Copiado del blog de escolar.

Brotes verdes en la Comunidad de Madrid. ¿Es la economía? No seas estúpido. Lo único que renace en una de las pocas autonomías donde en mayo no bajó el paro es el espionaje político en el PP.Florecen las denuncias de nuevas víctimas, nuevos espiados, tras el carpetazo con el que el gobierno madrileño cerró el caso en la Asamblea de Madrid (que no en los juzgados). Ayer, un periodista preguntó a Esperanza Aguirre si pensaba que el escándalo de los espías, versión dos punto cero, podría deteriorar su imagen pública. Su respuesta es sincera: “Creo que la imagen que los ciudadanos tienen de mí es que soy una persona que me puedo equivocar, como se equivoca todo el mundo, pero que soy trabajadora y honrada”.

Antes de indignarse, relea la frase. La palabra “imagen” es la clave y Esperanza tiene razón. A juzgar por las encuestas y los resultados electorales, la imagen que la mayoría de los madrileños tienen de ella sigue siendo buena, a pesar del deterioro de los servicios públicos y de los numerosos escándalos de corrupción que salpican su honrada gestión, desde los espías a la Gürtel pasando por Fundescam. ¿Su secreto? Lo dice la propia Aguirre: la imagen. La lideresa gestiona la única televisión pública denunciada por manipulación por sus propios trabajadores y también cuenta con el impagable apoyo de todos los grupos de comunicación de la derecha. ¿He dicho impagable? Sin duda no es el adjetivo adecuado: el apoyo no sale gratis. Esperanza se mira en el espejito, espejito, que para eso te he pagado, y su imagen, el reflejo que vemos en los medios, es “trabajadora y honrada”. Ya lo decía Telemadrid: espe-jo de lo que somos.

Si no conocéis www.ted.com (Ideas Worth Spreading) y os gusta darle vueltas a las cosas y escuchar otros puntos de vista, ya estáis tardando. Hay charlas de oradores cojonudos sobre una variedad increíble de temas. Es una maravilla de página.
Para abrir boca os recomiendo este vídeo sobre la relación sistema educativo y creatividad:

Climate change odds much worse than thought

New analysis shows warming could be double previous estimates

David Chandler, MIT News Office
May 19, 2009

The most comprehensive modeling yet carried out on the likelihood of how much hotter the Earth's climate will get in this century shows that without rapid and massive action, the problem will be about twice as severe as previously estimated six years ago - and could be even worse than that.

The study uses the MIT Integrated Global Systems Model, a detailed computer simulation of global economic activity and climate processes that has been developed and refined by the Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change since the early 1990s. The new research involved 400 runs of the model with each run using slight variations in input parameters, selected so that each run has about an equal probability of being correct based on present observations and knowledge. Other research groups have estimated the probabilities of various outcomes, based on variations in the physical response of the climate system itself. But the MIT model is the only one that interactively includes detailed treatment of possible changes in human activities as well - such as the degree of economic growth, with its associated energy use, in different countries.

Study co-author Ronald Prinn, the co-director of the Joint Program and director of MIT's Center for Global Change Science, says that, regarding global warming, it is important "to base our opinions and policies on the peer-reviewed science," he says. And in the peer-reviewed literature, the MIT model, unlike any other, looks in great detail at the effects of economic activity coupled with the effects of atmospheric, oceanic and biological systems. "In that sense, our work is unique," he says.

The new projections, published this month in the American Meteorological Society's Journal of Climate, indicate a median probability of surface warming of 5.2 degrees Celsius by 2100, with a 90% probability range of 3.5 to 7.4 degrees. This can be compared to a median projected increase in the 2003 study of just 2.4 degrees. The difference is caused by several factors rather than any single big change. Among these are improved economic modeling and newer economic data showing less chance of low emissions than had been projected in the earlier scenarios. Other changes include accounting for the past masking of underlying warming by the cooling induced by 20th century volcanoes, and for emissions of soot, which can add to the warming effect. In addition, measurements of deep ocean temperature rises, which enable estimates of how fast heat and carbon dioxide are removed from the atmosphere and transferred to the ocean depths, imply lower transfer rates than previously estimated.

Prinn says these and a variety of other changes based on new measurements and new analyses changed the odds on what could be expected in this century in the "no policy" scenarios - that is, where there are no policies in place that specifically induce reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Overall, the changes "unfortunately largely summed up all in the same direction," he says. "Overall, they stacked up so they caused more projected global warming."

While the outcomes in the "no policy" projections now look much worse than before, there is less change from previous work in the projected outcomes if strong policies are put in place now to drastically curb greenhouse gas emissions. Without action, "there is significantly more risk than we previously estimated," Prinn says. "This increases the urgency for significant policy action."

