In October, a group of investors shepherding $20 trillion in assets signed an appeal for clear, long-term policies as incentives for low-carbon economies. Later that month, a study listed the nations and mega-cities most at risk from climate impacts. Then, a report on refugees found that nations must prepare to help millions re-settle in the coming decades. The link between these headlines is climate adaptation: reconfiguring our world’s economies and policies to work under a more extreme climate. While that might seem like an old conversation, it’s not; mitigation — reducing ... Read More
Chiapas Coffee: Price, Politics and Precipitation
October 25, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
The volatility of coffee prices over the last two decades has been the biggest challenge for farmers and cooperatives in Mexico, and may be the single greatest factor threatening to make Chiapas' tasty shade-grown coffee a "threatened species." This threat matters, beyond denying coffee drinkers a favored brew or forcing farmers to seek more lucrative crops, because, as I explained last week, the traditional methods of growing coffee plants offer huge environmental benefits for the region. But volatile prices and politics help foster mistrust, while war and climate change batter the ... Read More
Chiapas’ Coffee Growers: Accidental Environmentalists
October 17, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
Every steaming cup of coffee could tell a story, and the shade-grown coffee from southern Mexico’s Chiapas state tells tales of a disproportionate role in sustaining local villages, hillsides, and wildlife. It’s a story with several lumps of conflict and uncertainty stirred in. The volatility of the global coffee market makes it a difficult business, and Chiapas’ small farmers face the precarious equilibrium common to all small farms and businesses. But they face an additional set of unique challenges, including the shaky political truce between the government and Zapatista rebels ... Read More
Micro-Reserves Renew Life in Oaxacan Agriculture
December 29, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
In 2010, Mexico suffered "one of the most intense rain and hurricane seasons in its history, after having experienced, in 2009, the second-worst drought in 60 years," noted President Felipe Calderon during his opening remarks at the recent Cancun conference on climate change. How does this actually play in people's lives? Far away from Cancun, I visited a small community on the Oaxacan coast to find out. Although the municipality of San Pedro Tututepec looks like one of the many anonymous communities along the highway, it is unique in offering people hope. It is near Lagunas de Chacahua ... Read More
Saving Forests with a Sense of Place
December 8, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
I was in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca during one of Mexico's best-known traditions, the Day of the Dead. The somber Panteon General, Oaxaca City's largest cemetery, had been transformed into a carnival. A mariachi band played next to walls covered in candles reflecting the dead; yellow marigold flowers called cempasúchil decorated grave sites and adorned the altars that sprung up around the city. Offerings of food and drink for ancestors, who appeared in fading black-and-white photographs, were everywhere. Although part of the Catholic All Saints and All Souls days, the ... Read More
What Will 10/10/10 Add Up To?
October 14, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
Say you're an alien anthropologist studying human behavior on Earth. Understandably, you are perplexed by the events of Oct. 10, 2010. Dutch women partying in their old wedding dresses to celebrate re-using and recycling. One-hundred-sixty eighth-graders in Cape Town walking the length of the beach leaving only one set of footprints to symbolize their future commitment to reducing waste. A hilarious visual collage: "What can one person do when 6.8 billion are frying the planet?" And then there were the “carrot mobs,” where businesses — say an ice cream shop in California ... Read More
Mexico Celebration: Cutting Through the Doom and Gloom
September 17, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
On the night of Mexico's bicentennial celebration, an old man was strumming his acoustic guitar. He was on a dark avenue surrounded by the din of crowds, festive cries and police sirens. His guitar had no amplification, and the bowl at his feet only had a few coins, but he was playing so intently that I stopped to listen. I had to get really close to hear the melody, but it was worth it. Like a rowdy family gathering that goes quiet because Grandpa starts to tell a story, the din around me faded. The crowds kept moving and nobody stopped to listen, and I don't blame them. There were so many ... Read More
The Real Revenge of Montezuma: Voyage Conclusions
September 7, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
Location: In Mazunte, just north of Huatulco. Through scattered clouds, the morning sun shines on the bay, whose centerpiece is a pair of jagged boulders. The rocks are frothy with crashing waves and soft backlight. The bay is surrounded by swaying palm trees and a snaking wetland. Conditions: From inside my swinging cot, hanging freely from a roof covered by a mosquito net, I can tell the morning air is starting to warm up. It's 8 a.m., and the septic tank truck is already pumping sewage and someone is running a drill. Fishermen are pushing their pangas past the tiny waves. Discussion: ... Read More
The Balance of Evil-Doing: Kiri’s Impacts
August 30, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
Let an admission of hypocrisy herald the end of my three-month voyage from California to southern Mexico: I used a lot of petroleum. The V8 Ford van that I drove, also known as El Hippo (why the name? see side note), had a hunger that was hard to contain. It got a pathetic 12 miles per gallon. Here I am, exploring the effects of climate, advocating solutions to improve the resilience of coastal communities, yet I'm also part of the problem. Nevertheless, as economics teaches us, the true cost depends on the alternatives. So, as an aspiring do-gooder, I'd like to know, "What is the balance ... Read More
Sustainable Tourism en masse: Huatulco’s Attempt
August 19, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
On the final military checkpoint of my trip, the camouflaged officers asked me a familiar set of questions, starting with, "De donde viene?" Where are you coming from? I'm from Santa Barbara, California, I told them — heading to Huatulco, which is just a few miles away. After getting the thumbs up, I drove into town with the curious anticipation of arriving after 5,000 miles and three months of travel. That was slowly displaced by a peculiar feeling. From what I could see, I had come full circle, and two realities were merging. The wide boulevards had center dividers, the lawns and trees ... Read More
