miércoles, 25 de enero de 2012

Why Politicians Get Away With Lying

Room for Debate Home  from New York Times
Updated January 25, 2012 12:59 AM

Why Politicians Get Away With Lying

Debaters

Introduction

Politicians and LyingMikel Jaso
Maybe it’s a sign that the public has given up on honesty from presidential candidates. Instead, in a recent flurry prompted by the public editor of The New York Times, the assumption seems to be that politicians will always lie and that voters’ defense against that is fact checking by journalists.
But … why do voters let politicians lie to them? What sort of lies do people accept, and which do they object to?
Todd Rogers of the Harvard Kennedy School and Michael I. Norton of the Harvard School of Business organized this discussion.
Read the Discussion »
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viernes, 20 de enero de 2012

Climate Proposal Puts Practicality Ahead of Sacrifice

Source  The New York Times

January 16, 2012


The current issue of the journal Science contains a proposal to slow global warming that is extraordinary for a couple of reasons:
1. In theory, it would help people living in poor countries now, instead of mainly benefiting their descendants.
2. In practice, it might actually work.
This proposal comes from an international team of researchers — in climate modeling, atmospheric chemistry, economics, agriculture and public health — who started off with a question that borders on heresy in some green circles: Could something be done about global warming besides forcing everyone around the world to use less fossil fuel?
Ever since the Kyoto Protocol imposed restrictions in industrial countries, the first priority of environmentalists has been to further limit the emission of carbon dioxide. Burning fewer fossil fuels is the most obvious way to counteract the greenhouse effect, and the notion has always had a wonderfully virtuous political appeal — as long as it’s being done by someone else.
But as soon as people are asked to do it themselves, they follow a principle identified by Roger Pielke Jr. in his book “The Climate Fix.” Dr. Pielke, a political scientist at the University of Colorado, calls it iron law of climate policy: When there’s a conflict between policies promoting economic growth and policies restricting carbon dioxide, economic growth wins every time.
The law holds even in the most ecologically correct countries of Europe, as Dr. Pielke found by looking at carbon reductions from 1990 until 2010.
The Kyoto Protocol was supposed to put Europe on a new energy path, but it contained so many loopholes that the rate of “decarbonization” in Europe did not improve in the years after 1998, when the protocol was signed, or after 2002, when it was ratified. In fact, Europe’s economy became more carbon-intensive in 2010, he says — a trend that seems likely to continue as nuclear power plants are shut down in Germany and replaced by coal-burning ones.
“People will make trade-offs, but the one thing that won’t be traded off is keeping the lights on at reasonable cost,” he says. Given the reluctance of affluent Europeans to make sacrifices, what are the odds of persuading billions of people in poorer countries to pay more for energy today in return for a cooler climate at the end of the century?
But suppose they were offered a deal with immediate benefits, like the one proposed in Science by researchers in the United States, Britain, Italy, Austria, Thailand and Kenya. The team looked at ways to slow global warming while also reducing the soot and smog that are damaging agriculture and health.
Black carbon, the technical term for the soot spewed from diesel engines and traditional cookstoves and kilns, has been blamed for a significant portion of the recent warming in the Arctic and for shrinking glaciers in the Himalayas. Snow ordinarily reflects the sun’s rays, but when the white landscape is covered with soot, the darker surface absorbs heat instead.
