serve!
O mesmo vale os outros textos “sagrados”
Que exigem leituras de joelhos.
Até a “teologia da libertação” é um paradoxo.
Chamemos à pedra os patriarcas e os profetas.
Os mortos ainda cagam demasiadas sentenças.



A epistemologia jogada pela janela,
Enquanto forjam contextos históricos
Para os mitos que nos apascentam
- que história mal contada!
A Cartilha que nos impõem
O que esconde essa preocupação pelas fachadas?!...
Refugiados dos cultos que nos furtaram a pureza,
Negando-nos até a animalidade e a racionalidade
- O que faz de nós humanos.


As árvores cansadas de sonhar,
Arreiam as suas nemorosas almas
Com as entranhas espalhadas ao sol
(que presságios lês nelas?...)
- Eu saúdo essas velhas amigas.
Desejo que os meus ideais se traduzam em paz.
Embalar-te-ia com as suas melodias
(marca o ritmo o coração do teu filho por nascer)
Poderiam silenciar a indignação que destila revoltas?

Dialoga com a dor e vê
A vida que se precipita
Pela ferida na árvore
Que o raio visitou.
Não é um sumidouro de demónios
(excepto para os que cultivam o ódio...)



As memórias da selva esfumam-se...
Para a Terra, maior tormento que a seca é a cerca...
A inocência do verde range na queda,
Como a apostasia de Caburé
(dos Tentera)
- O sangue corre em epidemia
Como o cimento e o alcatrão que nos cobre.
O derradeiro projecto de domesticação:
Quando o sobrepovoado casa com o desumanizado


Festeja-se cada chegada dos petroleiros aos portos
Seguros de que as marés negras ascenderão ao céu.
As belugas são manejadas como lixo tóxico
E as mamas das nossas mães são agora tubos de escape
- já não sei o que dar de comer às crianças!

A cinza do mundo transformado pelas fábricas;
Nos seus subprodutos os pintores vasculham novas cores,
A fim de nos deslumbrarem com naturezas mortas.

As metástases no meu cérebro, na minha vida,
São a hidra industrial que nem João de Patmos imaginou.
O alento do capital no abraço do afogado.
Compramos indulgências à tecnologia,
Cujas soluções sempre se revelam problemas
- Abrindo novos mercados na esteira da destruição


Capital especulativo: economia de casino; império corporativo...
Quem te explora nunca te olhará nos olhos.
O dinheiro é apenas um símbolo de poder
Que despeia a nossa cobiça
E destampa o esgoto seminal;
Apreço pela vida versus a vida a preço
Se classificas como panfletário o meu protesto,
Ficas moralmente escusado de o ouvir?!

Quero descansar naquela praia de sonho ,
Sabendo que apenas Ouroboros lá se bronzeia
(O clichê do sangue nos rastos...)
Os turistas refastelam-se sobre o genocídio dos indígenas;
Pagam para esquecer a escravidão assalariada
- Agora é o tabu da Ágora ;
Nem a ferros o pare a maiêutica!

O tripalium e o Estado não conseguiram extinguir
O encantamento radical que cultivo desde criança.
Assim, não errarei os meus caminhos
Rumo ao nada...onde tudo deságua
A fim de consumar a comunhão com o cosmos.
- Que não tem planos especiais para nós,
Assim como não os tem a evolução
Na terrivelmente maravilhosa aventura da VIDA



O Gênesis constrói-se com a teoria das catástrofes.
Big Bang, a última parada
Para o expresso do da ciência
- Apresse-se a reservar um leito de prostituta
Inaugurado no estupro da natureza!...
Os deuses apeiam-se na dúvida
De quem os criou
A credulidade dá-lhes poder
Dispenso tal companhia
(até dos que fazem das árvores morada
- E não existem templos mais sagrados!)

