Political Issue and Tourism Over the Years, Essay

• Length: 5 pages
• Sources: 8
• Subject: Weather
• Type: Essay
• Paper: #36474299
• Related Topics: Habitat Destruction, Political Aspects, Deforestation, Tourism

Excerpt from Essay :

Political Issue and Tourism

Over the years, there has been concern over the fats shifting weather pattern occasioned by the global warming. Extreme and erratic weather conditions have been experienced in almost every part of the world. This essay will review the literature that is available on the definition of Global warming, the causes of global warming, effects of global warming on the community and nations, what the government is doing to stop global warming, as well as what Non-Governmental Organizations or Non-State Organizations are doing to stop global warming and finally what should be done to stop global warming.

The essay will also review the impact of global warming and community of Nations on tourism and how the changing weather patterns have impacted on the tourism trends from the human perspective as well as from the flora and fauna perspective. This will show how global warming has affected the community and nations negatively and what measures should be taken to stop global warming.

Literature Review and Analysis

Admin (2011) defines global warming as the increase in the average temperature of the atmosphere near the earth surface and in the troposphere which can contribute to changes in the global climatic patterns.

Global warming can occur from both natural and mankind activities. Global warming can be human induced in such a way that it can result from induced emissions on green houses, methane released from landfills and agriculture, Nitrous oxide from the fertilizers, Gasses used for refrigeration and also cutting down of forests that would store carbon dioxide.

Causes of Global Warming

One of the most predominant causes of global warming is from carbon dioxide emission from fossil fuels burning power plant. For example, America has a lot of coal burning power plant which releases enormous amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere since most people depend on burning coal for their own personal use and for commercial electrical supply which they think it's cheaper (Derek Markham, 2009).

Increased usage of chemical fertilizers that are harmful to the ozone layer on crops is yet another cause of global warming. There has been an increase in using chemical fertilizers on crops in Africa. Chemical fertilizers have nitrogen in them and therefore too much use of them leads too much heat storage of cropland and when it rains the excess fertilizers are taken in the water bodies such as oceans hence creating a dead zone in our water bodies which is dangerous to our water species.

Deforestation is yet another exacerbating factor on global warming. Most people cut down trees which they use as fuel, fire wood, and pulp as well as farmlands not knowing that forests are the ones that absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and this deforestation release large amounts of carbon to the atmosphere and also reduces the amount of carbon capture on the planet.

Carbon dioxide emission from burning gasoline for transportation is yet another huge source of global warming. Due to the high population growth, there is increased demand in cars and consumer goods therefore there is increased usage of fossil fuels for transportation and manufacturing of those cars.

Effects of global warming on tourism

Extinction of species; the rising temperatures have resulted to the extinction of species due to habitat destruction and modification. Several gasses from the green houses are also emitted by human beings in various ways and most of those gases come from combustion of fossil fuels in cars, factories and electric production power plants. With this extinction of the species, that means less and lesser spices are to be found for tourism hence tourists may lose the interest of going to a particular area as tourists due to the extinction of a specie that they would have loved to travel and see.

Rising sea levels; this is common in arctic zones for example in Maldives where people are looking for areas where they can settle due to rising of sea levels due to the melting of two massive ices (Antarctica and Greenland) which has displaced many people. This them technically means that people cannot access such areas and consequently cutting them off for tourists as well.

Crop failure; this is yet another very harmful effect of global warming, whereby global warming leads to poor farm yields since the rains disappear due to deforestation. Global warming also damages the ecosystem, hinders economic development and leads to poor sanitation. The failure of flora will generally mean even the animals, the main source of tourism attraction, will be either wiped out, greatly compromised or migrate. This will leave the affected areas without their originally rich fauna hence driving the tourists away to other areas.

Role of state and non-states actors

The Indian NGO Equations released a call for action on climate change biodiversity and tourism on the occasion of the International Biodiversity Day on 22nd may 2007 where it called on the tourism industry to come up with an a response to climate change. The equation also demanded climate justice by phasing out unsustainable growth strategies.

The World Trade Organization made an important step to address the complex relation between climate change and tourism by convening the 1st international conference on climate change and tourism in Tunisia in 2003. This conference raised awareness of the inter-relationship between tourism and climate change where people were asked to take good care of the environment.

Governments are encouraging their citizen to preserve their environments by planting trees and also to avoid using too much chemicals which are harmful to human, animals and plant lives. The government is also communicating with its tourist sector on how their own industry and economy may be affected compared to their potential competitors.

What measures should be taken to stop global warming?

Planting of more trees and stop contributing to deforestation; this is by far the easiest measure to save our planet from the hazards of global warming. Global warming can be attributed to the large-scale concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This means then that planting trees can be very instrumental in absorbing the harmful gas from the atmosphere and hence regulating the amount of harmful gas in the atmosphere consequently help in preventing global warming by lessening green house effect.

Reuse and recycle products; reusing and recycling various products which we use in our day-to-day life can also help us in stopping global warming. For instance recycling papers will make sure that the large-scale felling of trees to produce paper is stopped, and these trees will in turn absorb the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and reduce global warming as well as play host to animals and birds hence sustaining the tourism industry in the region instead of leaving the place bare and driving away all wild animals.

Implication for tourism

Global warming leads to climatic changes which have shifted tourism towards higher altitudes and latitudes in that it doubles in colder countries and fall in warmer countries leading to cut off of international tourists in some countries but increase international tourists in some. For example countries with decline in tourism includes: Mali, Mauritius, Senegal, Niger and Namibia etc. while those ones with increased tourism include Canada, Russia, Zambia, Finland, Norway etc. (Richard Morin, 2006).

Mt Kilimanjaro in Tanzania is the highest mountain in Africa and therefore it used to attract so many tourists since it had snow but since global warming worsened, Mt Kilimanjaro has changed and will never look the same again due to the disappearing of the snow at a higher rate which has resulted from global warming (African Safari Vacation, 2010).

Global warming also leads to disease outbreaks because when the temperature are high and the conditions become warmer,, bacteria growth multiplies greatly hence leading to deaths which threatens tourists from visiting such places because…