To illustrate the range of probabilities revealed by the 400 simulations, Prinn and the team produced a "roulette wheel" that reflects the latest relative odds of various levels of temperature rise. The wheel provides a very graphic representation of just how serious the potential climate impacts are.

"There's no way the world can or should take these risks," Prinn says. And the odds indicated by this modeling may actually understate the problem, because the model does not fully incorporate other positive feedbacks that can occur, for example, if increased temperatures caused a large-scale melting of permafrost in arctic regions and subsequent release of large quantities of methane, a very potent greenhouse gas. Including that feedback "is just going to make it worse," Prinn says.

The lead author of the paper describing the new projections is Andrei Sokolov, research scientist in the Joint Program. Other authors, besides Sokolov and Prinn, include Peter H. Stone, Chris E. Forest, Sergey Paltsev, Adam Schlosser, Stephanie Dutkiewicz, John Reilly, Marcus Sarofim, Chien Wang and Henry D. Jacoby, all of the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, as well as Mort Webster of MIT's Engineering Systems Division and D. Kicklighter, B. Felzer and J. Melillo of the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole.

Prinn stresses that the computer models are built to match the known conditions, processes and past history of the relevant human and natural systems, and the researchers are therefore dependent on the accuracy of this current knowledge. Beyond this, "we do the research, and let the results fall where they may," he says. Since there are so many uncertainties, especially with regard to what human beings will choose to do and how large the climate response will be, "we don't pretend we can do it accurately. Instead, we do these 400 runs and look at the spread of the odds."

Because vehicles last for years, and buildings and powerplants last for decades, it is essential to start making major changes through adoption of significant national and international policies as soon as possible, Prinn says. "The least-cost option to lower the risk is to start now and steadily transform the global energy system over the coming decades to low or zero greenhouse gas-emitting technologies."

This work was supported in part by grants from the Office of Science of the U.S. Dept. of Energy, and by the industrial and foundation sponsors of the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change.

(Guardian.co.uk)

"Ansio las estrellas
mas abocada estoy
a la pecera"

Es el título de uno de los primeros capítulos de "La elegancia del erizo".

