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Good afternoon to all.
First, before to start talking
a warning, to all of you:
If one day the telephone rings and happens to be Elder
be careful, because he may invite you to be here.
And that's not easy.
All this mass, this influence, this huge opportunity to see so many people dreaming
so many people running after, doing their dreams
this is a changing energy not existing technology, Internet, to replace it.
So, as I don't even remember what is in this presentation
I want to apologize to the people who did it
I won't use it.
So...
The only way to stay here not playing dumb for good
is telling my story.
Or I'll stay here dehydrating as I told to her there.
And my story is a very usual story:
I've born in a city in the countryside of the state of Sao Paulo, in Sao Carlos;
time to go to college had come, I looked to do Mechanical Engineering.
Farther from my home, because I liked car;
and I wanted to get the family control off me, I went to do Mechanical Engineering in Florianopolis.
Three years later I notice that nothing in academical terms would happen to me
because I couldn't conciliate studies and natural beauty.
I'd to go to a place environmentally bad to be able to intellectually develop myself.
Then I took the entrance exam again, I've entered in Unicamp, and I took the basics on Mechanical Engineering
which is like the whole Inquisition.
I went to do Mechanical Engineering because I was Da Vinci's fan
I think he never took Calculation his entire life.
Then I was there, in that astral hell, reading Robert Crumb's comic books
during Calculation class, hoping to finish soon.
Then, one day I've said: "Man, I'm gonna melt down, what am I doing here?
Five years in engineering
taking Physics 3 for the 4th time
I'm gonna stay here forever, I'm gonna turn into these guys here at my side.
Then I was there kicking cans at Unicamp campus, wandering from left to right...
Then I went to the swimming pool, where everything's better
Then I was there by the pool and came two guys talking
and they were planning a bike trip through Amazonia
I've said: "Geez, for a desperate soul
to travel by bike on Transamazonica is the only salvation possible".
Then I turn to them and said:
"Look, I don't know you, but I'm going with you".
Then they've said: "But how is that are you going with us?"
The I said: "Look, there's too much things to explain now...
We gonna stay together for so long then will happen to talk on the way".
Long story short, we left to Transamazonica by bike
and in that time, even having these behavior disturbances
I used to think myself as a *** cool guy.
Because I knew many countries, yet lived abroad
then I've said: "I'm only waiting for the thing happens, because I know everything".
"I know everything", I'd went to Disney already
twice.
A week later to start running Transamazonica by bike
in Brasil Novo, Medicilandia, I don't remember exactly where that was.
But was in the very heart of the jungle
that I understood that I didn't know nothing
Calculation, Physics, they were little to explain all that.
And I, for real, in that moment, I've changed
in my life, to meet people in another way
we watch the forest burning on TV
it doesn't smell, it doesn't have warm, the image is a very short abbreviation from reality
Then, there I understood I had to do something
to do something for that people
who not even knowing me, in the late afternoon
today, many things has changed in that region
but in the early 90s
Transamazonica was like the Brazilian far west
that was a no man's land.
And that people not even knowing me, not having any interest on Osvaldo, not knowing my name
they have opened their homes and many times, we're in three
and we usually noticed that embarrassment
then there was the father, the mother and the son
we enter and there was a plate filling with flour and a half egg
Which means...
they had nothing
and they have cut half of each one's egg to share with a stranger.
Then, this is the mass of people living in the forest
living in Amazonia.
Which comes to us, many times, as in every situation
is a image kind of abbreviated from the forest
forest isn't only wood, isn't only tree, isn't only animals
Today in the biome of Amazonia lives 25 million people.
And when I came back from that trip
I used three more years to be restored
to use shoes again, these things...
to back to accept myself in that society I've left.
I couldn't be conformed to have lived my entire life in that way
in that time... today has left some more of that life, but it's OK.
Then I said: "Man, I need to do something".
And many times we know, and have the desire to do
but don't know how...
Then I started to talk: "Look, I can't play, I wont take the entrance examination again".
One thing I was sure, that was enough to me.
Twice? It's great.
I won't take Calculation 3 again, that's enough.
Then, some things I was sure to not do
but I didn't know how
but then I've also noticed that from the moment you have that inspiration
enlightenment, I don't know the exact term
to characterize this sensation
but suddenly that "bell rings"
and you say: "Look, this way".
