Speaker 1: Welcome. This is Marsha for RADIOI, and today I will
Speaker 1: be reading National Geographic magazine dated September twenty twenty five,
Speaker 1: which is donated by the publisher. As a reminder. RADIOI
Speaker 1: is a reading service intended for people who are blind
Speaker 1: or have other disabilities that make it difficult to read
Speaker 1: printed material. Please join me now for the continuation of
Speaker 1: the article I began last time, entitled The Great Moon
Speaker 1: Rush by Charles Fishman. For the imaginable future, any company
Speaker 1: or nation or science institution operating on the Moon will
Speaker 1: be operating from Earth, which is where the enforcement leverage
Speaker 1: comes from and where any sanctions can be imposed. And
Speaker 1: one of the unspoken rules of the High Seas is
Speaker 1: that presence matters. The US has eleven aircraft carrier strike
Speaker 1: groups for the Seven Seas. The Chinese Navy has added
Speaker 1: ships steadily in the past decade and now has more
Speaker 1: warships than the U. S. Navy. The same principle will
Speaker 1: be visvidly true on the now empty Moon. This Moon
Speaker 1: race is about adventure, opportunity, science, but also presence. Whoever's
Speaker 1: activity is dominant on the Moon will most powerfully influence
Speaker 1: its rules and shape its future. Going to the Moon
Speaker 1: to live in. Work will demand the combination of hubris
Speaker 1: and humility that other crazy human enterprises have required the
Speaker 1: Transcontinental Railroad and the Trek to the Poles, the invention
Speaker 1: of the Internet, than the original moon landings themselves. We
Speaker 1: are certainly underestimating the consequences, as we did with each
Speaker 1: of those projects. The Moon is going to be harder
Speaker 1: in reality than everyone hopes. Since twenty eighteen, there have
Speaker 1: been fifteen missions to put landers on the surface of
Speaker 1: the Moon from a range of countries and companies. Only
Speaker 1: six succeeded a sixty percent failure rate. With twenty first
Speaker 1: century technology, one pioneering company, Intuitive Machines, became the first
Speaker 1: private company to soft land a spacecraft on the Moon
Speaker 1: and not crash, something only five nations have done. Intuitive
Speaker 1: Machines did this twice, stunning achievements for a small company,
Speaker 1: and both landers survived their arrivals on the Moon, but
Speaker 1: they weren't able to perform their missions for a simple,
Speaker 1: sobering reason. In each case, as it landed on the
Speaker 1: uneven terrain near the Moon's south pool, the spacecraft toppled over,
Speaker 1: rendering it mostly useless. After years of work and tens
Speaker 1: of millions of dollars in investment. If the Moon proves
Speaker 1: harder than companies like Intuitive Machines hope their investors could
Speaker 1: get exhausted if the promise of water fades, so could
Speaker 1: invest your enthusiasm. We could spend two decades trying to
Speaker 1: make life on the Moon work, trying to spark a
Speaker 1: self sustaining moon or economy, and it could all peter out,
Speaker 1: leaving the Moon littered with the remnants of what could
Speaker 1: have been moon bases, much the way terrestrial developments stall,
Speaker 1: leaving robar sticking up from half finished walls. Those would
Speaker 1: stay on the Moon a test to our failures for
Speaker 1: millions of years. Indeed, the Moon is about to be
Speaker 1: a very busy place, with eighty four announced national and
Speaker 1: commercial missions just between now and twenty thirty. Economics will
Speaker 1: ultimately drive what happens after. But what's so striking is
Speaker 1: a different motivation, expressed equally by the entrepreneurs, the engineers,
Speaker 1: the scientists, the astrophysicists like Joseph Silk and Nivedita Mahesh. Wonder.
Speaker 1: Our fascination and appreciation for the Moon are built on wonder.
Speaker 1: You can feel the wonder here on Earth. When you
Speaker 1: step outside on a summer evening and a full moon
Speaker 1: is rising, low and large and shining on the horizon,
Speaker 1: you can feel the wonder and the hypnotic appeal of
Speaker 1: pictures from the Moon's surface. You can hear the wonder
Speaker 1: in the voices of the Apollo astronauts from the surface.
