The Earth's Chimney Rages

FNS News: Don't let the East Coast Snow Slammer fool you. If record heat was registered in 2014 and 2015, expect even hotter temperatures in 2016 and succeeding years. That's the prognosis of a climate research scientist who spoke this week in a Mexico City presentation organized by the Research Institute for Development, a French government-sponsored agency with a focus on the global south.

"If global warming continues at the same pace as now, temperature records will continue getting broken every year, said Dr. Myriam Khodri, who works with Frances's Pierre Simon Laplace Institute.

Khodri projected drier weather for regions of the Americas, warning of the ramifications of less rain on different economic activities. She also touched on the effects of this year's large El Niño.

BP Sued By Mexican Fishing Businesses for Deepwater Horizon Spill

CorpWatch: British Petroleum (BP) has been sued by some 25,000 Mexican fishing businesses over the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. The company says it has paid $1.8 billion in compensation to U.S. businesses but has yet to offer money to those affected south of the border.

Deepwater Horizon was a floating rig built by Hyundai Heavy Industries of South Korea and leased by Transocean of Louisiana to BP to explore for oil 4,000 feet below the surface in the Macondo Prospect some 41 miles off the coast. On April 20, 2010, methane gas from the well forced its way to the surface and caused the well to blow out. The resulting fire killed eleven workers and burned for three months before it was capped, but not before an estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil were spilled. Read more. 

Mexico shuts down planned Chinese trade center near Cancun

AP: Authorities shut down a huge trade center development near the resort city of Cancun on Monday that was conceived as a showcase for Chinese products and had previously been fined over $1 million for environmental damage.

Mexico's environmental protection agency said in a statement that the Dragon Mart Cancun project was "totally shuttered" over failure to comply with corrective measures ordered last year and the removal of vegetation related to construction. The statement said the agency determined the project was being built in a coastal ecosystem where mangrove stands are present. Read more. 

Latin American Herald Tribune - Planned Mexico City Airport Threatens Environment, Senator Says

Latin American Herald Tribune: The new airport to be built in a Mexico City lake system threatens 120 species in the area with extinction, Sen. Alejandro Encinas said.

“The Lake Texcoco area is a flood zone, making it less than ideal for an airport,” Encinas, a member of the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), said in a statement.  Read more. 

Farmers feel economic impact of Sonora River acid spill as milk is discarded

Mexico News Daily: In terms of lost milk, the cost of the Sonora River mine spill has reached 1 million pesos as raw milk is being turned away by a pasteurization plant in Hermosillo, worsening the contamination crisis that began August 7.

The area produces about 28,000 liters of milk daily, but it is not fit for human consumption due to the presence of heavy metals in high concentrations, says a local producer.  Read more. 

Mexico's climate law to face challenge under new president

Reuters: Mexico's new president is unlikely to implement much of the sweeping climate change law signed in June by outgoing President Felipe Calderon amid inevitable resistance from industry and his party's focus on accelerating economic growth and ramping-up oil and gas production, policy experts said.

Enrique Pena Nieto, who will take office in December after winning national elections earlier this month, will bring the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) back to the presidency after a 12-year hiatus, resuming its 71-year reign over Mexico. Read more.

Drought and savagery: a girl is murdered in Durango for taking water from a well

Desinformemonos: Americas Program Original Translation by David Feldman.
See Spanish Original.

Sofía Sánchez Morales. For more than two years, a bloody drought has been battering the northern part of Mexico. In Durango, one of the most affected states, the water scarcity took the life of Regina, an indigenous girl whose crime was taking water from a well. 

Mexico. In the state of Durango, in the northern part of the country, there are areas where it hasn’t rained for more than two years. During the last 22 months, 350,000 heads of cattle have been lost. The land is suffering from erosion and this has led to a decrease in agricultural production, 80 percent of which is dependent on storms. This means that it is completely dependent upon precipitation. The area’s residents struggle every day to find water and food.

Already by October 2011, the area’s reservoirs on average did not exceed 48 percent of their total capacity. The lack of water was even greater in the region’s semi-desert municipalities: Tlahualilo, San Juan de Guadalupe, Cuencamé, Simón Bolívar and Guadalupe Victoria. This has constituted a crisis for Duranguenses in several aspects of life, with hunger being the main—and most worrying—one.

