By Dan Drollette Jr | March 12 the forests of the Amazon were resilient to changes in the climate as the region is exposed to unprecedented stress from global warming leading to massive deforestation—even changing the biome itself from that of a rainy forest rich in biodiversity to a much drier and less-diverse savannah Feedbacks that had once existed to stabilize the balance between the forest and the local environmental are being rapidly replaced by new synergistic feedback systems that tip the region toward what biologists call a “degraded,” less-resilient with potential mass extinctions at the regional level I interviewed the Brazilian scientist and meteorologist Carlos Nobre who has spent decades studying the Amazon and its impacts on the Earth system He earned a doctorate in meteorology from MIT in 1983 working alongside some of the earliest pioneers of climate modeling to understand the effects of climate change in the region; he’s contributed to many Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports (Nobre was also a researcher with Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research for over 30 years where he helped to establish a modern weather and climate forecasting research center.) Nobre is the co-chair of the Science Panel for the Amazon and the leader of the Amazonia 4.0 project which aims to develop a nature-based bioeconomy of standing forests and flowing rivers the 73-year-old Nobre had just flown back from the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos (Editor’s note: This interview has been condensed and edited for brevity and clarity.) Dan Drollette Jr.: In 2019, you co-wrote an open letter in Science Advances called “Amazon tipping point: Last chance for action.” [1] How have things changed since then Carlos Nobre: I think things are becoming much worse particularly from the second half of 2023 onwards We had record-breaking drought in the Amazon In 2024 we had more than 180,000 forest fires all over the Amazon with close to 148,000 of them in the Brazilian Amazon alone And the data show that very few of those fires were ignited by natural causes such as lightning strikes But unlike those wildfires you recently had in Los Angeles where many fires were “man-made” in the sense that they were caused by a combination of things—like accidents we suspect that the man-made wildfires were mostly criminal in origin farmers or cattle ranchers who used fire to clear land and the fire accidentally escaped into the forest this was a matter of organized crime putting fires in the forest the point is that the Amazon had record-breaking drought and record-breaking fires—which also put the Amazon at its lowest river level in history to make 2023 and 2024 closest to the tipping point ever because drought affects not only the fire conditions but increases the forest degradation overall The dry season becomes very dry—almost zero precipitation And that dryness leads to severe forest degradation They’ve all brought the Amazon forest closest to the tipping point Drollette: When people are talking about tipping points in the Amazon Will it be a gradual process or sudden and dramatic there are really two ways of looking at how close the Amazon is to a tipping point The first one is that over a huge area of the southern Amazon—from the Atlantic all the way to the lowlands of Bolivia along with all the southern Brazilian Amazon— the dry season is becoming lengthier and lengthier This is an area close to 2.5 million square kilometers has been seeing the dry season get five weeks lengthier the dry season has been becoming about one week longer per decade The dry season over this southern portion used to be three to four months—and even during the driest part of the dry season But what we are seeing now is that the dry season is not only five weeks lengthier but the rainfall during this season is about 20 or 30 percent less—and the temperature is two where historically the dry season lasted three to four months As soon as it reaches six months, that’s the point at which you hit the climate envelope. What was jungle becomes savannah, the kind of biome found south of the Amazon and north of the Amazon.[2] So that’s one reason why we say we are very close to the tipping point Nobre: Number two is that studies have shown that in the south-eastern Amazon over the last 15 years some forestland has stopped being a carbon sink and has started to become a carbon source forests remove more than 30 percent of all the carbon dioxide that we release into the atmosphere; as late as the 1990s the Amazon rainforest was still removing close to 1 billion tons—and in some years closer to 1.5 billion tons—of carbon dioxide So it’s very concerning that in this area of the Amazon the forest itself has become a carbon source And it’s become a carbon source because the dry season is longer and tree mortality is increasing tremendously So I’m saying that these two factors are going on at the same time—the dry season in the southern Amazon is five weeks lengthier it’s obvious that the Amazon is at the edge of a tipping point Drollette: Why is the dry season becoming five weeks longer Nobre: This is a synergistic combination of droughts induced by global warming combined with deforestation in the Southern Amazon—mostly for pastures for cattle ranches over tens of millions of years of ecological evolution many trees in the Amazon have developed a very deep rooting system where they can access water deep underground And what it means is that even when there is more solar radiation there is plenty of water deep in the soil that the trees can pump up But when you replace the trees of that forest with pasture what happens is that the kinds of plants that live in pasture have very the pasture-associated tree is unable to capture moisture The amount of what we call “evapotranspiration” is about one-third to one-fourth that of trees in the Amazon rainforest that’s one reason why the dry season is becoming lengthier and lengthier there is a tremendous amount of evapotranspiration and that turns into the rain of the rainy season so there’s very little water vapor available to become rain This is happening across the large areas in the Amazon: something like 1 million square kilometers that’s turned to pastures Is there any chance of it going back by itself once an area of rainforest has turned into savannah is there much chance of it turning back on its own to the kind of jungle that was there before And once it reaches that point—most likely around 2050—then about half to 70 percent of the rainforest will become this degraded, savannah-like biome.[3] What many studies show is that if we exceeded two to 2.5 degrees Celsius of warming and have only 20 to 25 percent of the Amazon forest left then we are going to reach the tipping point where it will self-degrade then  we release more than 200 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere making it almost impossible to keep global warming down even if we could completely stop emissions of greenhouse gasses—let’s say we would be able to keep the temperature at 1.5 degrees by the 2100—even if that happens it will take several centuries for the forest to regrow and then slowly it  would be reducing the length of the dry season It would take hundreds and hundreds of years Though I suppose some climate-deniers might contest it someone here in North America—who says “Okay so the Amazon dries up in the Southern Hemisphere Nobre: I would say that there have been numerous science papers published which show that this drying-up process means that there would be at least a 30-percent reduction in rainfall And studies have shown as soon as you do something on that scale in the Amazon then you start generating atmospheric wave effects that propagate to the north And these waves would induce even more droughts in California And a second impact is what I already mentioned—that within 30 to 50 years we are going to lose at least 202 billion tons of carbon making it impossible to keep the temperature rise below 1.5 degrees And a third impact I’d tell them is that the degradation of the Amazon rainforest raises tremendously the risk of epidemics and pandemics we are having epidemics that can be traced to the Amazon Two of them are especially concerning: One is a virus called mayaro fever They are transmitted by infected mosquitoes; there are no vaccines to prevent them or medicines to treat them There are least 48 such zoonoses that we know of from this region—that is diseases that can be passed from animals to humans And a fourth impact is that if the Amazon goes then we are going to lose the largest level of biodiversity on the planet Drollette: We talked earlier about whether there’s a chance of this self-degrading process turning back on its own—which sounds like it won’t happen But what about man-made reforestation—in other words taking an abandoned cattle ranch and replanting it with rainforest species Can fallow land like that be brought back to rainforest Nobre: This is one thing that I have been working on a lot; I’m a member of the Brazilian Development Bank’s Advisory Board And that fact alone is pretty significant; for the first time in its more than 50-year history this bank has someone on its advisory board from the environmental science end but also a former Minister of Environment in Brazil So we’ve started bringing to this bank a lot of these questions about climate change And one of the things that I raised in 2023 was the need for reforestation in the Amazon And most of that land is in the form of cattle ranches with degraded pasture—totally degraded So the big challenge is how to convince cattle ranchers to get part of their pasture restored I expect that even after they get on board it may still take some time to see an effect—but then it will accelerate For the first three years of reforestation And then a rancher can go into the carbon credit markets The big challenge is to convince cattle ranchers to try it, which is not easy, because cattle ranchers, culturally, are very much in favor of having 10,000 to 20,000 hectare cattle ranges.[6] It’s a cultural thing But I’m optimistic that the Brazilian government—and other Amazon governments—will fully support these kinds of really large-scale forestry restoration projects Though I think we all have to fight for it to happen Nobre: The big challenge is how to combat organized crime most of the fires in the Amazon were man-made fires And a lot of those fires were caused by organized crime which historically has been responsible for about 80 percent of deforestation in the history of the Amazon the economy of this organized crime in the Amazon is about $280 billion a year So that’s a big challenge—our Minister of Environment agrees with me in thinking that it’s responsible for most of these forest fires in 2024 Drollette: Can you explain some of the mechanics of the role of organized crime Nobre: Organized crime is involved in the illegal land market or areas that fall into gray areas—lands that were not clearly designated as public There has been an illegal cattle ranch market going on for decades and decades And it seems that a lot of what happened last year was related to organized crime Drollette: Were there any last comments that you wanted to make Nobre: I think we have to look quickly to nature-based solutions: restoring the rainforest regenerative agriculture that really looks at the long-term It’s totally feasible—a new “bio-economy” of social biodiversity and the largest-scale forestry restoration that will improve the livelihoods of all Amazonian populations So I’m very optimistic that we are going to scale up initiatives like the Arc of Restoration [1] See https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aba2949 [2] A savannah is typically considered to be a mixture of grassland and woods with the trees so widely spaced that the canopy above does not close [4] 24 million hectares is about 92,664 square miles Yellowstone National Park in the United States is 3,472 square miles [5] For more about the Arc of Restoration program, see the December 2, 2023 Reuters article, “Brazil launches $204 million drive to restore Amazon rainforest” at https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/brazil-launches-204-million-drive-restore-amazon-rainforest-2023-12-02/ [6] Roughly between 38 and 77 square miles the island of Manhattan is 22.82 square miles in size The Bulletin elevates expert voices above the noise. But as an independent nonprofit organization, our operations depend on the support of readers like you. Help us continue to deliver quality journalism that holds leaders accountable. Your support of our work at any level is important we promise our coverage will be understandable Δdocument.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value" Δdocument.getElementById( "ak_js_2" ).setAttribute( "value" Dan Drollette Jr is the executive editor of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. He is a science writer/editor and foreign correspondent... Read More Copyright © 2025 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. All rights reserved. Registered 501(c)(3). EIN: 36-2136497 Terms of UsePrivacy Policy By Nate Hagens, originally published by The Great Simplification The Amazon Rainforest is one of the Earth’s most vital systems playing a key role in maintaining the balance and stability of our climate which influences global rainfall patterns and regulates temperatures is increasingly threatened by human activity What is the current status of the ancient Amazon Rainforest and how could its trajectory shape the entire planet for thousands of years to come Nate speaks with Earth scientist Carlos Nobre to explore the critical challenges facing the Amazon They delve into the rainforest’s unique ecological dynamics the devastating impact of deforestation and wildfires on its ability to function and how the health of the Amazon directly influences the climate of the entire world In what ways does the astounding biodiversity of the Amazon play critical roles in its resilience and how is that biodiversity being put at risk How could a system that has sustained its own water cycles for millions of years suddenly tip into a self-drying savanna what actions should countries – beyond the Amazonia region itself – take to support the conservation and restoration of the world’s largest rainforest and the people that call it home an innovative project to demonstrate the feasibility of a new socio-bioeconomy of standing forests and flowing rivers in the Amazon PDF Transcript 00:00 – Carlos Nobre info + works, Science Panel for the Amazon, Large-Scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment, Amazonia 4.0 Amazon Assessment Report 2021 03:04 – National Institute of Amazonian Research 03:15 – 0.5% of the Amazon had been deforested in 1975 + more info on deforestation in the Amazon 06:46 – Evolution of the Amazon + more info 07:10 – Water recycling in the Amazon + more info 07:43 – Annual rainfall in the Amazon 08:19 – Rainforest transpiration during wet vs dry season + more info 12:15 – 150-200 billion tons of carbon stored in the Amazon + carbon cycle in the Amazon 14:27 – Impact of Amazon deforestation on rainfall, impact on global climactic events, impact on US climate 16:14 – *92% of sunlight is absorbed by the rainforest canopy 17:57 – Wildfires and drought in the Amazon 18:28 – Climate change and droughts in the Amazon 19:16 – Previous droughts + 2023/24 drought 19:45 – El Niño phenomenon + intensities 20:00 – El Niño and drought in the Amazon 20:45 – Amazon deforestation and climate change 1990 paper + 1991 paper 21:00 – Amazon deforestation figures 22:02 – 1990 IPCC report 22:50 – 2016 paper on tipping points in the Amazon 23:00 – Today 18% of the Amazon has been deforested 23:11 – We reached 1.5 degrees warming in 2023 23:32 – Increasing dry season length in the Amazon 24:05 – Forests’ role as carbon sinks 24:15 – The Amazon’s role as a carbon sink + more info 24:23 – The Amazon has become a carbon source 25:00 – 2024 paper: Critical transitions in the Amazon forest system 25:15 – Amazon forest degradation 27:58 – Amazon deforestation halved in 2023 28:35 – Amazon summit Belém 31:05 – August 2024 temperature record 32:10 – Current climate policies will lead to 2.5 degrees warming 33:02 – Military dictatorship in Brazil + Colonialism, dictatorship and deforestation  34:40 – Fires caused by criminal activity + 90% of deforestation is illegal 35:50 – Satellite monitoring of deforestation in Brazil 36:55 – ‘Arcs of Restoration’ policy brief 38:36 – The cost of saving tropical forests 40:30 – Biodiversity in the Amazon: 16,000 tree species + 50,000 plant species 41:30 – Oropouche virus 42:03 – Pandemic risks from the Amazon 42:50 – The Amazon River 44:05 – Planetary tipping points + more info 44:10 – Johan Rockström + TGS Episode 44:20 – Permafrost collapse and carbon release 45:25 – 6th Mass Extinction + Has the Earth’s 6th Mass Extinction already arrived? 