A Holiday to Watch Global Warming

The Independent reports how the effects of climate change are leading to a distinctive new form of 21st-century travel: global-warming tourism.
A US tour company will be running a special trip this summer to view Warming Island, a “newly discovered” island off Greenland. Betchart Expeditions of Cupertino, California, a company specialising in natural history tours, is mounting a 12-day voyage to the new island, 400 miles north of the Arctic Circle, led by the man who discovered it in 2005, the veteran explorer Dennis Schmitt.

But Greenland’s new coastal feature is not the only climate change phenomenon you could visit this year. The company First Choice is selling Arctic cruises to travellers after buying the Canadian firm Quark Expeditions for £8.8m. The group is hoping the deal will help it tap into the growing market for holidays in the polar region.

But author Mark Lynas argues “The idea of global-warming tourism is full of ironies,” he said. “If enough people expend enough fossil fuels to visit one Warming Island, they will ensure that there will be many more.”