Carbon Chemist

Tag: mexico

  • Climate Change Is Destroying Monarch Butterflies’ Winter Habitat

    Climate Change Is Destroying Monarch Butterflies’ Winter Habitat

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    every year, at the beginning of November, one of the most impressive natural spectacles in the world takes place in Michoacán, Mexico. Hundreds of millions of migrating monarch butterflies settle in the forested massifs of the country’s Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, roughly 100 kilometers west of Mexico City. Having flown south for eight months, beginning their journey in the northern United States or southern Canada, they hibernate here for the winter before mating in the spring.

    After flying for more than 4,000 kilometers, the butterflies land in the oyamel fir trees of the Ejido el Rosario region, where for weeks they congregate, protecting themselves from the wind and the cold nights. Without these trees, the butterflies would not be able to survive their exhausting journey.

    The oyamel fir grows in a very small climatic space, one that is humid yet cold. “Its distribution is very limited to the highest mountains in central Mexico,” says Cuauhtémoc Sáenz Romero, a professor at the Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo. Sáenz Romero is the lead author of a recent study that anticipates that this forest will gradually deteriorate to the point of disappearance as a result of climate change, endangering the butterflies.

    For the roosting monarchs, the oyamel canopy acts as a buffer to the local temperature and humidity, Sáenz Romero explains. “During the day, under the shade of the oyamel, the environment stays 5 degrees Celsius cooler than outside. It is a protection against high temperatures. At night it is the other way around, resulting in a 5 degree Celsius warmer environment.” The density of the canopy also protects against winter rain. “If the temperature drops below zero and the butterflies get their wings wet, they can freeze. That’s why these trees represent such a particular habitat,” says Sáenz Romero.

    After awaking from hibernation and mating in central Mexico, the insects fly north to Texas in the United States, where they lay their eggs. “For all this, they need energy reserves to return, which they don’t have to spend on fighting the cold in the wintering sites,” he explains.

    This fine balance for their survival is provided only by the oyamel firs. However, some models indicate that a climate conducive to them will have disappeared in this area by 2090. “Due to rising temperatures, we are observing a process of forest decline,” says Sáenz Romero, who is leading an initiative to establish new overwintering sites for the monarchs, which are on the red list of threatened species.

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  • A Parasite That Eats Cattle Alive Is Creeping North Toward the US

    A Parasite That Eats Cattle Alive Is Creeping North Toward the US

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    On November 22, the United States Department of Agriculture temporarily halted the import of cattle from Mexico after a flesh-eating parasite was detected in animals in southern Mexico. Before the discovery of cattle screwworm (Cochliomyia hominivorax) at an inspection point in the state of Chiapas, the species had previously been eliminated in North America since the end of the 19th century. The US–Mexico border remains closed to cattle and may not reopen until the new year.

    The worm is the larva of a metallic blue-green fly that spends the early part of its life cycle devouring the living flesh of mammals. Infestations can be fatal. Cows are the screwworm’s favorite feast, but the maggots can also feed on other livestock as well as wildlife and pets. Flies often lay their eggs near open wounds, and if the larvae can find a hole in the skin to deploy their sharp mouth hooks, they will then bury themselves in the animal’s flesh and gorge.

    The finding in Mexico follows the recent reappearance of the parasite in Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Guatemala. In the face of the reemergence of the parasite, Mexico is intensifying sanitary measures—calling for the treatment of wounds in livestock, larvicide baths, and deworming of cattle—and has introduced inspection stations like the one that discovered the case in Chiapas. But conservationists from the Wildlife Conservation Society and Mexican ranchers warn that the illegal cattle trade will be the real gateway for the disease to enter North America.

    Prior to the closure of its border with the US, Mexico’s National Confederation of Livestock Organizations had called on the government to clamp down on cattle smuggling across Mexico’s southern border. The risk from the parasite is great, and if it becomes established again, the cost of eliminating it in Mexico would be high. Disruption of trade with the US was also be highly costly. In 2023 alone, Mexico’s exports of live cattle and beef to the US were worth $3 billion.

    Mosca de Cochliomyia hominivorax el gusano barrenador de ganado

    Cochliomyia hominivorax, the cattle screwworm, is actually a fly. The name refers to the insect’s larvae.