Speaker 1: Wonder is driving the age of the new Moon as
Speaker 1: much as opportunity. Far reach is a stretch, as is
Speaker 1: the life spotting hyper telescope, but no more than the
Speaker 1: Apollo missions, or the Internet or the Manhattan Project. Mahesh
Speaker 1: hopes Farview's team will see some test radio antennas on
Speaker 1: the Moon as soon as next year, with a larger
Speaker 1: array as soon as twenty thirty. To install one hundred
Speaker 1: thousand antennas, she says, you first have to do one.
Speaker 1: Understanding the astrophysics of the thirteen point eight billion year
Speaker 1: old universe has tremendous urgency for Mahesh, driven by both
Speaker 1: the opportunity the moment presents and the wonder. How could
Speaker 1: we not explain the origins of the universe If we
Speaker 1: have the ability to do it, we have to complete
Speaker 1: the pictures, says Mahesh. Don't don't we want to know
Speaker 1: where the first star came from? We are Stardust, don't
Speaker 1: we want to know where we came from? This is
Speaker 1: the only way to do it. How to start building
Speaker 1: on the Moon. The next several decades will stand out
Speaker 1: as unlike any others in the Moon's four point five
Speaker 1: billion year history. If all goes to plan, the Moon
Speaker 1: will become an outpost, perhaps with a bit of the
Speaker 1: feel of a nineteen fifty sci fi show crossed with
Speaker 1: the industrial outskirts of Newark Airport. By twenty eighty, there
Speaker 1: could be a thriving lunar economy supporting game changing science.
Speaker 1: But to build it, scientists and engineers will need to
Speaker 1: start small and take three million three milestone steps. Phase
Speaker 1: one build with dirt. Rocket launchers are pricey. To keep
Speaker 1: costs down, will need to start working with the most
Speaker 1: abundant resource already on the Moon, mega regolith or lunar soil.
Speaker 1: Phase two develop lunar power. A permanent base will need
Speaker 1: to be self supporting with its own electric power sources
Speaker 1: to grow food and protect people's long term well being.
Speaker 1: Phase three open for business. A lunar base will thrive
Speaker 1: only if it can stain itself economically selling rare and
Speaker 1: valuable resources back to Earth, like minerals or electric power.
Speaker 1: Next article What Katrina taught us. Two decades after the
Speaker 1: hurricane devastated New Orleans, fourteen billion dollars has been spent
Speaker 1: on an elaborate coastal defense system. Will it be enough
Speaker 1: to stop the next vegas storm? It's been twenty years
Speaker 1: since Hurricane Katrina made landfall in coastal Louisiana, leaving nearly
Speaker 1: fourteen hundred dead and causing some one hundred twenty five
Speaker 1: billion dollars in damage. Much of the devastation resulted from
Speaker 1: huge volumes of water that heaved inland via estuaries and canals,
Speaker 1: flooding New Orleans. Healthy coastal wetlands would have absorbed some
Speaker 1: of that storm surge had decades of development not wrecked
Speaker 1: habit on the Delta. Shipping canals and oil infrastructure up
Speaker 1: ended its hydrology. Dams and levees robbed it of replenishing sediment.
Speaker 1: Months after the storm, Louisiana created the Coastal Protection and
Speaker 1: Restoration Authority, a state agency that developed a fifty year
Speaker 1: blueprint to prevent land loss and build infrastructure augmenting coasts
Speaker 1: natural defenses. Louisiana has since spent nearly fourteen billion dollars
Speaker 1: on some one hundred seventy projects, though not without setbacks.
Speaker 1: Earlier this year, after bemooning costs and impacts on fisheries,
Speaker 1: the governor suspended a cornerstone of the plan that would
Speaker 1: have diverted fresh water and sediment to a much eroded basin.
