Cientistas desvendam profecia maia do “fim do mundo em 2012”

Arqueólogos de diversos países reuniram-se no Estado de Chiapas, uma área com muitas ruínas maias no sul do México, para discutir a teoria apocalíptica de que essa antiga civilização previra o fim do mundo em 2012.


A teoria, amplamente conhecida no país e contada aos visitantes tanto no México como na Guatemala, Belize e outras áreas onde os maias também se estabeleceram, teve sua origem no monumento nº 6 do sítio arqueológico de Tortuguero e num ladrilho com hieróglifos localizado em Comalcalco, ambos centros cerimoniais em Tabasco, no sudeste do país.

O monumento nº 6 do sítio arqueológico de Tortuguero faz alusão a um evento místico que ocorreria no dia 21 de dezembro de 2012, durante o solstício do inverno, quando Bahlam Ajaw, um antigo governante do lugar, se encontra com Bolon Yokte´, um dos deuses que, na mitologia maia, participaram do início da era atual. Até então, as mensagens gravadas em "estelas" (monumentos líticos, feitos num único bloco de pedra, contendo inscrições sobre a história e a mitologia maias) eram interpretadas como uma profecia maia sobre o fim do mundo.

Entretanto, segundo o Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e História (Inah), uma revisão das estelas pré-hispânicas indica que, na verdade, nessa data de dezembro do ano que vem os maias esperavam simplesmente o regresso de Bolon Yokte´. "(Os maias) nunca disseram que iria haver uma grande tragédia ou o fim do mundo em 2012", afirmou o investigador Rodrigo Liendo, do Instituto de Investigações Antropológicas da Universidade Autônoma do México (Unam). "Essa visão apocalíptica é algo que nos caracteriza, ocidentais. Não é uma filosofia dos maias."

Durante o encontro realizado em Palenque, que abriga uma das mais impressionantes ruínas maias de toda a região, o investigador Sven Gronemeyer, da Universidade Australiana de Trobe, e a sua colega Bárbara Macleod fizeram uma nova interpretação do 6º monumento de Tortuguero. Para eles, os hieróglifos inscritos na estela referem-se à culminação dos 13 baktunes, os ciclos com que os maias mediam o tempo. Cada um deles era composto por 400 anos. "A medição do tempo dos maias era muito completa", explica Gronemeyer. "Eles faziam referência a eventos no futuro e no passado, e há datas que são projetadas para centenas, milhares de anos no futuro", afirma.

A céptica explicação científica e histórica vai de encontro à crença popular no México, um país onde há quem procure adquirir os conhecimentos necessários para sobreviver com o seu próprio cultivo de alimentos no caso de uma catástrofe mundial. Muitos dos que vivem fora procuram regressar ao país porque sentem que precisam de estar em casa em 2012, e há empresas que oferecem espaço em bunkeres subterrâneos, com todas as comodidades.

Afinal, o possível fim do mundo também é negócio. O próprio governo mexicano lançou uma campanha para promover o turismo no sudeste do país, onde estão localizados os sítios arqueológicos maias.


Fonte: www.naturlink.sapo.pt

The Cost of Climate Change Is Jobs

The weather in South Africa is beautiful -- warm during the day, cool and breezy at night. This is a unique and fitting place to stage the United Nations Climate Change Conference, as South Africa prepares for the impacts of climate change.


The costs of adapting to climate change are not limited to South Africa or other countries that the UNFCCC framework considers "developing." The cost is something that we in the United States deal with on a daily basis, even if there are still powerful "climate deniers" in Congress who aren't willing to admit it. From the costs of increasingly severe weather events to the rising cost of food from climate-related droughts, Americans pay for global warming every day.

But the biggest cost that we pay is in lost opportunity. As it stands, the U.S. is failing to take advantage of the opportunities to create good jobs by addressing climate change. This makes less and less sense as our economy struggles to regain its footing, and as millions of Americans continue to search for work.

The BlueGreen Alliance is in Durban this week advocating for a framework to address climate change that spurs economic growth and job creation in the United States. The 15 partners of the BlueGreen Alliance -- 11 of America's largest labor unions and four of its most influential environmental organizations -- released a statement this week, "Fighting Climate Change, Creating Jobs," which advocates international climate action grounded in science-based greenhouse gas reduction targets, urging the U.S. to pursue emissions reductions as aggressively as possible by taking all feasible steps to meet current near term targets. This can be achieved through investments and policies that will build a strong clean energy economy, create new jobs for American workers and improve U.S. competitiveness in the global economy.

We can accomplish these goals through smart policies and strategic investments in building a truly 21st century American economy. Growing the production of clean energy in the United States while making our transportation systems, industries, building stock, transmission and communications systems more efficient will both create jobs and ensure that America is competitive in an increasingly efficient global economy.

On Friday, the Labor Department announced that the American economy had gained about 120,000 jobs in November. A positive number is a good number. But we have to face facts: we aren't going to put eight million people back to work with a piecemeal approach to our economy. It's no longer acceptable to sit on the sidelines and hope that jobs will be created and that our economy will recover by returning to an unsustainable pre-2008 economic model. It's no longer an option to deny the impact of climate change on our economy. We need action to build the industries that will drive our future economy in the United States, and we need it now.

In Durban this week, thousands of people from around the world are gathering to advocate for an agreement that will avert the worst impacts of climate change and help impacted nations adapt. Whether in South Africa or in the United States, the cost of climate change is deep and far reaching. It's costing us money. It's costing us economic growth. And it's costing us jobs.

Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

Deforestation and forest degradation down in the Brazilian Amazon since August

Not all is bad, deforestation and forest degradation are down moderately from August through October 2011 relative to the same period a year ago, reports a satellite-based assessment released today by Imazon, a Brazilian group. Imazon's near-real time system, which tracks change in forest plots 25 hectares (62 acres) or larger, found that 512 square kilometers of rainforest were cleared between August 2011 and October 2011, the first three months of the deforestation calendar year, which runs from August 1 through July 31 to coincide with the dry season when it is easiest to measure forest cover. The figure represents a 4 percent decline from the 533 square kilometers cleared in 2010.


Imazon's system also tracks forest degradation — including logging and fire damage — that often precedes outright deforestation. It recorded a 52 percent decline in degradation from 2,599 sq km to 1,246 sq km.

Overall Imazon estimated that deforestation and degradation in the Brazilian Amazon during the period committed 32 million tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.

Source: www.enn.com