"Aparentemente, de vez en cuando los adultos se toman el tiempo de sentarse a contemplar el desastre de sus vidas. Entonces se lamentan sin comprender y, como moscas que chocan una y otra vez contra el mismo cristal, se inquietan, sufren, se consumen, se afligen y se interrogan sobre el engranaje que los ha conducido allí donde no querían ir. Los más inteligentes llegan incluso a hacer de ello una religión: ¡ah, la despreciable vacuidad de la existencia burguesa! Hay cínicos de esa índole que comparten mesa con papá: << ¿Qué ha sido de nuestros sueños de juventud?>> preguntan con aire desencantado y satisfecho. <<Se han desvanecido, y cuán perra es la vida...>> Odio esta falsa lucidez de la edad madura. La verdad es que son como todos los demás: chiquillos que no entienden qué les ha ocurrido y que van de duros cuando en realidad tienen ganas de llorar.
Sin embargo, es fácil de comprender. El problema está en que los hijos se creen lo que dicen los adultos y, una vez adultos a su vez, se vengan engañando a sus propios hijos. <<La vida tiene un sentido que los adultos conocen>> es la mentira universal que todos creen por obligación. Cuando, una vez adulto, uno comprende que no es cierto, ya es demasiado tarde. El misterio permanece intacto, pero hace tiempo que se ha malgastado en actividades estúpidas toda la energía disponible. Ya no le queda a uno más que anestesiarse como puede tratando de enmascarar el hecho de que no le encuentra ningún sentido a la vida, y engaña a sus propios hijos para intentar convencerse mejor a sí mismo.
De entre las personas que frecuenta mi familia, todas han seguido el mismo camino: una juventud dedicada a tratar de rentabilidar la propia inteligencia, a exprimir como un limón el filón de los estudios y a asegurare una posición de élite; y luego toda una vida dedicada a preguntarse con estupefacción por qué tales esperanzas han dado como fruto una existencia tan vana. La gente cree ansiar y perseguir estrellas, pero termina como peces de colores en una pecera. Me pregunto si no sería más sencillo enseñarles a los niños desde el principio que la vida es absurda. Ello le robaría algunos buenos momentos a la infancia, pero permitiría que el adulto ganara un tiempo considerable (por no hablar de que uno se ahorraría al menos un trauma, el de la pecera).
En lo que a mí respecta, tengo doce años, vivo en la calle Grenelle, número 7, en un piso de ricos. Mis padres son ricos, mi familia es rica y por consiguiente mi hermana y yo somos virtualmente ricas. Papá es diputado, después de haber sido ministro, y sin duda llegará a ser presidente de la Asamblea Nacional y se pimplará la bodega entera del palacete de Lassay, sede de dicha Asamblea. Mamá... Pues bien, mamá no es lo que se dice una lumbrera pero tiene cierta cultura. Es doctora en letras. Escribe sus invitaciones para cenar sin faltas de ortografía y se pasa el tiempo dándonos la tabarra con referencias literarias (<<Colombe, no te pongas en plan Guermantes>>, <<Tesoro, eres una verdadera Sanseverina>>).
Pese a ello, pese a toda esta suerte y toda esta riqueza, hace mucho tiempo que sé que el destino final es la pecera. ¿Que cómo lo sé? Pues porque da la casualidad de que soy muy inteligente. Excepcionalmente inteligente, incluso. No tengo más que compararme con los demás niños de mi edad para ver que nos separa un abismo. Como no me apetece mucho llamar la atención, y en una familia en la que la inteligencia se considera un valor supremo a una niña superdotada no la dejarían nunca en paz, en el colegio trato de hacer menos de lo que podría hacer, pero aun así siempre soy la primera en todo. Hay quien podría pensar que resulta fácil hacerse pasar por alguien con una inteligencia normal cuando, como yo, a los doce años se tiene el nivel de una universitaria de una facultad de dificultad superior. Pero ¡no, en absoluto! Hay que esforzarse mucho por parecer más tonto de lo que se es. Aunque, en cierta manera, ese empeño no salva de morir de aburrimiento: todo el tiempo que no tengo que pasar aprendiendo y comprendiendo, lo empleo en utilizar el estilo, las respuestas, las formas de proceder, las preocupaciones y los pequeños errores de los buenos alumnos normales y corrientes. Leo todo lo que escribe Constance Boret, la segunda de la clase, en mates, lengua e historia, y así me entero de lo que tengo que hacer: en lengua, una serie de palabras coherentes y correctamente ortografiadas; en mates, la reproducción mecánica de operaciones desprovistas de sentido; y en historia, una sucesión de hechos ligados entre sí por conectores lógicos. Pero incluso si me comparo con los adultos, soy mucho más lista que la mayoría de ellos. Así son las cosas. No me siento especialmente orgullosa porque tampoco es que el mérito sea mío. Pero lo que está claro es que yo no pienso terminar en la pecera. He reflexionado mucho antes de tomar esta decisión. Incluso para una persona tan inteligente como yo, con tanta facilidad para los estudios, tan diferente de los demás y tan superior a la mayoría de la gente, mi vida ya está toda trazada, lo cual es tristísimo: nadie parece haber caído en la cuenta de que si la existencia es absurda, lograr en ella un éxito brillante no tiene más valor que fracasar por completo. Simplemente es más cómodo. O ni siquiera: creo que la lucidez hace amargo el éxito, mientras que la mediocridad alberga siempre alguna esperanza.
He tomado pues una decisión. Pronto dejaré atrás la infancia y, pese a mi certeza de que la vida es una farsa, no creo que pueda resistir hasta el final. En el fondo, estamos programados para creer en lo que no existe, porque somos seres vivos que no quieren sufrir. Por ello empleamos todas nuestras energías en convencernos de que hay cosas que valen la pena y que por ellas la vida tiene sentido. Por muy inteligente que yo sea, no sé cuánto tiempo aún podré luchar contra esta tendencia biológica. Cuando entre en el mundo de los adultos, ¿seré todavía capaz de hacer frente al sentimiento de lo absurdo? No lo creo. Por eso he tomado una decisión: al final de este curso, el día en que cumpla 13 años, el próximo 16 de junio, me suicidaré. Pero cuidado, no pienso hacerlo a bombo y platillo como si fuera un acto de valentía y un desafío. De hecho, más me vale que nadie sospeche nada. Los adultos tienen con la muerte una relación rayana en la histeria, el hecho adopta proporciones enormes, se comportan como si fuera algo importantísimo cuando en realidad es el acontecimiento más banal del mundo. Por otra parte, lo que a mí me importa no es el hecho del suicidio en sí, sino el cómo. Mi vertiente japonesa se inclina evidentemente por el seppuku. Cuando digo mi vertiente japonesa me refiero a mi amor por el Japón. Estoy en octavo y, como es obvio, he elegido el japonés como segunda lengua. El profe de japonés tampoco es que sea muy bueno, se come las palabras cuando no habla su idioma y se pasa el tiempo rascándose la coronilla con aire perplejo, pero el libro de texto no está mal y, desde que empezó el curso, he progresado mucho. Tengo la esperanza de que, de aquí a pocos meses, podré leer mis cómics manga preferidos en su edición original. Mamá no entiende que una <<niña tan lista como tú>> pueda leer manga. Ni siquiera me he tomado la molestia de explicarle que <<manga>> en japonés quiere decir simplemente <<tebeo>>. Ella cree que me atiborro de subcultura, y yo no hago nada por sacarla de su error. Dentro de unos meses quizá pueda leer a Taniguchi en japonés. Pero esto nos lleva de nuevo a nuestra cuestión de antes: eso tendría que conseguirlo antes del 16 de junio porque ese día me suicido. Pero nada de seppuku. Sería un gesto cargado de sentido y de belleza pero... da la casualidad de que... no tengo ninguna gana de sufrir. Más aún, detestaría sufrir; encuentro que cuando uno toma la decisión de morir, justamente porque considera que es algo lógico, tiene que hacerlo con tiento. Morir ha de ser un paso delicado, un deslizarse suavemente hacia el descanso. ¡Hay gente que se suicida tirándose por la ventada de un cuarto piso, bebiéndose un vaso de lejía o incluso ahorcándose! ¡Es aberrante! Lo encuentro incluso obsceno. ¿De qué sirve morir si no es para no sufrir? Yo, en cambio, he previsto bien mi salida de este mundo: desde hace un año, todos los meses le cojo a mamá un somnífero de la caja que guarda en su mesilla de noche. Se toma tantos que, de todas maneras, no se daría ni cuenta si le cogiera uno cada día, pero he decidido ser muy prudente. No hay que dejar ningún cabo suelto cuando se toma una decisión que es harto improbable que nadie comprenda. Uno no imagina la rapidez con que la gente obstaculiza los proyectos a los que más apego se tiene, en nombre de tonterías del estilo de <<el sentido de la vida>> o <<el amor a los hombres>>. Ah, y también: <<el carácter sagrado de la infancia>>.
(...)