Methane, which is released from farms, landfills, coal mines and petroleum operations, contributes to ground-level ozone associated with smog and poorer yields from crops. It’s also a greenhouse gas that, pound for pound, is far more powerful than carbon dioxide at trapping the sun’s heat.
After looking at hundreds of ways to control these pollutants, the researchers determined the 14 most effective measures for reducing climate change, like encouraging a switch to cleaner diesel engines and cookstoves, building more efficient kilns and coke ovens, capturing methane at landfills and oil wells, and reducing methane emissions from rice paddies by draining them more often.
If these strategies became widespread, the researchers calculate, the amount of global warming in 2050 would be reduced by about one degree Fahrenheit, roughly a third of the warming projected if nothing is done. This impact on temperatures in 2050 would be significantly larger than the projected impact of the commonly proposed measures for reducing carbon dioxide emissions.
Not incidentally, the researchers calculate, these reductions in low-level ozone and black carbon would yield lots of benefits long before 2050. Because people would be breathing cleaner air, 700,000 to 4.7 million premature deaths would be avoided each year. Thanks to improved crop yields, farmers would produce at least 30 million more metric tons of food annually.
“The beauty of these pollution-control measures is that over five to 10 years they pay for themselves in the developing world,” says Drew Shindell, the lead author of the proposal, who is a climate scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and at Columbia University. “They slow global warming, but there are local benefits, too. If you make black carbon reductions in China or India, you get most of the benefits in China or India.”
These ideas already have a few fans, including Ted Nordhaus, a founder of the Breakthrough Institute, which has endorsed similar measures in a report called “Climate Pragmatism.” Mr. Nordhaus sees the Science paper as a model for the future.
“This is what the post-Kyoto world will look like,” he says. “We’ll increasingly be managing ecological problems like global warming, not solving them. We may make some headway in limiting our emissions, but if we do so it will be through innovating better energy technologies and implementing them at the national and regional level, not through top-down international limits.”
These pollution-control policies aren’t especially controversial — even Republicans hostile to environmentalists have supported research into black carbon — but neither have they have been especially popular. Mainstream environmental groups haven’t put them on the agenda. One reason is the lack of glamour: Encouraging villagers to use diesel engine filters and drain their rice paddies is less newsworthy than negotiating a global treaty on carbon at a United Nations conference.
Another reason is the fear of distracting people from the campaign against carbon dioxide, the gas with the most long-term impact. Because it lingers in the atmosphere much longer than soot or methane, some scientists argue that limiting it must be the first step. Dr. Shindell says he agrees with the need to limit carbon dioxide and sympathizes with those who worry about losing focus.
“But I also worry that carbon dioxide will go up even if we do focus on it,” he says. “We’re at a complete deadlock on carbon dioxide. Dealing with the short-lived pollutants might really be a way to bridge some of the differences, both between the two sides in the United States and between the developed and the developing world.”
No matter what people think about global warming, there aren’t a lot of fans of dirty snow, poor crops and diseased lungs.
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miércoles, 18 de enero de 2012

