Formar pessoas com visao critica, capazes de valorizar a diversidade cultural e ambiental e apoia... more Formar pessoas com visao critica, capazes de valorizar a diversidade cultural e ambiental e apoiar processos de transformacao social na Amazonia para trabalhar em organizacoes do terceiro setor e um dos grandes desafios do presente. Nesse contexto, destaca-se o fortalecimento institucional por meio da captacao e gestao de recursos. Se as organizacoes sem fins lucrativos logram comunicar a urgencia e importância de suas causas, apresentam dificuldade em se organizar em termos administrativos e com um sistema de captacao de recursos eficiente, comprometendo sua sustentabilidade. O amadorismo, especialmente das entidades de base local, e patente e precisa ser superado. Diante desse cenario, a partir de metodologias participativas, o Instituto Peabiru realizou diferentes iniciativas de empoderamento de liderancas locais, associados aos projetos que desenvolvemos nos ultimos anos. Entre as principais conclusoes, destacam-se: 1) e urgente que a academia ofereca capacitacao formal para a g...
Equilibrium between Economic Activity and Socio-Environmental Sustainability (O Equilíbrio Entre a Atividade Econômica E a Sustentabilidade Socio-Ambiental) (Portuguese)
Ecotourism has arisen as a result of new market trends. This tourist activity seeks opportunities... more Ecotourism has arisen as a result of new market trends. This tourist activity seeks opportunities for reconciliation and interaction not only with nature, but also with local communities, providing an integral experience for people to get away from the banality and stress of the metropolis. However, it is still a small-scale activity within the Brazilian economy and requires suitable planning and control.This article provides a brief description of the current development of ecotourism activities for free-time enjoyment and entertainment. It refers to characteristics and the segmentation of the demand as well as the current situation of ecotourism in Brazil.
This paper explores the actions and strategies of three companies, and the dilemmas and bottlenec... more This paper explores the actions and strategies of three companies, and the dilemmas and bottlenecks they faced in their attempts to contribute to sustainability and poverty alleviation through business operations in the Amazon River Estuary. The results of the paper are based on three case studies carried out by the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT) using a quick-scan approach, as part of KIT’s research into corporate social responsibility from the perspective of social and gender equity.
Specialty of the Day: Delicious 500gms of Amazonian Beef Steak produced by 7.000 grams of carbon ... more Specialty of the Day: Delicious 500gms of Amazonian Beef Steak produced by 7.000 grams of carbon dioxins, 7.000 litres of water, mixed with belched methane, is the ideal recipe for climate change. João Meirelles & Maria Jose Barney Gonzalez,. April 2011. Abstract. ...
Global sustainability relies on our capacity of understanding and guiding urban systems and their... more Global sustainability relies on our capacity of understanding and guiding urban systems and their metabolism adequately. It has been proposed that bigger and denser cities are more resource-efficient than smaller ones because they tend to demand less infrastructure, consume less fuel for transportation and less energy for cooling/heating in per capita terms. This hypothesis is also called Brand’s Law. However, as cities get bigger, denser and more resource-efficient, they also get richer, and richer inhabitants consume more, potentially increasing resource demand and associated environmental impacts. In this paper, we propose a method based on scaling theory to assess Brand’s Law taking into account greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from both direct (energy and fuels locally consumed) and indirect (embedded in goods and services) sources, measured as carbon footprint (CF). We aim at understanding whether Brand’s Law can be confirmed once we adopt a consumption-based approach to urban e...
A integração de redes sociais e espaciais é fundamental para novas abordagens a cidades como sist... more A integração de redes sociais e espaciais é fundamental para novas abordagens a cidades como sistemas de interacção. Neste artigo, propomos uma maneira de analisar as condições espaciais e temporais do encontro como condição da formação de redes sociais. Reunindo abordagens clássicas como a geografia temporal de Hägerstrand e o conceito de segregação como ‘restrição de contato’ de Freeman, e explorações recentes de dados de localização via mídia digital, analisamos a estrutura espaço-temporal de encontros potenciais nas trajetórias urbanas de usuários do Twitter diferenciados por níveis de renda no Rio de Janeiro. Esta abordagem permite estimar as posições dos usuários, visualizar grupos de renda e suas trajetórias no espaço urbano, identificar espaços de encontro potencial e os níveis de diversidade e segregação nos espaços públicos. O artigo conclui com uma discussão dos achados empíricos e a utilidade desta ‘geografia temporal dos encontros’ potenciais na cidade, possível a parti...