Speaker 1: Questions linger about funding another roughly thirty years and thirty
Speaker 1: billion dollars worth of projects. Sure it's expensive, says Alex Kolker,
Speaker 1: a climate scientist with the Louisiana University's Marine Consortium, but
Speaker 1: the cost of another Katrina would be over one hundred
Speaker 1: billion dollars. Here's a detailed look at what the state
Speaker 1: has accomplished and what yet can be done to bolster
Speaker 1: a fragile, critical ups landscape. This by Boyce uphold protecting
Speaker 1: a vulnerable coast. Informed by the catastrophe of Hurricane Katrina,
Speaker 1: Louisiana's efforts to better withstand storms and rising seas today
Speaker 1: take two forms. Built defenses and restored natural ones. Projects
Speaker 1: aim to prevent both catastrophic flooding and land loss. Water
Speaker 1: In this infrared satellite map appears black next ninety nine
Speaker 1: point nine nine nine percent of the deep sea is
Speaker 1: a mystery. Katy Croft Bell is on a mission to
Speaker 1: change that by deploying a new tool to help scientists
Speaker 1: get eyes on the murky depths. This article by Andrew S.
Speaker 1: Lewis we know almost nothing about the deep sea floor.
Speaker 1: After decades of exploration, it is still the least understood
Speaker 1: habitat on Earth. This blind spot has long vex's National
Speaker 1: Geographic Explorer, katy Croft Bell, who has led dozens of
Speaker 1: ocean expeditions around the world. After all, the deep sea
Speaker 1: encompasses some two thirds of the globe and plays a
Speaker 1: key role in sequestrian carbon and regulating the climate. So
Speaker 1: Bell and a few other researchers recently set out to
Speaker 1: quantify the gaps in our knowledge. The results were even
Speaker 1: worse than they thought. A mere point zero zero one
Speaker 1: percent of the deep sea floor has been visually observed.
Speaker 1: They found that though there have been some forty four
Speaker 1: thousand deep sea dives since the nineteen fifties, many surveyed
Speaker 1: the same sites, resulting in only about twelve thousand unique
Speaker 1: locations explored. Their findings also revealed that just five high
Speaker 1: income countries have been responsible for nearly all the dives.
Speaker 1: The cost of deep sea research is partly to blame
Speaker 1: for this monopoly. The price of an advanced tool like
Speaker 1: a deep submergence vehicle ranges from tens of thousands to
Speaker 1: millions of dollars. For almost a decade, Bell has been
Speaker 1: working to make the deep sea more accessible. Her pace
Speaker 1: picked up in twenty eighteen when she convened nearly two
Speaker 1: hundred fifty researchers at the MIT Media Lab to discuss
Speaker 1: ways to increase our knowledge of the seafloor, from cheaper
Speaker 1: sensors and machine learning to community engagement in robotics. By
Speaker 1: the events close, Bell had a realization, why couldn't one
Speaker 1: piece of technology be cheap to make, easy to operate
Speaker 1: and suited for a wide variety of vessels that could
Speaker 1: transform the field, Bell recalls thinking and really accelerate our
Speaker 1: understanding of the deep ocean. The veteran ocean researcher decided
Speaker 1: to make it a reality. Fast forward seven years and
Speaker 1: Bell is on the cusp of debuting debuting a revolutionary
Speaker 1: deep submergence vehicle that has many features of the multimillion
Speaker 1: dollar devices, but at a cost of less than ten
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. It will be a total game changer, Bell says,
Speaker 1: not much bigger than a scuba tank. The tool is
Speaker 1: being built to withstand the immense pressure that exists twenty
Speaker 1: thousand feet below the water's surface, allowing it to reach
Speaker 1: ninety eight percent of the ocean floor. Bell and her
Speaker 1: colleagues at the Ocean Discovery ODL, a nonprofit she founded
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty one, named it the Deep Ocean Research
Speaker 1: and Imaging System DORIS. The finished product will be equipped
Speaker 1: with sensors to detect temperature, depth, and saliginity, but its
Speaker 1: primary goal is to capture footage with its four K
Speaker 1: still in video cameras, which will help scientists better understand
Speaker 1: the measurements and samples taken from the seafloor. And the
Speaker 1: development process has the attention of major players. ODEL is
Speaker 1: creating the prototype in partnership with tech company Blue Robotics
Speaker 1: and receiving funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,
Speaker 1: among others. Future upgrades will include the ability to collect
Speaker 1: samples in audio. Bell's team is also collaborating with the
Speaker 1: Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute to create machine learning models
Speaker 1: that can rapidly analyze all the data that the tool retrieves.