    Ramdan Fatoni / Getty Images

    On the Trail of the Screwworm

    For nearly two decades, Cochliomyia hominivorax had been eliminated from the United States down to the Darien Gap in Panama. That was until the summer of 2023, when Panama detected a spike in infestations in animals within 300 kilometers of its northern border with Costa Rica, marking the beginning of the parasite’s reappearance in Central America.

    Costa Rica, declared free of the aggressive parasite in 1999, then documented outbreaks in July 2023. Nicaragua and Honduras, free of the screwworm since 1996, confirmed cases in April and September of this year respectively. Then in October 2024, Guatemala reported the reemergence of the fly and its larvae, with a calf as its first fatality. The threat to countries further north is clear. According to the Panama–United States Commission for the Eradication and Prevention of Screwworm, as of November 2, these four countries had accumulated 15,638 screwworm cases in 2024, along with 20,890 documented in Panama.

    In reports submitted to the World Organization for Animal Health, three of those countries—Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Honduras—pointed to the illegal transit of animals as the origin of infections in their territories. Honduras detected an outbreak after inspecting 68 horses that entered the country illegally, for example, just 8 kilometers from its border with Nicaragua.

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  • Border Militias Prepare to Assist With Donald Trump’s Mass Deportation Plans

    Border Militias Prepare to Assist With Donald Trump’s Mass Deportation Plans

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    Border militias under the first Trump administration flourished, emboldened by surging anti-immigrant and nativist rhetoric. The Oath Keepers, which was one of the biggest militias until its founder and dozens of its members were arrested for their roles in the January 6 Capitol riot, had long engaged in border activity. (This was a point of friction among some chapters, as some members felt like the border vigilantism undermined the authority of the Border Patrol and therefore ran counter to their respect for law enforcement.) The Proud Boys have reportedly deployed to the border. Anecdotally, smaller cells have also been reported to go out looking for people who’ve made unauthorized border crossings.

    Over the years, many of these groups have operated with a carte blanche from local authorities. Sheriff Mark Lamb of Pinal County, Arizona, told the Los Angeles Times that he believes civilian operations along the border are constitutionally protected activity, but he acknowledged that having a bunch of armed guys running around in camo can occasionally create a headache for actual law enforcement, because “we don’t know who the good guys and the bad guys are oftentimes.” (Lamb is a Constitutional Sheriff, meaning he believes that sheriffs hold supreme authority and are answerable only to God, not the federal government).

    Once Trump takes office, some paramilitary types hope they’ll have tacit authority from the government to engage in vigilante activity on the border. A Telegram group catering to self-identifying members of different militias has been abuzz with talk about Trump’s border plans. “I’m going to be extremely happy if they would deputize civilians in the war on invasion from the borders,” one member of the chat wrote. “Yes sir, I’ve been inquiring into that [with] some close to this admin,” someone responded. “Something has to be done as [the] issue is massive and manpower needed will be huge.” When someone suggested that militia members stand down operations, they were accused by another member of being a “fed” or a “victim of stand down psyops.”

    “Anyone caught discouraging Patriots from uniting Constitutionally on a massive scale is suspect,” they wrote. “The basic premise of the Militia is to Constitutionally UNITE.” Another fantasized about how “patriots formerly (sic) trained” could deal with cartels on the border during Trump’s mass deportations.

    These fantasies have also spilled out across social media. “The unconstitutional, illegal, intentional border invasion is the true insurrection, therefore the insurrection act should be used and the Militia/Military should be called up to put it down immediately,” one person wrote on Truth Social last week. “Godspeed MAGA Militia!!”

    And the Proud Boys of South Texas reposted a meme showing a group of soldiers riding in the back of a truck, with the caption, “The boys and I when we’re deputized as ICE under Trump’s second term.”

    For some, the idea of being deputized is more than a meme. “We’ll get word at the end of January about the plans,” says Foley. “We’ve told them, we’re all in if you want us, if you need help with intel, or recon. Just let us know.”

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  • How a PhD Student Discovered a Lost Mayan City From Hundreds of Miles Away

    How a PhD Student Discovered a Lost Mayan City From Hundreds of Miles Away

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    A new Mayan city, lost in the dense jungle of southern Mexico for centuries, has been discovered from the computer of a PhD student hundreds of miles away. This is the story of how he did it.

    The settlement, named Valeriana after a nearby freshwater lagoon, has all the characteristics of a classic Maya political capital: enclosed plazas, pyramids, a ball court, a reservoir, and an architectural layout that suggests a foundation prior to 150 AD, according to a newly published study in the journal Antiquity.

    And how did Tulane University graduate student Luke Auld-Thomas find it? The answer lies in lasers. Until recently, archaeology was limited to what a researcher could observe from the ground and with their eyes. However, the technology of detecting and measuring distances with light, known as lidar, has revolutionized the field, allowing us to scan entire regions in search of archaeological sites hidden under dense vegetation or concrete.

    Let’s travel back in time. It is 1848 and the governor of Petén, Guatemala, Modesto Méndez, together with Ambrosio Tut, an artist and chronicler of the time, rediscovered Tikal, one of the most majestic archaeological sites of the Mayan civilization. In the middle of the 19th century, little was known about this advanced culture—which calculated lunar, solar, and Venusian cycles, and invented hieroglyphic writing and the concept of the number zero with hardly any tools.

    The dense rainforest surrounding Tikal and its lack of roads made it extremely difficult to reach the remains. But the Guatemalan government went deep into the heart of the Petén jungle anyway, in search of its cultural heritage. Guided by the rumors of the locals, machete in hand, along with tape measure and compass, they entered the Petén jungle on an almost impossible mission. Arriving at the Tikal site, Méndez and his team were amazed at what they saw: gigantic temples and pyramids, mostly covered by the jungle. The most imposing constructions, hidden by nature, towered above the tree canopy. Tikal, although partially buried, retained its majesty and gave clues to the enormous size of the city.

    History repeated itself in 2024—but with some important variations. Rather than a machete, Auld-Thomas armed himself with a search engine. WIRED spoke this week with him and Marcello Canuto, director of Tulane’s Middle American Research Institute, about the discovery.

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  • How Researchers Are Using Geospatial Technology to Uncover Mexico’s Clandestine Graves

    How Researchers Are Using Geospatial Technology to Uncover Mexico’s Clandestine Graves

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    In 2014, after the disappearance of 43 Ayotzinapa normalistas in Mexico, Silván and other CentroGeo professionals joined the scientific advisory board on the case. During the search for the students, different civilian groups and government brigades detected dozens of illegal graves. In less than 10 months, the Mexican Attorney General’s Office counted 60 sites and 129 bodies in the state of Guerrero. As a result of the raids, 300 illegal graves were revealed. Since then, the number of clandestine graves has only grown.

    No one anticipated the size of this horror. The report “Searching between pain and hope: Findings of clandestine graves in Mexico 2020 – 2022”, exposes with hemerographic data that in those two years, 1,134 clandestine graves were registered, with 2,314 bodies and 2,242 remains. In proportional terms, Colima reported the highest rate of illegal graves, with 10 per 100,000 inhabitants. It was followed by Sonora, Guanajuato, Guerrero, Sinaloa and Zacatecas.

    By number of cases, Guanajuato, Sonora and Guerrero stand out. These three entities account for 42% of the records. By April 2023, a journalistic investigation by Quinto Elemento Lab reported that the number of illegal burials reached 5,696 clandestine graves, and that more than half of them were detected during the current federal administration.

    Employing his field of study, remote sensing, José Luis Silván uses images captured with satellites, drones or airplanes, from which he extracts geospatial information using knowledge of the physics of light, mathematics and programming. Multispectral and hyperspectral images capture subsurface information using sensors that record wavelengths of light imperceptible to the human eye, making them useful for searching.

    In 2016, during a first study by CentroGeo researchers, they simulated burials with pig carcasses to evaluate the potential of using hyperspectral cameras in searches and learn what information from the sensors was useful to them. The Mexican researchers knew from research in other countries that successful detection with these techniques depends, in part, on being able to recognize how carcasses (and their spectral images) change in different soils and climates.

    The experiment was carried out on rented land in the state of Morelos. There they buried seven animals and evaluated the light reflected by the soil at different wavelengths for six months. They concluded that a hyperspectral camera, which provides more than a hundred layers of data, has the potential to detect clandestine burials, although the technique is only effective three months after burial. They tried to arrange for the acquisition of a camera and drone (valued at 5 million pesos) through the National Search Commission, but were unsuccessful.

