You Can’t Turn Back The Tide

And so, climate change once more. At a time when the Spanish Government is planning its recovery of the coasts, and the BBC has recently picked up on this with headline-grabbing “Brits lose dream investment” stuff, it seems no coincidence that the Government’s own commissioned report into climate change has just been published. With only a few months before the national elections, the findings are a sort of nightmare dream for Zapatero’s PSOE as it seeks the eco-vote and positions itself against Rajoy’s PP – Rajoy, let it not be forgotten, does not buy the whole climate change argument.

The Government’s report, as outlined in the “Diario”, has seven main themes, their most headline-grabbing one being one that doubtless the BBC or any other news organisation would love for its scary effect. Try this on for size: 70 metres. While the average sea rise level is given as 15 centimetres by the middle of the century, the direction of sea swells could cause the retreat of as much as 70 metres on Balearic beaches. 70!? It sounds gravely worrying: it also sounds quite close to the 100-metre area that is not supposed to be built upon and is the subject of potential demolitions around Spanish coasts under the Government’s plan.

The report goes on by recommending the abandonment of the most vulnerable areas and the relocation of infrastructures. I might remind you that some of these most vulnerable areas are said to be in the north of the island. A 15-centimetre increase in sea level and a loss of 70 metres of beach, and Can Picafort, for sure, will be partially and permanently inundated: those dunes were there for a reason.

But where on Earth would relocation occur? It would need to be quite distant from the new sea-line. Unless it has become a golf course by then, some displaced hotels could be erected on Son Bosc. Oh no they couldn’t. There will be a 101 reasons for not building inland, or 121 in Son Bosc’s case.

As for tourism, rising temperatures and rising seas are clear threats, even if the current (summer) seasonality of most tourism might be smoothed in favour of other times of the year. Maybe, but I suspect it would be a big maybe.

This is all startling stuff, even if it is not exactly new. Whether it will be taken as a serious blueprint by the Government or whether it is a political bat with which to hit the PP and with which to play with the environmental lobby, only time will tell. Trouble is, does anyone really know how much time there is?


QUIZ
Yesterday – The Go-Betweens. Today’s title – the whole line goes “you can’t turn back the clock and you can’t turn back the tide”. Which mega group?

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