Places to Visit Before Climate Change Ruins Them
CNN has a list from author Bob Henson of the Five places to go before global warming messes them up:
(1) Great Barrier Reef, Australia
“Many of the world’s reefs already are experiencing “bleaching” in which algae living in the coral die and leave behind whitened skeletons.
“The Great Barrier Reef — which is composed of about 2,900 individual reefs and is off the northeast coast of Australia — is seeing limited bleaching now, and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority expects the problem to grow in coming decades.”
“But for cities near the coast such as New Orleans, which already sits below sea level, rising waters could spell trouble for tourists and residents alike, even in the relative near term.
“Henson doesn’t expect New Orleans to be underwater anytime soon. But travel to the Louisiana city may become more difficult in the future, he said. Scientists expect floods to become more frequent.”
(3) Rocky Mountain National Park, Estes Park, Colorado
(As we’ve discussed on ForceChange) “Herds of tiny pine beetles are munching away at Colorado’s forests, turning the evergreens a sickly red and destroying large patches of trees.
“Cold snaps — which, in mountain terms, mean about five nights of minus-30 temperatures — usually kill off the native beetles. But winters are warming, and [scientists] worry the beetles can’t be stopped.”
(4) Alpine Glaciers, Switzerland
“The European Alps sit at a lower altitude than the Rocky Mountains, and their glaciers and ski resorts are therefore more susceptible to melting, Henson said.
“A climate expert in Austria recently told National Geographic that the Alps’ famed glaciers will disappear entirely between 2030 and 2050. A 2006 report had said they would melt by the end of the century.”
(5) Amazon rain forest, Brazil
“Deforestation continues to be the major environmental issue in the Amazon, the world’s largest tropical rain forest. But as locals and corporations chop down the Amazon’s rich forests to create farmland and to harvest biofuels, climate change may make things worse.”
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