45:50 – Atmospheric CO2 46:15 – Corey Bradshaw + TGS Episode, impact of warming on extinctions 47:08 – Secondary forests + carbon sink potential of secondary forests in Brazilian Amazon 49:05 – Regenerative Agriculture 51:04 – The Amazon’s ‘flying rivers’ 51:20 – Economics of Amazon reforestation 51:40 – Law preventing products causing deforestation from being sold in EU 52:49 – Profitability of agroforestry + more info 53:11 – Growth in global beef consumption 54:03 – IPCC on cutting out meat 55:40 – Environmental impact of beef consumption 56:57 – 65% of deforestation caused by cattle ranches 58:06 – Afro-descendent presence in the Amazon 59:20 – Peoples of the Amazon before european colonization 1:00:00 – Indigenous population in Brazil over time 1:00:10 – The Amazon is home to *1.5 million indigenous people 1:01:15 – Sonia Guajajara 1:01:30 – Brazil’s congress pushing against indigenous land rights + more info 1:03:16 – Amazon Creative Labs: Cupuacu-Cacau 1:05:57 – Amazon Institute of Technology + more info 1:08:15 – Planetary Guardians + Planetary Boundaries Nate Hagens is the Director of The Institute for the Study of Energy & Our Future (ISEOF) an organization focused on educating and preparing society for the coming cultural transition politicians and systems thinkers ISEOF assembles road-maps and off-ramps for how human societies can adapt to lower throughput lifestyles Nate holds a Masters Degree in Finance with Honors from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D in Natural Resources from the University of Vermont By Rupert Read, Ed Jarvis The recent Climate Change Committee report on the UK government’s lack of preparedness for climate breakdown reveals negligence at a historic scale By Kurt Cobb, Resource Insights Our political discourse is actually far narrower than our total public discourse which makes addressing big problems such as climate change very difficult By Helena Norberg-Hodge, Henry Coleman, Local Futures we need to condemn globalization loud and clear And we need a cohesive strategy that moves us sensibly and sanely in the opposite direction Resilience is a program of Post Carbon Institute a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping the world transition away from fossil fuels and build sustainable Reposting Policy | Privacy Policy Nobre has held key leadership roles at Corning Life Sciences This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks The action you just performed triggered the security solution There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page His goal is to transform the heart of the Amazon into a cutting-edge science production hub by connecting technical expertise and Native peoples’ knowledge this effort would sound impossible in a region that is increasingly degraded and taken over by environmental crime But Carlos Nobre — one of the greatest experts on climate change in Brazil and a major researcher of forest matters — is focused on turning this old dream into reality Nobre projected that the Amazon would undergo a savannization process if deforestation kept its fast pace and today he is considered a pioneer in his field of study While the scientist’s predictions have turned into an unfortunate prophecy come true he does not lose hope of seeing a radical change in the process of destruction which is increasingly close to being irreversible In the same year that he became the second Brazilian member of the Royal Society — the oldest scientific society in the world — Nobre also launched a draft project for the groundbreaking Amazon Institute of Technology (AmIT) a Pan-Amazonian research and education center inspired by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and focused on the development of a new bioeconomy Nobre is optimistic about the future of the world’s largest rainforest Brazil can reach zero deforestation within a few years be one of the first major emitters to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement and become a world reference in the development of a bioeconomy based on natural resources He is a researcher at the Institute of Advanced Studies at the University of São Paulo and the author of several reports for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change In a video interview with Mongabay in early December Nobre spoke about the current situation in the Amazon after four years under Bolsonaro analyzed the scenarios for the forest after the election of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and detailed the plans for AmIT which should get off the ground in the near future you published the first studies projecting that in case of massive deforestation in the Amazon the forest would undergo a process of savannization Carlos Nobre: If we look at the ecological evolution of the Amazon Forest over millions of years we will see that the forest only exists when the dry season is short — 3 or 4 months at the most — and it rains during that time shortened the dry season and lowered the temperature in the region by at least five degrees Another very important aspect of the evolution of the forest is that it is dense rainforest — that is Virtually all solar radiation is absorbed by the trees and very little of it reaches the soil — around 4% there isn’t enough solar energy to evaporate water it carries so much energy that the place dries up and catches fire But the conditions in the forest prevent this fire from spreading This ecological evolution of millions and millions of years allowed the tropical forest to be the way it is a much larger number of species and capacity to store much more carbon fire is an element that has existed for tens of millions of years and the biome has adapted to it and evolved — for example but they cover between 20-25% of the surface The rest are grasses and shrubs that go into senescence — that is they stop carrying out photosynthesis and transpiration studies projected this savannization scenario less than 10% of the entire Amazon was deforested and what those studies pointed out was a projection the dry season became 4-5 weeks longer across the southern Amazon where 35% of the forest has been cleared already and the start of the rainy season was equally delayed This is due to a combination of factors: global warming and changes in land use Global warming is increasing the temperature of the Atlantic Ocean north of the tropical equator but they used to happen more or less every two decades which is why the Amazon Rainforest has evolved almost without fire Sometimes there would be a huge drought caused by El Niño when electrical discharge could result in fire and burn a large area but then the forest would have several decades to regenerate: The secondary forest would grow then the primary one would take over again Droughts are happening very often now — about twice per decade causing tree mortality to increase without time to recover The forest is not adapted to recover from such frequent droughts we have the issue of massive deforestation throughout the southern Amazon from the Atlantic to Bolivia [more than 800,000 sqare miles] which undermines the water recycling process The forest has evolved very efficiently in terms of recycling water About 10-20% of the trees have very deep roots and are able to access the water that falls in the rainy season they pull up that water and bring it to the ground Since solar radiation is stronger in this season the leaves sweat a lot; it’s what we call evapotranspiration Such strong transpiration in the dry season brings a lot of water to the atmospheric layer Certain regions of the Amazon have 270-300 rainy days a year what happens in that area replaced by pastures is low transpiration — about 0.06 inches a day That is three times less water rising and helping to form clouds and a 20-30% decrease in rainfall during the dry season which is causing a huge increase in tree mortality throughout the region the trees degrade and emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere That entire area has become a source of carbon That’s why this immense region is very close to its point of no return I’d put it on the list of the biggest impacts of climate change While the planet’s average temperature has risen by 1.15°C in the Arctic it has already increased by 4°C This happened because ice reflects 60% of solar radiation All that extra solar radiation warms up the ocean This is one place where climate change is exploding and the other place where it’s also exploding is southern Amazon where the temperature has already risen by 2°C Mongabay: But have we already reached that point of no return Carlos Nobre: There are scientists who think that the far south of the Amazon may have already passed its point of no return and there is nothing we can do because as the forest dies it drives less rain and the climate becomes increasingly similar to that of the Cerrado think that if we overcome two major challenges – preventing the global temperature from increasing more than 1.5°C and reaching zero deforestation — the forest will remain there a climate change of more than 2.5°C would lead to savannization in the Amazon The dry season is increasing one week per decade so it could reach 6 months in another two or three decades It would become an ecosystem similar to the Cerrado but very poor in biodiversity and storing much less carbon projection studies indicate that 50-70% of the Amazon as we know it today would disappear because the Andes drive a lot of rainfall in the region if we didn’t have global warming but deforestation exceeded 40% in the Amazon forest water recycling would decrease so much that the dry season would also last longer than six months and would also drive savannization So these two challenges must be overcome in order to avoid that scenario you presented a project on forest restoration Carlos Nobre: Several researchers like Luciana Gatti and I believe that if we are successful in the Paris Agreement if we reach zero deforestation and quickly rebuild the secondary forest in this area of southern Amazon This is what the project we launched at COP27 is about The secondary forest evolved over tens of millions of years along with the primary forest: When you had a huge drought caused by El Niño which happened more or less once a century thousands of square miles of forest ended up destroyed by fire so we think two restoration arcs are necessary – a huge one from the Atlantic to Bolivia While rain is very intense in the Andes and the forest is unlikely to disappear its biodiversity is the greatest on the planet there will be a huge impact on biodiversity in 2015 Brazil committed to neutralizing greenhouse gas emissions by midcentury the country has been increasing its emissions since then mainly due to the advance in deforestation Is it still possible to meet the targets of the agreement first of all we must reach zero deforestation and degradation in all biomes We saw a 60% increase in deforestation in the Amazon [during the Bolsonaro administration] There was also enormous deforestation in the Cerrado the Atlantic Forest and the Pampas during that period Deforestation accounts for almost 50% of our emissions and the official data from emission inventories do not include those caused by degradation we’ll have virtually met the first goal of the Paris Agreement which is to reduce emissions by 50% by 2030 And then we have the next challenge: to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 Almost 30% of our emissions come from agriculture increasing livestock productivity to such a level that we will use less than 50% of the approximately 650,000 mi2 of pasture used today much more efficiently and greatly reducing emissions it’s possible to make our farming regenerative without huge costs but government policies and the private sector must invest in this change About 18-20% of Brazilian emissions come from burning fossil fuels and the investment needs to focus on renewables but any need to increase demand — which occurs especially if we improve the quality of life of the poorest people [which increases electricity consumption] — will have to be supplied by wind Brazil has all the conditions to be the first country to reach the goals of the Paris Agreement; it is the only big emitter that can reduce 50% of emissions by 2030 become a great example and be a leading force among all tropical countries our economy will become much more powerful Mongabay: The election of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has awakened a sense of hope in several segments of civil society previous PT-led administrations were also marked by some setbacks in environmental agendas Do you believe that from 2023 on we will resume social and environmental policies that were abandoned by the Bolsonaro administration Carlos Nobre: There is well-known criticism related to the fact that the Belo Monte dam was approved during the first Lula administration But I think there has been a change in attitude this new administration no longer advocates unreasonable expansion of power dams we need to wait to see what the new administration policies will be the discourse of the candidate and then President-elect Lula is pointing to an economy based on a standing forest in which a standing tree is worth much more than a felled one a new economy that must respect all the rights of traditional peoples who want to keep the forest standing It’s been 20 years [since the first Lula administration] and the price of solar energy has dropped by 80% since then wind energy already costs one-third of the price of thermoelectric power and less than half the price of hydroelectric power So we have sustainable solutions for energy supply the world has evolved a lot in terms of sustainable solutions I feel that some of the mistakes of the first eight years of the Lula administrations will be corrected I can’t imagine the new government creating any policy that encourages and stimulates deforestation or degradation The president has said very clearly that he is going to invest in the fight against organized crime which has exploded in the Amazon over the last four years Mongabay: What should the government do to fulfill its promise of reducing crime and forest degradation Carlos Nobre: The great success of the Lula administrations and then the first Rousseff administration in reducing deforestation by 83% [from 2004 to 2012] was due to several factors but some of the most important ones were the policies of command and the creation of environmental protection areas and demarcation of Indigenous lands illegal airstrips for wildcat mining — all that can be seen by satellites Satellites see the crimes on the first day they happen in which it’s hard to track down the drugs with effective command and control actions Back then [in previous PT-led administrations] the Federal Police also carried out numerous investigations to find out who funded environmental crimes There is indeed a possibility of tackling environmental crime and this is what this new administration is committed to the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples has been created which will help a lot in the process of demarcating Indigenous lands Mongabay: You are leading an innovative project which has been called the ‘MIT of the Amazon’ for its proposal to develop a bioeconomy based on natural resources biodiversity and forests in a revolutionary way inspired by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Carlos Nobre: The idea is to have a technology development institute on the same lines as MIT except that AmIT is being designed and developed as Pan-Amazonian from the beginning It will include decentralized research and education centers throughout the Amazon We want to involve as many Amazonian countries as possible We have already started some preliminary talks with Colombia The idea is that everything will be done in the Amazon but spread over many places There will be numerous floating laboratories on boats mobile and fixed research bases as well as education centers It’s something quite new because we intend to use modern and virtual technologies for teaching We want this technology development and education center to be open to students from all over the Amazon and now the time is ripe for us to try to implement it Mongabay: Five main lines of work for AmIT are outlined in the project’s preliminary documents Carlos Nobre: The five lines for the research and development centers are: Amazonian waters sustainable infrastructure and urban Amazon These are the five major areas in which we are really going to develop a new bioeconomy These are the major areas for developing what we call the bioeconomy of standing forests and flowing rivers Amazonian waters because this is the place with the largest freshwater river system in the world the highest flow and the greatest diversity of aquatic systems and it’s perfectly possible to develop an industrialized society that uses all forms of renewable energy without the need for large dams that cause major changes in the aquatic ecosystems of the Amazon Urban Amazon because 65% of the population of the Amazon and we need to develop solutions for these people as well advancing with sustainable infrastructure for transportation Forests and socio-biodiversity because this is obviously the Amazon’s great potential as it has the greatest biodiversity on the planet and the knowledge of traditional peoples and local communities the Amazon has more than 800,000 ​​mi2 deforested or degraded for developing agroforestry systems in most of the altered landscapes a prefeasibility study for AmIT was presented Carlos Nobre: MIT helped us to carry out a prefeasibility study We are now developing the full study and the implementation plan We want to have this full plan by the middle of next year to deliver it in August or September we are already going to show how all laboratories will be as well as the educational system and the physical infrastructure with decentralized educational and laboratory infrastructure focused on building this new economy of the standing forest something we’ve been advocating for a long time The institute will be an important training hub for thousands of students every year AmIT will also be a partner of the entire national and mainly international Amazonian network of research institutes and universities It’s not one thing; it’s something done in partnership with existing institutions Mongabay: Are you already organizing these partnerships in addition to continuing to work with MIT we established partnerships with Stanford University and numerous others in Brazil; with state governments the National Institute of Amazonian Research the National Institute for Space Research [INPE] as well as several other national and international universities and the private sector When we launch the plan in the middle of next year we will also seek major international partnerships with banks in addition to private banks and governments that may fund the creation of the AmIT Mongabay: The AmIT’s executive summary states that its revolutionary vision — and also the institute’s biggest challenge — is to focus its actions on social empowerment Mongabay: This social empowerment of Amazonian populations will be based on quality education and on the creation of development conditions for a very quick and effective implementation of this new economy of the standing forest the idea is to have many young students from urban and rural Amazon The goal is to provide all these young people with an educational option that allows them to engage in all aspects of this new bioeconomy Banner image: Researcher Carlos Nobre on his way to a research tower in the Amazon Photo courtesy of Tore Marklund/Volvo Environment Prize FEEDBACK: Use this form to send a message to the author of this post Brazil’s new environmental future under Lula: Q&A with Marina Silva The “fortress conservation” model is under pressure in East Africa as protected areas become battlegrounds over history and global efforts to halt biodiversity loss Mongabay’s Special Issue goes beyond the region’s world-renowned safaris to examine how rural communities and governments are reckoning with conservation’s colonial origins and trying to forge a path forward […] Carlos Nobre chairs the Science Panel for the Amazon a group of scientists and experts that is carrying out the first full scientific assessment of the region a Brazilian climate scientist specializing in the effects of climate change in the Amazon and a leader in science policy for a sustainable Amazon will receive the 2021 AAAS Award for Science Diplomacy established in 2013 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science recognizes an individual or small group working together in the science engineering or foreign affairs communities to make an outstanding contribution to the field of science diplomacy Nobre is honored for “his career-spanning work to understand and protect the biodiversity and Indigenous Peoples of the Amazon,” according to the award committee Nobre is serving as the chair of the Science Panel for the Amazon an effort convened by the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network (UN SDSN) as the first-ever comprehensive scientific assessment of the Amazon Basin Nobre is leading more than 160 scientists from Amazonian countries and beyond – including indigenous experts – to develop a scientific assessment of the region and present data-informed solutions to guide the protection conservation and sustainable development of the rainforest The panel’s report is expected to be released in early 2021 Nobre’s “life-long scientific career in understanding the biological complexity of the Amazon coupled with decades of involvement in science policy” equips him to lead such an effort said Emma Torres in her letter nominating Nobre for the award is the UN SDSN secretariat vice president of the Americas and head of the New York office who currently serves as senior scientist at the Institute of Advanced Studies at the University of São Paulo is best-known for his work on the “savannization” of the Amazon due to climate change and deforestation which seeks to develop a sustainable “bio-economy” for the region Nobre has contributed to the scientific understanding of the Amazon rainforest as a globally important ecosystem and as part of the irreplaceable ecological and cultural heritage for all of humanity,” said Torres He has applied this work in the science policy realm in a number of roles He served as a member of the International Panel on Climate Change which was honored with the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 he was named a member of the UN Secretary-General’s Scientific Advisory Board for Global Sustainability Nobre has also brought his leadership to building scientific capacity in Brazil and forging international scientific cooperation having served as the national secretary for research and development policies at the Brazilian Ministry of Science and Innovation; president of Brazilian Federal Agency for Support and Evaluation of Graduate Education; and first program scientist for the Large-Scale Biosphere Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia “Carlos’s leadership inspires action and encourages multilateralism providing a framework to allow us to move towards a more sustainable and equitable future Nobre will be honored at an awards ceremony at the virtual AAAS Annual Meeting on Feb. 10 at 4 p.m. EST. He will also moderate a session at the meeting, “Amazon Development Pathways: Fostering Conservation and Prosperity,” to be held Feb. 8 at 1 p.m. To attend the Annual Meeting, register today If you know someone that should be recognized for the Award for Science Diplomacy, please consider nominating them in our next upcoming cycle – which opens April 15, 2021. More information on eligibility requirements and the awards ahead of April 15 can be found here Our ability to provide a voice for scientists and engineers and to advance science depends on the support from individuals like you Give together we can be a united voice for scientific progress.  Join Kia Nobre really had no intention of leaving Oxford she’d chaired the venerable university’s Department of Experimental Psychology for several years and directed the Oxford Centre for Human Brain Activity where she had done formative research Then, in early 2022, she was contacted by a colleague at Yale, where she had earned her Ph.D. in 1993, who asked if she might consider a role at the Wu Tsai Institute (WTI) the university’s new home for the study of cognition “Several factors aligned and made me take pause and say maybe I’d like to think about this one,’” Nobre said Nobre returned to Yale as the inaugural director of WTI’s Center for Neurocognition and Behavior Working with WTI Director Nick Turk-Browne and other leaders she is helping to develop the advanced WTI facilities and conduct outreach to university partners who studies how the human brain anticipates and picks out important information from its surroundings and memories to guide behavior is also the Wu Tsai Professor of Psychology in Yale’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences She recently spoke with Yale News about what ultimately brought her back to Yale and having her perspectives flipped upside down This interview has been edited and condensed Kia Nobre: Yale was a deeply formative place for me It’s where I became the scientist and the academic I am But the opportunity also came at just the right juncture in my life and my lab continues to be one of the main loves of my life But over time I ended up doing a lot more leadership and service so I like to be able to give something back And I had gotten to a stage where I was interested in shaping the future of academia I was thinking about how we need to start forming scientists who can thrive and contribute in a much more hybrid future The problems facing society today are complex and interconnected requiring a much more collaborative scientific endeavor both with academic institutions as well as with non-academic sectors The Wu Tsai Institute has the freedom of not being tethered to any specific school or department It has the support of the greater institution and it’s well-funded once I met the directors of its other centers [Daniel Colón-Ramos of the Center for Neurodevelopment and Plasticity of the Center for Neurocomputation and Machine Intelligence] I realized these people are for real in the sense that they really do want to do things in a collaborative and interdisciplinary way He is a farsighted and intrepid philosopher who realized that digital technologies would transform human understanding and society He created the field of philosophy of information and over the years focused more and more on digital ethics so it turned out to be an interesting opportunity for both of us We could put all our experience to the test to build meaningful new initiatives to benefit science One is enabling other people to do great science We have a core facility named “BrainWorks” with the most advanced methods for measuring the human brain and behavior We want to make sure it not only has all this amazing equipment but also provides people with know-how and support to do the best science in a rigorous The second piece is what I’m thinking of as a new program of knowledge-sharing activities It’s really about creating multilateral productive interactions between science and society and about equipping advanced graduate students and postdoctoral researchers to be the scientists of the future There’s a constant dialogue about how to make things more collaborative and interactive and how to make sure that the events that we put together or investments we make yield more than the sum of their parts but we’re all completely harmonious and complementary Nobre: I’m interested in how the human brain makes mental experience The methods we have today to measure the human brain are astonishing in many ways compared with what they were when I started they’re super primitive compared with methods at the cellular and molecular levels that can only be applied to other organisms or preparations the kind of science I can do best is more about trying to extract the principles of how brain networks and dynamics are organized to serve behavior and researchers working in animal or cellular models can dig into the nitty gritty mechanisms I study a topic that affects most if not all brain functions and therefore enables me to dabble in understanding all kinds of different things I study what the field generally calls “attention,” but it’s not really attention as we normally define it and prioritizes one thing over everything else how it seeks out and focuses on what is relevant or interesting This proactive and dynamic property of “focus” is essential for supporting perception learning and building memories for the future We have some first-of-their-kind equipment we have brand new methods to measure magnetic fields in people’s brains which will let us track brain activity with high resolution while people move about we’ve had to put people into these big MRI machines and study how the brain supports real-world cognition But I also really want to bring in new types of scientists it would be great to welcome people from robotics and engineering interested in a deeper understanding of human-machine interactions It’s not just about using the technology to understand the human brain It’s also about bringing our sciences together into a richer ecosystem of discovery and innovation Nobre: I reflect all the time about everything My graduate school advisor taught me by example There was such pride in doing the most rigorous most well-controlled science and doing it in a way that we knew was completely reliable One of the things that brings me a great sense of fulfillment as a scientist is the thought that anyone who reads a paper of mine will instinctively trust it because they know the design and methods have been carried out to the highest standards My love for innovating methods also started here Functional MRI was discovered when I was a graduate student and I was on the first paper to use fully non-invasive fMRI to investigate human cognition That method completely transformed the study of the human brain and mind That kind of pioneering spirit has never left me Nobre: The thing that I love more than anything else is to learn and to see things in new ways really curious about understanding other perspectives Almost every discipline intersects with the human mind I’m looking forward to having my perspectives turned inside out and upside down and learning from others during which he proposed new policy briefs to help combat deforestation in Amazonian climates Carlos Nobre shares how his ground-breaking ideas were born in Bellagio in Meteorology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Science Panel for the Amazon (SPA) was convened in New York City during Climate Week in order to make a rigorous scientific assessment of the Amazon rainforest The panel was created by the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network in September 2019 in response to the alarming rate of deforestation and wildfires occurring mostly in the Brazilian Amazon Two-thirds of those scientists were from Amazonian countries The first report from our research was released at COP26 in Glasgow Along with professor Dolos Arment from the National University of Colombia we continued to collaborate with a large number of scientists and produce assessments We released three of these policy briefs during COP27 in Egypt One related to how close we are to the tipping point of degradation in a large portion of the Amazon rainforest The second highlighted how important indigenous territories are to maintaining climate stability as they store over 75 million tons of carbon The third policy brief proposed a large-scale forest restoration project we call Arcs of Restoration With another project I’m now developing, called Amazon 4.0 we’re trying to figure out how to develop a new economy of standing forests and flowing rivers in the Amazon no need to make these big hydropower dams that produce disturbances in the aquatic ecosystems The potential of renewable energies such as solar panels and green hydrogen in the entire Amazon is so large that it renders additional hydropower dams unnecessary we proposed the Amazonian Institute of Technology We want to create an MIT-style Institute of Technology in all Amazonian countries which will aim to bring about science and the knowledge of indigenous people resulting in technological innovations in order to develop this new economy that will increase the value of what the forest produces The Amazon 4.0 project was conceptualized while at Bellagio Bellagio enabled me to dream about what this new model economy could become I searched for funding once I returned to Brazil and in 2019 we started developing the Amazon 4.0 project Conversations with my fellow residents really influenced my work told me a lot about plants to reduce poverty in India Professor Emerita at the University of Oregon explained to me how large-scale investments work the Amazon 4.0 project has continued to develop and we are going to take one Amazon Creative Lab for the cocoa-cupuaçu value chain and carry out capacity development for several communities in the Amazon The Science Panel for the Amazon will continue developing policy briefs One that we are working towards in 2023 is called Innovation Hubs which focuses on combining modern technologies with indigenous knowledge; the wisdom found in local communities The panel is not intergovernmental – we are just a group of scientists I’m used to working with brilliant scientists not only to become scientists but to help in developing this new bio-economy in the Amazon so I’m happy to see a new generation of leaders and to know this important work is continuing Over the course of my career, I’ve advised around 35 Ph.D. and Master’s students, as well as 12 post-doctoral students. I would say that about 40% of my students went on to become important leaders in research on climate change. One of them is working in partnership with U.K. Universities, such as Exeter, and leading a very important experiment in the Amazon called AmazonFACE (Amazon Free-Air CO2 Enrichment) They’ll be enhancing the carbon dioxide concentrations in a forest for several years to see how the forest responds to more CO2 in the atmosphere I started AmazonFACE with my former student, David Lapola That’s just one example of a student who became a very important scientist and is leading this significant experiment One of the biggest challenges of my career has always been motivating students I want to motivate students to become what we call Ecopreneurs To find out more about Carlos’s work, you can read about the Amazonia 4.0 project, the Science Panel for the Amazon, and CEMADEN. You can also visit his Google Scholar page The Rockefeller Foundation is taking urgent steps to support and protect our planet we are on a path to 2.7 degrees of warming resulting in unbearably harsh living conditions that will affect us all especially those in under-resourced and historically marginalized communities The Rockefeller Foundation's mission is to promote the well-being of humanity and make opportunity universal and sustainable Sign up for our newsletter to stay updated on all the latest news and events These were then sent to the presidents of Amazonian countries: Brazil Nobre says that the conversations surrounding how to achieve a new bioeconomy are what make him optimistic The first time Nobre traveled to the Amazon was in 1971 there was almost zero deforestation,” he recalls meaning that he had the opportunity to see the region in good health But following that experience more than half-a-century ago he began to warn the public that the Amazon Rainforest could reach a point of no return What do you feel when you see what’s happening to the Amazon Answer. I’m very worried. I’ve done a lot of research on this topic. Thirty-three years ago, we published the first scientific article calling attention to deforestation the deforestation of only 7% of the Amazon would lead us to the tipping point it’s not only a projection for the future — we’re at the edge of the tipping point And that’s the idea of this conference: how to maintain the forest and how to improve the livelihoods of the entire Amazonian population We have to create a new economy — we call it the “standing forest economy.” Q. You’re the first author of a recent study on how the bioeconomy is key to the Brazilian Amazon The study looks at the potential of the value chains of forest products if we develop these products — instead of developing the standard businesses which has been the main driver of deforestation for 50 years — we’ll be able to sustain the forest this would generate more than 300,000 more jobs while tremendously improving the quality of life of the entire Amazonian population It would also imply the restoration of a very large area — almost one million square kilometers (386,000 square miles) — which also implies removing almost 1,000 million tons of carbon dioxide each year from the atmosphere This is essential to combat the climate emergency How do you explain the bioeconomy to someone who doesn’t understand the concept The bioeconomy is an economy that has to do with the products [that come from] nature There are several definitions — we prefer to use the term “standing forest bioeconomy” so that it’s not confused with other bioeconomies [so as to] prevent the Amazon from reaching a point of no return we must maintain the forests and restore [the large parts] that we have already degraded How can the bioeconomy help us avoid reaching that point of no return One is in the Amazon itself: [we need] zero deforestation zero degradation and the restoration of degraded areas we need to meet the Paris Agreement’s targets because if we lose control of the global climate and we reach a temperature increase of [3.6˚F] this would cause the Amazon Rainforest to disappear we have these two challenges: one local and one global reach zero deforestation and start this great restoration project [of 386,000 square miles] the growth of a secondary forest would be able to stop the tipping points there are a number of scientists who say the southern Amazon has already reached a tipping point… but there’s still a scientific discussion to be had Regarding the changes that the Amazon is undergoing you’ve used the term “savannization.” What does this consist of we have what are known as tropical savannas [These areas have] a monsoon type of climate when we talk about the savannization of the Amazon we mean that — when the point of no return is reached — only 50% of the region would be forest only in the places where a lot of rain continues to fall east and the center of the Amazon — would begin to have a climate like that of the savanna with a dry season [that lasts] six months… [In these conditions] Q. A series of recommendations for the governments of Amazonian countries have emerged from this conference What would you say to the leaders of these countries if you were in front of them That it’s urgent to achieve zero deforestation and degradation although I know that it’s a great challenge because a lot of [these activities] have to do with organized crime But that’s why we need governments to apply effective governance we must also convince [these leaders] that the economic potential of standing forests — of the bioeconomy — is much greater than that of the agriculture sector as we know it today because the politicians continue to be associated with the current economy with livestock… We must fight a great battle to convince the governments We see that there are political speeches — like those by Lula [in Brazil] or Petro [in Colombia] — that are beautiful there’s a large group of politicians [in the Amazon region] that are associated with the current economy Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition ¿Quieres añadir otro usuario a tu suscripción ¿Por qué estás viendo esto? cambia tu suscripción a la modalidad Premium Cada uno accederá con su propia cuenta de email lo que os permitirá personalizar vuestra experiencia en EL PAÍS ¿Tienes una suscripción de empresa? 