Effects of Global Warming on Parks, Recreation and Tourism - Essay Example

Effects of Global Warming on Parks, Recreation, and Tourism. Introduction Deforestation, soil loss, and pollution have changed the natural habitat and modified the world. Global warming has made it own impact with melting ice cap and glaciers, heat waves, increased annual temperatures, extreme summer temperatures, and coral reef bleaching in different parts of the world (Worboys & De Lacy, 2003). Clean water and biodiversity are being affected due to the growing human population. The tourism industry is working towards sustainable tourism as a report commissioned by the World Wild Life for Nature (UK) says heat, waves, droughts, rising sea levels, flash floods, forest fires and disease "could turn profitable tourist destinations into holiday horror stories" (Kirby, 1999). The irony is that tourism itself is contributing to the very process that threatens it. Tourism relies on cars and buses, air-conditioning and air travel all of which release warm gasses. It accounts for about 5% of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions (Rosenthal, 2007). Tourism is significant for the global economy but there is an interrelationship with the climate. Global warming is a challenge for the tourism industry in the mountain areas but it results in longer summer season. This makes it interesting to concentrate on the effect on mountain tourism and then generalize on the overall impact on the tourism industry. Literature Review Global mean temperature has increased by about 0.6 - 1°C over the last 100 years and will increase in the future as well. The temperature would further increase from 1.4 to 5.8° until 2100 (Burki, Elsasser & Abegg, 2003). Global warming will be stronger on land surface, the northern hemisphere and in winter, which means the summer season would be longer. In the alpine areas the financial viability of winter tourism industry depends on skiing, snowboarding, snowmobiling and cross-country skiing. Warmer temperature would affect ski tourism in mountain areas. Swiss glaciers have been steadily losing their surface since 1850 and it is expected that by 2030, 20 to 70% of the glaciers would have disappeared. Not only the mountain aesthetic is lost skiing slopes too are affected. Mountain areas become vulnerable to landslides and the cableway stations become unstable. Fog level would increase which would mean more summer tourism like hiking, trekking or biking. With warmer winters ice fishing would be impossible. Burki, Elsasser and Abegg however contend that the climate change has been exaggerated by the media, science and politics. According to them the majority of ski resorts at medium an high altitudes would hardly be affected. Nature-based tourism is the fastest growing sector where the natural setting is the most critical in determining quality tourism product. Hence when climate change affects the natural setting of the mountains like the loss of glaciers, diminishing flora and fauna and forest landscapes, not only does the quality of tourism product become deteriorated, it affects the local economy as well. Popular parks in Canada and North America are located in the mountainous regions and tourism is at its peak in the summer months. It is interesting to note that summer tourist season would increase dramatically due to global warming. As temperature rises in these areas visitation would increase specially in areas like the Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP). This would in turn lead to an increase of 6-10% in economic output and 7-13% increase in local jobs (Scott, 2003). Global warming and increase in temperatures in these areas would cause species reorganization and impact the biodiversity. At the same time frequency of avalanche would increase which would pose higher risks to those involved in recreation like skiing, snowmobiling and mountaineering. Change in climate is expected to affect recreation in three ways. Summers would be longer and winters shorter which would affect the availability of longer recreational periods. Changes in climate may affect the overall comfort and enjoyment of outdoor activities. The ecological system of the area is altered which ultimately impacts the recreation experience. A contingent behavior analysis under hypothetical conditions was done to determine the impact of climate change in visitation to RMNP (Richardson & Loomis, 2001). The results revealed that certain areas of tourism would gain while others would be adversely affected. While skiing, camping and wild life would reduce, fishing and boating would increase along with beach and golf tourism. Overall the climate change would lead to positive impact on visitation levels as the summer season would be prolonged. Even Gosline (2005) agrees that shift in weather would create massive impact on economic development and population growth. The rise in global temperatures would increase tourism in the colder countries like USA, Russian Federation and Canada. Glaciers are receding in Canada and good snow is found higher up the mountains than ten years ago (Rosenthal, 2007). Adaptation to the changing climatic conditions requires finances and