LA TRAMPA DE LAS IDEOLOGIAS

Fernando Mires: ¿CÓMO PASAR DEL COMUNISMO AL CAPITALISMO SIN SOLTAR EL PODER?


 
“Parece un museo pre-histórico”- pensé mientras pasaba el plumero sobre libros del los sesenta y setenta agolpados en la parte alta de mi biblioteca. Me interesó hojear el más amarillento: “La transición del capitalismo al socialismo” (Mandel, Sweezy, Bettelheim) 


Hoy, en cambio, debería escribirse libros sobre la “la transición del comunismo al capitalismo”- me dije sin asomo de ironía. Pero no conozco ninguno, lo que de veras es un despropósito si uno piensa no en la ex-URSS o China, sino en la pobre Cuba, la que me hizo pasar, hace un par de días, un duro ejercicio de tortura intelectual.
Leer la convocatoria a la Primera Conferencia del PCC que tendrá lugar el 28 de Enero de 2012 es un sacrificio que no deseo ni a mis enemigos. Monótona, aburrida, soporífera, cualquier adjetivo similar queda chico. Sin embargo, como si yo fuera un héroe del trabajo, la leí hasta el final. Y lo hice con la esperanza de encontrar un signo que sugiriera como Cuba se aproxima hacia algo parecido a “un cambio”. Nada. Y sin embargo afirmo: de todas maneras se trata de un documento importante. Quiero decir: hay que mirar ese texto con la perspectiva de un historiador, como si se tratara de un palimpcesto al que no hay que entender sino descifrar.
Lo más resaltante de la convocatoria es que una gran parte está dedicada a las juventudes comunistas. Y si tomamos en cuenta que el PCC es en estos momentos lo más parecido a un asilo de ancianos, eso resulta obvio. Más importante es que al gobierno cubano preocupe el tema del Partido, el que nunca había sido más que un aparato puesto al servicio de las ocurrencias de Fidel Castro. Ahí reside  la diferencia entre Cuba y las dictaduras comunistas de la ex URSS y de las “democracias populares”. Mientras en estos últimas el Partido era el organismo hegemónico de la clase dominante, en la Cuba de los Castro ese rol ha sido ocupado por el Ejército a cuya cabeza ha estado el dios supremo, algunos familiares y sus amigos íntimos.
Que hoy la renovación del partido se convierta en tema central, dice algo. Tiene que ver, sin duda, con la renovación económica que intenta imponer Raúl Castro, cuyo objetivo puede ser resumido en esta frase: ¿Cómo pasar del comunismo al capitalismo sin soltar el poder? Ese es, para él, y su “clase”, un dilema existencial.
En ese contexto resulta evidente que el Ejército y la Policía, fuera de servir de muro de contención a toda disidencia, carecen de personal adecuado para enfrentar una transición que requiere de atributos tecnológicos, administrativos y sobre todo empresariales. De ahí se explica por qué el “raulismo” está intentando un lento traspaso hegemónico del Ejército al Partido, o lo que es igual: del comunismo militar al capitalismo burocrático. De ahí también la urgencia por “rejuvenecer” el Partido.
Pero ¿de cuál rejuvenecimiento nos hablan? ¿De uno político o de uno biológico? Leyendo la convocatoria del PCC da la impresión de que se trata sólo del segundo, algo así como introducir nuevos sementales en un corral donde los toros ya ni pastan.
La paradoja es que el capital humano que el PCC busca para desarrollar las fuerzas productivas de la isla existe, pero no en el Partido. Tanto fuera como dentro de Cuba hay cubanos con capacidades empresariales. Hay también manos dispuestas a trabajar duro si es que se trata de salir de la miseria. A su vez, los mejores intelectuales cubanos, escritores, músicos y artistas, no son comunistas. Muchos han emigrado. Por si fuera poco, las mujeres más combativas están en la oposición. Hay, no por último, una nueva generación que desea gozar, no sólo de los beneficios de la modernización económica, sino también de la política y de la cultural. El movimiento de “blogueros” opositores –sólo la punta de un iceberg- es el más dinámico, ingenioso y numeroso de toda América Latina.
Si Raúl entiende algo más de marxismo que su hermano, debería saber que sólo afuera de ese inútil Partido se encuentran las “fuerzas productivas” destinadas a impulsar el desarrollo de la nación. Debería saber, además, que "el capital de todo capital" está formado por seres humanos los que para expandir sus capacidades requieren de tres libertades muy elementales. Nada más que tres, las que para ser decretadas no precisan de ninguna empalangosa convocatoria. Sólo de un par de huevos.
  1. Libertad de pensamiento, palabra y opinión. 
  2. Libertad de asociación
  3. Libertad de movimiento.
La convocatoria del PCC no se refiere, sin embargo, a ninguna de las tres. Y sin ellas la renovación nunca podrá ser posible.
Raúl Castro está perdiendo así su gran oportunidad. Con todo el poder que ya tiene podría haber pasado a la historia como el liberador de Cuba. La otra alternativa es la de ser recordado como el último carcelero de una nefasta dinastía. Quizás busca, en su orfandad, el camino intermedio. ¿No habrá nadie que le diga que ese camino no existe? ¿O alguien que le recuerde las palabras sabias de Gorbachov cuando encontrándose en la misma alternativa que el hermano de su hermano, dijo: “la historia castiga a quien llega demasiado tarde”?


Anexo:
Primera Conferencia Nacional del PCC. Convocatoria
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miércoles, 11 de enero de 2012

El factor religioso en las elecciones de Estados Unidos

Permalink: http://www.zenit.org/article-41248?l=spanish
El factor religioso en las elecciones de Estados Unidos