A casa das musas está silenciosa;
Amontoa-se poeira sobre os espólios;
Arrependimentos da guerra contra Gaia.
Só restam cadáveres impedidos de apodrecer
E pedras que ainda encantam,
Mesmo já não sendo porta-jóias
Das fontes de calor e do orvalho.
O mundo virtual em breve nos formatará...

A sofisticação é o que nos torna artificiais.
Da caravela ao foguetão, aplaude até Gedeão.
As consciência suprimidas pela doutrina
Que cria mercenários de bata e de gravata.
Vê-os mercadejar a nossa sobrevivência;
Brincando aos aprendizes de feiticeiro,
Rearranjam o abecedário dos genes
E falsificam as suas chaves-mestra.
O deus ex-machina dorme num cofre de banco...

Não te ajudarei a procurar o telecomando da telomerase.
Acho que a imortalidade atenta contra a qualidade.
Vai emular o fungo da levedura,
Que eu encontrarei uma mulher receptiva


Menestréis vagam pelas estradas
Cantando o medo dos que os condenam
- alguns têm visões de psicopompos ao crepúsculo
Aquele vagabundo baptizou as mãos numa cloaca.
Ele as chamou de resistência e de resiliência
Uma comeu-a um cão da polícia;
Com a outra aprendeu a escrever versos de amor.
(Com qual delas esmolava?
Com qual delas se masturbava?...)



O fantasma da culpa não se expia
Nos ciclos de vingança dos sectários
- Que desistem da vida para celebrar utopias
Onde não se admitem vozes dissidentes.
Os Cérberos que guardam essa “moral divina”
Chegam ao êxtase fantasiando com hereges
Submetidos aos seus julgamentos por ordálio,
Certos de que penarão para todo o sempre
Por serem títeres na peça escrita no trono celeste...


A canção de deus num campo de batalha.
Cada facção delira na supremacia
De serem os maiores inimigos de si mesmos
Moldado pelas preces dos que me precederam,
Prefiro a companhia de Diógenes
(coçando a barriga)



Sabes como poderei encontrar a minha tribo?!
(Ah, sei, preferes vender-me uma boa armadura...)
Já desisti do projecto alternativo de comunidade?
Só (,) procuro um lugar no verde,
Onde não tenha que visitar sepulcros
Dos que me traíram nem daquilo que fui.
A Primavera não tem a nostalgia da perfeição.
Mas não suporta o silêncio nos campos...
- O desafio espiritual é o maior à nossa frente!

XANDO

O que é que vocês querem?, não me farto de fotografar estas garças...

