By Paula Ezcurra and Octavio Aburto Thousands of hydroelectric dams are under construction around the world, mainly in developing countries. These enormous structures are one of the world’s largest sources of renewable energy, but they also cause environmental problems. Hydropower dams degrade water quality along rivers. Water that flows downstream from the dams is depleted […]
By Steve Horn While the oil and gas industry has lauded the new trade deal that may soon replace the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a provision added by Mexico, along with its new president’s plan to ban fracking, could complicate the industry’s rising ambitions there. The new agreement, known as the United States–Mexico–Canada […]
After 14 months of negotiations, the U.S., Mexico and Canada agreed on a revised trade agreement Sunday that does not mention climate change or global warming, Canada’s National Observer reported. The deal, which still has to be approved by the legislative bodies of all three countries, is a replacement for the North American Free Trade […]
Fishermen found roughly 300 dead sea turtles off the southern Pacific coast of Mexico on Tuesday. The olive ridley turtles, which Mexico classifies as being at risk of extinction, were entangled in an abandoned illegal fishing net, Reuters reported. Olive ridleys, named for their greenish skin and shell, descend on a number of Mexican states […]
Mexico’s president-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador said he will end the use of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, once he enters office on Dec. 1. “We will no longer use that method to extract petroleum,” the populist politician said Tuesday at a press conference, as quoted by the Associated Press. This is a setback for the […]
A lack of drinking water and a surplus of Coca-Cola are causing a public health crisis in the Mexican town of San Cristóbal de las Casas, The New York Times reported Saturday. Some neighborhoods in the town only get running water a few times a week, so residents turn to soda, drinking more than half […]
The lesser long-nosed bat made bat history Tuesday when it became the first U.S. bat species to be removed from the endangered species list because of recovery, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) announced. The bat, which is one of only three nectar-feeding bat species in the U.S., migrates between Mexico and the southwestern […]
At 7:45 p.m. PST Monday, the Sea Shepherd vessel M/V SHARPIE came upon an illegal gillnet within the Vaquita Refuge in the Northern Sea of Cortez, Mexico. The gillnet was entangled in a longline. As the ship’s crew began to separate the illegal fishing gear, they noticed live totoaba bass in the net, embarking on […]
By Veronica Herrera When Cape Town acknowledged in February that it would run out of water within months, South Africa suddenly became the global poster child for bad water management. Newspapers revealed that the federal government had been slow to respond to the city’s three-year drought because the mayor belongs to an opposition party. Cape […]