Mexico

Much Hotter Days and Nights for Mexico

Stephen CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, Mexico, News , ,

chinas-badlandsBy Stephen Leahy*

UXBRIDGE, Canada, Nov 20 (Tierramérica) – Climate change will dramatically increase the number of hot, dry days in Mexico in the coming decades, while coastal regions like the Yucatán, in the southeast, will be swamped by sea levels that are half a metre higher than today, a new study has found.

By 2030, Mexico’s average daily temperature is likely to climb 1.4 degrees Celsius above what has been the average for the past 30 years. By 2090, this increase could rocket upwards by 4.1 degrees, virtually guaranteeing hot days and nights for 80 to 90 percent of the year, says the Oxford University study financed by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

Cold weather will become very rare in Mexico according to data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an umbrella organisation of scientists from around the world and the preeminent authority on climate change.

“Mexico is one area of the world where all the computer climate models agree,” says Carol McSweeney of the School of Geography and Environment at Oxford. Continue reading →

Future Prosperity Linked to Green Technologies Bets Mexico…yes, Mexico

Stephen CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, Energy, Mexico, sustainability ,

[Mexico exports$ billions in solar photovoltaic products and hopes to install 23 million square meters of solar panels by 2020]

By Stephen Leahy

TORONTO, Oct 3 (Tierramérica) – Achim Steiner, the eloquent executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), believes that Mexico could take a leadership role in the new “green” economy.

“UNEP wants to document new and creative efforts towards creating a prosperous, green economy,” said Steiner, referring to his recent meeting with Mexico’s President Felipe Calderón.

Stephen Leahy interviewed Steiner for TIERRAMÉRICA (TA)

TA: Mexico, like all Latin American countries, has traditionally looked to its natural resource base — oil, gas, minerals, agriculture — to drive economic growth. Do you see this changing?

ACHIM STEINER: I think Mexico is at the crossroads between the traditional resource-driven economy and the coming new green economy. Future prosperity, in my view, is in green technologies. Mexico is already moving in this direction. It exported solar photovoltaic products worth 2.3 billion dollars last year alone. Continue reading →

Lose Corals and We Will be Fighting for Our Own Survival

Stephen Biodiversity, CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, Mexico, News, OCEAN , , , , ,

Interview with Marine Scientist Roberto Iglesias-Prieto

By Stephen Leahy

FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida, U.S., Jul 31 (Tierramérica)

“There would be no white sands on the beaches of Cancún without the Mesoamerican reef,” Professor Roberto Iglesias-Prieto, a marine ecophysiologist working at the Institute of Marine Sciences and Limnology of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, told Tierramérica.

Tourism is Mexico’s third leading source of revenue, and the country needs to invest much more in protecting its valuable coral systems, says the expert. But to explain the problems that coral reefs face “it is not enough to be an ecologist; one has to be an economist and political scientist as well,” he adds.

The Mesoamerican reef, which is off the Yucatán Peninsula and is shared by Mexico, Belize, Guatemala and Honduras, extends 1,100 kilometres, making it the largest in the Atlantic Ocean and the second largest in the world, after the Great Barrier Reef east of Australia.

Corals are crucial for the health of oceans and are home to 25 to 33 percent of marine life. The livelihoods of one billion people rely on coral reefs, directly or indirectly.

But the reefs are dying as a result of excessive fishing, pollution and climate change, which is heating up the water and causing acidification.

Few coral reefs will be healthy beyond 2050 if significant reductions in emissions from the burning of fossil fuels do not occur in the near term, most experts in this field agree.

Tierramérica’s Stephen Leahy spoke with Iglesias-Prieto during the 11th International Coral Reef Symposium in July in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Is this article of interest? It exists thanks to contributions from readers. Please click here to learn more about Community Supported Journalism.

Continue reading →

Border Wall Condemns America’s Last Jaguars to Extinction

Stephen ECOLOGY, Mexico, News, WILDLIFE

jaguar-defenders-of-wildlife.png

By Stephen Leahy*

In announcing that they are giving up efforts to help the jaguar population recover, U.S. authorities have handed a death sentence to the big cat that was once plentiful along the border with Mexico.

Jan 28 (Tierramérica).- Jaguars have no place in the United States, although a handful still roam the Southwest. Environmentalists suspect the real reason U.S. officials will let the jaguar become extinct is the “security” wall being built along the Mexican border.

Ecologists have long warned that the border wall — actually a series of walls — will have big impacts on wildlife and the region’s fragile and unique ecology.

“There is no question that jaguars (Panthera onca) in the U.S. and northern Mexico would be significantly affected by the wall,” says Joe Cook, expert in mammal biology at the University of New Mexico.

us-mex-wall-under-construction.jpg

“As best we can tell, the few remaining U.S. jaguars are part of a larger population based in Northern Mexico,” Cook told Tierramérica.