Mi haikú preferido es de Basho.
(...)"

Bueno bueno, pues he empezado a escribir un post-resumen sobre el año, llorando un poco sobre mis penas y malos tragos, pero que le den por el culo! Ya se ha terminado y toca pasar página.
Como novedades, este lunes presenté el proyecto final de carrera (ya tengo el título!), el martes hice la entrevista de trabajo y hace un rato me han llamado desde recursos humanos. La semana que viene tengo que entregar la documentación y tal, y cuando vuelva de mis vacaciones tengo cinco días para descansar antes de pasarme a firmar el contrato y ponerme a currar.
El puesto es el que yo quería, y las oficinas están que te cagas! Ciudad del transporte, 10 minutos desde mi casa por autovía y unas vistas cojonudas desde la oficina al Perdón y la sierra de Aláiz. Creo que durante el año se sale de currar a las 17.30 (tienen comedor allí)  y durante el verano hay horario intensivo y se sale a las 15.00. Por lo demás, las condiciones están bastante bien, no me puedo quejar, jeje.
Y nada, ahora a preparar el viaje, que de las cinco semanas sólo tenemos organizada una y media (ups).

La imagen del post anterior es de este artículo.
Es largo y está en inglés, pero es tan sobrado que merece la pena leerlo hasta el final...

He visto esta imagen de cómo quedó un manifestante anti-globalización en Italia, en 2001, durante la cumbre del G8, y me ha recordado a una noticia que leí el otro día: en Afganistán, un misil norteamericano se desvió e impactó sobre una caravana que iba hacia una boda (o algo así). El misil mató a más de cuarenta personas, entre ellas a la novia.



Y ya que estamos, disfrutemos del humor del candidato republicano.



Responding to a question about a survey that shows increased exports to
Iran, mainly from cigarettes, McCain said, "Maybe thats a way of killing them."

No comment.

"China has witnessed such rapid growth in the last decade that even the cities you've never heard of are twice the size of Paris"

The rising demand for flat-screen televisions could have a greater impact on global warming than the world's largest coal-fired power stations, a leading environmental scientist warned yesterday.

Manufacturers use a greenhouse gas called nitrogen trifluoride to make the televisions, and as the sets have become more popular, annual production of the gas has risen to about 4,000 tonnes.

As a driver of global warming, nitrogen trifluoride is 17,000 times more potent than carbon dioxide, yet no one knows how much of it is being released into the atmosphere by the industry, said Michael Prather, director of the environment institute at the University of California, Irvine.

Prather's research reveals that production of the gas, which remains in the atmosphere for 550 years, is "exploding" and is expected to double by next year. Unlike common greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, sulphur hexafluoride (SF6) and perfluorocarbons (PFCs), emissions of the gas are not restricted by the Kyoto protocol or similar agreements.

