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 Editorials | Environmental
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IUCN's Red List Expands
 Sherry Mazzocchi
The World Conservation Union (IUCN) announced that the threat to animal and plant life is greater than ever before. The 2007 Red List of Threatened Species tallies 41,415 species, of which 16,306 are in danger of extinction. The Red List is widely regarded as the most definitive assessment of species at risk.
Judge Halts Construction of Mexico's La Parota Dam
 Environment News Service
Lawyers for opponents of Mexico's proposed La Parota Dam filed a $10,000 judicial bond this week, ensuring that all construction on the massive dam stops at once.
Arctic Sea Ice Minimum Shatters All-Time Record Low
 University of Colorado at Boulder
Scientists from the University of Colorado at Boulder's National Snow and Ice Data Center said today that the extent of Arctic sea ice appears to have reached its minimum for 2007 on Sept. 16, shattering all previous lows since satellite record-keeping began nearly 30 years ago.
CasaMagna PV Helps Clean Up the World
 PVNN
In support of Clean Up the World Weekend, a worldwide effort to inspire communities to "clean up, fix up and conserve their local environment," CasaMagna Marriott Puerto Vallarta Resort & SPA associates cleaned up Boca Negra Beach last Saturday.
No War, No Warming, Rise Up!
 Ted Glick
For months a movement has been developing that consciously and intentionally links the related issues of the war in Iraq and the heating up of the earth that is disrupting the world's climate. On Monday morning, October 22, that movement will become visible as large numbers of people engage in nonviolent direct action to disrupt business as usual.
Mexican President Vetoes Biofuel Law
 Arturo Barba
Mexican president Felipe Calderón has vetoed a bioenergy law to establish biofuel production in the country, saying that it focuses too much on maize and sugarcane production.
Satellites Witness Lowest Arctic Ice Coverage in History
 European Space Agency
The area covered by sea ice in the Arctic has shrunk to its lowest level this week since satellite measurements began nearly 30 years ago, opening up the Northwest Passage – a long-sought short cut between Europe and Asia that has been historically impassable.
Mexico's Prophets of Climate Change: Women Forest Defenders
 Kent Paterson
Long before climate change became a trendy cause, the Campesino Environmentalist Organization of the Sierra of Petatlan and Coyuca de Catatlan (OCESP), emerged as a grassroots group dedicated to saving Guerrero's forests. Soon, however, the movement faced repression from loggers and the Mexican army.
Dying in Defense of Mother Earth
 John Ross
Much of Mexico’s forestland is owned by 500 mostly-indigenous ejidos — shared community land — but indigenous ownership does not guarantee that the forests will be defended and conserved.
Make Energy-Efficient Technology Mandatory, UN Expert Says
 Agence France-Presse
The best way of tackling greenhouse gas emissions is for countries to pass laws that enforce the use of existing energy-efficient technology, a UN climate change expert said Monday.
Bernard Vaissičre: "Yes, the Bees Could Disappear"
 Jean-Luc Goudet
Bee populations are declining all over the world. That fact has been known for a long time and the press has recently latched onto the subject. Bernard Vaissičre, an Inra [French National Institute for Agricultural Research] researcher and one of very few French pollination specialists, evaluates this question for Futura-Sciences.
Scientists Second-Guessing Hurricane Paths
 Diego Cevallos
Hurricanes Dean, Felix and Henriette caused dozens of deaths and millions of dollars worth of damage in the tropical zone of the Americas in just over two weeks. But worse may lie ahead, as five large cyclones are expected to materialise before the storm season is over.
Biofuel Follies
 Rolf Lockwood
Bandwagons are a desperately unfortunate fact of human life. More particularly, the blind ease with which people hop on them. Witch hunts in the middle ages, dirty-commie hunts in the 1950s, terrorist hunts today. And biofuel.
Polar Bear Population Seen Declining
 Associated Press
Two-thirds of the world's polar bears will be killed off by 2050 - and the entire population gone from Alaska - because of thinning sea ice from global warming in the Arctic, government scientists forecast Friday.
US-Mexico Sting Catches Five Men Trading Turtles, Skins
 Environment News Service
Five men were arrested Thursday for illegal international trade of exotic skins and parts manufactured from sea turtles and other protected species of wildlife. The arrests were made on the strength of two indictments by a federal grand jury in Denver on August 22.
Endangered Turtles Nesting on Texas Coast in Record Numbers
 Bill Hanna
Twenty years ago, they were on the verge of extinction. But the Kemp's ridley sea turtle, still the world's most endangered sea turtle, appears to be on its way back.
Border Fence Ignores Environment, Groups Say
 Arthur H. Rotstein
The U.S. Border Patrol is kicking off a massive program to build hundreds of miles of new fencing along the Mexican border, but initial efforts have some groups incensed because the agency skipped parts of a full environmental review.
Mexico's Peyote Endangered by 'Drug Tourists'
 Lourdes Garcia-Navarro
Though peyote has been used for hundreds of years by Mexican Indians, it only became popular outside of indigenous communities after Carlos Castaneda wrote The Teachings of Don Juan in the 1970s. All of a sudden, Americans, Europeans and other foreigners began making pilgrimages to Mexico to hunt for peyote and consume it recreationally.
