Artists Complain : Mexico City: a New Outcry Over Polluted Atmosphere

A group of 100 prominent intellectuals and artists recently issued a statement saying Mexico City is not a fit place to live or work because of air pollution.

Even the government acknowledges it is among the most polluted cities in the world but says it must give priority to national poverty and the economic crisis.

But the number of groups complaining about the capital’s foul air is growing, putting new pressure on the government to solve an old problem of an atmosphere filling up with carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide and other noxious substances.

For its part, the government has a National Ecology Program to combat the pollution and President Miguel de la Marid says steps are being taken to improve the situation.

Hollow Promises

But for anti-pollution groups promises ring hollow.

“We, who live beneath this vicious mushroom that covers us day and night, have a right to life,” said the statement of Los Cien, the Spanish name for the group of intellectuals and artists. “A life from which we may suffer irreversible damages ceases to be life.”

The statement added: “Because of this, we ask that the government forget about speeches and plans that are never carried out and, instead, take immediate action to defend and protect the inhabitants of this city . . . .”

Members of the group live in Mexico City and include the Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a Colombian who has a home here.

Those signing the statement said they don’t expect overnight cures.

“What we are looking for is concrete action on the part of the government,” said poet and author Homero Aridjis, one of the signers.

“We are well aware that the solution is beyond what we can do as individuals. We can, however, act as the conscience that prods and prods until something concrete is done.”

Among the most vocal of the ecology groups is the Mexican Ecological Movement, founded in 1982 and claiming 50,000 members throughout the nation. There are about 100 such groups scattered throughout Mexico, many with only a few members.

Dangerous Situation

“The situation is very dangerous,” said the Ecological Movement’s president, Alfonso Cipres Villarreal. Breathing the air in Mexico City, he added, “is equal to smoking 40 cigarettes each day by each inhabitant.”

Another group, the Mexican Society of Sanitary and Environmental Engineering, is calling for a feasibility study on restrict-

ing vehicles in Mexico City’s downtown area.

According to the government’s 271-page national plan, about 75% of the city’s air pollution is caused by the 3 million cars and 7,000 buses in the city with the remainder coming from natural and industrial origins. It noted that only 30% of industries around the capital have anti-pollution equipment.

The society said the government’s own statistics show the atmosphere in the downtown area is 156% beyond the acceptable maximum and the tolerable limit for carbon monoxide in the air has been surpassed by 46%.

Altitude Compounds Problem

Carlos Mora Mora, the society’s vice president, said the government petroleum monopoly Pemex could remove the high lead and sulfur contents from gasoline. Although such an operation would be costly, he said “we should not forget that there is no price on the health of the population.”

Compounding the problem is Mexico City’s high altitude and the fact that it is in the basin of a dry lake bed.

The thinner air at 7,800 feet above sea level makes the effect of vehicle emissions twice what it would be at sea level.