It is clear by now that climate change mitigation relies on our capacity to guide urban systems t... more It is clear by now that climate change mitigation relies on our capacity to guide urban systems towards a low-carbon phase and that the urban transportation sector plays a major role in this transition. It is estimated that around 30% of total CO2 emissions worldwide come from the urban transportation sector. Regardless of its importance, detailed estimations of transport-related emissions in cities are still rare to find, hindering our capacity to understand and reduce them. This work aims to develop a replicable and fast method for GHG estimation from GPS (Global Positioning System) data and to introduce a simple sinuosity-based algorithm for such. We applied the method for 1 year of GPS data in the city of Rio de Janeiro. Our results were compared to top-down estimations from fuel consumption and proved to be valid after a simple data filling process. Our GPS-based approach allowed for much finer spatial and temporal descriptions of emissions and we further showed possible policy...
Given that a group of cities follows a scaling law connecting urban population with socioeconomic... more Given that a group of cities follows a scaling law connecting urban population with socioeconomic or infrastructural metrics (transversal scaling), should we expect that each city would follow the same behavior over time (longitudinal scaling)? This assumption has important policy implications, although rigorous empirical tests have been so far hindered by the lack of suitable data. Here, we advance the debate by looking into the temporal evolution of the scaling laws for 5507 municipalities in Brazil. We focus on the relationship between population size and two urban variables, GDP and water network length, analyzing the time evolution of the system of cities as well as their individual trajectory. We find that longitudinal (individual) scaling exponents are city-specific, but they are distributed around an average value that approaches to the transversal scaling exponent when the data are decomposed to eliminate external factors, and when we only consider cities with a sufficiently large growth rate. Such results give support to the idea that the longitudinal dynamics is a micro-scaling version of the transversal dynamics of the entire urban system. Finally, we propose a mathematical framework that connects the microscopic level to global behavior, and, in all analyzed cases, we find good agreement between theoretical prediction and empirical evidence.
Nos últimos anos, a nova Ciência das Cidades se estabeleceu como uma abordagem quantitativa férti... more Nos últimos anos, a nova Ciência das Cidades se estabeleceu como uma abordagem quantitativa fértil para o entendimento dos fenômenos urbanos. Um de seus pilares é a proposição de que os sistemas urbanos apresentam comportamentos universais de escala de variáveis socioeconômicas, de infraestrutura e de serviços básicos individuais. Este artigo discute até onde essa proposição é realmente universal, testando-a frente a uma ampla variedade de métricas urbanas de um país em desenvolvimento. Apresentamos uma exploração dos expoentes de escala(mento) de mais de 60 variáveis do sistema urbano brasileiro. A estimação dos expoentes é um desafio técnico, dado que a definição de "município" no Brasil segue critérios políticos e não considera as características da paisagem, a densidade e os serviços domiciliares básicos. Considerando que os municípios brasileiros podem não ser iguais ao que se entende por assentamento urbanizado, selecionamos os mais assemelhados a "cidades"...
Resumo Como ações pessoais, aparentemente caóticas, podem gerar os imensos sistemas de interações... more Resumo Como ações pessoais, aparentemente caóticas, podem gerar os imensos sistemas de interações em que vivemos? Neste artigo, buscamos responder a esta pergunta sugerindo que há um papel para as cidades, na forma de coordenar nossas ações. Investigamos esse processo explorando um conceito particular: a “entropia” ou como sistemas lidam com a incerteza e imprevisibilidade na transição de ações individuais para sistemas de ação. Examinando as condições de (i) as ações como dependentes da informação em seu ambiente e de (ii) a cidade como ambiente de informação, propomos que (iii) a cidade produz diferenças na probabilidade de que certas interações venham a ser realizadas. Investigamos este processo através de simulações de diferentes cenários, de modo a identificar o espaço como uma condição necessária, mas não suficiente, para reduzir entropia social. Finalmente, sugerimos que os estados e flutuações da entropia são uma parte vital da reprodução social, e revelam profundas conexões...
