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shawthing 
Joined: 04 Jul 2019
Location: Victoria Park
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| Post subject: Why Tourists are Ruining the World |  |
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There's a growing concern about the ecological effect tourists are having on sensitive parts of the world, but even locals are getting angry about being overrun with tourists in such meccas as Venice.
It seems there's nowhere tourists can't or won't go, except space and the bottom of the sea, and Richard Branson is trying to take tourists into space. One company is even promising rides to the moon by 2030!
Part of the problem is the unique combination of human population growth (out of control right now as the world plunges headlong towards 10 billion in the next decade - the single greatest negative environmental factor on the planet, but something no politicians want to talk about), increasing levels of per capita income as we "grow our economies", and ease of access to fast travel. As a consequence people are saying "take a cruise and hang the consequences" as the vast ocean liners pollute the oceans or ruin Venice.
Two images I saw recently summed up tourist overcrowding to perfection.
1. In a photography magazine recently there was a picture of a landscape scene in New Zealand (the Wanaka Tree is one, but this was another site) where tourists with IPhones are queuing for hours to get "the shot". Anyone who has been to parts of the Grand Canyon or Yosemite will have seen similar things. One professional photographer turned his camera from the scene to take a picture of hundreds of tourists in a queue to walk to the edge of a narrow ledge and have their photo taken looking into the abyss. It might well have been a parable of what excessive tourism is doing to the world!
2. The other and much more famous image is the one below of a conga line of "tourist" climbers trying to tick off their bucket list climb of the world's highest mountain. There is a very good article in The Good Weekend on this very subject. It's well worth the read.
https://www.theage.com.au/national/mountain-madness-the-fatal-attraction-of-everest-20190813-p52gnz.html
It quote Australian mountaineer Greg Mortimer:
| Quote: | | But the picture of the conga line of climbers on the southern summit ridge depressed Mortimer. “This guided climbing thing has flipped into madness,” he says. At 8848 metres, the top of Everest is well into the so-called “death zone”, where the atmosphere holds at best only one-third as much oxygen as at sea level. Bottled oxygen partially compensates, but climbers who encounter long delays are at risk of emptying their canisters. “Above 8000 metres, anyone is hovering on a knife-edge between life and death,” Mortimer says. “If you’ve got to wait in a bloody queue, you’re knocking on heaven’s door.” |
Do people have so much disposable cash that it drives them mad? I too dreamed of climbing Everest in my youth, but I didn't want to mortgage my future to do it. Some people today are doing just that. And it's not just the bodies that litter Everest. The place is a veritable trashcan now and an open air toilet. It's so disgusting that I'm inclined to believe they should follow the Uluru model and close the mountain to climbing. It is after all Chongolongma - the sacred mountain. This is one more example of how tourism started as a spiritual pilgrimage and ended in a disgusting grab for cash.
It will only be a matter of time before locals start to close off large tracts of the world to visitors - unless tourists begin to ask themselves whether all this incessant travel is doing any good for the world at all. Maybe we would be better off to stay and spend our money locally. That would make our businesses more sustainable and protect the earth as well.
Last edited by shawthing on Sun Aug 18, 2019 9:10 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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shawthing
Joined: 04 Jul 2019
Location: Victoria Park
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thesoretoothsayer
Joined: 26 Apr 2017
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| I'm sure many communities find tourists annoying, intrusive and gauche but given a choice between poverty and putting up with pesky tourists they choose the tourists. |
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Dave The Man 
Joined: 01 Apr 2005
Location: Someville, Victoria, Australia
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Because they don't care as it's not where they live
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I am Da Man |
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stui magpie 
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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| thesoretoothsayer wrote: | | I'm sure many communities find tourists annoying, intrusive and gauche but given a choice between poverty and putting up with pesky tourists they choose the tourists. |
Yep,
The people who live there find them annoying and ruinous to the peace and quiet, but often need them.
Tocumwal, is a tourist town. The influx of tourists over the warm weather and the money they spend in town is what gets many businesses through the winter and puts money in people's pockets.
Tocumwal has a growing population as many of the people who were tourists retire there, whereas most of the other towns in the district are slowly dying.
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Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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think positive 
Side By Side
Joined: 30 Jun 2005
Location: somewhere
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The everestthing is sickening, so many Sherpas die because silly people who do a spring of exercise think they can climb a mountain, and leaving that junk and the bodies up there... I read a couple of books recently, inc that of the guy who lost his hands and feet, he says he wished he never did it. And spoke of the junk up there. I mean how dare we?
I’ve been travelling around Europe for 3 weeks, as usual I have much preferred driving around the smaller towns and cities, London Paris and here in Venice are just too crowded, dirty, rude, and over commercialised for me.
This morning I’m about to jump on one of those cruise ships ruining Venice (trust me it’s too late!) on one of the ships of the company who ship crashed there recently! Yes it is the fast way to see more. Plus it’s overwelming Relaxing, and fun! Before the first cruise we did I felt bad about the employees, then I spoke to some of them. They told me of much better wages, much better treatment, and the ability to support their families at home, and also get a chance for something better.
I also see the irony in the cruise I did around Alaska learning about, and seeing first hand what global warming is doing to the icecaps.
What can you do? I do my own small things at home. A friends daughter just finished her degree and is travelling the world with a firm trying to do something. Hopefully she wins.
I would never queuefor hoursto take a picture so many others have already got! I can photoshop myself in if I wanted much faster, and you’d never know! I have a couple of pics of the arc de triumphe but not the ones everyone else took, andthe pics I’ve uploaded to Facebook are mostly not the pics everyone else takes! They have all been seen before!
Are tourists ruining the world? Who isn’t ruining the world?
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You cant fix stupid, turns out you cant quarantine it either!
Last edited by think positive on Sun Aug 18, 2019 6:06 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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K
Joined: 09 Sep 2011
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| think positive wrote: | ...
Are tourists ruining the world? Who isn’t ruining the world? |
Yes, overpopulation is a huge problem that people used to worry about, but it's gone out of fashion as something to worry about now.
If all of the third world had a one-child policy... |
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think positive
Side By Side
Joined: 30 Jun 2005
Location: somewhere
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Why just the third world? You think they have less feelings? Maybe spread the wealth and health a little better
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You cant fix stupid, turns out you cant quarantine it either! |
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Skids 
Quitting drinking will be one of the best choices you make in your life.
Joined: 11 Sep 2007
Location: Joined 3/6/02 . Member #175
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| K wrote: | | think positive wrote: | ...
Are tourists ruining the world? Who isn’t ruining the world? |
Yes, overpopulation is a huge problem that people used to worry about, but it's gone out of fashion as something to worry about now.
If all of the third world had a one-child policy... |
Yep, over population is the killer of the planet.
Forget the global warming, climate change garbage, there's just too many, who can't support themselves, let alone 10 kids, breeding like rats.
If the United Nations was a fair dinkum organisation and not just some bullshit facade, they'd get serious about birth control in these slums on the globe.
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Don't count the days, make the days count. |
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shawthing
Joined: 04 Jul 2019
Location: Victoria Park
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| stui magpie wrote: | | thesoretoothsayer wrote: | | I'm sure many communities find tourists annoying, intrusive and gauche but given a choice between poverty and putting up with pesky tourists they choose the tourists. |
Yep,
The people who live there find them annoying and ruinous to the peace and quiet, but often need them.
Tocumwal, is a tourist town. The influx of tourists over the warm weather and the money they spend in town is what gets many businesses through the winter and puts money in people's pockets.
Tocumwal has a growing population as many of the people who were tourists retire there, whereas most of the other towns in the district are slowly dying. |
But surely we rely on tourism because we've abandoned (or priced ourselves out of) manufacturing. The problem is you can't build an economy around tourism unless you're a year round tourist attraction. Otherwise it merely creates more seasonal casual work. Oh hang on, that's EXACTLY what our global economic masters want. A temporary workforce of casual labour.  |
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K
Joined: 09 Sep 2011
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| think positive wrote: | | Why just the third world? You think they have less feelings? Maybe spread the wealth and health a little better |
I want it for the whole world, but we know that the birth rate is huge in the third world and low in rich western countries. In some western countries it's so low that the population is in decline. (In Australia, they've offered a baby bonus to try to get Australians to breed more.)
We should certainly spread the wealth and health better. That is not unrelated. Again, it's well known that education for women in the third world decreases the birthrate. That on its own suggests a lot about the inequities causing high birthrates. |
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