Writing in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, Prather and a colleague, Juno Hsu, state that this year's production of the gas is equivalent to 67m tonnes of carbon dioxide, meaning it has "a potential greenhouse impact larger than that of the industrialised nations' emissions of PFCs or SF6, or even that of the world's largest coal-fired power plants".

While concerns have led Toshiba Matsushita Display Technology to avoid using the gas, Air Products, which produces it for the electronics industry, told New Scientist that very little nitrogen trifluoride is released into the atmosphere. But Prather argues that as the gas is not controlled in the same way as other greenhouse gases, companies may be careless with it.

Guardian.co.uk

A perro flaco todo son pulgas.

After three years of declining Amazon deforestation, rates of loss have now doubled to new record levels. Increased demand for products like soya and beef is driving the destruction.

Pasando el rato


( _Fotos_ )

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...

Salida mañanera a la sierra de Aralar.
Para variar nos hemos perdido y nos hemos pegado la mañana recorriendo lo que no debíamos, xDD. Pero vaya, ha estado bien porque es una zona muy bonita. Ahora que ya sabemos por dónde hay que ir sólo nos falta volver para hacer cima.

El cambio climático está expandiendo el cinturón tropical de la Tierra, según un estudio de científicos estadounidenses publicado en la revista especializada Nature Geoscience.
Desde 1979, el trópico se extendió entre dos y 4,8 grados de latitud de acuerdo con una medición basada en cuatro modelos meteorológicos.

Esta extensión podría representar entre 225 y 530 kilómetros en el último cuarto de siglo, e implicaría climas más áridos en regiones subtropicales ya secas.





La expansión abarca áreas como la cuenca mediterránea, el sudoeste de Estados Unidos, México y partes de Suramérica.

BBC


Progress Article abstract
Nature Geoscience
Published online: 2 December 2007 | doi:10.1038/ngeo.2007.38

Widening of the tropical belt in a changing climate
Dian J. Seidel1, Qiang Fu2, William J. Randel3 & Thomas J. Reichler4

Abstract
Some of the earliest unequivocal signs of climate change have been the warming of the air and ocean, thawing of land and melting of ice in the Arctic. But recent studies are showing that the tropics are also changing. Several lines of evidence show that over the past few decades the tropical belt has expanded. This expansion has potentially important implications for subtropical societies and may lead to profound changes in the global climate system. Most importantly, poleward movement of large-scale atmospheric circulation systems, such as jet streams and storm tracks, could result in shifts in precipitation patterns affecting natural ecosystems, agriculture, and water resources. The implications of the expansion for stratospheric circulation and the distribution of ozone in the atmosphere are as yet poorly understood. The observed recent rate of expansion is greater than climate model projections of expansion over the twenty-first century, which suggests that there is still much to be learned about this aspect of global climate change.


NOAA Air Resources Laboratory, Silver Spring, Maryland, USA
University of Washington, Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Seattle, Washington, USA
NCAR, Atmospheric Chemistry Division, Boulder, Colorado, USA
University of Utah, Department of Meteorology, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
Correspondence to: Dian J. Seidel1 e-mail: dian.seidel@noaa.gov

How Africa's desert sun can bring Europe power
A £5bn solar power plan, backed by a Jordanian prince, could provide the EU with a sixth of its electricity needs - and cut carbon emissions
Robin McKie, science editor
The Observer Sunday December 2 2007





Solar panels like these near Munich could capture heat in areas of the Mediterranean under the plan proposed by Prince Hassan bin Talal. Photograph: Alamy
Europe is considering plans to spend more than £5bn on a string of giant solar power stations along the Mediterranean desert shores of northern Africa and the Middle East.

More than a hundred of the generators, each fitted with thousands of huge mirrors, would generate electricity to be transmitted by undersea cable to Europe and then distributed across the continent to European Union member nations, including Britain.

Billions of watts of power could be generated this way, enough to provide Europe with a sixth of its electricity needs and to allow it to make significant cuts in its carbon emissions. At the same time, the stations would be used as desalination plants to provide desert countries with desperately needed supplies of fresh water.

Last week Prince Hassan bin Talal of Jordan presented details of the scheme - named Desertec - to the European Parliament. 'Countries with deserts, countries with high energy demand, and countries with technology competence must co-operate,' he told MEPs.

The project has been developed by the Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Corporation and is supported by engineers and politicians in Europe as well as Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Jordan and other nations in the Middle East and Africa.

Europe would provide initial funds for developing the solar technology that will be needed to run plants as well as money for constructing prototype stations. After that, banks and financial institutions, as well as national governments, would take over the construction programme, which could cost more than £200bn over the next 30 years.

