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23 May 21
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Robert Reich | Republicans' Grip on Minority Rule Extends Far Beyond Their Voter Suppression Bills
Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Facebook Page
Reich writes:
oe Manchin has recently made headlines for his “surprisingly bold” proposal to tackle Republicans’ wave of voter suppression bills. In his proposal, the preclearance requirement in the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act would apply to all 50 states and territories — not just states and locales with histories of voter suppression. The Supreme Court gutted the preclearance requirement in its 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder, which required states with a history of voter suppression to get any new voting law approved by the Department of Justice or a federal court in Washington, D.C. That decision opened the floodgates for the voting restrictions we’re seeing today.
This is a great idea. But here’s where it gets tricky: Manchin is proposing this as an alternative to the For the People Act — not in addition to it. This preclearance requirement wouldn’t deal with partisan gerrymandering, the dominance of big money, and would be essentially worthless when the Department of Justice is under Republican control and can “clear” anything.
Republicans’ grip on minority rule extends far beyond their voter suppression bills. That’s why the For the People Act is the only way to unrig their entrenched power and make our democracy work for everyone.
That’s my view. What do you think?
An activist holding a placard in San Diego, California, last month. (photo: Mike Blake/Reuters)
David Sirota | The Numbers Are Grim. Republicans Are Winning at Normalizing Voter Suppression
David Sirota, Guardian UK
Sirota writes: "Voter suppression has been around for as long as the republic. Stories of subterfuge and ballot box-stuffing schemes are such a part of American political folklore, there's an entire book about them."
Voter ID laws – which are sculpted to make it harder to vote – are wildly popular with voters, according to surveys
oter suppression has been around for as long as the republic. Stories of subterfuge and ballot box-stuffing schemes are such a part of American political folklore, there’s an entire book about them. So in one sense, there is nothing particularly novel about Republican politicians’ efforts to rig the vote, or the important revelations that rightwing groups and corporate officials are coordinating state-level campaigns to make it harder to vote.
However, a new nugget of polling data illustrates that something more fundamental has happened: voter suppression is no longer a plot engineered in the shadows and denied in public, for fear of criticism by a population that considers such measures grotesque. Instead, voter suppression is having its coming-out party – because more and more Americans now consider it to be a perfectly legitimate and even laudable campaign tactic.
The data point comes in a new CBS/YouGov survey, buried under the topline finding that almost two-thirds of Republican voters do not consider Joe Biden the legitimate winner of the 2020 election, despite Biden’s electoral college and popular vote victories.
Further down in the survey, pollsters asked GOP voters whether in advance of the 2022 election, they would advise Republican leaders to “tell the public about popular policies and ideas” or instead “push for changes to voting rules”, on the basis that Republicans “will win once those changes are in place”.
Nearly half of Republicans surveyed supported the latter move, with the strongest demographics in support being female Republicans, non-white Republicans and white Republicans with no college degree.
This wouldn’t be so profound if this were a survey only of cynical, campaign-hardened GOP consultants. But here we see that a near-majority of rank-and-file Republican voters have internalized the soulless cynicism of their party’s political class.
In the same way so many Democratic voters have become calculated TV pundits who decide whether something is good policy based only on how they perceive it will supposedly play with moderate voters, many Republican voters have become dead-eyed operatives who actively support voter suppression regardless of how it might conflict with their party’s bromides about freedom and democracy.
Liberals keep hoping that exposing the latest voter suppression scheme might miraculously shame GOP lawmakers into backing off, but those Republican leaders are absolutely proud of their efforts, because a sizable chunk of their voters want that.
In effect, Roger Stone, Karl Rove and Lee Atwater have created a GOP electorate of Roger Stones, Karl Roves and Lee Atwaters. Shaming alone will not combat that kind of mercenary amorality – ending the filibuster and passing federal legislation to protect and expand the franchise is probably the best hope.
The new CBS poll doesn’t appear to be an outlier. An Economist/YouGov poll from March found that 57% of Americans say they would support or aren’t sure they would oppose “laws that would make it more difficult to vote”. An Associated Press poll in April found that while a majority of the country supports making it easier to vote, a majority of Republican voters do not. And voter ID laws – which are sculpted to make it harder to vote – are wildly popular, according to various surveys.
It’s hard to overstate the significance of this change of norms.
For most of my lifetime, campaigns and elections have been considered a bloodsport – but they at least had a few unwritten rules. Typically, it was assumed that the outer limits of acceptable tactics were negative ads and Super Pac expenditures, with anonymous dark money spending tipping over into that gray area between what was seen as legit and not legit.
