experience

Tourism and climate action

October 11, 2024 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is one of the foremost natural wonders of the world and is a major tourist attraction. It is well-known that the changing climate is threatening the survival of the Great Barrier Reef as well as other coral reefs around the world. A recent study by researchers at the University of Queensland looked at the reactions of tourists to being informed about the impact of the changing climate on the reef.

The Great Barrier Reef faces many challenges. Unprecedented marine heatwaves have triggered repeated mass coral bleaching events over the past decade. These climate driven disturbances are compounding the cumulative effects of chronic problems such as unsustainable fishing, pollution, and sedimentation as well as acute disturbances such as tropical cyclones and outbreaks of crown-of-thorns starfish.

Operators of five reef tourism boats assisted in the study. As part of their boat trips, tourists were given climate information via a marine biology presentation and there were also posters around the vessel as well as regular mentions of climate change impacts and actions throughout the trip.

The tourism industry often has the idea that providing information on climate change might be detrimental to people’s enjoyment – basically a buzzkill. But based on surveys conducted at the end of the trips, the researchers found that informing tourists about climate impact didn’t negatively affect their experience. In fact, most tourists actually wanted more information, particularly about how they can take meaningful actions of their own.

The researchers believe that their study provides further opportunity to improve climate communication and effectively promote climate change engagement among tourists.

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Reef tourism encourages climate action

Photo, posted October 7, 2008, courtesy of eGuide Travel via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Summers are getting hotter

November 7, 2023 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Climate scientists have warned for decades that a seemingly small change in the global average temperature can lead to large changes in extreme heat. So far, the world has warmed by 1.2 degrees Celsius (or 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit) and that has been enough to cause big changes in summer heat.

This past summer was the hottest on record. The heat fueled deadly wildfires across the Mediterranean. Record highs caused Chinese cities to suspend outdoor work. Weeks of triple-digit temperatures in the U.S. southwest led to heat-related hospitalizations and deaths.

But not every recent summer has been hotter everywhere. Even this summer saw average or even colder than average temperatures in some places. But the distribution of summer temperatures across the Northern Hemisphere has shifted dramatically in recent decades.

Less than 1% of summers in the middle of the 20th century were extremely hot for their location. Over the past decade, more than a quarter of summers were extremely hot for their location.

Between 1950 and 1980, about a third of summers across the hemisphere were near average in temperature; a third were considered cold; a third were hot. Only a few summers in a few places were either extremely cold or extremely hot. Over the past decade, the vast majority of summers have either been hot or extremely hot.

We experience summer weather in the location where we spend our time, and it is entirely possible that our own experience may have been unremarkable. We may even have had a cool, rainy summer. But on a global scale, summers are getting hotter and hotter and making it harder to ignore what is happening to our planet.

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It’s Not Your Imagination. Summers Are Getting Hotter.

Photo, posted August 21, 2022, courtesy of Bonnie Moreland via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Orcas Versus Boats | Earth Wise

July 11, 2023 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Over the past three years, orcas (also known as killer whales) have been attacking boats off the coasts of Portugal and Spain. The subpopulation of orcas in this region has been harassing boats, most often by biting at their rudders.

There have been over 500 reported instances of orcas reacting to boats. Sometimes they simply approach the vessels, but some of the time they actually attack. Almost 20% of the attacks have caused enough damage to disable the vessels. In three cases, including one in May in the Strait of Gibraltar, the animals damaged a boat so badly that it sank. To date, no one has been injured during these attacks.

Orca researchers have observed several different killer whales during these attacks. They seem to come from two separate groups: a trio of juveniles occasionally joined by a fourth, as well as a mixed-age group consisting of an adult female, two of her offspring, and two of her sisters. The attacks typically last less than 30 minutes but can go on for up to 2 hours.

Researchers don’t really know why orcas are going after watercraft. This behavior has not been observed anywhere else in the world. One theory is that the orcas have invented a new fad. That’s actually something that they are known to do. Much as with people, orca fads are often spearheaded by juveniles. An alternative theory is that the attacks may be a response to a bad past experience involving a boat. The fact that nobody has been injured in any of these attacks, even when the boats sank, suggests that only the boats themselves are the target of the attacks and not the people on them.

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Why Has a Group of Orcas Suddenly Started Attacking Boats?

Photo, posted May 24, 2023, courtesy of Pedro Szekely via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio