Joan Groizard Payeras is a departmental director-general with the Balearic government. His brief CV on the government's website tells us that he received a masters in energy engineering and the environment from Cambridge and that he has been a consultant to and engineer with energy companies, with a particular emphasis on renewables. It's pretty impressive and one cannot therefore quibble with his credentials for being the director-general for energy and climate change within the ministry for land, energy and transport.
The government has informed us that it will be introducing pioneering legislation on climate change. We already know a direction in which the government is going on this. The increased use of renewables (solar) is a key policy. As to most other aspects, we will need to wait until the draft legislation is presented in order to gain an appreciation of this pioneering initiative. It will need to demonstrate greater originality than a shift to renewables to fall into the pioneering category, albeit that placing solar at the centre of the energy agenda will represent a pioneering move in the Balearics. It has taken a stupidly long time to get around to the exploitation of a natural resource we have in abundance glaring down on these islands and one, moreover, that isn't in any immediate danger of disappearing.
The irony with solar energy is that ever more of it is going to be required over the next decades. That's because the source of the energy is going to make everywhere that much hotter. Climate change policy can therefore take a positive from the sun being a supplier of energy for air-conditioning in order to offset the negative of the sun being so damned hot and reducing the islands to an almost permanent state of drought, or at least the victims of prolonged heat waves.
Groizard was last week presenting some conclusions from the first study to be made of climate change vulnerability. The Balearics, it has been noted in various reports of a scientific variety, are going to be particularly vulnerable to the consequences of climate change; if they aren't already. Studying this vulnerability seems like a good start, but what did he have to tell us? In truth, nothing that we don't already know or would have guessed. More violent storms, greater risks of flooding and landslides, drought, heat waves, rising sea level, impact on infrastructure and buildings.
What is this legislation likely to be? It is tempting to think that its pioneering quality will be confined to the fact that nowhere else has actually passed a law which specifically states climate change in its title. For a government as virtuous as the current one, it would be a feather in an already environmentally plumed cap to lay claim to such legislative innovation. This assessment, however, does rather dilute the role that Groizard has and is presumably playing. He isn't a civil servant, he's an expert; that's why he's director-general.
The problem, though, is the political nature of climate change. I think by now we are familiar enough with the arguments, so for a government such as the one we have at the moment, having a department bearing the title climate change, enacting legislation called climate change are indications of its political view of the issue. But not everyone of course agrees.
Rod Liddle is someone who can typically be relied upon to stoke an argument. Writing in The Times recently, he wasn't denying climate change - "I can see (the climate) doing its stuff outside my window" - but he made a point, as if it was really again needed, that "climate change proponents are required to hype up the rhetoric, to provide politicians with suitably scary predictions". He was referring in particular to scientific experts and to, for example, university departments being dubbed climate change. Once you have these, climate change becomes an article of faith and spawns what it does - policy initiatives, taxes and a lucrative industry.
In a similar fashion, if you have a government department with the title, it's highly unlikely that its expert director-general is going to tell ministers that climate change needn't cause sleepless nights. And I say this with the greatest respect for Groizard.
With certain policies, like solar, they just seem common sense. Exploit the sun, and stop polluting everywhere with contaminants and emissions. Likewise with stopping anchorage on posidonia and preventing harm to the marine environment. Posidonia's benefits in terms of preventing erosion and lessening the impact of CO2 are a bonus. One can and should accept this, but in other respects there are doubts. Will this pioneering legislation, as an example, set in motion an ultimate process of urban relocation away from more vulnerable areas? It has to be a possibility. But at what cost? To whom and to where? Yet uncertainty would determine such a policy. Wouldn't it?
Showing posts with label Climate change. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Climate change. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 10, 2017
Thursday, August 03, 2017
The Deserts Of Summer
It has been quite hot recently, which is an understatement. The maximum (and this article was written on Tuesday) has been 40.5C. This was in Sa Pobla on Sunday. Sa Pobla is typically one of the hottest of weather hotspots on the island, although it doesn't enjoy (if that's the right word) the honour of having registered the all-time record. Its neighbour Muro achieved this in July 1994: the highest official temperature ever in Mallorca was 44.2C. It was that hot that on the same day - 4 July - Lluc in the mountains sweltered with 42.6C.
We are of course regaled with tall tales of current temperatures having matched Muro's record or even surpassed it. Quite probably so, if the wrong measure - direct sunlight - is taken. There can seem to be almost a desire to claim such exceptionally high temperatures as some type of badge of honour. Look, it's 45C!
Be careful what you wish for, and all that. At least in Mallorca it has never got as hot as on the mainland. Unreliable measures suggest that 50C was registered in Seville in 1876 and 1881. The more reliable ones suggest that the highest was recorded last month: 47.3C in Montoro, Cordoba. In 1994, Murcia knocked out 47.2C.
The Aemet met office, bless it, issues its long-range forecasts for the summer and is always suitably vague. This summer's effort said that the heat would be normal, that there would be the odd heatwave and that there could be a certain instability from the middle of August. Never!? Who would ever have thought that? For the record, 15 August two years ago was that bad that the Can Picafort duck swim had to be cancelled. The rain wasn't the problem; the mad state of the sea was.
The question is - what is normal? Despite the mid-August hiccup in 2015, that was a very hot summer. So was 2016. It's possible that this one could eclipse all others, and the pattern since May has been very similar to the unbearable summer of 2003, which was so hot (and not just in Mallorca and Spain) that people were expiring. Prior to 2003, one can go back to the phenomenal heatwave of 1994 and also to 1983 to find examples of very hot summers.
Because there have been exceptional summers in the past - the ones of 1876 and 1881 must have been, even if the records were unreliable - are the summers now being experienced just one of those things that nature serves up? Perhaps they are. Or perhaps not.
Mallorca is lucky in that there aren't the kind of extreme conditions in parts of the mainland. Take the area around Cartagena, for instance. That's in Murcia, with its all-time high that may or may not still be a record. The summer of 2015 produced something of an agricultural disaster; for farmers with almond trees at any rate. Thousands of trees died off not because of pest but because of the excessive heat. The trees were in effect being roasted. They are now planting less and less in the countryside around Cartagena. And what does get planted has to contend with the extremes: Murcia was more badly affected by last winter's floods than Mallorca was.
The rain was welcome, but the lack of precipitation has been evident for some twenty years. The area is becoming increasingly like a desert.
According to researchers who have had their work published in the journal Science, within seventy years from now the current desert conditions in the south-eastern part of Spain will have spread greatly. The Iberian Peninsula will be divided into two along a line from Lisbon in Portugal to Alicante in Valencia. South of this divide will be desert.
We are of course used by now to all manner of predictions as to the consequence of climate change, e.g. rising sea levels, and are also used to those who have their heads in the sands in denial. In Murcia's interior, they needn't worry about drowning (not in summer anyway); on Murcia's coast and on the coasts of other parts of Mediterranean Spain, they should worry, if the sea rises as much as it is feared that it might.
Evidence for the advance of desert on the mainland seems irrefutable, and the national government is just one body that is stuck in the sand. There has been no update of the national action plan against desertification for ten years. It might take a while, but the seat of government may wish to reactivate this plan when it realises that temperatures in Madrid are on a par with what they are now in north Africa.
In Mallorca, there isn't such an extreme, but it is argued that the Mediterranean will warm up more than any other part of the globe because of climate change. Hot summers? Yes, and getting hotter.
We are of course regaled with tall tales of current temperatures having matched Muro's record or even surpassed it. Quite probably so, if the wrong measure - direct sunlight - is taken. There can seem to be almost a desire to claim such exceptionally high temperatures as some type of badge of honour. Look, it's 45C!
Be careful what you wish for, and all that. At least in Mallorca it has never got as hot as on the mainland. Unreliable measures suggest that 50C was registered in Seville in 1876 and 1881. The more reliable ones suggest that the highest was recorded last month: 47.3C in Montoro, Cordoba. In 1994, Murcia knocked out 47.2C.
The Aemet met office, bless it, issues its long-range forecasts for the summer and is always suitably vague. This summer's effort said that the heat would be normal, that there would be the odd heatwave and that there could be a certain instability from the middle of August. Never!? Who would ever have thought that? For the record, 15 August two years ago was that bad that the Can Picafort duck swim had to be cancelled. The rain wasn't the problem; the mad state of the sea was.
The question is - what is normal? Despite the mid-August hiccup in 2015, that was a very hot summer. So was 2016. It's possible that this one could eclipse all others, and the pattern since May has been very similar to the unbearable summer of 2003, which was so hot (and not just in Mallorca and Spain) that people were expiring. Prior to 2003, one can go back to the phenomenal heatwave of 1994 and also to 1983 to find examples of very hot summers.
Because there have been exceptional summers in the past - the ones of 1876 and 1881 must have been, even if the records were unreliable - are the summers now being experienced just one of those things that nature serves up? Perhaps they are. Or perhaps not.
Mallorca is lucky in that there aren't the kind of extreme conditions in parts of the mainland. Take the area around Cartagena, for instance. That's in Murcia, with its all-time high that may or may not still be a record. The summer of 2015 produced something of an agricultural disaster; for farmers with almond trees at any rate. Thousands of trees died off not because of pest but because of the excessive heat. The trees were in effect being roasted. They are now planting less and less in the countryside around Cartagena. And what does get planted has to contend with the extremes: Murcia was more badly affected by last winter's floods than Mallorca was.
The rain was welcome, but the lack of precipitation has been evident for some twenty years. The area is becoming increasingly like a desert.
According to researchers who have had their work published in the journal Science, within seventy years from now the current desert conditions in the south-eastern part of Spain will have spread greatly. The Iberian Peninsula will be divided into two along a line from Lisbon in Portugal to Alicante in Valencia. South of this divide will be desert.
We are of course used by now to all manner of predictions as to the consequence of climate change, e.g. rising sea levels, and are also used to those who have their heads in the sands in denial. In Murcia's interior, they needn't worry about drowning (not in summer anyway); on Murcia's coast and on the coasts of other parts of Mediterranean Spain, they should worry, if the sea rises as much as it is feared that it might.
Evidence for the advance of desert on the mainland seems irrefutable, and the national government is just one body that is stuck in the sand. There has been no update of the national action plan against desertification for ten years. It might take a while, but the seat of government may wish to reactivate this plan when it realises that temperatures in Madrid are on a par with what they are now in north Africa.
In Mallorca, there isn't such an extreme, but it is argued that the Mediterranean will warm up more than any other part of the globe because of climate change. Hot summers? Yes, and getting hotter.
Monday, September 30, 2013
The Certain Uncertainty Of Climate Change
There is one thing that is certain about the climate change debate. It is that nothing is certain. Well, not totally certain. 95% certainty is now claimed for both climate change occurring and for it having been brought about by human actions. I'm intrigued to know how a figure of 95% certainty is arrived at, rather than, let's say, 93%. But then I'm not a scientist with access to a vast collection of supercomputers with all manner of modelling software. In fact, I'm not a scientist, period. Some of you may well be scientists. There may even, among you, be experts (by which I mean genuine experts) who understand the subject intimately, but I think it reasonable to assume that 95% of us (actually more) are not and so therefore, rather like the scientists, cannot be 100% certain.
Consequently, we draw on the endless arguments across the rising seas of climate debate, lifting from one report which says one thing and another report which says an entirely different thing. It is a debate that might be styled as the Mail-Guardian argument. The right says black, the left says white, or rather the right says it's all rubbish and the left says prepare to fry. It is an argument between flat-earthers and the rather more than four scientists of the Apocalypse. All I would ask is, could there please be adequate warning, so I can get hold of a few sandbags for when (if) the Mediterranean decides to rise to the extent that it is coming in the back door.
Armed with 95% certainty, leading British scientists want there to be a world "Sunpower Programme". One of these scientists is Sir David King, a name inclined to produce a frothing at the mouth among the Mailite tendency. Sir David doesn't necessarily do his cause a great deal of favour by writing in the anti-Mail ("The Observer" in this instance), but the call for there to be far greater emphasis on harnessing energy from the thing in the sky seems a pretty reasonable one. The sun is unlikely to pack in any time soon and might only be rendered redundant were nuclear winter to envelope the globe, and the certainty of this happening is, well, I have no idea.
But while Sir David is going around suggesting that all countries should participate in establishing some global solar power grid and while Ban Ki-moon is to invite world leaders to attend yet another summit at which they fail to agree to take unified action, both of them might take note of what Spain is proposing. You may recall this proposal, as I wrote about it recently. It is the one by which solar panels would be taxed, thus all but making them pointless; the same one by which, if householders fail to connect their panels to the regular supply, will result in their facing possible fines running into the millions of euros.
Spain, as noted previously, is the second largest producer of solar power in the world. It would, therefore, be in a position to be at the solar nexus of the grand King plan. But having all this sun power is problematic; there is just too much of it. Or it wouldn't be a problem were it not for the government's massive electricity tariff deficit and for major electricity suppliers to see a threat from solar. It is said that it was Iberdrola who put the idea of taxing so-called "autoconsumo" to the government.
It may be that the government doesn't go ahead with its mad scheme, but meantime one does have to wonder at the wisdom of Sa Pobla's infant school installing solar panels at a cost of 34,000 euros, only for it (or rather the town hall) to discover that it might have to pay tax on them. One does also have to wonder if the energy ministry is aware of the possibility of a tax, as it has helped to fund the project. It should know, because it has been the energy minister who has been doing most of the talking about the tax. Perhaps the public sector would be exempt; so no discrimination there then. But if it turned out the panels were to be taxed, I suppose the school could always just switch them off and use them instead as playtime slides for the kiddies.
Back to Ban Ki-moon, though, and assuming that Mariano is deemed to be a world leader, what might the Spanish premier think to the King plan? Apart from the electricity companies holding his arm up his back, he probably wouldn't think much to it. Mariano is a non-believer. His cousin, a physicist, once told him that climate change wasn't a problem, though whether he was only 95% certain I couldn't say.