Lo que está en juego en este año decisivo 2012

MADRID, martes 10 enero 2012 (ZENIT.org).- Ofrecemos a nuestros lectores, en nuestra sección fija Observatorio Jurídico, un interesante artículo de nuestro colaborador habitual Rafael Navarro-Valls, miembro de la Real Academia de Jurisprudencia y Legislación de España, en el que analiza con precisión qué es lo que está en juego en la cita electoral estadounidense de 2012.
*****
Por Rafael Navarro-Valls
Acaba de comenzar en Estados Unidos el maratón electoral que concluirá el 6 de noviembre de este año 2012 con la designación de un nuevo presidente. Así como el partido demócrata tiene ya como candidato a Obama, el partido republicano tiene que recorrer un largo camino hasta agosto, que elegirá en la convención de Tampa Bay (Florida) el candidato que se enfrentará al presidente electo.
Este itinerario comprende una serie de estaciones intermedias que son las llamadas primarias: votaciones estado por estado que jalonan el largo recorrido. La primera de ellas acaba de tener lugar en el estado de Iowa. Los vencedores –prácticamente empatados- entre los siete candidatos han sido Mitt Romney, un mormón de 61 años y Rick Santorum, católico de 53 años. La siguiente votación es hoy martes día 10, en New Hampshire.
Los vencedores de Iowa
Miremos de cerca a los contendientes. Acabo de decir que Rick Santorum es un católico, ex senador por Pensilvania. Tiene siete hijos y, como católico coherente con sus convicciones, es pro-vida, defensor del matrimonio heterosexual y preocupado por la educación. A su alrededor se han congregado los protestantes evangélicos y, en general, los votantes defensores de los valores cristianos. Su contrincante, Romney, ha tenido que superar algunas dificultades por su religión mormona. Sin embargo, en una reciente encuesta del Pew Research Center, el 91% de los evangélicos blancos --los votantes republicanos más propensos a rechazar la religión del candidato- apoyarían a Romney si éste fuera designado como el candidato republicano para medirse con el presidente Obama.
Y es que un factor que está jugando fuerte es la religión. Incluso un conocido profesor de la Universidad de Notre Dame hace unos días titulaba así su análisis de las elecciones en marcha:“Es la religión, estúpido, no la economía”, poniéndola a la cabeza de las motivaciones de los electores. No diría yo tanto, ya que los problemas económicos (paro y déficit público) están muy presentes en el actual contexto electoral. Sin embargo, la religión también cuenta, de acuerdo con la historia de Estados Unidos.
Incluso un presidente no especialmente fervoroso como Obama, tomó posesión en una ceremonia en la que dos pastores protestantes hicieron consideraciones religiosas (uno haciendo la invocación a Dios y otro impartiendo la bendición final), parte de la multitud asistente rezó el Padre Nuestro, el nuevo presidente juró sobre una Biblia (concretamente la usada por Lincoln en idéntica ceremonia) y aludió en el texto de su discurso hasta cuatro veces a Dios, incluidas dos invocaciones a la ayuda divina al terminar.
El sentido de la separación Iglesia/Estado
Lo cual no es excepcional ya que obedece a una vieja tradición estadounidense que, con uno u otro matiz, viene repitiéndose desde que George Washington lo hiciera en 1789. El hecho objetivo que manifiesta esa simbología es el significado de la religión en la vida pública americana. Téngase en cuenta que el propósito de la separación entre las Iglesias y el Estado en Estados Unidos no fue –por decirlo en palabras de William McLoughlin– “el de hacernos a los americanos libres de la religión, sino más bien el de hacernos oficialmente libres para la práctica de la misma”.
Quiere decirse con esto que el trasfondo histórico que enmarcó el tratamiento jurídico del factor religioso en Estados Unidos fue distinto del europeo. En Estados Unidos, el poder político se limitó a abolir la religión de Estado, poniendo a todas las Iglesias en pie de igualdad, en absoluta posesión de sus bienes y libres para organizar su vida interior. Era una separación amistosa con benévola neutralidad hacia todas las Iglesias. Algo bastante distinto de la intencionalidad de la Revolución Francesa, que marca el principio del separatismo continental. Aquí el poder no perseguía una separación benévola, sino una subordinación de la Iglesia al Estado.
