Guest essay by Eric Worrall
CNBC author Helen Zhao claims people are flocking to tourist destinations like the Australian Great Barrier Reef, because they believe this may be their last chance to see the reef in all its glory before it is wiped out global warming.
3 ‘last chance’ destinations drawing travelers worried about climate change
1:42 PM ET Fri, 23 Feb 2018
Some bucket-list trips may be more about anticipating the destination’s demise than yours.
Certain countries susceptible to climate change have seen a spike in travel interest over the past year, according to a new report from travel insurance comparison web site Squaremouth. People may be advancing their plans to see these places in all their current glory, they note.
The report is based on data Squaremouth collects when people input their destination and trip costs into the site to compare policies.
For example, interest in the Maldives — an island chain southwest of India that is fighting rising sea levels — jumped 68 percent from 2016 to 2017. In comparison, Squaremouth’s 20 most-traveled destinations saw an average increase of 15 percent in the same time period.
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Australia
Travel interest boost: 25 percent
Tourists may be flocking down under to view the famously colorful Great Barrier Reef before it bleaches further due to warming sea temperatures. Last year marked the first year mass bleaching is known to have happened to the 1,400-mile-long habitat two years in a row.
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In Australia, tourism operators are worried exaggerated claims of damage to the reef might put tourists off.
Barrier Reef not dead from coral bleaching says Queensland Tourism Industry Council
By Isobel Roe, Frances Adcock and Rachel Riga
Updated 29 Apr 2016, 11:15am
Queensland’s peak tourism body has defended the condition of the Great Barrier Reef after reports of severe coral bleaching.
The far northern end of the Great Barrier Reef is undergoing what is thought to be its worst bleaching event on record.
Scientists predict half of the affected corals could die during the phenomenon.
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The Queensland Tourism Industry Council’s Daniel Gschwind said the reef was not dead.
“Many people around the globe have an interest, have a stake almost in the Great Barrier Reef, so negative publicity like that is clearly not helpful,” he said.
Mr Gschwind said while the environmental impact north of Cairns may be significant, reefs frequented by tourists were in much better condition.
“As long as we keep everybody appropriately informed of the fact that major tourism sites are largely intact and it still is the best reef in the world,” he said.
He said sharing accurate information would ensure tourists still wanted to visit the World Heritage site.
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The Great Barrier Reef has become a political football in Australia.
In one corner we have the academics, who are screaming they need more funds to investigate the “unprecedented” bleaching of a reef which has survived hundreds of millions of years of mass extinction events and abrupt climate shifts. WUWT readers might remember Professor Peter Ridd, who is fighting grossly disproportionate attempts by James Cook University to sanction and silence him, after he publicly criticised nonsensical claims that the reef is dying.
In the other corner are Australian tourism groups and government bodies, who are worried the exaggerated claims pouring out of academia might poison a major source of income for Northern Queensland.
Helen Zhao’s claim that tourism is up because people want to see the reef before it dies just adds to the comedy.
I remember taking my kids to a public swimming pool that was also used by day camps. During the morning 50 kids would slather on sunscreen and then jump in the pool. After a half hour 50 more kids would slather on sunscreen and then jump in the pool. This continued until 1:00 when they would open the pool for the public. You could see the quarter inch of sunscreen floating on the top of the water. No need to apply any sunscreen now. You could just dip yourself!
Sunscreen? Ocean. I’m not losing any sleep over this one. Not a wink.
I have seen accounts that some corals are sensitive to sunscreen in low concentrations, so it might matter.
Hurts the corals, helps the penguins with the ozone depletion. Life’s a bunch of tradeoffs.
Back in my 727 days, we used to fly ecotouristas down to Costa Rica so they could see the pristine renewable rain forests before they were despoiled by ecotourism. Good layovers, great brunch at the hotel.
Have you ever seen how many people come off of a cruise ship? How about when there are five or six of them in dock? Its just like the day camp. Ocean? You mean bay. Shallow water with low currents.
About 3000 people per cruise ship. Five ships would have 15,000 people. If half of them go shopping and half of them go swimming, that is 7,500 people a day slathering on sunscreen and dipping themselves in the water, in the shallow warm water of a friendly bay. Every day. Wear a shirt, wear a hat, and sit in the shade.
Do these tourists stop to think that, under their lights, their superfluous tourism is killing the planet?
No problemo. I’m waiting for it to die. It will look better all nicely bleached and there won’t be so many fish blocking the view. The water will be warmer for swimming too.
We know that “progressives” join special cruises to the Arctic and Antarctic to prove to themselves that the ice is not there. Then, they get there and get iced in.
Are the same tourists going to the GBR to see it bleached and dying? Ghoulish as it is, it could be true.
Corals have been around for hundreds of millions of years and have survived huge changes in sea levels as well as some change in sea temperatures.
Oh wow…all that tourism will really help reduce CO2 emissions, won’t it? Not to mention the pollution it will generate otherwise. Do these people ever think about what they’re doing? Like the scientists in Antarctica drilling 300′ deep holes in ice shelves with hot water every so many feet – or the other “environmental” tourists taking trips to the North Pole before all the ice melts. They are walking contradictions – shouting how we must lower our emissions while they take trips which they believe will harm the environment. Insane.