Index for September 2013
Alcúdia's electricity history - 28 September 2013
All-inclusive bans: futile - 4 September 2013
Almonds - 14 September 2013
Asunta Basterra murder - 29 September 2013
Balearic parliament cut in deputies - 12 September 2013
Catalonia independence - 13 September 2013
Cost of education - 5 September 2013
Green taxes not to be introduced - 19 September 2013
Greenwich Mean Time in Spain - 22 September 2013
John Major Avenue - 2 September 2013
Madrid Olympic bid fails - 8 September 2013, 11 September 2013
Mallorca's tourism performance in 2013 - 10 September 2013, 17 September 2013
Micro-breweries - 16 September 2013
Muro brothel - 6 September 2013
Over-supply of bars and restaurants - 1 September 2013
Pine trees and forest management - 20 September 2013
Solar energy - 3 September 2013, 30 September 2013
Tourism history - 25 September 2013
Transparency bill - 24 September 2013
Trilingualism introduction - 7 September 2013, 9 September 2013, 15 September 2013, 18 September 2013, 23 September 2013, 27 September 2013
Winter tourism and other tourism travails - 21 September 2013, 26 September 2013
Consequently, we draw on the endless arguments across the rising seas of climate debate, lifting from one report which says one thing and another report which says an entirely different thing. It is a debate that might be styled as the Mail-Guardian argument. The right says black, the left says white, or rather the right says it's all rubbish and the left says prepare to fry. It is an argument between flat-earthers and the rather more than four scientists of the Apocalypse. All I would ask is, could there please be adequate warning, so I can get hold of a few sandbags for when (if) the Mediterranean decides to rise to the extent that it is coming in the back door.
Armed with 95% certainty, leading British scientists want there to be a world "Sunpower Programme". One of these scientists is Sir David King, a name inclined to produce a frothing at the mouth among the Mailite tendency. Sir David doesn't necessarily do his cause a great deal of favour by writing in the anti-Mail ("The Observer" in this instance), but the call for there to be far greater emphasis on harnessing energy from the thing in the sky seems a pretty reasonable one. The sun is unlikely to pack in any time soon and might only be rendered redundant were nuclear winter to envelope the globe, and the certainty of this happening is, well, I have no idea.
But while Sir David is going around suggesting that all countries should participate in establishing some global solar power grid and while Ban Ki-moon is to invite world leaders to attend yet another summit at which they fail to agree to take unified action, both of them might take note of what Spain is proposing. You may recall this proposal, as I wrote about it recently. It is the one by which solar panels would be taxed, thus all but making them pointless; the same one by which, if householders fail to connect their panels to the regular supply, will result in their facing possible fines running into the millions of euros.
Spain, as noted previously, is the second largest producer of solar power in the world. It would, therefore, be in a position to be at the solar nexus of the grand King plan. But having all this sun power is problematic; there is just too much of it. Or it wouldn't be a problem were it not for the government's massive electricity tariff deficit and for major electricity suppliers to see a threat from solar. It is said that it was Iberdrola who put the idea of taxing so-called "autoconsumo" to the government.
It may be that the government doesn't go ahead with its mad scheme, but meantime one does have to wonder at the wisdom of Sa Pobla's infant school installing solar panels at a cost of 34,000 euros, only for it (or rather the town hall) to discover that it might have to pay tax on them. One does also have to wonder if the energy ministry is aware of the possibility of a tax, as it has helped to fund the project. It should know, because it has been the energy minister who has been doing most of the talking about the tax. Perhaps the public sector would be exempt; so no discrimination there then. But if it turned out the panels were to be taxed, I suppose the school could always just switch them off and use them instead as playtime slides for the kiddies.
Back to Ban Ki-moon, though, and assuming that Mariano is deemed to be a world leader, what might the Spanish premier think to the King plan? Apart from the electricity companies holding his arm up his back, he probably wouldn't think much to it. Mariano is a non-believer. His cousin, a physicist, once told him that climate change wasn't a problem, though whether he was only 95% certain I couldn't say.
Index for September 2013
Alcúdia's electricity history - 28 September 2013
All-inclusive bans: futile - 4 September 2013
Almonds - 14 September 2013
Asunta Basterra murder - 29 September 2013
Balearic parliament cut in deputies - 12 September 2013
Catalonia independence - 13 September 2013
Cost of education - 5 September 2013
Green taxes not to be introduced - 19 September 2013
Greenwich Mean Time in Spain - 22 September 2013
John Major Avenue - 2 September 2013
Madrid Olympic bid fails - 8 September 2013, 11 September 2013
Mallorca's tourism performance in 2013 - 10 September 2013, 17 September 2013
Micro-breweries - 16 September 2013
Muro brothel - 6 September 2013
Over-supply of bars and restaurants - 1 September 2013
Pine trees and forest management - 20 September 2013
Solar energy - 3 September 2013, 30 September 2013
Tourism history - 25 September 2013
Transparency bill - 24 September 2013
Trilingualism introduction - 7 September 2013, 9 September 2013, 15 September 2013, 18 September 2013, 23 September 2013, 27 September 2013
Winter tourism and other tourism travails - 21 September 2013, 26 September 2013
Tuesday, April 09, 2013
Losing Beaches In Calvià
Calvià town hall has produced a magazine by the name of "Entorn de Calvià" (Calvià's environment). It is 138 pages long, full of pictures and full of worthy but uninviting scientific detail. It is also in Catalan, so you'll probably give it a miss, other than to look at the pictures. It is a magazine which shows that there is very much more to Calvià than that with which it is most typically associated - its beach resorts of Magalluf, Palmanova, Peguera and Santa Ponsa. Highlighting the diversity of the municipality is a worthwhile exercise in its own right, but it is the highlighting of concerns about its beaches which will make the greatest impression. The magazine has four themes - nature, flora and fauna, the coastline and climate change. These themes are inter-related, but the inter-relationship is greatest, simply because of the overwhelming tourist demand, among the latter two: the impact of climate change on Calvià's beaches.
There isn't anything particularly new in conclusions that are drawn about the effects of climate change; they are ones that have been made regarding Mallorca as a whole. What is perhaps new is the fact that one town, and a very important town in terms of its contribution to the island's tourism, should be addressing the climate change-beach issue as it affects the town's beaches alone.
The loss of up to fifteen metres of beach and a rise in sea level of twenty centimetres by the middle of this century are familiar claims. It is the dramatic nature of such claims that can make it difficult to accept the predictions. If they are right, however, then the impacts will be as dramatic as the disappearance of coastline and the appearance of sea in someone's living-room; they are impacts that will affect the whole topography of the 50-plus kilometres of Calvià's coastline and what lies immediately behind it.
I say this, but as I have remarked previously, it is difficult to conceptualise what all this loss of beach would look like. It's why it would be helpful were there some modelling and simulation that we could all see. We might not believe it, but at least we would know what we talking about. It is only once one appreciates the potential practical implications that decisions, if any, can be made, though whether such decisions, were they to imply truly dramatic topographical alteration, would be made by normally inert and complacent governmental bodies and others is another question.
There are other issues, again familiar ones. Reduced rainfall means pressures on water supplies. The pace of land erosion, and so not just coastal erosion, is quickening and will quicken further because of forest fires. Neither having insufficient resources to keep tourists watered nor envisaging a possible desertisation sounds like great news for a town that provides a fifth of Mallorca's tourist places. Nor does the rise in temperature, though I am not so sure about this; tourists are like curry-eaters, some prefer no hotter than a Madras while others love a vindaloo.
It is the unknown of climate change, the unpredictability, the big question marks which all, despite reports such as Calvià's, make the taking of decisions or taking action so difficult. Why invest in something so uncertain? There are those who are certain of the effects of climate change on Mallorca and there are those who are not. The result? Inaction. Does it make sense, however, if the predictions really are as dramatic as we are led to believe, for the investment that is currently taking place to continue? Magalluf's Wave House is all fine and dandy, but it won't be if a real wave comes crashing in on it.
Yet, the possibility of this happening is years away, a long enough time for a very healthy return to have been made on current investment. But, and this is another aspect of the uncertainty, the loss of coast and the rise in sea level won't just occur on a particular day in, say, 2050. Do we conclude that the sea will be up by ten centimetres by 2030? I'm still not sure I know what this would actually entail, but a shorter time horizon should exercise minds rather more than one reaching into the middle of the century.
My guess is that the report, fine though it no doubt is, will receive earnest responses from all concerned and then be filed on a shelf somewhere. It will be safe enough, as Calvià town hall is well inland, so there will be no worry that it might be washed away. There again, with all the fires that are in store, it might end up on the wrong end of an inferno.
* The magazine can be seen here: http://issuu.com/culturacalvia/docs/entorn
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
There isn't anything particularly new in conclusions that are drawn about the effects of climate change; they are ones that have been made regarding Mallorca as a whole. What is perhaps new is the fact that one town, and a very important town in terms of its contribution to the island's tourism, should be addressing the climate change-beach issue as it affects the town's beaches alone.
The loss of up to fifteen metres of beach and a rise in sea level of twenty centimetres by the middle of this century are familiar claims. It is the dramatic nature of such claims that can make it difficult to accept the predictions. If they are right, however, then the impacts will be as dramatic as the disappearance of coastline and the appearance of sea in someone's living-room; they are impacts that will affect the whole topography of the 50-plus kilometres of Calvià's coastline and what lies immediately behind it.
I say this, but as I have remarked previously, it is difficult to conceptualise what all this loss of beach would look like. It's why it would be helpful were there some modelling and simulation that we could all see. We might not believe it, but at least we would know what we talking about. It is only once one appreciates the potential practical implications that decisions, if any, can be made, though whether such decisions, were they to imply truly dramatic topographical alteration, would be made by normally inert and complacent governmental bodies and others is another question.
There are other issues, again familiar ones. Reduced rainfall means pressures on water supplies. The pace of land erosion, and so not just coastal erosion, is quickening and will quicken further because of forest fires. Neither having insufficient resources to keep tourists watered nor envisaging a possible desertisation sounds like great news for a town that provides a fifth of Mallorca's tourist places. Nor does the rise in temperature, though I am not so sure about this; tourists are like curry-eaters, some prefer no hotter than a Madras while others love a vindaloo.
It is the unknown of climate change, the unpredictability, the big question marks which all, despite reports such as Calvià's, make the taking of decisions or taking action so difficult. Why invest in something so uncertain? There are those who are certain of the effects of climate change on Mallorca and there are those who are not. The result? Inaction. Does it make sense, however, if the predictions really are as dramatic as we are led to believe, for the investment that is currently taking place to continue? Magalluf's Wave House is all fine and dandy, but it won't be if a real wave comes crashing in on it.
Yet, the possibility of this happening is years away, a long enough time for a very healthy return to have been made on current investment. But, and this is another aspect of the uncertainty, the loss of coast and the rise in sea level won't just occur on a particular day in, say, 2050. Do we conclude that the sea will be up by ten centimetres by 2030? I'm still not sure I know what this would actually entail, but a shorter time horizon should exercise minds rather more than one reaching into the middle of the century.
My guess is that the report, fine though it no doubt is, will receive earnest responses from all concerned and then be filed on a shelf somewhere. It will be safe enough, as Calvià town hall is well inland, so there will be no worry that it might be washed away. There again, with all the fires that are in store, it might end up on the wrong end of an inferno.
* The magazine can be seen here: http://issuu.com/culturacalvia/docs/entorn
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
For Better Or Nicer: Climate change
Reports of findings which suggest that climate change will make the weather in the Balearics "better" and the islands a "nicer place to live" don't reveal the whole story. For every better or nicer, there is also a worse or less nice.
Javier Martín-Vide, professor of physical geography at the University of Barcelona, and Elvira Carles, director of the Business and Climate Foundation, have released a report entitled "The evaluation of the effects of climate change on the Pyrenees-Mediterranean Euroregion"; the Balearics being a part of this region.
The headliner good-news aspects of this report are the weather being better and the place being nicer to live in. They also cover sun and beach tourism; its future is assured, says the report. The better weather will be as a consequence of longer summers, and these will bring benefits in terms of extending the main tourism season. But there are downsides. One of them is that temperatures might just become too hot and for too long a period in the height of summer. By 2020, the number of days when temperatures will reach or exceed 30 degrees will increase by around a quarter. By 2050, the number will double - to an average of 73 days.
Some might wonder how this can be a downside. There are certainly those people, primarily holidaymakers, who like things hot, hot, hot rather than just hot. So where's the problem? For holidaymakers, I'm not sure that there is a problem. For people living on the islands, there might be. If you can recall the summer of 2003 when temperatures were 30 or higher for several weeks, then be careful what you wish for in terms of hotter summers.
The heat is only part of the story, though. Rainfall is expected to remain at its current level until 2020, but by 2050 it will have decreased. Longer summers and so therefore shorter winters will mean a lowering of water resources. But there will be a heightening of a different water resource - the sea level.
Nothing in this report is new, but its good-news aspects drown out the findings of other reports, those which estimate the rise in sea level and which also predict more extreme events - hurricanes and tsunamis. All the good news could potentially be washed away, unless decisions are taken by those in authority who might presently prefer to bury their heads in the sands of a Balearics beach but who eventually find themselves asphyxiating as the rising sea crashes over them.
The changing climate does undoubtedly offer benefits, and especially for tourism. If Balearics winters were more on a par, temperature-wise, with the Canaries, then the winter woes would disappear. Having said this, the temperatures in the Canaries, assuming those islands haven't been obliterated by tsunamis, will also rise, thus elevating the winter-tourist expectation of what temperatures should be.
But it is the disadvantages that need to be addressed, and I am unaware of their being addressed in any meaningful, strategic manner. Let's spell out some of these disadvantages: periods of drought and possibly prolonged periods; loss of up to 20 metres of beach and coasts by 2050; increased energy demand to serve air-conditioning systems; the possibility of malarial mosquitoes returning. These are disadvantages that previous reports have indicated. Of these, the energy demand may well be compensated for by a reduction in demand for heating, so this may even itself out, but it shouldn't inhibit an altogether more proactive approach to the harvesting of the natural resource of solar energy and renewables, one that currently contributes so little to the overall supply of the islands' electricity.
