Tranvías por las calles de Cuba

Cuba fue de los primeros países en tener tranvías, con una línea entre Regla y Guanabacoa y otra en el casco urbano habanero instalada en 1858, adelantándose a las urbes europeas, excepto París.

En aquellas últimas décadas del XIX los carros eran movidos por caballos. Llegaron, luego de la inauguración oficial del sistema, en 1862, a circular por unos 50 kilómetros de vías férreas con cerca de treinta vehículos y casi 300 animales, uniendo el núcleo citadino con barrios señoriales: el Cerro, Jesús del Monte y Carmelo, en el Vedado.

Pero no sólo en La Habana. En Camagüey, por ejemplo, Enrique Loynaz del Castillo fundó en 1893 la compañía Ferrocarril Urbano de Puerto Príncipe.

A fines de ese año viajó a Estados Unidos para comprar en subasta pública seis carros y varios kilómetros de vías de una compañía quebrada. A bordo de un vapor noruego, en marzo de 1894 llegó el cargamento a Nuevitas y fue llevado en tren a la ciudad.

Además de carros y rieles, incluía 200 rifles Remington y 48 mil cartuchos para los mambises, que fueron confiscados por las autoridades alertadas tras una denuncia.

Loynaz debió huir, pero en noviembre se abría el servicio con un primer tramo desde la estación ferroviaria Puerto Príncipe-Nuevitas (en un sitio cercano a la terminal actual), que seguía la calle Avellaneda y llegaba hasta Soledad (Estrada Palma, Ignacio Agramonte) para continuar hacia la Plaza de la Soledad.

En 1895, la línea fue extendida a la Plaza de la Caridad y se dividió en dos ramales que tocaban puntos como la Plaza de Paula (Maceo), la calle Candelaria (Independencia) o la Plazuela del Puente. Siguió ampliándose hasta su fin, en 1900.

Los carritos eléctricos
Sin dudas, el tranvía eléctrico fue uno de los símbolos del progreso con la llegada del siglo XX. Tuvo que enfrentar desconfianzas y reticencias, quejas y chistes, como el mismo automóvil, pero al final se impuso.

El primer sistema de alumbrado eléctrico de La Habana databa de 1889 –semanas antes que en Cárdenas- cuando fueron iluminadas varias calles, el Parque de Isabel II y el Paseo de Isabel la Católica.

Por entonces también surgieron en Camagüey y Matanzas, y más tarde en Cienfuegos y Sagua La Grande (1892), Pinar del Río (1983), Santa Clara, Regla y Caibarién (1895) y Santiago de Cuba (1897).

La cobertura era limitada, tanto en tiempo como en consumidores. Aún a fines de la Primera Guerra Mundial, por cada lámpara eléctrica incandescente o de arco en el alumbrado público del núcleo urbano habanero había casi cinco mecheros de gas.

No obstante, con el nuevo siglo aumentaron las inversiones en el sector y varias empresas de capital norteamericano, británico, canadiense, alemán, español y nacional destinaban sus servicios al alumbrado, la calefacción y el transporte en varias localidades de la Isla.

Las primeras líneas
La primera línea de tranvía eléctrico, de unos 4 kilómetros, conectó a Regla y Guanabacoa en marzo de 1900.

Un año después –cuando la capital contaba con 240 mil habitantes- se abrió la primera ruta en el casco urbano habanero entre el Vedado -Línea y 20- y el paradero de San Juan de Dios, en Empedrado y Aguiar.

El dominio fue inicialmente de la Havana Electric Raylway Company (fundada en Montreal por propietarios canadienses con capitales cubanos, españoles y norteamericanos), pero pronto Frank Steinhart, quien había sido cónsul de Estados Unidos, llegó a tener un monopolio durante varios años con la Habana Electric Railway, Light & Power Company.

Por los tiempos de la Segunda Intervención Norteamericana, otra empresa, la Havana Central Railroad Company, construyó un ferrocarril eléctrico interurbano (primero en América Latina) que conectaba a Güines y Guanajay con su planta generadora en Rincón de Melones, junto a la bahía habanera.

Al principio había cuatro líneas ida-vuelta en la capital, desde las terminales del Vedado, Cerro, Jesús del Monte y Príncipe a San Juan de Dios y al Muelle de Luz. Luego se extendieron a las calles San Lázaro, Galiano, 23 y J, Ángeles, Florida, Vives y Belascoaín y más allá paulatinamente, hacia barrios periféricos hasta superar los términos municipales de la urbe.

Entre 1907 y 1908 se inauguró oficialmente el servicio de tranvías eléctricos en Santiago de Cuba y Camagüey, que tuvieron sistemas similares al de doble trole de La Habana.

El de Camagüey se inició con ocho carros fabricados, al parecer, en Canadá, que fueron de los pocos del modelo “abierto” en la Isla, además del que había en La Habana y dos en Matanzas.

En los laterales tenían un tablón o estribo por el que los viajeros subían o bajaban y por donde caminaba el conductor al cobrar el pasaje.

Pronto se les unió un noveno coche traído de Filadelfia, Estados Unidos, con plataforma motorizada de cuatro ejes: según las crónicas, el único con ocho ruedas que, más allá de La Habana, circulaba en el país.

