News of the Earth

by Homero Aridjis and Betty Ferber

Translated by Betty Ferber

Published by: Mandel Vilar Press

Imprint: Mandel Vilar Press

350 Pages, 6.00 x 9.00 in

Paperback
9781942134091
Published: December 2017

$24.95

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Description
Contents
Authors
Praise

“Homero is one of the planet’s great environmental heroes.”—Jacob Scherr, Director of Global Strategy & Advocacy, Natural Resources Defense Council, Washington, DC

News of the Earth chronicles Homero Aridjis’s relationship with the natural world through his writings and his activism as president of the Grupo de los Cien [Group of 100], Mexico’s influential environmental group composed of one hundred prominent personalities in the arts, culture, and science, which Aridjis founded in 1985. Under his leadership, the group’s efforts led to a ban on the capture and commercialization of sea turtles, legislation reducing the amount of lead in gasoline, daily monitoring of air quality in Mexico City, and official designation of sanctuaries for the monarch butterfly. Aridjis waged a lifelong battle against threats to endangered ecosystems and wildlife in his country, many with global implications, including campaigns to save the gray whale, bottle-nosed dolphin, bee population, giant saguaro cactus, endangered coral reefs, and rainforests of Mexico. This book highlights these crucial battles, with detailed documentation of critical environmental victories.

Homero Aridjis, one of Latin America’s foremost literary figures, is the author of forty-eight books of poetry and prose. He served as Mexico’s Ambassador to Switzerland, The Netherlands, and UNESCO, and as president of PEN International. He received awards from the United Nations (Global 500 Award), the Orion Society, Mikhail Gorbachev, Global Green USA, and the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Betty Ferber Aridjis was born in New York and graduated from Bryn Mawr College. She served as the International Coordinator of the Grupo de los Cien (Group of 100) since its founding in 1985. Her lifelong commitment to the environment was also honored by Mikhail Gorbachev and by Global Green USA with the Green Cross Millennium Award for International Environmental Leadership. She is the translator of several books by Homero Aridjis into English.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Foreword
Acknowledgements

The Birds (autobiographical essay by H.A.)

1 Mexico City and the Group of 100

Statement signed by 100 intellectuals and artists protesting air pollution in Mexico City (March 1, 1985)
The Group of 100’s exhibition
Eight proposals for combating pollution made by the Group of 100 (newspaper coverage)
Don’t drive today, the Group of 100 insists (proposes “One day without a car” program”)
The Group of 100: human life in Mexico City is endangered (coverage of severe air pollution)
The Group of 100 reports that this year’s thermal inversions are worse than 1987’s (air pollution)
The Group of 100: Mexico City is a vale of death (air pollution)
The UN found dangerous microorganisms in Mexico City’s air (revealed by Group of 100)
Mexico City’s Viceroys: Ecology and Democracy (H.A. article)
A Faint Blue Gas and A Green Rhetoric (H.A. article)
The Rains Came (H.A. article)
No Breathing Today (H.A. article)
Pollution and the Doubledecker Freeway (H.A. article)
All That is Green Will Perish (H.A. article)
A Social Earthquake, 20 Years Later (H.A. article, 20 years after disastrous 1985 earthquake)
Sister Water (H.A. article, about water resources in Mexico)
Breathing Death (H.A. article, air pollution)
Mexico-Tenochtitlan-Federal District (H.A. essay, historical overview)
2 Grandeur and Misery of the Monarch Butterfly (Fate of the Monarch Butterfly
over the past forty years)

The Monarch Butterfly: Memory and Poetry (H.A. essay)
Forest Fires and Loggers Are Destroying the Monarch Butterfly Sanctuaries
Grandeur and Misery of the Monarch Butterfly (H. A. article)
Logging Could Lead to Their Disappearance in Twenty Years )proposal for government to protect Monarch Reserve by purchasing the land)
A Conspiracy Against the Monarch (H.A. article)
An Alliance Against the Monarch (H.A. article)
The Banality of Destruction (H.A. article)
The Extent of Logging (H.A. article)
Censored Butterflies (H.A. article)
The New Monarch Butterfly Reserve (H.A. article)
Butterflies in the Storm (H. A. article)
Twilight of the Monarch (H.A. article)
Marked for Death (H.A. article)
Monarchs for Gold (H.A. article)

