The issue of climate change is exhausting and overwhelming for many people, and especially those living on landscapes that are at a higher risk from its effects like the Bow Valley.
Mountain landscapes and tourism destinations like ours, are distinctly vulnerable to the effects of an increasing global average temperature. Mountainous regions have higher rates of temperature change specifically, as opposed to the global average that has been calculated around the world for decades already.
You can see it with your own eyes at the foot of every glacier in the Rocky Mountains, which are receding at an average rate of one metre per year. Within our lifetime, glaciers we have come to know and appreciate will disappear.
Those melting glaciers increase the amount of water in the global hydrological cycle, along with melting polar icecaps, which is one of the reasons more extreme weather has become the new normal throughout the world.
Record breaking wildfire years in B.C. and California have filled the air with smoke, and resulted unprecedented loss of life and property. Hotter temperatures, less humidity and high winds are a recipe for disaster and all those things are happening more frequently. Combined with the fact we have as a civilization chosen to place our homes within places like the Bow Valley and allowed the forest around us to grow uninterrupted by the natural wildfire cycle, it’s no wonder why many are experiencing ecological anxiety related to climate change.
We are at risk, and in ways we may not even fully comprehend yet.
At the same time the federal, provincial and municipal governments are putting time, energy and money into climate action plans. The Town of Canmore approved its plan this week, with 60 recommended actions.
Many in Alberta don’t like the provincial Climate Leadership Plan and resent the added tax on their consumption of non-renewable resources that contribute to pollution greenhouse gas levels increasing in out atmosphere. Scientists and the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change draw a direct causal link between those things and climate change.
Like all well intentioned plans, it is more than likely they are not perfect and won’t solve all the problems. But at least they are trying to find a way to address the issue, instead of pretending climate change doesn’t exist, or bending our collective responsibility to the profit motives of private industry that doesn’t want to pay for its pollution.
But how do we as residents of Canmore and Banff resolve the inherent contradiction staring us in the face every single day – global tourism is a contributing factor to climate change?
Travel Alberta has identified international visitation as a focus for its efforts to grow tourism in the province to $10 billion a year by 2020. That’s a lot of planes, trains and automobiles bringing visitors to our doorsteps to drive the local economy.
From empty second homes to the increased water usage that accompany a constant visitor population – the effects of tourism on values of sustainability are uncertain.
Our local economy depends upon tourism, but we don’t fully understand what that means for climate change as a community. The good news is that we might get some insight into the issue as a result of Banff’s environmental master plan.
Currently out in draft form for feedback, it recommends a program to track where visitors come from to understand the extent of greenhouse gas emissions associated with tourism.
It is a good start and hopefully will open the door for a broader conversation around tourism and climate change.