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  • A Lost Mayan City Has Been Found With Laser Mapping

    A Lost Mayan City Has Been Found With Laser Mapping

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    A Mayan city lost in the dense jungle of southern Mexico has been revealed. The discovery occurred in the southeastern state of Campeche, and archaeologists have named it Valeriana, after a nearby freshwater lagoon.

    “The larger of Valeriana’s two monumental precincts has all the hallmarks of a classic Mayan political capital: enclosed plazas connected by a broad causeway; temple pyramids; a ball court; a reservoir formed by damming an arroyo (a seasonal watercourse); and a probable E-Group assemblage, an architectural arrangement that generally indicates a founding date prior to AD 150,” says the study, published in the journal Antiquity.

    The city’s discovery didn’t require breaking through the jungle with machetes or patiently excavating with brushes and spatulas. Nor did researchers need tape measures, binoculars, or compasses to find their way through the thick foliage. Instead, they employed state-of-the-art technology: lasers, drones, and satellite maps. With these tools, they discovered a city hidden for centuries beneath the thick Mexican jungle, unearthing pyramids, enclosed plazas, and an ancient reservoir.

    Luke Auld-Thomas, an anthropologist at Northern Arizona University, made the discovery. His analysis revealed a huge network of previously unexplored settlements.

    Auld-Thomas and his fellow researchers have succeeded in mapping the city beneath the jungle thanks to airborne laser scanning, better known as lidar (light detection and ranging), a remote-sensing technique that uses pulsed lasers and other data collected through flyovers that can generate accurate three-dimensional models of surface features, revolutionizing the way archaeologists explore the hidden past.

    Laser pulses generate a topographic map in a manner similar to how a bat uses echolocation: Laser light is fired from an aircraft, bounces off objects on the ground, and returns to the detector located on the underside of the aircraft. In Mexico, although only a small fraction of the pulses pass through the dense jungle, the large number of pulses emitted allows enough light to reach the ground, creating a map with a resolution of up to 1 meter. Based on the timing and intensity of the returning pulses, the detector can map the contours of the terrain, revealing hills, ditches, and ancient ruins covered in vegetation. The technology is also being integrated into autonomous cars to help them avoid crashes.

    “For a long time, our understanding of the Mayan civilization was limited to an area of a few hundred square kilometers,” Auld-Thomas says. “This limited sample was obtained with great effort, with archaeologists painstakingly scouring every square meter, hacking away at vegetation with machetes, only to discover they were standing on a pile of rocks that might have been someone’s house 1,500 years ago.”

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  • What Cancún’s Tourists Don’t See Is a Sprawling Concrete Jungle

    What Cancún’s Tourists Don’t See Is a Sprawling Concrete Jungle

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    This story originally appeared on WIRED en Español and has been translated from Spanish.

    The wide mowed lawns and leafy trees, the sports fields shining under their illuminated lights, the bouncy castles in the children’s play areas—especially the bouncy castles—are what Celia Pérez Godínez envies. These are the trappings of the wealthy neighborhood she travels to every day as a domestic worker in Cancún. Pérez envies the rich.

    She tells me this sitting on a rotten wooden bench one August afternoon, her 7-year-old son getting his scooter stuck on the broken path here many miles away in the north of the city, in a tiny park. Full of garbage and wild vegetation, it’s a short distance from where Pérez lives, close to the city outskirts. As we talk, a homeless person in the background shouts and laughs as if at a joke only he understands.

    Pérez is a 33-year-old single mother from San Marcos, Guatemala. She migrated in 2013 to Cancún, Mexico’s over-promoted and hugely popular tourist destination. She rarely has enough time and money to go to the beach and cannot find green areas or decent, safe public spaces for her son to play, having to make do with the few parks, like this, that are available. This is not the life she expected. “You hear that Cancún is wonderful, but when you get here … it’s a disappointment.”

    At 54 years old, Cancún is the youngest city in Mexico. It was designed from scratch in the 1970s as a new holiday destination in the country. In this respect, it’s been a wild success. But as an urban project, it is a failure. Designed for 200,000 people, the population of its urban sprawl now exceeds 1 million. Before, much of this area was jungle; today there are hundreds of hotels. Accelerated real-estate development has bitten into the surrounding vegetation year after year.