Greenhouse gas (GHG) emission inventories form the basis of evidence-based climate change plannin... more Greenhouse gas (GHG) emission inventories form the basis of evidence-based climate change planning across the local, regional, national, and international levels. In this letter, we present a consumption-based GHG accounting approach for estimating the carbon footprint (CF) comprising direct and indirect emissions of households in Switzerland for 2008, 2011, and 2014 and examine the impact of urbanity and socioeconomic variables on these estimates. The CF model used herein couples regionalized household budget surveys (HBS) with environmentally-extended input-output analysis (EEIOA). We provide greater insight into the obscure process of combining bottom-up consumption data (i.e., HBS) and top-down input-output tables (IOT) in a CF model. The findings show that urban households tend to have lower direct emissions than rural households whereas indirect emissions are higher. Therefore, the nature of both direct and indirect emissions should be considered when evaluating the role of ur...
Amazonia viajeros. Los viajeros y la reflexión sobre la Amazonia en los últimos cien años Travell... more Amazonia viajeros. Los viajeros y la reflexión sobre la Amazonia en los últimos cien años Travelling Amazons. The travellers and the Reflection about the Amazon in the Last One-Hundred Years RESUMO: Em pleno século XXI, mesmo diante do aparato tecnológico e meios de comunicação, em larga medida, a nossa visão sobre a Amazônia, seus povos e comunidades se assemelha à do viajante do século XIX, que a classificava como Terra Incognita, um espaço selvagem, a floresta do exótico, vazio, riquezas infinitas do El Dorado, inferno verde, enfim, a mítica visão eurocentrista da Amazônia-espetáculo. Nem mesmo o fim do "ciclo da borracha" foi suficiente para despertar uma profunda reflexão sobre a região, seja por amazônidas (os nove países do bioma Amazônia) ou brasileiros. Entretanto, nos últimos cem anos, alguns viajantes, individualmente ou em grupo, ampliaram a nossa visão, em prol de discutir a Amazônia e suas complexidades, com um novo olhar, menos preconceituoso, mais carinhoso e generoso. Este artigo visita a produção textual e iconográfica, inclusive com suporte das novas tecnologias, de alguns destes pensadores que percorreram a Amazônia brasileira, para entender o seu legado, apresentando caminhos para a necessária reflexão sobre a Amazônia, para que as atuais gerações tenham uma visão mais responsável perante a região. RESUMEN: En pleno siglo XXI, incluso a pesar de la gran cantidad de medios tecnológicos y de comunicación disponibles, nuestra visión sobre la Amazonia, sus pueblos y comunidades se asemeja, en gran medida, a la de un viajero del siglo XIX. Seguimos refiriéndonos a ella como Tierra Incognita, un espacio salvaje, bosque exótico, vacío, riquezas infinitas de El Dorado, infierno verde, en resumen, la mítica visión eurocentrista de la Amazonia-espectáculo. Ni siquiera el fin de ciclo del "boom del caucho" fue suficiente para despertar una profunda reflexión sobre la región, fuera por los propios amazonidas (de los nueve países del bioma amazônico) o por los brasileños en general, especialmente por los primeros, ya que son los que sufren las consecuencias de este hecho. Mientras tanto, en los últimos cien años algunos viajeros, individualmente o en grupo, han ampliado nuestra visión con el fin de discutir la Amazonia y sus complejidades a través de una nueva mirada, menos preconcebida, más cariñosa y generosa. Este artículo refleja la producción textual e inconográfica (incluyendo el soporte de las nuevas tecnologías) de algunos de estos pensadores que recorrieron la Amazonia brasileña para entender su legado; y, al mismo tiempo, presenta caminos para esta reflexión necesaria sobre la Amazonia por parte de sus habitantes, de los brasileños y por la civilización contemporánea para que las actuales generaciones tengan una visión más responsable de la Amazonia.