Though chicanery to drive down turnout was always a threat to steal an election, straight-up voter suppression was generally perceived as something looked down upon if not criminal – a tactic that would always be confined to the shadows, deterred by public shaming. Campaigns and politicians rarely copped to the idea that they were actively trying to make sure people didn’t vote – they either denied it, or dressed it up as some necessary way to ensure ballot-box integrity.
But now, another Overton Window has shifted. Super Pac and dark money spending flooding elections are the norm, and voter suppression tactics and legislation are considered by many to be just another totally permissible aspect of the political competition.
Maybe it was always like that – maybe conservative voters have always been win-at-all-cost automatons. After all, it wasn’t that long ago that women and people of color were explicitly barred from voting, which is the ultimate form of voter suppression.
But maybe in the modern era – after the right to vote was putatively extended to everyone – the revanche is part of the larger Trump effect, which among more and more Republicans has legitimized literally anything required for them to seize power. This effect is clearly reverberating not just among paid political pros, but also among rank-and-file GOP voters.
It’s important to remember that the psychological shift isn’t in reaction to actual proof that Democrats are pilfering elections. On the contrary, the normalization of voter suppression is happening even though there is no concrete, substantiated evidence that voter fraud systemically plagues American elections.
In other words, this is all happening without the kind of proof that might justify cynicism about elections. (And after the 2000 election shenanigans in Florida, it is Democratic voters who arguably have the most reason to question the integrity of elections.) The shift is a product of both the GOP’s fact-free “voter fraud” propaganda, and also a win-power-at-all-costs mentality among a large subset of conservative voters.
The former is an obvious problem that’s being supercharged by the miasma of disinformation unleashed by social media and exacerbated by the decline of fact-based journalism that anchors the news.
The latter is arguably even more troubling, because it is operating on the synaptic level. Politics has apparently become such a red-versus-blue tribal war that a significant chunk of Republicans now seem willing to trample the very ideals America is supposed to represent in the name of rescuing the country.
They are willing to sacrifice democracy in order to supposedly save it – an authoritarian mentality that never ends well.
Kim Potter's booking photos. (photo: Hennepin County Sheriff's Office)
Officer Who Fatally Shot Daunte Wright to Be Charged With Manslaughter
Jacob Knutson, Axios
Knutson writes: "Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced on Friday that his office will lead the prosecution of former Brooklyn Center Officer Kim Potter, who was charged with second-degree manslaughter in the fatal shooting of Daunte Wright."
innesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced on Friday that his office will lead the prosecution of former Brooklyn Center Officer Kim Potter, who was charged with second-degree manslaughter in the fatal shooting of Daunte Wright.
Why it matters: Ellison's office led the case against former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who was found guilty of murder and manslaughter in the death of George Floyd — a rare conviction of a police officer.
Context: During a traffic stop in April, Potter appeared to have inadvertently pulled out her gun and discharged it instead of a Taser when Wright tried to get back into his car during the encounter with officers, police said.
- After firing her weapon, Potter can be heard on body camera video released by police saying, "‘Holy s**t, I just shot him."
- Wright's death sparked protests and unrest across the Twin Cities as the Chauvin trial was underway.
What they're saying: "I did not seek this prosecution and do not accept it lightly," Ellison said in a statement Friday.
- "Daunte Wright’s death was a tragedy. He should not have died on the day that he did. He should not have died the way that he did," he added.
- "His parents, brothers, sisters, and friends must now live the rest of their lives without him. His son, only two years old, will grow up without his father."
- "The community of Brooklyn Center and people across Minnesota also continue to grieve Daunte’s death. I join them in that grieving. His death is a loss to all of us."
The big picture: Ellison said he took the case at the request of Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman, who accepted it from Washington County Attorney Pete Orput.
- Orput had charged Potter with second-degree manslaughter. He faced intense pressure from activists demanding more serious charges, according to AP.
- "I have had, and continue to have, confidence in how both County Attorney Orput and County Attorney Freeman have handled this case to date," Ellison said. "I thank County Attorney Orput for the solid work he and his office have done, and I thank County Attorney Freeman once again for his confidence in my office."
The Dalai Lama, Penpa Tsering, and Samdhong Rinpoche observe a minute's silence during ceremony in Dharamsala. (photo: unknown)
'Running Out of Time': Tibetan President-Elect Warns of Cultural Genocide
Cate Cadell and Sanjeev Miglani, Reuters
Excerpt: "The top political leader of Tibet's government in exile said on Friday that there is an urgent threat of "cultural genocide" in Tibet, and the international community must stand up to China ahead of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics."
he top political leader of Tibet's government in exile said on Friday that there is an urgent threat of "cultural genocide" in Tibet, and the international community must stand up to China ahead of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.
