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Lessons from São Paulo’s Water Shortage
Lessons from São Paulo’s Water Shortage
It’s getting harder and harder to separate nature’s role in disasters from our own, and the dire water predicament confronting São Paulo, Brazil, is no exception.
But as with the ongoing drought in California, there are important lessons from São Paulo’s grim situation that can help us prepare for the “new normal” that’s unfolding.
It’s indisputable that São Paulo, the economic heartbeat of Brazil, is in trouble. The megacity of 20 million people is suffering its worst drought in eight decades. The five reservoirs in the Cantareira system, which provides nearly half the city’s drinking water, are at a dangerously low 13 percent of capacity. That’s up from even lower levels thanks to some recent rains, and while more precipitation could arrive in the coming weeks, historically the driest period of the year is April through September, just around the corner.
Some São Paulo residents have gone without tap water for days at a time. Others have fled the city, creating a new brand of “water refugees.”
As Brazil gears up to host the 2016 summer Olympics, businesses are suffering from the lack of water. Economists say the drought could shave 2% off of Brazil’s GDP.
Meanwhile, a “clandestine drilling fever” is taking place across the city, according to an NPRreport. As people and businesses worry about rationing, they are drilling their own wells to access groundwater. This unregulated, wildcat drilling threatens to pollute underground supplies, worsening the drought’s long-term impact and raising public health risks.
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Thousands Crowd Brazil’s Streets: Demand Military Intervention & Rousseff Resignation, Impeachment
Thousands Crowd Brazil’s Streets: Demand Military Intervention & Rousseff Resignation, Impeachment
It appears the ‘people’ are growing more and more dissatisfied with their corrupt and greedy leaders across the world. As we noted recently, Brazil’s economy is imploding, consumer sentiment is at record lows, and with the Petrobras scandal providing a glimpse at just how deep the corruption might go, Brazilians are revolting. Hundreds of thousands are crowding the streets in several regional Brazilian capitals, dominated ironically by the middle and upper classes. Demands for “Dilma Out” and “Impeach Dilma” are also interspersed with calls for a quasi-coup and “military intervention.”
Hundreds of thousands of people protested today against Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff , in Rio de Janeiro, within a day of demonstrations in dozens of cities across the country.The protest in Rio de Janeiro started at 9:30 local time (12:30 GMT) on the beach of Copacabana and far exceeded the expectations of the public of the organizers, which are groups of citizens without opposition political parties declared link.
The man ifestantes chanted slogans against Rousseff and the ruling Workers Party (PT) and rejection of corruption.
“Out PT”, “PT stole” and “PT anymore” were songs sung in repeatedly by the Cariocas protesters, who were dressed mostly in yellow and green colors of the Brazilian flag.
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A Day In The Life Of A Falling BRIC
A Day In The Life Of A Falling BRIC
It’s not that long ago, in 2001, that Jim O’Neill, then still with Goldman Sachs, coined the term BRICs, for the fast emerging markets of Brazil, Russia, India and China. O’Neill saw a global power shift from the west to these four nations happening. Fast forward to today, and we see Russia under multiple attacks, including economic ones, from the west, as India just announced the second rate cut this year and China is attempting controlled demolition of the possibly biggest financial bubble in the history of the world.
And Brazil? If anything, it’s falling even faster off its pedestal than the other three nations. And in Brazil, it’s as much corruption scandals as it is the financial crisis and the plunge in oil revenues that take center stage. The stories have long been simmering, but they all came together in the media yesterday.
First, a seemingly minor one. Eike Batista was once the richest man in Brazil, and one of the 10 richest men on the planet, having made a fortune in gold mining and later oil. Then he went on to become probably the one man to lose the most money in the shortest time, going from $32 billion in early 2013 to minus $5 billion or so a little over a year later, impossible to pin down exactly for numerous reasons, but spectacular for sure.
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Global Cooling Alert: Brazil Headed For Worst Economy Since 1930-1931
Global Cooling Alert: Brazil Headed For Worst Economy Since 1930-1931
For all the debt crises, hyperinflation and boom-and-bust cycles Brazil’s economy has suffered in recent decades, the country hasn’t posted two consecutive years of contraction since the Great Depression.
But if 2014’s fourth quarter was as bad as many economists think and their expectations for this year hold true, Brazil will repeat that feat for the first time since 1930-31.
On Monday, economists polled weekly by Brazil’s central bank downgraded their consensus 2015 forecast to a 0.5% fall in gross domestic product.
And the central bank’s preliminary indicator this month revealed a 0.12% drop in economic activity in 2014, though the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics won’t release official GDP figures for the year until next month.
Finance Minister Joaquim Levy recognized the possibility of a 2014 decline at an event in the New York last week. “We’ve been in a slow patch more recently and we all [feel] that growth has slowed down,” Mr. Levy said in a Feb. 18 presentation to the Americas Society/Council of the Americas. “Maybe last year it was even negative.”