Bananaquit

the Chopi Blackbird is a parasite of the Yellow-billed Cardinal

A war profiteer is any person or organization that improperly profits from war
War...fare or by selling weapon
WeaponA weapon is a tool used to apply or threaten to apply force for the purpose of hunting, attack or defense in combat, subduing enemy personnel, or to destroy enemy weapons, equipment and defensive structures....s and other goods to parties at war. The term has strong negative connotations. General profiteering may also occur in peace time.
Types
Black marketeersA distinction can be made between war profiteers who gain by sapping military strength and those who gain by contributing to the war. For instance, during and after World War II
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a Participants in World War II, including all of the great powers, organised into two opposing military alliances: the Allies of World War II and the Axis powers...., enormous profits were available by selling rationed goods like cigarette
CigaretteA cigarette is a product consumed through smoking and manufactured out of curing and finely cut tobacco leaves and reconstituted tobacco, often combined with other List of additives in cigarettes, then rolled or stuffed into a paper-wrapped cylinder ....s, chocolate
ChocolateChocolate comprises a number of raw and processed foods that are produced from the seed of the tropical cacao tree.Chocolate has become one of the most popular flavors in the world...., coffee
CoffeeCoffee is a brewed drink prepared from roasted seeds, commonly called coffee beans, of the Coffea. Caffeinated coffee has a stimulating effect in humans.... and butter
ButterButter is a dairy product made by churning fresh or fermentation cream or milk. It is generally used as a spread and a condiment, as well as in cooking applications such as baking, sauce making, and frying.... on the black market. Dishonest military personnel given oversight over valuable property sometimes divert it to the black market. The charge could also be laid against medical and legal professionals who accept money in exchange for helping young men evade a draft.
International arms dealersOthers make their money by cooperating with the authorities. Basil Zaharoff
Basil ZaharoffBasil Zaharoff, Order of the Bath, Order of the British Empire , born Basileios Zacharias, was a Turkey-born France arms trader and financier of Greece heritage, the director and chairman of the Vickers Limited munitions firm during World War I....'s Vickers
VickersVickers was a famous name in British engineering that existed through many companies from 1828 until 2004.... Company sold weapons to all the parties involved in the Chaco War
Chaco WarThe Chaco War was fought between Bolivia and Paraguay over control of a great part of the Gran Chaco region of South America, which was incorrectly thought to be rich in oil..... Companies like Opel
OpelAdam Opel Gesellschaft mit beschr?nkter Haftung is a Germany automaker, part of General Motors.The company was founded on 21 January, 1863, and began making automobiles in 1899.... and IBM
History of IBMTimelineFor issues and trends that span particular time periods, see History of IBM#Major events, trends, and technologies, below.... have been labeled war profiteers for their involvement with the Third Reich.
Commodity dealersWar usually leads to a shortage in the supply of commodities
CommodityA commodity is anything for which there is demand, but which is supplied without qualitative product differentiation across a market. It is a product that is the same no matter who produces it, such as petroleum, notebook paper, or milk...., which results in higher prices and higher revenues.
PoliticiansPolitical figures taking bribes and favors from corporations involved with war production have been called war profiteers. Abraham Lincoln
Abraham LincolnAbraham Lincoln was the List of Presidents of the United States President of the United States. He successfully led the country through its greatest internal crisis, the American Civil War, preserving the Union and ending slavery....'s first Secretary of War
United States Secretary of WarFile:Swearing in of Secretary Dwight Davis.jpgThe Secretary of War was a member of the United States President of the United States United States Cabinet, beginning with George Washington's administration...., Simon Cameron
Simon CameronSimon Cameron was an United States politician who served as United States Secretary of War for Abraham Lincoln at the start of the American Civil War...., was forced to resign in early 1862 after charges of corruption relating to war contracts. In 1947, Kentucky congressman Andrew J. May, Chairman of the powerful Committee on Military Affairs
United States House Committee on Armed ServicesThe U.S. House Committee on Armed Services, commonly known as the House Armed Services Committee, is a standing committee of the United States House of Representatives...., was convicted for taking bribes in exchange for war contracts.
Civilian contractorsMore recently, companies involved with supplying the coalition forces in the Iraq War