More pressing are the periods of drought and especially the loss of coastline because of the rising sea level. Though 20-metre loss of beach sounds like bad news, it is hard to conceive what it might mean in practice. From all the modelling that scientists have produced in studying the impact of climate change, it would be instructive to see what this rise in sea level would mean to existing coastal development. Whether it would be Doomsday or just a bit of an inconvenience, a model needs to be constructed of the effects on every coastal resort and settlement in the Balearics.
The national government's altogether more pragmatic attitude towards coastal development, as contained in its reformed coasts law, is probably to be welcomed, but does it take sufficient or any account of rising sea levels and the possibility of extreme events? It is the rise in sea level, more than any other impact of climate change, that needs to be paid serious attention in the Balearics. Not in a few years time. But now.
QUIZ: The answer to yesterday's little question - "From Lake Geneva to the Finland Station", The Pet Shop Boys, "West End Girls". Incredible to think this is nearly 30 years old.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Javier Martín-Vide, professor of physical geography at the University of Barcelona, and Elvira Carles, director of the Business and Climate Foundation, have released a report entitled "The evaluation of the effects of climate change on the Pyrenees-Mediterranean Euroregion"; the Balearics being a part of this region.
The headliner good-news aspects of this report are the weather being better and the place being nicer to live in. They also cover sun and beach tourism; its future is assured, says the report. The better weather will be as a consequence of longer summers, and these will bring benefits in terms of extending the main tourism season. But there are downsides. One of them is that temperatures might just become too hot and for too long a period in the height of summer. By 2020, the number of days when temperatures will reach or exceed 30 degrees will increase by around a quarter. By 2050, the number will double - to an average of 73 days.
Some might wonder how this can be a downside. There are certainly those people, primarily holidaymakers, who like things hot, hot, hot rather than just hot. So where's the problem? For holidaymakers, I'm not sure that there is a problem. For people living on the islands, there might be. If you can recall the summer of 2003 when temperatures were 30 or higher for several weeks, then be careful what you wish for in terms of hotter summers.
The heat is only part of the story, though. Rainfall is expected to remain at its current level until 2020, but by 2050 it will have decreased. Longer summers and so therefore shorter winters will mean a lowering of water resources. But there will be a heightening of a different water resource - the sea level.
Nothing in this report is new, but its good-news aspects drown out the findings of other reports, those which estimate the rise in sea level and which also predict more extreme events - hurricanes and tsunamis. All the good news could potentially be washed away, unless decisions are taken by those in authority who might presently prefer to bury their heads in the sands of a Balearics beach but who eventually find themselves asphyxiating as the rising sea crashes over them.
The changing climate does undoubtedly offer benefits, and especially for tourism. If Balearics winters were more on a par, temperature-wise, with the Canaries, then the winter woes would disappear. Having said this, the temperatures in the Canaries, assuming those islands haven't been obliterated by tsunamis, will also rise, thus elevating the winter-tourist expectation of what temperatures should be.
But it is the disadvantages that need to be addressed, and I am unaware of their being addressed in any meaningful, strategic manner. Let's spell out some of these disadvantages: periods of drought and possibly prolonged periods; loss of up to 20 metres of beach and coasts by 2050; increased energy demand to serve air-conditioning systems; the possibility of malarial mosquitoes returning. These are disadvantages that previous reports have indicated. Of these, the energy demand may well be compensated for by a reduction in demand for heating, so this may even itself out, but it shouldn't inhibit an altogether more proactive approach to the harvesting of the natural resource of solar energy and renewables, one that currently contributes so little to the overall supply of the islands' electricity.
More pressing are the periods of drought and especially the loss of coastline because of the rising sea level. Though 20-metre loss of beach sounds like bad news, it is hard to conceive what it might mean in practice. From all the modelling that scientists have produced in studying the impact of climate change, it would be instructive to see what this rise in sea level would mean to existing coastal development. Whether it would be Doomsday or just a bit of an inconvenience, a model needs to be constructed of the effects on every coastal resort and settlement in the Balearics.
The national government's altogether more pragmatic attitude towards coastal development, as contained in its reformed coasts law, is probably to be welcomed, but does it take sufficient or any account of rising sea levels and the possibility of extreme events? It is the rise in sea level, more than any other impact of climate change, that needs to be paid serious attention in the Balearics. Not in a few years time. But now.
QUIZ: The answer to yesterday's little question - "From Lake Geneva to the Finland Station", The Pet Shop Boys, "West End Girls". Incredible to think this is nearly 30 years old.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Monday, October 08, 2012
One Day, There Really Won't Be Autumn
Autumn is a strange season in Mallorca. Officially it exists but also doesn't exist. Meteorologically it is a reality, but for tourism it isn't. The tourism summer endures until the end of October, and then winter starts. There is nothing in between and nothing in between winter and summer. Mallorca, a land with no autumn and no spring.
Autumn can't be ignored though. Its evidence is all around and in particular in the way that its weather wraps around you. Its heat is discomforting and disorientating, a vaporous clamminess like a giant pink-paraffin heater. It rises from the dampness of the heavy dews, clings to the early-morning mists hanging over the wetlands and is suspended and static unless winds chase it away. This oily radiator warmth mixes with the watery atmosphere and gives birth to seasonal nuisances - the mosquitoes and the flies; always the flies, the scourge of autumn, only seconds away from invading your legs, hands, ears or nose, the moment you settle down on a terrace.
The heat is still sufficient for the beach, yet this is where the disorientation lies, along with a guilt factor. Should one really be going to the beach now that it is October? Isn't the beach something for July and August? How does one cope with autumn's heat as it doesn't feel quite right to cope with it in the same way as in summer?
The tourists don't struggle with this quandary. They carry on with bare flesh intent regardless, beach bound and unaware of a Mallorcan tradition that once the temperature dips below thirty it is time to get the cardy out of the wardrobe (where it will have been going musty over summer and so needs several washes and applications of apple-fragrance conditioner to restore it to wearing order). Otherwise, the most noticeable change in tourist behaviour and demeanour is the proliferation of ageing knobbly knees and backpacks, along with the incessant sound of Nordic Walking poles clunking against tarmac.
The October should-you-go-to-the-beach, shouldn't-you-go-to-the-beach dilemma is going to be resolved over the next few years. Well, it may take more than a few, but some time in the future the Mallorcan summer will encroach into winter. Hotels will not need to close at the end of October, flights will continue long into November, bars will stay open and no one will know how to cope with employment contracts that never normally extend beyond 31 October (if the employee is lucky).
Climate change is going to change the Mallorcan late season, so much so that the number of days that it will be possible, without any sense of disorientation or guilt, for one to be able to enjoy the beach and the sun in autumn will have doubled from around 30 at present to at least 60. I hadn't been aware that an official number of days that one can enjoy sun and beach in autumn had ever been calculated, but thanks to the meteorology department at the Universitat de les Illes Balears, I now do. And it is this department which says the autumn sun and beach days are set to increase by 100%. There won't be an autumn at all, it would seem.
If this is the case, the sooner a doubling occurs the better. If the Mallorcan summer also does a backwards encroachment into a Mallorcan winter, i.e. into March and April, as well as its forwards one at the end of the season, then there will be eight or nine months of season. Brilliant.
Unfortunately, we can't just immediately forget about having to arrange winter in Mallorca programmes and having to complain about lack of flights and lack of hotels being open. The meteorology people say it will be 2094 before 30 days become 60 days.
So, for the time being, we are left with what we have. Hotels starting to close, restaurants starting to close, newspaper and whitewash being gathered to cover windows and terrace glass doors, seasonal employees waving their goodbyes and bidding tearful farewells, the summer's workforce putting their documents together and trooping off to the dole office in the probably forlorn pursuit of some benefit, the piling up of wood, the worry that benign autumn weather will suddenly go pear-shaped and rip roofs off, and the dilemmas - beach or not, duvet or not, long trousers or not.
Autumn is a strange season and a strange time, but one of its least strange aspects is the consequence of the weather, bedding, and clothing dilemmas and of being too slow in responding to chillier evenings and mornings. Colds. And thanks very much, autumn, my sore throat is now coming along nicely.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Autumn can't be ignored though. Its evidence is all around and in particular in the way that its weather wraps around you. Its heat is discomforting and disorientating, a vaporous clamminess like a giant pink-paraffin heater. It rises from the dampness of the heavy dews, clings to the early-morning mists hanging over the wetlands and is suspended and static unless winds chase it away. This oily radiator warmth mixes with the watery atmosphere and gives birth to seasonal nuisances - the mosquitoes and the flies; always the flies, the scourge of autumn, only seconds away from invading your legs, hands, ears or nose, the moment you settle down on a terrace.
The heat is still sufficient for the beach, yet this is where the disorientation lies, along with a guilt factor. Should one really be going to the beach now that it is October? Isn't the beach something for July and August? How does one cope with autumn's heat as it doesn't feel quite right to cope with it in the same way as in summer?
The tourists don't struggle with this quandary. They carry on with bare flesh intent regardless, beach bound and unaware of a Mallorcan tradition that once the temperature dips below thirty it is time to get the cardy out of the wardrobe (where it will have been going musty over summer and so needs several washes and applications of apple-fragrance conditioner to restore it to wearing order). Otherwise, the most noticeable change in tourist behaviour and demeanour is the proliferation of ageing knobbly knees and backpacks, along with the incessant sound of Nordic Walking poles clunking against tarmac.
The October should-you-go-to-the-beach, shouldn't-you-go-to-the-beach dilemma is going to be resolved over the next few years. Well, it may take more than a few, but some time in the future the Mallorcan summer will encroach into winter. Hotels will not need to close at the end of October, flights will continue long into November, bars will stay open and no one will know how to cope with employment contracts that never normally extend beyond 31 October (if the employee is lucky).
Climate change is going to change the Mallorcan late season, so much so that the number of days that it will be possible, without any sense of disorientation or guilt, for one to be able to enjoy the beach and the sun in autumn will have doubled from around 30 at present to at least 60. I hadn't been aware that an official number of days that one can enjoy sun and beach in autumn had ever been calculated, but thanks to the meteorology department at the Universitat de les Illes Balears, I now do. And it is this department which says the autumn sun and beach days are set to increase by 100%. There won't be an autumn at all, it would seem.
If this is the case, the sooner a doubling occurs the better. If the Mallorcan summer also does a backwards encroachment into a Mallorcan winter, i.e. into March and April, as well as its forwards one at the end of the season, then there will be eight or nine months of season. Brilliant.
Unfortunately, we can't just immediately forget about having to arrange winter in Mallorca programmes and having to complain about lack of flights and lack of hotels being open. The meteorology people say it will be 2094 before 30 days become 60 days.
So, for the time being, we are left with what we have. Hotels starting to close, restaurants starting to close, newspaper and whitewash being gathered to cover windows and terrace glass doors, seasonal employees waving their goodbyes and bidding tearful farewells, the summer's workforce putting their documents together and trooping off to the dole office in the probably forlorn pursuit of some benefit, the piling up of wood, the worry that benign autumn weather will suddenly go pear-shaped and rip roofs off, and the dilemmas - beach or not, duvet or not, long trousers or not.
Autumn is a strange season and a strange time, but one of its least strange aspects is the consequence of the weather, bedding, and clothing dilemmas and of being too slow in responding to chillier evenings and mornings. Colds. And thanks very much, autumn, my sore throat is now coming along nicely.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
The Biggest Wave: Tourism and climate
Periodically the issue of climate change and its impact on Mallorca's tourism raises its head. And when it does, it is usually accompanied by the sight of an entire industry and a host of politicians preferring to bury their own heads in the sand. They should be careful and not tarry long or they might be washed away by the rising seas.
Even if one is a disbeliever in the human element in climate change, a great deal of evidence has been cobbled together over the past few years that should make the tourism industry (and not just the tourism industry) stop and think for a moment. Unfortunately, there has been an absence of any sort of long-term thinking, and some of this thinking doesn't even have to project that far into the future.
It is just conceivable - actually, more than just conceivable - that plans for tourism and indeed much else on Mallorca could be rendered irrelevant, if more extreme predictions of the consequences of climate change were to manifest themselves.
A problem, though, lies with a not unreasonable scepticism when questionable predictions are made. I'll give you just one. In 2007, a Nobel Prize winner, Professor Martin Beniston, argued that south-west Europe (to include Mallorca) would experience average temperature rises of six degrees over the following six years. Well, it's now 2011 and the prediction has some way to go yet.
Far less dramatic and far less speculative are what are said to be the actual increases in temperature. Playa de Palma, for example, has experienced an each-decade increase of 0.6 of a degree compared with a global 0.7 average each century. So says Professor Sergio Alonso from the Universitat de les Illes Balears. What time frame he refers to isn't totally clear, but he considers human intervention to be the main cause of climate change since the eighteenth century and, in particular, since the middle of the last century.
The relatively far greater increase in Mallorca's temperature may well be evidence of what is said about the island, which is that its location at just about 40 degrees latitude makes it particularly susceptible to the impact of climate change. Whether it is or not, Professor Alonso is one of those who is trying to address this impact on tourism, and today there is a conference in Palma which does just that.
One of the more obvious impacts is likely to be beneficial. Alonso isn't the only one to have suggested that it could be positive in reducing seasonality. Warmer off-seasons would bring more off-season tourism. The same point was made by another Mallorca-based professor, Carlos Duarte of the Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies, a couple of years ago.
However, there is the issue of just how hot it might get in summer. Current heatwaves which push the temperature up to a point where the heat becomes dangerous will begin to become the norm. It's a question of when rather than if and also of whether this would deter summer tourism. It probably would to an extent, but if there were benefits for the off-season, the sooner the higher temperatures really kick in the better.
The negatives, though, are potentially far more profound. The loss of 20 metres of beach and a 20 centimetre increase in sea levels will cause a fundamental alteration of the coastlines, and they are on the cards by the middle of this century. It is the effect on the coastlines which, more than other aspects of climate change, threatens to undermine both current and future plans for resorts, but it is an effect which seems to be studiously ignored.
