Endangered Destinations

Places, like species, can vanish forever. A look at some unique, imperiled treasures

May 15, 2008 RSS Feed Print

Comment (9)
Tweet

Losing entire ecosystems like the Amazon, the Everglades, or the Great Barrier Reef would be environmental disasters on a planetary scale—far beyond mere tourist tragedies. But the survival of cultural destinations is critical, too, Bricker says, even to those who may never see them in person. Places like Venice and the Taj Mahal "help us identify our progress as human beings," she says. "We should be saying, 'What can I do to be sure my grandkids can see this in the future?'"

Tags:: pollution,; travel,; energy policy and climate change,; global warming,; environment

Reader Comments Read all comments (9)

Add Your Thoughts Comment Name State Email

Please enter the two words below into the text field underneath the image.

Your comment will be posted immediately, unless it is spam or contains profanity. For more information, please see our Comments FAQ.

Questionable science now prevails the public airwaves and press. Global warming is primarily part of natural cyclical changes - the degree human activities may contribute has not been authoritatively quantified in the context of natural events. When all air traffic was suspended for 3 days over the U.S. airspace after 9/11, the elimination of jet engine contrails and particulates reportedly resulted in a 3 degree F reduction in air temperature due to reflected sunlight at higher altitudes. But then, maybe the temperature just happened to dip for 3 days as it does regularly. What's real? What about superhot volcanic vents that regularly spew super heated water and methane? How much more does that serve to heat up the oceans than driving our vehicles (whose particulates may also serve to cool the air - thus offsetting global warming?). We really don't know enough to declare man is responsible for global warming - or cooling for that matter.

Tony Lee of CA 7:36PM March 18, 2009

Another one of those alarmist stories based on pure fantasy.
Newsflash: Ocean waters have cooled since 3,000 ocean based robots
started to send their measurements to satellites. What a head scratcher....
Global Warming stopped in 1998 and according to the latest scientific peer reviewed papers from University of Leipzig, Germany, Global Warming will halt until at least 2015, perhaps longer.
All warming between 1978 and 1998 that caused all the hysteria was wiped out in one swoop between Jan 2007 and Jan 2008. There you go.
Global Warming is now called Climate Change as you can conveniently go either way with that term.
Climate has changed for 4.5 billion years and will continue to do so, with or without wisdom from Al Gore, Prince Charles or that other Climate Specialists, high school drop-outs Leonardo Di Caprio and Cameron Diaz.

Francis 2:10PM May 21, 2008

The author appears to advocate that humans start regulating nature - forcing its behaviour to stay within certain prescribed control limits in order to preserve the current status quo. This is absurd. One ant cannot stop a herd of stampeding elephants.

Pierre Gosselin 4:16AM May 21, 2008

Endangered Destinations

Places, like species, can vanish forever. A look at some unique, imperiled treasures

Related Articles

Reader Comments Read all comments (9)

Science Discoveries

Subscribe

Editor's Picks