From physics to the social sciences, information is now seen as a fundamental component of realit... more From physics to the social sciences, information is now seen as a fundamental component of reality. However, a form of information seems still underestimated, perhaps precisely because it is so pervasive that we take it for granted: the information encoded in the very environment we live in. We still do not fully understand how information takes the form of cities, and how our minds deal with it in order to learn about the world, make daily decisions, and take part in the complex system of interactions we create as we live together. This paper addresses three related problems that need to be solved if we are to understand the role of environmental information: (1) the physical problem: how can we preserve information in the built environment? (2) The semantic problem: how do we make environmental information meaningful? and (3) the pragmatic problem: how do we use environmental information in our daily lives? Attempting to devise a solution to these problems, we introduce a three-la...
During the last years, the new science of cities has been established as a fertile quantitative a... more During the last years, the new science of cities has been established as a fertile quantitative approach to systematically understand the urban phenomena. One of its main pillars is the proposition that urban systems display universal scaling behavior regarding socioeconomic, infrastructural and individual basic services variables. This paper discusses the extension of the universality proposition by testing it against a broad range of urban metrics in a developing country urban system. We present an exploration of the scaling exponents for over 60 variables for the Brazilian urban system. Estimating those exponents is challenging from the technical point of view because the Brazilian municipalities' definition follows local political criteria and does not regard characteristics of the landscape, density, and basic utilities. As Brazilian municipalities can deviate significantly from urban settlements, urban-like municipalities were selected based on a systematic density cut-off...
District heating networks are commonly addressed in the literature as one of the most effective s... more District heating networks are commonly addressed in the literature as one of the most effective solutions for decreasing the greenhouse gas emissions from the building sector. These systems require high investments which are returned through the heat sales. Due to the changed climate conditions and building renovation policies, heat demand in the future could decrease, prolonging the investment return period. The main scope of this paper is to assess the feasibility of using the heat demand-outdoor temperature function for heat demand forecast. The district of Alvalade, located in Lisbon (Portugal), was used as a case study. The district is consisted of 665 buildings that vary in both construction period and typology. Three weather scenarios (low, medium, high) and three district renovation scenarios were developed (shallow, intermediate, deep). To estimate the error, obtained heat demand values were compared with results from a dynamic heat demand model, previously developed and validated by the authors. The results showed that when only weather change is considered, the margin of error could be acceptable for some applications (the error in annual demand was lower than 20% for all weather scenarios considered). However, after introducing renovation scenarios, the error value increased up to 59.5% (depending on the weather and renovation scenarios combination considered). The value of slope coefficient increased on average within the range of 3.8% up to 8% per decade, that corresponds to the decrease in the number of heating hours of 22-139h during the heating season (depending on the combination of weather and renovation scenarios considered). On the other hand, function intercept increased for 7.8-12.7% per decade (depending on the coupled scenarios). The values suggested could be used to modify the function parameters for the scenarios considered, and improve the accuracy of heat demand estimations.
How can individual acts amount to coherent systems of interaction? In this paper, we attempt to a... more How can individual acts amount to coherent systems of interaction? In this paper, we attempt to answer this key question by suggesting that there is a place for cities in the way we coordinate seemingly chaotic decisions. We look into the elementary processes of social interaction exploring a particular concept, “social entropy,” or how social systems deal with uncertainty and unpredictability in the transition from individual actions to systems of interaction. Examining possibilities that (i) actions rely on informational differences latent in their environments and that (ii) the city itself is an information environment to actions, we propose that (iii) space becomes a form of creating differences in the probabilities of interaction. We investigate this process through simulations of distinct material scenarios, to find that space is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the reduction of entropy. Finally, we suggest that states and fluctuations of entropy are a vital part o...