Se entiende así que, según estadísticas recientes, más del 90% de los encuestados norteamericanos afirma que votarían a un afroamericano, a un judío o a una mujer, y un 59% se muestran dispuestos a votar a un homosexual. Sólo un 49%, sin embargo, están dispuestos a votar a un candidato presidencial ateo.
La libertad religiosa
Sin embargo, este planteamiento, que permite hoy a un católico como Santorum o a un mormón como Romney encabezar la candidatura republicana ha necesitado un largo camino hasta el triunfo definitivo de la libertad religiosa. Un ejemplo: cuando J. F. Kennedy empezó el 2 de enero de 1960 su carrera hacia la Casa Blanca, el hecho de que un católico se presentara a la presidencia produjo resistencias. Tan es así que las referencias a su condición de católico fueron tan constantes –sobre todo en las primarias- que hubo de salir al paso con cierta reiteración. Hasta que un día estalló: “Nadie me preguntó si era católico cuando me enrolé en la Marina de Estados Unidos. Nadie preguntó si mi hermano era católico o protestante antes de que subiera al bombardero norteamericano en que voló su última misión”. El 20 de enero de 1961, como primer presidente católico de la historia, se sentaba en el Despacho Oval.
Hoy es absolutamente normal que los católicos accedan a cargos públicos sin especiales problemas. Por ejemplo, de un total de 435 congresistas estadounidenses hay actualmente 135 católicos (31,03%). Y el esfuerzo de las organizaciones católicas en temas sociales es especialmente valorado. No se olvide que, cada año, las organizaciones católicas invierten cerca de 30.000 millones de dólares en servicios sociales y educativos.
De las elecciones de 2004 a las de 2012
Se entiende así, que las elecciones de 2004 enfrentaran a un católico (Kerry) contra un protestante (Bush), pero sin reproducir las tensiones entre protestantes y católicos que existieron en la contienda Nixon/Kennedy. Se habló de aborto, pena de muerte, células madre, matrimonio entre homosexuales, pedofilia entre el clero etc, pero no de “relaciones de obediencia de los católicos romanos con su Iglesia”. La división se produjo esta vez entre votantes “devotos” (protestantes o católicos) y los llamados cristianos “self service” (católicos o protestantes), que practican más o menos, pero no suelen seguir las indicaciones de sus Iglesias sobre temas controvertidos. Algo parecido pasó en las elecciones de 2008: seis precandidatos católicos iniciaron la carrera electoral y fue nombrado vicepresidente otro católico: J. Biden, aunque no del todo ortodoxo en sus opiniones sobre temas morales.
Los católicos históricamente han tendido tradicionalmente al voto demócrata. Los republicanos representaban al votante blanco y protestante. La tendencia cambió con Reagan. Como ha explicado Michael Novak, Reagan comprendió que una de las claves del voto de los católicos era y es la familia. La insistencia en la familia le ganó un apoyo importante del voto de los católicos, que luego volvió a los demócratas, con Clinton, y ahora está –me refiero a los católicos activos- con aquellos candidatos que apoyan los valores cristianos. El Religion News Service subraya que, durante el último cuarto de siglo, los católicos activos y los evangélicos blancos cada vez votaron más a los republicanos, convirtiendo la oposición al aborto y al matrimonio entre personas del mismo sexo en temas políticos importantes .
Tal vez por eso, uno de los factores que está jugando un papel importante en las actuales elecciones son las últimas políticas sociales de Obama en relación con el aborto, los matrimonios entre personas del mismo sexo y la política exterior de apoyo al control de población a través de esterilizaciones y anticonceptivos. Por ejemplo, la administración de Obama acaba de retirar las subvenciones públicasal Office of Migrations and Refugee Services, el organismo no gubernamental de atención a emigrantes y refugiados más importante de los Estados Unidos. Impulsado por los obispos estadounidenses desde 2006, atiende al 26% del total de inmigrantes llegados a la Unión Americana, cubriendo un campo al que el Estado no llega, en aspectos como el combate de la prostitución de mujeres inmigrantes y el comercio de órganos. La verdadera razón era que este organismo se negaba a financiar abortos. Los obispos han protestado enérgicamente declarando que “parece que existe una nueva regla no escrita del Departamento de Salud. Es la regla del ‘abc’: Anybody But Catholics(Todos, excepto los católicos)”. Esto también tendrá consecuencias electorales .

