Adios to the white princess…
Take a good look at Iztaccíhuatl while you can… her glacier may be completely gone within ten years, due to climate change, according to Hugo Delgado Granados of UNAM’s Department of Geophysical Sciences. Should Iztaccíhuatl lose her snow cap, the loss will be more than aesthetic… the glacier is holding in place tons of boulders which will come crashing down and will release mudslides and floods on the agricultural lands below.
Iztaccíhuatl– the “white princess” — is one of the more dramatic sights in Mexico City. Although I saw it a couple of times a week while teaching a class at a plastics factory in Tlahuac, taking the bus east from the Taxquena Metro Station this was always an impressive sight as we crossed into Tlahuac. She is the princess guarded (we thought) for all eternity by her faithful warrior lover, Popaca, the Romeo of the Aztec “Romeo and Juliet” who still — literally — bears a torch for her. She rests uneasily under her white blanket… we thought… safe forever and and a mainstay of kitsch calendar art:
mexfiles.net 