Penpa Tsering, who was this month elected president of the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA), told Reuters that they are committed to a peaceful resolution with China, but Beijing's current policies threaten the future of Tibetan culture.
"Time is running out," said Tsering, speaking from Dharamshala in India. "Once it is eliminated, it doesn't make sense to fight for anything," he said.
Rights groups and Tibetans in Tibet say the government has put strict controls on religion, language education and labour, while encouraging immigration by Han people, China's largest ethnic group.
"I have always said we are not against multiculturalism ... but one single majority population completely overwhelming a minority population, that amounts to cultural genocide, especially when it's enforced by the state," Tsering said.
Beijing denies it breaches the human rights of Tibetan people. It says its development policies have eradicated absolute poverty in the region and are backed by all residents.
China's foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday evening.
Chinese troops seized Tibet in 1950 in what Beijing calls a "peaceful liberation". In 1959, Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama fled into exile, following a failed uprising against Chinese rule.
Founded after the exile, the CTA maintains its own executive, legislative and judicial bodies in Dharamshala. As many as 150,000 Tibetans are living in exile.
Tibet has since become one of the world's most restricted and sensitive areas. Journalists, diplomats and other foreigners are barred from travelling there outside of tightly managed government tours.
"If you are not challenging China's practices right now, then China will get away with everything," said Tsering, responding to a question about the 2022 Winter Olympics. "There has to be a stop to this."
'DOOMED TO DIE OUT'
China this month celebrates the 70th anniversary of its control over Tibet with press events and a government-sponsored tour to the region.
It's part of a broader effort to formalise Beijing's claim over Tibet, and share a positive narrative of the Communist Party's role there.
In a white paper released in state media on Friday, Beijing said that prior to China's intervention, Tibet was a "wretched and backward feudal serfdom" that was "doomed to die out".
"Money alone does not bring happiness," said Tsering. "If we had been independent we could have been economically as developed as Tibet is today," he said.
Dialogue between Beijing and the CTA has stalled since 2010. Tsering said that the Dalai Lama's return to China was crucial to reopen a dialogue.
"We'll use all ways and means to reach out to the Chinese government," said Tsering. "If the Chinese don't respond to us the only way we can keep the issue alive is to reach out to the international community," he said.
The CTA and Tibetan advocacy groups have received a boost in international support amid rising criticism of China's human rights record, particularly from the United States.
In November, Tsering's predecessor Lobsang Sangay visited the White House, the first such visit by a CTA president in six decades.
A month later, the U.S. Congress passed the Tibet Policy and Support Act, which calls for the right of Tibetans to choose the successor to the Dalai Lama, and the establishment of a U.S. consulate in the Tibetan capital Lhasa.
Tsering reiterated that when the 14th Dalai Lama passes he will only be reincarnated in a "free country", according to his wishes. China says it has a right to select the Dalai Lama's successor according to Chinese law.
"Why are they so concerned with the 15th Dalai Lama?" said Tsering. "The 14th Dalai Lama is still living and he wishes to go to China ... the Chinese government leaders need to learn about Buddhism first."
In this April 27, 2021 file photo, attorneys for the family of Andrew Brown Jr., Wayne Kendall, left, and Ben Crump hold a news conference outside the Pasquotank County Public safety building in Elizabeth City, N.C., to announce results of the autopsy they commissioned. (photo: Travis Long/The News & Observer/AP)
Killing of Andrew Brown Jr. Sparks Debate Over Police Shooting at Cars
Ben Finley and Denise LaVoie, Associated Press
Excerpt: "Police departments across the U.S. - including in large cities such as New York and Denver - strictly limit shooting at moving vehicles because they consider the practice ineffective and not worth the risk to human life."
But dozens of shootings still occur each year — with deadly results — because many departments continue to give officers too much leeway to open fire, according to groups advocating for stricter policies.
Last month, sheriff’s deputies fatally shot an unarmed Black man in his car as he appeared to drive away in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. The deputies were cleared Tuesday by a prosecutor who said that Andrew Brown Jr. was using his BMW as a “deadly weapon.”
Police-reform advocates say officers should only fire if deadly force other than the vehicle is being used, or to stop terrorism. And while not all law enforcement experts agree, the issue is among many practices that are being scrutinized amid nationwide calls for police reform and racial justice sparked by George Floyd’s death in police custody last May.
