Marcelo Firpo Porto é pesquisador titular do Centro de Estudos em Saúde do Trabalhador e Ecologia Humana da Escola Nacional de Saúde Pública (ENSP), Fundação de Investigação Oswaldo Cruz (FIOCRUZ), Rio de Janeiro, Brasil. Tem experiência na área de Saúde Colectiva, com ênfase em Saúde Ambiental e Saúde do Trabalhador, trabalhando actualmente sobre os seguintes temas: abordagens integradas de riscos; justiça ambiental e ecologia política; vulnerabilidade social; complexidade, riscos e incertezas; princípio da precaução; promoção da saúde em áreas urbanas vulneráveis. Lecciona no programa de pós-graduação em Saúde Pública da ENSP/FIOCRUZ, na área de concentração "Processo Saúde-Doença, Território e Justiça". É autor, dentre outros, do livro " Uma ecologia política dos riscos: princípios para integrarmos o local e o global na promoção da Saúde e da justiça ambiental". É consultor do projecto de investigação “O envolvimento da ciência com a sociedade: Ciências da Vida, Ciências Sociais e públicos (BIOSENSE)”, coordenado por João Arriscado Nunes, em curso no CES.

“Conflitos ambientais e movimentos por Justiça Ambiental no Brasil”

A apresentação discutirá os conflitos ambientais presentes no Brasil em sua relação com o modelo de desenvolvimento, a inserção no comércio internacional e o metabolismo social, os quais são marcados pelo atual processo hegemônico de globalização econômica. Este envolve disputas por recursos naturais, valores e políticas que conformam questões fundamentais nos territórios urbanos e rurais. Por outro lado, os conflitos ambientais também implicam em mobilizações e resistências por parte das populações atingidas, organizações ambientalistas, movimentos sociais e instituições solidárias que lutam por justiça ambiental.

No caso brasileiro, destacam-se conflitos associados especialmente à exportação de commodities agrícolas, metálicas, energéticas e seus derivados. Em relação aos setores econômicos, destacam-se o agronegócio químico dependente e a disputa por terras nas fronteiras agrícolas; a mineração, como ferro, bauxita e outros minerais; e a construção de infraestrutura logística e de geração de energia como rodovias, ferrovias, gasodutos, minerodutos, hidrovias, aeroportos, complexos portuários, usinas hidrelétricas, termoelétricas e mesmo parques eólicas. Todas essas atividades envolvem disputas pelos territórios tradicionais indígenas, quilombolas, ribeirinhos, extrativistas, dos pescadores artesanais e de um grande número de comunidades rurais. Nas comunidades urbanas, os principais conflitos ambientais do País estão associados à manutenção de um parque industrial tecnologicamente defasado e ao desrespeito às legislações ambientais que regulam a dispersão de poluentes e o descarte de resíduos perigosos da produção industrial, além de alguns conflitos em torno da localização de lixões e aterros sanitários. Mais recentemente, percebe-se um incremento dos conflitos relacionados à especulação imobiliária e às estratégias de remoção forçada de comunidades pobres situadas em áreas em processo de valorização nos grandes centros urbanos (especialmente ocupações, favelas e bairros periféricos), em especial com os mega eventos como a Copa do Mundo e as Olimpíadas.

Para falar desses conflitos será apresentado o Mapa de Conflitos envolvendo Injustiça Ambiental e Saúde no Brasil, desenvolvido desde 2008 originalmente pela Fiocruz e a ONG Fase.

Referências

Mapa de Conflitos – www.conflitoambiental.icict.fiocruz.br

Martinez-Alier J, Kallis G, Veuthey S, Walter M, Temper L (2010). “Social Metabolism, Ecological Distribution Conflicts, and Valuation Languages”. Ecological Economics 70(2):153-158.

Porto, MF (2011). “Complexidade, processos de vulnerabilização e justiça ambiental: um ensaio de epistemologia política”. Revista Crítica de Ciências Sociais 93: 31-58.

Porto, Marcelo Firpo (2007). Uma ecologia política dos riscos. Rio de Janeiro: Editora FIOCRUZ.

Porto, Marcelo Firpo; Pacheco, Tania (2009). “Conflitos e injustiça ambiental em saúde no Brasil”. Tempus. Actas em Saúde Coletiva, 4(4), 26-37.