Formar pessoas com visao critica, capazes de valorizar a diversidade cultural e ambiental e apoia... more Formar pessoas com visao critica, capazes de valorizar a diversidade cultural e ambiental e apoiar processos de transformacao social na Amazonia para trabalhar em organizacoes do terceiro setor e um dos grandes desafios do presente. Nesse contexto, destaca-se o fortalecimento institucional por meio da captacao e gestao de recursos. Se as organizacoes sem fins lucrativos logram comunicar a urgencia e importância de suas causas, apresentam dificuldade em se organizar em termos administrativos e com um sistema de captacao de recursos eficiente, comprometendo sua sustentabilidade. O amadorismo, especialmente das entidades de base local, e patente e precisa ser superado. Diante desse cenario, a partir de metodologias participativas, o Instituto Peabiru realizou diferentes iniciativas de empoderamento de liderancas locais, associados aos projetos que desenvolvemos nos ultimos anos. Entre as principais conclusoes, destacam-se: 1) e urgente que a academia ofereca capacitacao formal para a g...
Equilibrium between Economic Activity and Socio-Environmental Sustainability (O Equilíbrio Entre a Atividade Econômica E a Sustentabilidade Socio-Ambiental) (Portuguese)
Ecotourism has arisen as a result of new market trends. This tourist activity seeks opportunities... more Ecotourism has arisen as a result of new market trends. This tourist activity seeks opportunities for reconciliation and interaction not only with nature, but also with local communities, providing an integral experience for people to get away from the banality and stress of the metropolis. However, it is still a small-scale activity within the Brazilian economy and requires suitable planning and control.This article provides a brief description of the current development of ecotourism activities for free-time enjoyment and entertainment. It refers to characteristics and the segmentation of the demand as well as the current situation of ecotourism in Brazil.
This paper explores the actions and strategies of three companies, and the dilemmas and bottlenec... more This paper explores the actions and strategies of three companies, and the dilemmas and bottlenecks they faced in their attempts to contribute to sustainability and poverty alleviation through business operations in the Amazon River Estuary. The results of the paper are based on three case studies carried out by the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT) using a quick-scan approach, as part of KIT’s research into corporate social responsibility from the perspective of social and gender equity.
Specialty of the Day: Delicious 500gms of Amazonian Beef Steak produced by 7.000 grams of carbon ... more Specialty of the Day: Delicious 500gms of Amazonian Beef Steak produced by 7.000 grams of carbon dioxins, 7.000 litres of water, mixed with belched methane, is the ideal recipe for climate change. João Meirelles & Maria Jose Barney Gonzalez,. April 2011. Abstract. ...
Global sustainability relies on our capacity of understanding and guiding urban systems and their... more Global sustainability relies on our capacity of understanding and guiding urban systems and their metabolism adequately. It has been proposed that bigger and denser cities are more resource-efficient than smaller ones because they tend to demand less infrastructure, consume less fuel for transportation and less energy for cooling/heating in per capita terms. This hypothesis is also called Brand’s Law. However, as cities get bigger, denser and more resource-efficient, they also get richer, and richer inhabitants consume more, potentially increasing resource demand and associated environmental impacts. In this paper, we propose a method based on scaling theory to assess Brand’s Law taking into account greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from both direct (energy and fuels locally consumed) and indirect (embedded in goods and services) sources, measured as carbon footprint (CF). We aim at understanding whether Brand’s Law can be confirmed once we adopt a consumption-based approach to urban e...
A integração de redes sociais e espaciais é fundamental para novas abordagens a cidades como sist... more A integração de redes sociais e espaciais é fundamental para novas abordagens a cidades como sistemas de interacção. Neste artigo, propomos uma maneira de analisar as condições espaciais e temporais do encontro como condição da formação de redes sociais. Reunindo abordagens clássicas como a geografia temporal de Hägerstrand e o conceito de segregação como ‘restrição de contato’ de Freeman, e explorações recentes de dados de localização via mídia digital, analisamos a estrutura espaço-temporal de encontros potenciais nas trajetórias urbanas de usuários do Twitter diferenciados por níveis de renda no Rio de Janeiro. Esta abordagem permite estimar as posições dos usuários, visualizar grupos de renda e suas trajetórias no espaço urbano, identificar espaços de encontro potencial e os níveis de diversidade e segregação nos espaços públicos. O artigo conclui com uma discussão dos achados empíricos e a utilidade desta ‘geografia temporal dos encontros’ potenciais na cidade, possível a parti...
