Pesquisas que articulam em suas perspectivas teóricas e práticas os campos dos estudos culturais e da educação ambiental são acionadas para defender uma pedagogia que promova fissuras no que os autores denominam dispositivo da sustentabilidade. Esse dispositivo abrange uma trama de textos, imagens, slogans, projetos pedagógicos, artigos científicos e tantos outros artefatos ou práticas presentes nos discursos ambientalistas, midiáticos e cotidianos, produzindo efeitos nos processos formativos diretamente ligados à educação ambiental ou não. Na primeira seção, o ensaio marca alguns sentidos sobre as noções de “cultura” e de “pedagogias culturais”. Na segunda, focaliza a questão da formação profissional em educação ambiental, pontuando alguns entendimentos inspirados nos estudos culturais. Na terceira, destaca a potência dessa educação aberta para a multiplicidade, em contraste com a “educação para a sustentabilidade”, que parece seguir um receituário previamente traçado, planejado.

Os estudos biográficos desenham retratos comuns para os encontros entre artes e ciências. Ora nos encontramos com personagens como Leonardo da Vinci, que se tornou um ícone do casamento entre artes e ciências, cujas criações remetem à ideia de híbridos de arte-ciência que revelam afinidades. Picasso e Einstein, cujas obras sugerem confluências e correspondências entre o cubismo e a teoria da relatividade e mobilizam a busca de provas de encontros reais entre os dois gênios. Também encontramos artistas que são considerados ilustradores de ciências, como Remedios Varo que produzia pinturas para livros e revistas científicas e de divulgação…

This article reviews literature on the science and politics of deforestation in the Amazon from 1970 until today, focusing on their shifting meanings and the increasing relevance of climate change knowledge to their understanding and management. Since large-scale colonization of the region began in the 1970s, the debate on deforestation has been crucial in disputes involving science, development, and the environment. In the last decade, the issue of climate change has become more present in the science, politics, and policies related to deforestation in the Amazon. This debate has helped shift discussions on both the environmental and the development agenda for the region. Although there is a broad agreement that the Amazon is being increasingly integrated into global fluxes of knowledge, goods, and people, not all view this process under the same light. The review concludes that scientific views help condition the development of changing policy arrangements aimed at curbing deforestation, and the incorporation of climate change knowledge is an important aspect of the dynamics of environmental policies in the region

As reflexões em torno dos elementos contidos no tema desenvolvimento sustentável remontam a década de 1950, no entanto, o surgimento desse conceito é relativamente recente, datando de 1987 quando Gro Harlem Brundtland, apresentou os resultados do relatório “Nosso Futuro Comum” à Assembleia Geral da Organização das Nações Unidas – ONU. Tem como ponto central a ideia de um crescimento econômico eficiente e racional, que satisfaça as necessidades das gerações presentes sem comprometer o direito das gerações futuras em ter suas necessidades supridas. Percebe-se que o conceito de desenvolvimento sustentável – motivo cada vez maior de revisões críticas – nos dias atuais, ainda está popularmente ligado simplesmente aos aspectos ambientais, e as políticas públicas de desenvolvimento adotadas, via de regra, restringem-se à perspectiva econômica. O presente ensaio propõe-se a refletir sobre os aspectos relacionados às dimensões da sustentabilidade propostas por Ignacy Sachs (1993), com foco especial para a dimensão social. Para tanto, utilizou-se como metodologia a revisão literária das contribuições de Richard Sennett (2012), Hassan Zaoual (2006), Milton Santos (2009), Paulo Freire (2013) e Suely Chacon (2007), adotando como premissa a negação dos elementos que comprometem esta dimensão.

A Climate Change Index (CCI) was designed to assess the degree of susceptibility to the climatic extremes projected for the future. Climate projections for the period 2041-2070 are extracted from the numerical integrations of INPE’s Eta-HadCM3 model, using the SRES A1B emissions scenario. Five indicators were chosen to represent the climatic extremes: Total annual precipitation, precipitation on the days of heavy rain, the maximum number of consecutive dry days in the year and the annual mean maximum and mean minimum temperatures. The methodology was applied to the state of Paraná. The results point to a very strong warming in 99% of the municipalities, with temperature increases between 6 and 8 times greater than the variance observed in the present climate. On the other hand, projections of precipitation do not indicate major changes in relation to present behavior.

Environmental equity is a concept derived from the (un)equal exposure to environmental degradation by different social groups, usually minorities and low-income people exposed to major environmental risks, also known as environmental justice. It is assumed that no group of people, independent of race, ethnicity or socio-economic class, should support, either in concentrated or unevenly distributed form, the negative environmental impacts resulting from industrial, agricultural, commercial and infrastructure activities or government programs and policies. In this paper the concept of environmental equity is explored as a criterion for water management through the analysis of a typical coupled human–natural system: the Epitácio Pessoa Reservoir, located in the semi-arid region of Brazil. Inefficient water resource management has caused unequal access to water by the population, particularly during drought periods. However, census data indicate that population have practically the same access to water, which actually is not able to reflect the actual picture. This study argues that environmental equity can be an additional criterion to improve water management.

Tropical Atlantic (TA) Ocean-atmosphere interactions and their contributions to strong variability of rainfall along the Northeast Brazilian (NEB) coast were investigated for the years 1974–2008. The core rainy seasons of March-April and June-July were identified for Fortaleza (northern NEB; NNEB) and Recife (eastern NEB; ENEB), respectively. Lagged linear regressions between sea surface temperature (SST) and pseudo wind stress (PWS) anomalies over the entire TA and strong rainfall anomalies at Fortaleza and Recife show that the rainfall variability of these regions is differentially influenced by the dynamics of the TA. When the Intertropical Convergence Zone is abnormally displaced southward a few months prior to the NNEB rainy season, the associated meridional mode increases humidity and precipitation during the rainy season. Additionally, this study shows predictive effect of SST, meridional PWS, and barrier layer thickness, in the Northwestern equatorial Atlantic, on the NNEB rainfall. The dynamical influence of the TA on the June-July ENEB rainfall variability shows a northwestward-propagating area of strong, positively correlated SST from the southeastern TA to the southwestern Atlantic warm pool (SAWP) offshore of Brazil. Our results also show predictive effect of SST, zonal PWS, and mixed layer depth, in the SAWP, on the ENEB rainfall.

Tropical Atlantic (TA) Ocean-atmosphere interactions and their contributions to strong variability of rainfall along the Northeast Brazilian (NEB) coast were investigated for the years 1974–2008. The core rainy seasons of March-April and June-July were identified for Fortaleza (northern NEB; NNEB) and Recife (eastern NEB; ENEB), respectively. Lagged linear regressions between sea surface temperature (SST) and pseudo wind stress (PWS) anomalies over the entire TA and strong rainfall anomalies at Fortaleza and Recife show that the rainfall variability of these regions is differentially influenced by the dynamics of the TA. When the Intertropical Convergence Zone is abnormally displaced southward a few months prior to the NNEB rainy season, the associated meridional mode increases humidity and precipitation during the rainy season. Additionally, this study shows predictive effect of SST, meridional PWS, and barrier layer thickness, in the Northwestern equatorial Atlantic, on the NNEB rainfall. The dynamical influence of the TA on the June-July ENEB rainfall variability shows a northwestward-propagating area of strong, positively correlated SST from the southeastern TA to the southwestern Atlantic warm pool (SAWP) offshore of Brazil. Our results also show predictive effect of SST, zonal PWS, and mixed layer depth, in the SAWP, on the ENEB rainfall.

Water availability for a range of human uses will increasingly be affected by climate change, especially in the arid and semiarid tropics. The main objective of this study is to evaluate the infrastructure sufficiency in meeting water demand under climate-induced socio-hydrological transition in the Capibaribe River basin (CRB). The basin has experienced spatial and sectoral (agriculture-to-urban) reconfiguration of water demands. Human settlements that were once dispersed, relying on intermittent sources of surface water, are now larger and more spatially concentrated, which increases water-scarcity effects. Based on the application of linked hydrologic and water-resources models using precipitation and temperature projections of the IPCC SRES (Special Report: Emissions Scenarios) A1B scenario, a reduction in rainfall of 26.0% translated to streamflow reduction of 60.0%. We used simulations from four members of the HadCM3 (UK Met Office Hadley Centre) perturbed physics ensemble, in which a single model structure is used and perturbations are introduced to the physical parameterization schemes in the model (Chou et al., 2012). We considered that the change of the water availability in the basin in the future scenarios must drive the water management and the development of adaptation strategies that will manage the water demand. Several adaptive responses are considered, including water-loss reductions, wastewater collection and reuse, and rainwater collection cisterns, which together have potential to reduce future water demand by 23.0%. This study demonstrates the vulnerabilities of the infrastructure system during socio-hydrological transition in response to hydroclimatic and demand variabilities in the CRB and also indicates the differential spatial impacts and vulnerability of multiple uses of water to changes over time. The simulations showed that the measures proposed and the water from interbasin transfer project of the São Francisco River had a positive impact over the water supply in the basin, mainly for human use. Industry and irrigation will suffer impact unless other measures are implemented for demand control.

Este artigo apresenta um trabalho teórico que pretende analisar o documentário enquanto gênero discursivo, a fim de entender como é construído o discurso nos documentários de temática ambiental. Para tanto, trabalhamos com o pensamento sócio-interacionista de Mikhail Bakhtin, abordando conceitos como dialogismo, gêneros discursivos e polifonia e com os estudos de Bill Nichols acerca do filme documentário.