expertise. Greenland is already experiencing the warming up of the tourist season as the glaciers have started melting due to rise in temperature (The Economist, 2007). The local economy ahs received a boost as hotels are booming and tourist guides are being trained to handle double the number of tourists than last year. The United States is predicted to be one of the tourism winners with tourism increasing by 13.7% due to rise in temperature. Tourism is expected to double in colder countries and fall in warmer countries by 20% (Morin, 2006). Canada is expected to have 224 percent increases in international arrivals by 2010 while Russia would have 174 percent. These calculations have been arrived at taking into account the population growth, the economy and the temperature. By 2100 it is expected that the temperature would rise by 3 to 5 degrees and if this does not sound too much, it would be interesting to note that one would have to travel 1000 miles south to experience the same warmth. Methodology Study of literature on the impact of tourism in the mountain regions due to global warming produces mixed results. While some authors feel this has been exaggerated, there definitely would be both positive and negative impact in different regions. The overall impact would be positive as skiing is not expected to decline and at the same time due to prolonged summer season other forms of reaction and activities in the mountain regions would increase. The search was initially conducted on scholar.google.com to get some scholarly journals and write up. The keywords used were “global warming impact tourism”. The search resulted in several articles with mixed subjects. There were several articles on sustainable tourism, the impact on the Caribbean islands, the rising sea levels due to rising temperature. Only three journal articles were included which pertained to the impact on the mountain areas as this was the subject of study. Since these journals were about 3 to 4 years old, it was felt necessary to look into the recent trends and comments or predictions. Accordingly the same keywords were used in google.com which produced very good results. Here too a lot of articles dealt with air pollution and rising sea levels and these were not included. Most of the articles have made predictions based on studies and computerized data. The articles seem to have the same opinion as far as tourism in the mountain regions is concerned. Results I was amazed at the study because so far I was of the opinion that global warming adversely impact tourism in every respect. It was interesting to note that the colder countries would definitely benefit from the change in the climate. The research revealed that global warming will positively impact the tourism industry as the number of tourists would go up. This in turn would boost the local economy although the increase in tourism is also attributed to the growth in population. Snow recreation like skiing would decrease according to some authors but one of them suggests that it would not decrease. All it would require is to travel to a higher altitude. The research has also revealed that the temperature is expected to go up between 3 to 5 degrees by 2100. No statistical analysis was conducted and the result has been derived at only through review of the existing literature. Statistical analysis was not necessary as most of the predictions have been based on computer generated data or statistical calculations. This study has only attempted to corroborate the different findings already available on the internet. Conclusion Tourism itself contributes to the process it threatens but while tourism contributes to global warming, global warming is going to bring about an increase in the industry particularly in the colder countries. Some areas of the tourism industry would be adversely affected like skiing and snowmobiling but this would be more than made up in other areas like fishing, trekking, boating and hiking. Besides, the summer season would be prolonged due to warmer temperatures and the increase in the population would add to the growth of the tourism industry. Overall the impact of global warming would have a positive impact on tourism in the mountain areas where the local economy would also receive a thrust. Further research on other areas like rising sea levels and island tourism would bring out a truer picture of overall impact on the tourism industry due to global warming. References: Burki, R., Elsasser, H., & Abegg, B., (2003), Climate Change - Impacts on the Tourism Industry in Mountain Areas, 01 Nov 2007 Gosline, A., (2005), Will global warming impact tourism hotspots? 01 Nov 2007 Kirby, A., (1999), 01 Nov 2007 Morin, R., (2006), The Surprising Impact of Global Warming on Tourism, 01 Nov 2007 Richardson, R. B., & Loomis, J. B., (2001), THE EFFECTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON MOUNTAIN TOURISM: A CONTINGENT BEHAVIOR METHODOLOGY, 01 Nov 2007 Rosenthal, E., (2007), Changing climate haunting tourism, 01 Nov 2007 Scott, D., (2003), Climate Change and Tourism in the Mountain Regions of North America, 01 Nov 2007 Worboys, G., & De Lacy, T., (2003), TOURISM AND THE ENVIRONMENT: IT’S TIME, 01 Nov 2007 Read More