Iraq WarThe Iraq War, also known as the Second Gulf War, the Occupation of Iraq, and Operation Iraqi Freedom, is an ongoing conflicts military campaign which began on March 20, 2003 with the 2003 invasion of Iraq by a Multinational force in Iraq now led by and composed almost entirely of troops from the United States and United King..., such as Bechtel
BechtelBechtel Corporation is the largest engineering company in the Economy of the United States, ranking as the 7th-largest privately owned company in the U.S...., KBR
KBRKBR can stand for:* KBR - American engineering and construction company* Key based routing* Royal Library of Belgium* The ISO 639 linguistic identifier code for the Ethiopian language Kaffa Province, Ethiopia ...., Blackwater
Blackwater USAXe , is a private military company founded in 1997 by Erik Prince and Al Clark .In October 2007, Blackwater USA renamed itself Blackwater Worldwide, and was colloquially referred to simply as "Blackwater".... and Halliburton
HalliburtonHalliburton is a US-based oilfield services corporation with international operations in more than 70 countries.It is based in 1401 McKinney Street in Downtown Houston Houston, Texas, Texas, in the United States...., have come under fire for allegedly overcharging for their services. The modern private military company
Private military companyA 'private military company' provides specialized expertise or services of a military nature, sometimes called or classified as mercenary . Such companies are equally known as , Private Security Contractors , Private Military Corporations, Private Military Firms, Military Service Providers, and generally as the Private Milit... is also offered as an example of sanctioned war profiteering. On the opposing side, companies like Huawei Technologies
HuaweiHuawei Technologies Co. Ltd. is the largest networking and telecommunications equipment supplier in the People's Republic of China. It is headquartered in Longgang District, Shenzhen, Shenzhen, Guangdong...., which upgraded Saddam's air-defense system between the two Gulf Wars, face accusations for dealing with Saddam Hussein
Saddam HusseinSaddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the President of Iraq of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003.A leading member of the revolutionary Ba'ath Party, which espoused secular pan-Arabism, economic modernization, and Arab socialism, Saddam played a key role in the 1968 coup that brought the party to long-term power.... or nuclear aspirant Iran
IranIran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran and formerly known internationally as Persian Empire until 1935, is a country in Central Eurasia, located on the northeastern shore of the Persian Gulf and the southern shore of the Caspian Sea.....
Military contractorsA group that always profits from war are the military contractors
Defense contractorA defense contractor is a business organization or individual that provides Product s or Service to a defense department of a government. Products typically include military aircraft, ships, vehicles, weaponry, and Electronic Systems.... like Lockheed Martin
Lockheed MartinLockheed Martin is a large Multinational corporation aerospace manufacturer and advanced technology company formed in 1995 by the Horizontal integration of Lockheed with Martin Marietta...., Boeing
BoeingThe Boeing Company is a major aerospace and defense corporation, originally founded by William Edward Boeing in Seattle, Washington. Boeing has expanded over the years, merging with McDonnell Douglas in 1997...., Northrop Grumman
Northrop GrummanNorthrop Grumman Corporation is an aerospace and defense technology company formed by the 1994 purchase of Grumman by Northrop. The company is the fourth largest defense contractor in the world, and the largest builder of Naval ship...., Raytheon
RaytheonRaytheon Company is a major United States defense contractor and industrial corporation with core manufacturing concentrations in defense systems and defense and commercial electronics.... and General Dynamics
General DynamicsGeneral Dynamics Corporation is a defense conglomerate formed by mergers and divestitures, and as of 2008 it is the fifth largest defense contractor in the world.... (just to name the most important). Old military material has to be discarded due to age or is lost due to fighting, new and different military material is demanded by the military. This enables military contractors to increase their business and profit from war.
Anti-profiteering measuresMaking unreasonable profits from war is widely considered unethical and is deeply unpopular, so attempts to prohibit excessive war profiteering, such as the imposition of an excess profits tax
Excess profits taxIn the United States, an excess profits tax is a tax on any profit above a certain amount. A predominantly wartime fiscal instrument, the tax was designed primarily to capture wartime profits that exceeded normal peacetime profits...., receive much political support in wartime. Defining 'excessive' accurately is difficult, however, and such legislation frequently allows some instances of profiteering to go unchecked while reducing the income of others' war-related business to loss-making levels.