Several cities, including Phoenix, have enacted stricter policies since June 2020 and more are considering them, according to the advocacy group Campaign Zero. Cities that already have strong restrictions include Las Vegas, Miami and San Francisco.
The body camera footage in North Carolina shows six Pasquotank County sheriff's deputies surrounding Brown's car with guns drawn while serving drug-related warrants at his Elizabeth City home.
The video shows one of the deputies putting his hand on the driver’s side door, then yelling and recoiling as Brown backs up. Seconds later, the same deputy appears to be in the path of the car as Brown moves forward.
The deputy avoids a direct hit after pushing his hand onto the moving car’s hood and quickly moving aside. Gunshots are then heard, and officers appear to continue firing as the car moves away from them. Brown was killed by a bullet to the back of his head.
District Attorney Andrew Womble, who showed the footage at a news conference, said the shooting was justified.
“When you employ a car in a manner that puts officers' lives in danger, that is a threat,” Womble said. “And I don’t care what direction you’re going — forward, backward, sideways. I don’t care if you’re stationary. And neither do our courts and our case law.”
The Rev. Al Sharpton, who eulogized Brown at his funeral, said in a statement that Womble's justification was “bizarre” and “unconvincing." Kirk Rivers, a community activist in Elizabeth City, said deputies “made the car a weapon by standing in front of it.”
Some law enforcement experts say firing at moving vehicles should be avoided.
“Unless someone in the car is shooting at police officers, you can get that car another day — but you cannot get that life back,” said Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Washington-based Police Executive Research Forum, a nonprofit, independent group that studies policing issues.
“The whole idea is not to put yourself in a position where you feel you have no choice but to use deadly force,” Wexler said. “We don’t want police officers to stand in front of cars to risk their lives. And we don’t want them shooting at vehicles to risk life.”
The Pasquotank County sheriff's use-of-force policy says deputies should move out of a car's path instead of shooting at it, “when feasible.”
The policy also states that a deputy should only fire when he or she “reasonably believes there are no other reasonable means available.”
Wexler said such a policy gives too much leeway to deputies to put themselves in danger — and to open fire. The rules, he said, have to be “very restrictive and accompanied by training."
In a 2016 report, the Police Executive Research Forum called for strict limits on firing at vehicles unless other force is being used. It cited a reduction in lethal force cases resulting from New York City's policy.
Shootings by the city's police declined from nearly 1,000 a year in 1972 to 665 the following year, "and have fallen steadily ever since, to fewer than 100 per year today,” the report stated.
New York City changed its policy in 1972 after an officer shot an 11-year-old boy who was fleeing in a stolen car. The city of Denver made a similar change after a 17-year-old girl was fatally shot as she drove a stolen vehicle toward an officer in 2015.
Earlier this year, Phoenix enacted a stricter policy on shooting at moving vehicles. It makes an exception for when there is a threat other than the vehicle itself. And it makes an exception for apparent terrorist acts.
Samuel Sinyangwe, a data scientist and co-founder of Campaign Zero, said 55 people were killed by police last year in situations where a moving vehicle was the only alleged threat.
“Every single year, we’re tracking 50, 60, 70 people who are being killed by the police in these situations,” Sinyangwe said.
When officers shoot into moving vehicles, criminal charges are rare. Phil Stinson, a criminologist at Bowling Green State University, said he's aware of 11 police officers in the U.S. since 2005 who’ve been charged with murder or manslaughter after they shot someone who they claimed used their car as a weapon.
But some law enforcement experts argue officers must have leeway in rare instances where they could be saving their own lives or others.
“We can’t imagine every scenario,” said Brian Higgins, a public safety consultant and former police chief in New Jersey. “You just don’t know if an officer has no choice.”
Higgins, an adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said internal affairs investigations and state and federal probes also hold officers accountable.
“To make an automatic blanket statement that it should never, ever happen is not feasible,” he said.
Sunday Song: Gil Scott-Heron | The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
Gil Scott-Heron, YouTube
Excerpt: "The revolution will not be televised. The revolution will not be brought to you by Xerox."
Gil Scott Heron, an American Rap pioneer, acoustic poet, trend setter and influencer of minds. He has passed on but he lives on. (photo: Michael Ochs /Getty)
You will not be able to stay home, brother
You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out
You will not be able to lose yourself on skag
And skip out for beer during commercials
Because the revolution will not be televised
The revolution will not be televised
The revolution will not be brought to you by Xerox
In 4 parts without commercial interruptions
The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon
Blowing a bugle and leading a charge by John Mitchell
General Abrams and Spiro Agnew to eat hog maws
Confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary
The revolution will not be televised
The revolution will not be brought to you by the
Schaefer Award Theater and will not star Natalie Woods
And Steve McQueen or Bullwinkle and Julia
The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal
The revolution will not get rid of the nubs
The revolution will not make you look five pounds thinner
Because the revolution will not be televised, Brother
There will be no pictures of you and Willie May
Pushing that shopping cart down the block on the dead run
Or trying to slide that color TV into a stolen ambulance
NBC will not be able predict the winner at 8:32
Or report from 29 districts
The revolution will not be televised
There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
Brothers on the instant replay
There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
Brothers on the instant replay
There will be no pictures of Whitney Young
Being run out of Harlem on a rail with a brand new process
There will be no slow motion or still life of Roy Wilkens
Strolling through Watts in a red, black and green
Liberation jumpsuit that he had been saving
For just the proper occasion
Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies and Hooter ville Junction
Will no longer be so damned relevant
And women will not care if Dick finally gets down with Jane
On search for tomorrow because black people
Will be in the street looking for a brighter day
The revolution will not be televised
There will be no highlights on the eleven o'clock news
And no pictures of hairy armed women liberationists
And Jackie Onassis blowing her nose
The theme song will not be written by Jim Webb
Francis Scott Key, nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom Jones
Johnny Cash, Englebert Humperdink or the Rare Earth
The revolution will not be televised
The revolution will not be right back after a message
About a white tornado, white lightning, or white people
You will not have to worry about a dove in your bedroom
The tiger in your tank or the giant in your toilet bowl
The revolution will not go better with Coke
The revolution will not fight the germs that may cause bad breath
The revolution will put you in the driver's seat
The revolution will not be televised, will not be televised
Will not be televised, will not be televised
The revolution will be no re-run brothers
The revolution will be live
Mexico City. (photo: iStock/Getty Images/Science Alert)
Mexico City Could Sink Up to 65 Feet
Matt Simon, Grist
Simon writes: "The foundation of the problem is Mexico City's bad foundation."
Due to a phenomenon called subsidence, the metropolis's landscape is compacting — and parts of the city are now dropping a foot and a half each year.
hen DarÃo Solano-Rojas moved from his hometown of Cuernavaca to Mexico City to study at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the layout of the metropolis confused him. Not the grid itself, mind you, but the way that the built environment seemed to be in tumult, like a surrealist painting. “What surprised me was that everything was kind of twisted and tilted,” says Solano‐Rojas. “At that time, I didn’t know what it was about. I just thought, ‘Oh, well, the city is so much different than my hometown.’”
Different, it turned out, in a bad way. Picking up the study of geology at the university, Solano‐Rojas met geophysicist Enrique Cabral-Cano, who was actually researching the surprising reason for that infrastructural chaos: The city was sinking — big time. It’s the result of a geological phenomenon called subsidence, which usually happens when too much water is drawn from underground, and the land above begins to compact. According to new modeling by the two researchers and their colleagues, parts of the city are sinking as much as 20 inches a year. In the next century and a half, they calculate, areas could drop by as much as 65 feet. Spots just outside Mexico City proper could sink 100 feet. That twisting and tilting Solano‐Rojas noticed was just the start of a slow-motion crisis for 9.2 million people in the fastest-sinking city on Earth.
The foundation of the problem is Mexico City’s bad foundation. The Aztec people built their capital of Tenochtitlan on an island in Lake Texcoco, which is nestled in a basin surrounded by mountains. When the Spanish arrived, destroyed Tenochtitlan, and massacred its people, they began draining the lake and building on top of it. Bit by bit, the metropolis that became modern-day Mexico City sprawled, until the lake was no more.
And that set in motion the physical changes that began the sinking of the city. When the lake sediment under Mexico City was still wet, its component particles of clay were arranged in a disorganized manner. Think about throwing plates into a sink, willy-nilly — their random orientations allow lots of liquid to flow between them. But remove the water — as Mexico City’s planners did when they drained the lake in the first place, and as the city has done since then by tapping the ground as an aquifer — and those particles rearrange themselves to stack neatly, like plates put away in a cupboard. With less space between the particles, the sediment compacts. Or think of it like applying a clay face mask. As the mask dries, you can feel it tightening against your skin. “It’s losing water and it’s losing volume,” says Solano‐Rojas.