More damaging, though, is the potential for extreme natural events, tsunamis especially. Last year, the university issued a report warning of greater tsunami risk and a few days ago another report, by the Institute of Environmental Hydraulics in Cantabria, gave its own warning - that of a potentially devastating tsunami, one worsened in its effects by the lack of adequate alert and emergency systems in Spain as a whole.
In addition to the tsunami threat, there is also that of drought. A marked decline in rainfall, added to the greater heat, would place a burden on resources that Mallorca couldn't cope with. Plans for the supply of water and for energy for ever more air-conditioning are just one element of where long-term thinking should be taking local industry and politicians. Are they thinking, though?
Get your heads out of the sand, fellas, because here comes a damn great wave.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Index for November 2011
Basil D'Oliveira - 20 November 2011
Climate change and tourism - 30 November 2011
Cruise tourism - 7 November 2011
Day of the dead - 1 November 2011
Day of reflection - 19 November 2011
Duke of Palma and Matas corruption case - 10 November 2011
Education, languages and - 4 November 2011
English, mayors and town halls - 11 November 2011
Euro crisis - 3 November 2011
Formula One in Mallorca - 27 November 2011
General election, Spanish - 8 November 2011, 15 November 2011
Industrial estates - 12 November 2011
Lidl and supermarkets - 13 November 2011
Manacor to Artà rail line - 9 November 2011
Mariano Rajoy and tourism - 5 November 2011
Palma, naming - 18 November 2011
Residencias (old people's homes) - 29 November 2011
Restaurants ignored in tourism promotion - 17 November 2011
Son Real, problems at - 28 November 2011
Sports facilities' grants scrapped, towns' - 26 November 2011
Technocrats, Rajoy and - 20 November 2011
Thomas Cook's troubles - 24 November 2011
Tourism promotion budget - 2 November 2011, 14 November 2011, 16 November 2011
Tourism strategy, independent thought and - 21 November 2011
Unemployment, credit and economy - 22 November 2011, 23 November 2011
Waste treatment and town hall non-payments - 25 November 2011
World Travel Market - 6 November 2011
Even if one is a disbeliever in the human element in climate change, a great deal of evidence has been cobbled together over the past few years that should make the tourism industry (and not just the tourism industry) stop and think for a moment. Unfortunately, there has been an absence of any sort of long-term thinking, and some of this thinking doesn't even have to project that far into the future.
It is just conceivable - actually, more than just conceivable - that plans for tourism and indeed much else on Mallorca could be rendered irrelevant, if more extreme predictions of the consequences of climate change were to manifest themselves.
A problem, though, lies with a not unreasonable scepticism when questionable predictions are made. I'll give you just one. In 2007, a Nobel Prize winner, Professor Martin Beniston, argued that south-west Europe (to include Mallorca) would experience average temperature rises of six degrees over the following six years. Well, it's now 2011 and the prediction has some way to go yet.
Far less dramatic and far less speculative are what are said to be the actual increases in temperature. Playa de Palma, for example, has experienced an each-decade increase of 0.6 of a degree compared with a global 0.7 average each century. So says Professor Sergio Alonso from the Universitat de les Illes Balears. What time frame he refers to isn't totally clear, but he considers human intervention to be the main cause of climate change since the eighteenth century and, in particular, since the middle of the last century.
The relatively far greater increase in Mallorca's temperature may well be evidence of what is said about the island, which is that its location at just about 40 degrees latitude makes it particularly susceptible to the impact of climate change. Whether it is or not, Professor Alonso is one of those who is trying to address this impact on tourism, and today there is a conference in Palma which does just that.
One of the more obvious impacts is likely to be beneficial. Alonso isn't the only one to have suggested that it could be positive in reducing seasonality. Warmer off-seasons would bring more off-season tourism. The same point was made by another Mallorca-based professor, Carlos Duarte of the Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies, a couple of years ago.
However, there is the issue of just how hot it might get in summer. Current heatwaves which push the temperature up to a point where the heat becomes dangerous will begin to become the norm. It's a question of when rather than if and also of whether this would deter summer tourism. It probably would to an extent, but if there were benefits for the off-season, the sooner the higher temperatures really kick in the better.
The negatives, though, are potentially far more profound. The loss of 20 metres of beach and a 20 centimetre increase in sea levels will cause a fundamental alteration of the coastlines, and they are on the cards by the middle of this century. It is the effect on the coastlines which, more than other aspects of climate change, threatens to undermine both current and future plans for resorts, but it is an effect which seems to be studiously ignored.
More damaging, though, is the potential for extreme natural events, tsunamis especially. Last year, the university issued a report warning of greater tsunami risk and a few days ago another report, by the Institute of Environmental Hydraulics in Cantabria, gave its own warning - that of a potentially devastating tsunami, one worsened in its effects by the lack of adequate alert and emergency systems in Spain as a whole.
In addition to the tsunami threat, there is also that of drought. A marked decline in rainfall, added to the greater heat, would place a burden on resources that Mallorca couldn't cope with. Plans for the supply of water and for energy for ever more air-conditioning are just one element of where long-term thinking should be taking local industry and politicians. Are they thinking, though?
Get your heads out of the sand, fellas, because here comes a damn great wave.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Index for November 2011
Basil D'Oliveira - 20 November 2011
Climate change and tourism - 30 November 2011
Cruise tourism - 7 November 2011
Day of the dead - 1 November 2011
Day of reflection - 19 November 2011
Duke of Palma and Matas corruption case - 10 November 2011
Education, languages and - 4 November 2011
English, mayors and town halls - 11 November 2011
Euro crisis - 3 November 2011
Formula One in Mallorca - 27 November 2011
General election, Spanish - 8 November 2011, 15 November 2011
Industrial estates - 12 November 2011
Lidl and supermarkets - 13 November 2011
Manacor to Artà rail line - 9 November 2011
Mariano Rajoy and tourism - 5 November 2011
Palma, naming - 18 November 2011
Residencias (old people's homes) - 29 November 2011
Restaurants ignored in tourism promotion - 17 November 2011
Son Real, problems at - 28 November 2011
Sports facilities' grants scrapped, towns' - 26 November 2011
Technocrats, Rajoy and - 20 November 2011
Thomas Cook's troubles - 24 November 2011
Tourism promotion budget - 2 November 2011, 14 November 2011, 16 November 2011
Tourism strategy, independent thought and - 21 November 2011
Unemployment, credit and economy - 22 November 2011, 23 November 2011
Waste treatment and town hall non-payments - 25 November 2011
World Travel Market - 6 November 2011
Thursday, January 06, 2011
When In Rome: Climate change
Two euros per night per guest in one to three-star accommodation. Three euros a night for four and five-star hotels. Sounds familiar? It is. But this is not Mallorca, this is Rome. The Italian capital's council introduced its own version of the unlamented eco-tax on 1 January. Rome's tax is earmarked for keeping the city clean and for urban improvements; it should raise 82 million euros per year. It hasn't exactly met with universal approval. Just as Mallorca's eco-tax was met with a level of hostility that saw it booted far out to sea a year after its introduction.
The eco-tax was flawed for different reasons. One was that the revenue that it might have generated, while not insignificant (60 million euros a year in the Balearics as a whole), was not that significant. Think of it this way. Had it been distributed to each town hall in Mallorca and the Balearics in a proportionate manner, it would have failed to bridge town halls' funding gaps. A second reason was that it was discriminatory and based on the principle of "polluter pays". It was also potentially pernicious in that, applied unilaterally, it would have placed Mallorca at a disadvantage.
The eco-tax was an example of attempting to apply fiscal measures to tackle environmental problems. Legislatures and executives reach out for more law and more tax in the hope that they can turn back the rising tides of environmental damage and climate change. The eco-warriors of Mallorca, GOB and its fellow campaigners, are now calling on the regional government to introduce a climate change law, one akin perhaps to that now operating in the UK.
There isn't a specific climate change law either in the Balearics or nationally. What there is, in addition to a whole raft of previous laws and policy documents, are measures designed to promote energy efficiency and the use of renewables; these form part of the new law on sustainable economy. GOB and its enviro-fighting allies want the Balearics to go a stage further in bringing in what Friends of the Earth were calling for last year for the whole of Spain.
GOB has specifically fingered the power station of Es Murterar in Alcúdia as the greatest offender when it comes to emissions. Notwithstanding the possibility of the power station converting away from coal, GOB is right to identify it as a major contributor to environmental damage in Mallorca.
However, the resort to legislation and taxation is an essentially mechanistic response to the problem of climate change. The debate is impoverished, partly because of the primacy of the legislature as arbiter of policy and partly because of the nature of the debate itself - you are either a climate change believer or atheist. In the latter camp, for instance, is the leader of the Partido Popular nationally, Mariano Rajoy.
The mechanisms of tax and legislation, combined with political confusion and the inconclusiveness as to whether climate change exists or the degree to which it presents a threat, prevent a far more challenging discussion and far more searching policy decisions.
What if the predictions for climate change are right? It is the inability to answer this question that leads to the impoverishment of the debate where Mallorca's future is concerned. The most dire predictions of rising sea levels and temperatures would create, by the middle of the century, a very different Mallorca. Introducing laws and taxes now might go some way to stalling the inevitable, but if the inevitable is indeed inevitable, then what on earth is going to happen?
It takes little imagination to consider the impact on coastal resorts and on tourism. The impact would affect thousands of homes and businesses. It takes little imagination, but for Mallorca's policymakers it seems to remain unimaginable. They don't have to imagine though. The centre for scientific investigation at Palma university set it out in pretty simple terms last summer. A 20 centimetre rise in sea levels, a 20 metre loss of beach and coast, extended periods of drought, a greater propensity for hurricanes and tsunamis. All by 2050.
If you own a property by the sea, you might be well advised to try and get shot pretty sharpish and hope no one asks any awkward questions. While the Costas authority yomps across the coastal regions in its bovver boots, threatening demolition here and there, it may as well not bother. Something else will do its work for it. The worthless properties caught under the Costas' thirty-year law will be worthless anyway. As will any other that might find its owner sharing its terrace with some jellyfish.
The problem is that you, and others, may well prefer to play at ostriches on the beach. It won't happen. But can you be so sure? Your head in the sand and an almighty great tidal wave suddenly washes up and fills your lungs. Because it seems unimaginable, it won't happen. Maybe it won't. Or maybe it will. Rather than taxes and pieces of law, the government should have a plan. The worst-case scenario. Does such a plan exist? No, it doesn't. Has it even been considered? Not as far as I am aware. Instead, rather like Nero, it fiddles with legislation or is told to do so by GOB while its own Rome drowns and is set ablaze by rising mercury.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
The eco-tax was flawed for different reasons. One was that the revenue that it might have generated, while not insignificant (60 million euros a year in the Balearics as a whole), was not that significant. Think of it this way. Had it been distributed to each town hall in Mallorca and the Balearics in a proportionate manner, it would have failed to bridge town halls' funding gaps. A second reason was that it was discriminatory and based on the principle of "polluter pays". It was also potentially pernicious in that, applied unilaterally, it would have placed Mallorca at a disadvantage.
The eco-tax was an example of attempting to apply fiscal measures to tackle environmental problems. Legislatures and executives reach out for more law and more tax in the hope that they can turn back the rising tides of environmental damage and climate change. The eco-warriors of Mallorca, GOB and its fellow campaigners, are now calling on the regional government to introduce a climate change law, one akin perhaps to that now operating in the UK.
There isn't a specific climate change law either in the Balearics or nationally. What there is, in addition to a whole raft of previous laws and policy documents, are measures designed to promote energy efficiency and the use of renewables; these form part of the new law on sustainable economy. GOB and its enviro-fighting allies want the Balearics to go a stage further in bringing in what Friends of the Earth were calling for last year for the whole of Spain.
GOB has specifically fingered the power station of Es Murterar in Alcúdia as the greatest offender when it comes to emissions. Notwithstanding the possibility of the power station converting away from coal, GOB is right to identify it as a major contributor to environmental damage in Mallorca.
However, the resort to legislation and taxation is an essentially mechanistic response to the problem of climate change. The debate is impoverished, partly because of the primacy of the legislature as arbiter of policy and partly because of the nature of the debate itself - you are either a climate change believer or atheist. In the latter camp, for instance, is the leader of the Partido Popular nationally, Mariano Rajoy.
The mechanisms of tax and legislation, combined with political confusion and the inconclusiveness as to whether climate change exists or the degree to which it presents a threat, prevent a far more challenging discussion and far more searching policy decisions.
What if the predictions for climate change are right? It is the inability to answer this question that leads to the impoverishment of the debate where Mallorca's future is concerned. The most dire predictions of rising sea levels and temperatures would create, by the middle of the century, a very different Mallorca. Introducing laws and taxes now might go some way to stalling the inevitable, but if the inevitable is indeed inevitable, then what on earth is going to happen?
It takes little imagination to consider the impact on coastal resorts and on tourism. The impact would affect thousands of homes and businesses. It takes little imagination, but for Mallorca's policymakers it seems to remain unimaginable. They don't have to imagine though. The centre for scientific investigation at Palma university set it out in pretty simple terms last summer. A 20 centimetre rise in sea levels, a 20 metre loss of beach and coast, extended periods of drought, a greater propensity for hurricanes and tsunamis. All by 2050.
If you own a property by the sea, you might be well advised to try and get shot pretty sharpish and hope no one asks any awkward questions. While the Costas authority yomps across the coastal regions in its bovver boots, threatening demolition here and there, it may as well not bother. Something else will do its work for it. The worthless properties caught under the Costas' thirty-year law will be worthless anyway. As will any other that might find its owner sharing its terrace with some jellyfish.