It is clear by now that climate change mitigation relies on our capacity to guide urban systems t... more It is clear by now that climate change mitigation relies on our capacity to guide urban systems towards a low-carbon phase and that the urban transportation sector plays a major role in this transition. It is estimated that around 30% of total CO2 emissions worldwide come from the urban transportation sector. Regardless of its importance, detailed estimations of transport-related emissions in cities are still rare to find, hindering our capacity to understand and reduce them. This work aims to develop a replicable and fast method for GHG estimation from GPS (Global Positioning System) data and to introduce a simple sinuosity-based algorithm for such. We applied the method for 1 year of GPS data in the city of Rio de Janeiro. Our results were compared to top-down estimations from fuel consumption and proved to be valid after a simple data filling process. Our GPS-based approach allowed for much finer spatial and temporal descriptions of emissions and we further showed possible policy...
Given that a group of cities follows a scaling law connecting urban population with socioeconomic... more Given that a group of cities follows a scaling law connecting urban population with socioeconomic or infrastructural metrics (transversal scaling), should we expect that each city would follow the same behavior over time (longitudinal scaling)? This assumption has important policy implications, although rigorous empirical tests have been so far hindered by the lack of suitable data. Here, we advance the debate by looking into the temporal evolution of the scaling laws for 5507 municipalities in Brazil. We focus on the relationship between population size and two urban variables, GDP and water network length, analyzing the time evolution of the system of cities as well as their individual trajectory. We find that longitudinal (individual) scaling exponents are city-specific, but they are distributed around an average value that approaches to the transversal scaling exponent when the data are decomposed to eliminate external factors, and when we only consider cities with a sufficiently large growth rate. Such results give support to the idea that the longitudinal dynamics is a micro-scaling version of the transversal dynamics of the entire urban system. Finally, we propose a mathematical framework that connects the microscopic level to global behavior, and, in all analyzed cases, we find good agreement between theoretical prediction and empirical evidence.
Nos últimos anos, a nova Ciência das Cidades se estabeleceu como uma abordagem quantitativa férti... more Nos últimos anos, a nova Ciência das Cidades se estabeleceu como uma abordagem quantitativa fértil para o entendimento dos fenômenos urbanos. Um de seus pilares é a proposição de que os sistemas urbanos apresentam comportamentos universais de escala de variáveis socioeconômicas, de infraestrutura e de serviços básicos individuais. Este artigo discute até onde essa proposição é realmente universal, testando-a frente a uma ampla variedade de métricas urbanas de um país em desenvolvimento. Apresentamos uma exploração dos expoentes de escala(mento) de mais de 60 variáveis do sistema urbano brasileiro. A estimação dos expoentes é um desafio técnico, dado que a definição de "município" no Brasil segue critérios políticos e não considera as características da paisagem, a densidade e os serviços domiciliares básicos. Considerando que os municípios brasileiros podem não ser iguais ao que se entende por assentamento urbanizado, selecionamos os mais assemelhados a "cidades"...
Resumo Como ações pessoais, aparentemente caóticas, podem gerar os imensos sistemas de interações... more Resumo Como ações pessoais, aparentemente caóticas, podem gerar os imensos sistemas de interações em que vivemos? Neste artigo, buscamos responder a esta pergunta sugerindo que há um papel para as cidades, na forma de coordenar nossas ações. Investigamos esse processo explorando um conceito particular: a “entropia” ou como sistemas lidam com a incerteza e imprevisibilidade na transição de ações individuais para sistemas de ação. Examinando as condições de (i) as ações como dependentes da informação em seu ambiente e de (ii) a cidade como ambiente de informação, propomos que (iii) a cidade produz diferenças na probabilidade de que certas interações venham a ser realizadas. Investigamos este processo através de simulações de diferentes cenários, de modo a identificar o espaço como uma condição necessária, mas não suficiente, para reduzir entropia social. Finalmente, sugerimos que os estados e flutuações da entropia são uma parte vital da reprodução social, e revelam profundas conexões...