Several factors are weighing on Brazil’s once-dynamic economy.
Growth in China, Brazil’s largest trading partner, has slowed, damaging demand for Brazilian iron ore, soybeans and other commodities and weakening the currency.
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De-Dollarization: Russia Ratifies $100 Billion BRICS Bank
De-Dollarization: Russia Ratifies $100 Billion BRICS Bank
A BRICS Bank – as an IMF alternative and to enable nations to become less dependent on the global reserve currency – was originally discussed at The BRICS Summit in 2012. Thenat the 2014 BRICS Summit, the framework for The BRICS Bank was approved as “a system of measures that would help prevent the harassment of countries that do not agree with some foreign policy decisions made by the United States and their allies.” Headquartered in Shanghai and chaired by Russia, this week saw what appears to be the final step in the creation of BRICS New Deverlopment Bank as RT reports, The Russian State Duma has ratified the $100 billion BRICS bank that’ll serve as a pool of money for infrastructure projects in Russia, Brazil, India, China and South Africa. It is expected to start fully functioning by the end of 2015. Isolated?
The Russian State Duma has ratified the $100 billion BRICS bank that’ll serve as a pool of money for infrastructure projects in Russia, Brazil, India, China and South Africa, and challenge the dominance of the Western-led World Bank and the IMF.The New Development Bank is expected to start fully functioning by the end of 2015, according to the Russian Finance Ministry.
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Brazil’s Economy Is On The Verge Of Total Collapse
Brazil’s Economy Is On The Verge Of Total Collapse
Back when the BRICs were the source of marginal global growth, the punditry couldn’t stop praising them. However, in the past year, now that China’s housing bubble has burst and its shadow banking system has imploded, those who remember what BRIC actually stood for are about as rare as those who recall what it means for the Fed to hike rates. Which is precisely why nobody in the mainstream financial media has commented on the absolutely abysmal economic update reported earlier today out Brazil.
We are happy to do so because today’s data follows up quite well to our article from a month ago “Brazil’s Economy Just Imploded” and as the earlier article on the crashing Brazilian Real hinted, things for the Brazilian economy how gone from imploding to, well, worse because not only did the twin fiscal and current account deficits rise even more, hitting a whopping 11% of GDP – the worst since August 1999, but its government debt soared to 63.4% in 2014, up from 56.7% a year ago, and the highest since at least 2006. In short – the entire economy is now on the verge of total collapse.
This is what happened in a few bullet points:
- The fiscal picture has deteriorated very sharply since 2011 at both the flow (fiscal deficit) and stock (gross public debt) levels. The primary and overall nominal fiscal surpluses at year-end 2014 were at levels last seen in the late 1990s.
- The steady decline of the public sector savings rate is leading to a wider current account deficit despite weaker growth and low investment. In fact, the twin fiscal and current account deficits are now tracking at a combined, very troublesome 10.9% of GDP, the worst picture in 15 years (since August 1999). Repairing the severely unbalanced macro picture would require a deep, structural and permanent fiscal and quasi-fiscal adjustment and a significantly weaker BRL.
- The new economic team faces, among other things, the very significant challenge of repairing the severely deteriorated fiscal picture.
- The steady erosion of the fiscal stance pushed net and gross public debt up. Furthermore, fiscal and quasi-fiscal activism undermined the effectiveness of monetary policy, contributed to keep inflation very high and drove the current account deficit to a very high level despite weak growth.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Heatwave in Rio
Heatwave in Rio
Heatwave conditions have been affecting southeastern Brazil since the beginning of 2015. This comes after 2014 was declared the warmest, globally, since records began in 1880.
The findings from the National Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA) support earlier conclusions from both the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the UK Met Office.
The data confirms that 14 of the 15 warmest years on record have occurred since the turn of this century.
That 2014 was a record-breaker is rather surprising, considering that there was little or no sign of an El Nino – a warming of the surface layers of the Pacific, which would have added to the warming of the atmosphere.
The UK Met Office has predicted that 2015 is likely to be even warmer than 2014. If so, this would suggest an increase in the rate of warming which has been slower since 2000 than in the 1980s and 1990s.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Over 30 arrests as Sao Paulo erupts in protest over bus fare price
Over 30 arrests as Sao Paulo erupts in protest over bus fare price
A massive rally against a bus fare hike has turned violent in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Shops were pillaged and objects thrown, with riot police resorting to tear gas and rubber bullets. This is the first such incident since the World Cup protests this summer.
Thousands of people chanting “Freedom now” marched through Sao Paulo’s downtown on Friday and police started firing tear gas to stop them from entering a major thruway. Police estimate the crowd was 2,000 people strong, but local news outlets such as Folha De S. Paulo put the number at 10,000.
The organizers of the event – the Free Fare Movement (MPL) estimate the numbers at 30,000.