The problem is that you, and others, may well prefer to play at ostriches on the beach. It won't happen. But can you be so sure? Your head in the sand and an almighty great tidal wave suddenly washes up and fills your lungs. Because it seems unimaginable, it won't happen. Maybe it won't. Or maybe it will. Rather than taxes and pieces of law, the government should have a plan. The worst-case scenario. Does such a plan exist? No, it doesn't. Has it even been considered? Not as far as I am aware. Instead, rather like Nero, it fiddles with legislation or is told to do so by GOB while its own Rome drowns and is set ablaze by rising mercury.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Going To The Beach: Days of drought and tsunami
A major report into the effects of climate change on Mallorca has been released. Don't worry, I want go into detail. You can guess at much of it anyway. Prepare to meet thy doom some time soon, and if you happen to have a property near to the sea, then best to check the small print on the insurance policy or get the sandbags in sharpish.
The latest report (from the university in Palma and something known as the centre for scientific investigations) should send shivers through anyone who has anything to do with Mallorca. Well, it would do were it not likely to make you feel even hotter than at present. It's hard to shiver at 30 degrees. It will be even harder when that 30 rises and rises.
None of what is now being said is that new. We already know about rising sea levels and temperatures. But there are some newer concerns - extended periods of drought and a greater propensity for severe hurricanes and tsunamis, neither of which would be good news were you to be lying on a Mallorcan beach, reading this (which is unlikely I admit). A prediction of a 20 centimetre rise in sea levels and 20 metre losses of beach and coast might have you gathering up the lilo and heading for Inca. All of which would be bad enough, but it is the time frame that should really give the shivers. Forty years from now.
Presumably, there won't be a day in 2050 when the sea suddenly decides to rise and when the beach slides into the Med. Were, for example, one able to say that 17 April, 2050 would be the day, then one could plan accordingly, i.e. by doing nothing for at least three decades. Unfortunately, it's unlikely to happen in this way. (What am I saying, unfortunately?) Because the rise and the loss will occur over time, this makes them seem rather less threatening, which also means doing nothing. And that's the nub of the issue. Is anyone actually doing anything?
The Costas are one department of government which is up to something, much to everyone's annoyance. It may act as an eco-Terminator trampling over illegal buildings and blasting the Don Pedro hotel, but maybe even it is not as bonkers as many would have it. "Hasta la vista." Perhaps it should be: "That vista, the nice one of the sea and that nice beach?" "Oops, there goes the beach, and watch out for those bloody great waves."
Then there's this trifling matter of drought. Rainfall is predicted to decline by almost a quarter. It has been said by certain enviro-ists that Mallorca has overstretched itself in terms of resources. And water is one of them. Who'll fill all those pools in future? The balcony divers should be warned.
Greenpeace and the United Nations are just two bodies who think it might make some sense to plan for the day when 25 metre waves and the loss of coastline occur. Though sea rise and beach disappearance will be, or should be, gradual, there is, worryingly, the chance that beach could indeed just go - on a given day. And this is because of the possibility of earthquakes in the Med which would produce tidal waves.
Mind you, there might be some benefit from all this. The agonising over certain local matters would subside, even if the waters didn't. Pedestrianisation in Puerto Pollensa? Don't worry about it. There won't be a Puerto Pollensa. Golf course in Muro? Forget it and invite back that company with an idea for an aquatic theme park. There wouldn't be plenty of fresh water, but there'd be plenty of another type of water for them to help themselves to.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
The latest report (from the university in Palma and something known as the centre for scientific investigations) should send shivers through anyone who has anything to do with Mallorca. Well, it would do were it not likely to make you feel even hotter than at present. It's hard to shiver at 30 degrees. It will be even harder when that 30 rises and rises.
None of what is now being said is that new. We already know about rising sea levels and temperatures. But there are some newer concerns - extended periods of drought and a greater propensity for severe hurricanes and tsunamis, neither of which would be good news were you to be lying on a Mallorcan beach, reading this (which is unlikely I admit). A prediction of a 20 centimetre rise in sea levels and 20 metre losses of beach and coast might have you gathering up the lilo and heading for Inca. All of which would be bad enough, but it is the time frame that should really give the shivers. Forty years from now.
Presumably, there won't be a day in 2050 when the sea suddenly decides to rise and when the beach slides into the Med. Were, for example, one able to say that 17 April, 2050 would be the day, then one could plan accordingly, i.e. by doing nothing for at least three decades. Unfortunately, it's unlikely to happen in this way. (What am I saying, unfortunately?) Because the rise and the loss will occur over time, this makes them seem rather less threatening, which also means doing nothing. And that's the nub of the issue. Is anyone actually doing anything?
The Costas are one department of government which is up to something, much to everyone's annoyance. It may act as an eco-Terminator trampling over illegal buildings and blasting the Don Pedro hotel, but maybe even it is not as bonkers as many would have it. "Hasta la vista." Perhaps it should be: "That vista, the nice one of the sea and that nice beach?" "Oops, there goes the beach, and watch out for those bloody great waves."
Then there's this trifling matter of drought. Rainfall is predicted to decline by almost a quarter. It has been said by certain enviro-ists that Mallorca has overstretched itself in terms of resources. And water is one of them. Who'll fill all those pools in future? The balcony divers should be warned.
Greenpeace and the United Nations are just two bodies who think it might make some sense to plan for the day when 25 metre waves and the loss of coastline occur. Though sea rise and beach disappearance will be, or should be, gradual, there is, worryingly, the chance that beach could indeed just go - on a given day. And this is because of the possibility of earthquakes in the Med which would produce tidal waves.
Mind you, there might be some benefit from all this. The agonising over certain local matters would subside, even if the waters didn't. Pedestrianisation in Puerto Pollensa? Don't worry about it. There won't be a Puerto Pollensa. Golf course in Muro? Forget it and invite back that company with an idea for an aquatic theme park. There wouldn't be plenty of fresh water, but there'd be plenty of another type of water for them to help themselves to.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Two Princes
In the current "Talk Of The North", there is mention of the death of Reinhard Mohn. Who he? Mohn was the former president of the German Bertelsmann media group. He was also fabulously wealthy. He owned a home in Alcúdia and had close links with the town, founding the library of Can Torró and being honoured by being named an "adoptive son" of the town. Rather more grandly - at national level - he was awarded a Principe de Asturias prize (for communications and humanities).
By coincidence, the 2009 event is currently taking place, as always in the city of Oviedo in the principality of Asturias in north-west Spain. The actual awards are to be handed out tomorrow evening.
Principe de Asturias is the title bestowed on the first-in-line male heir to the Spanish throne. The title dates back to the fourteenth century. Currently, this is Crown-Prince Felipe. His father, the current king, Juan-Carlos, was previously the Principe. It is akin to Charles being Prince of Wales. Rather like Charles, and his Prince's Trust, the Principe de Asturias awards have a charitable status - there is a foundation that oversees them. It also gives the heir to the throne something of importance to do, and the awards have become not insignificant in terms of international recognition and prestige.
One might have the impression that the Spanish, all sun, beach and sangria, don't stand too much on ceremony. Well they do when it comes to many aspects of life, including awards ceremonies. The Principe de Asturias prize-giving is, ostensibly, quite a serious do, but the Spanish royals have the knack of introducing light-heartedness into even more solemn occasions. I recall the time when the king and queen embraced and kissed Spanish gold-medal winners at an Olympics event. You wouldn't catch Elizabeth and Philip getting up to that sort of carry-on. But it is this that does make the Spanish royals rather endearing. and the Principe de Asturias ceremony, though formal, does manage to introduce moments of humour. It is all rather splendid.
There are various categories of award, and past winners, an eclectic bunch to say the least, have included the likes of Woody Allen, Bob Dylan, Google, Yasser Arafat, Mary Robinson, Sebastian Coe, Stephen Hawking and J.K. Rowling. This year, there are prizes for, among others, the architect Norman Foster, David Attenborough and two men who, it might be said, have shaped our modern lives more than most - Martin Cooper and Raymond Tomlinson. And they are? Respectively, it was they who - more or less - gave us mobile phones and email. So, it's they - these two princes of technology and the Principe award - who we have to blame.
More climate change and mosquitoes
Following the interview with the chap from IMEDEA (17 October: High In The Sky), the "Diario" has also been talking with the professor of zoology at the university in Palma. In answer to a question as to whether climate change may bring disease-imparting insects, he says that it could well do. The main immediate threat might be the appearance of the tiger mosquito - it has yet to be encountered in the Balearics - which is more aggressive than the current lot and can even bring with it the transmission of diseases such as dengue, which isn't a particularly reassuring prospect. Perhaps some scientists could turn their attention to the matter and get themselves a Principe de Asturias award in the process.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Pete Seeger, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AN3rN59GlWw. Today's title - the band with the lead singer who looked like Alexei Lalas, circa the World Cup 1994 (or maybe it was the other way round).
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
By coincidence, the 2009 event is currently taking place, as always in the city of Oviedo in the principality of Asturias in north-west Spain. The actual awards are to be handed out tomorrow evening.
Principe de Asturias is the title bestowed on the first-in-line male heir to the Spanish throne. The title dates back to the fourteenth century. Currently, this is Crown-Prince Felipe. His father, the current king, Juan-Carlos, was previously the Principe. It is akin to Charles being Prince of Wales. Rather like Charles, and his Prince's Trust, the Principe de Asturias awards have a charitable status - there is a foundation that oversees them. It also gives the heir to the throne something of importance to do, and the awards have become not insignificant in terms of international recognition and prestige.
One might have the impression that the Spanish, all sun, beach and sangria, don't stand too much on ceremony. Well they do when it comes to many aspects of life, including awards ceremonies. The Principe de Asturias prize-giving is, ostensibly, quite a serious do, but the Spanish royals have the knack of introducing light-heartedness into even more solemn occasions. I recall the time when the king and queen embraced and kissed Spanish gold-medal winners at an Olympics event. You wouldn't catch Elizabeth and Philip getting up to that sort of carry-on. But it is this that does make the Spanish royals rather endearing. and the Principe de Asturias ceremony, though formal, does manage to introduce moments of humour. It is all rather splendid.
There are various categories of award, and past winners, an eclectic bunch to say the least, have included the likes of Woody Allen, Bob Dylan, Google, Yasser Arafat, Mary Robinson, Sebastian Coe, Stephen Hawking and J.K. Rowling. This year, there are prizes for, among others, the architect Norman Foster, David Attenborough and two men who, it might be said, have shaped our modern lives more than most - Martin Cooper and Raymond Tomlinson. And they are? Respectively, it was they who - more or less - gave us mobile phones and email. So, it's they - these two princes of technology and the Principe award - who we have to blame.
More climate change and mosquitoes
Following the interview with the chap from IMEDEA (17 October: High In The Sky), the "Diario" has also been talking with the professor of zoology at the university in Palma. In answer to a question as to whether climate change may bring disease-imparting insects, he says that it could well do. The main immediate threat might be the appearance of the tiger mosquito - it has yet to be encountered in the Balearics - which is more aggressive than the current lot and can even bring with it the transmission of diseases such as dengue, which isn't a particularly reassuring prospect. Perhaps some scientists could turn their attention to the matter and get themselves a Principe de Asturias award in the process.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Pete Seeger, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AN3rN59GlWw. Today's title - the band with the lead singer who looked like Alexei Lalas, circa the World Cup 1994 (or maybe it was the other way round).
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Saturday, October 17, 2009
High In The Sky
Might malaria make a return to Mallorca? There used to be malarial mosquitoes. Workers engaged in cultivation of and by Albufera in the later nineteenth century were not immune from it. In current-day Mallorca, victims of malaria have contracted it in countries where it remains a reality. The disease was all but eradicated in European countries where it had been indigenous by the 1960s. Nevertheless, it is still the single greatest health threat that humans have to contend with, and climate change might lead to its return in parts of the world where it was thought they had seen the back of it - and that includes Mallorca.
This possibility has been raised by a professor at IMEDEA (Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies). Interviewed in "The Diario", Carlos Duarte hypotheses that intense rains, the consequence of climate change, could see plagues of mosquitoes, a return of malaria or the creation of new diseases. Part of the background to this is that the storms in September did indeed bring a "plague" around Palma, and special dispensation for spraying had to be obtained in order to contend with the number of mosquitoes.
Duarte has much to say about the impact of climate change. Apart from mosquitoes, he comments on the effects on tourism of rising temperatures. He doesn't envisage tourists deserting Mallorca but preferring to holiday in the spring and autumn when the temperatures would be benign but higher than at present.
Interesting stuff, but nothing particularly new. It's a while since I did anything on climate change, but there was a period when it was a regular feature on the blog. The tourism impact was just one aspect. The effect of rising sea levels another. Some of the forecasts for both temperature and sea-level rises have been truly scary, but coincidental with what Duarte says comes a book that may go a long way to disputing much of the thinking behind climate change. In an extract from "Superfreakonomics" in the last "Sunday Times", Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner reported on the work of some extraordinary men from Intellectual Ventures (IV) in Seattle. And they are extraordinary - a close associate of Bill Gates (an investor in IV), an astrophysicist and a climate scientist who has challenged his own assumptions about climate change, ones that had led him to share a Nobel prize with Al Gore, but which now contradict much of the Gore-ist propaganda.
The nub of what these extraordinary men have been working on is that, while accepting the Earth's warming, they dispute many of the crude models upon which predictions have been based and also one of the central tenets of the climate change debate - the role of carbon. Their argument is that carbon dioxide is not, in itself, a bad thing, just that it is increasing too fast. There are numerous sacred cows that the article tackles, but the "big thing" that they have hit upon is to take the experience of a volcanic explosion in 1991 in the Philippines to conclude that small increases of sulphur dioxide, artificially pumped into the stratosphere, would be sufficient to cool the planet. Moreover, they propose how to do it, at very low cost. It would entail a system of very long, very thin hosepipes. It may sound bizarre, but the argument is compelling.
And there is one particular other thing they believe - and that is that the threat of sea levels rising has been blown out of proportion. The most authoritative estimate would have these levels, by the start of the next century, being no greater than many normal tidal variations that occur every day. The people of the Mallorcan coasts can rest easy in their beds.