Greenhouse gas (GHG) emission inventories form the basis of evidence-based climate change plannin... more Greenhouse gas (GHG) emission inventories form the basis of evidence-based climate change planning across the local, regional, national, and international levels. In this letter, we present a consumption-based GHG accounting approach for estimating the carbon footprint (CF) comprising direct and indirect emissions of households in Switzerland for 2008, 2011, and 2014 and examine the impact of urbanity and socioeconomic variables on these estimates. The CF model used herein couples regionalized household budget surveys (HBS) with environmentally-extended input-output analysis (EEIOA). We provide greater insight into the obscure process of combining bottom-up consumption data (i.e., HBS) and top-down input-output tables (IOT) in a CF model. The findings show that urban households tend to have lower direct emissions than rural households whereas indirect emissions are higher. Therefore, the nature of both direct and indirect emissions should be considered when evaluating the role of ur...
Amazonia viajeros. Los viajeros y la reflexión sobre la Amazonia en los últimos cien años Travell... more Amazonia viajeros. Los viajeros y la reflexión sobre la Amazonia en los últimos cien años Travelling Amazons. The travellers and the Reflection about the Amazon in the Last One-Hundred Years RESUMO: Em pleno século XXI, mesmo diante do aparato tecnológico e meios de comunicação, em larga medida, a nossa visão sobre a Amazônia, seus povos e comunidades se assemelha à do viajante do século XIX, que a classificava como Terra Incognita, um espaço selvagem, a floresta do exótico, vazio, riquezas infinitas do El Dorado, inferno verde, enfim, a mítica visão eurocentrista da Amazônia-espetáculo. Nem mesmo o fim do "ciclo da borracha" foi suficiente para despertar uma profunda reflexão sobre a região, seja por amazônidas (os nove países do bioma Amazônia) ou brasileiros. Entretanto, nos últimos cem anos, alguns viajantes, individualmente ou em grupo, ampliaram a nossa visão, em prol de discutir a Amazônia e suas complexidades, com um novo olhar, menos preconceituoso, mais carinhoso e generoso. Este artigo visita a produção textual e iconográfica, inclusive com suporte das novas tecnologias, de alguns destes pensadores que percorreram a Amazônia brasileira, para entender o seu legado, apresentando caminhos para a necessária reflexão sobre a Amazônia, para que as atuais gerações tenham uma visão mais responsável perante a região. RESUMEN: En pleno siglo XXI, incluso a pesar de la gran cantidad de medios tecnológicos y de comunicación disponibles, nuestra visión sobre la Amazonia, sus pueblos y comunidades se asemeja, en gran medida, a la de un viajero del siglo XIX. Seguimos refiriéndonos a ella como Tierra Incognita, un espacio salvaje, bosque exótico, vacío, riquezas infinitas de El Dorado, infierno verde, en resumen, la mítica visión eurocentrista de la Amazonia-espectáculo. Ni siquiera el fin de ciclo del "boom del caucho" fue suficiente para despertar una profunda reflexión sobre la región, fuera por los propios amazonidas (de los nueve países del bioma amazônico) o por los brasileños en general, especialmente por los primeros, ya que son los que sufren las consecuencias de este hecho. Mientras tanto, en los últimos cien años algunos viajeros, individualmente o en grupo, han ampliado nuestra visión con el fin de discutir la Amazonia y sus complejidades a través de una nueva mirada, menos preconcebida, más cariñosa y generosa. Este artículo refleja la producción textual e inconográfica (incluyendo el soporte de las nuevas tecnologías) de algunos de estos pensadores que recorrieron la Amazonia brasileña para entender su legado; y, al mismo tiempo, presenta caminos para esta reflexión necesaria sobre la Amazonia por parte de sus habitantes, de los brasileños y por la civilización contemporánea para que las actuales generaciones tengan una visión más responsable de la Amazonia.