Speaker 1: Bell and her odl colleagues identified thousands of locations that
Speaker 1: would greatly diversify and increase the number of surveyed sites,
Speaker 1: including spots in the Southern Ocean and the pacifics Clarion
Speaker 1: Clipperton Zone. Exploring these points would effectively double the number
Speaker 1: of unique locations around the world that we've seen. Bell
Speaker 1: says Doris will help with that because of its small
Speaker 1: size and ease of deployment. The new device will be
Speaker 1: launched from vessels not typically used for deep sea research.
Speaker 1: One example is the Ho Kulai, a double hulled canoe
Speaker 1: used by the Polynesian Voyaging Society PVS, an organization working
Speaker 1: to expand knowledge of traditional navigation techniques. Bell collaborated with
Speaker 1: PVS as she tested early low cost instruments, and the
Speaker 1: Hawaii based organization is planning to use a Doris prototype
Speaker 1: on an upcoming journey across the Pacific. The quest will
Speaker 1: be partially supported by National Geographic and Rolex Perpetual Places
Speaker 1: Ocean Expeditions, an ambitious effort that's dispatching a number of
Speaker 1: scientists to study the world's five oceans. She also will
Speaker 1: be working with other explorers on the multi year project
Speaker 1: to deploy the new tech on their research trips. Bill
Speaker 1: has never been more excited about the potential for discovery.
Speaker 1: What's left in the ninety nine point nine ninety nine
Speaker 1: percent that we haven't seen yet. While Mexico's train of
Speaker 1: the future leave its past behind, the trend Maya Railway
Speaker 1: was built to unite the country and honor ancient Maya sytes.
Speaker 1: Now there are questions about what exactly has disappeared along
Speaker 1: its path. This article by Michael Finkel. Roberto Royo was
Speaker 1: inside the cave when the roof cracked open and a
Speaker 1: massive drill churned, thundering through stalactites. Stumbling, Rojo ducked for cover,
Speaker 1: holding out his phone, the biologist and outspoken cave explorer
Speaker 1: capturing the moment that a spectacular limestone chamber in the
Speaker 1: Yucatan Peninsula of southeastern Mexico was destroyed. A rusty steel
Speaker 1: pillar about four feet in diameter and eighty feet tall,
Speaker 1: was later jammed into the hole by the industrial drig rig.
Speaker 1: Drill rig on the surface above the hollow pillar was
Speaker 1: pumped full of cement, some of which spilled into the
Speaker 1: crystalline water, partially filling the senote as a sinkhole or
Speaker 1: cave system with an underground reservoir is known rust flakes
Speaker 1: shedding from the pillar, mixed with loose cement, and a
Speaker 1: dark stain spread across the pool. Nearby, a second hole
Speaker 1: was punched and another pillar inserted, then a third, then
Speaker 1: a fourth. There are now forty pillars in this senote alone,
Speaker 1: marching through in rows of four by Rojos count more
Speaker 1: than fifteen thousand pillars have been stabbed into the thin
Speaker 1: Yucatan soil and a salt that may trigger a chain reaction.
Speaker 1: The Yucatan Peninsula is bigger than Florida, but because it's
Speaker 1: made of porous limestone, much of the region has no
Speaker 1: rivers or lakes. The widespread sonotes are a crucial source
Speaker 1: of fresh water, sustaining hundreds of species from jaguars to tapirs,
Speaker 1: as well as millions of Mexican citizens and all of
Speaker 1: the Taurus Maya. People have placed ceremonial objects in senotes
Speaker 1: for over a thousand years. Most critically, many of the
Speaker 1: senotes are interconnected ruin some of the water, says Rojo,
Speaker 1: and you risk at all and they drain to the sea.
Speaker 1: So Ooze from the pillars also attacks the Mezzo American
Speaker 1: reef and the beaches of Cancun and the mangroves, buttressing
Speaker 1: the coast, as well as the jungle and its wildlife.
Speaker 1: Everything in Rojo's perspective could be lost and echo side.
Speaker 1: He calls it all for the sake of a train trend.
Speaker 1: Maya slides into the station, air conditioning pumping spotlessly clean
Speaker 1: the seats and aisles in trim tinted teal or aquamarine.