Continue reading →

CANADA: Losing Control of Water Through NAFTA and SPP

Stephen CANADA, Energy, ENVIRONMENT, Mexico, News, water

By Stephen Leahy

“The SPP (Security and Prosperity Partnership ) is like putting the monkeys in charge of the peanuts.”

[UPDATED Feb 12’08]

TORONTO, Sep 22 2007 (Tierramérica) – Under the North American Free Trade Agreement, Canada lost control over its energy resources. Now, with “NAFTA-plus”, it could also lose control over its freshwater resources, say experts.Canada’s water is on the trade negotiating table despite widespread public opposition and assurances by Canadian political leaders, said Adèle Hurley, director of the University of Toronto’s Programme on Water Issues at the Munk Centre for International Studies.A new report released Sep. 11 by the programme reveals that water transfers from Canada to the United States are emerging as an issue under the auspices of the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP). The SPP — sometimes called “NAFTA-plus” — is a forum set up in 2005 in Cancún, by the three partners, Canada, United States and Mexico.

Economic integration as envisioned by the powerful but little-known SPP is slowly changing the lives of Canadians, says Andrew Nikiforuk, author of the report “On the Table: Water Energy and North American Integration“.

The SPP is comprised of business leaders and government officials who work behind the scenes and are already responsible for changes to border security, easing of pesticide rules, harmonisation of pipeline regulations and plans to prepare for a potential avian flu outbreak, Nikiforuk writes.

“The SPP is run by corporate leaders; governments are irrelevant,” said Ralph Pentland, a water expert and acting chairman of the Canadian Water Issues Council.

UPDATE: The Canadian Water Issues Council has written a model law to protect Canadian waters. For more see: Protecting Canada’s Water from the US Continue reading →

Hurricane Felix Category Five — Pix

Stephen CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, ENVIRONMENT, Hurricane, Mexico, News, Science

picture-4.pngHurricane Felix, the second Cat 5 storm in two weeks is set to hit Central America Monday. Here’s a satellite image from NOAA:

Tues AM Update: Felix hits Nicaragua as Cat 5 — first time two Cat 5 storms have made landfall in one season.

To learn more about modern hurricanes and the potential link to climate change check out

Steve’s Hurricane Handbook 2007

This is a short ebook  contains a collection of the most interesting quotes and facts about hurricanes from scientists and other experts.


DIRTY GOLD: Protests at Canada’s Goldcorp Mines In Honduras and Guatemala

Stephen CANADA, developing world, ENVIRONMENT, Health, Mexico, News, Pollution and Toxics , ,

[update: May 2010: The mining company Entremares, subsidiary of the Canadian consortium Glamis Gold, (Goldcorp _Vancouver, Canada) will be charged with polluting the central valley of Siria and of hiding information from the authorities. — Tierramerica]

By Stephen Leahy

The Canadian mining giant Goldcorp, which runs the largest gold mine in Mexico, is racking up complaints about its environmental violations. In Honduras, officials are considering legal action.queensland-olf-goldmine.JPGOld gold mine Queensland Australia Copyright 2004 Renate Leahy

Continue reading →

Whales Worth More Alive Than Dead

Stephen ECOLOGY, ENVIRONMENT, Global Issues and Perspectives, Mexico, News, OCEAN, Whales, WILDLIFE

Quote of the Day:

“There is no market for whale meat,” said Beatriz Bugeda, the International Fund for Animal Welfare’s Director
for Latin America regarding the Japanese whaling expedition underway in the Antarctic ocean.

 

“Whales are worth far more alive than dead,” Bugeda said in reference to the enormous whale-watching industry.


— see Sushi or Tourism: What are Whales For?

Blue whale, courtesy IFAW

Binational Crusade to Save Wetlands

Stephen BIRDS, ECOLOGY, ENVIRONMENT, Mexico, News, Pollution and Toxics, WILDLIFE

Stephen Leahy*

TORONTO, Sep 8 (Tierramérica) – With 20,000 hectares of bright green in a sea of sand in the state of Sonora, the Ciénaga de Santa Clara is one of Mexico’s richest coastal ecosystems. Faced with the imminent reopening of a desalinisation plant just across the border in the United States, a binational team is working to protect the vast wetland.

Ongoing drought conditions in the south-western United States has prompted the George W. Bush government to finance the restart of the long unused Yuma Desalting Plant (YDP) in the border state of Arizona in 2007.

“Full operation of the desalting plant would mean the ciénaga will get less water and the water would be much saltier,” said Karl Flessa, professor of geosciences at the University of Arizona in Tucson.

And “that would completely eliminate the wetland,” according to Jaqueline García-Hernández, a scientist at a food and development research centre (Centro de Investigación en Alimentación y Desarrollo) in the Mexican city of Guaymas, Sonora.

The Ciénaga de Santa Clara is home to some 225 species of birds, like the Yuma clapper rail (Rallus longirostris yumanensis) and southwest willow flycatcher (Empidonax traillii extimus), which are rare in the United States.

— Tierramerica and Inter Press News Service