Fuente...ZENIT 
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miércoles, 4 de enero de 2012

CAMBIO CLIMATICO ..si fallan los politicos que actuen los cientificos

En su Editorial correspondiente al Numero  correspondiente a Enero 2012 ka orestigiosa publica


Nature
481,
5
(05 January 2012)
doi:10.1038/481005a
Published online
Where political leadership on climate change is lacking, scientists must be prepared to stick their heads above the parapet.


Consider the following as a statement of national ambition: “The Federal Climate Change Action Plan presents a strategy for launching a transformation in public attitudes and behavior towards climate-change risk. Key state, industry and nonprofit sector allies stand ready to build on the federal strategy to create and sustain a national climate-change risk reduction campaign. The national campaign will increase the public understanding of the risk; advance effective national, state and local climate-change policy; and deliver financing and other incentives to help citizens mitigate climate change. This national climate-change effort — led jointly by the federal government and key national partners — will fundamentally change citizens' expectations and behavior.”
That is the wording of a US federal action plan produced last summer, with just one change introduced by Nature: the original was not about climate change but referred to indoor radon — a naturally occurring radioactive gas that contributes to lung cancer. Sadly, the altered statement is politically impossible in today's United States. Yet it would be an entirely sensible response to the vastly greater global and local risks posed by climate change as described in the international scientific literature and in national impact analyses conducted by the US government itself. Indeed, it would be a welcome response by any government.
“2011 was a bad year for political progress in tackling climate change.”
With US politics in gridlock, Europe in financial turmoil and minimal progress at the climate conference in South Africa in December, 2011 was a bad year for political progress in tackling climate change. In addition, surveys of public opinion show a declining belief that climate change is an urgent problem. Clearly, the need to make the public aware of the threat has never been greater. In the face of climate-change contrarians and denialists, some of them with political clout and voices amplified by the media, climate scientists must be even more energetic in taking their message to citizens.

Communicating risk

The radon-awareness campaign offers lessons to climate-change communicators. The health risk of radon is unlike the risks of climate change, being uncontroversial, local and directly identifiable. But, like climate change, the risks are not immediately apparent and they are easily ignored. Whether to invest in mitigating measures is the individual's decision, but in the case of radon the US government — like many others — has decided that it has a duty to advise and encourage homeowners to make the changes.
Such campaigns need a strategy for communicating risk that will persuade citizens to spend their own money. Those already involved in risk communication will be familiar with the strategies recommended by the World Health Organization to deal with the dangers of indoor radon: identify core messages, understand and engage with your target audiences — both direct (householders) and indirect (such as teachers and bankers) — through surveys and in-depth discussions, develop information sheets and websites, use trusted networks and ensure that your message is coherently delivered across multiple channels.
So what can climate scientists learn from such strategies? What should their core messages be? Should they relate current trends in local weather to the predicted trends, or show what the 'four-degree-warmer' world — which on current emissions trends lies ahead of us — actually looks like? Either way, there are freely available online resources to call on. Some countries have produced national climate-change impact studies. For example, a 2009 US government report examines both regional and economic sector impacts under high- and low-emission scenarios (see go.nature.com/9fnsk1) in measured tones — here the numbers tell the story.
Those wishing to draw attention to disastrous but entirely possible futures can use reports of an international meeting in 2009 that put together multidisciplinary studies of a world that warms by 4° C or more this century (see go.nature.com/mj8c8f), and on a summary produced by the UK government (see go.nature.com/zu2frk).
As many scientists as possible should convey these messages through outreach to local or national organizations, the media, in blogs and in policy discussions. Even better if one can be extra-creative and provide people with interactive tools to explore the possible scenarios, such as the energy-pathway calculator launched last month by David MacKay, chief scientific adviser to the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change (see go.nature.com/1wfvnx).
A more taxing and wearying task is to actively counter misrepresentation — whether in the form of crass errors made by politicians and public figures, or more subtle assertions that require detailed examination. The latter can be scientifically revealing, as discussed by climatologist Ben Santer at last month's meeting of the American Geophysical Union (see video at go.nature.com/mwwleu).
Two challenges face those who communicate the science of climate change to the public. The first is to make the messages from models and observations as vivid as possible while maintaining scientific probity — avoiding the blurring of dispassionate discussions of the science and the equally important individual right of advocacy. The second is to find the right ways of conveying uncertainties without losing grip on the central, generally agreed, conclusions. Training in communication is advisable (see, for example, climatecommunication.org). Those who engage with the media could do worse than take on board the maxims of the late Stephen Schneider's 'mediarology' website: know thy audience, know thyself, and know thy stuff (see go.nature.com/dehvsf).
Even if governments find it difficult to achieve the same clarity of national action on climate change as they can for radon, scientists and their organizations need to do more to help citizens engage with the issues and not be misled by travesties of the evidence. Let that be a resolution for 2012.
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New England Complex Systems Institute

