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Brazil: the natural knowledge economy

Kirsten Bound – THE ATLAS OF IDEAS 

 

f you grew up in Europe or North America you will no doubt have been taught in school that the Wright Brothers from Ohio invented and flew the first aeroplane – the Kitty Hawk – in 1903. But if you grew up in Brazil you will have been taught that the real inventor was in fact a Brazilian from Minas Gerais called Alberto Santos Dumont, whose 14-bis aeroplane took to the skies in 1906. This fierce historical debate, which turns on definitions of ‘practical airplanes’, the ability to launch unaided, length of time spent in the air and the credibility of witnesses, will not be resolved here. Yet it is a striking example of the lack of global recognition for Brazil’s achievements in innovation. 

Almost a century later, in 2005, Santos Dumont’s intellectual heirs, the company Empresa Brasileira de Aeronáutica (EMBRAER), made aviation history of a different kind when they unveiled the Ipanema, the world’s first commercially produced aircraft to run solely on biofuels. This time, the world was watching. Scientific American credited it as one of the most important inventions of the year. The attention paid to the Ipanema reflects the growing interest in biofuels as a potential solution to climate change and rising energy demand. To their advocates, biofuels – most commonly bioethanol or biodiesel – offer a more secure, sustainable energy supply that can reduce carbon emissions by 50–60 per cent compared to fossil fuels. 

From learning to fly to learning to cope with the environmental costs of flight, biofuel innovations like the Ipanema reflect some of the tensions of modern science, in which expanding the frontiers of human ingenuity goes hand in hand with managing the consequences. The recent backlash against biofuels, which has seen them blamed for global food shortages as land is reportedly diverted from food crops, points to a growing interdependence between the science and innovation systems of different countries, and between innovation, economics and environmental sustainability. 

The debates now raging over biofuels reflect some of the wider dynamics in Brazil’s innovation system. They remind us that Brazil’s current strengths and achievements have deeper historical roots than is sometimes imagined. They reflect the fact that Brazil’s natural resources and assets are a key area of opportunity for science and innovation – a focus that leads us to characterise Brazil as a ‘natural knowledge economy’. Most importantly, they highlight the propitious timing of Brazil’s growing strength in these areas at a time when climate change, the environment, food scarcity and rising worldwide energy demand are at the forefront of global consciousness. What changed between the maiden flight of the 14-bis and the maiden flight of the Ipanema is not just Brazil’s capacity for technological and scientific innovation, but the rest of the world’s appreciation of the potential of that innovation to address some of the pressing challenges that confront us all. 

(www.demos.co.uk. Adaptado.)

Brazil is characterized as a ‘natural knowledge economy’ because

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OBAMA’S VISIT TO BRRELATIONS

By Juan Forero and Perry Bacon Jr.

 

 

[1] Shortly after taking office, President Obama

declared Brazil's charismatic president Luiz Inacio

Lula da Silva "the most popular politician on Earth."

And Lula said he was "a fan" of Obama.

[5] The relationship held the promise of a closer

alliance between Washington and Brasilia. But it

soon soured, with Lula saying at the end of his term

that the United States behaved as an "empire" and

that "nothing had changed" under Obama.

[10] Now, Obama and Brazil's new president, Dilma

Rousseff, will try to repair at times strained

relations between the two countries as the

American president arrives for a two-day state visit

before flying to Chile, a close U.S. ally, and El

[15] Salvador, where drug-related violence is rising.

There's positive interest on both sides in starting

over," said ]ulia Sweig, a scholar at the Council on

Foreign Relations who recently met with officials in

the new government in Brazil. "Now they have to

[20] translate that optimism and goodwill to figure out

what they can do together that's in both of their

interests, and how to mitigate the tensions that will

naturally arise."

The trip will be Obama's first to South America as

[25] president. Even as the crisis in ]apan and unrest in

the Middle East dominate Obama's national

security briefings, administration officials decided

not to cancel the president's trip but instead cast it

as a way to renew relations with a region that is an

[30] emerging market for U.S.-made goods.

The trip is in part a kind of box-checking exercise,

as the Obama administration wanted to make a

major trip to this region of the world in Obama's

first term. White House officials said they would

[35] use Obama's visit to the three countries, but

particularly Brazil, to emphasize economic issues,

in a nod to an American electorate concerned about

high unemployment.

This trip fundamentally is about the U.S. recovery,

[40] U.S. exports and the critical relationship that Latin

America plays in our economic future and jobs here

in the United States," said Michael Froman, deputy

national security adviser for international

economic affairs.

[45] Brazil is the most influential country in this region,

and American officials, while playing down any

tensions with Lula, have expressed optimism about

establishing close ties With Rousseff.

Fonte: WASHINGTON POST NEWS SERVICE 

O termo unrest (ℓ 25) significa: