10 Endangered Vacations

10 Endangered Vacations
Plan these trips now ... while you still can. (from dailygreen.com, link below)

Endangered Destinations Dot the Map

You've heard of the Life List -- the vacation spots you want to see before you die. This is a little different. These are top U.S. destinations you might want to see before they die. "They" being the destinations themselves. Each of these vacation ideas is located in a landscape that is threatened in some way -- whether by global warming, mining, extreme weather or by another environmental hazard.

While inclusion on this list isn't an indication that these sites are in imminent danger of disappearing, the fact that this list seems plausible is a distinctly 21st Century phenomenon. After all, destinations are supposed to be permanent, even though our lives are not -- that's what makes the Wonders of the World so mysterious and attractive. It's not just their beauty and scale, but their endurance.

In an era when our expanding population, and our expanding pollution keep expanding the human influence on the Earth, not all destinations are so permanent as they once seemed. (Even the Sphinx is crumbling, thanks in part to acid rain.) So in this year when gas prices are rising (again), jobs are scarce and budgets are tight, it may yet still be the time to take to the road and see one of these endangered U.S. destinations. You may have another chance, but your kids or their kids may not. (Better pack a camera.)

Photographing Glaciers in Glacier National Park
What would the Grand Canyon be without a canyon? Something like Glacier National Park would be without its glaciers. But by 2030, that's exactly the landscape that might greet visitors, as the climate warms.

Already, some of the most famous glaciers in the Montana park have shrunk by more than half, and only 17% of the glaciers found there in 1850 remain today (26 of 150). While the valleys below have warmed about 2 degrees in the last century, the peaks of Glacier National Park have warmed about 2 degrees every year for 15 years.

Glaciers are things of beauty and awe: the imprint of time and the Earth's physical processes represented in massive hulk of ice on the landscape. The loss of glaciers -- not just in U.S. national parks, but worldwide is one of the most visual signs of global warming. Sure, the melting of a glacier is still slow in human years, but the change in Glacier National Park is real and any child born today should see the park before he or she hits 20 -- because the glaciers might well be gone by then.

Viewing Austin's Congress Avenue Bridge Bat Colony
One of the most unlikely tourist destinations in the country, Austin's Congress Avenue Bridge bats nevertheless draw as many as 100,000 tourists every year. The bats themselves don't seem particularly vulnerable: Every evening through the summer, as many as 1.5 million Mexican free-tail bats emerge from their colony under the bridge and start eating moths and other insects. It's the largest urban bat colony in the world.

And, indeed, there aren't any well-publicized threats to this colony of bats. What there is, is a mysterious disease that has begun creeping across the U.S. and which has the potential to decimate bat populations across the continent. Identified first in New York caves in February 2007, the malady is known as white nose syndrome because its most recognizable symptom is a ring of white fungus on the noses of the bats found dead by the hundreds in caves where they hibernate through the winter. Scientists have since watched the disease infect caves throughout the Northeast and spread to at least nine states.

Bats are scary, gargoyle-like creatures, sure. But they eat bugs that we don't like, and -- just ask the tourism bureau in Austin, or farmers who rely on their natural pest-control abilities, or those who find strange beauty in their faces, wings and habits -- bats are worth keeping around. They remind us that losing any one piece of an ecosystem can lead to a cascade of unintended, and unwelcome changes.

At this point, scientists haven't been able to define the disease fully, identify its origins or devise any remedies. Will it reach the caves of the Southwestern U.S., Mexico and South America, where Mexican free-tail bats spend the winter? Who knows -- but you might want to see that awe-inspiring wildlife display in Austin now, just to make sure.

Whatever It Is That Happens in Vegas
What could possibly happen to Vegas (that hasn't already happened in Vegas)? This one might be a little overly apocalyptic for some, but step back for a minute and you'll remember that Las Vegas is built smack in the middle of the desert. It exists, not only to gleefully champion sin, but also because the Colorado River has been dammed, diverted and directed to flow into Lake Mead and other reservoirs, so that the dry Southwest can bloom beyond its natural limits.

But for how long? The flow of the Colorado River, one of the continent's mightiest, is already strained, the remnants of its abundant water flow disputed across the western U.S. Add a sprawling population, demanding drinking water and green lawns and farm-fresh produce, and the dwindling snowpack that feeds the river -- thanks to global warming -- and Las Vegas could face serious strains soon. By 2021, according to one study of Lake Mead, which supplies 90% of the city's drinking water.

The larger issue is how a growing population faces the limits of its environment. In the Southwest, engineering has been the solution -- dams, irrigation ditches and casinos being the most obvious examples of our dominance over an inhospitable landscape. Into the future, as global warming stresses our already thinly stretched resources, will it make sense to grow lush green lawns in the middle of the desert?

Vegas being what it is, the loss of water might not be a death knell. There is, after all, alcohol. Might be better to plan your visit before 2021 all the same.

Paddling the Florida Everglades
verglades National Park is the largest subtropical wilderness in the United States — a vast and slow-moving river channeled through tufts of dry land. It's teeming with wildlife, from the abundant and ferocious (alligators and crocodiles) to the scarce and ferocious (the panther) and every creature on down the food chain. Paddling a canoe through the Everglades is a rare experience.

Rare indeed. The Everglades face a Goldilocks-type question: Will there be too little water, too much ... or just the right amount? Too little and the Everglades dry up. Too much and it gets swallowed by the sea. Either way, it won’t offer the same wilderness canoe experience it does today.

For more than a century, too little water has been the problem, as agriculture and suburban sprawl have eaten into the swamp, draining and diverting the natural water flow. With the water has gone 90% of some populations of wading birds.

Water levels are rising, thanks to a 35-year preservation plan and billions of dollars in planned spending. But global warming could cause sea-level rise to swamp the swamp; the highest point in Everglades National Park is just eight feet above sea level, and the latest projections suggest there will be more than enough new sea water to cover that land in the next 100 years or so. The Everglades could be swallowed by the sea.

Bottom line: Better not put off that once-in-a-lifetime trip to this one-of-a-kind destination.

Wine Tasting in Napa Valley

To read the full article: http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/endangered-vacations-47060902?src=nl&mag=tdg&list=dgr&kw=ist