'We don't make enough use of deserts,' said physicist Gerhard Knies, co-founder of the scheme. 'The sun beats down on them mercilessly during the day and heats the ground to tremendous temperatures. Then at night that heat is radiated back into the atmosphere. In other words, it is completely wasted. We need to stop that waste and exploit the vast amounts of energy that the sun beams down to us.'

Scientists estimate that sunlight could provide 10,000 times the amount of energy needed to fulfil humanity's current energy needs. Transforming that solar radiation into a form to be exploited by humanity is difficult, however.

One solution proposed by the scheme's engineers is to use large areas of land on which to construct their solar plants. In Europe, land is costly. But in nations such as Morocco, Algeria, and Libya it is cheap, mainly because they are scorched by the sun. The project aims to exploit that cheap land by use of a technique known as 'concentrating solar power'.

A CSP station consists of banks of several hundred giant mirrors that cover large areas of land, around a square kilometre. Each mirror's position can be carefully controlled to focus the sun's rays onto a central metal pillar that is filled with water. Prototype stations using this technique have already been tested in Spain and Algeria.

Once the sun's rays are focused on the pillar, temperatures inside start to soar to 800C. The water inside the pillar is vaporised into superhot steam which is channelled off and used to drive turbines which in turn generate electricity. 'It is proven technology,' added Knies. 'We have shown it works in our test plants.'

Only small stations have been tested, but soon plants capable of generating 100 megawatts of power could be built, enough to provide the needs of a town. The Desertec project envisages a ring of a thousand of these stations being built along the coast of northern Africa and round into the Mediterranean coast of the Middle East. In this way up to 100 billion watts of power could be generated: two thirds of it would be kept for local needs, the rest - around 30 billion watts - would be exported to Europe.

An idea of how much power this represents is revealed through Britain's electricity generating capacity, which totals 12 billion watts.

But there is an added twist to the system. The superheated steam, after it has driven the plant's turbines, would then be piped through tanks of sea water which would boil and evaporate. Steam from the sea water would piped away and condensed and stored as fresh water.

'Essentially you get electricity and fresh water,' said Knies. 'The latter is going to be crucial for developing countries round the southern Mediterranean and in north Africa. Their populations are rising rapidly, but they have limited supplies of fresh water. Our solar power plants will not only generate electricity that they can sell to Europe, they will supply drinkable water that will sustain their thirsty populations.'

There are drawbacks, however. At present electricity generated this way would cost around 15-20 eurocents (11 to 14p) a kilowatt-hour - almost twice the cost of power generated by coal. At such prices, few nations would be tempted to switch to solar. 'Unless it is extremely cheap, it won't stop people using easy-to-get fossil fuels,' John Gibbins, an energy engineer at Imperial College London, told Nature magazine last week.

However, Desertec's backers say improvements over the next decade should bring the cost of power from its plants to less than 10 eurocents a kilowatt-hour, making it competitive with traditionally generated power.

Other critics say the the plants would be built in several unstable states which could cut their supplies to Europe. Again, Knies dismisses the danger. 'It's not like oil. Solar power is gone once it hits your mirrors. It would simply be lost income.' The European Parliament has asked Desertec to propose short-term demonstration projects.

He leído el siguiente artículo y me he quedado flipado. No sé hasta qué punto será fiable, pero desde luego si lo es, es escandoloso.



Vladimir Putin addressing Russia ahead of the election. Photograph: Maxim Marmur/AFP/Getty Images



State workers forced to vote in effort to rig result for president

Luke Harding and Tom Parfitt in Moscow
Friday November 30, 2007
The Guardian


The Kremlin is planning to rig the results of Russia's parliamentary elections on Sunday by forcing millions of public sector workers across the country to vote, the Guardian has learned.
Local administration officials have called in thousands of staff on their day off in an attempt to engineer a massive and inflated victory for President Vladimir Putin and his United Russia party. Voters are being pressured to vote for United Russia or risk losing their jobs, their accommodation or bonuses, the Guardian has been told in numerous interviews with byudzhetniki (public sector workers), students and ordinary citizens.

Doctors, teachers, university deans, students and even workers at psychiatric clinics have been warned they have to vote. Failure to do so will entail serious consequences, they have been told.
Analysts say the pressure is designed to ensure a resounding win for the United Russia party and for Putin, who heads its party list. The victory would give him a public mandate to maintain ultimate power in the country as "National Leader" despite being unable to stand for a third term as president in March.

In a televised speech yesterday Putin implored the nation to turn out and vote for United Russia, saying: "I count on your support." The president enjoys genuine popular backing but a spokeswoman for Golos, an independent organisation monitoring the elections, said "big pressure on voters across the country" was being used to balloon the result for United Russia.

"We are seeing a new phenomenon where voters are forced to get absentee ballots under threat of being sacked or being denied bonuses," she said. "People are then instructed to vote at their workplace where everything is tightly controlled." The spokesman said the pressure applied to private businesses as well as state-run enterprises.