PARA ENTENDER Y MEJOR AUN PARA AYUDAR A SOLUCIONAR LOS DIFICILES PROBLEMAS MUNDIALES ACTUALES .....ES NECESARIO COMPRENDER QUE VIVIMOS EN UN MUNDO ALTAMENTE COMPLEJO E INCLUSO CAOTICO, Y QUE NO EXISTEN NI SOLUCIONES SENCILLAS NI A CORTO PLAZO. 

POR ELLO CELEBRAMOS LA APARICION DE UNA ENTIDAD DEDICADA A ESTUDIAR PROBLEMAS COMPLEJOS Y A PLANTEAR SOLUCIONES FACTIBLES, VIABLES, REALIZABLES....
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New England Complex Systems Institute

Accomplishments in 2011

Dear NECSI Friends and Colleagues,
We are delighted to share some of our accomplishments from the past year. 2011 has been a tumultuous year globally and we are proud to have contributed to understanding these events.

Global food prices:

Our work on the causes of food prices has been selected to be among the top scientific discoveries of 2011. We showed that elevated prices are due to investor speculation and grain-to-ethanol conversion.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/12/top-discoveries-2011/?pid=2729
and
http://necsi.edu/research/social/foodprices.html

Interventions to Prevent Social Unrest:

We linked unrest to recent peaks in global food prices, underlined by the ongoing trend of increasing prices. Extrapolating these trends, we identified a crossing point to the domain of high impacts, without price peaks, in 2012-2013.
http://necsi.edu/research/social/foodcrises.html
We characterized the cascading crises in the Middle East, providing a broader historical and scientific framework. We identified key interventions to prevent the further spread of violence and anarchy, and the mechanisms of the cascades.
http://necsi.edu/news/2011/middleeastanalysis.html
We published research on how to achieve peace among ethnic groups. The research shows that peace can be sustained by topographical and political boundaries separating groups. Our analysis of both peace and conflict shows that Switzerland may serve as a model to resolve conflict in other ethnically diverse countries and regions of the world.
http://necsi.edu/research/social/scienceofpeace.html
See also:
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/12/science-graphics/?pid=2611

The Economic Crisis and its Cascading Effects:

NECSI research showed that measures of mimicry in the market can predict market crashes. This is a new and directly accessible measure of systemic risk.
http://necsi.edu/research/economics/economicpanic.html
We also showed that market manipulation may play an important role in market behavior. Citigroup's stock price plummet in November 2007 coincided with evidence of coordinated selling of borrowed stock, consistent with an intentional effort to trigger market panic. The subsequent price drop enabled the attackers to buy the stock back at a much lower price.
http://necsi.edu/research/economics/bearraid.html
See also why flash crashes happen
http://necsi.edu/research/economics/whyflashcrashes.html

Restoring economic stability:

As anger over the continuing recession heated up and the Occupy Wall Street movement gained momentum, President Yaneer Bar Yam posted a statement of support for the group, highlighting the science behind the 99 percent's woes. Regulation and deregulation by government bodies have created conditions that undermine the very stability of the economic system promoting conditions that result in widespread suffering. Action is needed to restore the underlying viability of the economic system.
http://necsi.edu/projects/yaneer/owsdesc.html
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New England Complex Systems Institute
Yaneer Bar-Yam
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Reach out about climate