Mexico City officials actually recognized the subsidence problem in the late 1800s, when they saw buildings sinking and began taking measurements. That gave Solano‐Rojas and Cabral-Cano valuable historic data, which they combined with satellite measurements taken over the past 25 years. By firing radar waves at the ground, these orbiters measure in fine detail — a resolution of 100 feet — how surface elevations have been changing across the city.
Using this data, the researchers calculated that it’ll take another 150 years for Mexico City’s sediment to totally compact, although their new modeling shows that subsidence rates will actually vary from block to block. (That’s why Solano‐Rojas noticed tilted architecture when he first arrived.) The thicker the clay in a given area, the faster it’s sinking. Other areas, particularly in the city’s outskirts, might not sink much at all because they’re sitting on rock instead of sediment.
That sounds like a relief, but it actually exacerbates the situation because it creates a dangerous differential. If the whole city sank uniformly, it’d be a problem, to be sure. But because some parts are slumping dramatically and others aren’t, the infrastructure that spans the two zones is sinking in some areas but staying at the same elevation in others. And that threatens to break roads, metro networks, and sewer systems. “Subsidence by itself may not be a terrible issue,” says Cabral-Cano. “But it’s the difference in this subsidence velocity that really puts all civil structures under different stresses.”
This is not just Mexico City’s problem. Wherever humans are extracting too much water from aquifers, the land is subsiding in response. Jakarta, Indonesia is sinking up to ten inches a year, and California’s San Joaquin Valley has sunk 28 feet. “It goes back centuries. The human thought was that this [water] is an unlimited supply,” says Arizona State University geophysicist Manoochehr Shirzaei, who studies subsidence but wasn’t involved in this new research. “Wherever you want, you can poke a hole in the ground and suck it out.” Historically, pumping groundwater has solved communities’ immediate problems — keeping people and crops alive — but created a much longer-term disaster. A study earlier this year found that by the year 2040, 1.6 billion people could be affected by subsidence.
But if the problem is that the ground isn’t wet enough, couldn’t engineers in Mexico City just inject water into the clay sediment to, well … re-inflate it? “The answer to that is, unfortunately, no. We would not be able to see the ground go back up,” says University of Oregon geophysicist Estelle Chaussard, lead author of a new paper with Cabral-Cano and Solano‐Rojas describing the modeling. “Almost the entirety of the subsidence that we’re seeing is irreversible.” (The researchers got straight to the point in their paper, titling it: “Over a Century of Sinking in Mexico City: No Hope for Significant Elevation and Storage Capacity Recovery.”)
This process of compacting the clay is hard to undo, Solano‐Rojas agrees. At best, previous attempts to re-inject groundwater elsewhere around the world have found that they only gained back an inch or so of elevation. Think of those stacked dishes — and particles — again. Or how hard it is to re-wet your dried clay mask to scrub it off. “When it gets dry, it’s really hard to put water back into the clay,” he says, because “the structure of the clay changes. And these kinds of plates, or kinds of sheets, rearrange and don’t allow the water to go back into its structure.”
From studying subsidence as a global phenomenon, scientists know that halting groundwater extraction can stop the sinking — but it’s not a guarantee. Indeed, these researchers are finding parts of Mexico City that have kept on sinking after water extraction there has ceased. “That means that our buildings and everything built on top of the surface loses elevation, and that’s lost forever,” says Cabral-Cano. “And worst of all, the capacity of the aquifer to store water is severely diminished.”
It might make you wonder how much this will cost the city in the long run. These researchers are actually currently working on that calculation. “We suspect that the final cost is going to be much larger than a very large earthquake, because it happens every day, every second,” says Cabral-Cano. “The city goes down — relentlessly, it goes down.”
Mexico City is 573 square miles of roads, pipes, public transportation, cables, and buildings. After a big earthquake, the city will calculate the cost to repair the infrastructure and get to it. But subsidence is a perpetual problem: Patch a road or building foundation one year, and it might be broken again the next. A government might be able to throw money at this crisis, but most homeowners can’t. “There are vast amounts of areas where the damage is not just a slightly tilted sidewalk,” says Cabral-Cano. “It’s somebody’s house. And a very, very large majority of houses in Mexico do not have insurance for structural damage.”
For the residents of Mexico City, that’s going to add up to a whole lot of money. And Cabral-Cano thinks it’s important to do that math. “It’s not until you have a solid number — and it becomes a very large number — [that] we think that city managers are going to be looking at this more carefully,” he says.
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