De 1912 a 1918 se introdujo en Cienfuegos, Cárdenas y Matazas, pero con carros que dependían de acumuladores. Todo parece indicar que en La Habana también hubo tranvías con acumuladores desde 1913. Los de la capital, Cienfuegos y Cárdenas estuvieron entre los primeros cinco sistemas de su tipo en América Latina. Sólo otros cuatro se construyeron después en el continente, incluido el de Matanzas, en 1916.

En Cárdenas, el servicio poseía en 1918 doce carros y cubría unos 14 kilómetros: cuatro tranvías circulaban al mismo tiempo, otros cuatro se mantenían listos para salir en cuanto recargaran sus baterías y los restantes estaban en reserva.

En Camagüey llegó a haber 22 carros y 100 conductores, y se cuenta que en sus talleres, en terrenos de la Compañía Cubana de Electricidad, hasta se fabricaron algunos tranvías.

Langostas y accidentes
Pero la mayoría vino, en todas las localidades, de Estados Unidos, muchas veces de uso. Aquel modo de transporte cambió la fisonomía de las ciudades con los rieles y el alambrado suspendido, los chuchos y los troles o antenas.

Por este último rasgo se les llamó “langostas”, aunque más expresivo fue el mote de “funerarias eléctricas”.

Más o menos cómodos, como una alternativa de peso al movimiento de personas en las ciudades, de cuyo folclor llegaron a ser parte importante, los tranvías fueron diezmados al paso de los años por el deterioro, negligencias, accidentes, oscuras tramas comerciales y otros sucesos.

Al respecto, vale leer lo que escribía Nicolás Guillén en 1950:

“El tendido de alambres para los trollies ha cedido bajo la acción demoledora de los años y ya no hay viaje sin accidente. Los cables caen a diario, enroscados sobre la calle como finas serpientes, y durante horas y horas permanece el tránsito paralizado en medio de las cuchufletas e ironías de quienes ante el humillante espectáculo aún se muestran con ánimo de reír”.

Todavía quedan memorias de accidentes.

Choques, atropellamientos (algunos muchachos se enganchaban para descansar del pedaleo de sus bicicletas) y los troles zafados de los cables, alqo que muchos conductores resolvían o intentaban resolver estirándose desde sus puestos y que, en ocasiones, era causado por “mataperros” que se divertían a costa de los destartalados carros.

Cuesta abajo
Muchas compañías no compraron o construyeron carros y vías luego de los años ´20. Tampoco podían subir las tarifas por orden gubernamental.

Entre 1929 y el ´35 cayó drásticamente el número de pasajeros. Un paréntesis se vivió durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial por la carestía de combustible, neumáticos y piezas para los ómnibus: los mismos carritos debieron asumir muchos más viajeros que nunca. Pero de nada les valió ese servicio.

La condena era irreversible.

El puntillazo fue la competencia de las rutas de ómnibus, que crecía desde los años ´30, favorecida por la progresiva pavimentación de las calles y el favoritismo de las autoridades, la flexibilidad de sus rutas y explotación y los menores requerimientos de infraestructura.
Y no fue un fenómeno aislado en Cuba, sino la generalidad en América Latina y también en España.

Tras la Gran Depresión de 1929 había perecido el tranvía en Cárdenas. En Camagüey se detuvo en febrero de 1952.

Poco más de dos meses después, rondando las nueve décadas de la inauguración del servicio, un triste carro hizo el viaje de la línea Príncipe-Avenida del Puerto: el último tranvía que circuló por La Habana.

Los nuevos rostros del Viejo Mundo

(Publicado en diario Público, Guadalajara)
(Fotos: Giorgio Viera)




Su pasado colonial y las sucesivas olas migratorias han hecho de Europa una tierra diversa y multicultural que se muestra desde las calles de sus grandes metrópolis del mundo, donde comunidades venidas de los cuatro puntos cardinales replican, a pequeña escala y utilizando todos los recursos que tienen a la mano, sus países de origen.

Porque eso son las urbes europeas: ciudades del mundo donde, a cada paso, se respiran esencias de las comidas venidas de otras latitudes y donde las músicas del mundo han tomado como sus foros naturales desde los profundos tubos del Metro hasta las plazas y avenidas de las zonas posh.

Esa tierra a la que apuntan tantos itinerarios en los más diversos rincones del orbe no podría ya vivir sin la energía que le llega de ultramar.

Aun cuando algunas puertas empiecen a cerrarse y aquellos que promueven las autopistas del libre comercio quieran ahora unilateralmente filtrar la inmigración en términos de calificación profesional, instaurando un nuevo apartheid. “Europa no va a aceptar toda la miseria del mundo”, dijo el presidente francés, Nicolas Sarkozy, en julio pasado.

Pero Europa está hecha ya, y hace mucho, de mundo.

En los edificios ultramodernos y fríos del sector financiero; en los empleos mejor pagados y, por lo general, en los más precarios; en los espacios del arte alternativo y en los barrios bajos o en la periferia; entre los músicos ambulantes y las estatuas humanas... Ahí están, desde hace tiempo, los muchos y variados rostros de la diversidad.

Son esos rostros que han cambiado los matices, los colores y los sonidos en las calles de las grandes ciudades europeas, que traen en su espalda la fuerza de sus culturas y contribuyen, en gran medida, al cambio de ambientes y modos de ser; que son parte de la garantía de futuro para un continente que, como el mundo, necesita cada vez más el diálogo y la convivencia.

A night in Soho

Jessica promised amazing girls for £5 and private dancers for £10. It sounded like the bargain of the night.

Her beauty made Soho look like paradise and lured us in.

She turned out to be the hook, and we were the perfect fish. 

Market for debauchery

We were looking for a story.

And Jessica was not the first to offer us forbidden “delights” that night. ‘Exotic’ girls (read from any ethnic background), marijuana, hashish and cocaine were all on offer. All we had to do was ask.

“Looking for girls? I have some just around the corner. They are clean, they don’t do the streets.” We heard these words over and over again.

We wanted to talk to a girl, but talk’s cheap and wasn’t on sale that night. What was being sold, however, was a show for £30, or “£35 for a blow job, £40 if you want positions.”

Open-minded…and unpredictable 

So there we were, negotiating, terrified but intrigued by the temptation pretty, blonde Jessica offered.

Can we talk to a girl while she is dancing for us? “Yes,” she answered. Is it only £10? “Yes.” Can we ask you to dance for us? “Yes.” 

Until this point, our evening had been very ordinary. Earlier, we had met up with Sergio and Arturo, who frequent Soho’s gay bars and clubs. 

“Soho’s great! Specially because it’s not just a gay zone. Many straight people come here, especially girls who feel safe in gay bars,” Sergio said.

Ironically, a couple of Spanish tourists we spoke to later couldn’t get out of the place fast enough, once they realised they were in a gay bar. 

Beware of clip joints 

Getting back to Jessica and her promise of giving us a good time, we paid her £5 and were soon sitting in a dark little room. Another blonde kept us company while a beautiful brunette served us two glasses of rather tasteless beer. 

Then we asked Jessica to deliver on her promise of a private dance. And that’s when things got ugly.

The blonde's smile vanished and she demanded £35 more despite the bargain we had struck. She also asked for £200 for “further services”. 

Our refusal to pay more money translated into a trip back to the reception where a grumpy Madame demanded that we pull out some more money and search our pockets and wallets, while a huge bouncer breathed down our necks.

We were lucky to get away only £20 poorer.

Our experience is not dissimilar to those experienced by other men trapped in ‘clip joints’.

A recent article in The Independent talked about “stories of men having their wallets emptied or being marched to cash machines by bouncers and forced to hand over £500 for a couple of soft drinks and a 20 minute chat with a scantily clad young hostess.” 

Incidentally, last year, councils sent text messages to warn unsuspecting customers of Soho’s treacheries.

The message from Westminster City Council read: "£5 to get in, £500 to get out. Criminals operate some of the hostess bars in Soho. Don't enter without knowing what you'll get for your money."

We got the message the hard way. 

Una noche en el Soho de Londres

Jessica prometía deslumbrantes y complacientes chicas por sólo 5 libras, danzas privadas por 10. El trato sonaba como la ganga de la noche.

Su casi cinematográfica belleza hacía que el Soho pareciera un paraíso y pudo más que cualquier duda y nos atrajo escaleras abajo. La rubia este-europea, que de hecho podría haber posado para un pintor renacentista, resultó ser el perfecto anzuelo para la presa perfecta, nosotros.

Mercado de libertinaje

Mi colega y yo llegamos al Soho en busca de una historia que escribir para nuestro sitio online, parte de nuestra maestría en una universidad londinense. 

Cuando nos encontramos con Jessica, habíamos estado una larga media hora rondando las calles estrechas de la zona, hechas a la medida de las más íntimas transacciones y otros negocios. 

Su oferta era la vigésima que escuchábamos, luego de constantes proposiciones de proxenetas que no parecían preocupados por la cercana policía y publicitaban un menú que iba desde las chicas de cualquier “origen étnico” hasta la marihuana, el hachís o la cocaína. 

“¿Buscando chicas? Tengo algunas al doblar de la esquina. Están limpias, no trabajan en la calle”. Lo escuchamos una y otra vez. 

Regateamos cordialmente, pero sin éxito. Sólo queríamos hablar con una de las muchachas, pagando una tarifa módica, por supuesto. Pero no había tarifa para la conversación, y nuestros bolsillos no llegaban ni al más bajo de los precios fijados. 

“Treinta libras por un show, 35 por sexo oral (blow job) y 40 si quieres posiciones”, nos dijo uno de los “agentes de ventas” y colocó un chiste al final: “la imaginación también cuesta”. 

Liberal, e impredecible

Así que allí estábamos, negociando, indecisos entre la aprensión ante lo desconocido y la tentación de sucumbir a la talentosa gestión de venta de la rubia Jessica en la entrada del club. 

“¿Podemos hablar a la chica cuando esté danzando para nosotros?” “Sí”, respondió. “¿Sólo por 10 libras?” “Sí”. “¿Podemos pedir que bailes tú?”. “Sí”. 

Hasta ese momento, la noche había transcurrido sin grandes sobresaltos. Más temprano habíamos conocido a Sergio y Arturo, españoles residentes en Londres que con frecuencia disfrutan un trago en el relajado ambiente gay del Soho. 

“Es un lugar para mentes abiertas, tolerante, no es sólo una zona gay. Muchos heterosexuales vienen al Soho, especialmente muchachas que quieren divertirse y se sienten seguras en los bares gay”, dijo Sergio. 

Afuera de un bar gay, dos chicas hablaban animadamente. Quisimos corroborar lo que nos había dicho Sergio, así que preguntamos qué hacían allí. La comunicación fue rápida, clara y en castellano, pues ambas eran turistas españolas. 

