I'm writing this entry on a little commuter plane as I fly from Philadelphia to Charlotte, NC. In Charlotte, I will have about an hour before transferring to the flight to Rio de Janeiro. When I made this same trip in May of last year (for a short weeklong visit), I had nothing but problems all the way down to Rio. Delays, mechanical difficulties, overnight hotel stays -- we had it all! This trip is going amazingly smoothly in comparison.
It's still hard to believe that this trip finally came together: the visa finally arrived, I packed my apartment in Pittsburgh, put everything into storage with my dad's help, came home to Philadelphia, slept for about two days, did some last-minute shopping, unpacked and repacked my suitcases, visited and/or talked on the phone with family and friends, did some homework, caught up on some reading, and oh, did I mention we had 16 inches of snow?
Once I arrive in Rio, I'll be doing all of the reverse tasks: unpacking, getting set up in my apartment suite, learning my way around town, etc. I was very lucky to find housing in a nice neighborhood of Rio. I will be staying with my Portuguese professor's aunt, who rents suites in her home to graduate students. Currently, there are two Brazilian PhD engineering students staying with her. Everyone in the house speaks Portuguese, so hopefully, my language skills will improve quickly.
The semester begins March 14 and I have many plans before then. I've dedicated the first week to getting set up. The next two weeks, February 7-18, I will participate in an intensive Portuguese language program, called "Bridge Brazil". I have heard nothing but good things about this program. I'm really hoping to improve my speaking skills. I tend to get myself into trouble communicating with Brazilians by e-mail: my written Portuguese is apparently semi-okay (or at least understandable) since I check everything with a dictionary, but my spoken Portuguese is nowhere near that level. My hope is that by the end of this program, I can communicate more accurately with more spontaneity, and (as a bilingual German-speaker) with less of a German accent. We'll see how it goes!
After the intensive language program, I have another free week and then Carnival begins (March 4-8). I've heard many things about Carnival--fancy costumes, samba schools, glorified mayhem--but I don't think any of that can fully prepare me for the reality. I know Carnival is going to be an amazing, once-in-a-lifetime experience. I'll let my pictures tell the rest of the story when the time comes.
The week after Carnival, after five days of recuperation, the university semester finally begins. What exactly I will be doing at the university is still open-ended. In general terms, I will be continuing my research, taking a class on renewable energy and climate change, and making some site visits to sugarcane plantations in São Paulo. In the first couple weeks of the semester, I will meet with my advisors in the department and work with them to flesh out the details.
~*~
And now it's time for the next leg of the journey! I'm in Charlotte now and about to board the plane for Rio de Janeiro. The next time I update this blog, I'll be on the Southern side of the equator. Until then!
3-week update
January 9, 2011
In three weeks, I will be landing in the beautiful city of Rio de Janeiro. This week--22 days ahead of departure--my visa arrived. In an act of international "reciprocity", the Brazilian Consulate in New York took its time accepting and processing my paperwork. The argument is that, since the U.S. makes it difficult for Brazilians to get U.S. visas, Brazil then has a right--nearly a responsibility--to make it difficult for U.S. citizens to get Brazilian visas. Between not answering phone calls or e-mails to its office, misplacing an important piece of paperwork from the university, and making the application process as complicated and convoluted as possible, the Consulate has certainly succeeded in its mission of "reciprocity". That said, I do finally have the visa now and should be allowed into and out of Brazil without any problem.
Earlier this week, I completed the majority of my bulk shopping. I basically bought everything I had heard would either be unavailable or very expensive in Brazil. I stocked up on toiletries, sunblock, insect repellent, batteries, and a small number of water purification tablets, just in case. (I still need to get a cheap GSM cell phone, a backpack that won't make me stand out as a tourist, and possibly a spring jacket.) The collection of items in my basket piqued the cashier's curiosity and we started talking about where I was going and what I would be doing. I gave her the 30-second summary while I put everything into bags and she wished me good luck. As I was leaving the store, the woman who had been standing in line behind me walked up to me and introduced herself. She works at one of the scrap metal facilities in Pittsburgh and has held various positions within the company for the last 20+ years. She told me that she's seen how the industry has evolved: how, in the beginning, nobody cared where the metal ended up or what impacts the company had on the environment, and how today, the company actually pays money to promote the environmental aspects of its operations. She said that if she knew then what she knows now, she would have studied environmental engineering in college and learned as much about sustainability as she could. I told her a little more about my research in life cycle assessment, tracking materials and energy from start to finish, and how rewarding it is to see theoretical, academic ideas be put to use in practical ways. I thanked her for sharing her story and walked to the bus stop with a smile on my face.
