The Biggest Wave: Tourism and climate

Periodically the issue of climate change and its impact on Mallorca’s tourism raises its head. And when it does, it is usually accompanied by the sight of an entire industry and a host of politicians preferring to bury their own heads in the sand. They should be careful and not tarry long or they might be washed away by the rising seas.

Even if one is a disbeliever in the human element in climate change, a great deal of evidence has been cobbled together over the past few years that should make the tourism industry (and not just the tourism industry) stop and think for a moment. Unfortunately, there has been an absence of any sort of long-term thinking, and some of this thinking doesn’t even have to project that far into the future.

It is just conceivable – actually, more than just conceivable – that plans for tourism and indeed much else on Mallorca could be rendered irrelevant, if more extreme predictions of the consequences of climate change were to manifest themselves.

A problem, though, lies with a not unreasonable scepticism when questionable predictions are made. I’ll give you just one. In 2007, a Nobel Prize winner, Professor Martin Beniston, argued that south-west Europe (to include Mallorca) would experience average temperature rises of six degrees over the following six years. Well, it’s now 2011 and the prediction has some way to go yet.

Far less dramatic and far less speculative are what are said to be the actual increases in temperature. Playa de Palma, for example, has experienced an each-decade increase of 0.6 of a degree compared with a global 0.7 average each century. So says Professor Sergio Alonso from the Universitat de les Illes Balears. What time frame he refers to isn’t totally clear, but he considers human intervention to be the main cause of climate change since the eighteenth century and, in particular, since the middle of the last century.

The relatively far greater increase in Mallorca’s temperature may well be evidence of what is said about the island, which is that its location at just about 40 degrees latitude makes it particularly susceptible to the impact of climate change. Whether it is or not, Professor Alonso is one of those who is trying to address this impact on tourism, and today there is a conference in Palma which does just that.

One of the more obvious impacts is likely to be beneficial. Alonso isn’t the only one to have suggested that it could be positive in reducing seasonality. Warmer off-seasons would bring more off-season tourism. The same point was made by another Mallorca-based professor, Carlos Duarte of the Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies, a couple of years ago.

However, there is the issue of just how hot it might get in summer. Current heatwaves which push the temperature up to a point where the heat becomes dangerous will begin to become the norm. It’s a question of when rather than if and also of whether this would deter summer tourism. It probably would to an extent, but if there were benefits for the off-season, the sooner the higher temperatures really kick in the better.

The negatives, though, are potentially far more profound. The loss of 20 metres of beach and a 20 centimetre increase in sea levels will cause a fundamental alteration of the coastlines, and they are on the cards by the middle of this century. It is the effect on the coastlines which, more than other aspects of climate change, threatens to undermine both current and future plans for resorts, but it is an effect which seems to be studiously ignored.

More damaging, though, is the potential for extreme natural events, tsunamis especially. Last year, the university issued a report warning of greater tsunami risk and a few days ago another report, by the Institute of Environmental Hydraulics in Cantabria, gave its own warning – that of a potentially devastating tsunami, one worsened in its effects by the lack of adequate alert and emergency systems in Spain as a whole.

In addition to the tsunami threat, there is also that of drought. A marked decline in rainfall, added to the greater heat, would place a burden on resources that Mallorca couldn’t cope with. Plans for the supply of water and for energy for ever more air-conditioning are just one element of where long-term thinking should be taking local industry and politicians. Are they thinking, though?

Get your heads out of the sand, fellas, because here comes a damn great wave.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Going To The Beach: Days of drought and tsunami

A major report into the effects of climate change on Mallorca has been released. Don’t worry, I want go into detail. You can guess at much of it anyway. Prepare to meet thy doom some time soon, and if you happen to have a property near to the sea, then best to check the small print on the insurance policy or get the sandbags in sharpish.

The latest report (from the university in Palma and something known as the centre for scientific investigations) should send shivers through anyone who has anything to do with Mallorca. Well, it would do were it not likely to make you feel even hotter than at present. It’s hard to shiver at 30 degrees. It will be even harder when that 30 rises and rises.

None of what is now being said is that new. We already know about rising sea levels and temperatures. But there are some newer concerns – extended periods of drought and a greater propensity for severe hurricanes and tsunamis, neither of which would be good news were you to be lying on a Mallorcan beach, reading this (which is unlikely I admit). A prediction of a 20 centimetre rise in sea levels and 20 metre losses of beach and coast might have you gathering up the lilo and heading for Inca. All of which would be bad enough, but it is the time frame that should really give the shivers. Forty years from now.

Presumably, there won’t be a day in 2050 when the sea suddenly decides to rise and when the beach slides into the Med. Were, for example, one able to say that 17 April, 2050 would be the day, then one could plan accordingly, i.e. by doing nothing for at least three decades. Unfortunately, it’s unlikely to happen in this way. (What am I saying, unfortunately?) Because the rise and the loss will occur over time, this makes them seem rather less threatening, which also means doing nothing. And that’s the nub of the issue. Is anyone actually doing anything?

The Costas are one department of government which is up to something, much to everyone’s annoyance. It may act as an eco-Terminator trampling over illegal buildings and blasting the Don Pedro hotel, but maybe even it is not as bonkers as many would have it. “Hasta la vista.” Perhaps it should be: “That vista, the nice one of the sea and that nice beach?” “Oops, there goes the beach, and watch out for those bloody great waves.”

Then there’s this trifling matter of drought. Rainfall is predicted to decline by almost a quarter. It has been said by certain enviro-ists that Mallorca has overstretched itself in terms of resources. And water is one of them. Who’ll fill all those pools in future? The balcony divers should be warned.

Greenpeace and the United Nations are just two bodies who think it might make some sense to plan for the day when 25 metre waves and the loss of coastline occur. Though sea rise and beach disappearance will be, or should be, gradual, there is, worryingly, the chance that beach could indeed just go – on a given day. And this is because of the possibility of earthquakes in the Med which would produce tidal waves.

Mind you, there might be some benefit from all this. The agonising over certain local matters would subside, even if the waters didn’t. Pedestrianisation in Puerto Pollensa? Don’t worry about it. There won’t be a Puerto Pollensa. Golf course in Muro? Forget it and invite back that company with an idea for an aquatic theme park. There wouldn’t be plenty of fresh water, but there’d be plenty of another type of water for them to help themselves to.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.