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Kia Nobre, Professor of Translational Cognitive Neuroscience at Oxford University, has been awarded the C.L. de Carvalho-Heineken Prize for Cognitive Science 2022 This honours her innovative approach to imaging and understanding the human brain as well as the impact of this work on numerous subfields of cognitive neuroscience Main image: Professor Kia Nobre (left) receiving the Heineken Prize for Cognitive Science with Charlene L de Carvalho-Heineken (right) the daughter of Alfred Heineken who introduced the prizes in 1964 The Heineken Prizes are the Netherlands’ most prestigious international science prizes Every two years they are awarded by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences to five distinguished researchers in the fields of Biochemistry and Biophysics Professor Nobre received her trophy and prize of 200,000 US Dollars last night at a celebratory event held at the Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ concert hall in Amsterdam The selection jury was impressed not only by the depth and breadth of Professor Nobre's research They identified her as a pioneering and distinguished researcher who helped to realise the transition from cognitive psychology to cognitive neuroscience Professor Nobre was among the first to use several revolutionary techniques to image the brain early in her career she measured brain activity via electrodes in the brains of epilepsy patients who had had these electrodes implanted This led to the discovery of new areas of the brain that play a role in processing words a major breakthrough in understanding the language network in the human brain I’m deeply humbled and over the moon to receive the Heineken Prize for Cognitive Neuroscience I feel beyond lucky to be at the confluence of so many inspirations and empirical investigations of so many talented and generous people And also to my husband Luciano Floridi for his boundless love and support Professor Nobre studies how our brains combine signals from our environment and our memory to shape experiences and direct perception she focuses on how our brain can concentrate on the most important signals from the environment and the relevant items in our short-term memory Her research group generates innovative insights by combining behavioural methods (such as eye tracking and virtual reality) with non-invasive techniques to image and stimulate the human brain (including magneto- and electroencephalography Professor Nobre’s work has played a major role in developing our understanding of how the brain’s attentional control network is structured This includes the discovery that the brain can make predictions about the timing of relevant events and that these predictions determine where we focus our attention (therefore influencing our perception) In addition to revealing the basic processes underlying these dynamic regulatory mechanisms Professor Nobre is also investigating how they develop over our lifespans and how they are disrupted in psychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders Professor Nobre said: ‘The magic between mind and brain was what sparked my scientific curiosity My younger brother had severe cerebral palsy I spent hours wondering what his mental world was like Find out more: Watch or read an interview with Professor Nobre about her research. You can view all news or browse by category Please select what you would like included for printing: Copy the text below and then paste that into your favorite email application This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply Service map data © OpenStreetMap contributors “We are almost losing the inhabitability of the planet,” states Antonio Donato Nobre, who recently traveled to Altamira, in the state of Pará, to participate in the Amazon Center of the World conference situated between the Xingu and Iriri Rivers scientists and environmentalists met with indigenous and riverine peoples to create an alliance for the Amazon and find a way out for the most important organ in the planet’s climatic metabolism Five years after the publication of the report changes in the global climate and the Brazilian government’s hostility toward the Amazon could be driving the forest to the “tipping point” toward an irreversible path to desertification Currently a researcher at the National Institute of Space Research (INPE) Nobre has also become an activist: soon after participating in the Amazon Center of the World conference he went to Norway to talk with the Minister of the Climate and Environment about the Amazon Fund and evaluate the possibilities for their cooperation with Brazil he shares the news he took away from Altamira and Oslo and comments on the current scenario of environmental degradation that threatens the future of the Amazon Rainforest Mongabay: Please tell us about your recent trip to Altamira for the Amazon Center of the World conference Are there visible signs of the tipping point The native forests have a certain resilience to climatic adversities But they do not have any capacity to resist chainsaws tractors with chains or fires set on a large scale These malicious inventions and their barbarous attacks create a real climate of definitive destruction The rains are arriving later and later each year and the carbon sequestration has diminished at the same time the mortality of large trees has increased The people there in the region are fighting against climate change The Brazil nut trees have a cycle: they produce more nuts one year production has plummeted due to the droughts These losses have a connection with the change in the climate and testify to the degradation of the forest Scientific studies published in recent years leave no doubt about the climatic change associated with the forest’s destruction Preliminary numbers, recently announced about deforestation in the Amazon, referring to the period of August, 2018 to July, 2019, show an increase of 29.5% in relation to the previous year but the deforestation rate in August 2019 grew 222% in relation to the same period in 2018 Since the beginning of the year there’s been a very clear manifestation of hostility from the authorities regarding the issue of the environment The first sign that the new administration was going to stimulate deforestation came right at the beginning with the announcement: “we’re going to get rid of the fining industry.” But there was no such thing as the [environmental] fining industry there was a serious work of control that resulted in a reduction of deforestation in past years This is not a mere interpretation: the official rhetoric admitted by the man in charge as his new policy for the Amazon this rhetoric resembles a statement Lula made in 2003 when he said that the forest wasn’t a sanctuary and that his government was going to develop it 2004 was one of the worst years for deforestation in history Signs suggest that deforestation could be even higher in 2020 the ideology that comes out of the mouth of those in office directly influences what goes on in the forest What’s the difference between that period and the present moment Despite Lula’s ‘developmentalist’ rhetoric, his Minister of the Environment, Marina Silva managed to do extraordinary work with the PPCDAM [Plan of Action for the Prevention and Control of Deforestation in the Legal Amazon] which resulted in an acclaimed control of deforestation Compare the respected minister with the current one All the former ministers of the Environment have denounced the current minister as an enemy of the environment In less than 12 months he accomplished the feat of undoing decades of hard work done by the respected Brazilian environmental protection system the ongoing environmental destruction is unprecedented and threatens the climatic system with desertification In 2003 and 2004 the forest was already quite altered but it still wasn’t near the point of no return Recent studies show that the air over the eastern portion of the forest is drier This means increased vulnerability to fire and higher tree mortality and therefore a lower capacity for producing environmental services for the climate and lower resistance to climate change The forest is sick and losing its carbon-sequestration capacity the dry season is getting longer: in the past the rain would start at the end of September the rain still hasn’t started in much of the Amazon In 2002, Carlos Nobre and Marcos Oyama conducted computational simulations of equilibrium between climate and vegetation and they discovered that the remaining forest cannot resist the change in the climate the forest loses its humidity and it shifts more toward savannah conditions Recent data shows that this process is already underway If the process of ‘savannization’ comes to pass and the biotic pump (a theory that explains the forest as a potency that propels the canalized winds through aerial rivers functioning like a heart of the biological cycle) stops functioning Regions like the Arabian Peninsula were once forest and now are deserts with the artificial destruction of the forest Is there any possibility of them resuming their commitment to the Amazon Fund I talked with the Norwegian Minister of the Climate and Environment and they are concerned about the posture of the Brazilian government Norway had put $US 1 billion into the Amazon Fund they were attending a solicitation that the Brazilian government itself made This money was producing some very beneficial results but for the development of the local economy The contract with these donating countries was based on efforts made by the Brazilian government to reduce deforestation Deforestation is once again rising sharply and this violates the terms of the contract they are holding onto the designated resources in order to send them to Brazil as soon as deforestation once again trends toward reduction The report “The Future Climate of Amazonia,” which you published in 2014 described large belts producing grains and other agricultural commodities receiving rain-forming vapors from the Amazon rainforest the so-called “aerial rivers.” What is the position of agribusiness in terms of the forest’s state of degradation who was president of the National Confederation of Agriculture led a strong opposition to scientists in 2010 and 2011 on the occasion of the change in the Forest Code over 10 years ago he was given the Gold Chainsaw Award (by Greenpeace) for his actions encouraging deforestation But this year even he came out against the new scorched-Earth policy for the Amazon Several other voices from the agribusiness sector Many are concerned with losing markets because the world will inevitably complain about the loss of the Amazon the Paris Accord will be irreparably compromised We will no longer be able to afford to reach the goals because of the huge carbon emission and mainly because of the loss of services to the climate We are not just making room for another farm We are crippling the functioning of the planet’s body with major consequences for everyone What has most disturbed me throughout my nearly 40-year career in the Amazon was seeing the immense wealth of life and the opportunities for tracing respectful intelligent paths get thrown into the trash This is not about protecting the forest simply to please environmentalists The living forest is essential for the survival of human civilization What is this wealth we’re talking about Recently, the work of some of my colleagues from the Federal University of Minas Gerais considering assets and basic services alone generates over US$ 700 per hectare (US$ 280 per acre) per year The average production of extensive cattle ranching in the Amazon generates something like US$ 40 per hectare (US$ 16 per acre) per year If we consider a longer list of assets and services provided by the forest as Bob Constanza – one of the founders of the Ecological Economy area – did this value exceeds US$ 5,000 per hectare (US$ 2,000) per year How much will it cost to set up irrigation the water from the sea has to be desalinated setting it on fire and replacing it with an industry that produces US$ 40 per hectare (US$ 16 per acre) per year which is the lean cattle industry to produce red meat something the World Health Organization has categorized as carcinogenic We continue on destroying the heart of the world which produces all the services for the climate and that includes services for agriculture Once the Amazonian system starts to falter the initial impact will fall precisely upon agribusiness because there’s no such thing as agricultural production without rain and only a preserved forest can bring rain And what kind of opportunities does the preserved forest offer The program Amazônia 4.0 (proposed by his brother Carlos Nobre) shows the potential of bringing technology into the forest generating development and wealth for the peoples of the forest and making virtually miraculous products available to humanity with açaí being just one single fruit and giving way to a billion-dollar industry with another 89 fruits we have US$ 90 billion and we maintain the forest a revolution in technology that consists in looking at how nature solves problems You take the wax that covers the leaf of a plant in the Amazon and which has properties similar to that of teflon You paint a car or a house and they won’t ever get dirty Let alone the medicine and all the cosmetics The value of these technologies in nature is incalculable This story was first reported by Mongabay’s Brazil team and published here on our Brazil site on Dec FEEDBACK: Use this form to send a message to the author of this post ← → Brazil’s leading expert on the Amazon and climate change discusses the key perils facing the world’s largest rainforest where a record number of fires are now raging and lays out what can be done to stave off a ruinous transformation of the region a senior researcher at the University of Saõ Paulo’s Institute for Advanced Studies talks about an alarming tipping point now bearing down at which a combination of deforestation and climate change would transform much of the Amazon into a savanna ecosystem with dire effects on the world’s climate system But Nobre also discusses solutions he says could quickly halt new deforestation in the Amazon including putting pressure on the global agribusiness firms driving the destruction; launching low-cost regeneration projects on vast tracts of degraded rainforest; and improving soybean yields on croplands already carved out of the forest Yale Environment 360: The degradation of the Amazon has been ongoing for several decades How much worse has it gotten since President Bolsonaro came to power Carlos Nobre: Unfortunately, it’s getting worse because deforestation rates have increased, but also because fires have increased very rapidly in the last couple of months. Deforestation came down 75 percent from 2005 to 2014. Brazil was really going toward a zero-deforestation policy, and then it started reverting back in 2015 and then bigger [deforestation] increments in 2018 It’s very likely to be more than a 30 percent deforestation increase from 2018 to 2019 And fires since January have more than doubled in the Brazilian Amazon e360: What role did the cutting back of enforcement personnel on the government side play in the increase in destruction and fires Analysis: Why Brazil's new president poses an unprecedented threat to the Amazon. Read more The fact that earlier we got a 75 percent reduction in deforestation and the corresponding reduction in fire all had to do with law enforcement agents going deep into the forest federal police intelligence knocking down organized crime groups illegally taking timber from the forest and selling it the federal government’s budgets have been reduced so there was less funding for those enforcement activities But more important was the fact that even before taking office on January 1st Bolsonaro was criticizing IBAMA [the federal environment agency] all the time and chainsaws in remote areas in the Amazon where people were cutting down the forest the agents are entitled to destroy the equipment And then some people from the rural sector told Bolsonaro’s aides IBAMA in Pará state and prohibits them from destroying the equipment So all those elements really convey impunity and increased vulnerability to forest fires might do to the Amazon system as a whole I published a paper about this in Science in 1990 that said if we deforest parts of the Amazon The post-deforestation climate will no longer be a very wet climate like the Amazon like the long dry seasons in the savannas in the tropics in Africa What we know today is that if we would have only deforestation — [with] zero climate change — that if you exceed 40 percent total deforested area in the Amazon About 60 to 70 