Speaker 1: Like the sea beyond cancuons termin all sleekly curved walls
Speaker 1: and planters bursting with greenery clarifies why this is one
Speaker 1: of the most expensive infrastructure projects in modern Mexican history.
Speaker 1: The system fully opened in December twenty twenty four, costing
Speaker 1: an estimated thirty billion dollars and creating a grand loop
Speaker 1: around the Yucatan Peninsula, nine hundred sixty six miles of rail,
Speaker 1: thirty four stops, and more than three dozen trains moving
Speaker 1: in both directions at up to one hundred miles per hour.
Speaker 1: Some tracks sits on elevated viaducts supported by steel pillars
Speaker 1: that have been stuccoed above ground demurely in white. The
Speaker 1: train is an incredcredible achievements. As a cologist and cave diver,
Speaker 1: German yan Yez one of the few people who love
Speaker 1: exploring the senote is as much as Robert Roho. The
Speaker 1: two of them were once close best friends, says Rojo,
Speaker 1: and started a caving club together. Now they hardly speak.
Speaker 1: Trenbaya divided them, as it has cleaved friendships and families
Speaker 1: across Mexico and beyond. How could a train so innocuous
Speaker 1: stir up terrible fights? The conflicts are both grand and
Speaker 1: not the direction of a nation. The price of a
Speaker 1: bier and tenned to polarize society. There's a battle between
Speaker 1: those with a far sighted need to preserve the last
Speaker 1: scraps of wild mother Earth and those who understand that
Speaker 1: human impact, unstoppable since our species was born, should be
Speaker 1: celebrated when you feel it's been appropriately wrought. Tran Maaya
Speaker 1: was a result is a project that's seen with two
Speaker 1: sets of eyes. When construction started in twenty twenty, Yanyas
Speaker 1: and Roho were both drawn to the senotes beneath the route,
Speaker 1: but while Roho documented ruin, Yanyes helped seek treasure. For
Speaker 1: two years, Yanyas was employed by Mexico's government and worked
Speaker 1: closely with members of the National Institute of Anthropology and History,
Speaker 1: a respected Mexican office that oversees the nation's cultural heritage
Speaker 1: from museums to pyramids. The Institute's field unit assesses the
Speaker 1: archaeological impact of proposed public works, and for tran Maya,
Speaker 1: an unprecedented team of two thousand was assembled, including scientists
Speaker 1: and support staff, who combed the jungle along the planned circuit.
Speaker 1: It was the job of my dreams as Yanyas, who
Speaker 1: was the underwater mapping division and assisted in dozens of fines,
Speaker 1: including the first intact Maya canoe discovered in the region,
Speaker 1: believed to be from around a D nine hundred. Likely
Speaker 1: it will be displayed in one of the nine new
Speaker 1: museums being built that will highlight trand Maya discoveries. Yanyas,
Speaker 1: unlike Rojo, was actually on the job site every day
Speaker 1: in uniform part of the crew, from track layers to archaeologists.
Speaker 1: Yanyas says he sensed dedication in national pride, a belief
Speaker 1: that the work was important because to them it was
Speaker 1: the Yucatan Peninsula beyond that the tourist strips has long
Speaker 1: been neglected with areas of extreme poverty, tran Maya has
Speaker 1: the power to change that. In addition to taking passengers,
Speaker 1: the rail line will soon carry large quantities of cargo,
Speaker 1: which should reduce the price of goods from beef to
Speaker 1: beer informally remote areas and let farmers efficiently transport produce.
Speaker 1: Tourists and their cash will be distributed more equitably throughout
Speaker 1: the peninsula. Ticket prices for locals make the train cheaper
Speaker 1: than the bus. A study by the United Nations estimates
Speaker 1: that by twenty thirty, the economic boost from Tranmyah will
Speaker 1: generate more than nine hundred thousand new jobs and lift
Speaker 1: one point one million people out of poverty. It's the
Speaker 1: ideal project at the right time, supporters say, launching an
Speaker 1: improvised region impoverished region into the future. Not building this
Speaker 1: modern marvel would be would have been tragic. Without a train,
Speaker 1: the area's population growth may have necessitated a more ecologically
Speaker 1: damaging old fashioned highway. Even the pillars, to some are beneficial.
