[HN Gopher] Restoring an ancient lake from the rubble of an airp...
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Restoring an ancient lake from the rubble of an airport in Mexico
City
Author : Thevet
Score : 45 points
Date : 2023-02-25 05:04 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.technologyreview.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.technologyreview.com)
| richardfey wrote:
| I think the biggest risk is not that the successor of Echeverria
| brings back the airport project, but rather that the restoration
| project becomes commercialised in a way that leaves little or
| nothing of the original ecosystem restoration agenda.
| benatkin wrote:
| This is certainly a political issue. AMLO is the first president
| in his party and they're trying to lay down roots.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Is it a good idea regardless of the political merits?
| rippercushions wrote:
| That's quite debatable. What is clear, though, is that the
| city's current airport is bursting at the seams.
| [deleted]
| eschulz wrote:
| It's a good idea for Mexico City to substantially increase
| green space. However, it's also a good idea for the city to
| augment its air transport infrastructure. The AMLO government
| has made a bold decision, and time will tell how it works
| out.
| B1FF_PSUVM wrote:
| _the steel columns bordering the main terminal were sold as scrap
| to recoup a fraction of the $5 billion spent on the airport's
| construction._
|
| Cue 'sunk cost' arguments.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| This is interesting:
|
| > "Echeverria's vision for the park is part of a wave of projects
| that have upended the traditional goal of ecosystem restoration:
| returning ecosystems to the state they were in before humans
| damaged them. Instead of seeking to roll back the clock,
| Echeverria is creating an artificial wetland that aims to
| transform the future of the entire Valley region, drawing lessons
| from both Tenochtitlan and modern Mexico City on how thriving
| cities can coexist with flourishing ecosystems. "
|
| Part of the justification for this approach is the relatively new
| recognition of the large ecological footprint of pre-European
| peoples, and their extensive manipulation of the natural
| environment, e.g. the use of controlled burns in grassland areas,
| etc. "Pristine" environments were often not-so-pristine, so a new
| managed system is not any different from an old managed system,
| although you'd ideally want similar levels of ecological
| productivity and diversity.
|
| Another is that climatic effects are going to be significant,
| e.g. in the long run the only way to save some species, such as
| California redwoods, may be to plant new stands in Oregon,
| Washington and Canada. This would be 'managed ecological
| migration'.
| csours wrote:
| People want to live next to green spaces. What if our developed
| areas had boulevards of trees (or other native plants)? You may
| have to sell fewer units or (shudder) increase density, but
| then people would have access to the kind of environment they
| want.
| [deleted]
| zh3 wrote:
| > ...for example, chinampas--the lake system's artificial
| islands, built from reeds--created small canals where species
| like the axolotl thrived.
|
| That's an interesting - and potentially misleading - take on
| Axolotls and their habitat [ref.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axolotl]
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(page generated 2023-02-26 23:00 UTC)