July was the hottest month ever recorded since the world’s leading meteorological agencies began operating decades ago. The upward trend in global temperatures, first identified many years ago, has culminated in this new record, which will soon be broken again.
A rise in the planet’s average temperature, even by as little as one decimal point, affects the frequency of droughts and heavy rainfall, in addition to the number of heatwaves and their and intensity. The impact is nonlinear, and some phenomena are easier to predict — heatwaves, for example — than others, such as fluctuations in rainfall.
Science has improved climate models, simulating the future and verifying the accuracy of forecasts by comparing them to past events. The role of climate change in global warming is scientifically uncontested; what is missing is action from governments, the private sector, and society at large to prevent life on Earth as we know it from becoming unsustainable. This issue’s cover story provides the latest data on the global temperature increase, highlighting some of the health impacts and the risks of so-called heat islands.
The role played by humans in the imbalance of the earth’s ecosystem is also the subject of an article. According to an international study, the human species directly affects 14,000 species of vertebrates, representing almost one-third of the species evaluated in the study. In the same African environment in which lions hunt 40 vertebrate species, the human predator affects 3,200.
The importance of Indigenous peoples in preserving nature is well documented. A recent example of a study demonstrating this environmental service was published in July’s issue of Pesquisa FAPESP. A detailed survey carried out by the IBGE in the 2022 Census shows that the Indigenous population as a percentage of Brazil’s entire population almost doubled since 2010, growing from 0.43% to 0.83%. There are several potential explanations for the increase — beyond the demographical fact that there were more births than deaths — such as significant methodological changes in the census and the growing appreciation of Indigenous identities, which encourages greater self-declaration.
Although the subject was improved in the latest edition, previous censuses did already include questions related to Indigenous peoples. Completely unprecedented, however, are the data on quilombola populations in Brazil, which had never before been surveyed by the IBGE. The surprising figures raise awareness of communities that previously went unseen: quilombolas total 1.3 million people, or 0.65% of Brazilians. Almost 70% are concentrated in the Northeast, with Bahia home to the most (30% of the total). The Pitanga dos Palmares quilombo, located in the Salvador Metropolitan Area, made the news recently due to the murder of leader Bernadete Pacífico.
The CPDOC, a veritable treasure trove of documentation on the country’s recent history, managed by the Getulio Vargas Foundation, is now 50 years old. Initially established to house the archives of the former president after whom the institution is named, the Center for Research and Documentation on the Contemporary History of Brazil stores records on the country’s national politics since 1930. The now-digital Brazilian historical-biographical dictionary, launched in 1984 and updated through several editions, is a reference for historians, journalists, and anyone else interested in the topic. It is easy to get lost in it — but never a waste of time.
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