Climate Travels: How Ecotourism Changes Mindsets and Motivates Action

Witnessing the ravages of climate change can drive home its urgency, according to this solid offering from Gunter (Tales of an Ecotourist), a political science professor at Rollins College. “Our best option to tackling the climate crisis... lies at the local level, aided by travel experiences that broaden understanding of our surroundings,” he contends, examining drought, species diversity loss, flooding, and other ways that climate change is damaging the U.S. Warning of the danger posed by drought and wildfires, he describes how the November 2018 Camp Fire turned Paradise, Calif., into “a burned shadow of its former self.” He details how warming ocean water and acidification are destroying the Florida Reef and how Alaskan island villages are threatened by the melting of the sea ice that “served as a natural sea wall” against storms. Gunter struggles to square the mind-changing benefits of ecotourism with his acknowledgment that “travel comes with greenhouse gas emissions,” remarking that where and how one travels “matters” without digging into specifics, but he fares better when discussing how to combat climate change: use more solar power, reduce plastic use and meat consumption, and prioritize public transit in urban planning. Emphasis on ecotourism aside, this makes for an urgent overview of the ways climate change is reshaping the U.S. (Mar.)