I've had many conversations like these with people interested in making sustainability work, whether in the office or on campus or around the neighborhood. Most of these people already have some sort of environmental or "hippie" disposition (regardless of whether or not they were alive in the '60s.) However, what excites me the most is to hear the stories from people who have seen how the environmental movement, and now the sustainability movement, has progressed over the years. I like to hear how organizations have changed, how laws have changed, and most importantly, how people have changed. This attainment of perspective is why it's so important for people to record what they are doing now and how they envision the world. As a society, we've come a long way, but we still have so far to go. If we are going to make sustainable change, we need to learn from everyone around us, build upon the collection of ideas, and generate new ones. It's not easy, but it's certainly worth it.
Now where were we? ... A blog about Brazil?
Preamble
January 4, 2011
The mission: 6 months of research in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: February 1 to July 30, 2011. I will be working at the federal university to gather and analyze data, take a relevant engineering class, and improve my Portuguese skills along the way.
The research: measuring land use impacts of sugarcane plantations in the Brazilian cerrado (savannah). Brazil uses sugarcane to produce ethanol, which it uses primarily for transportation fuel. All Brazilian cars run on flex-fuel, which means that their engines can operate on both gas and ethanol. Since ethanol is such a major industry in Brazil, it is profitable for the country to grow as much sugarcane as possible. However, to meet this demand, sugarcane farmers have been expanding their plantations further and further west into the cerrado, which is one of the most critically biodiverse regions of the world. The cattle that once grazed the cerrado are now migrating into the Amazon Rainforest, which cannot support this influx of cattle. Cattle degrade the fragile soils of the forest and produce excess methane emissions, both of which can contribute to global warming. The latest climate talks in Cancún show some hope for slowing the destruction caused by cattle, but a total reversal may no longer be possible. Therefore, we must examine how to best minimize the impacts of both the cattle and the sugarcane. Two useful tools to aid in this examination are life cycle assessment and geographic information systems (explained below).
The tools:
Life cycle assessment (LCA)
Geographic information systems (GIS)
LCA is a scientific method used to calculate the environmental impacts of a particular product or process throughout the duration of its lifespan, i.e. from raw material extraction through processing and production, the use phase, and any recycling or disposal. This research looks at the life cycle of sugarcane ethanol produced in Brazil.
GIS is a set of computer programs, some proprietary and some freeware, that allow the user to display data on geographic maps. Each category of data can have its own layer in GIS and each layer can be turned on and off to create different thematic maps. The power of GIS lies in its geoprocessing capabilities, or the ability to perform complex computations on large amounts of data to create new results. Adding a GIS-component to LCA allows the user to regionalize data collection and calculate environmental impacts for specific geographic areas.
The blog: I plan on using this blog mainly to report about what I'm doing in Brazil and to create a written record to save for the future. You can expect stories about conducting research at the university, cultural events, and of course, the trials and tribulations of living abroad in a new country. If you'd like to read about anything in particular, feel free to leave me a comment. If you enjoy a particular entry, hate it, or have suggestions, leave me a comment, too. I'd love to hear what you have to say.
Now let's get this thing started!
The research: measuring land use impacts of sugarcane plantations in the Brazilian cerrado (savannah). Brazil uses sugarcane to produce ethanol, which it uses primarily for transportation fuel. All Brazilian cars run on flex-fuel, which means that their engines can operate on both gas and ethanol. Since ethanol is such a major industry in Brazil, it is profitable for the country to grow as much sugarcane as possible. However, to meet this demand, sugarcane farmers have been expanding their plantations further and further west into the cerrado, which is one of the most critically biodiverse regions of the world. The cattle that once grazed the cerrado are now migrating into the Amazon Rainforest, which cannot support this influx of cattle. Cattle degrade the fragile soils of the forest and produce excess methane emissions, both of which can contribute to global warming. The latest climate talks in Cancún show some hope for slowing the destruction caused by cattle, but a total reversal may no longer be possible. Therefore, we must examine how to best minimize the impacts of both the cattle and the sugarcane. Two useful tools to aid in this examination are life cycle assessment and geographic information systems (explained below).
The tools:
Life cycle assessment (LCA)
Geographic information systems (GIS)
LCA is a scientific method used to calculate the environmental impacts of a particular product or process throughout the duration of its lifespan, i.e. from raw material extraction through processing and production, the use phase, and any recycling or disposal. This research looks at the life cycle of sugarcane ethanol produced in Brazil.
GIS is a set of computer programs, some proprietary and some freeware, that allow the user to display data on geographic maps. Each category of data can have its own layer in GIS and each layer can be turned on and off to create different thematic maps. The power of GIS lies in its geoprocessing capabilities, or the ability to perform complex computations on large amounts of data to create new results. Adding a GIS-component to LCA allows the user to regionalize data collection and calculate environmental impacts for specific geographic areas.
The blog: I plan on using this blog mainly to report about what I'm doing in Brazil and to create a written record to save for the future. You can expect stories about conducting research at the university, cultural events, and of course, the trials and tribulations of living abroad in a new country. If you'd like to read about anything in particular, feel free to leave me a comment. If you enjoy a particular entry, hate it, or have suggestions, leave me a comment, too. I'd love to hear what you have to say.
Now let's get this thing started!