percent of the Amazon forest would turn into a dry savanna especially in the southern and northern Amazon So that’s one tipping point — 40 percent deforested area Then we look at what climate change might do We concluded that if the temperature in the Amazon increases up to 4 degrees Celsius (7 degrees Fahrenheit) this will mean a hydrological cycle change with less rain and a longer dry season It’s the same mechanism — savannization So if you put all the perspectives together — deforestation increased vulnerability to forest fires — we conclude that with the current rate of global warming if we exceed 20 to 25 percent deforestation then we reach the tipping point and 50 to 60 percent of the Amazon forest would become a savanna That’s why we are making this warning — today we already have 15 to 17 percent total deforestation in the Amazon we are 20 to 30 years off from reaching this tipping point e360: So you’re basically saying that if the global climate was not warming then the tipping point for the Amazon might be 40 percent deforestation but with those other factors you mentioned — warming fires — it is as low now as 20 to 25 percent Nobre: Rains will be more concentrated in the rainy season a typical savanna climate level: six months of rain maximum temperatures may easily reach 40 degrees centigrade (104 degrees F) But maximum temperatures in a forest like the Amazon are 34 degrees centigrade (93 degrees F) And our calculations and many other studies show that the rainfall in and over these forests will decline between 20 and 25 percent This will have a tremendous impact on all river hydrology Rivers in the Sky: How deforestation is affecting global water cycles. Read more And we have studied what might be the remote impacts in South America We found that a lot of that moisture travels south of the Amazon And that flow of moisture feeds a lot of the rain in southern Brazil And in many of these calculations and simulations there will be a reduction of about 15 to 20 percent in the rainfall over that area I mentioned e360: So if this transformation were to occur if 30 or 40 percent of the Amazon was thus transformed at what point does the Amazon become a source of carbon instead of a sink Nobre: Many studies have looked at how strong the Amazon is as a carbon sink The rates of removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in the Amazon vary between 1 billion and 2 billion tons a year Two billion tons is 5 percent of all carbon dioxide from human activities the Amazon is a source of 500 million to 700 million tons of carbon a year all that area is not acting as a carbon sink anymore the Amazon will become only a source of carbon e360: Given the dire situation in the Amazon now Under what scenario do you see the deforestation and fires being reversed What kind of pressure or influence can be brought to bear Nobre: The pressure to bring to bear is on agribusiness If you look at concerns of the major investment funds countries in Europe are threatening not to buy Brazilian products anymore — soy If companies pressed for a deforestation-free supply chain and are very rigorous about that I think deforestation will come to zero in less than five years Productivity can be multiplied by three in livestock farming There is so much potential to increase production without gutting one more tree who do not want to be associated with deforestation So I think we are in the moment to make economics put on the pressure the Bolsonaro movement is very faithful to agribusiness and agribusiness is very faithful to Bolsonaro and the day will certainly come that Brazil will lose markets and will weaken the economy The effectiveness of any measure has to come from the consumers — responsible sustainable consumption is the best strategy to take the lead to zero deforestation The whole Amazon has at least 500,000 square kilometers either abandoned or degraded So you could have a huge restoration project It’s not very expensive because the forest has this ability to regenerate So it’s really just to let the forest regenerate and in a few years a huge amount of forest will be regrowing And then you are removing a lot of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere e360: So you have some hope that the current trends can be reversed They should have traceability to ensure zero deforestation Productivity of soy in the Amazon is about 2.8 tons of soy grain per hectare per year But productivity of soy in the United States is 6.5 tons People are not maximizing the use of technology for growing soy e360: Do you think the protests of the last week or two and the concern in the European Union has caught Bolsonaro’s attention How tracking product sources may help save the world's forests. Read more Nobre: It absolutely has got Bolsonaro’s attention because Bolsonaro is fully supported by Brazilian agribusiness leaders of the more modern agribusinesses in Brazil have started speaking out but in the last two months they realized they would lose international support They would risk not exporting most of their products So they have raised their voice — a group called the Brazilian Coalition on Climate for the first time they issued a statement and delivered it to the president “zero deforestation.” We’re starting to see these people so concerned that they are speaking out for the first time in Brazilian history Never miss an article. Subscribe to the E360 Newsletter → he called deforestation in the Amazon a “catastrophic situation” that threatens to disrupt Earth’s climate Now, a new documentary, Rivers Above the Canopy features Antonio Nobre and his investigations into the Amazon’s importance to the global climate Also featured is physicist Anastassia Makarieva of the Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute in Russia first came up with the concept of the biotic pump Nobre’s work on the Amazon is informed by this theory “The Future Climate of Amazonia,” a tour-de-force of explanatory science Nobre describes how this “green ocean” not only creates its own rain but moves moisture across the continent via aerial rivers he has collaborated on scientific papers with Makarieva and other biotic pump researchers The biotic pump concept highlights the extent to which natural forests drive moisture-laden air currents, thereby governing wind and rain. This adds a level of urgency to the zero-deforestation pledge made by Brazil’s new president The theory calls attention to the dynamics of evaporation and condensation: water becoming gas (vapor) and then returning to liquid form prodigious quantities of moisture; Nobre likens the Amazon’s trees to geysers This moisture rises from the canopy and eventually cools and condenses This creates a low-pressure zone so that moist air is pulled in The mechanism explains how regions far from the ocean get precipitation The biotic pump theory derives from fundamental principles of physics instead of the statistics-driven modeling that dominates climate science and meteorology even labeling it “controversial,” despite an absence of serious refutations to note how this line of thinking underscores the need to preserve expanses of the forest like that of the Amazon: when stands are cleared the impact is far greater than merely subtracting the moisture transpired by the downed trees there is a threshold beyond which there is at once too much sensible (surface) heat and not enough moisture to generate precipitation leaving the would-be rain to be carried away by breezes Concern about deforestation is often framed around carbon emissions there’s concern that parts of the southeast Amazon have flipped from being a carbon sink to a carbon source Nobre and Makarieva say the impacts on hydrology and cooling capacity are far more significant in terms of climate insights from biotic pump research also point the way to strategic reforestation to reinstate the previously unrecognized processes by which forests sustain themselves as well as regulate wind This new lens on how water works drives home the pivotal role of healthy forests in staving off climate change — and it’s not just about the carbon What does this tell us about how forests like the Amazon cool the planet for us evapotranspiration from forest vegetation dissipates solar radiation so that heat energy becomes latent heat embodied in water vapor Then there’s vertical cooling: via transpiration trees harvest surface heat and release it higher in the atmosphere water vapor is a greenhouse gas that traps heat ample daily condensation creates white clouds And enhanced local water cycling brings late-afternoon rains Clear night skies mean heat flows back into space the end of the Bolsonaro administration represents a possible turning point in the fate of the Amazon Rainforest Mongabay interviewed Antonio Nobre and Anastassia Makarieva by video call and email in Nov what the latest science tells us about the unforeseen perils of forest loss and opportunities for restoration so that forests can continue cycling Mongabay: The Bolsonaro years saw science budgets slashed and scientists attacked by the president and his allies While Lula says he aims to restore several policies and investment in science seems like an obvious one can he generate the funding and commitment to fulfill promises necessary for science to advance Brazil’s scientific community has endured more than six years under right-wing power and continued to produce important science Mongabay: Your Amazon research now focuses on the biotic pump and how might it explain extreme weather events Anastassia Makarieva: The biotic pump describes how forest ecosystems influence the delivery of water from ocean to land horizontal winds must carry water vapor to land; and second the wind must lift this water vapor to the cooler atmospheric layer so it can condense and form precipitation Natural forests evolved to regulate these air circulation patterns to sustain their own water needs Remember: land is continuously losing water as rivers flow to the ocean When a forest or natural wetland loses vegetation the mechanism of moisture delivery is disrupted This leads to fluctuations of the water cycle it makes sense that deforestation would lead to changes in precipitation Does the biotic pump have other climate impacts we need to distinguish between local and cooling effects of transpiration The local effect is simple: if solar energy is spent on evaporation the surface is cooler than if solar energy directly becomes heat The broader impact depends on what happens next Let’s say air laden with evaporated moisture rises and latent heat is released in the upper troposphere This heat radiates into space without being absorbed by the greenhouse gases beneath This effectively reduces the greenhouse effect and cools the Earth as a whole the air descends quickly back to the surface all released heat remains at the surface and radiates to space only after having interacted with the greenhouse gases The effect is just as if the solar energy converted to heat at the surface: the global cooling is near zero a determining factor in global cooling from transpiration is how long air travels in the upper atmosphere — which depends on the characteristics of the long-distance moisture transport Research is finding global cooling from transpiration to be significant exceeding the effect of carbon emissions from historic deforestation this is usually reported as just a small addition to the carbon effect global transpiration cooling is canceled out by the increase in albedo (reflectivity) upon deforestation: a deforested surface is brighter transpirational cooling and albedo change are complex effects with different physics and the legacy of historical devegetation is poorly understood the coincidence of neatly canceling each other may be an artifact of internal model tuning is like an elephant in the china shop hidden under a thin curtain of albedo change Mongabay: Wait a second: Transpirational cooling and albedo could have been swapped out for the sake of convenience As someone who’s written about water’s effect on climate I’ve wondered how the scientific/environmental climate community so underplays the climate impacts of devegetation global climate modeling has focused on CO2 and this has determined the trajectory of model development In order to investigate the role of plant life it is not enough to remove or add vegetation into models developed to assess CO2-related climate change It would require the entire set of model parameters to be reconsidered it is known that the Amazon moisture transport is underestimated in global climate models by 50% or more This is equivalent to 20% of global river runoff and to a considerable share of ocean-to-land long-distance moisture transport (the biotic pump) The price of not performing such a stress test — or crash test — for global climate modeling could be very high: for if natural forests are key to climate stability due to their role in moisture transport using them for biomass to lower CO2 emissions will only aggravate the climate situation Mongabay: We are seeing the folly of cutting trees for biomass in the name of addressing climate change Antonio Nobre: The concept of the biotic pump opens up a series of possibilities for slowing down climate change possibilities previously insufficiently considered The theory suggests that once certain conditions are met reforestation will become self-perpetuating Restoration should always start at the coast covering a strip of land at least 150 kilometers [90 miles] wide — a coastal “green edge” that can start the biotic pump to import moist air from the ocean As we have seen in the Amazon and other large forests this extension of forest cover to regions far from the shores can propel moist air masses thousands of kilometers inland We are confident that this effect could even reverse aridity in desert lands countering the landlocked dry circulation with a new ocean breeze driven by the biotic pump One tool for amassing vegetation before the biotic pump kicks in is syntropic cultivation Our intent is to show that vegetation is not the passive target of adverse weather but rather the main factor in creating and maintaining a friendly climate what other large forests should we be paying attention to Anastassia Makarieva: The boreal forests of North America and Eurasia are important forests stretch over 4,200 miles [6,800 km] from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean These forests are active in the warmer season when transpiration is possible They play an enormous role in moisture transport across the continent Here the main stressors are logging and the fires that often follow logging due to resulting ecosystem disruption Russia still has vast forested areas that retain self-sustainability It is urgent to protect them from exploitation Trees in plantations do not function the same way Mongabay: What does the biotic pump tell us about healing degraded forests Nature everywhere teaches us that life is a highly complex and rich phenomenon that requires us to respect nature’s rhythm and laws Soil cover is essential to start correcting the hydrological cycle on land Then come the shrubs in several layers and only later come the trees as it has done many times through geological time But it can take thousands or millions of years to turn continents green Our best hope today is to reinvent technology to mimic nature We also have the opportunity to learn from native cultures how to live in harmony with nature Indigenous knowledge has a powerful advantage over modern technology and engineering because reverence and care for nature have evolved over millennia of harmonious cohabitation Mongabay: While many advocate tree planting some say additional trees can deplete moisture due to transpiration Anastassia Makarieva: In a study now under review we found it depends on whether the surrounding air is wet or dry Imagine a very dry atmosphere and a small tree plantation transpiring at the expense of limited soil moisture but far from the saturation needed for condensation this transpired moisture is likely blown away by horizontal winds tree planting would only worsen the aridity with competition for limited water among local stakeholders and in China it is seen as setting a limit on eco-restoration if a native forest evolved in the context of local climate conditions trees “wisely” transpire when the atmosphere is sufficiently moist This added transpired moisture leads to more vigorous heat transfer The forest receives more water than it has expended for transpiration — and all life benefits from greater water availability What does the defeat of Bolsonaro mean for the biotic pump in the Amazon Antonio Nobre: Bolsonaro set in motion a massive fanatical campaign aimed at the demise of the Amazon Rainforest and the annihilation of its native people and many ideologically motivated officials and businessmen unleashed a tsunami of disruptive administrative and legislative attacks on the national deforestation control system which the new government will have the challenge of rebuilding We need two things to keep Amazon biotic pump viable The first is the immediate and forceful interruption of deforestation and suppressing the fires that generate smoke and soot — two powerful agents that reduce rainfall and if the destroyed forest is allowed to return it is very likely that the weakening of the Amazon biotic pump will be halted Bolsonaro has cultivated a swarm of criminals who are unlikely to give up crimes of their own free will A challenge now is to restore law and order International collaboration with Brazil’s new government will likely be necessary to tame crime and conflict in the Amazon Banner image: A blackwater oxbow lake in the Peruvian Amazon FEEDBACK: Use this form to send a message to the author of this post Q&A: Climatologist Carlos Nobre’s dream of an Amazon Institute of Technology We encourage you to republish Dialogue Earth articles, online or in print, under the Creative Commons license. Please read our republishing guidelines to get started Brazilian climate scientist Carlos Nobre has previously written of the dangers of the Amazon rainforest passing a “tipping point” of degradation (Image: Nacho Doce) a young Carlos Nobre was introduced to the Amazon rainforest by a university professor who wanted his students to see the different regions of Brazil first hand He was instantly fascinated and soon made it the main focus of his research Nobre has over the past half-century used his work to sound the alarm about changes