Students have been told they risk the prospect of failing exams or being removed from courses if they do not vote for United Russia. Alexander, a journalism student at Oryol State University, said: "It's been made very clear that students who don't get absentee ballots and vote the right way could lose their place in the dormitory."

Anna, 31, a schoolteacher in Ulan Ude, said: "We were called to the staff room in my school about a month ago and asked to sign a formal declaration promising that we would vote for United Russia. I told them that I wanted to vote for another party, but they told me to sign it in such a manner that there was no way to refuse. They hinted I could lose my job."

A librarian in Buryatia region said she had been promised a premium on her salary if she voted for United Russia.

The Kremlin insists Sunday's elections will be free and fair, despite inviting only 400 international observers to monitor the poll, which is taking place in 95,784 polling stations across the world's biggest country. This month the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe's office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) cancelled its mission to Russia after Moscow refused to give its experts visas.

Asked whether the Kremlin was planning to manipulate Sunday's election Vladimir Churov, the head of Russia's central election commission, told the Guardian: "They will be the most free, most transparent, and most suitable elections for citizens."

However, while state television has made no mention of electoral violations, websites and independent newspapers outside state control are seething with reports of attempts to pressure voters to turn out for United Russia.

Bloggers on Russia's most popular social networking site, Livejournal, have posted numerous accounts of intimidation. One in Murmansk wrote that he was told that if he didn't vote for United Russia "the management would get it in the neck".

Another in Yekaterinburg wrote: "Today my wife came home in shock. As the boss of a state company she has been told that all her workers living in different parts of town must take absentee ballots and go to vote in Kirovsky district. She has to go and sit all day on December 2 and call round everyone in her collective. Then she has to provide a list of who has voted." She then received a directive warning her to add anybody who didn't vote for United Russia to a list, and later those people would be "called to the office" of the local administration.

The Kremlin has cast Sunday's State Duma vote as a referendum on Putin. Although Putin is obliged to step down as president next May, a landslide victory may be used to legitimise his return to power, possibly as early as the summer.

The president's personal popularity remains high. But support for United Russia is less solid. Independent experts say the party's true ratings are around 35% - well below the 55% figure suggested by state-controlled opinion polls.

In a leak to Russian media this week, one senior election official said that regional governors had been told to deliver at least 65% of the vote for Putin's party, an "unrealistically high" total that could be achieved only through electoral fraud and by compelling people to vote.

"The elections are going to be falsified," said Mikhail Delyagin, an economist and the director of Moscow's Institute on Globalisation Problems. "The elections that took place in the Soviet Union were less falsified than this one."

He added: "All those who depend on state salaries have been forced to go and vote. This means workers on all levels of state power working for local government, all the military, and those who are in prison or psychiatric hospitals. Of course people have the possibility to lie. But there is enormous psychological pressure."

Regional election workers would also stuff ballot boxes - as they had done on previous occasions - boosting United Russia's vote by about 20%, he estimated. These results could be refined still further by using the election commission's central computer. "You can falsify as much as you want. But the result must be truthful-looking," he said.

Putin's decision to associate himself with United Russia's election campaign - and to stand as a candidate at the top of the party's federal list - has contributed to the scale of the fraud, analysts said.

"The scale of pressure is due to nervousness within the Kremlin administration since it announced that this is no longer a parliamentary election but a referendum on Putin," Fyodor Lukyanov, editor-in-chief of the journal Russia in Global Affairs, said. Lukyanov said he believed the amount of fraud on polling day would be small. "This is normal in contemporary advanced authoritarian systems. They are smart enough to organise the vote in quite a proper and correct way," he said.

Coercing people in advance was a more effective tactic, he added. "The consequences [of not voting for Putin] are not perhaps as bad as they promise. But there is psychological pressure, of course. I had thought Russian authoritarianism was much softer. We will see."

The squeeze on public sector workers follows numerous rule changes by the Kremlin to Russia's electoral system. Under a new law, all parties need 7% of the vote to enter parliament - up from 5% last time. Additionally, several democratic opposition parties have been banned from taking part. The Kremlin has also abolished constituency voting - in effect wiping out the last critics from the current Duma. It has also scrapped minimum turnout.

Critics allege that United Russia has received disproportionate media coverage on state-controlled TV while opposition figures have been blacklisted. Putin's speech at a US-style election rally in Moscow last week, in which he denounced Russia's opposition as "jackals", got 16 minutes on the main evening news.

