10 Places To Visit Before Climate Change Wipes Them Out
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We know that our world is filled with magnificent wonders but rapid climate change is threatening some of the most spectacular of them. Here are just a few of the world’s most majestic places that could vanish in as little as a few decades.
From Time:
- Great Barrier Reef, Australia: It could be gone within a century as ocean temperatures climb and the reef suffers from pollution.
- Venice, Italy: Not only is it sinking, it’s dealing with worsening floods. Like the Great Barrier Reef, it could be uninhabitable within 100 years.
- Dead Sea: Forty years have seen it shrink by a third. Its only source is the River Jordan—and nearby countries keep pulling water from the river.
- Glacier National Park, Montana: It’s got fewer than 25 glaciers these days; it once had 150. Get there before 2030, when they could all be gone, Gibson writes.
- Maldives: It’s the world’s lowest-lying country—and it could be completely underwater within a century thanks to rising sea levels.
- Seychelles: Another beautiful site that could disappear underwater within 50 to 100 years, the 115 islands in the Indian Ocean are facing beach erosion and coral destruction.
- Alps: Their glacial ice melts at a rate of about 3% per year; the glaciers might not be there in 2050.
- Athabasca Glacier, Alberta, Canada: The most-visited glacier in North America, Alberta’s Athabasca Glacier is a part of the Columbia Icefield spanning 2.3 square miles (6 sq km). Yet the glacier has been melting for the past 125 years, with its Southern edge retreating nearly a mile in that timeframe. Experts believe the glacier is now shrinking at its fastest rate yet and is currently losing anywhere between 6.6 to 9.8 feet a year.
- Alaska: The Alaskan tundra is one of the most distinctive features of America’s northernmost state. Yet climate change has led to the thawing of the region’s permafrost, which not only damages infrastructure but also dramatically alters the current ecosystem.
- Magdalen Islands, Quebec, Canada: With sandy beaches and sandstone cliffs, the Magdalen Islands are a lovely getaway spot in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Yet the archipelago is regularly pelted by heavy winds and despite a wall of sea ice blunting the worst of the weather, the island’s coast currently erodes up to 40 inches a year. Even more troubling: that protective ice is rapidly melting. If experts are correct and the ice melts completely within the next 75 years, the island’s shores will be vulnerable to the area’s destructive storms.
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