3 Sea Turtles, a Tortured Road to Extinction

Sea Turtles, a Tortured Road to Extinction (five parts) (H.A. article)
Killing Off Sea Turtles (H.A. article)
Golden Eggs (H.A. article)
Sea Turtles Under Attack (H.A. article)
Eating Grandma (H.A. article)
Saving the Leatherback (H.A. article)
SEMARNAT Under a Carapace (H.A. article)

4 And God Created the Great Whales

Group of 100: In Defense of Whales (Group of 100 ad published in The New York
Times)
One Country vs. the World (H.A. article about Japanese whaling)
The Silence of the Whales (H.A. article revealing saltworks project in grey whale
sanctuary)
Group of 100: There is More Than One Way to Kill a Whale (Group of 100
ad published in The New York Times)
Whale Sushi (H.A. article)
Whales in the Desert (H.A. article)
Friends of Japan, Enemies of Whales? (H.A. article)
Patrimony and Democracy in Danger? (H.A. article)
Whales, the Triumph of Life (H.A. article about cancellation of saltworks project)
Save Them, Eat Them (H.A. article about whaling)
Bloody Seas (H.A. article about Taiji dolphin drive hunt)

5 American Earth

A Latin American Ecological Alliance (Group of 100 ad published in The New
York Times)
The Fate of the Amazon (Group of 100 Letter to President Sarney published in The
News)
The Destruction of Amazonia (H.A. article)
Syphilis: The Other Quincentennial? (H.A. article)
The Demographic Reconquest (H.A. article, about Mexicans in the U.S.)
Dear Mr. President (H.A. article, about U.S. policy towards Mexico)

6 Mexican Earth

Montes Azules, or the End of the Lacandon Rain Forest (Six parts) (H.A. article)
Talking about the Forest While Destroying the Forest (H.A. article)
Chiapas: The Call of the Forest (H.A. article, about Zapatista uprising)
The Destruction of Montes Azules (H.A. article)
Fox vs the Usumacinta (H.A. article, about megadams in Mexico)
The Giant Saguaro Must Stay in Mexico (H.A. article)
The Collapse of the Nautical Staircase (H.A. article, about the Sea of Cortes)
The Rape of the Reef (H.A. and Robert F. Kennedy Jr article in San Diego
Union-Tribune)
Beyond the Legend ((H.A. article, about Popocatepetl volcano)
Where the Sky Was Born (H.A. essay about Sian Ka’an, in Quintana Roo)

7 The Indigenous Labyrinth

The Indigenous Labyrinth (H.A. article)
Indian is Beautiful (H.A. article)
Huichols vs Miners (Group of 100 petition in defense of Huichol sacred lands)

8 Mexico in Flames

Group of 100: Mexico in Flames (Group of 100 ad)
Where There’s Fire, There’s Smoke (H.A. article)
Requiem for a Paradise (H.A. article)

9 Endangered Mexico

The Nuclear Dream Produces Monsters (Group of 100 letter to Mexico’s president)
Group of 100 Questions Environment Minister About Anti-pollution Measures
Lead in Our Blood (Group of 100 ad about lead pollution in Mexico)
Natural Sovereignty (H.A. World Environment Day speech)
Coatzacoalcos, River of Death ((H.A. article, about petrochemical pollution)
The Caverns of Time, or PRI-History (H.A. article, denouncing dinosaur
theme park in Cacahuamilpa caves)
Barry Sendel is in Cuernavaca (H.A. article, follow-up about Cacahuamilpa)
The Case of the Poisoned Milk ((H.A. article, about radioactive milk powder
imported to Mexico)
The Science Teacher and the Environmentalists (H.A. article, about cruise ship pier in
Cozumel)
The Children of Guanajuato ((H.A. article, about mass bird die-off at Presa de Silva
reservoir polluted by tanneries, and first NAFTA CEC petition)
Group of 100: For the first time, the legal standing of non-governmental organizations in defense of the environment is recognized, in case brought by the Group of 100
Megaproject Threatens the Isthmus of Tehuantepec (H.A. article)
Our Own Flood (H.A. article, about disastrous flooding in Mexico)
The Seeds of Wrath (H.A. article, about GMOs in Mexico)
Opposing Mexico City’s New Airport May Ruffle a Few Feathers
(Group of 100 ad published in The New York Times)
And the Birds Will Speak ((H.A. article, cancellation of Lake Texcoco airport)
A War of Symbols (Walmart in Teotihuacan) (H.A. article)
The Environmental Crime of the Fox Presidency? (H.A. article, about sucking dry
the pools at Cuatro Cienegas)