The IV scientists have proposed something disarmingly simple and cheap. And cheapness can often be best, as it was with DDT to eliminate malaria before the mosquitoes started to fight back. It may be necessary that insecticides have to be used again in Mallorca - on a far more widespread basis than the special spraying last month - but were they to be it would not be costly. But even less costly, in the total scheme of things, would be the hosepipes in the sky. Extraordinary men and extraordinary thinking.
* I would give you a link to the article, but I'm damned if I can find it. Maybe not included on "The Times" site as it is a book extract and therefore copyrighted. Sorry about that. The book, published by Allen Lane, is released in the UK on 20 October. Its full title is "Superfreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance".
QUIZ
Today's title - line from something, the title of which is the first word above; the group used to have its name changed by Steve Wright - weight was the substitute word.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
This possibility has been raised by a professor at IMEDEA (Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies). Interviewed in "The Diario", Carlos Duarte hypotheses that intense rains, the consequence of climate change, could see plagues of mosquitoes, a return of malaria or the creation of new diseases. Part of the background to this is that the storms in September did indeed bring a "plague" around Palma, and special dispensation for spraying had to be obtained in order to contend with the number of mosquitoes.
Duarte has much to say about the impact of climate change. Apart from mosquitoes, he comments on the effects on tourism of rising temperatures. He doesn't envisage tourists deserting Mallorca but preferring to holiday in the spring and autumn when the temperatures would be benign but higher than at present.
Interesting stuff, but nothing particularly new. It's a while since I did anything on climate change, but there was a period when it was a regular feature on the blog. The tourism impact was just one aspect. The effect of rising sea levels another. Some of the forecasts for both temperature and sea-level rises have been truly scary, but coincidental with what Duarte says comes a book that may go a long way to disputing much of the thinking behind climate change. In an extract from "Superfreakonomics" in the last "Sunday Times", Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner reported on the work of some extraordinary men from Intellectual Ventures (IV) in Seattle. And they are extraordinary - a close associate of Bill Gates (an investor in IV), an astrophysicist and a climate scientist who has challenged his own assumptions about climate change, ones that had led him to share a Nobel prize with Al Gore, but which now contradict much of the Gore-ist propaganda.
The nub of what these extraordinary men have been working on is that, while accepting the Earth's warming, they dispute many of the crude models upon which predictions have been based and also one of the central tenets of the climate change debate - the role of carbon. Their argument is that carbon dioxide is not, in itself, a bad thing, just that it is increasing too fast. There are numerous sacred cows that the article tackles, but the "big thing" that they have hit upon is to take the experience of a volcanic explosion in 1991 in the Philippines to conclude that small increases of sulphur dioxide, artificially pumped into the stratosphere, would be sufficient to cool the planet. Moreover, they propose how to do it, at very low cost. It would entail a system of very long, very thin hosepipes. It may sound bizarre, but the argument is compelling.
And there is one particular other thing they believe - and that is that the threat of sea levels rising has been blown out of proportion. The most authoritative estimate would have these levels, by the start of the next century, being no greater than many normal tidal variations that occur every day. The people of the Mallorcan coasts can rest easy in their beds.
The IV scientists have proposed something disarmingly simple and cheap. And cheapness can often be best, as it was with DDT to eliminate malaria before the mosquitoes started to fight back. It may be necessary that insecticides have to be used again in Mallorca - on a far more widespread basis than the special spraying last month - but were they to be it would not be costly. But even less costly, in the total scheme of things, would be the hosepipes in the sky. Extraordinary men and extraordinary thinking.
* I would give you a link to the article, but I'm damned if I can find it. Maybe not included on "The Times" site as it is a book extract and therefore copyrighted. Sorry about that. The book, published by Allen Lane, is released in the UK on 20 October. Its full title is "Superfreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance".
QUIZ
Today's title - line from something, the title of which is the first word above; the group used to have its name changed by Steve Wright - weight was the substitute word.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Thursday, October 30, 2008
The West Is The Best
The Maya civilisation of central America is a very small footnote in Spanish history. By the time Columbus and the other early Spanish adventurers encountered the Maya, their great civilisation was long past - by some 600 years - and their population was massively smaller than it had once been; the surviving Maya were their own footnote of succession. Yet the story of the Maya, their rise and fall, has long fascinated historians. And the reasons for the decline of what had been a great civilisation are still debated.
Into all of this comes an article in "The Guardian", which draws comparisons with the Maya's decline and current-day Western civilisation, that of a wavering system of capitalism and the overuse of resources. One needs to be cautious. "The Guardian" is almost an environmental-lobby house magazine. But the thrust of the argument, that it was environmental and population factors which led to the downfall of the Maya, has some clear enough similarities with our own civilisation. There is a rather convenient conclusion to the article - that civilisations last, at most, for 600 years. The glory years of the Maya amounted to a bit more than 600; current Western civilisation, starting with the Renaissance, is reaching its terminal point of decline.
It is a seductive argument, but it could of course be total bollocks. The alternative explanations for the fall of the Maya are based on attacks from other tribes (akin, perhaps, to Rome) and natural disasters. However, the article deserves to be read if only for the characterisation of our own "kings" (Brown and the G8) as being incapable of reading the signs of decline - as the Maya kings were similarly tunnel-visioned.
Ok, leap of imagination time. Mallorca is a footnote in the history of Western civilisation. Indeed it is another footnote in Spanish history. Yet, following the argument of the Maya analogy, it could be seen as one of the last great follies of Western civilisation, a one-time backward but sustainable island propelled suddenly into the world of big money with scant or no regard for its resources.
And so they came to build their temples of tourism and palaces by the sea, and all this was done in a period, a tiny fraction of history, with a speed that choked the island's resources and made them groan under the pressure of this haste. What the "kings" did not know, until very late, was that the island's location made it more susceptible than others to the impact of voracious anti-nature, artificial climate change; one that could mean that the great period of Mallorcan civilisation comes to last a mere 70 years or so.
A neighbour, who lives closer to the sea than do I, asked me the other day why anyone would now want to buy a property right by the sea. It's a fair question, as no one can say with any certainty what might happen to sea levels. We only have the predictions, and they, as also those for extreme temperatures, are far from comforting.
Yet there is one great flaw in the Maya parable, and it concerns - ironically enough - technological innovation. While this may have caused the circumstances of potential decline, it is also the potential saviour. The point about the Maya, which is perhaps being overlooked, is that, despite their great achievements, they seemed to reach a plateau of innovation. The Mexico that the Spanish discovered was a wheel-less society. The tribes, not just the Maya, lacked curiosity. Though they traded, they were not seafarers. When the first Spanish ships appeared off the coasts of the Americas, they were alien things to the Mexican peoples. It could be argued that the great civilisations of the past, such as the Maya, had an in-built and finite time span. The same cannot be said of a technologically innovative and curious Western civilisation. It can be facile to believe that "something will turn up" that prevents its collapse, but the chances of that something turning up are vastly greater than was the case with old civilisations.
The Maya comparison is an interesting one, but it maybe is no more than just that: interesting.
Here is the article from "The Guardian":
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/oct/28/climatechange-population
REAL MALLORCA - NOT YET THE END
Well, having myself said that the end had been reached - an end also echoed by the press - it looks as though as everyone is being made to look a chump. The takeover of the club by Paul Davidson was supposed to have been consummated yesterday by the transfer of the 38 million euros agreed price. Then there was an email which asked for an extension of a further ten days, the reasoning being - apparently - "unforeseen circumstances of the global economy" (as quoted in translation from the report in the "Diario" this morning). The extension has been agreed to, but now obviously some doubts are being raised, both by the press and from within the club.
It is all somewhat extraordinary not to say somewhat farcical. And one guesses that, if the payment is indeed made, there are those who will be wondering quite what the delay indicates in terms of the future. The sale price of Real Mallorca is not, when one considers English clubs, that high, but there are also those who will argue it is still too high, especially for a club that does not actually own a key asset - its ground.
Still more to run on this one.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Death Cab For Cutie (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfBw0IWwO5U). Today's title - a line from a terminal song by one of the great US bands.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Into all of this comes an article in "The Guardian", which draws comparisons with the Maya's decline and current-day Western civilisation, that of a wavering system of capitalism and the overuse of resources. One needs to be cautious. "The Guardian" is almost an environmental-lobby house magazine. But the thrust of the argument, that it was environmental and population factors which led to the downfall of the Maya, has some clear enough similarities with our own civilisation. There is a rather convenient conclusion to the article - that civilisations last, at most, for 600 years. The glory years of the Maya amounted to a bit more than 600; current Western civilisation, starting with the Renaissance, is reaching its terminal point of decline.
It is a seductive argument, but it could of course be total bollocks. The alternative explanations for the fall of the Maya are based on attacks from other tribes (akin, perhaps, to Rome) and natural disasters. However, the article deserves to be read if only for the characterisation of our own "kings" (Brown and the G8) as being incapable of reading the signs of decline - as the Maya kings were similarly tunnel-visioned.
Ok, leap of imagination time. Mallorca is a footnote in the history of Western civilisation. Indeed it is another footnote in Spanish history. Yet, following the argument of the Maya analogy, it could be seen as one of the last great follies of Western civilisation, a one-time backward but sustainable island propelled suddenly into the world of big money with scant or no regard for its resources.
And so they came to build their temples of tourism and palaces by the sea, and all this was done in a period, a tiny fraction of history, with a speed that choked the island's resources and made them groan under the pressure of this haste. What the "kings" did not know, until very late, was that the island's location made it more susceptible than others to the impact of voracious anti-nature, artificial climate change; one that could mean that the great period of Mallorcan civilisation comes to last a mere 70 years or so.
A neighbour, who lives closer to the sea than do I, asked me the other day why anyone would now want to buy a property right by the sea. It's a fair question, as no one can say with any certainty what might happen to sea levels. We only have the predictions, and they, as also those for extreme temperatures, are far from comforting.
Yet there is one great flaw in the Maya parable, and it concerns - ironically enough - technological innovation. While this may have caused the circumstances of potential decline, it is also the potential saviour. The point about the Maya, which is perhaps being overlooked, is that, despite their great achievements, they seemed to reach a plateau of innovation. The Mexico that the Spanish discovered was a wheel-less society. The tribes, not just the Maya, lacked curiosity. Though they traded, they were not seafarers. When the first Spanish ships appeared off the coasts of the Americas, they were alien things to the Mexican peoples. It could be argued that the great civilisations of the past, such as the Maya, had an in-built and finite time span. The same cannot be said of a technologically innovative and curious Western civilisation. It can be facile to believe that "something will turn up" that prevents its collapse, but the chances of that something turning up are vastly greater than was the case with old civilisations.
The Maya comparison is an interesting one, but it maybe is no more than just that: interesting.
Here is the article from "The Guardian":
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/oct/28/climatechange-population
REAL MALLORCA - NOT YET THE END
Well, having myself said that the end had been reached - an end also echoed by the press - it looks as though as everyone is being made to look a chump. The takeover of the club by Paul Davidson was supposed to have been consummated yesterday by the transfer of the 38 million euros agreed price. Then there was an email which asked for an extension of a further ten days, the reasoning being - apparently - "unforeseen circumstances of the global economy" (as quoted in translation from the report in the "Diario" this morning). The extension has been agreed to, but now obviously some doubts are being raised, both by the press and from within the club.
It is all somewhat extraordinary not to say somewhat farcical. And one guesses that, if the payment is indeed made, there are those who will be wondering quite what the delay indicates in terms of the future. The sale price of Real Mallorca is not, when one considers English clubs, that high, but there are also those who will argue it is still too high, especially for a club that does not actually own a key asset - its ground.
Still more to run on this one.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Death Cab For Cutie (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfBw0IWwO5U). Today's title - a line from a terminal song by one of the great US bands.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Saturday, September 20, 2008
That's Not Fair
The summer fiestas start to fade, but as they do, they merge with and morph into another form of tradition - the fair. This is a seamless continuum of event that will be reversed at Christmas and into the new year. No event more symbolises the transition from summer to the autumnal fair than the Binissalem Vermar. It yearns for and does not want to lose the slowly disappearing summer by its insistence on fiesta but accepts the time of year with the celebration of the grape harvest. Vermar means grape harvest.
The Binissalem event is as drawn out as the Can Picafort August fiesta, but, unlike that summer party, its length enables it to straddle seasons; it starts in summer and ends in autumn. It is equinoctial fiesta. The Vermar, a vinous grand tasting, treads grapes and presents a battle of almost festishistic down-and-dirty rolling in crushed fruit. Binissalem, the home also of the dry-stone wall fiesta, is the centre of rural celebration; its parties are statements of difference. Yet one wonders if the Vermar may continue at the time of the turn of the seasons. Climate change, so we are told, is leading to grape ripening occurring earlier and to new challenges to wine-makers. Spain has more land devoted to vines than any other country. Rising temperatures threaten not only the grape industry but also the fiestas.
The autumn fair is something that can be found in many towns across the island. Alcúdia has its own fair at the start of October. But being a Mallorcan event, it cannot dispense with the trappings of the fiesta. Accordingly, alongside the farm machinery, the stands and the animals are the giants, the folk dance and the inevitable night party with its DJs and bands, raging from the old-town centre and keeping the neighbours awake. At the fair are all manner of local curiosities - from fans and hats to custom cars of eccentric design and highly-tuned engines. The fairs are also occasions for the island to show off - governmental publicity stunts for the environment and tourism and industry's wares in the form of, for example, Mallorcan wines. They are fine events, but one wonders quite what they achieve. Alcúdia's fair bears similarities each year. It is though they are events for preaching to the already knowing or converted. But they, like the fiestas, are tradition. And tradition goes an awfully long way in Mallorca.
For information on both the Vermar and the Alcúdia Fair, go to the What's On Blog - http://www.wotzupnorth.blogspot.com.