From physics to the social sciences, information is now seen as a fundamental component of realit... more From physics to the social sciences, information is now seen as a fundamental component of reality. However, a form of information seems still underestimated, perhaps precisely because it is so pervasive that we take it for granted: the information encoded in the very environment we live in. We still do not fully understand how information takes the form of cities, and how our minds deal with it in order to learn about the world, make daily decisions, and take part in the complex system of interactions we create as we live together. This paper addresses three related problems that need to be solved if we are to understand the role of environmental information: (1) the physical problem: how can we preserve information in the built environment? (2) The semantic problem: how do we make environmental information meaningful? and (3) the pragmatic problem: how do we use environmental information in our daily lives? Attempting to devise a solution to these problems, we introduce a three-la...
During the last years, the new science of cities has been established as a fertile quantitative a... more During the last years, the new science of cities has been established as a fertile quantitative approach to systematically understand the urban phenomena. One of its main pillars is the proposition that urban systems display universal scaling behavior regarding socioeconomic, infrastructural and individual basic services variables. This paper discusses the extension of the universality proposition by testing it against a broad range of urban metrics in a developing country urban system. We present an exploration of the scaling exponents for over 60 variables for the Brazilian urban system. Estimating those exponents is challenging from the technical point of view because the Brazilian municipalities' definition follows local political criteria and does not regard characteristics of the landscape, density, and basic utilities. As Brazilian municipalities can deviate significantly from urban settlements, urban-like municipalities were selected based on a systematic density cut-off...
District heating networks are commonly addressed in the literature as one of the most effective s... more District heating networks are commonly addressed in the literature as one of the most effective solutions for decreasing the greenhouse gas emissions from the building sector. These systems require high investments which are returned through the heat sales. Due to the changed climate conditions and building renovation policies, heat demand in the future could decrease, prolonging the investment return period. The main scope of this paper is to assess the feasibility of using the heat demand-outdoor temperature function for heat demand forecast. The district of Alvalade, located in Lisbon (Portugal), was used as a case study. The district is consisted of 665 buildings that vary in both construction period and typology. Three weather scenarios (low, medium, high) and three district renovation scenarios were developed (shallow, intermediate, deep). To estimate the error, obtained heat demand values were compared with results from a dynamic heat demand model, previously developed and validated by the authors. The results showed that when only weather change is considered, the margin of error could be acceptable for some applications (the error in annual demand was lower than 20% for all weather scenarios considered). However, after introducing renovation scenarios, the error value increased up to 59.5% (depending on the weather and renovation scenarios combination considered). The value of slope coefficient increased on average within the range of 3.8% up to 8% per decade, that corresponds to the decrease in the number of heating hours of 22-139h during the heating season (depending on the combination of weather and renovation scenarios considered). On the other hand, function intercept increased for 7.8-12.7% per decade (depending on the coupled scenarios). The values suggested could be used to modify the function parameters for the scenarios considered, and improve the accuracy of heat demand estimations.
How can individual acts amount to coherent systems of interaction? In this paper, we attempt to a... more How can individual acts amount to coherent systems of interaction? In this paper, we attempt to answer this key question by suggesting that there is a place for cities in the way we coordinate seemingly chaotic decisions. We look into the elementary processes of social interaction exploring a particular concept, “social entropy,” or how social systems deal with uncertainty and unpredictability in the transition from individual actions to systems of interaction. Examining possibilities that (i) actions rely on informational differences latent in their environments and that (ii) the city itself is an information environment to actions, we propose that (iii) space becomes a form of creating differences in the probabilities of interaction. We investigate this process through simulations of distinct material scenarios, to find that space is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the reduction of entropy. Finally, we suggest that states and fluctuations of entropy are a vital part o...
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Papers by Joao Meirelles