Irina Velicu is a Marie Curie post-doctoral researcher working on socio-environmental conflicts in post-communist countries at the Institute for Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA), Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona. She holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Hawaii (USA) and an MA in International Studies from the University of Warwick (UK). Her research interests revolve around the topics of globalization, social transformation and political ecology. Her recent publications can be found in Globalizations, Studies in Social Justice and New Political Science. For details see

http://uab.academia.edu/IrinaVelicu

http://www.politicalecology.eu/index.php/component/k2/item/526-irina-velicu

“Mining Post-Communism, Rethinking Justice: An Extended Case-Study”

The title of this presentation is also a metaphor: one can think of mining for gold, another one can think of ‘mining’ for memories. Rosia Montana in Romania and Krumovgrad in Bulgaria are such places, where both types produce conflicting encounters. Becoming an emblematic socio-environmental movement in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), the “Save Rosia Montana” triggers the following question: how can one speak of ‘environmental justice’ in a post-communist region? How is it different from other regions? CEE has usually been researched for its environmental injustice. Moreover, following the fall of communism, environmental concerns have been portrayed as a ‘luxury’ in this region: people cannot supposedly privilege ‘mountains over gold’. Similar to other regions like Latin America, economic projects in CEE have ab(used) the discourse of free market to portray themselves as beneficial irrespective of human and ecological costs. CEE’s current environmental problems easily move across borders as for example, the 2000 Baia Mare cyanide spill which has affected the Somes River in Romania, Hungary and Serbia. Global economic interests in new energy resources bring about corporate plans for intensified exploitation of gold, uranium, shale-gas etc. This situation coupled with economic shortages has triggered public disillusion and apathy often resulting in economic migration, and perpetuation of illegalities.

As elsewhere, environmental justice claims in post-communist states also refer to recognition of affected communities (their rights to nature, livelihood, health, property or sacredness) as well as to genuine participation in decision-making (as opposed to ‘fake’ public consultation or fabricated consents). However, there is widespread perception that the context of post-communist ‘fragile’ democracy has actually been the nurturing ground for corrupt practices in the transition towards a market capitalist society. Romanian and Bulgarian activists have insisted on the socio-political implications of environmental concerns: their struggle has been about the right to economic autonomy as well as to (mental) health, the right to self-determination as well as to beauty. Most importantly, it has not merely been about a local/national demanding of these rights but has hinted to the fragility of the democratic ideal more globally and to the universality of such rights which belong to all people as equal political human beings. In this context, environmental justice is infused with interesting political equalitarian overtones that deserve serious consideration.

Selected publications:

VELICU, Irina (2014). "Moral versus Commercial Economies: Transylvanian Stories", in New Political Science: A Journal of Politics and Culture, 36 (1).

VELICU, Irina (2013). "Peopling the Globe: New Social Movements", in Handbook of Globalization, Manfred Steger and Paul Battersby (eds.), SAGE Publications.

VELICU, Irina (2012). "The Aesthetic Post-communist Subject and the Differend of Rosia Montana" in Studies in Social Justice, Vol. 6, Issue 1, 125 – 141.

VELICU, Irina (2012). "To Sell or Not to Sell: Landscapes of Resistance to Neo-liberal Globalization in Transylvania", in Globalizations, Vol. 9, No. 2, pp. 307-321 (ISSN 1474-7731), ISI publication.

Emanuele Leonardi has received his Ph.D in the interdisciplinary programme of Theory & Criticism from the University of Western Ontario (Canada), in November 2012. He currently hold a Post-Doc position within the Centre for Territorial Studies at the University of Bergamo (Italy). His research interests include: theories of political ecology, environmental history and sociology, ecological economics and the relationships between social movements and institutional change.

“THE CLIMATE CRISIS AS A NEW WAVE OF PRIMITIVE ACCUMULATION. The One Million Climate Jobs campaign: critiques of carbon trading and the search for viable alternatives.”

It has often been noted that the recent financial crisis is fundamentally marked by an artificial production of scarcity through the exploitation of the General Intellect. On a different theoretical level, the ecological crisis is usually interpreted as the growing contradiction between the capitalist need for endless accumulation and the irrepressible materiality represented by the physical limits of nature. In this context, the main aim of my paper is a critique of this dichotomous reading through an interpretation of carbon trading – one of the main attempts to make profit out of climate change – as a simultaneous assemblage of economy and ecology, based on a specific production of scientific knowledge. In other terms, I propose to read carbon markets as elements of a new wave of primitive accumulation, namely as violent conditions for an unprecedented cycle of capitalist valorization to occur.

Climate Justice Now!, a global network of ecological social movements, has strongly criticized such an effort to internalize environmental limits within capitalist circuits of accumulation in order to valorize them. Such a critique of measuring and pricing ecological services is twofold. On the one hand, market-based solutions are shown to be ineffective even in their own terms (e.g. the EU Emission Trading Scheme). On the other hand, the search for possible alternatives to market-friendly policies is constantly under way.

Through an examination of the One Million Climate Jobs campaign, I will argue that this co-presence of deconstructive and creative dimensions in social movements' analysis is pivotal to provide an effective critique of neoliberal carbon trading and to envisage a different path to address catastrophic climate change.

Selected publications:

LEONARDI, Emanuele (2014). “Carbon Trading Dogma: teoria e pratica dei mercati globali di emissioni di anidride carbonica”, Culture della Sostenibilità, 10.

LEONARDI, Emanuele (2013). “Foucault in the Susa Valley: The No TAV Movement and Struggles for Subjectification”, Capitalism Nature Socialism, 24 (2): 27-40.

LEONARDI, Emanuele (2013). “L'ecologia come frontiera mobile della condizione operaia”, La società degli individui, 46: 15-29.