Global warming, carbon dioxide emissions and climate change were some of the issues addressed in the lecture "The Anthropocene: scientific, social and economic aspects of a new geological era", given this Thursday (17) by professor Paulo Eduardo Artaxo Netto, from Institute of Physics at USP. The event was organized by professor Laszlo Nagy, from the Biology Institute (IB) at Unicamp.
Students and teachers who attended the IB Congregation room heard Paulo Artaxo speak about how human beings took power from the planet's evolutionary force during the Anthropocene. In conjunction with geological forces, man has been causing changes in the structure of the planet. The professor drew attention to the changes that have been occurring in the carbon dioxide cycle and highlighted that 91% of carbon dioxide emissions come from the burning of fossil fuels. Of this total, 26% is absorbed by the oceans, making them more acidic.
The rise in global temperature is also alarming. “The climate has a strong chaotic system. From the 60s onwards, there was a critical increase in the planet’s temperature”, pointed out Artaxo. According to the professor, the planet as a whole warmed by 1°C, but in continental areas this warming was greater. All of this is reflected in rising ocean levels. From 1860 to 2010, there was a global average sea level rise of 23 cm.
The question is: what future do we want for the planet? “We have to discuss this new capacity that we have acquired to modify the planet's atmosphere, to modify the increase in the surface, to use 90% of the available fresh water. We have to have a governance strategy, a science-based strategy in relation to what we, human beings, are going to do to guarantee the sustainability of our own species within this new planet now dominated by the Anthropocene”, stated the professor.
At the end of the lecture, Artaxo and Nagy launched the book Interactions Between Biosphere, Atmosphere and Human Land Use in the Amazon Basin, which they are responsible for editing, together with Bruce R. Forsberg, from the National Institute for Amazonian Research. According to Professor Laszlo Nagy, “the initial idea of the book was to bring together information about various research programs in the Amazon, focusing on biosphere-atmospheric interaction (LBA Program), but also highlighting programs such as Biodiversity Research (PPBIO) and the Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments (PDBFF), and the Climate and 'Geoma' Networks". The book, published by Springer, is part of the series “Ecological Sudies”, (vol. 227) - a highlighted series of books from the publisher, covering all aspects of ecology. It is possible to purchase it as an e-book on the Springer website. The book contains 21 chapters and is written in English, but there is already an intention to produce a version in Portuguese and Spanish.
According to Artaxo, the work summarizes five years of work from the Large-Scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment in the Amazon (LBA), which is a Brazilian government program for studies on the functioning of the Amazon ecosystem. “It is very important that we can understand how a complex system like the Amazon works and understand how human action is altering the basic functioning of this ecosystem. Without public policies based on solid, good-quality science, these policies generally tend to fail. So, it is important that we can work to increase scientific knowledge about the Amazon, as this is strategic for the planet as a whole”, pointed out the professor.
