Vini del Neolitico

Sui PNAS enologi di vari paesi, Italia compresa, retrodatano la prima vinificazione con sola uva a 6000-5800 anni a.C. e ne spostano l’invenzione dall’Iran alla Georgia, nel sud del Caucaso noto per essere la culla della vigna. Dall’analisi degli acidi, tartarico in primis, nei cocci di terracotta ritrovati negli della “Cultura Shulaveri-Shomutepe” vicino a Tbilisi, dalle ricostruzioni del clima e dell’ambiente, e da pollini, cereali, carbonella, amido di uva, cellule della buccia ecc., deducono che le giare non erano usate per stoccare chicchi d’uva o fare sciroppi, ma

questi vasi molto capienti [fino a 300 litri] servivano probabilmente come contenitori per la fermentazione, l’invecchiamento e il servizio.

Dal Guardian:

“The Georgians are absolutely ecstatic,” said Stephen Batiuk, an archaeologist from the University of Toronto and one of the study’s co-authors. “They have been saying for years that they have a very long history of winemaking and so we’re really cementing that position.”

Sui PNAS, il sunto redazionale è così estatico da sembrare scritto dall’Agenzia georgiana per il vino, che ha finanziato gli scavi:

Wine is central to civilization as we know it in the West. As a medicine, social lubricant, mind-altering substance, and highly valued commodity, wine became the focus of religious cults, pharmacopoeias, cuisines, economies, and society in the ancient Near East. This wine culture subsequently spread around the globe. Viniculture illustrates human ingenuity in developing horticultural and winemaking techniques, such as domestication, propagation, selection of desirable traits, wine presses, suitable containers and closures, and so on.

Rif. anche National Geographic.

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Ieri Damien Carrington del Guardian ha seguito la conferenza della delegazione americana al vertice di Bonn. In sintesi, al pubblico non sono piaciuti i discorsi dei fautori del “carbone pulito” scelti dal governo Trump:

The appearance of an executive from Peabody Energy, the US’s biggest coal miner, was particularly provocative. In 2016, the Guardian revealed the company had funded at least two dozen groups that cast doubt on manmade climate change and oppose environment regulations.

Peabody’s Holly Krutka challenged the argument that coal has no future role. “The discussion needs to be not if we use coal but how,” she said. She also cited carbon capture and storage technology as vital in cutting fossil fuel emissions. Such technology includes the Petra Nova CCS project in the US, which captures CO2 and then uses it to flush more oil out of reservoirs.

Il progetto si basa su una tecnologia giapponese che recupera il 90% circa della CO2 emessa da una centrale termo-elettrica a carbone e la manda in un deposito. Costo dell’impianto: $1 miliardo, finanziato in parte dal governo federale.

Another panellist, Barry Worthington, executive director of the United States Energy Association, illustrated his points in favour of fossil fuels using future energy projections from ExxonMobil, BP and Statoil.

Che sorpresa.

He said US energy companies were already cutting carbon and was the only panellist to back Trump’s Paris pullout, saying: “Frankly, we don’t need the Paris plan.”

Altrimenti Trump e Tillerson lo licenziavano?

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Crédit Suisse ha pubblicato il Global Wealth Report 2017. Supersintesi:

Total global wealth has now reached USD 280 trillion and is 27 percent higher than a decade ago at the onset of the financial crisis,

Del 6,4% di aumento negli ultimi 12 mesi, più della metà è stato realizzato in USA.

The remaining negative heritage of the financial crisis is wealth inequality. It has been rising in all parts of the world since 2007. As calculated by the report authors, the top 1 percent of global wealth holders started the millennium with 45.5 percent of all household wealth, but their share has since increased to a level of 50.1 percent today.

Il 70% della popolazione mondiale si divide il 2,7% di $280 trilioni…