By Diana Hoogesteger
We humans are an incredible, diverse species. Like in nature, none is the same as the other. Not one stone is identical to another, but even more diverse is a human. Take into account its native and cultural background, where he or she lives, social class, age, language, education, personal history, and spirit. We are all unique beings that think, feel, and have needs, desires, goals, and dreams—and in that diversity we have many different opinions. Conflicts or understanding arise from opinions. We may have different opinions—think, feel, and dream differently, but there are also facts of reality that are ruled by the laws of nature, and these are equal for all. Law equals an existing condition which is binding and immutable. Natural equals inherency—having a basis in nature, reality, and truth.
I come to these reflections, because I want us to think about one matter that we all have been noticing: the extreme heat.
Many places on the planet are experiencing extreme heat and draught. In Mexico this month, many states had temperatures from 40º to 45º centigrade. And for us in San Miguel de Allende, even though May is always the warmest month, we’ve experienced extreme heat and were sweating like in the tropics.
Is this normal? No.
Can we do something about it? Yes.
If you are a newcomer or a longtime resident, you must be noticing how fast the city is growing and how our landscape and environment is changing. From common sense we notice that where there is vegetation and trees, a breeze makes it feel much cooler than where there are no trees and only buildings. With the growth of the city, San Miguel has been giving up its orchards and mesquite-nopal forests for parking places and new gated communities with roads and houses, but with few gardens and minimal space for nature, or worse—green grass in a city that has huge water problems.
We cannot stop the growth, but we can decide how we want to continue growing.
Where you buy, how you build, public opinion and support in social action initiatives are ways to have an influence on what is happening. Even planting and taking care of trees in front of your gate, in the road, or along the sidewalks of your street helps. Becoming more involved in the greening of our public spaces and surroundings helps.
Going back to the extreme heat and the laws of nature: bare soil, asphalt, houses, roads, and cars produce heat; trees, wetlands, and vegetation create humidity and cooler air, which produces cloud formation and helps small water cycles to happen for local rainfall.
As we lose our orchards and cultivation lands to roads, parking places, and houses, we create heat waves and draught. The last 15 years have been the worst in land and nature devastation resulting from the massive housing business. We tried to bring in compulsory water catchment and grey water reuse systems in new developments combined with a minimum of green areas per unit of built land, and a regulated construction based on the geography that respects the rivers, creeks, and water infiltration zones. As our governments and new investors have not cared and only think of business, we as inhabitants of the city need to take more action. If you came to San Miguel because it is beautiful and abundant, let us all, as a collective, help to keep it green, beautiful, and abundant.
If your opinion is that growth is necessary and business is more important, the fact is that climate change is happening faster and becoming stronger. As we continue cutting down trees to make houses and roads, we are creating heat waves and contributing to higher temperatures and extreme weather changes. It is a fact is that, through greening and restoring spaces for trees and nature, we draw CO2 out of the atmosphere, we help cloud formation and keep our city and environment cooler.
Diversity is richness, in humans as in nature. In our beautiful array of minds and people, we can be creative on how to green our city more. Let us think of diversity in plants, let our gardens be diverse and plenty for pollinators and birds. Let us come together with neighbors and take care of a bare piece of land or a park in our area. Let us choose to live in smaller houses with bigger gardens. Let us respect the policy of keeping 10 to 30 meters of nature around all creeks and water flows. Let us buy land together to have more parks and demand our governments to keep more land for parks and nature. We can create better environments. We are landscapers. To cool the planet, the fact is that we need more trees.
Check out: drawdown.org
