CHAPTER 8 The Rescuer’s Dilemma: Chaos Today or Chaos Tomorrow?
Note:8@@@@@@@@©©©©IL DILEMMA DEL SALVATORE...TRE SISTEMI COMPLESSI FORESTED BATTERI FINANZA
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complex systems like economies and forests
Note:IL SOLITO PROB
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we know that if we intervene too much, future disasters may be more likely.
Note:IL PROBLEMA....CHIARO IN EC COME NELLE FORESTE
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the tradeoff exists
Note:CIÒ CHE SAPIAMO
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where to draw the line
Note:CIÒ CHE NN SAPPIAMO
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environment and the economy remain complex and unpredictable.
Note:CONCLUSIONE
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once seen as a primeval menace to be tamed, it is now considered an essential element of the ecosystem.
Note:CONSIDERA SOLO GLI INCENDI....ULTIMO SECOLO
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Jennifer Marlon
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trace the history of forests
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Peaks in fires occurred during the Medieval Climate Anomaly, from 950 to 1250, when temperatures and drought were high,
Note:PICCO INCENDI
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The lowest level of fire, until modern times, occurred in what is known as the Little Ice Age,
Note:MINIMI
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temperature and drought start to rise sharply, but fires fall steadily.
Note:ULTIMO XIODO...TENDENZA
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over the course of the past century, until recently, there have been unusually few forest fires in the western United States.
Note:IL MESSAGGIO
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humans have been interfering.
Note:XCHÈ?
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Tom Swetnam,
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fire used to burn every five or ten years, then stopped for a hundred years.
Note:STORIA CONFERMATA
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Fire is essential to forest renewal.
Note:IL FUOCO X LA FORESTA
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Fire suppression changes the character of the forest, allowing some species to grow thick and choke out others.
Note:ECOSISTEMA MUTATO
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It allows more leaves, brush, and other dead tree matter to accumulate on the forest floor, providing copious fuel for when fire does start.
Note:FUOCHI PIÙ RARI E PIÚ INTENSI
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Fire suppression had been the default policy of the U.S. Forest Service since the fires of 1910
Note:DAL 1950… VOCI DISSODENTI
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evangelists for the return of fire.
Note:UNA NUOVA FIGURA
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Starker Leopold,
Note:RESPONSABILE DI YELLOWSTONE...CAMBIÒ POLOTICA
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Instead of protecting animals and forests
Note:SVOLTA
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A national park should represent a vignette of primitive America.”
Note:IL NUOVO OBBIETTOVO
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the wide-spaced columns of mature trees
Note:COME SI PRESENTAVA IL BOSCO NEL 1840 AGLI ESPLORATORI
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gigantic magnificence,”
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a direct function of overprotection from natural ground fires….
Note:IL BOSCO OGGI...UN INTRICO INESTRICABILE DI PIANTE GIOVANI
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Deliberately set fire — a “prescribed burn” — was the most natural way to control the vegetation.
Note:IL MEZZO USATO DI FREQIENTE
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But how to reintroduce fire?
Note:IL VERO PROBLEMA
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Forest managers would have to judge whether to let a fire burn
Note:OGGI L UOMO SI È INFLTRATO NELLE FORESTE...
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Bob Barbee.
Note:MANAGER DEL FUOCO
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Harold Biswell, an ecologist at the University of California at Berkeley
Note:EVANGELISTA DEL FUOCO
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years of fire suppression had allowed the white firs to become dense.
Note:IL PROBLEMA IN CALIFORNIA
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nicknamed Harry the Torch,
Note:SOPRANNOME DEGLI SCANDALIZZATI DALLA CURA DEL FUOCO
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Over the next fifteen years, there were 235 fires ignited by lightning that consumed 34,000 acres (of a 2.2-million-acre park), 1981 being the worst year, with 20,240 acres burned.
Note:DOPO L INSEDIAMENTO DELLA TORCIA UMANA A YELLO
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The public and politicians had never understood why the Park Service would welcome fire, especially in Yellowstone, the nation’s oldest and most beloved national park.
Note:INCOMPRENSIBILE DISASTRO...IL MITO DEL FUOCO SOTTO CONTROLLO
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The science behind prescribed burning is sound; what can’t be changed is the inherent complexity and unpredictability of fire.
Note:MORALE
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For the people charged with managing forests, deciding whether to let a fire burn or to suppress it carries enormous personal consequences.
Note:STRESS DEL XSONALE
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nicknamed Barbee “Barbee-Que Bob,”
Note:UNO SCHETTINO CON LA SCIENZA DALLA SUA
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After the Cerro Grande fire, Roy Weaver, the superintendent at Bandelier, was vilified and threatened with the loss of his pension, though a board of inquiry recommended against any disciplinary action.
Note:ALTRA VITTIMA
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Officially, natural fire and prescribed burns remain central parts of federal forest management. But the Yellowstone and Cerro Grande episodes illustrate the extremely high risks
Note:OGGI
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The ferocity of the Yellowstone and Cerro Grande fires was due at least in part to the lack of fire in preceding decades.
Note:LA COLPA
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If Swetnam’s and Marlon’s calculations are right, and the past century has been unusually quiescent in terms of fires, then the frightening implication is that there will be many more megafires ahead.
Note:BOTTOM LINE...LA LEZIONE
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Bacteria are similar to forests.
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the advent of antibiotics
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microorganisms adapted and in some instances became even deadlier.
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L INCONVENIENTE
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Alexander Fleming
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1928
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sloppy serendipity.