“Wiped out “by” global warming
Coral reef doom is so 2016.
So how much coral you see in Helsinki? Aaaargh, the CAGW has killed it all!
“Helen Zhao’s claim that tourism is up because people want to see the reef before it dies just adds to the comedy.”
Exactly the opposite of what is actually happening according to stuff I have read at Jo Nova’s blog. The claims of exceptional reef damage have hurt tourism from what I have read there.
I think it’s absolutely disgusting that anyone could think this is hilarious. I’ve dived that reef a couple dozen times. You all think it’s no big deal when something so beautiful, vibrant, unique and important is threatened. You say, oh, only part of it is dead, that’s normal. You don’t get that it’s not normal
because it’s the second year in a row, it’s very extensive, it’s actually killing rather than just bleaching, and it’s happening all over the world. It’s potentially the new normal. Do you understand how many creatures are dependent on the reef for their survival? Have you thought about this before you laugh, I wonder? You know? What if it’s true? You hear about bad things that are happening, and you laugh and scoff. It’s just going too far.
You know, if you simply think every threat is bogus alarmism, you can never learn if there really are changes going on. Ah, well, your choice.
Really? Tell me exactly what is happening now to destroy it that it has not survived before?
Yawn. Let me know when its all dead…
Have you ever thought that you are part of the problem?
A couple of dozen times?
Time for reflection now.
Ah, but Ms (I assume Kristi is a female name) is a caring responsible person who has to keep diving on the GBR – and presumably other reefs around the world – to make sure that things are getting worse.
Roger and David
I lived in Australia near Cairns, where the reef is close to the coast. I would go stay on a boat for 4 or 5 days, diving 3-4 times a day. Probably emitted less CO2 than some people during a week of commute.
I was careful not to harm the life down there.
So how am I part of the problem again, more than other Americans? Obviously you know something I don’t, so maybe you can inform me.
“You know, if you simply think every threat is bogus alarmism, you can never learn if there really are changes going on. Ah, well, your choice.”
We don’t think every threat is bogus alarmism. quite the opposite. We just value KNOWN and CURRENT threats more hypothetic future ones, and there are enough of the former. Including warmunism and this neo-pagan religion, complete with human sacrifices to save nature’s spirits and prevent their vengeance
Now, the GRB threat are obviously of the bogus sort. The reef thrived in the conditions of heat and CO2 claimed to kill it, this is silly.
Oh, poor Kristi Silber – so uninformed.
Corals advance and retreat with water levels. The Florida Keys and the Bahamas have those sugar-white coral-based sands that attract so many tourists to their beaches, and the funky, brave little coral critters just keep on surviving advances and retreats and changes in temperature, building NEW corals that will some day – FAR off in the future – become more sugar-white coral sands.
Anyone every wonder how the critters in Earth’s oceans felt during the pre-Cambrian extinction? And what about the dinosaurs? Has no one ever considered their feelings? Or those of the mammoths and mastodons? Species come and go on this planet all the time. As George Carlin said, “WE didn’t kill them. Let them go in peace.”
#Giantslothssmatter!!
Pointing out that the claims that the reefs are dying off is just a lie, is now something disgusting.
It really is sad how our new trolls substitute emotion for thinking.
You know, if you simply think every threat is real, you can never learn if there really is nothing going on. Ah, well, your choice.
My statement is exactly as accurate as yours.
The absurdness of the claims about the reef have been covered before, so I am not going to take up space repeating it. You know what does not make me laugh? Wildlife and spaces that are actually having problems that are KNOWN to be the fault of humans. Elephants, tigers, and rhinos being poached. Bears being killed because humans are idiots and approach them. Desertification occurring because people refuse to keep their herds at a number that can be supported by the land without degradation.
This alarmism takes away attention and resources from real problems. It makes it more difficult for the average person to know what is worthy of concern and what is not. It inures people to environmental issues, so that it all becomes white noise and as you put it, the new normal. There are a heck of a lot of problems out there, people do not need to make up more. Distracting people with supposed causes and “solutions” that will not do anything means that little to nothing will be done about the real causes.
So yes, you are right. This is not a laughing matter. Because the false claims are endangering everything.
I may be wrong (my memory isn’t what it was) but I’m sure I read a while ago that the bleaching was just as likely caused by the chemicals from sun lotion worn by people diving the reef.
The Maldives were sinking until the tourists stayed away. They built 11 airports, marina and hotel complexes to fix that.
Amazing how the sinking abruptly stopped.
Having watched that event play out, I would say that the Maldives played the climate alarm card to perfection. First they made a huge stink about their “drowning” island. When everyone was aware of the “beautiful place being ruined” and making a bid for cash payments, they capitalized on their fame to build the tourist industry, including new airports and I think something like 40 new beachside resorts.
The last president of the Maldives wanted to buy land elsewhere to move residents to because in the rise in sea level (the islands weren’t sinking!). The current president is instead building islands or raising current islands to move residents to. The tourism industry is essential, so that was important to get going.
