Politics of Climate Change in Chihuahua
In Mexico climate change is a given, it's the rule of law that's murky. Borderland journalist Tom Barry explores the increasing tensions amidst dwindling water supplies just south of the border.
The Coming Water Wars in Mexico – Part 2
Mexican farmers and indigenous group join forces to protest illegal wells and tourism encroachment in northern Mexico.
Magic and Realism in a Homemade Chihuahua Museum
A chance encounter opens a portal into an eclectic world of prehistory, Mexican rural history, and a vision of homegrown environmental sustainability.
Changing perspectives on U.S.-Mexico relations
It’s unfortunate that the two presidents chose to hold their May 2-3 summit in Mexico City. Both nations and Presidents Barack Obama and Enrique Peña Nieto would have been better served by a meeting at the border – where the grim reality of neighborly relations would not be masked by the pomp and circumstance of the grand presidential residence of Los Pinos.
A meeting at the customs building in Ciudad Juárez – the site of the first Mexico-U.S. presidential meeting in 1909 between Porfirio Díaz and William Taft – would have likely resulted in a more memorable and productive summit of the current heads of state, Enrique Peña Nieto and Barack Obama. As it is, this meeting will likely be soon forgotten – lost in protocol, predictable rhetoric about interdependence, and the photogenic smiles of the two presidents…
The Coming Water Wars in Mexico
Once forbidden as a transgression of God’s natural laws, irrigated agriculture backed by increasingly deep wells and the most advanced farming machinery has become the norm. Mennonite farmers are meeting—and taking advantage of—the challenges of climate change and intensifying drought cycles by embracing the most unsustainable practices of capital-intensive, resource-depleting agribusiness…
Obama’s political framing of immigration reform lacks depth
President Obama’s understanding of immigration and border policy is fundamentally political. For Obama, immigration reform makes good sense politically. As such, the president’s vision of immigration reform is framed by political platitudes and slogans – such as the stress on combatting transnational crime, deporting and excluding “criminal aliens,” and fortifying border security.