A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
You might guess that Mexico City has a tropical climate. But, no, it sits at an elevation of over 7,000 feet. That's way higher than even Denver, Colorado. It means instead of mangoes, you get peaches or pears, fruits that usually grow in northern latitudes. Now, though, climate change is causing some warm weather surprises. Here's NPR's Eyder Peralta.
(CROSSTALK)
EYDER PERALTA, BYLINE: Huerto Tlatelolco is an urban garden smack in the middle of Mexico City. There are raised garden beds and herbs and vegetables and lots of trees.
GABRIELA VARGAS: Right here, we're under, you know, a peach tree and an apple tree.
PERALTA: Gabriela Vargas, who has run this place for more than a decade, says there are more than 150 varieties of edible plants. She has olive trees here, which tend to like subtropical weather.
VARGAS: But we also have papaya.
PERALTA: Right.
VARGAS: And bananas.
PERALTA: Those are fully tropical plants. Varga says when she got here, there was one banana tree, which didn't particularly like the cold weather.
VARGAS: The bananas wouldn't grow. No, it was just, like, the leaf.
PERALTA: But over the years, that one plant started propagating, and then flowers turned into bananas. It actually tasted pretty good. We walk toward a corner of the garden, toward the skinny papaya trees. The leaves, like fingers, are radiant and green. For the past two years, and for the first time ever, these trees began to bear fruit.
You have one, two big papayas and...
VARGAS: Yeah, one, that's almost.
PERALTA: Almost ready?
VARGAS: Yeah, and then we have two, three, small ones. And so we have six different pieces.
PERALTA: So a serious papaya tree.
VARGAS: Yeah, serious papaya tree.
PERALTA: In some ways, all of this feels magical, like spotting a snowy owl in Florida.
FRANCISCO ESTRADA: (Through interpreter) Nah, all of this is totally tragic.
PERALTA: That's Francisco Estrada, who studies climate change at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. To him, these delicious fruits are actually a harbinger of a climate catastrophe. The world has heated almost 1.5 degrees centigrade, which is when scientists say we will experience a devastating new climate. But on average, Mexico has heated up by 1.8 degrees centigrade.
ESTRADA: (Through interpreter) We are hotter. And we're getting hotter quicker than the globe as a whole.
PERALTA: It means climate change is already changing Mexico's agriculture. In Veracruz, for example, the yields of coffee have dropped 48%.
ESTRADA: (Through interpreter) At this latitude, we used to have ideal growing conditions for many crops.
PERALTA: Now the weather is not so ideal. Indeed, almost all staple crops will have a tougher time. By the end of the century, Mexico might even have a hard time harvesting enough rain-fed corn. Back at the community garden, butterflies hover over the purple lavender flowers.
VARGAS: On a hot day, we can have 9.5 centigrades.
PERALTA: Wow.
VARGAS: Great difference between the entrance outside the street and here where we're sitting.
PERALTA: Amid the trees and flowers and the kids from a school trip running around, the doom and gloom of climate change feels really far away. I ask Gabriela Vargas if it makes her happy or sad to see new tropical plants growing in her garden. She shrugs. A bit of both, she says.
VARGAS: I mean, what can we do? And for me it's like, OK, we're here now. What can we do?
PERALTA: At this point, she jokes, we might as well harvest bananas.
Eyder Peralta, NPR News, Mexico City.
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