    This growth has been an environmental nightmare but also a social one, giving vastly unequal benefits to the city’s richer and poorer inhabitants. According to recent research by Christine McCoy, an academic at the University of the Caribbean, most people in Cancún live without the minimum green areas or public spaces needed for proper recreation, leisure, rest, or socializing. This is especially true in those regions where the most vulnerable live.

    Click play to see Cancún’s urban development from 1984 to 2022.

    This inequality has evolved despite Cancún’s rapid expansion consuming huge amounts of green space. Between 2001 and 2021, the surrounding region lost at least 30,000 hectares of jungle, according to data from Mexico’s National Forestry Commission. On the land ripped from the jungle there are now residential and hotel projects. And according to data seen by WIRED, plenty more developents are on the way. At the federal level, since 2018 the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources has received 40 requests for further land use change in the area. If approved, 650 more hectares of jungle will disappear.

    Data obtained through freedom of information shows what urban development projects have been processed over this period, these ranging from 2,247 tiny, popular housing units on the one hand to a 20-story, 429-room all-inclusive luxury hotel. Crucially, none of these include applications for public parks or green areas to be developed or improved, in a city that is already bursting at the seams, having exceeded its tourist carrying capacity for more than a decade.

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  • China Conquers Mexico’s Automotive Market, and the US Is Worried

    China Conquers Mexico’s Automotive Market, and the US Is Worried

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    This story originally appeared on WIRED en Español and has been translated from Spanish.

    China has positioned itself as the main car supplier in Mexico, with exports reaching $4.6 billion in 2023, according to data from Mexico’s Secretariat of Economy.

    The Chinese automaker BYD surpassed Honda and Nissan to position itself as the seventh largest automaker in the world by number of units sold during the April to June quarter. This growth was driven by increased demand for its affordable electric vehicles, according to data from automakers and research firm MarkLines.

    The company’s new vehicle sales rose 40 percent year over year to 980,000 units in the quarter—the same quarter wherein most major automakers, including Toyota and Volkswagen, experienced a decline in sales. Much of BYD’s growth is attributed to its overseas sales, which nearly tripled in the past year to 105,000 units. Now BYD is considering locating its new auto plant in three Mexican states: Durango, Jalisco, and Nuevo Leon.

    Foreign investment would be an economic boost for Mexico. The company has claimed that a plant there would create about 10,000 jobs. A Tesla competitor, BYD markets its Dolphin Mini model in Mexico for about 398,800 pesos—about $21,300 dollars—a little more than half the price of the cheapest Tesla model.

    Prevented from selling their wares to the United States due to tariffs, Chinese EV manufacturers have explored other markets to sell their high-tech cars. However, as Mexico establishes itself as a key market for Chinese electric vehicles, officials in Washington fear that Mexico could be used as a “back door” to access the US market.

    That tariff-free access is part of the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (T-MEC), an updated version of the North American Free Trade Agreement that, as of 2018, eliminated tariffs on many products traded between the North American countries. Under the treaty, if a foreign automotive company that manufactures vehicles in Canada or Mexico can demonstrate that the materials used are locally sourced, its products can be exported to the United States virtually duty-free.

    According to official figures, 20 percent of light vehicles sold last year in Mexico were imported from China, representing 273,592 units and a 50 percent increase compared to 2022. Currently, most of the vehicles imported from China come from Western brands that have established manufacturing plants in that country, such as General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, BMW, and Renault.

    Mexico is the second largest market for Chinese automobiles worldwide, behind only Russia, according to data from Linked Global Solutions, a company specializing in business between China and Latin American countries.

    A Trade War Against China

    Both the United States and the European Union have intensified a trade war against China, focusing on automobiles and semiconductor chip production, which have been the subject of investigations for predatory practices, tariffs, and restrictions. This new geopolitical strategy is prompting Western companies to look for alternatives to relocate their factories outside of China, a trend known as “nearshoring.”

    Concerned about the potential impact on domestic automakers, the US has raised tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles to 100 percent. Canada is also considering implementing its own tariffs on Chinese-made vehicles.