In the United StatesCriticism of companies such as Halliburton
HalliburtonHalliburton is a US-based oilfield services corporation with international operations in more than 70 countries.It is based in 1401 McKinney Street in Downtown Houston Houston, Texas, Texas, in the United States.... in the context of the Iraq war
Iraq WarThe Iraq War, also known as the Second Gulf War, the Occupation of Iraq, and Operation Iraqi Freedom, is an ongoing conflicts military campaign which began on March 20, 2003 with the 2003 invasion of Iraq by a Multinational force in Iraq now led by and composed almost entirely of troops from the United States and United King... draw heavily on the stereotype of the businessman profiteer. Slogans relating to 'blood for oil' have a similar implication.Steve Clemons, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation
New America FoundationThe New America Foundation is a non-profit public policy institute and think tank located in Washington, D.C. that promotes innovative political solutions transcending conventional party lines.... think tank
Think tankA think tank is an organization, institute, corporation, or group that conducts research and engages in advocacy in areas such as social policy, political strategy, economy, science or technology issues, industrial or business policies, or military advice...., has accused former CIA Director James Woolsey
R. James Woolsey, Jr.Robert James Woolsey Jr. is a foreign policy specialist and former Director of Central Intelligence and head of the Central Intelligence Agency .... of both profiting from and promoting the Iraq War
Iraq WarThe Iraq War, also known as the Second Gulf War, the Occupation of Iraq, and Operation Iraqi Freedom, is an ongoing conflicts military campaign which began on March 20, 2003 with the 2003 invasion of Iraq by a Multinational force in Iraq now led by and composed almost entirely of troops from the United States and United King....The Center for Public Integrity
Center for Public IntegrityThe Center for Public Integrity is a nonprofit organization dedicated to producing original, responsible investigative journalism on issues of public concern.... has reported that US Senator Dianne Feinstein
Dianne FeinsteinDianne Goldman Berman Feinstein is the Seniority in the United States Senate United States Senate from California and a member of the Democratic Party .... and her husband, Richard Blum
Richard BlumRichard Blum may refer to:*Richard C. Blum, American investment banker and husband to Dianne Feinstein*Richard Manitoba, born Richard Blum, American musician with the MC5 and The Dictators..., are making millions of dollars from Iraq and Afghanistan contracts through his company, Perini
PeriniPerini Corporation is one of the largest general contractors in the United States. At the end of 2004 its revenue was almost $2 billion. Perini is headquartered in Framingham, Massachusetts, Massachusetts and as a consequence bids on many heavy construction projects in Massachusetts.... . Feinstein voted for the resolution
Iraq ResolutionThe Iraq Resolution or the Iraq War Resolution is a joint resolution passed by the United States Congress in October 2002 as Public Law No: 107-243, authorizing the Iraq War.... giving President George W. Bush the authority to invade Iraq.Indicted defense contractor Brent Wilkes
Brent WilkesBrent Roger Wilkes , an American defense contractor. Wilkes became well known for his involvement with the Duke Cunningham defense contracting scandal and was indicted for his involvement in this scandal on February 13, 2007.... was ecstatic when hearing that the United States was going to go to war with Iraq. “He and some of his top executives were really gung-ho about the war,” said a former employee. “Brent said this would create new opportunities for the company. He was really excited about doing business in the Middle East.”The War Profiteering Prevention Act of 2007 intended to create criminal penalties for war profiteers and others who exploit taxpayer-funded efforts in Iraq and elsewhere around the world. War profiteering cases are often brought under the Civil False Claims Act
False Claims ActThe False Claims Act is an American federal law which allows people who are not affiliated with the government to file actions against federal contractors claiming fraud against the government...., which was enacted in 1863 to combat war profiteering during the Civil War.Major General Smedley Butler
Smedley ButlerSmedley Darlington Butler , nicknamed "The Fighting Quaker" and "Old Gimlet Eye", was a Major general in the United States Marine Corps and, at the time of his death, the most decorated Marine in U.S...., USMC, criticized war profiteering of U.S companies during World War I in War Is a Racket
