Too darned hot - a weekend long read

The benign climate in the Canary Islands is both a blessing and a curse - a blessing because it attracts international tourism year-round, and a curse for exactly the same reason.

To quote today's Canarian Weekly, an English language newssite: "Cumulatively, from January to December of 2023, a remarkable 13,942,965 tourists explored the Canary Islands, indicating a commendable 13.1% increase, leaving behind an economic footprint of 20.3 billion euros, reflecting an increase of 16.51%."

The fact that Canarian Weekly considers a 13.1% increase in visitor numbers "commendable" tells one a lot about its editorial position vis-a-vis tourism: tourists = income, income = public good. This is a very simplistic, one-dimensional, self-serving analysis, which takes into account only the gross financial contribution of tourism to the islands' economy and fails to factor in its costs in terms of environmental and social harms. The nett result of mass tourism on the archipelago, I suggest, is hugely dis-beneficial and rapidly becoming unsustainable.

I would go so far as to predict imminent collapse, with the rapid and dramatic changes in the archipelago's climate starting to have an adverse effect on tourism which, as politicians fail to address it, will have serious knock-on effects economically, environmentally and socially. But before, Cassandra-like, I go into this in more detail let me address the elephant in the room: if I'm writing this in the Canaries, aren't I part of the problem and isn't that hypocritical?

Indubitably, yes. I concede that anyone on these islands who wasn't either born here or has family roots here, can only be contributing to the problems. Anyone using water and public services, or driving a car (rural bus services being much the same as in the UK), must be having a negative environmental impact. Sure, we bring money into the local economy but does that outweigh our presence in terms of use of resources? I somehow doubt it. Even though I don't stay in a resort or use a swimming pool, I still take daily showers, use the washing machine, do the washing up, flush the loo, use the car and put out the garbage. To say nothing of my flights arriving and departing...

So much for the hair shirt, now for the special pleading. Being married to an ex-pat Canarian living in London I've been coming here for the past eight years, an awful lot of Co2 emissions. But there's simply no viable alternative when visiting family here - mi familia canaria - a dilemma for all contemporary diasporic communities I'm sure. In the old days when family members emigrated that was effectively it forever, the chances of reunion remote or non-existent. Now, that option is readily available in the form of ridiculously cheap international flights. How is one to put a price on visiting an ageing parent or a favourite sibling? Nowadays we don't have to, we know it's likely to be affordable, financially if not environmentally.

For foreigners coming for a cheap holiday in the sun, however, things are rather different - theirs is a purely selfish decision. Not that that necessarily invalidates it. Facing the prospect of a long drawn out, dreary British (other Northern European countries are available) winter and a potentially indifferent summer, who wouldn't want to come here? A four-hour budget flight with cheap accommodation, food and beer and reliable sunshine on arrival, you'd be mad not to when it's a question of mental wellbeing, a cure for SAD; stimulating the pineal gland, boosting serotonins and enhancing vitamin D levels. In short, it sets you up for the year ahead.

But, leaving aside its obvious attractions, for how much longer will this even be possible? And this is where the Canaries' blessed climate becomes its curse, because it's changing fast - and for the worse. I've noticed changes over the years and ascribed it to climate change, which I thought would be gradual and not drastic in my lifetime. Last year and this, however (bearing in mind we're only just into February), I've been forced to acknowledge the rapidity of change. Not only is the weather getting dramatically hotter and drier but there's a marked increase in the regularity and severity of calimas.

These dust clouds blowing over the archipelago from the Sahel in nearby North Africa have always been a feature of the weather system in the Canaries. They are (or were) a fairly predictable and seasonal occurrence, depositing a fine coating of orange-red dust over everything, a nuisance rather than an existential threat. But now they are becoming regular, denser and consequently much more of a problem. A recent calima was blown over Senegal out into the Atlantic over Cape Verde where it drifted up to the Canaries and on to Peninsular Spain, reaching as far as the UK. Combined with increasing temperatures and lack of rain, their arrival here can now become a choking experience, affecting the health of the young, elderly and those with respiratory problems, and restricting any outdoor sporting or other strenuous activity.

Tenerife, the largest Canarian island, has always been noted for its north-south weather divide; cooler and wetter in the north, hotter and drier in the south. This explains the explosion of mass tourism on the southern coastal strip, the Costa del Silencio (no longer silent), in towns like Los Cristianos, Playa de las Américas and Costa Adeje. Here, long, hot days and balmy nights could be relied on but will rapidly become unbearable if 50° summers are to be the norm. 

And without rain, even the lush, green north is at risk of becoming dessicated. An erratic water supply, not previously a problem, has been further exacerbated by a growing conurbation in the adjoining towns of Santa Cruz (Tenerife's capital) and La Laguna (the university town) where the demand for private swimming pools, domestic appliances, showers and car washes is seemingly insatiable.

It follows that all this waste water and sewage has to be disposed of somewhere and, municipal sewage works being something of a rarity here, most of it ends up in the sea unprocessed, where it drifts southward towards the tourist beaches. The tourist brochures won't mention this but increasing beach closures due to faecal contamination tell their own story. Yes, it's not just in the UK,  but Brits come here to escape precisely that unpleasantness!

A certain amount of the increasing water demand can be met by desalination, of course, although it is an energy intensive and therefore expensive process. But without winter snows on Mount Teide, and reliable winter rainfall, the already desertified south is at risk of becoming a blisteringly hot and inhospitable dust bowl. A marked increase in forest fires in the mountains has already been noted and these are even occurring in the previously damp north. 

A combination of dust, smoke and fierce heat could be (and has already been) literally deadly. As far as tourism is concerned, not only will this have an adverse impact on holidaymakers' experience of their resorts (let's face it, huddling indoors with the aircon at full blast and an empty swimming pool outside won't be much fun) even getting there, when smoke and dust disrupts international flight landings and take-offs as occurred recently, could become a major obstacle.

The archipelago is now almost entirely dependent for its food and drink on imports from Europe and Morocco. Once a verdant agricultural and viticultural cornucopia, producing potatoes, tomatoes, bananas and maize alongside fruit, vegetables and salads in its rich volcanic soil, with goat meat and cheese, as well as grapes for the famous Canary wines, it actually exported much of its produce, including cash crops like sugar and tobacco. Now, with a vastly increased resident population of 2.25 million, plus all the tourists, this is an impossibility.

Only a fast-fading remnant of this agrarian culture survives as formerly agricultural land is developed for urbanisation, water becomes scarce and youngsters are no longer willing to put in the grinding work of cultivating their family fincas. What remains in production has tended to become a high-end niche preserve for rural tourists and organic producers. This is evident particularly in the north, with centres such as La Casa del Vino (wine house) at El Sauzal marketing island wines and honey, although for how much longer as the rains fail and habitat is destroyed is a concern beginning to exercise minds here, though possibly too little and certainly too late.

Something has clearly got to give but with local politicians either in denial, in the pockets of the tourism industry, or simply complacent, incompetent or just plain uninterested; with national government remote and unfocused and the EU agencies seemingly asleep at the wheel, it will probably take complete and catastrophic environmental collapse to force any action at all. And that collapse may not be long in coming. In short, if you haven't already visited the Canaries, don't bother.

Sadly, the damage is done and the good times are over.

 

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