And if, in wet and miserable summer Britain for instance, you are wondering whether climate change is all but a figment of the imagination, try this ... Tucked away in a piece in "The Diario" the other day was a thing which reported the views of a Nobel prize winner. He says that south-west Europe, which includes Mallorca, could anticipate an increase in average temperatures of up to six degrees over the next six years. Six degrees! Over six years! Is he kidding? Presumably he isn't. But if it were to be the case, then frankly I think we should be extremely worried. And quite why this has not been more widely reported, I am not sure. Six degrees. It's just not fair; perhaps they'll have to shift all the fairs to December if that's the case.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - the single "The Gap" wasn't that good, so instead here is something that was - The Thompson Twins, "All Fall Out" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0y_91nGEDYw). Today's title - this is a line from a current song; she's still a rock star and she's a colour.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
The Binissalem event is as drawn out as the Can Picafort August fiesta, but, unlike that summer party, its length enables it to straddle seasons; it starts in summer and ends in autumn. It is equinoctial fiesta. The Vermar, a vinous grand tasting, treads grapes and presents a battle of almost festishistic down-and-dirty rolling in crushed fruit. Binissalem, the home also of the dry-stone wall fiesta, is the centre of rural celebration; its parties are statements of difference. Yet one wonders if the Vermar may continue at the time of the turn of the seasons. Climate change, so we are told, is leading to grape ripening occurring earlier and to new challenges to wine-makers. Spain has more land devoted to vines than any other country. Rising temperatures threaten not only the grape industry but also the fiestas.
The autumn fair is something that can be found in many towns across the island. Alcúdia has its own fair at the start of October. But being a Mallorcan event, it cannot dispense with the trappings of the fiesta. Accordingly, alongside the farm machinery, the stands and the animals are the giants, the folk dance and the inevitable night party with its DJs and bands, raging from the old-town centre and keeping the neighbours awake. At the fair are all manner of local curiosities - from fans and hats to custom cars of eccentric design and highly-tuned engines. The fairs are also occasions for the island to show off - governmental publicity stunts for the environment and tourism and industry's wares in the form of, for example, Mallorcan wines. They are fine events, but one wonders quite what they achieve. Alcúdia's fair bears similarities each year. It is though they are events for preaching to the already knowing or converted. But they, like the fiestas, are tradition. And tradition goes an awfully long way in Mallorca.
For information on both the Vermar and the Alcúdia Fair, go to the What's On Blog - http://www.wotzupnorth.blogspot.com.
And if, in wet and miserable summer Britain for instance, you are wondering whether climate change is all but a figment of the imagination, try this ... Tucked away in a piece in "The Diario" the other day was a thing which reported the views of a Nobel prize winner. He says that south-west Europe, which includes Mallorca, could anticipate an increase in average temperatures of up to six degrees over the next six years. Six degrees! Over six years! Is he kidding? Presumably he isn't. But if it were to be the case, then frankly I think we should be extremely worried. And quite why this has not been more widely reported, I am not sure. Six degrees. It's just not fair; perhaps they'll have to shift all the fairs to December if that's the case.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - the single "The Gap" wasn't that good, so instead here is something that was - The Thompson Twins, "All Fall Out" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0y_91nGEDYw). Today's title - this is a line from a current song; she's still a rock star and she's a colour.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Missing
At times I can't help feeling that I am a bit ahead of the game. That will sound terribly immodest, but the most recent warning about climate change - and its impact on Mallorca - and the consequent reporting of this, is somewhat old news. The fact that Mallorca, and the Balearics, stand to suffer more than most places because of climate change is something I spoke about - when it was, God knows. But there has been yet another report, and this time some of the media has picked up on it, and expressed concern. Bloody right they should be concerned.
The Balearics are at 40 degrees latitude, bang on the line for the most dramatic effects of climate change - apparently. Unlike some, for instance the failed presidential candidate Mariano Rajoy and our old mate Leapy Lee, both of whom seem to believe it's all a load of tosh, I do take the issue seriously and can well believe much of the evidence.
That there have been previous periods of warming is not a reason to assume that the current cycle is purely natural. That different camps of scientists attack each other across their learned journals is also not a reason to assume that this current cycle is not man-made. The increases in temperatures locally are already quite significant, and for 40 degrees read 40 years as a kind of ball-park for when the real impact may be felt. Some way away of course, but not so far that it doesn't begin to have an immediate effect, not least on the planning of what goes on around the heavily populated coastlines of Mallorca and on the planning of tourism going deep into this current century; the rising sea levels would make us need to head for high land perhaps. But I have said all this before, and now others are. Good. Let's have a proper discussion then, shall we?
And on a totally different subject, but kind of linking to "high land", one of the pleasing aspects of this blog is when folk mail me, quite out of the blue, let me know what's happening in their lives and wishing the blog well and also wishing people here well. I had one such mail in the inbox this morning. It was from John who used to run The Highlander in Puerto Alcúdia and who's missing Alcúdia. Apart from anything else, he said to wish everyone a good season, and anyone who's run a bar or done anything of a seasonal nature here will know that good wishes are often needed. And he'll be over in April and hope to see people.
QUIZ
Yesterday - "Drive", The Cars, which became associated with Live Aid. Today's title - ok, so John's missing Alcúdia. Who did this? Very well-known (and brilliant) and a previous quiz target.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
The Balearics are at 40 degrees latitude, bang on the line for the most dramatic effects of climate change - apparently. Unlike some, for instance the failed presidential candidate Mariano Rajoy and our old mate Leapy Lee, both of whom seem to believe it's all a load of tosh, I do take the issue seriously and can well believe much of the evidence.
That there have been previous periods of warming is not a reason to assume that the current cycle is purely natural. That different camps of scientists attack each other across their learned journals is also not a reason to assume that this current cycle is not man-made. The increases in temperatures locally are already quite significant, and for 40 degrees read 40 years as a kind of ball-park for when the real impact may be felt. Some way away of course, but not so far that it doesn't begin to have an immediate effect, not least on the planning of what goes on around the heavily populated coastlines of Mallorca and on the planning of tourism going deep into this current century; the rising sea levels would make us need to head for high land perhaps. But I have said all this before, and now others are. Good. Let's have a proper discussion then, shall we?
And on a totally different subject, but kind of linking to "high land", one of the pleasing aspects of this blog is when folk mail me, quite out of the blue, let me know what's happening in their lives and wishing the blog well and also wishing people here well. I had one such mail in the inbox this morning. It was from John who used to run The Highlander in Puerto Alcúdia and who's missing Alcúdia. Apart from anything else, he said to wish everyone a good season, and anyone who's run a bar or done anything of a seasonal nature here will know that good wishes are often needed. And he'll be over in April and hope to see people.
QUIZ
Yesterday - "Drive", The Cars, which became associated with Live Aid. Today's title - ok, so John's missing Alcúdia. Who did this? Very well-known (and brilliant) and a previous quiz target.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Monday, December 10, 2007
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?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
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?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Saturday, November 10, 2007
What About This Overcrowded Land
Further to the “Ultima Hora” piece about the Roman pottery remains in Puerto Alcúdia (27 October: Here I Dreamt I Was An Architect), the paper is now reporting that further sampling has been ordered to ascertain if the site near to the Coral de Mar hotel is indeed that of Pollentia’s port. At present there is an open mind, one possibility also being that the remains could simply be from dumped excavation debris.
Whilst archaeological intervention halts one residential building project, environmental intervention (or rather outcry) has not stopped another. In Cala San Vicente, the demolition of the old Can Colom in the Cala Molins part of the resort has started, much to the disgust of environmental pressure group GOB and others. In its place will be apartments and a swimming-pool that, according to GOB, will lead to the destruction of an important forest area. I don’t know. Instinctively I am on the side of the environmentalists, but the constant opposition is wearisome. There is a sense of here-we-go-again, that perhaps they doth protest too much, that every part of land is important in some way, that wolf is cried when there are bigger beasts to be wary of.
Also on the environment, and back to the plans I referred to on 6 November, I had a chat with an engineer from the power station in Alcúdia, asked him what was with all this stuff about relocating the power station. His reaction - one word, eight letters, begins with “b”. The investment that has already been put into the power station would be a strong argument for doing nothing, and as he also pointed out, it may be that they get a round to relocation in fifty years or so, when they’ll have to because of the rising water level.
Elsewhere, more doom-mongering. “The Bulletin” gives prominence to rising temperatures and drought, the “Diario” also to rising temperatures - an average of 4.83 degrees over the last 100 years in the Balearics - and lower total rainfalls but more torrential outbursts. The Balearic Government minister for the environment says that no-one is any doubt as to climate change, except for one politician, by whom I presumes he means Mariano Rajoy (24 October: It's My Party) who will doubtless be still insisting the Earth is flat while the waters lap around the perimeter of the Alcúdia power station.
QUIZ
Yesterday - New Musik. Today’s title - a line from one of the greatest of all environmental songs.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Whilst archaeological intervention halts one residential building project, environmental intervention (or rather outcry) has not stopped another. In Cala San Vicente, the demolition of the old Can Colom in the Cala Molins part of the resort has started, much to the disgust of environmental pressure group GOB and others. In its place will be apartments and a swimming-pool that, according to GOB, will lead to the destruction of an important forest area. I don’t know. Instinctively I am on the side of the environmentalists, but the constant opposition is wearisome. There is a sense of here-we-go-again, that perhaps they doth protest too much, that every part of land is important in some way, that wolf is cried when there are bigger beasts to be wary of.
Also on the environment, and back to the plans I referred to on 6 November, I had a chat with an engineer from the power station in Alcúdia, asked him what was with all this stuff about relocating the power station. His reaction - one word, eight letters, begins with “b”. The investment that has already been put into the power station would be a strong argument for doing nothing, and as he also pointed out, it may be that they get a round to relocation in fifty years or so, when they’ll have to because of the rising water level.
Elsewhere, more doom-mongering. “The Bulletin” gives prominence to rising temperatures and drought, the “Diario” also to rising temperatures - an average of 4.83 degrees over the last 100 years in the Balearics - and lower total rainfalls but more torrential outbursts. The Balearic Government minister for the environment says that no-one is any doubt as to climate change, except for one politician, by whom I presumes he means Mariano Rajoy (24 October: It's My Party) who will doubtless be still insisting the Earth is flat while the waters lap around the perimeter of the Alcúdia power station.
QUIZ
Yesterday - New Musik. Today’s title - a line from one of the greatest of all environmental songs.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
I’ve Still Got Sand In My Shoes
Don’t worry. They’re not going to stop you using the beaches. Quite the opposite in fact. Beach liberation and an end to de facto privatisation of the coastline! The people’s beaches!
The Environment Ministry has spoken. Its plan for the sustainability of the coastline has scrutinised hotels, dwellings, swimming-pools, beach-bars, nautical clubs; even the power station in Alcúdia and the military base in Puerto Pollensa have come under its low-energy-bulb spotlight.
To recap. The Government (central that is) could use the law to remove any property that has been built in what it considers to be an illegal fashion on public coastline. This affects much of the island. The additional background to this is the environmental damage that has been caused (and is being caused) by development that has gone hand-in-hand with Mallorca’s success as a tourist destination. And then there is climate change. A fifteen-centimetre rise in sea level by the middle of the century poses its own threat to beaches such as Alcúdia and Muro.
Demolition of hotels is perhaps the greatest headline-catcher. In the north one hotel is likely to get the swinging-ball and bulldozer - Don Pedro in Cala San Vicente. In the south there are, apparently, four beaches which are not accessible because of hotels. Solution: knock the hotels down.
The report recommends relocating the power station in Alcúdia (not the old one, the new one). It also recommends privatising the port of the military base in Puerto Pollensa (for reasons that escape me) and modification to or the re-siting of two nautical clubs in the south. And what was I saying the other day about people on beaches? Seemingly there are numerous examples of beaches where individual space is only five square metres when it should be between seven and twelve, a cause for ecological alarm in its own right because of the pressure this crowding creates. Presumably the liberation of the beaches will help to spread the load.
“El País”, from where some of the above comes, says that half-a-dozen hotels are targeted for demolition on three islands, not just on Mallorca (but when the paper starts to itemise these, along with the threatened hotels which block access, the number rises). Don Pedro though would be no surprise; this has been spoken about for ages. The hotel-demolition “headline” is a bit overplayed; the greatest threat to hotels is where they have say swimming-pools or terraces on public land.
What is not being talked about is wholesale demolition of residences (other than reference to “chalés irregulares”). Indeed the focus for private residences is more where these have created private areas in denying public access to the coastline, as in the case of the Costa de los Pinos on the east coast; the houses themselves are not the issue, pools and gardens are.
I had rather expected something more dramatic. Talk of “paradise and chaos” and “barbarism” is hyperbole. The proposals are, in certain instances, long-term, such as the relocation of the power station, and one wonders whether that would happen. Cases such as Don Pedro are not new. The beach-bars are soft options. Maybe it is just politicking after all.
QUIZ
Yesterday - Bruce Springsteen. Today’s title - which emoting songstress?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
The Environment Ministry has spoken. Its plan for the sustainability of the coastline has scrutinised hotels, dwellings, swimming-pools, beach-bars, nautical clubs; even the power station in Alcúdia and the military base in Puerto Pollensa have come under its low-energy-bulb spotlight.
To recap. The Government (central that is) could use the law to remove any property that has been built in what it considers to be an illegal fashion on public coastline. This affects much of the island. The additional background to this is the environmental damage that has been caused (and is being caused) by development that has gone hand-in-hand with Mallorca’s success as a tourist destination. And then there is climate change. A fifteen-centimetre rise in sea level by the middle of the century poses its own threat to beaches such as Alcúdia and Muro.
Demolition of hotels is perhaps the greatest headline-catcher. In the north one hotel is likely to get the swinging-ball and bulldozer - Don Pedro in Cala San Vicente. In the south there are, apparently, four beaches which are not accessible because of hotels. Solution: knock the hotels down.
The report recommends relocating the power station in Alcúdia (not the old one, the new one). It also recommends privatising the port of the military base in Puerto Pollensa (for reasons that escape me) and modification to or the re-siting of two nautical clubs in the south. And what was I saying the other day about people on beaches? Seemingly there are numerous examples of beaches where individual space is only five square metres when it should be between seven and twelve, a cause for ecological alarm in its own right because of the pressure this crowding creates. Presumably the liberation of the beaches will help to spread the load.
