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Judi Lynn

(160,633 posts) Tue Dec 5, 2017, 07:08 PM Dec 2017

Argentine scientist indicted over design of glacier inventory

Source: Science Magazine

By Barbara Fraser
Dec. 5, 2017 , 5:15 PM

A prominent glaciologist, Ricardo Villalba, has been indicted on criminal charges for allegedly favoring a mining company as a consequence of how his former institute designed Argentina’s national glacier inventory.

The 27 November federal criminal court indictment also includes three former environment ministers. All four have been charged with “abuse of authority” for failing to protect water sources under a 2010 law aimed at preserving glaciated areas. The law prohibits mining in those areas.

The lawsuit was filed by a grassroots group after the Veladero mine in northwestern Argentina spilled cyanide into the Jáchal watershed in September 2015. Another spill in the same area occurred this past September.

Villalba, who led the National Institute of Snow, Ice and Environmental Research (IANIGLA) in Mendoza from 2005 to 2015, launched Argentina’s first comprehensive glacier inventory in 2012. Based on satellite images, the inventory set a minimum glacier size of 1 hectare. “The process of making that inventory wasn’t unusual. That size cutoff is standard practice,” says Bruce Raup of the University of Colorado in Boulder, who is also director of the Global Land Ice Measurements from Space project, an international glacier monitoring project. Argentina’s inventory includes 30 ice masses covering about 400 hectares in the Veladero area, Villalba says.

Read more: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/12/argentine-scientist-indicted-over-design-glacier-inventory

2 replies

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Argentine scientist indicted over design of glacier inventory (Original Post) Judi Lynn Dec 2017 OP

Money over Mother Nature again. riversedge Dec 2017 #1

Sadly, a mere difference of opinion with ecologists was co-opted by Macri to railroad Villalba sandensea Dec 2017 #2

riversedge

(70,321 posts)

1. Money over Mother Nature again.

Reply to Judi Lynn (Original post)

Tue Dec 5, 2017, 07:16 PM

Dec 2017

sandensea

(21,677 posts)

2. Sadly, a mere difference of opinion with ecologists was co-opted by Macri to railroad Villalba

Reply to Judi Lynn (Original post)

Tue Dec 5, 2017, 08:06 PM

Dec 2017

This one gets a little complicated.

The lawsuit filed against him by environmentalists was over a technicality: whether or not to consider any glacial formations of under 1 hectare (2.5 acres), as a "glacier."

Since international standards stipulate that any glaciers must be of a least 1 hectare to be considered as such, Villalba excluded them from the National Glacier Inventory - an inventory his team created (there had previously been none at all, incredibly for a glacier-rich country like Argentina).

The lawsuit lacked any merit on its very face - but once the Macri regime caught wind of it, Judge Casanello (a Buenos Aires judge with no jurisdiction over Mendoza, where the suit was files), was apparently "encouraged" to take the case up, and of course to convict Villalba.

Villalba's conviction kills two birds with one stone, politically:

·It helps discredit Argentina's National Research Council (CONICET) and the scientific community in general - most of whom have become opponents of Macri's due to his steep cuts in science budgets.

·And it helps discredit Villalba himself, who as head of the National Institute of Snow, Ice and Environmental Research (IANIGLA) was, besides being an internationally renowned glaciologist, a minor official in the Cristina Kirchner administration (who is to Macri roughly what Hillary is to Cheeto).

For more on this, please see: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Flosandes.com.ar%2Farticle%2Fview%3Fslug%3Del-investigador-ricardo-villalba-recibio-el-apoyo-de-sus-colegas-luego-de-su-procesamiento

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