Far from resolving itself or even improving, the problem only continues to get worse as the months pass. Just a few days ago—on Friday, June 8— the news of the murder of Regina Flores Flores broke. Regina was an eight-year-old girl from the indigenous community of El Chalete who had walked a kilometer and a half with her father in order to look for water in a well. When they reached the community of La Cantimplora, they were threatened by a man who ordered them not to take any water. After a verbal argument between the two men, father and daughter filled their three casks. The man, who had left the scene after the argument, returned with a gun, and proceeded to fire repeatedly. One of the bullets entered through Regina’s back, hitting her kidney and taking her life.

Hunger has led thousands of families to migrate, to the state capital, Zacatecas, Nayarit, Monterrey, and—for those who can—the United States. Although it is expected that this hurricane season will help in regards to the low water level, as a result of the migration there will be no one left to work the land.

Mexico passes climate-change law

Journal of Nature: The Mexican legislature passed one of the strongest national climate-change laws so far on 19 April. Mexico, which ranks 11th in the world for both the size of its economy and its level of carbon emissions, joins the United Kingdom in having legally binding emissions goals aimed at stemming the effects of climate change.

After three years of debate and revisions, the bill passed in Mexico’s lower house with a vote of 128 for and 10 against, and was later passed unanimously by the Senate. The new law contains many sweeping provisions to mitigate climate change, including a mandate to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide by 30% below business-as-usual levels by 2020, and by 50% below 2000 levels by 2050. read more

Three days from anniversary of uprising, two townspeople murdered in Cheran, Michoacan

Desinformemonos: The townspeople of the indigenous community of Cheran, Michoacan, confirmed the deaths two of their compatriots along with two injuries during an ambush that took place at approximately 10:30AM Wednesday morning.

Two inhabitants of this Purepecha community were ambushed and murdered by a group of illegal loggers while they were placing barbed wire around an area called "El Puerto (The Port)" or Uruapan, as a part of a reforestation program on the Purepecha Plateau. The community has been on high alert, restricting access points to Cheran and manning barricades throughout the town since April 15, 2011. This was when they decided to undertake a mission of self-defense due to the fact that "since 2008 the illegal loggers, in complicity with the organized crime and local government, ha[d] devastated 80 percent of their forests."

Salvador Campanur, Cheran resident, confirmed the deaths of his two compatriots and the several wounded during the ambush that took place at approximately 10:30AM Wednesday to online magazine Desinformemonos.

Radio Fogata, the community radio of Cheran, reports that the illicit loggers are from "The Cerecito, Dry Ranch, and Tanaco" and that the community is at this time concerned about these regrettable, outrageous events for which the state and federal governments are ultimately responsible."

Radio Fogata reports that the names of the murdered are Santiago Ceja Alonzo and David Campos Macias and the wounded are Salvador Olivares Sixtos and Santiago Charicata Servin.

Just this past weekend Cheran celebrated the first anniversary of what they call "the uprising" during which they decided to defend their forests and their lives. Apart from the illicit logging taking place in their forests, they were also terrorized by gangs of kidnappers and extortionists without any help whatsoever from the state government.

Today, the alarm bells were ringing and there is much tension in the community. See Spanish original


Translation by Mikael Rojas

The Border: Texas Border Battle Over Mexican Company's Coal Mine

The Texas Tribune: "The Dos Republicas Coal Partnership, which is owned by Mexican mining companies, has applied to renew a permit that would let its American partners mine about 6,300 acres of land in the border town of Eagle Pass, Texas, across the border from the Mexican city of Piedras Negras . A current permit already allows for mining, but officials said that work has not started because of several attempts to modify the permit to meet specifications, as well as supply-and-demand issues affecting potential customers.

Residents worry that the mining will harm the environment and they will lose land due to property damage. They are also concerned about having a Mexican company that is held to lower standards operate in Texas. Adding salt to their wounds is the fact that the coal, considered too low quality to burn in the U.S., will be shipped to Mexico." read more

Globalization and the Environment: Unique Mexican Oasis in Danger of Vanishing

IPS ipsnews.net: "A rare wetlands ecosystem in the Chihuahuan desert in northern Mexico that may hold key information about the origins of life on earth – and even about possible life on Mars – is in serious danger of disappearing if water continues to be extracted by agribusiness concerns, local scientists warn.

The 200-km-long Valle de Cuatrociénegas – "valley of four marshes" – located 1,000 km north of Mexico City is a complex ancient wetlands system of mineral-rich springs, streams, lakes, marshes and turquoise pools of water known as "pozas" fed by natural underground channels and surrounded by a mountain chain with peaks over 3,000 metres high. " read more