Speaker 1: Elevating the train preserves the natural flow of the wildlife
Speaker 1: beneath instead of fragmenting habitats. Rojo has documented one hundred
Speaker 1: twenty senotes the pillars have pierced, which means Yanettes notes
Speaker 1: that at least ten thousand others are unharmed. As for
Speaker 1: contaminating the aquifer, sanitation experts believe a greater culprit than
Speaker 1: pillars is a lack of proper sewage disposal in the area,
Speaker 1: and the monetary stimulus of the train should help fix that.
Speaker 1: Trand Maya, says Yanyez won't kill the Yucatan, It's going
Speaker 1: to save it. Circling south out of Cancun, the train
Speaker 1: rolls through jungle inland of the famous beach resorts. The
Speaker 1: ground level tracks here have sliced open one of the
Speaker 1: last places in Mexico with vast healthy forest. Otto Fahan Beartrop,
Speaker 1: a Mexican journalist and owner of a tour guiding business,
Speaker 1: has spent years investigating tran Maya and claims that anyone
Speaker 1: who supports it has been brainwashed by government propaganda. Yanyas
Speaker 1: and Rojo fought chiefly over tolerance for ecological harm, but
Speaker 1: the van Bertrub family, like many others, is attempting to
Speaker 1: maintain cordial relations while clashing over politics and sociology. Too,
Speaker 1: and what it means to be Mexican. Etienne van bertrub
Speaker 1: Otto's first cousin, their fathers are brothers, is an academic
Speaker 1: specializing in sustainable development who has also intensely studied tran
Speaker 1: Maya and believes that many opposed to it have been
Speaker 1: blinded by dislike of Mexico's new leadership. Tranmaya is the
Speaker 1: pet project of former President andres Manoel Lopez Obrador, known
Speaker 1: as AMLO, who brought a progressive outlet to the Mexican
Speaker 1: government for the first time in decades when elected in
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen on a platform focused on reducing poverty. Amlo
Speaker 1: mentioned the train in his inaugural address and swiftly launched construction,
Speaker 1: which finished soon after his chosen successor, Claudia Scheinbaum, became
Speaker 1: president in twenty twenty four. To keep the project moving,
Speaker 1: believes Atto van Bertraub Amlo breezenly lied. The president stated
Speaker 1: repeatedly that not one tree will be cut because the
Speaker 1: train will be built over abandoned rail lines. In truth,
Speaker 1: millions of trees were felled, and much of the route
Speaker 1: is far from old tracks to protect wildlife. Where the
Speaker 1: train wasn't elevated. The government promised to install animal crossings.
Speaker 1: Plans distributed to the media showed wide, gently sloping overpasses
Speaker 1: designed to look natural with trees and shrubs. None have
Speaker 1: yet been built. Otto reported on such deceptions for the
Speaker 1: Yucatan newspaper La Jornada Maya. He joined forces with the
Speaker 1: Roho and other anti train activists. Rojo's videos of the
Speaker 1: pillars were widely distributed. Dozens of Mexican scientists and academics
Speaker 1: signed letters pleading for construction to halt. Mexican singers, actors,
Speaker 1: and artists recorded video was begging the government to conserve
Speaker 1: the forest. Demonstrations were staged in fresh clear cuts. Some
Speaker 1: protesters cuffed themselves to machinery. Journalists around the world took notice.
Speaker 1: A New York Times headline announced that the project barrels
Speaker 1: towards disaster. The reaction of the government, expressed in Omlo's
Speaker 1: televised speches and social media posts, was to imply that
Speaker 1: those who opposed the train were traders enemies of Mexican progress.
Speaker 1: That's when I got my first threatening calls, says Otto.