“¿Qué hacemos aquí?, pues nada, a tomar un café”, nos respondieron, extrañadas. Tras presentarnos, les explicamos el por qué de la pregunta. Fue como si saltara un resorte. “¿Un bar gay?”, preguntaron, con cara de estar sentadas sobre un nido de serpientes. Se alejaron casi corriendo y en menos de un minuto las perdimos de vista… 

Cuidado con los clip-joints

Después de pagar 5 libras a Jessica por la entrada, estábamos sentados en una oscura y estrecha, calurosa sala donde otra chica nos sirvió dos vasos de insípida cerveza y nos dio conversación tan neutra como la cerveza. 

Sólo queríamos la entrevista, y queríamos hacerla con Jessica. Así que pedimos verla y fue entonces, en el momento en que demandamos lo prometido, que comenzaron nuestras tribulaciones y el final en picada de la noche. 

La cortesía de la chica de la cerveza desapareció de golpe, nos mostró un recibo y dijo que debíamos pagar 35 libras por los cinco minutos de plática, y otras 200 si queríamos más.

En medio de la confusión –la chica exigiendo el pago, nosotros exigiendo ver a Jessica y reclamando que se cumpliera lo que nos había prometido- fuimos llevados de vuelta a la recepción, donde ahora, en lugar de la sonriente Jessica, una señora disgustada y con seriedad de agente policial, más bien amargura, nos gritaba que debíamos pagar. 

Debimos vaciarnos los bolsillos y mostrar las billeteras para convencerla de que no teníamos dinero, mientras a nuestras espaldas un enorme bouncer –también con cara de agente policial, o antimotines- esperaba en silencio y al frente una cámara de video mostraba la escena al oculto dueño del negocio, estilo Gran Hermano orweliano. 

Tuvimos suerte de que nos dejaran salir, tras dejar sólo 20 libras. 

La noche que iniciamos frente al legendario Revue Bar, en busca de una historia y movidos por la reciente muerte del Rey del Soho, Paul Raymond, terminó convertida en una frustrante y a la vez didáctica jornada, con nosotros convertidos en materia prima para una crónica. 

Hace poco, el diario londinense The Independent decía que “abundan las historias en el Soho de hombres con sus billeteras vaciadas o llevados a los cajeros automáticos por bouncers que los obligan a desembolsar 500 libras por un par de tragos aguados y veinte minutos de charla con una anfitriona ligera de ropa”.

Son los llamados clip joints, donde “desprevenidos clientes terminan pagando extravagantes tarifas por servicios sexuales prometidos pero no entregados y tragos alterados”, según The Independent.

El pasado año, los consejos londinenses enviaron mensajes de texto a los teléfonos celulares de muchos ciudadanos, advirtiéndoles sobre las trampas del Soho.

El mensaje del Consejo de la Ciudad de Westminster –donde está el Soho- advertía: “Cinco libras para entrar, 500 para salir. Varios de los bares de chicas del Soho son operados por criminales. Nunca entre sin estar seguro de lo que obtendrá por el dinero que está pagando”.

Desafortunadamente, mi colega y yo no estábamos en Londres por entonces y no recibimos el mensaje. Pero sí lo recibimos unos meses más tarde, de una forma menos literal.

Foto: Ian Britton

Toxic waves flowing into life

(Photo: Ian Parker)


There is a warm paradise called Annobon 350 km off the west coast of Africa. Visitors are stunned by its valleys and steep mountains, exuberant woods and tropical beaches.

Annobon is under Ecuadorian Guinea jurisdiction, and therefore under Dictator Teodoro Obiang Nguema’s control.

At a single glance the landscapes are still paradisiacal there, but the tragedy striking its 2,000 inhabitants flows underground and it is hard to trace because of the isolation imposed to the island.

It started in the 1980s, when Obiang struck a secret deal with European and US companies to dump hazardous waste. The storage of highly contaminated industrial garbage –including radioactive material- is believed to earn his government $200 million a year.

Today, according to European scientists, the island is at an ecological disaster’s door.

The trees are sick; the people are suffering hunger, anaemia, skin ulcer, and leukaemia and increasing mortality. But it is difficult to access to reliable data, since Annobon is isolated by the regime’s military and the tragedy is silenced.

Ecuadorian Guinea is one of the smallest countries in Africa, but Africa’s third largest oil producer. Its per capita income (about £26,000) is second in the world after Luxemburg’s, but the most of its 500 000 inhabitants live with less than £1 a day.

The bulk of the money is in Obiang’s and his supporter’s accounts and properties.

Watchdog Transparency International put it in the top ten of its list of corrupt states, and the US-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) included it in the 2006 ranking of the world’s top five “most-censored countries”.

Obiang’s oldest son is the Minister of Forestry, or Minister of Chopping Down Trees as American Press called him, and in 2006 bought a mansion in Malibu by USD 35m, the sixth highest price on America’s real state history.

While the country’s natural resources are ruined, the Obiang’s clan holds power safely, blessed by US government and labelled as “a good friend” by the Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

It is the reward by the hospitable treatment to US oil firms, said the Washington Post in 2006.

American drillers such as ExxonMobil and ChevronTexaco get the oil, Obiang’s clan gets the money and people from Ecuadorian Guinea just survive.

At the end, Annobon is only a tiny spot on the Atlantic.

Toxic cargo

Annobon is not the only ruined paradise.

