Green revolution in Mexico City
A green revolution is sweeping across the car and concrete jungle of
Mexico City, an infamously smoggy capital that was once dubbed "Makesicko
City" by novelist Carlos Fuentes.
Residents are growing vegetables on rooftops, planting trees where
buildings once stood, hopping on bicycles and riding in electric taxis,
defying the urban landscape in this metropolis of 20 million people and
four million cars.
"This is our vote for the environment," said Elias Cattan, a
33-year-old bespectacled architect pointing to the lettuce, onions and
chillies growing in a planting table and inside used tires on the
balcony of his rooftop office.
"It's a window to the future and it is very important that we
reconnect with the earth," he said as light rain fell on the sprouts
atop the five-story building in the trendy Condesa neighborhood.
Like a growing number of Mexico City residents, Cattan bikes to work
in a maze of roads renowned for their giant traffic jams.
Twenty years ago, the United Nations declared the Mexican capital the
world's most polluted city. Fuentes envisioned black acid rain in his
novel "Christopher Unborn," but in real life the air was so nasty that
birds dropped dead in this megalopolis 2,240 meters (7,350 feet) above
sea level.
While Mexico City still has high levels of pollutants, it has dropped
off the top 10 blacklist, thanks to traffic restrictions and the closure
of factories but also because other cities have become grimier.
The left-wing city government has carried out a "green plan" since
2007 to clean up the capital, but many citizens have also taken it upon
themselves to change their habits.
The city has placed 500,000 plants across the city, expanded a
popular bicycle loan program, opened a new subway line and launched an
"eco" bus that runs on natural gas.
Electric, zero-emission taxis began buzzing in the city center this
year. The vehicles recharge in power stations that get 25 percent of
their energy from solar panels. Fully powered up, the cabs can run for
six hours straight.
One of the taxi drivers, Cristobal Reynoso, said clients often
realize they are in an electricity-powered vehicle only once they are in
it.
"It's a thrill when I tell them it's electric, that it doesn't use
fuel or anti-freeze, that it doesn't have an exhaust pipe, because they
say, 'we're not polluting!'" Reynoso said. Citizens are playing their
part too. Many go to Chapultepec Park on the first Sunday of every month
to trade their recyclables -- empty bottles, paper, cardboard -- for
locally-grown produce such as tomatoes, corn and nopal (an edible
cactus) in a city program.
A corporate-funded citizen initiative known as VerdMX has installed
huge "vertical gardens" to spruce up the city and clean the air. One of
its most visible structures is a green arch on the heavily-traveled
Chapultepec Avenue.
Growing plants, fruits and vegetables here requires creativity and
lessons. The city and private groups offer advice to those who want to
learn how to plant in a building.
"It's easy, fun and cheap," said Liliana Balcazar, deputy director of
the city's environmental education centers that show people urban
gardening tricks. "You can do it anywhere that gets at least five to six
hours of sun per day." "It's like being in the countryside inside the
city," Balcazar said, noting that it is also a great source of healthy,
home-grown produce for a population facing an obesity problem.
Cattan has received help from Gabriela Vargas, a 43-year-old former
photographer whose passion was born 12 years ago, when she planted
vegetables in her balcony to make tastier, healthier food for her
daughter.
"When I started 12 years ago, I was the crazy one growing lettuce in
her apartment. Now it's very common," said Vargas, project director for
Cultiva Ciudad (Cultivate City), which advises schools, individuals and
institutions.
Vargas now sees bigger: She plants trees.
Last year, her organization donated 6,000 trees to various city
districts that were grown inside the city.
Her new project is an orchard where she will grow apple, guava, peach
and medlar trees. The city is lending her a 1,650-square-meter
(17,800-square-foot) terrain where a high-rise building was demolished.
While the city is getting greener, the smog is still visible, often
clouding the surrounding mountain peaks.
Though carbon monoxide levels are down by 90 percent from 20 years
ago, the city still has above recommended levels of ozone and suspended
particulates, another pollutant.
"The good news is that the trend has been a consistent reduction (of
ozone) in the last 10 years," said Armando Retama, director of the
city's air quality monitoring service. "If the trend holds, Mexico
City's contamination problem will be almost resolved in 10 years."
AFP
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