Speaker 1: He has warned he could be disappeared, a terrifying concern
Speaker 1: in Mexico, whereover a dozen environmental protesters are murdered each year,
Speaker 1: more than anywhere else in the world except Columbia, according
Speaker 1: to the non profit agency Global Witness. Fearful for his life,
Speaker 1: Otto fell silent. I couldn't write any more. It was
Speaker 1: too dangerous. He lauds the bravery of people like Rojo,
Speaker 1: who kept up the drum beat, repeatedly pointing out the
Speaker 1: project was illegal as the mandated environmental impact statements were
Speaker 1: never completed. AMLO's response in November twenty twenty one was
Speaker 1: to declare that the train was a matter of national security. Further,
Speaker 1: AMLO put the Mexican military in charge of the project's
Speaker 1: construction and operation, and with these strong arm tactics, as
Speaker 1: Otto views them, the president by passed the need for
Speaker 1: environmental assessments. In May twenty twenty three, the Mexico Supreme
Speaker 1: Court ruled that such evasive actions were illegal, but AMLO
Speaker 1: overruled the court's decision with a narrower executive order, and
Speaker 1: construction rolled down. Even the revered National Institute of Anthropology
Speaker 1: and History was caught up in an apparent scandal. An
Speaker 1: archaeologist with the trend Maya team, Juan Manoel Sandeval published
Speaker 1: a scathing seventy five page report detailing incidents of purposeful
Speaker 1: destruction of artifacts so that train workers could bulldoze through
Speaker 1: without delay. The Washington Post reported that more than twenty
Speaker 1: five thousand antiquities, including Maya temples, were obliterated. Members of
Speaker 1: the indigenous community, about half of the peninsula's population identifies
Speaker 1: as adigious Indigenous, more than double the national average, raised
Speaker 1: voices in protests. Some expressed that the very name tran
Speaker 1: Maya reduced Native people to a marketing slogan. But nothing
Speaker 1: stopped construction, and the train is done after all, that's
Speaker 1: as Otto. The result is a cultural, environmental, and economic catastrophe.
Speaker 1: Many stations are far from city centers, difficult to reach.
Speaker 1: The early rider numbers are one fifth of government expectations.
Speaker 1: Maintaining a high tech train in tropical weather and salty
Speaker 1: air will be an endless expense in a handful of years.
Speaker 1: He's certain tran Maya will lie in ruins, rusted and overgrown.
Speaker 1: Maybe people will visit it like the temples of Tulum
Speaker 1: trn Mayas. As Otto's cousin Etien van Bertraub thought, though
Speaker 1: not free of flaws, is one of the most important
Speaker 1: projects in Mexican history. Etienne grew up in Mexico but
Speaker 1: now lectures on urban development at University College London. He
Speaker 1: acknowledges the painful losses stalagmites that grew for millions of
Speaker 1: years shattered in minutes, but feels that what's gained the
Speaker 1: opportunities for coming generations a region connected outweighs the damage.
Speaker 1: He plans to publish a book about the train. A
Speaker 1: considerable majority of Mexican citizens, says Etienne approve of tran Maya.
Speaker 1: An early pool puts support at ninety percent. What some
Speaker 1: haters are really expressing, he says, is fear the affluent.
Speaker 1: Those who have already attained success generally don't want a
Speaker 1: more equitable society. Tran Maya was built so swiftly against
Speaker 1: their wishes, and this rattled those accustomed to clout. From
Speaker 1: Etienne's perspective, the election of AMLO marked a progressive leap
Speaker 1: forward for Mexico. Social benefits, he says, are expanding. Poor
Speaker 1: kids no longer need to drop out of school to
Speaker 1: tran Maya represents this hopeful new sentiment in one triumphant
Speaker 1: work on the train itself. Gliding through greenery on the
Speaker 1: southern part of the loop, stylishly linking cities once separated
Speaker 1: by long, rattling drives. The feeling is of a rolling celebration.
Speaker 1: The passengers, primarily Mexican, lots of families walk the aisles,
Speaker 1: snapping photos or carrying snacks from the food car. Several
Speaker 1: Rare trand Maya caps and shirts purchased at a station
Speaker 1: gift shop, like fans of a sports team, to aid
Speaker 1: the visually impaired. The accessible bathroom speaks in both Spanish
Speaker 1: and English. The door is now locked. The cleaning crow
Speaker 1: passes by after nearly every stop. A region that has
Speaker 1: experienced extensive periods of war, slavery, and resource extraction and
Speaker 1: finally gained something back. This concludes readings from National Geographic
Speaker 1: Magazine for to day. Your reader has been Marsha. Thank
Speaker 1: you for listening, Keep on listing, and have a great day.