Since the 1960’s, when hazardous waste began to travel from the highly industrialized Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries to lesser developed non-OECD nations, the trade has endured through illegal markets or cross-border smuggling in spite of international laws and efforts to tackle the trend.

Greenpeace estimates that in the twenty years before 1989 approximately 3.6 million tons of hazardous wastes were exported, but as much as 6662.6 million tons were shipped in only five years between 1989 and 1993, mainly to countries in Asia and Africa and involving companies like Aventis, BASF, Bayer, Dow AgroSciences, Dupont, Monsanto, Sumitoma and Syngenta.

The total stockpiles estimated to exist today in Africa including heavily contaminated soils and empty and contaminated pesticide containers is more than 50,000 tonnes, according to UN figures.

The bulk of it is stored in unsafe facilities or in unknown whereabouts, and a great part reached the life chain, contaminating air, soils, ground and drinking water and agricultural irrigation systems.

Environmental groups like Greenpeace believe hold that 86% to 90% of all hazardous waste shipments destined for developing countries are purported to be materials for recycling, reuse, recovery, or humanitarian uses. It is a creative way to avoid laws and controls.

Ironically, stricter environmental protection in the developed countries contributes to the spread of dangerous waste stocks in the Third World, where many governments are tempted by the profits.

In August 2006, the Probo Koala, a boat chartered by the Netherlands-based firm Trafigura, dumped hundreds of tonnes of toxic waste in Ivory Coast, killing ten and hospitalising dozens, with almost 100,000 people suffering to some degree.

European Union environment commissioner Stavros Dimas said then, “It is shocking that toxic waste from Europe reached the Ivory Coast, causing so much human suffering and damage to the environment, but I fear that the Probo Koala incident is only the tip of the iceberg.”

Fuel, timber and the rainforest

Amazon rainforest is known as the “lungs of the world” and home to up to 30 percent of the world’s animal and plant species, but also as home to many of the much talk of environmental scandals in the last years.

Later this year is expected the end of the case involving Chevron in a US court, after 80 communities and five indigenous groups from Ecuadorian Amazon accused the company of contaminating the environment where they have lived for centuries.

They allege that Chevron carved close to 1,000 open-air waste pits out of the jungle floor and filled them with toxic-laden oil sludge that seeped in the soil and groundwater.

The company would have also dumped 18 billion gallons of toxic waste water into rainforest waterways from 1964 to 1990.

“Chevron created an environmental catastrophe in Ecuador and as a result thousands of vulnerable rainforest residents are suffering from dangerous toxic pollution,” said Luis Yanza, a representative of claimants.

Amazon is also under threat in Peruvian territory.

According to Amazon Watch, the proportion of the rainforest zoned into hydrocarbon blocks in Peru has risen from 13 percent to roughly 70 percent in the last two years, despite the widespread toxic contamination and negative social impacts left by previous oil companies, such as Occidental Petroleum, Hunt Oil and Pluspetrol in the area.

In recent decades, forced contact of isolated communities in Peru has resulted in disasters.

The Yora de Kugapakori tribe was forcibly contacted in 1984 by illegal loggers using roads built for Shell Oil’s operations. Human rights groups estimate that as a result more than 42% of the Yora population died from respiratory diseases for which they had no immunological defences.

Oil concessions and uncontrolled farming and resulting fires in Amazon are jeopardizing the ecosystem’s balance in the world’s biggest tropical forest, where deforestation rates increased in the last months after a three-year declining, as reported by Brazil’s National Space Research Agency.

Rainforest’s health is also at stake in Indonesia and Malaysia.

Greenpeace last year accused Uniliver, Nestlé, Procter and Gamble and other multinational of destroying the forest to expand palm oil plantations.

Palm oil is found in one in 10 food products available in supermarkets, including chocolate, bread, crisps, detergents and lipsticks, and the increasing demand is boosting the pressure over the Indonesian forest.

In spite of the alarm, a Friends of the Earth survey last year showed that 84% of UK companies do not know where their palm oil comes from.

Cooking the climate, a report by Greenpeace, showed that companies are planning to expand the palm oil plantations in Indonesia in sight of the biofuel boom.

In Riau province, Sumatra Island, the project would affect peat bogs and could unleash into the atmosphere more than 14,000m tons of carbon, which equals the total of worldwide greenhouse emissions in a year.

The timber trade and illegal logging are also contributing to deforestation at a large extent, and the recipients are often the most unexpected places.

In the UK, Greenpeace reported that wood of endangered species from African and Amazon rainforests was used during the early 2000s in renovation works at the Queens Gallery in Buckingham Palace, the Cabinet Office building in Whitehall and the Houses of Parliament.

Electronic waste

Analysts considerer that Microsoft Vista operating system launch in 2006 meant that almost 10m computers were discarded in the UK alone, overloading the recycling business, already struggling to cope with Europeans regulations that banned dumping PCs in landfill sites and made producers and importers of electronic goods responsible for the recycling of their products.

Electronic waste, including PCs, games consoles, microwaves, mobile phones and other digital gadgets and washing machines, is today the fastest-growing form of rubbish in the developed world.

The computers market combines a series of polluting sources, such as the short life of equipment (average for PCs is three to five years), quick changing technology and lack of standardization among manufacturers.

The resulting massive discards of electronic equipment totals 50m tons a year worldwide, according to the UN Environment Programme, and switchover to digital high-definition TV is providing a huge contribution.

Africa and Asia are the main destinations for that waste, which contains toxics like lead and mercury and other persistent organic pollutants.