You provide a measly little article from two years ago. What, too difficult to locate some additional work on the barrier reef more recent than 2016??…
You believe the 2016 article is out of date?
If so, provide evidence.
Why? You don’t.
Have those breathless ‘save – er, SEE the barrier reef’ tourism people had a look at the white coral-based sands of the Florida Keys, lately? That and the Bahamas – all based on the remains of dead coral reefs that died during the last glacial maximum because – er, WHEN sea levels retreated drastically. Some paleontologists found that there have been at least 5 advances and retreats of those corals over many millenia.
Hmmm…. is there a connection between retreating seas and dead corals?
I’m waiting for some pair of uninformed sillies to come into a popular roadside restaurant not too far from me, nearly in tears, complaining bitterly and nearly in panic that all those beautiful flowers (probably late summer stuff) that were there in the hiking area north of me are gone and it must be global warming – HAS to be!!! – because their lack of information about biota is profound, just like these CAGWer touristas.
Rather than worrying about effects of climate change, I’d recommend visiting Paris, London, Sweden, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and other European cities/countries before they are completely changed/ruined by Middle Eastern and African immigrants.
That’s not fair. In all these place indigenous Europeans still have all power, and THEY ruin it, not immigrants (who are usually in some sort of ghetto). For some reason Switzerland doesn’t seem to have the same immigrant trouble… but people have just forbidden minarets
Glaciers as well. I have seen comments, if you want to see a glacier you better hurry.
Or you could just wait a few millennia while they come to you.
Please tell me when the permanent snow line starts moving south. I think the last time it extended south was the Wisconsin glacial maximum and it left behind the Kettle Moraine and some other cool stuff.
This cognitive dissonance illustrates why no one will ever give more than lip service to replacing fossil fuels until the alternative is *much* better and cheaper. It is a basic feature of humans and all life forms to harvest as much energy as possible (or proxies like goods and money), in order to grow, evolve and/or reproduce. For humans this extends to our “extended organisms” like companies, institutions and such.
When confronted with a loss of energy (tourists, money, etc.) all organisms use whatever energy they have in reserve to restore and further increase their ability to increase their energy supplies. This is not some random political dictum, but a law of nature.
As evidence, I noticed a few days ago that Ford is radically increasing its output of mega-SUVs because they can’t fill the demand. All humans (and other life forms) will act to maximize the amount of energy available to them at every moment. Some of them will probably visit the Great Barrier Reef to see it before it is destroyed without even wincing at the irony.
Like those “going out of business” sales stores use to trick you. All this tells us is people are not in any way getting any smarter. Maybe we need to work on getting smarter people and less on “saving the planet”. Of course, smarter people would not need to save the planet, but smarter people would kill the control all these “environmentalists” now wield over the uneducated, unthinking populations. That’s not going to be popular among the parasitic crowd, is it?
Great Barrier Reef … the OTHER catastrophic climate icon. [you know, like “chicken … the OTHER white meat” … polar bears — white … okay, it was a stretch, but … ]
Well, I blew even a sucky attempt at a joke — should have been “pork … the OTHER white meat”. [Cane loops around neck, jerks him off stage, audience cheers enthusiastically]
[The mods are seriously debating just striking this whole debacle from the record and relegating it to the trash bin…on the grounds that it was such an epic fail. But we wanted to leave it as a warning for others. You’re welcome. -mod]
Sort of like a perpetual ‘going out of business’ sale.
I wonder how long before they can simply run this promotion again?
What I would like to know is how much real paleontological work has been done on places like the Great Barrier Reef to ascertain how many times the corals have been bumped off by ocean retreat, and then recovered by ocean advance.
As I pointed out prior, the attractive white sands of the Keys, the Bahamas and Jamaica and other Caribbean spots are the remains of dead corals created by the Gulf/Atlantic retreating during cold period when glacial advances took up most of the precipitation, and new corals were simply the old coral reefs recovering the space they’d lost when the water line receded.
I think that’s a legitimate question to ask, and no one, to my knowledge, has addressed it so far in re: the Great Barrier Reef.
Sara, it doesn’t take a paleontologist to see what the corals have survived. They evolved some 500 million years ago, at the dawn of the Cambrian explosion. They survived while sea life crawled up onto the land, evolved legs, lungs and kidneys and grew into the mighty dinosaurs. They survived the Deccan and Siberian Traps and whatever killed off the dinosaurs. For the last few million years, we know that they have survived repeated rising and falling of the oceans, as you point out.
Their allostatic fitness (adaptability) is superb, probably much more so than some humans who should be worrying about their own allostatic fitness.
Exactly, makropanama. This seems to be something the alarmists have missed entirely. That doesn’t make any sense.
The USNavy is using old ships for both target practice for the sub crews, and to create new reefs once they’ve sunk. The ships are derelict, completely cleaned up, not a bit harmful to the ocean itself and within a very brief time, the new reefs are forming and alive with sea life. So how are corals going extinct?
The answer is, they are not. Corals are probably the most resilient life form on the planet.This needs to be recognized but the alarmists don’t want to do so.
Thank you for the info, too.
Eventually you should be able to drive to the Great Barrier Reef archeological dig if your address is on the Pacific plate to the North.