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  • Recluse Spider Season Is a Myth

    Recluse Spider Season Is a Myth

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    This story originally appeared on WIRED en Español and has been translated from Spanish.

    Summer arrives, and with it comes an arachnophobic furor—frantic reports about the intrusion of recluse spiders into our homes. Also known as fiddlebacks or violin spiders, these are arachnids of the genus Loxosceles. They’re found in warm areas across the world, including many parts of the USA, and particularly in Mexico, which has the greatest diversity of recluse spiders in the world, with 40 different species.

    Headlines declare that the start of May is “recluse spider season,” and that people need to watch out. It’s true that in their fangs these spiders carry a potent venom, which under certain circumstances can be lethal, but really they are elusive creatures that almost always seek to remain unnoticed. We should not get carried away with anti-fiddleback hysteria, much less replicate it. Such anxiety is unscientific, says Diego Barrales Alcalá, the creator of the arachnid identification platform @Arachno_Cosas. The idea of a supposed season of recluse spiders, promulgated by the media, lacks evidence.

    “Fiddlers have become the favorite villain and, unfortunately, according to what I have seen, the problem is cyclical. Every so often the ‘season’ arrives. But not of fiddlers, but of fake news,” Barrales Alcalá says. The activity of these arachnids doesn’t vary according to the time of the year, he says. And in his native Mexico, what limited statistics there are on bites certainly don’t add up to the concern seen in the media.

    Geographic coverage of humanspider encounters in the analyzed database published in Nature. In blue encounters with...

    Geographic coverage of human-spider encounters, 2010 and 2020, based on 5,000+ news articles from 81 countries, published in Nature. In blue, encounters with fiddler spiders; in orange, bites; in red, fatal bites.Illustration: Nature

    While recluse spiders choose to inhabit our homes, they are not aggressive. Usually they live away from people, in cellars and uncrowded areas of the house. Bites, when they do happen, occur typically when there’s unintentional contact between humans and spiders or due to people deliberately trying to manipulate them.

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  • The Sea Is Swallowing This Mexican Town

    The Sea Is Swallowing This Mexican Town

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    “That’s why my husband hardly ever goes out anymore. You have to go far out to sea,” says Florencia Hernandez, 81, grandmother of Otsoa and Ramón, known locally as Pola. In a wheelchair surrounded by memories—black and white portraits, lead hooks, the fishing line she holds in her hands—she is the longest-lived witness of the transformation that her land has undergone. She learned the fishing trade in her youth.

    “My father taught me. Like my grandfather, he was a fisherman. He had a little wooden boat, and he took me when I was a child,” says Hernandez while showing a photo album. “Later, I fished with my brother Salvador. I was the one who grabbed the motor. We would go out at night. When I got married, I accompanied my husband. I would get up very early in the morning, leave the clothes washed and laid out for when we returned from the day’s work. In a short time, we would fill baskets with fish that we would sell in the afternoon,” she says.

    Una barca abandonada en la comunidad pesquera de Las Barrancas Mxico

    An abandoned boat in the fishing community of Las Barrancas, Mexico.Photograph: Seila Montes

    Hernandez and her husband raised their children with what they earned from the sea. “The sea that has given me everything and now takes everything away,” she says with a broken voice. In Las Barrancas they live every day with the fear of the arrival of a hurricane like Roxanne, which landed in 1995. “I was only 8 years old but I remember it very well. That one hit very hard. It took a lot of houses,” says Ramón.

    Climate Change and Poorly Planned Projects

    Between the storm surges, the sea level continues to gradually rise. In the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, that increase is about three times faster than the global average, according to a 2023 study published in Nature. “This could be due to the loss of important habitats, such as seagrasses and reefs, natural barriers that protect the coast,” says Patricia Moreno-Casasola, a biologist at the Institute of Ecology.

    “Here it’s already taken 100 meters of beach,” says Otsoa. “The impact has not only been environmental and on fishing, on which we live, but it has also had a great social impact. The beach was our means of communication with the other neighboring communities,” explains the fisherwoman. The tourism that her town used to attract has also fallen off.

    “My mother had a little food stand by the beach that was crowded at Easter, a business that sold snacks. We lived on that income almost all year round,” Ramón says. Even horse races were organized there on the beach.”

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