So far, the electronic industry has bet on permanent change and sale, but in this area as well as in others it is time to change a system based on built in immediate obsolescence and compulsive consumption for another based in sustainability and global responsibility.

At the end, Annobon is a tiny spot on the Atlantic, indeed, but certainly toxic chemicals in the subterranean waters eventually reach the ocean. At that point, no one is safe.

-If you were to analyse the fat in your own body, you would be likely to find harmful chemicals such as brominated flame retardants, DDT, dioxins and many other persistent organic pollutants (POPs), chemicals that your body cannot get rid of, so they gradually build up over our lifetimes. POPs are even found in babies still in the womb. The production and trade of many synthetic chemicals are now widely recognised as a global threat to human health and the environment.
(Greenpeace)

-Today we know at what extent human activities contribute to the global warming: electricity (24%), manufacturing (11%), shipping (4.5%), aviation industry (2%), refineries (4%) and deforestation (20%). The US contribute the 42% of global fossil fuel CO2 and 34% of combined greenhouse gas emissions (CO2, methane and nitrous oxide).

-Producing computers requires the mining, processing, and transporting of massive quantities of raw materials — almost two tons of such stuff is required to produce the average desktop PC and monitor, according to a 2004 United Nations’ study. A single two-gram microchip produces more than 50 pounds of waste, some of it toxic. Every year, 100 million compu-ters, monitors, and TVs become obsolete in the US, and this number is growing. The 80 percent of this gear is sent to Asia and Africa. Electronic toxins include mercury (which can cause brain and kidney damage, particularly in babies and children); chromium (which can cause asthmatic bronchitis and damage the DNA); and cadmium (which can cause kidney damage and harm bones). Brominated flame retardants, which are used in computers and in TVs, have been linked to fetal damage.

Climate change: living in the edge

Greenpeace and scientists make a simple picture to explain the magnitude of mankind’s footprint in Earth’s evolution. They compare the planet, which has an estimated age of 4.600 millions years, to a 46-year old person.

The Modern Man has lived on the planet just for four hours. In the last hour, he discovered agriculture, and in the last minute of that hour the Industrial Revolution gave birth to the backbone of today’s progress, the machine, which soon burned fuel oil.

In the last five seconds, things really went out of man’s hands, and just in the last second, we have realized that we urgently need to change our ways of doing and our priorities in order to have a future.

In that last second, we have learned scary news. The scale of global warming is unprecedented in at least 20,000 years, and concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases are at the highest for at least 650,000 years.

Uncomfortable certainty

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established in 1988, and two years later produced a first report highlighting that there was a “natural greenhouse effect”, which was being enhanced by human activities and the resulting concentrations of CO2, methane, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and nitrous oxide in the atmosphere.

More than 3000 scientists from across the world produced, revised and supported the fourth report in 2007.

The IPCC then left no space for doubts.

“Warming of the climate system is unequivocal. Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.”

In just a few months, climate change became a major – and trendy- issue, taking over the agenda in international meetings like the Davos Summit, bringing about controversial steps like an environmental tax in London or the UE scheme to cut emissions, and forcing the US government and presidential candidates to recognize that is time to act.

Unbalanced forces and signs

Natural forces have been acting for ages according to cause-effect relations, but nature could not predict that more than 6bn people would be populating the planet, using millions cars and building societies based on highly polluting industries.

The worst news is that changes in climate are accumulative, which means that they will persist for decades and perhaps centuries even if current levels of emissions are minimized.

When it comes to define the evidences proving that climate change is already happening, temperatures, oceans, hurricanes, weather, season alterations and polar icecap are key words.

Temperature: The transformation from the last Ice Age to a warmer climate that allowed life on Earth to adapt to the changes took 5,000 years. Today events are going too fast.

Warming in the last Century caused a 0.74 °C increase in global average temperature, and 11 years between 1995 and 2006 ranked among the top 12 warmest since 1850.

Melting ice: Average Arctic temperatures increased at almost twice the global average rate in the past 100 years. Arctic sea ice has shrunk by 2.7 per cent per decade since 1978. A rapid warming is also reported in the Antarctic, with 90% of the world’s fresh water in its icecap.

The American Geophysical Union found that Arctic ice at the North Pole melted at a record rate in the summer of 2007.

“While in the summer of 1980 an ice sheet about the size of the continental United States covered the North Pole, this summer the ice would not have covered the states west of the Mississippi River,” said an expert from the U.S. Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory.

Ocean: Sea level rose at an average rate of about 1.8 mm/year during the years 1961-2003, but for the period 1993-2003 the average was 3.1 mm/year.

Since ocean absorbed almost half of fossil fuel CO2 launched to the atmosphere, it is becoming more acidic. This and sea warming lead to physical, chemical and biological changes affecting patterns of circulation and micro organisms like the phytoplankton, the base of the food web for all marine life.

Weather: Hurricane activity in the North Atlantic and other regions increased since the 1970s, and between 1995 and 2000 rose by 82%, according to a study by experts from University of London.

Cold days, cold nights and frost events became less frequent, while hot days, hot nights and heat waves are now more frequent. Spring events such as the unfolding of leaves, laying of eggs and migration are happening earlier.

Complexity

There are no isolated reactions within nature.

A symbol of this complexity and of nature’s immense forces is the Gulf Stream, which conveys heat from the tropics to the north and keeps Western Europe warmer by 5 to 10 degrees.