Note:SCOPERTA
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in the wake of the fire, Merck & Co. rushed a supply of penicillin from its plant in New Jersey to the hospital, where it was used to successfully treat burn victims. Penicillin’s success at treating the fire’s burn victims earned it the label “miracle drug.”
Note:1941...VITTIME DI SCOTTATURE...PRIMO GRANDE SUCCESSO DELLA P
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gonorrhea and tuberculosis
Note:SCONFITTE
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the virtual elimination of the infectious disease as a significant factor in social life.”
Note:IL NOBEL MCFARLANE
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But the embrace of penicillin as a miracle drug sowed the seeds for its demise.
Note:LA LOGICA DEI SISTEMI COMPLESSI
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bacterial mutation
Note:GIA FLEMING CONSAPEVOLE
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bacteria evolve far more rapidly than other species because they replicate several times per hour.
Note:UNA BESTIA XICOLOSA
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survivors were strains that had developed cell walls that penicillin could not penetrate.
Note:IPL MURO
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Fleming warned that resistant strains would become much more prevalent if penicillin became available in a pill,
Note:NO PILL
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Bacteria acquire resistance through much more ingenious, and potent, means than mutation.
Note:MA FLEMING SOTTOSTIMAVA LA RESISYENZA
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Scientists responded to resistant strains by developing new antibiotics to target different parts of the infectious agent.
Note:LA RISPOSTA
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Stuart Levy
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They aren’t quite zero-sum drugs, but they come close.
Note:OGGI
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Levy created the Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics (APUA),
Note:LA SUA CREATURA
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Antibiotics are routinely prescribed for conditions in which the infectious agent is probably not bacterial; for example, colds, which are caused by a virus
Note:ABUSI
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In countries with greater use of antibiotics, resistant strains of bacteria are more widespread.
Note:GRAFICO
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Steps have been taken against all these problems, such as restrictions on antibiotic use on livestock — Denmark banned it outright — to prescription requirements.
Note:ANTIBIO NEGLI ANIMALI
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Their overuse is rooted not in economics or ignorance but in the tension between physicians’ private and societal duties. Doctors seldom know with certainty what ails a patient.
Note:FATTORI DELL ABUSO
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This uncertainty alone motivates physicians to prescribe more powerful antibiotics,
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A physician weighing the benefits of prescribing an antibiotic is much like the forest manager deciding whether to suppress a fire:
Note:ANALOGIA DEL DILEMMA
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A survey of doctors in Wales found that awareness of resistance was widespread yet seldom entered into doctors’ decisions:
Note:DECISIONI E CONSAPEVOLEZZA
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“The consequences of not prescribing antibiotics, especially in situations where patients might go on to develop more serious problems, worried them more than the theoretical, ‘downstream’
Note:TERIA E PRASI TRA I MEDICI
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We as treating physicians do not know what our patients have, with certainty,”
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EFFETTO INCERTEZZA
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Brad Spellberg,
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most physicians do not want to run the risk of letting a patient suffer when an antibiotic could help.
Note:BIAS
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Spellberg thinks trying to persuade doctors not to prescribe antibiotics is a doomed strategy. Better, he says, to develop tests that rapidly identify what bug a patient has and thus whether an antibiotic is needed.
Note:CONCLUSIONE
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dilemmas raised by forest fires and bacterial infections are similar to those raised by financial crises.
Note:TERZO SISTEMA COMPLESSO
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Should the government intervene to save a bank, a hedge fund, or a country from failing, knowing that this would create expectations that future banks,
Note:MORAL HAZARD
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Jay Powell
Note:L ESPERTO
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financial “war games”:
Note:GIOCHI
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Let the bank fail and witness the 2008 crisis all over again — or bail it out and reverse everything we’d done to extinguish moral hazard?
Note:IL GIOCHINO
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Treasury officials objected to protecting uninsured depositors. It would, they worried, create moral hazard
Note:SITUAZIONE REALE NEL 1991
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Treasury secretary, insisted that no public money be used to save Lehman. It was the most controversial decision of the crisis.
Note:2008
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Paulson, roundly attacked for breeding moral hazard with the bailout of Bear Stearns, now faced even more scathing criticism for letting a big bank fail in the midst of the worst systemic crisis in memory.
Note:IL POVERO PAULSEN
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if you don’t intervene, you risk a catastrophe for which you are personally held responsible. It’s easy to see why the temptation will always be to intervene.
Note:ASIMMETRIA INTERVENTO NN ONTERVENTO
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Engineers will always be tempted to intervene, trusting in their ability to make it right; ecologists will always fear the unintended consequences of that intervention.
Note:RITORNIAMO ALLE DUE XSONALITÀ
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One broad lesson is that ecologists are right about micro-level risk: systems benefit from the lessons and resistance that small-scale disasters nurture. Engineers are most valuable at staving off macro-level risk — that is, preventing large-scale catastrophe.
Note:POSSIBILE MEDIAZIONE
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Stuart Levy
Note:TORNIAMO AI MEDICI
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He himself has never taken an antibiotic,
Note:ANTIBIO
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He’d certainly accept an antibiotic if his life were threatened:
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he wants antibiotics reserved for when they are truly needed.
Note:LA POSIZIONE
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Dodd-Frank offers a third choice: to “resolve” the failing institution cleanly, by protecting depositors and some creditors while forcing stock- and bondholders to absorb losses: “It was the missing tool in our regulatory tool kit,” says Powell.
Note:UNA VIA INTERMEDIA
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To work, the law must persuade everyone that these banks really can fail, and that will make an actual collapse much less damaging.
CONVIVENZA DEGLI OPPOSTI