in the biome that threaten its rich biodiversity and the global climate Diálogo Chino: Could you tell us a little about the scale and sorts of changes that have happened in the Amazon and another million square kilometres are heavily degraded creating a very efficient system for recycling its water But now this is being disrupted by changes in the rainforest’s climate These changes are already reducing rainfall in eastern Argentina and Uruguay and in southern Brazil The region could soon have a much longer dry season affecting agricultural production in all three countries You have previously written about a “tipping point” for the Amazon that could be passed once 20% of its forest has been lost How close is the biome to crossing such a point We are already seeing a marked alteration in the southern Amazon which is changing from rainforest to tropical savannah removing a third of global carbon emissions but now the Amazon is at risk of becoming a source of carbon more than 50% of the Amazon rainforest will become a degraded open-canopy ecosystem over the next 30 to 50 years with much less biodiversity and carbon stored Some projections indicate that the forest could release 200 billion tonnes of CO2 in that period What would this mean for the Paris Agreement’s goals of keeping global average temperature rises to 1.5 or 2C If the tipping point in the Amazon is exceeded it will not be possible to meet the 1.5C target of the Paris Agreement The rainforest would be releasing enough emissions to bring the global temperature rise to 2.5C the climate stability of South America and the planet avoid forest degradation and change the agricultural model We have to create a new economy for the Amazon assigning an economic value to its biodiversity from mining to fossil fuels to agriculture see no value in the forest and want to eliminate it We have to show that biodiversity can generate a more powerful economy than extractive industries It is a big challenge for all countries, but we have to find solutions based on technological innovations and learn from Indigenous Peoples. They have been there for 12,000 years and have developed a way of life that keeps the forest standing. One solution would be to create an Amazon institute of technology putting the best scientists and students to work for this new economy with input from the Indigenous communities Creating such an institution would require collaboration between Amazonian countries, something seen at COP27 with Venezuela Do you have hopes that a joint approach can address the challenges faced by the rainforest I am optimistic about progress towards a new economy for the Amazon under [Colombian president] Gustavo Petro and Lula da Silva. Petro has been radical against deforestation and the extractive economy in Colombia while Lula managed to reduce deforestation during his previous government [2003-2010] Lula has committed to zero deforestation – not just fighting illegal deforestation This is a feasible goal that we should pursue The situation is more complicated in Venezuela where mining is expanding into Indigenous territories Hopefully Brazil and Colombia can start to lead this change and Venezuela will follow How will Brazil transition from the environmentally destructive policies of Jair Bolsonaro to a new more protection-focused government under Lula there will be hundreds of presidential decrees from the federal government reversing Bolsonaro’s actions reduced the budget of law enforcement agencies and encouraged land grabbing and illegal mining All this led to an expansion of organised crime 90% of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon is illegal We can tackle this with effective law enforcement The other challenge is to transform the agribusiness sector which is dominated by the far right and climate change deniers The sector must move towards a regenerative model incorporating technology and increasing productivity This interview has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity Fermín Koop is the Latin America managing editor at Dialogue Earth he started working with the organisation in 2014 as a freelancer before transitioning to an editorial role He is also a trainer and mentor for the Earth Journalism Network (EJN) and a teacher at the Argentine University of Enterprise (UADE) He holds an MSc in environment and development from Reading University a postgraduate degree in law and economy of climate change from Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO) and a bachelor’s degree in journalism from University of Salvador (USAL) He has worked for news organisations such as Buenos Aires Herald Nature and SciDev and has also done consultancy work for the UN and Oxford University Most of his work at Dialogue Earth relates to writing Select from our bespoke newsletters for news best suited to you We’ve sent you an email with a confirmation link 我们向您的邮箱发送了一封确认邮件，请点击邮件中的确认链接。如果您未收到该邮件，请查看垃圾邮件。 If you would like more information about the terms of our republication policy or permission to use content, please write to us: [email protected] We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. 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Please upgrade your browser to improve your experience The page you requested was not found on our site To the homepage Working to sustain the natural world for the benefit of people and nature Luis Nobre accused of posing as financier with connections to Italian and Spanish nobility to con an international shipping firm A City trader posed as a multimillionaire with links to the Vatican and Spanish nobility to scam €100m (£73m) from an international shipping firm pretended to be a well-connected international financier to dupe the Dutch shipping firm Allseas Group out of the money in 2011 Nobre was one of a gang of fraudsters who convinced Allseas Group it would receive €1.2bn within three years if the firm invested €100m in the scheme the fraud was exposed when Barclays bank grew suspicious of the multimillion pound transactions Opening the case at Southwark crown court in London the prosecutor David Durose told the jury: “Allseas were seeking to raise capital in order to fund the building of a new ship and had available the enormous sum of €100m to invest “They took advice from a series of individuals about how best to use this money but were referred on to others on a number of occasions Ultimately it is clear that the individuals who ended up advising them were not the international financiers that Allseas thought they were.” Durose said Nobre was a member of a gang of conmen led by Marek Rejniak Jurors were told that the conmen boasted of having access to “secret and lucrative” forms of trading connected to the Vatican via the Spanish nobility Durose added: “As a result of the actions of the fraudsters Allseas lost control of the entire sum of €100m although they did not realise they had been defrauded for some time as they were led to believe the money was still in the process of being invested on their behalf the stolen money was transferred out of an account controlled by Allseas through an account controlled by Rejniak and finally into the hands of the defendant the money had been transferred to a trader who was to use it to make the agreed investment on their behalf Nobre used the vast majority of the money that was expended from the account for his own ends until the remainder was frozen.” a director of businesses registered at exclusive addresses in Harley Street and Marylebone sat in the dock shaking his head as the prosecution opened its case against him He denies one count of acquiring criminal property five counts of transferring criminal property and three counts of possession of articles for use in fraud allegedly helped launder £111,400 of the cash He denies one count of being concerned in a money-laundering arrangement and one count of transferring criminal property An internationally renowned cognitive neuroscientist has joined Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust as the University of Oxford’s nominee on the board further strengthening the trust’s aim to spearhead research into mind and brain to benefit patients and the public Head of the university’s Department of Experimental Psychology  took up her role last month in succession to Professor Sue Dopson of Oxford’s Said Business School who stepped down after nine years’ service Prof Nobre is Director of the Oxford Centre for Human Brain Activity (OHBA), Chair of Oxford Neuroscience Strategy Committee Professorial Fellow at St Catherine’s College and Head of the Brain & Cognition Lab Chair of Oxford Health said: “We’re delighted to welcome not just a distinguished scientist to the board but someone deeply versed in translating new knowledge into therapies and techniques of practical benefit to NHS patients.” The Trust is home to the NIHR Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centre one of the UK’s only two specialist mental health centres dedicated to solving problems of mental disorders and dementia turned advance in knowledge into new treatments Prof Nobre said: “ I am delighted to be joining the board of Oxford Health I am passionate about innovating new ways of understanding the human brain and bringing cutting-edge and rigorous fundamental cognitive neuroscience to translational and clinical research for societal benefit I am committed to keeping curiosity and science alive in the world I try to share my wonder and delight about discovering the nature of things with those around me training and mentoring – and helping individuals forge career paths that bring them meaning and fulfilment.” Prof Nobre grew up in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and obtained her PhD in the United States in 1993, carrying out postdoctoral research at Yale University working with a specialist Cognative Neurology and Alzheimer’s group at Harvard Medical School and then Northwestern University Oxford has been her home since 1994 when she arrived in the city to take up a McDonnell-Pew Lectureship in Cognitive Neuroscience and a Junior Research Fellowship at New College She holds the Chair in Translational Cognitive Neuroscience at Oxford, shared between the Departments of Psychiatry and of Experimental Psychology and linked to St Catherine’s College She continues to collaborate with the Mesulam Centre for Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer’s Disease as an adjunct professor at Northwestern University in Chicago she is also a member of the University Council and serves on its research *Professor Sue Dopson is Rhodes Trust Professor of Organisational Behaviour and Faculty Dean at Saïd Business School and Visiting Professor at the University of Alberta David Walker said: “Every NHS body would benefit from having a social scientist of Sue’s distinction in their midst We have had access to Sue’s deep knowledge of organisation and the NHS and through her access to research and teaching at the Said Business School Follow us on social media to stay up to date We are sorry you did not find this page helpful Tell us how we can improve this page © 2025 Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust São Paulo may become a major laboratory for the advancement of knowledge on global climate changes is one of the most respected and renowned Brazilian experts on the climate and on global climate change he had just arrived from a six-day trip to Copenhagen having witnessing the shattering of any hope that a consistent international treaty would be signed for avoiding and fighting the effects of global warming at his pleasant home in a gated community in the city of  São José dos Campos in the company of  his charming and attentive wife with whom he will celebrate his silver wedding anniversary in July Keeping his eight dogs and nine cats at bay he was certainly tired after his transatlantic trip it was in this agreeable environment that he expressed himself calmly and clearly with that argument-based approach that is so typical of him talking to the Pesquisa Fapesp staff for almost two hours the outcome of COP-15 was the subject of his comments the major environmental experiments in the laboratory that he hopes will be established in the State of São Paulo He explained why the FAPESP Global Climate Change Program has a huge potential to significantly expand Brazil’s current influence on scientific debate and on political decisions on a global scale He mentioned his experience as a researcher and his two new scientific papers on this matter – both of which are yet to be published One describes new elements the provide further support for his theory about the potential “savannization”  of the Amazon Rainforest whereas the other focuses on understanding the large transition zone between the forest and the Cerrado (savanna) The scientific articles on these two issues are currently being analyzed for publication in international journals It is common knowledge that Nobre’s scientific work is fundamental for a better understanding of the relation between the climate and the effects of deforestation and global warming on the Amazon Region Nobre is an electronic engineering graduate of  ITA and has a doctorate in meteorology from MIT the Massachusetts Institute of  Technology he is an expert in the mathematical modeling of climate-related scenarios He also holds a post-doctoral degree in this field from the University of  Maryland Nobre has won many awards for his scientific work amongst which one can include the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize granted to IPCC The prizes most recently bestowed upon him include the WWF-Brazil Environmental Achievement Award and the Von Humboldt Medal as Nobre has always been determined to follow the most challenging paths to which life led him And they are undoubtedly extraordinarily gratifying for this descendant of  Italian immigrants that first established themselves in the town of Salto a professional soccer player and former factory worker in São Paulo and the then young electronic engineering student a former public school student from the outskirts of  São Paulo undertook to support his family and educate his siblings was the Copenhagen conference really a total failure I wouldn’t say it was a “total failure”   because everybody who attended it acknowledged the role of science the texts – all of them referred to the role of science emphasized the role of the IPCC (the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and highlighted that the figures and goals of any agreement must be reviewed from time to time in the light of whatever science indicates in the sense that nowadays science is included within the framework of these negotiations and has the final word on what needs to be done regarding goals and the risks of higher temperatures The urgency that science ascribes to this issue wasn’t really taken into account then all these years of negotiations would already have led to much broader decisions But was there any room for actual scientific debate in the midst of the conference the COPs are not the venue for discussing science and any topic that encompasses many scientific doubts is disregarded the implementation – or not – of mitigating measures such as the capture and geological storage of carbon As there is still much scientific uncertainty surrounding this issue – even though the technique is being extensively studied and has some potential – the issue is often suggested for inclusion the fact that all the participating countries agreed that efforts must be made to keep the temperature from going up more than two degrees Celsius is a feat that is the merit of science as is the fact that people are realistically beginning to think and be concerned about how quickly sea levels are rising about the forecast that the sea level is expected to rise in this century and the next It might be difficult for the temperature to go up only 1.5 degrees but perhaps all the efforts will really have to center on not allowing the composition of the atmosphere to change too much as compared to the present despite all the support provided by scientific data science seems to have a limited influence on diplomatic decisions on overcoming of stalemates caused by diverging economic interests but it moves forward and has moved forward very quickly in the last few years if people only believe in what they see and not in what science predicts for the future (we are witnessing the disappearance of the ice floating over the Arctic) if we wait for science to make a diagnosis instead of a prognosis of the climate system Science will always be intrinsically limited when it comes to predicting the future The climate system and the terrestrial system are very complex; it stands to reason that it is impossible to predict everything that might happen because there are so many paths Science knows what is happening and this is something it does well This is why the IPCC stated in 2007 that global warming is real the idea of acting even though a scenario is not 100% certain show that uncertainty goes in two directions: a very short time ago it was predicted that the Arctic’s ice would disappear in the Northern Hemisphere’s summer at around the end of the century; it was also predicted that for this to happen the temperature would have to go up significantly – 3 or 4 degrees all the glaciological projections indicate that nothing will keep that ice from disappearing if the temperature rises by just 2 degrees Reality has proven to be much quicker than what was predicted ten years ago politics and the economy have to be on the safe side and not simply imagine that uncertainty will always tend to be less problematic we had the impression that the discussion of the uncertainties of the IPCC estimates took up unexpected space in Copenhagen Perhaps this occurred because of the hackers’ invasion of the scientific center in East Anglia and the ensuing leak of  Phil Jones’ e-mails in November (see page 31) and because of the position of scientists such as Joanne Simpson Norwegian physicist Ivar Giaever (a 1973 Nobel Prize laureate) and Japan’s Kiminori Itoh – in short serious people from scientific fields who apparently provided support for the skeptical activists None of these people are true skeptics in the sense of denying the issue is the only skeptic in the world who is scientifically respected as a scientific expert on climate The others – and I am personally acquainted with professor Joanne Simpson – are people who address issues related to uncertainty