Changes on ocean’s temperature and salinity and accelerated melting of Greenland ice sheets could cause a reversal or even a shutdown of this energy transporter, with huge consequences for global climate that were featured in Hollywood’s production The day after tomorrow.

In 2006, scientists from Cambridge University reported a slow down of the Gulf Stream, which is only one part of an interconnected global system of currents influencing temperatures, winds and rains across the planet.

According to World Wildlife Fund, by 2030 the rain decrease related to climate change could destroy the 55% of the Amazon, a major stabilizer of global temperatures and sea currents.

If deforestation goes that far, the Amazon could affect back the climate by releasing 55bn-96bn tons of CO2 in a few decades.

The permafrost is another threat.

The underground and underwater icecap contains huge deposits of methane, a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than CO2, which could dramatically increase the rate of global warming. It is already melting and releasing gas.

The ice in the arctic normally reflects 85% of sun’s radiation, keeping water cool. As it melts to water, that percentage falls to 7%. The result is higher seawater temperature, accelerated melting of ice and rising of the ocean’s level.

Future scenarios

Figures on how climate change will affect our life in the years to come are not definite. There are many factors involved and the uncertainty remains about how far will go global actions to tackle the phenomenon.

But there is no doubt that we will face higher temperatures (1 to 6 degrees in the next 70 years) and more extreme weather events like heat waves, floods, storms, hurricanes, high tides and droughts.

Coasts will suffer higher erosion and sea-level rise (between 0.4 and 1.4 metres) will flood vast low-lying areas and islands, with disastrous consequences for countries relying on tourism-based economies.

Different projections predict the extinction of 30-70% of animal and plant species in the next 50 years, from koalas and seals to those we have not even discovered.

That means approximately 450.000 of the 1.5m species known up to today.

There will be a significant increase in cases of food poisoning, including salmonella; the number of pathogens and bacteria in surface water; deaths and hospital admissions for respiratory diseases, and skin cancers, even in countries that today have cool or template climate.

Humankind and nature

Climate is more than an environmental issue.

Governments and international organisations have recognized that it is already causing economical loses due to more frequent natural disasters, and posing serious threats to the security in a world that will host more than 9bn people by 2050.

Institutions like the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs in Oslo and the American International Institute for Strategic Studies have warned that the phenomenon puts at stake peace and stability and that climate wars are already taking place in Africa.

Last January, Director-General of World Health Organisation, Margaret Chan, stressed the links between climate change and health and said that humankind is the most threatened species by the climate change.

“We have only a few years to take action. The WHO has evidences of what droughts, floods, storms, heat waves, pollution, under nourishment and spread of transmissible deceases can mean for human health,” she added.

The proposed solutions range from environmental taxes and cutting emissions schemes to the use of controversial biofuels, seaweed crops to absorb extra greenhouse gas and the CO2 storing in underground deposits.

But consensus is growing about the need to change the patterns of development and consumption, promoting cleaner and sustainable technologies and energy sources.

Scientists hold that the effort to reduce emissions by 50-85% by 2050 will take between 0.2 and 3% of the world’s GDP.

It is not a high cost in sight of the frightening and unpredictable consequences that climate change could unleash.

This is not a battle of man against nature. It is not about judging what goes first, man or nature, because they are linked and man is not above nature, as well as nothing is above time.

This is man's quest for the best way to save nature in order to save man's future on the planet.

Sea temperature and hurricanes: Research by the University of London showed that sea surface warming (0.5ºC in the Caribbean Sea between 1996 and 2005) was responsible for approximately 40 percent of the increase in Atlantic hurricane activity between 1996 and 2005. The World Meteorological Organisation reported that 90% of natural disasters in the last years were caused by extreme weather events, due to climate change at a large extent. According satellite images, West Antarctica lost 132 billion tons of ice in 2006, compared to about 83 billion tons in 1996, and Arctic sea ice shrank last September to a low of 4.1 million sq km, more than 1.2 million sq km less than the previous recorded low in 2005. The British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge reported that 87% of the 224 glaciers on the Antarctic Peninsula are in retreat and major ice shelves have collapsed.

Human activities and their contribution to the global warming: electricity (24%), manufacturing (11%), sipping (4.5%), aviation industry (2%), refineries (4%) and deforestation (20%). The US contribute the 42% of global fossil fuel CO2 and 34% of combined greenhouse gas emissions (CO2, methane and nitrous oxide).

Special Report on Emissions Scenarios for XXI Century by the IPCC, based on the progression of variables like emissions, population growth and land-use:

Scenario B1: Best estimate temperature rise of 1.8 °C with a likely range of 1.1 to 2.9 °C . Sea level rise likely range [18 to 38 cm].

Scenario A1T : Best estimate temperature rise of 2.4 °C with a likely range of 1.4 to 3.8 °C. Sea level rise likely range [20 to 45 cm].

Scenario B2: Best estimate temperature rise of 2.4 °C with a likely range of 1.4 to 3.8 °C. Sea level rise likely range [20 to 43 cm].

Scenario A1B: Best estimate temperature rise of 2.8 °C with a likely range of 1.7 to 4.4 °C. Sea level rise likely range [21 to 48 cm].

Scenario A2: Best estimate temperature rise of 3.4 °C with a likely range of 2.0 to 5.4 °C. Sea level rise likely range [23 to 51 cm].

Scenario A1FI: Best estimate temperature rise of 4.0 °C with a likely range of 2.4 to 6.4 °C. Sea level rise likely range [26 to 59 cm].