10 The Global War on Animals

Defending Dolphins (H.A. article)
Animal Rights (H.A. article)
The Global War on Animals (H.A. article)
The Absence of the Bees (H.A. article)
Requiem for a Dolphin (H.A. article)
Jellyfish (H.A. article about global expansion of jellyfish blooms)
A World With No Tigers (H.A. article)
A Jump Backwards (H.A. article about the disappearance of frogs)

11 The Earth Belongs to Everyone

The Rights of Nature (H.A. article)
Letter to the Pope about the Blue Planet (H.A. article)
The Morelia Declaration: Approaching the Year 2000 (Group of 100 international
symposium ad published in The New York Times)
The Age of Ecology/ The Earth-Sun (H.A. speech at the Global Forum during the
Earth Summit, Rio de Janeiro, 1992)
The Second Morelia Declaration (Group of 100 international symposium ad
published in The New York Times)
El Niño Event of the Century (H.A. article)
The Earth Year 2000 (H.A. article)
The World’s Thirst (H.A. article)
The Fifth Sun, the Earth Speaks (H.A. article)
Who Cares about the Earth? (H.A. article)
Get Close to the Stars (H.A. article)

Development and Sustainability: How Much, For Whom, Until When? (H.A. essay)

Approaching the End of the Millenium (H.A. lecture given at the Inter-American Development Bank)

"Since the establishment of the Group of 100 in 1985, Homero Aridjis has been an inspiration to fellow environmentalists all over the world. That combination of lyrical intensity, unwavering personal commitment, and deep moral principles has made him a most formidable advocate for change both in Mexico itself and internationally"
---Jonathon Porritt
Founder Director
Forum for the Future
Co-Director of the Prince of Wales's Business & Sustainability Programme
Chair of the UK Sustainable Development Commission between 2000 and 2009.

"No one in Mexico has made a more important contribution to protecting that country's environment, an effort that has had ripple effects throughout the world," says
---Lester Brown, the US environmentalist and founder of both the Worldwatch and Earth Policy institutes.

"The American writer Pete Hamill, Aridjis's longtime friend, says: 'Homero has not felt, as Vaclav Havel has in the Czech Republic, that you either have a commitment to civil society or to art. He's been able to continue to do both. In Mexico in particular, there's a constant conflict between the issues of environment and the realities of the way business is done. Homero brings an amazing decency – and great effectiveness – to a subject that can make people absolutely cynical...Yet,' adds Hamill, 'Aridjis also manages to find the time and quiet necessary for writing...His poetry has what I would call an innocent eye, the kind of talent that makes me think of Wordsworth. He's not afraid to look at a landscape as if he's the first person ever to see it, with an eye that's not jaded – a direct encounter with what's being observed. Reading Octavio Paz's poetry, I get the sense there's a professor leaning over his shoulder. Reading Homero, there's a bird leaning over his shoulder."
---Pete Hamill in "Poetry in Motion," Dick Russell, The Amicus Journal.

Jacob Scherr, an NRDC staff attorney who has worked closely with Aridjis, describes him as "extraordinarily courageous, willing to speak out in circumstances where he's really put his own well-being on the line. This is someone who doesn't have to do this. Homero is one of the planet's great environmental heroes."
---Jacob Scherr, Director, Global Strategy & Advocacy, Natural Resources Defense Council, Washington, DC, The Amicus Journal.

The Group of 100 is a movement of conscience that strives to change our relationship with nature. Thanks to this group, presided over by the saintly poet Homero Aridjis, in our world we can still enjoy the magic of monarch butterflies, sea turtles and gray whales.
---Alejandro Jodorowsky, Chilean-French filmmaker, playwright, actor, author, comics writer and spiritual guru.

The great strength of Aridjis's work is the faith it transmits in a creative virtue of the world, pessimism notwithstanding, and in the possibility of saving it thanks to environmentalism. Aridjis's writings are not gratuitous, they are militant. Their source is the reality of the natural world.

---J.M.G. Le Clézio, Nobel Prize in Literature 2008, in Le Nouvel Observateur.

"Our journey together to visit those great gentle creatures [the grey whales] was one I will live with forever."
---Pierce Brosnan, actor and environmental activist.

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