who are aware of the difficulty of predicting how meteorological extremes (such as storms But don’t these scientists say that the planet is not getting warmer Joanne Simpson and the others feel that science must still mature significantly to allow us to predict what global warming will do in relation to extreme meteorological conditions The people who were in Copenhagen realized that there was still some impact from the discussion about the hackers and the pirated e-mails; but this impact diminished toward the end those who deny the existence of global warming are probably celebrating because the longer it takes for actions to be implemented it is interesting to see how some skeptics have a different view who is such a good physicist – he knows that the planet is getting warmer and that injecting gases will make it even warmer Lindzen believes that this warming is insignificant and that even if the amount of gas in the atmosphere doubles and lower than the average predicted by IPCC he has a philosophical viewpoint that this is’t necessarily bad that it’s better to have a warmer planet But this equals ignoring the huge impact that climate changes may have this is something that has to be properly clarified I’ve been personally acquainted with Phil for more than 15 years and I’m sure that he used the English word trick -which can be translated into Portuguese as jeitinho (finding a way of doing things) –  informally in connection with what he had done to specific numbers Informality is common when people exchange e-mails as an e-mail is not a formal document worded in proper language; it is similar to chatting but saying “I’m going to find a way around” could be a way of saying that a problem had been solved by means of data analysis; therefore this cannot be viewed as some kind of fraud there are thousands of published scientific articles analyzing historical series of climate data so it’s impossible to doubt that the planet is getting warmer I think this matter has lost some of its prominence but a number of measures have been taken; several academies of science are conducting independent investigations of the e-mails as are the IPCC and the University of East Anglia The institutions in England take highly laudable measures to immediately remove any faculty member from his or her position in the event of any suspicion Phil Jones has temporarily stepped down from his post as director of the said university’s Climate Research Unit until the related investigation is concluded I think that scientists such as Joanne Simpson who question some of the aspects in which science must advance none of the names you mentioned are tied to the oil and coal lobbies The issue is whether these people’s views didn’t end up fuelling these lobbies Which country is most interested in raising all kinds of doubts about this issue global warming has been viewed as causing huge difficulties for development Studies conducted by Chinese scientists have shown that the effects of global warming have already had an impact: heat waves floods; and they have affected farming… Furthermore this issue no longer applies to countries that account for a major percentage of the population And this is why the only statement left over from Copenhagen is that the temperature cannot rise by more than 2 degrees; the African countries and the small islands together want no more than 1.5 degrees which in some semi-arid regions means 2.5 degrees wrote an article on climate change research He states that only science can mitigate this field’s uncertainties as part of the climate program organized by FAPESP and Rede CLIMA This is one of the main issues regarding these lines of research These studies are based on three pillars: the first is the study of climate change and its impact on all the systems The second is the technological focus: what does Brazil have to do to reduce emissions the third concerns reducing the uncertainties of the projections: these are the models of a global climate system FAPESP’s program has strong funding for developing a truly Brazilian model of the global climate system based on existing experiences from all over the world (no need to reinvent the wheel) are to include the very best of our knowledge; all the components all the elements of a climate system (the ocean the most typical disturbances of the Brazilian environment with which we are familiar) will be brought together to create our own model We are in the process of getting the necessary tools: super computers to design scenarios for decades and centuries (the bidding process for these is already under way) based on our current knowledge This will provide a contribution to global science We plan to include elements that are typical of South America as well as the climate variations that we are familiar with; we will avail ourselves of a tool that will provide us with plenty of autonomy to prepare as many scenarios as we feel are important – repeating changing some things and constantly learning more and more which will – in the course of three or four years – put us on par with developed countries The effort to reduce uncertainties is a global effort We have already expanded the Brazilian effort so that it has become the modeling effort of three countries – Brazil I can say that this could be viewed as a model “of the South” (China is too big and is working on its own model of this kind) And it would be good if this were a joint effort because we’ll only come close to the minimum figures required for this kind of venture if we include the work being done by the scientific community involved in modeling in those countries Europe or Japan has at least 100 or120 PhDs working on this modeling activity whereas all of us FAPESP’s climate program was launched in 2008 and there are 10 projects under way in it Ten proposals currently under way were selected at the first call The second part of this first summons focused on a consortium to develop a Brazilian mathematical model for the global climate system This proposal is in the final stages of analysis and should be included as the 11th proposal As the first summons attracted a significant number of excellent proposals FAPESP made the decision – correctly so in my opinion – to review the projects that had been very well evaluated but that had not passed the first phase instead of organizing a new summons in 2009 I believe that this will result in another 4 Eduardo CesarThe initial estimate was to invest R$100 million in the program Half of this funding was to be provided by FAPESP and the other half  by the Ministry of Science and Technology FAPESP undertook to provide an average of R$12 million a year for 10 years and it managed to set up a partnering arrangement with the federal government – not exactly fifty-fifty but an excellent deal nonetheless – because the federal funds are allocated to a very important component of the program: grants for master’s degrees which will educate a new generation of researchers these initial projects will involve about 50 new researchers with PhDs there are only 40 to 50 PhDs in Brazil specialized in or working on climate systems modeling; most of them are in the State of São Paulo If Brazil wants to be fully autonomous in this respect then it will have to educate another 100 PhDs in this field within 10 years and provide jobs for all of them the figures are as follows: if in 10 years’ time FAPESP has a 20-project portfolio having managed to keep 15 projects under on any given year then we will have educated roughly 200 PhDs The FAPESP program alone will have multiplied the number of existing researchers fourfold all the sub-fields linked to climate changes the Rede Clima climate network and INCT run similar programs in 10 years Brazil will have hundreds of PhDs – and I hope that the institutions South Africa and some South American countries actually materializes the Southern Hemisphere’s contribution may be quite significant We’ll be able to improve our ability to study which climate change effects are expected in agriculture in cities… The focus is to develop models and apply them The idea is to apply the projections from all kinds of studies and perhaps (who knows I’m being optimistic here) we might even be able to share technological development The problem of this entire issue as regards agreements on climate changes is the mitigation-related technological question The major issue that is not being addressed and that was not addressed in Copenhagen is that countries have an overly nationalistic view of technology nobody shares technological developments – everyone wants to sell them assuming that countries with the ability to innovate technology are developed countries and that this is the driver of economic development we’ll manage to break down some paradigms and start developing joint technological projects for emissions reduction The people who were in Copenhagen realized very clearly that unless the USA and China reach a consensus on technology-related issues it would be difficult to envision a broad agreement Is it a false impression or have research groups from other countries accrued much more knowledge on the Amazon Region and climate changes than the Brazilian groups The basis of the research work has actually always come from Brazilian institutions and partnering arrangements with researchers from other countries This has enabled joint projects to materialize the biggest of which is the LBA (Large Scale Biosphere-Atmosphere) Experiment in the Amazon Region we will notice a predominance of scientific articles whose leading author is not Brazilian This reflects the fact that many developed countries that invest heavily in scientific research have a global view of science and study scientific endeavors from all over the world we have established a number of scientific collaborations and we have been able to significantly expand the development of a community here in Brazil that conducts international-level research on the Amazon Region Most of this community’s members are in Brazil’s southeast region  By strengthening the scientific institutions of the Amazon Region a process that has been under way for the last 10 years and that is now beginning to yield significant results which is the sequential model of scientific and technological development This model allocates funds for scientific research only after a major economic development boom occurs FAPESP is a typical example: its funds come from a percentage of the ICMS state tax levied on goods and services If the state is doing well in economic terms research funds swell up and this feeds the economic process through innovation and the strengthening of universities… This was the model used in most of the world’s development the Amazon Region and the poor regions of Africa and South America actually need another model because the speed of transformations is so great that one must come up with an “Antarctic model”  for scientific development There is no economic exploitation in Antarctica but the world spends more money on research on Antarctica where investments for economic purposes are banned by international law than Brazil does on science and technology We have to do something similar for the Amazon Region without the restrictions on investments for economic purposes Of the US$166 billion to be invested in the field of climate change in the next 10 years as announced by president Lula in Copenhagen a significant portion is to be allocated to reducing deforestation in the Amazon Region and to opening new institutions and new universities… I think we’re on the right track We worked on the calculations at the Brazilian Academy of Sciences and concluded that we need to have at least 2 thousand researchers in the Amazon Region; the ideal figure would be 4 thousand new researchers and engineers I always point out the following: all the Amazon region universities and research institutes together get less than 50% of the University of São Paulo/USP budget We’re talking about 4 million square kilometers huge potential – doesn’t all of this deserve a budget similar to that of USP and your move to research work on the climate Didn’t you graduate in electronic engineering from ITA I was an adolescent in the late 1960’s from a family of Italian immigrants on my mother’s side some 30 kilometers away from the city of Uberaba My father migrated to São Paulo to look for a job any student who lacked a family framework regarding education had one of three choices: if he liked plants and animals and didn’t mind blood he was steered to medical school; if he was very good at math he would study engineering; and if he wanted to get rich I took the college entrance exam for engineering and my choices were USP’s Polytechnic School and ITA I passed both exams and started at the Polytechnic But I didn’t like the freshman hazing and my father suggested that I try ITA for one week I decided to take the most difficult course – at that time My father passed away when I was halfway through college and my family found itself in difficult financial circumstances I took on the responsibility of supporting my family I have been interested in environmental issues ever since my teenage years on the outskirts of São Paulo I met Paulo Nogueira Neto before he had organized Sema the federal government’s environmental protection agency I attended many lectures and events that he organized My interest in meteorology was triggered by coincidence: I had developed a mathematical model at Inpe to calculate the pollution that the Petrobras oil refinery that was being built would cast upon the city of São José dos Campos as part of my college graduation monograph given the military regime that ruled the country at that time But I had to know where the refinery’s smokestack would be built a classmate from ITA (now deceased) and a pilot from the local aircraft club I photographed the site with infrared film and my Nikon F2 camera ITA students had a classroom that was close to the recently established meteorological department who lives in the State of Alagoas and is known as the Brazilian skeptic I spent a few months in São José and then I went to Manaus the National Research Institute of the Amazon Region I got this job thanks to a friend from Inpe who knew the person who was then chairman of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences He was aware of my interest in the Amazon Region and sent me to talk to the then chairman of the CNPq funding agency called Warwick Kerr from his office in Rio de Janeiro Kerr was one of FAPESP’s founders and the director of Inpa at that time Dion provided me with an air ticket and I didn’t even return to São Paulo: I went straight to Galeão Airport from CNPq’s office I began working as an equipment maintenance engineer at Inpa and soon thereafter Kerr put me to work on other projects a scientific committee from MIT came to visit Inpa and Doctor Kerr asked me to assist the group from MIT heard that I was an electronic engineer and invited me to visit MIT to learn how to operate some equipment at his MIT lab The MIT equipment was identical to the equipment that the Japanese government had donated to Inpa The Japanese equipment had been left in storage because no engineer at Inpa knew how to assemble it learned everything about the equipment – how to operate So applied to doctoral programs at the meteorology department of the University of  Wisconsin at the environmental sciences department of the University of California at Berkeley I thought I was brilliant – every ITA graduate thinks so I was accepted at the three institutions and chose MIT I worked on very heavily theoretical aspects of meteorology; I wrote a theoretical thesis on modeling and got a very good education Eduardo CesarDid you join Inpa again after you returned I thought that I was going to go back to Inpa during a conversation with Enéas Salati in 1979 who was then the director of the institute he realized that I had become too theoretical and as such he felt I wouldn’t have very much to do at Inpa So he recommended that I go to Inpe when I came back to Brazil Salati himself talked about me to Nélson de Jesus Parada Kerr got me a one-year grant from the Organization of American States Then I got a four and a half-year grant from MIT That’s why I had no obligation whatsoever to come back I had also been invited to join a post-doctoral program and I had the possibility of getting a job – but I didn’t think about any of this for even one minute: I wanted to return to Brazil and living in São José would allow me to be fairly close to her being hired by Inpe was very simple: Inpe employees were hired under Brazilian Labor Laws and I was hired in early 1983 I was still interested in the Amazon Region; my modeling thesis had been based on tropical circulations but it was also tropical and as such could be applied to any tropical region Molion invited me to take part in an experiment in the Amazon Region I went in August and stayed for two months working on this experiment I became interested in the environment and in the rain forest and things happened in a sequence: in 1985 and 1987 we conducted an experiment together with Nasa I took on the responsibility of coordinating the meteorological part of the experiment with Nasa and started getting involved with management matters a group from England came here to conduct a major experiment together with Brazilian researchers This involved three sites in the Amazon Region and I was the coordinator of the Brazilian part The experiment focused on understanding the Amazon Region’s flows – of heat and of carbon; carbon was already becoming a focus of study but I was the coordinator of the experiment as a whole in Rondônia – Ji-Paraná – and in Manaus Rio-92 had already taken place and environmental issues had become a hot topic in Brazil… In a sense one can say that the LBA is a product of Rio-92 the LBA preliminary proposal came up in late 1992 in the USA I went there and started to organize it along with Nasa and the Europeans in 1993 I started broadening my line of research beyond atmospheric modeling the more traditional line of meteorological research as I began to focus on vegetation-related issues I must tell you that I spent one year in the USA in 1988 – I went to Maryland This helped me a lot because while I was there I conducted one of my first studies about the impact of deforestation in the Amazon Region on the climate we published two papers: one in Science in 1990 and another one in Journal of Climate even though it was