“I came to the protest because transportation should be free. So we can begin to change things and have improvements,” Pietro Battiato, 19, one of the students at the rally, told journalists.
The majority of the protestors were reportedly peaceful, but some elements became aggressive and are said to have provoked the police. The MPL, however, blames the escalation on law enforcers.
“The MPL did not direct aggression towards the police or other acts of vandalism,” representatives of the movement told journalists.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Brazil’s Economy Just Imploded | Zero Hedge
Brazil’s Economy Just Imploded | Zero Hedge.
China may have mastered the art of fabricating economic data to a level unmatched by anyone except the US Department of Labor, but its derivative countries have much to learn. And none other more so than one of China’s favorite sources of commodities over the past decade: Brazil. It is here that things are going from worse to catastrophic, as disclosed in today’s update of Brazil’s fiscal picture.
Here are the disturbing facts showing that behind the world’s propaganda growth facade, it is all hollow: Brazil’s consolidated public sector primary fiscal balance, which posted a significantly worse than expected R$8.1bn primary deficit in November driven by the R$6.7bn deficit of the Central Government, dipped into negative territory: -0.18% of GDP, driven by the significant deterioration of the Central Government finances.
This is the worst fiscal outturn since November 1998. Furthermore, the primary surplus of subnational government (States and Municipalities) has also been eroding, a reflection of the authorizations given by the Treasury since 2011 for increased borrowing by the States. For instance, the States and Municipalities posted a negligible 0.08% of GDP surplus during Jan-Nov 2014, down from 0.46% of GDP during Jan-Nov 2013.
Industrial Farming Plows Up Brazil’s ‘Underground Forest’ | Climate Central
Industrial Farming Plows Up Brazil’s ‘Underground Forest’ | Climate Central.
PALMAS, Brazil – South and east of Brazil’s famous Amazon, the air becomes dryer and the humid rainforest gives way to emerald green patches of irrigated pasture carved from scrubby woods and native grasslands.
As global meat demand increases, farmers are plowing up more of Brazil’s enormous Cerrado, a unique “underground forest” where plants and shrubs store tremendous quantities of carbon in a sprawling root network.
Credit: Autumn Spanne
This is a different kind of forest, hidden in plain sight and far more threatened than the Amazon. Known as the Cerrado, it is the largest, most biologically diverse savannah region of South America, home to 5 percent of all life on the planet.
But industrial farming is fast swallowing this unique landscape. And its rapid transformation is creating a ticking carbon bomb that scientists warn could significantly affect the global carbon cycle if the current rate of destruction continues.
This enormous expanse in central Brazil was once as impenetrable as the deepest rainforest, so isolated that Portuguese settlers dubbed it Cerrado, or “closed.” Today roads connect the Cerrado’s southern boundary in the São Paulo and Mato Grosso do Sul states with its northern limits some 1,500 miles away near the Atlantic coast. Yet the Cerrado is still largely unknown, even in Brazil.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Brazilian Judge Sides With Tribe Over Land Threatened by Dams | Environment News Service
Brazilian Judge Sides With Tribe Over Land Threatened by Dams | Environment News Service.
BRASILIA, Brazil, November 6, 2014 (ENS) – In a struggle between a Brazilian indigenous tribe and the federal government over two dams that would flood lands claimed by the tribe, a federal judge has ruled that the government must immediately publish its report delineating the tribe’s territory that has been withheld for more than a year.
Last week, in response to a lawsuit filed by the Federal Public Prosecutors’ Office, federal judge Rafael Leite Paulo issued a ruling that requires FUNAI, the federal agency responsible for indigenous people, to publish its report within 15 days and determine the final decision on demarcation of the Sawre Muybu territory.
In October 2013, after completing 12 years of field studies, FUNAI completed a technical report confirming the status of Sawre Muybu as the Munduruku people’s traditional indigenous territory.
But under pressure from the administration of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, FUNAI and the Ministry of Justice have refused to officially publish the report, stalling demarcation.
The court ruled, “The process is stopped without a valid basis, but only by invoking a generic and empty claim prioritization of the regions Center-South, Southeast and Northeast, and so, the rights of indigenous peoples would be perpetually postponed…”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Water crisis squeezes Sao Paulo state – Americas – Al Jazeera English
Water crisis squeezes Sao Paulo state – Americas – Al Jazeera English.
Itu, Brazil – The state of Sao Paulo is on the cusp of an unprecedented water crisis stemming in part from one of the worst droughts in decades, leaving millions scrambling to find clean water sources.
On Friday, the city of Sao Paulo recorded its hottest temperature in more than 71 years, and 70 cities in the state are facing extreme drought, with 30 cities already on some sort of water rationing.
The problem stems from a lack of water at the Cantareira, a complex of reservoirs and small dams built in the 1970’s that are the primary source of water for more than 10 million people in the state.
The water levels at the Cantareira are now below four percent, the lowest in recorded history, and estimates on when it could totally dry range from November to March of next year.
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