From Cuban countryside to London

When the Boeing 747-400 was gliding towards Gatwick airport, almost ten hours after taking off from Havana, I could barely imagine that five months later I would be wondering if it has really been only five months.

It seems much longer to me. And I am not talking about experiencing some sort of time machine, but rather about Thomas Mann’s Hans Cartorp, who, when travelling to Magic Mountain, thought journeys not only move us in terms of distance but in terms of time, as well.

From one capital to another and to a different life in just a few hours, it is not hard to imagine considering modern blessings like aviation and scholarships.

But I have to confess it has been a trauma, though a positive one: first time abroad, first passport, first passing by customs, first mobile phone and bank account, first journeys on the metro or walking through supermarkets as big as the hangar for the Jumbo jet that brought me here.

The Monday that I arrived in London it struck me how the train between Gatwick and Victoria station was so clean, modern, perfectly lit up, and moving on a gelatine-like rail-, full of silent people, absorbed in their newspapers, mobile phones, I-Pods or other hight tech gadgets.

A huge airport, with too many planes taking off one after the other, silent people and the cold... Those were my first impressions.

It was Monday 7 AM, maybe the most distressing time in the week for people around the world. Not only for Londoners.

But I soon learned that Londoners make up for the weekly hassle on Friday nights. Many of them go straight from the office to the pub, flock bars and cafes. It is nice sitting in one of the stations in Central London and looking at so many happy, relaxed and above all tipsy people.

While Saturday nights are lively, Friday nights are a sort of door to the weekend, the relieving threshold to two days for entertainment and relaxation after five days of hard work.

Low-budget London

London constantly amazes me and sometimes I even feel a sensation of spinning or vertigo when I walk around. There is so much to see with regard to architecture, history and the multicultural ways of life.

And it gets better because – at least in my experience – much of the best of London is freely available.

Of course, we are talking about one of the Alpha cities in the world, an expensive mega-urban conglomerate in terms of accommodation, transport and meals.

But everything is relative, even here. You do not have to go to fancy restaurants, and there is always the most green and healthy way of transportation, walking as your eyes and mind try to take in all the visual stimuli of the big city.

Anyway, the double-decker buses are not so expensive and allow you to see more in less time, from a high, mobile post of observation.

Relying on a very limited budget, just walking up and down the city, I have already lost count of the tiny and marvellous buildings I have spotted in London, and the scenes I have witnessed in its indoor or open-air markets, from Convent Garden and Camden Town to Portobello Road, Brixton or Burough.

When you feel you need some open space, there are the vast green oases that make you forget you are in a noisy city, such as Green Park, Saint James, Hyde Park or Greenwich.

Other hangouts? Wandering around Soho, Little Venice or Southbank with its human statues, especially at dusk, as well as watching the boats on the Thames pass by from one of the bridges connecting the banks.

The cafe at the National Gallery, which served as a venue for a scene featuring Julia Roberts and Clive Owen in Closer, allows an atonishing view encompassing several London landmarks: Nelson’s Column, the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey or the London Eye.

The Science and Natural Science museums, the Tate Gallery or the British Museum, where I finally got to see the precious Rosetta Stone. The City District - where high steel and glass towers share spaces with the ancient walls of the original London and present a future scenario of urban architecture.

After so much walking, there will always be the perfect cafe or pub to take a break and share experiences with your friends.

Cafes and pubs are omnipresent in London. As for eating, my culinary background has vastly expanded, with the spicy experience of an Indian restaurant marking the beginning of a tasty tour of the world that took me to the Chinese, Portuguese, Italian, Thai, Mexican and Greek cuisines.

A city of the world

World Music or Foods of the world are trendy categories nowadays. Everything is becoming mixed, multinational, and borderless.

Some cities encompass a wide range of human cultures and customs. London is one of the places that over the last decades have built a complex and mixed human landscape on communities and influences from every corner of the world.

London has given me the opportunity to attend a traditional Hindi wedding, or “listening” to people speaking in Polish, Hindi, Arab, French, Chinese and other languages…except in English, as I was travelling by bus.

It was real, though it happened to me just once.

Who knows? Maybe in a few decades will be talking like they do in Code 46.

At tube stations and in markets, I sometimes take some minutes to listen to the buskers (street musicians), performing from rock to a Spanish air, folk music from Britain or South America or even jazz, blues and Steel music.

Definitely, London is a very good environment to exercise tolerance and acceptation of diversity, to appreciate how traditions remain alive in a place where the most powerful trends of modern society thrive.

Old stories and planes

Besides the great diversity and the intensity of the city’s life, living in London has meant being far from home and managing to set up a temporary habitat with some good albeit temporary friendships and a break to my everyday routine, affording me the space to ponder over my life from a distance.

That is a much-needed opportunity in these times of rushing.

I keep laughing everytime I see one of those big posh-pink limousines in the street struggling to turn around the corners. And I keep wondering why British newspapers grow thicker and thicker as their circulation drops.

On foggy nights, out in the city, I imagine the dark old London depicted in films like The man who new too much, the London where Sherlock Holmes (so deeply imprinted in British minds though fictional) solved his cases and Jack The Ripper built his bloody legend.

But current London is all light and music and life. I have never been alone here, never bored.

And I must confess that after these five moths –or more, as they seem to me- I still look up to the skies as I did on the first day. There are so many planes up there.