War is a RacketWar Is a Racket is the title of two works, a speech and a booklet, by retired United States Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler, one of only 19 people to be twice awarded the Medal of Honor, in which Butler frankly discusses from his experience as a career military officer how business interests have commercially benefited from warf.... He wrote about how some companies and corporations increase their earnings and profits by up to 1700% and how many companies willingly sold equipment and supplies to the U.S that had no relevant use in the war effort. In the book, Butler stated that "It has been estimated by statisticians and economists and researchers that the war cost your Uncle Sam $52,000,000,000. Of this sum, $39,000,000,000 was expended in the actual war period. This expenditure Yielded $16,000,000,000 in profits."
In popular cultureThe term 'war profiteer' evokes two stereotypes in popular culture: the rich businessman who sells weapons to governments, and the semi-criminal black marketeer who sells goods to ordinary citizens. In English-speaking countries this is particularly associated with Britain during World War II
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a Participants in World War II, including all of the great powers, organised into two opposing military alliances: the Allies of World War II and the Axis powers.....The image of the 'businessman profiteer' carries the implication of influence and power used to actively cause wars for personal gain, rather than merely passively profit from them. In the aftermath of World War I
World War IWorld War I, or the First World War , was a global military conflict which involved the Great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies of World War I and the Central Powers...., such profiteers were widely asserted to have existed by both the Left, and (fused with anti-Semitism
Anti-SemitismAntisemitism is prejudice against or hostility towards Jews.This prejudice or hostility is usually characterized by a combination of Religion, Race , cultural and ethnic group biases....) by the Right.The surname of the character 'Daddy Warbucks' in Little Orphan Annie
Little Orphan AnnieLittle Orphan Annie is a daily United States comic strip, created by Harold Gray , that first appeared on August 5, 1924. The title, suggested by an editor at the Chicago Tribune Syndicate, was inspired by James Whitcomb Riley's popular 1885 poem "Little Orphant Annie" which begins:Comic strips... carries an obvious implication. This character is interesting for being an example of the stereotype of a war profiteer applied to a 'good guy'.The Tintin
The Adventures of TintinThe Adventures of Tintin is a series of comic strips created by Belgium artist Herg?, the pen name of Georges Remi . The series first appeared in French in a children's supplement to the Belgian newspaper on 10 January 1929.... adventure The Broken Ear
The Broken EarThe Broken Ear is the sixth of The Adventures of Tintin, a series of classic comic-strip albums, written and illustrated by Belgian writer and illustrator Herg?, featuring young reporter Tintin and Snowy as a hero.... features an arms dealer called Basil Bazarov who sells arms to both sides in a war. He is a recognisable example of this 'type', and specifically based on Basil Zaharoff
Basil ZaharoffBasil Zaharoff, Order of the Bath, Order of the British Empire , born Basileios Zacharias, was a Turkey-born France arms trader and financier of Greece heritage, the director and chairman of the Vickers Limited munitions firm during World War I.....The character of Joe Walker in the sitcom Dad's Army
Dad's ArmyDad?s Army is a British sitcom about the Home Guard in the World War II. It was written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft and broadcast on BBC television between 1968 and 1977.... is an example of the second stereotype of a war profiteer while the character Rick Pym in the novel A Perfect Spy
A Perfect SpyA Perfect Spy by John le Carr?, is a novel about the mental and moral dissolution of a secret agent.... is a more psychologically complex example.Brecht
BrechtBrecht is a municipality located in the Belgium province of Antwerp . The municipality comprises the towns of Brecht proper, Sint-Job-in't-Goor and Sint-Lenaarts.... wrote the play Mother Courage and Her Children
Mother Courage and Her ChildrenMother Courage and Her Children is a play written in 1939 by the Germany dramatist and poet Bertolt Brecht with significant contributions from Margarete Steffin.... as a didactic indictment of war profiteering.

O João-de-barro é tão popular na América Latina que até se tornou a ave-símbolo da Argentina.

Como se não lhe bastasse ser dos poucos a aceitar fazer ninho nos alóctones (e deletérios) eucaliptos, ainda tem o descaramento de construír blocos de apartamentos modernaços!

Hi there Brian Terry and his wonderful wife,
I hope that you are OK and that the Galapagos Islands match your expectations – and a whole lot more!
I took these pictures while enjoying your company. It was a lot of fun. Your genuine enthusiasm for nature and your positive approach to life (including your generosity) made my job really easy (that’s especially welcome in this time of the year when we don’t see that astonishing concentration of birds…).
Now I have photos of all the species of king fishers known to exist in Brazil.
By the way, Nina is doing fine. :-D