"These elections are a farce," said Vladimir Ryzhkov, an independent MP banned from standing. The Kremlin liquidated his Republican party earlier this year, claiming it didn't have enough voters. "I call it a Kremlin biathlon. In a normal biathlon the sportsmen shoot at targets, but in the Kremlin biathlon, not only do the sportsmen shoot at their targets, but the judges shoot at the sportsmen," Ryzhkov said. "Half of Russia's politicians can't run. It's selection before election."

Yesterday the central election commission dismissed suggestions that public sector workers had been told they had to vote. Churov told the Guardian he regarded the allegation as a "provocation" put about by the opposition. "This is just propaganda," he said.

He also claimed it was "not possible" to manipulate results stored in the commission's central computer, nicknamed Elections. Voters could find out the result at their individual polling station by dialling 5503 on their mobile phones, he said.

It wasn't Russia's fault that the OSCE had cancelled its mission, he added. "I was waiting for the head of the ODIHR in Moscow. But instead he flew off to Washington," Churov complained.

Kremlin aides openly acknowledge that their aim is to push smaller parties out of parliament. "We have moved towards the purification of the legislature," said Putin's deputy spokesman, Dmitry Peskov.

Case studies

Ivan, power station worker, Ufa
Every worker is being forced to take an absentee ballot and instructed to vote at one particular polling station with the rest of the workforce, all together for United Russia. It will be very easy for them to count who has turned up, who hasn't, and how they've voted. On every shift, in every department we are constantly being told that if you don't comply you'll get the sack.

Yelena, nurse, Ulan Ude
Every week we have a work briefing in our poliklinik [doctor's surgery]. They are always pressing on us to vote for United Russia. The head doctor ... says that if we don't vote for United Russia we won't get our Putin pribavki [federal funds added to nurses' salaries].

Dasha, 19, student, Moscow
I was hanging out with my friends in Novogireyevo [in Moscow] near the metro. There were six of us. We were approached by a car. A young man came out. He started talking to us about the elections and said if we wanted to vote for United Russia we could get 500 roubles. I didn't agree but four of my group did. They filled in some kind of form - name, surname and passport data. They were given the numbers of polling stations where they should go and vote and get the cash.

Anastasiya, 40, librarian, Buryatia
There was a meeting in the village where all doctors, teachers, nurses were gathered by the culture department of the local government ... The doors were closed and we were like hostages. We were told write a declaration saying "I, name and surname, pledge to vote for United Russia and these are my passport details ..." We were told that if United Russia got a high percentage in the village we would get a bonus on our salaries.

Natalia, 29, Novosibirsk
Some activists from United Russia came to my home. They asked if I was going to vote for their party. I said no because I don't agree with its ideology. And they replied, Well, look, there's blacklist of people who aren't voting for United Russia. We know where you live and we are going to add you to that list.

Masha, student, Vladimir
We were told - you study in a state university, so you should vote for the state party. I don't know what to do. I wanted to vote for another party. But it was so difficult to get into university, I don't want to be thrown out.

· Some names have been changed

Ayer vi la película y me encantó.
Para mí, una obra de arte.

Con el medio ambiente está el tema cada vez más jodido...
Por una parte, la gente piensa que ellos solos qué van a hacer, que su contribución no es más que una gota de agua en el océano, que el problema es de los políticos y de las grandes compañías.
Los políticos pasan de todo porque requiere inversiones costosas que no les van a dar votos a corto plazo, y las grandes compañías han llegado a ser grandes compañías porque saben cómo ganar dinero.
Sin embargo últimamente muchas grandes empresas intentan vender la imagen de que son muy respetuosas con el medio ambiente porque se supone que el "ecologismo" está empezando a vender.
Así que después de todo, si se consigue trasladar esa sensación a las empresas, si elegimos a quién comprar no sólo por lo bonitos y lo cool que son sus anuncios sino también por lo respetuosos que son con el medio ambiente (investigando un poquillo, porque de boquilla todos son los mejores), conseguiremos que quieran cambiar su forma de actuar. Y exactamente lo mismo pasa con los políticos. Ellos ofrecen lo que creen que vende votos. Basta con hacerles llegar esa impresión.
Así que cada uno somos una gota de agua en el océano, cierto, pero es la única manera de cambiar el rumbo. Aunque cuesta, hay que tratar de cambiar la forma de actuar, de comprar y de comer, y ya de paso tratar de convencer al vecino para que haga lo mismo.
Acaso Rajoy y su primo van a solucionar el problema por nosotros? O compañías como apple, que con el estilo tan chulo y "limpio" de sus productos resulta que son, de las grandes compañías de electrónica, la menos verde?

Un jueguillo como el de las capitales europeas pero esta vez para todo el mundo:
pincha pincha pincha
Yo me he quedado en el nivel 10, con algún fallo de estos de 15000km, toma!! jajajaja