Like a horror-movie fog rolling onto unsuspecting California bays like Bodega, Tomales or Half Moon, the haze from south of the border began creeping across the Rio Grande a month ago. But this was no Hollywood production. Not even Alfred Hitchcock could have dreamed up a story line about the smoke from 11,000 Mesoamerican forest fires threatening the United States.
At first, the sun-blocking haze enveloped the lower Rio Grande Valley, and not much was said. After eating main courses like Houston and Dallas as well, the nervous laughter began. Things finally got serious when health authorities in Brownsville, Tex.,–the southernmost city in the United States–urged children, the elderly and the infirm to stay indoors because a serious health threat was at hand.
No one needs to be reminded that it’s getting increasingly difficult to continue our long voyage on what Oakland’s Mayor-elect Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown might call this Starship Earth. More people, more industrial development and occasional weather-related anomalies such as tantrum-tossing El Ninos guarantee new challenges for everyone.
Yet if there is a lesson to be learned from El Nino’s sudden transmogrification into El Diablito, it is that the hoary problem of foot-dragging by individual nations continues to be a devilish challenge. Witness the example of the Mexican government, whose handling of El Nino is an object lesson in fecklessness. Though the skies over Dallas are no longer hazy all day, the fires are expected to continue to burn for several weeks to come.
Mexico’s initial refusal of offers of help from north of the border was the least of the problems. The government of President Ernesto Zedillo began missing the boat long before that by failing to adequately prepare the public for drought-related dangers that were being predicted more than a year ago. Peasants could have been better warned about the dangers of their ancient tradition of slashing and burning their fields, and Mexico City together with the United States and Canada could have provided them some relief, if necessary.
But if enhanced cooperation is to materialize, recent history suggests the United States may have to take the lead. And given recent indications about the seriousness of the forest fires, the sooner Washington recognizes that reality the better.
National Public Radio reported the other day that the forest fires in faraway Indonesia this year have emitted more carbons into the atmosphere than all the industrial and automobile pollution in Europe during all of 1997. If that note gave pause, a succeeding news report quoted an expert as saying that the fires in Mexico and Central America are worse than the fires of Indonesia.
Air quality experts note that U.S. air quality standards focus mainly on relatively large airborne particulates. By that yardstick, the haze from the south is not a big deal. Trouble is, the scientists believe the main health threat from the haze lies in small airborne particulates that tend to lodge in the lungs. Additional regulations on these tiny floating time bombs are being implemented, but scientists already know that they are especially dangerous to the very young, the very old and those suffering from respiratory and heart ailments.
Americans can be forgiven if their response is something along the lines of “Holy smoke!” Equally important, the Mexican people can be forgiven for expressing concerns about their government. A recent poll by a group of Mexican newspapers found that more than half of the Mexicans surveyed blamed the government of President Zedillo for mishandling the forest fire fiasco.
True, Mexico’s government is not responsible for El Nino any more than it’s responsible for twisters in South Dakota, the downpours in Sacramento or the infestation of 17-year cicadas that are now attacking cars and lawn mowers in the mistaken belief that the loud noises are the passionate mating calls of other insects. But it is responsible for failing to put two and two together and for failing to sound the alarm.
None of this means that bilateral and multilateral approaches to environmental catastrophes are bound to fail. To the contrary, they must be made to work. In the Western Hemisphere, the Organization of American States may be raised from the dead to play a useful role. But in the end, it will still take two to tango. It’s something for Washington and Mexico City, or the world and Jakarta, or neighboring countries everywhere, to consider now–before more ninos become diablitos and before the Starship Earth turns into the Space Station Mir.