“El País”, from where some of the above comes, says that half-a-dozen hotels are targeted for demolition on three islands, not just on Mallorca (but when the paper starts to itemise these, along with the threatened hotels which block access, the number rises). Don Pedro though would be no surprise; this has been spoken about for ages. The hotel-demolition “headline” is a bit overplayed; the greatest threat to hotels is where they have say swimming-pools or terraces on public land.
What is not being talked about is wholesale demolition of residences (other than reference to “chalés irregulares”). Indeed the focus for private residences is more where these have created private areas in denying public access to the coastline, as in the case of the Costa de los Pinos on the east coast; the houses themselves are not the issue, pools and gardens are.
I had rather expected something more dramatic. Talk of “paradise and chaos” and “barbarism” is hyperbole. The proposals are, in certain instances, long-term, such as the relocation of the power station, and one wonders whether that would happen. Cases such as Don Pedro are not new. The beach-bars are soft options. Maybe it is just politicking after all.
QUIZ
Yesterday - Bruce Springsteen. Today’s title - which emoting songstress?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Saturday, November 03, 2007
Nobody On The Beach
A retreat of the beach by between six and twelve metres by 2050.
This is just one of the conclusions of an Environment Ministry report highlighted in today’s “Ultima Hora”. The beach in question is on the bay of Pollensa, which must mean Puerto Pollensa.
The report recommends immediate action and the adoption of a new model for the management of the island’s coastline to take account of climate change. But climate change is not the only issue exercising those charged with overseeing coastline protection. There are numerous examples of building on the public areas of coastline, by implication illegal building. This follows on from what I noted on 30 October about the Spanish Government’s intention to invoke legislation against such building. The parts of coastline that have the most cases of this are the bays of Pollensa and Alcúdia. Specific mention is made of “chiringuitos” and “balnearios” (which for English purposes can both be called beach-bars) as well as other buildings, parking areas and pools. There are also concerns regarding residential building in Formentor and Cala San Vicente.
This is not the first time that the beach-bars have come under the gaze of the coastal protectors, but now it could be that something will be done. It is also not the first time that the issue of public beach area has cropped up - it was a part of this summer’s whole sunbed and beach umbrella fandango on the beach of Playa de Muro.
Illegal, or allegedly illegal building is hardly a revelation in Mallorca or indeed elsewhere in Spain. If the beach-bars contravene, then legally they should go. But how desirable would that really be? That they occupy public area is probably indisputable, but they also offer a public service in that public area. Walk along the bay of Alcúdia from the port as far as the furthest reaches of Playa de Muro’s urbanisation, and there are numerous beach-bars. Few, if any, could be said to be limiting public space on what is after all a generally deep beach (at present, at any rate) or on dunes where they reside alongside other buildings. Make them relocate beyond the 100-metre limit, and where would they go? Take another couple of cases - the chiringuitos in the coves of San Juan and San Pedro in Mal Pas. They can only be where they are - more or less next to the water’s edge. Take them away and what would happen? Might people be less inclined to go to the beaches here, might they still come and create more of their own damage of litter?
Doing away with the beach-bars, or placing them somewhere well-removed from either the beach or the sea cuts away at another of the rather abstract attractions of beach-and-sun holidays. There is a romanticism to a beach-bar and its proximity to the sea. Similarly, there was a romanticism to being able to sit on a terrace bar till two in the morning with some musical background until the universal midnight curfew was effected. Maybe these beach-bars are illegal, but I for one would not like to see them disappear.
Are the beach-bars environmentally damaging? Of course they are. But all human intervention on the coastlines or beaches damages the environment. I once joked about the sign on the rustic beach at Playa de Muro which asked for people to brush off the sand, but it’s a fact that you go lie on the beach and you will remove some sand. Similarly, if you walk along the beach, you will remove some sand. The outcome of the environmental case would be to make beaches no-go areas: nobody should be on the beach.
The retreat of the beach is quite another issue. If it is as great as is being suggested (and it could well be much greater), the question of beach-bars (and other building) will start to become irrelevant anyway.
QUIZ
Yesterday - China Crisis. Today’s title - it’s a line from? (Clue: it’s quite a famous “summer” song).
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
This is just one of the conclusions of an Environment Ministry report highlighted in today’s “Ultima Hora”. The beach in question is on the bay of Pollensa, which must mean Puerto Pollensa.
The report recommends immediate action and the adoption of a new model for the management of the island’s coastline to take account of climate change. But climate change is not the only issue exercising those charged with overseeing coastline protection. There are numerous examples of building on the public areas of coastline, by implication illegal building. This follows on from what I noted on 30 October about the Spanish Government’s intention to invoke legislation against such building. The parts of coastline that have the most cases of this are the bays of Pollensa and Alcúdia. Specific mention is made of “chiringuitos” and “balnearios” (which for English purposes can both be called beach-bars) as well as other buildings, parking areas and pools. There are also concerns regarding residential building in Formentor and Cala San Vicente.
This is not the first time that the beach-bars have come under the gaze of the coastal protectors, but now it could be that something will be done. It is also not the first time that the issue of public beach area has cropped up - it was a part of this summer’s whole sunbed and beach umbrella fandango on the beach of Playa de Muro.
Illegal, or allegedly illegal building is hardly a revelation in Mallorca or indeed elsewhere in Spain. If the beach-bars contravene, then legally they should go. But how desirable would that really be? That they occupy public area is probably indisputable, but they also offer a public service in that public area. Walk along the bay of Alcúdia from the port as far as the furthest reaches of Playa de Muro’s urbanisation, and there are numerous beach-bars. Few, if any, could be said to be limiting public space on what is after all a generally deep beach (at present, at any rate) or on dunes where they reside alongside other buildings. Make them relocate beyond the 100-metre limit, and where would they go? Take another couple of cases - the chiringuitos in the coves of San Juan and San Pedro in Mal Pas. They can only be where they are - more or less next to the water’s edge. Take them away and what would happen? Might people be less inclined to go to the beaches here, might they still come and create more of their own damage of litter?
Doing away with the beach-bars, or placing them somewhere well-removed from either the beach or the sea cuts away at another of the rather abstract attractions of beach-and-sun holidays. There is a romanticism to a beach-bar and its proximity to the sea. Similarly, there was a romanticism to being able to sit on a terrace bar till two in the morning with some musical background until the universal midnight curfew was effected. Maybe these beach-bars are illegal, but I for one would not like to see them disappear.
Are the beach-bars environmentally damaging? Of course they are. But all human intervention on the coastlines or beaches damages the environment. I once joked about the sign on the rustic beach at Playa de Muro which asked for people to brush off the sand, but it’s a fact that you go lie on the beach and you will remove some sand. Similarly, if you walk along the beach, you will remove some sand. The outcome of the environmental case would be to make beaches no-go areas: nobody should be on the beach.
The retreat of the beach is quite another issue. If it is as great as is being suggested (and it could well be much greater), the question of beach-bars (and other building) will start to become irrelevant anyway.
QUIZ
Yesterday - China Crisis. Today’s title - it’s a line from? (Clue: it’s quite a famous “summer” song).
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
It's My Party
If it’s Monday it must be Palma, or rather it was. Ah, the life of a world figure bringing his gospel to the masses with the help of a fair-sized wad of folding notes. Al Gore duly pitched up at a conference for family businesses in Palma and gave his views to a select group of the worthy. Nobel Prize or no Nobel Prize, there is something that worries me about Al Gore, but that is not for here. More importantly, his evangelistic climate-change message has not met with universal agreement. Notably, the leader of the Partido Popular nationally, Mariano Rajoy, questioned the whole problem of climate change. Seemingly, he bases his opposition on the opinion of his cousin who works as a physicist at the University of Seville. Now, I am sure there is more to it (at least I would hope there would be), and I have no reason to query the cousin’s qualifications, but for a politician (who could be Spain’s leader this time next year) to use this opinion strikes me as a tad thin. It is stronger than quoting the opinon of a bloke he met in the pub, but one does expect a little more from leading politicos.
Anyway, back to Al Gore. The former US vice-president came, he spoke and he went. Like many of his fellow (tourist) countrypeople, it was a case of ticking off another place, albeit that he didn’t hang around to get a few snaps. I wonder if Al really knew who he was talking to. I say this as I have a Henry Kissinger story that is similar. Some years ago in my then publishing role, I attended a management conference in New Orleans. Kissinger was the keynote speaker. It became clear as he was speaking that he didn’t know what the conference was all about; just gave us his speech on whatever it was and was off, save for a short press conference which I attended. The members of the press were thin on the ground - a handful of local hacks and a TV crew, myself and a journalist colleague from the UK. The conference stuttered along, so I stood up to ask what I doubtless thought was some searching question (I cannot remember what it was). When I announced who I was and where I was from, Kissinger interrupted me, asking: “What are you doing HERE?” I wanted to reply: “Well, I might ask what YOU are doing here?”, but thought better of it. I bring this up because, big splash though Gore’s visit has made, it would have probably meant little to him. Just another day, just another speech.
To other matters. Another disappearance, this the curious case of Sara Cooper who has gone missing from her hotel in Cales de Mallorca following the fall from a fifth-floor balcony of her daughter Gianna. The little girl is out of danger, but the mother ... her body has now been found at Cala Domingo.
And tourist figures ... Mallorca registered over 83% hotel occupancy in September, the highest in Spain. Intriguingly (though we are talking percentages here), the two parts of the island that did the best were not Calvia nor Alcúdia nor Pollensa, but Santanyí in the south-east and Capdepera in the north-east. Whatever.
QUIZ
Yesterday - The Zombies. Today’s title - what connection does this have with Al Gore? The answer is not the Democratic Party, but a singer.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Anyway, back to Al Gore. The former US vice-president came, he spoke and he went. Like many of his fellow (tourist) countrypeople, it was a case of ticking off another place, albeit that he didn’t hang around to get a few snaps. I wonder if Al really knew who he was talking to. I say this as I have a Henry Kissinger story that is similar. Some years ago in my then publishing role, I attended a management conference in New Orleans. Kissinger was the keynote speaker. It became clear as he was speaking that he didn’t know what the conference was all about; just gave us his speech on whatever it was and was off, save for a short press conference which I attended. The members of the press were thin on the ground - a handful of local hacks and a TV crew, myself and a journalist colleague from the UK. The conference stuttered along, so I stood up to ask what I doubtless thought was some searching question (I cannot remember what it was). When I announced who I was and where I was from, Kissinger interrupted me, asking: “What are you doing HERE?” I wanted to reply: “Well, I might ask what YOU are doing here?”, but thought better of it. I bring this up because, big splash though Gore’s visit has made, it would have probably meant little to him. Just another day, just another speech.
To other matters. Another disappearance, this the curious case of Sara Cooper who has gone missing from her hotel in Cales de Mallorca following the fall from a fifth-floor balcony of her daughter Gianna. The little girl is out of danger, but the mother ... her body has now been found at Cala Domingo.
And tourist figures ... Mallorca registered over 83% hotel occupancy in September, the highest in Spain. Intriguingly (though we are talking percentages here), the two parts of the island that did the best were not Calvia nor Alcúdia nor Pollensa, but Santanyí in the south-east and Capdepera in the north-east. Whatever.
QUIZ
Yesterday - The Zombies. Today’s title - what connection does this have with Al Gore? The answer is not the Democratic Party, but a singer.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Don't Know Why There's No Sun Up In The Sky
Following on from Friday and talk of storms and tornadoes, there is a piece in today’s “Ultima Hora” that quotes meteorology experts from the UIB university. The good news is that tornadoes of the type which have occurred on two occasions this month are not necessarily evidence of a changing climate in the Balearics. They also say, however, that, though such freaks of weather are difficult to predict, a rising sea temperature and an increase in water vapour in the atmosphere make it possible that there will be more. That’s where the less good news kicks in - the temperature in the Balearics has risen by 1.5 degrees in the past 30 years and, while there has been a colossal amount of rain these past weeks, there has actually been a decrease in the level of rain in parts of the islands, notably the north of Mallorca and Menorca. Above all this is the fact that, as the islands lie at latitude 40 degrees, they are apparently subject to the influence of sub-tropical anti-cyclones and are part of a region that is the most affected by climate change.
Yesterday I was at a barbecue given by neighbours near to the beach here in Playa de Muro. The partner of the owner told me that he wants to persuade her to sell. He is rather more pessimistic than I am about the rapidity of the effects of change, putting it at 15-20 years before we can start worrying that barbecues then would be taking place with us all sitting on lilos. I had thought more like 40 years. As for the experts - they say that the level of the Mediterranean has risen in the last 20 years but that the greatest variations are not forecast till towards the end of the century. I might say, we shall see, but of course we won’t, so maybe we should stop worrying about it. It’s just ... on 12 March I summarised arguments about the effects of increases in temperatures of one to two degrees. Maybe these were overstated, but if there has already been a 1.5 degree increase here in the past 30 years, it should be worrying us all what could happen if that were to be repeated in the next 30.
I wish you a nice and cold autumn and winter.
QUIZ
Yesterday - Ladysmith Black Mambazo. Today’s title - is a line from what very famous song?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Yesterday I was at a barbecue given by neighbours near to the beach here in Playa de Muro. The partner of the owner told me that he wants to persuade her to sell. He is rather more pessimistic than I am about the rapidity of the effects of change, putting it at 15-20 years before we can start worrying that barbecues then would be taking place with us all sitting on lilos. I had thought more like 40 years. As for the experts - they say that the level of the Mediterranean has risen in the last 20 years but that the greatest variations are not forecast till towards the end of the century. I might say, we shall see, but of course we won’t, so maybe we should stop worrying about it. It’s just ... on 12 March I summarised arguments about the effects of increases in temperatures of one to two degrees. Maybe these were overstated, but if there has already been a 1.5 degree increase here in the past 30 years, it should be worrying us all what could happen if that were to be repeated in the next 30.
I wish you a nice and cold autumn and winter.
QUIZ
Yesterday - Ladysmith Black Mambazo. Today’s title - is a line from what very famous song?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
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