  • Nature 481, 5 (05 January 2012) doi:10.1038/481005a , Published online
  • Where political leadership on climate change is lacking, scientists must be prepared to stick their heads above the parapet.
    Consider the following as a statement of national ambition: “The Federal Climate Change Action Plan presents a strategy for launching a transformation in public attitudes and behavior towards climate-change risk. Key state, industry and nonprofit sector allies stand ready to build on the federal strategy to create and sustain a national climate-change risk reduction campaign. The national campaign will increase the public understanding of the risk; advance effective national, state and local climate-change policy; and deliver financing and other incentives to help citizens mitigate climate change. This national climate-change effort — led jointly by the federal government and key national partners — will fundamentally change citizens' expectations and behavior.”
    That is the wording of a US federal action plan produced last summer, with just one change introduced by Nature: the original was not about climate change but referred to indoor radon — a naturally occurring radioactive gas that contributes to lung cancer. Sadly, the altered statement is politically impossible in today's United States. Yet it would be an entirely sensible response to the vastly greater global and local risks posed by climate change as described in the international scientific literature and in national impact analyses conducted by the US government itself. Indeed, it would be a welcome response by any government.
    “2011 was a bad year for political progress in tackling climate change.”
    With US politics in gridlock, Europe in financial turmoil and minimal progress at the climate conference in South Africa in December, 2011 was a bad year for political progress in tackling climate change. In addition, surveys of public opinion show a declining belief that climate change is an urgent problem. Clearly, the need to make the public aware of the threat has never been greater. In the face of climate-change contrarians and denialists, some of them with political clout and voices amplified by the media, climate scientists must be even more energetic in taking their message to citizens.

    Communicating risk

    The radon-awareness campaign offers lessons to climate-change communicators. The health risk of radon is unlike the risks of climate change, being uncontroversial, local and directly identifiable. But, like climate change, the risks are not immediately apparent and they are easily ignored. Whether to invest in mitigating measures is the individual's decision, but in the case of radon the US government — like many others — has decided that it has a duty to advise and encourage homeowners to make the changes.
    Such campaigns need a strategy for communicating risk that will persuade citizens to spend their own money. Those already involved in risk communication will be familiar with the strategies recommended by the World Health Organization to deal with the dangers of indoor radon: identify core messages, understand and engage with your target audiences — both direct (householders) and indirect (such as teachers and bankers) — through surveys and in-depth discussions, develop information sheets and websites, use trusted networks and ensure that your message is coherently delivered across multiple channels.
    So what can climate scientists learn from such strategies? What should their core messages be? Should they relate current trends in local weather to the predicted trends, or show what the 'four-degree-warmer' world — which on current emissions trends lies ahead of us — actually looks like? Either way, there are freely available online resources to call on. Some countries have produced national climate-change impact studies. For example, a 2009 US government report examines both regional and economic sector impacts under high- and low-emission scenarios (see go.nature.com/9fnsk1) in measured tones — here the numbers tell the story.
    Those wishing to draw attention to disastrous but entirely possible futures can use reports of an international meeting in 2009 that put together multidisciplinary studies of a world that warms by 4° C or more this century (see go.nature.com/mj8c8f), and on a summary produced by the UK government (see go.nature.com/zu2frk).
    As many scientists as possible should convey these messages through outreach to local or national organizations, the media, in blogs and in policy discussions. Even better if one can be extra-creative and provide people with interactive tools to explore the possible scenarios, such as the energy-pathway calculator launched last month by David MacKay, chief scientific adviser to the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change (see go.nature.com/1wfvnx).
    A more taxing and wearying task is to actively counter misrepresentation — whether in the form of crass errors made by politicians and public figures, or more subtle assertions that require detailed examination. The latter can be scientifically revealing, as discussed by climatologist Ben Santer at last month's meeting of the American Geophysical Union (see video at go.nature.com/mwwleu).
    Two challenges face those who communicate the science of climate change to the public. The first is to make the messages from models and observations as vivid as possible while maintaining scientific probity — avoiding the blurring of dispassionate discussions of the science and the equally important individual right of advocacy. The second is to find the right ways of conveying uncertainties without losing grip on the central, generally agreed, conclusions. Training in communication is advisable (see, for example, climatecommunication.org). Those who engage with the media could do worse than take on board the maxims of the late Stephen Schneider's 'mediarology' website: know thy audience, know thyself, and know thy stuff (see go.nature.com/dehvsf).
    Even if governments find it difficult to achieve the same clarity of national action on climate change as they can for radon, scientists and their organizations need to do more to help citizens engage with the issues and not be misled by travesties of the evidence. Let that be a resolution for 2012.
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