I'm following on that path since a long time
I didn't arrive anywhere yet.
But I'm in.
And then I went to do my masters in Energetic Planning
to understand how energy works, in this time, in the University of Sao Paulo
for us to install photovoltaic cells in communities in Amazonia
and we get in some places, the local public authority or local NGOs came
and told: "No, installing a solar panel will destroy the culture of this people.
You will interfere on the caboclo's culture".
They were calling culture the guy to have to read using a kerosene lamp
at night at the time they get home.
The children couldn't, many times, to go to a school because they have to work during the day
and at night they have no lights.
And many times the local landowner
"No, don't install the photovoltaic cell because my power over them is trough diesel.
If I took diesel from them, they stay in darkness.
If they have their own electrical energy
they won't need me anymore".
So, you keep walking, and understanding better the things and noticing
how your knowledge, the tools gathered can help you to build
what you wish, however what we wish also keeps changing.
And then you will need new tools
that is, how much you go forward
farther you stay from the beginning, it's harder to get back.
That is the real no way back, this event is fantastic due to it
every one here has a different tool
one has brought the chisel, other the hammer, the screwdriver
and we are gathering all this.
After 10 years in the University of Sao Paulo
that thing about Calculation has hit me again:
"Geez" I said, "a lot of papers, we've to publish, it's so boring".
I hate PowerPoint
We had to do presentation in PowerPoint all the time, I thought that's boring.
Then I said: "Let's perform another step forward".
Then I got myself together
I think that get together is an important part in this process to implement things.
We get together a group of people
and we've installed in the country the first NGO, the Iniciativa Verde, which performs emission compensations.
What is emission compensation?
Today we know that greenhouse effect is an environmental problem of global range
that problem is caused by the accumulation of CO2 on the atmosphere.
From where this accumulation especially comes?
Our society, it's a market industrial society
based on the consume of energy and on the transformation of materials in goods
In that process, for us to realize
when we lived in caves, we had not even fire, we didn't have any energetic consumption
we were there on the corner praying for the saber tooth lion to not make us its dinner.
We weren't even on the top of the food chain
we were food in that time
In that time, our energy consumption were restricted to our vital energy
that is, how much food, energy we need to keep our body working.
That's is more or less 3,000 kcal a day.
If today, you enter in the Internet and use any of those tools shown here today
or the regular Google for example
you can do the math taking all the energy consumed on the planet
is to divide the entire population on the planet
I did this math on Thursday
and it resulted more or less in 400,000 kcal an inhabitant/day
that is, we left from 3,000 to 400,000 each one of us
obviously, an American consumes four or five times more energy than an average South-American.
There's this directly relation between economic power and energy consumption.
Only for you to have an idea, the impact from the economic crisis on greenhouse effect gases
was greater than the Kyoto Protocol.
The greater international agreement to fight the climate change it was less effective than the time when
to be chic, I'll spoke it in French
"La maison tombe", the house has fallen down.
Then the house has fallen down for good, has fallen the consumption, has fallen the energy consumption
and has considerably fallen the emission of greenhouse effect gases.
So, there's a direct relation between the society model we've created
and we enjoy and the environment matter.
As we have a society exclusively based on consumption
and trade, as we measure GDP by growth percentage
you have been tricking,
because that isn't replicable, the future isn't there.
We've to dematerialize our society.
A classic example of that is the mp3.
labels hate mp3, why?
They're even reinventing themselves and releasing vinyls in market.
Because CD selling is falling down year after year.
To environment, to culture, to citizen, it's the best thing in the world.
What I've collected during the last 5 years
50 times more than my entire collection of vinyls plus my CD collection plus the cassette tapes
oranged by Basf which are lost there in the middle.
To the market that's a problem.
Today, the great thing is how the market will make the mp3 stop
and take its part from there.
There's a number 00 blinking here at my left side
I believe that means my time is running out.
I, just to finish, want to say that alongside with Iniciativa Verde
we're accomplishing to grow hundreds of thousands of trees a year.
these trees during they growth absorbs CO2 from atmosphere
and restore degraded areas of riparian forest.
But as I've this thing inside my head
I said: "Man, there are hundreds of thousands of trees, they're hundreds of hectares
deforestation in Amazonia is about millions of hectares.
I've to work with Amazonia.
running after my dream.
Thank you.