Researchers Seek an Explanation for Underweight Whales
 Dan Joling
Researchers off Mexico's Pacific coast have observed what might be a case of global warming's effects in the far north: gray whales returning to calving grounds malnourished.
Dirt Isn't So Cheap After All
 Stephen Leahy
Soil erosion is the "silent global crisis" that is undermining food production and water availability, as well as being responsible for 30 percent of the greenhouse gases driving climate change.
US Judge Overturns Whale-Protecting Ban on Sonar
 Agence France-Presse
An appeals court overturned Friday a ban on the US navy's use of sonar in upcoming training exercises off California that was aimed at protecting whales disturbed by the subsea emissions.
Development Could Harm Jalisco's Ecology
 Angelica Enciso
Coastal areas in the states of Jalisco, Nayarit and Colíma have been developing rapidly over the past 5 years, creating dramatic changes in the environment that are starting to be felt by local communities.
Green Plan to Cut Mexico City Smog
 Diego Cevallos
The Mexico City government announced new environmental measures Thursday aimed at further restricting traffic, the main culprit for the city’s notorious smog. The plan is also to streamline the city’s chaotic traffic, in the face of warnings from experts of a total collapse of the system by 2010.
Biofuels Shift Seen to Put Major Squeeze on Food Prices
 Agence France-Presse
A global shift toward renewable energy could jack up food prices by up to 80 percent as crops and farmland are diverted to producing biofuels, an international agricultural think-tank warned Thursday.
Smuggled Turtle Eggs Seized in Mexico
 Reuters
Mexican police have seized tens of thousands of eggs of endangered turtles from a group of smugglers in the southern state of Oaxaca, where the eggs are a delicacy believed to have aphrodisiac powers.
Gaping Hole Found In Universe
 Reuters
A giant hole in the Universe is devoid of galaxies, stars and even lacks dark matter, astronomers said on this week. The team at the University of Minnesota said the void is nearly a billion light-years across and they have no idea why it is there.
Golf Projects May Leave Mexico Wildlife High and Dry
Eliza Barclay
Two planned tourism projects at the Chamela-Cuixmala reserve, located between the cities of Puerto Vallarta and Manzanillo, may leave a rare and richly diverse Mexican wildlife area high and dry, scientists say.
Court Rebukes Bush Administration on Global Warming
 Clayton Sandell
A federal court issued a harsh rebuke of the Bush administration for its failure to issue long-delayed reports assessing the impacts and consequences of global warming in the United States.
Hurricane Robs Maya of Vital Fruit Trees
 Mark Stevenson
Thousands of Mayan Indians lost homes as Hurricane Dean blew through the Yucatan peninsula, but their real wealth was the trees, now scattered and broken in the storm's wake.
Endangered Birds Returned to Mexico
 Anna Cearley
U.S. officials returned 149 parrots and parakeets that were sedated and hidden under blankets or in duffel bags and smuggled into the U.S. from Mexico.
Mexican Island's Reefs Spared by Hurricane Dean
 Ed Stoddard
Magnificent coral reefs on Mexico's Caribbean island of Cozumel appear to have been unscathed by Hurricane Dean, delighting dive operators and diving enthusiasts.
Distressed Denim Trend Costs Mexican Farmers the Earth
 Joe Tuckman
Mariano Baragán looked down at the blue-grey crust peeling off the field he irrigates from a canal. Nearby factories were the problem - dozens of them, which are dedicated to doing to jeans in hours what used to take years of wear.
High Voltage Conflict Over Guerrero Dam
 Diego Cevallos
Campesinos in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero have been blocking access to an area where the government wants to build a huge dam and hydroelecric station, since 2003.
Inside Heathrow's Protest Camp: A Battle to Save the World
 Johann Hari
If you happen to be passing through Hatton Cross this weekend, you will see a swollen army of police officers equipped with weapons and video cameras and peeved expressions. So you might wonder - has Osama bin Laden been spotted in the vicinity?
Spencer Tunick Gets Hundreds Naked on Glacier
 Anne Richardson
Hundreds of people posed naked on Switzerland's shrinking Aletsch glacier for US photographer Spencer Tunick as part of a Greenpeace campaign to raise awareness of global warming.
Mexico City Pollution May Cause Lung Disease
 American Thoracic Society Journa
Children who are chronically exposed to higher levels of air pollution show marked deficiencies in lung growth and function, and not just short-term breathing problems, according to researchers in Mexico.
Japan Donates Over 500,000 USD to Mexico to Fight Climate Change
 People's Daily Online
The Japanese government donated 505,000 U.S. dollars to Mexico to fight climate change, one of the Kyoto Protocol (1997) commitments, the Mexican Agriculture Ministry announced on Sunday.
California Farm Town is US Smoggiest
 Sudhin Thanawala
Lying in a rich agricultural region dotted with vineyards and orange groves, this central California community seems an unlikely place for a dubious distinction: the most polluted air in America.
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