not published in Science or Nature has already been quoted more than 300 times It was in the 1991 paper that we presented the theoretical proposal the hypothesis of the “savannization”  of the Amazon region This is considered your main scientific contribution to the debate on climate change and I am still pursuing this line of thinking We submitted a paper recently that reaffirms this hypothesis I have advised many students in many fields including classical meteorology and weather forecasting but this paper –  which got less attention – was produced together with my students The better-known production on an international level is closely related to the Amazon Region because this region attracts global interest Yes  – by proposing the “savannization”  hypothesis you were launching something very provocative almost 20 years after the publication of the first paper I could count another 100 papers from all over the world on this issue I have maintained my interest in the matter even though I spent many years involved with the creation of CPTEC Inpe’s weather forecast and climate studies center which I headed for 12 years but I diminished my intellectual production during that time Marcos Oyama – one of my students – and I published a paper describing how the Amazon Region could turn into a savanna; the week before last My students and I also published two important papers in 2007 shows how “savannization”  could be caused by global warming and the other determined the deforestation limit that can cause this So this field of science has been getting a lot of exposure Marina Hirota Magalhães (one of my doctoral students) and I have just submitted a new paper – which I hope will be accepted – in which for the first time we managed to explain the importance of electrical discharges the vegetation fires caused by electrical discharges to determine where the Amazon Rainforest begins and where the Cerrado savanna ends – this is an issue that has always been in the back of my mind We explained that were it not for lightning and thunderbolts the Amazon Rainforest would extend 300 to 400 kilometers into what is now the Cerrado savanna It’s the fire that drives the forest some 400 kilometers back Did the people who study thunderbolts at Inpe take part in developing this paper My colleague Osmar Pinto has always led the studies on lightning and thunderbolts We brought in people from this field to the new center we opened at Inpe and which I head: the Terrestrial System Sciences Center Osmar is with us and what happens when you bring together people with different academic backgrounds is very interesting This paper materialized because I had proposed to the said doctoral student that she focus on the following issue: this is a place where a lot of lightning strikes; if there were no lightning there would be fewer fires; and with no fires the forest would invade the Cerrado savanna everything I do within my line of mathematical modeling is quantitative the environmentalists who specialize on the Cerrado savanna have already known for 50 years that fire is important – but I wanted to quantify all of this the most difficult part of which was how to specify the fires caused by lightening Marina is a mathematician from Unicamp; she is very mathematically talented and so we were able to build a mathematical model I am also concluding the revision of another paper that we will submit shortly and in which we bring together and analyze what is happening to the Amazon Region Are there any changes on the horizon concerning the “savannization”  of the Amazon Region I am about to propose a long-term experiment consisting of a system of observations focused on the south-southeast of the Amazon Region the ability to detect the signs of impending “savannization” if the temperature in the region rises by more than 3.5 degrees – we are far from this only 1 degree so far – or if deforestation becomes too extensive then we will begin to see the signs of “savannization” Do you see any parallel between the development of your scientific career and the development of the field of environmental sciences and Earth sciences here in Brazil This is going to seem kind of… However If you made a list of 10 people who have dedicated most of their professional careers to these fields since the 1980s Given that I have coordinated many of these scientific experiments I think that I really have furthered the development of these fields in Brazil And these fields enjoy a lot of international visibility network with the Bioen and Biota-FAPESP programs A major opportunity is arising for Brazil to rationally exploit its renewable natural resources and to become a tropical environmental power at the forefront of the production of clean biofuels for the world respecting environmental quality and ecosystems provided that all of this is firmly based on advanced science and technology Bioen is a truly impressive program; it centers on expanding the use and possibilities of biofuel and it is a pillar of future ethanol chemistry along with the research conducted by Rede CLIMA/MCT (the Brazilian Network of Research on Global Environmental Changes of the Ministry of Science and Technology) and by INCT for Climate Changes as examples for Brazil and as the first three pillars of knowledge that are to form the basis of a new and real development of our country © Revista Pesquisa FAPESP - All rights reserved Alcantara (27-4 MMA, 2-1 UFC) will be awarded his win bonus after his no contest with UFC newcomer Pedro Nobre (14-1-2 MMA, 0-0 UFC). UFC Managing Director of International Development Marshall Zelaznik confirmed the news with MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) at Saturday's post-event news conference for "UFC on FX: Belfort vs "Yuri ended up getting his win bonus," Zelaznik told MMAjunkie.com UFC on FX 7 took place at Ibirapuera Gymnasium in Sao Paulo The main card aired on FX following prelims on FUEL TV and Facebook Alcantara found himself on the ground with Nobre who took the fight on fewer than two weeks' notice He went to work on Nobre's arm and appeared to have a kimura only to have Alcantara on his back raining down punches Referee Dan Miragliotta warned Alcantara to watch for strikes to the back of the head Miragliotta called time for what he deemed to be illegal shots Replays appeared to show Alcantara landing an elbow to the side of Nobre's head then several punches to the side of the head None appeared to land on the back of the head and ultimately said the strikes left him unable to go on The fight was waved off as a no contest in the first round Pedro is an award winning actor and horrible call by Dan M." But regardless of whether Nobre was engaging in some gamesmanship or what the right call might have been Alcantara at least will go home with both his show and win money For more on the UFC on FX 7, stay tuned to the UFC Events section of the site The world's largest mixed martial arts (MMA) promotion continues to trim the fat from its roster including the much-maligned Pedro Nobre after his UFC on FX 7 debacle last weekend in Brazil Looks like Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) President Dana White wasn't buying what Pedro Nobre was selling "The Rock" has been rolled right out of the promotion following his controversial no contest against Yuri Alcantara at last weekend's UFC on FX 7 event in Sao Paulo, Brazil, despite Nobre's "sad" assertion that he was a victim of circumstance but was pulled from the "Windy City" fight card for mysterious reasons an undisclosed injury but were unable to get anything going in their time inside the Octagon Doesn't take much these days. Especially after this A fraudster who claimed he was the Pope’s banker to swindle a shipping firm out of £73million protested his innocence as he was jailed for 14 years today. Luis Nobre, 49, boasted that he could get returns of 1,200 per cent a year by using the pontiff’s secret trading platform. But he was one of a gang of fraudsters led by conman Marek Rejniak who posed as international financiers to dupe Dutch shipping company Allseas Group Ltd into handing over vast sums of cash. Nobre lived at the five-star Landmark Hotel in Marylebone, London, before fleeing abroad and leaving girlfriend and their newborn baby with the £130,000 bill. During his stay, Cristal-quaffing Nobre attempted to woo two HSBC employees into his web of fraud by holding a meeting for just four people in the vast ballroom. Nobre, who boasted he traded trillions of dollars for the biggest Chinese Sovereign investment fund in the world, even attempted to buy the hotel and a £40million mansion. He was introduced to the shipping company bosses as an ‘A1’ trader with links to the US Federal reserve and he promised amazing profits on his investments. To lure Allseas into parting with their money, the gang boasted they had access to ‘secret and lucrative’ trading through a platform connected to the Vatican via the Spanish royal family. Nobre, who sported waist-length black hair and a series of sharply tailored suits coupled with colourful silk hankies throughout the trial, opted to represent himself. His four month trial was peppered with his outbursts from the dock as he accused witnesses of lying and at one point while the jury were out of the room, and wept as he claimed to have been ‘massacred by the media’. But his posturing and ranting just provoked laughter from the jury, who had to be sent out on a couple of occasions to calm down. He was joined during the trial by co-defendant, London based solicitor Buddika Kadurugamuwa, 46, who helped launder £111,400 of criminal cash. Last week the jury found Nobre guilty of one count of acquiring criminal property, five counts of transferring criminal property and three counts of possession of articles for use in fraud after just over six hours of deliberation. Kadurugamuwa was cleared of one count of being concerned in a money laundering arrangement but convicted of transferring criminal property. Five members of the jury returned to the courtroom today to find out what sentence Nobre would receive. Nobre sat in the dock shaking his head as the prosecution recounted the facts of the case. Before he was sentenced, Nobre said: ‘This court has been in collusion with the prosecution. ‘To try to put that as an organised crime that is absurd, your honour, and that I do not accept.’ Judge Anthony Pitts jailed him for a total of 14 years and said: ‘You have no legitimate money of your own but you gave the impression of being a multi millionaire. ‘You were at some time saying that this was some kind of Jewish conspiracy. ‘You were abusive, offensive, loud, shouting in this courtroom so that you could be heard in another court next door, I was told. ‘You accused everyone of being involved in a conspiracy against you.’ Judge Pitts described Nobre as dishonest and stated that he agreed with the jury’s verdict due to the substantial evidence against Nobre. When being taken to the cells Nobre shouted: ‘I am innocent, I am a good person, I am honest.’ He also repeatedly said that he intends to appeal during today’s hearing. Earlier prosecutor David Durose said: ‘Allseas were seeking to raise capital in order to fund the building of a new ship and had available the enormous sum of 100 million euros (£73million) to invest. ‘They took advice from a series of individuals about how best to use this money. ‘Initially, they sought advice from former employees, but were referred on to others on a number of occasions. ‘Ultimately it is clear that the individuals who ended up advising them were not the international financiers that Allseas thought they were. ‘They were, in fact, a group of fraudsters led by a man called Marek Rejniak. ‘As a result of the actions of the fraudsters Allseas lost control of the entire sum of 100 million euros although they did not realise they had been defrauded for some time as they were led to believe the money was still in the process of being invested on their behalf.’ Allseas were duped into handing over their cash on the promise they could double their investment within just 30 days and would receive 1.2 billion euros within three years. They were then convinced to transfer the cash out of their control and into the hands of ‘principle fraudster’ Rejniak who is on the run. Nobre then attempted to transfer the cash into the accounts of his company LARN Limited in Switzerland and Andorra but the banks refused the huge transactions. He then dumped the cash in an account he held with London ‘multi-disciplinary legal practice’ Notable Services. He had an account with them after he told them he wanted to buy the ‘Palladio’ - a £37million mansion in the exclusive north London village of Highgate in 2010 and a group of hotels including Claridges for around £340m. Cash was then laundered through accounts in Switzerland, Singapore and Cyprus with the aid of co-accused Kadurugamuwa and a man called Nadeem Khan, 54, who died from a heart attack before the trial. Nobre also produced bogus bank guarantees purportedly worth $2billion to give credit to the lie that he controlled a vast amount of money. He splurged millions of the stolen cash before Barclays, suspecting it to be criminal property, froze the account with 88 million Euros remaining in it. Nobre drained the bank account of his rich divorcee girlfriend Victoria Weir and then abandoned her after running up a £130,000 bill at the five-star Landmark Hotel. Mr Durose said: ‘Nobre’s technique was to hold himself out as a man of great wealth in order to encourage others to lend him money.’ Ms Weir saw no evidence of any money, but Nobre purported to make offers on properties worth many millions of Swiss francs, although these deals never completed. The couple relocated to the UK from Geneva in October 2010 and then moved into the opulent Landmark Hotel near Marylebone station from mid-November that year. During the stay, he gained a reputation for tipping hundreds of pounds at a time. In mid June 2011, Nobre said he was going to Switzerland for a ‘few days’ but never returned. Giving evidence via video link, Ms Weir said: ‘He said everything would be resolved, the hotel bills would be paid, we would get our own house and all these financial problems would stop.’ She continued: ‘He wouldn’t answer any of my messages or phone calls until basically I just didn’t phone him anymore. ‘When he was first in Switzerland we were still in contact, he said he was going to be a few more days but of course he was coming back. He slowly stopped answering my calls after about three weeks. ‘I started panicking, I didn’t have a cent in my bank account, my breast milk had dried up and I had to feed my daughter just on bottled milk. ‘I could only eat in the hotel because it was credit, I couldn’t even afford to buy nappies - I had to ask friends to help me. ‘Lots of people would come looking for him in the hotel,’ she added. He told the court she finally managed to get through to Nobre’s phone in August 2011, but heard a German woman’s voice on the end of the phone. ‘I speak a little bit of German so I was saying “Where’s Mr Nobre? Where’s my husband” and she was just laughing, and I could hear him laughing in the background.' Nobre insisted that Allseas had not been defrauded and claimed he was entitled to spend the cash any way he liked under the ‘terms of the agreement’. He insisted he could have made Allseas 150 million euros on top of their original investment in 13 months, claiming banks were willing to borrow from him at 20 per cent interest. Asked why banks would borrow such an extortionate rate when they can borrow from each other at about 1.5 per cent, he replied: ‘Err, where have you been? We’ve been in financial crisis since 2008. The British banks are too busy trying to launder money from Mexican drug lords.’ During his often bizarre evidence Nobre claimed that he always had a fleet of vehicles following him around and he like to take undercover police ‘for a walk’ as part of a game. He said: ‘There were seven vehicles including cars, vans and motorbikes following me around wherever I went. ‘I employed a counter surveillance operation with different men and women stationed around my location. ‘It became a little of a game to me, I must tell the truth. Selfridges was a good place to go to get pictures of the undercover officers, it was my entertainment to talk to them walking around the streets.’ Kadurugamuwa allegedly helped launder the loot and load it on to pre-paid credit cards for Nobre to spend even after his arrest for money laundering in 2011. The solicitor claimed that she had no idea what pre-paid credit cards were, or that the cash on them was criminal property. Kadurugamuwa said: ‘He says his phone was being tapped or hacking devices being maybe set up.’ She also claimed that Nobre’s security team were never too far behind him. ‘They were always there with him - if he came to my office they were waiting downstairs for him.’ Nobre, from Wembley, was found guilty of one count of acquiring criminal property, five counts of transferring criminal property and three counts of possession of articles for use in fraud. Kadurugamuwa, was cleared of one count of being concerned in a money laundering arrangement but found guilty of one count of transferring criminal property. She has been granted bail and will be sentenced on 4 March. Nobre was sentenced to 14 years in prison.  Major terror attack 'was just HOURS away' before it was foiled by the special forces and police:... Victim of acid attack 'plotted by his ex-partner who teamed up with a gang' dies in hospital six... 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Hamas hostage, 23, 'raped by personal trainer influencer in her own home after being released' Sainsbury's makes major change at self-service checkouts following rise in shoplifting Fraudster who posed as the Pope’s banker jailed for 14 yearsCommenting on this article has endedNewest{{#isModerationStatus}}{{moderationStatus}} 40 years after the Brazilian driver's first ever victory in Formula 1 where he earned the nickname “Master of Rain” after dominating the race under a huge downpour Estoril Praia is paying tribute to the person and athlete who marked a generation with 41 grand prix triumphs and three World Championships for McLaren which the club will not be using for commercial sale is based on the helmet design and colours of the single-seater used by Senna © 2025 Cricket You must be logged in to post a comment Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page.