Straight from the source's mouth

A report out of the Washington Post indicates that Canada will benefit from the onset of global warming. In particular, Vancouverites can look forward to a mob of new tourists wanting something a little less stifling than forty-degree vacations in Cancun. Is this the big break the local tourism industry has been waiting for?

Sadly, the article is only another example of poor journalism repeating unproven - wacky, actually - claims by dumb jerks posing as real professionals.

The "experts" in question are suggesting that Canada's tourism industry will get a 220 per cent boost in tourism as our average temperature rises, at the expense of temperate countries like Mexico that will become intolerable, sweat-soaked salt lands. That sounds super, until one reads that the economists' projected three-degree rise is predicted to take place by 2100 or so.

Projecting into the future based on current trends is only legitimate to a point. By 2100, it's entirely possible that the world will be at least three degrees warmer than now. But there are far too many variables to make any kind of prediction about the state of the world 94 years from now. Assuming that global warming leads to the catastrophic changes that most scientists seem to think will occur, it's likely that the era of lesisure tourism by the average person will be long over by then.

What I found particularly amusing was the researchers' factoring of current economic figures into their data. Economists can barely extrapolate predictions for their own countries one year into the future from the most up-to-date statistics. How can this research possibly factor in reliable economic data for 2100?

The article from the Washington Post is not news. Journalists are usually ready to pounce on politicians and celebrities for the least sign of hypocrisy or conspiracy. Meanwhile, some hucksters from academia are quoted verbatim.

Yes, there probably will be more tourists to Canada coming in the next five or ten years. By 2100? I'll leave that forecast to the science fiction writers. They can at least call what they write entertainment.

tags: global warming, dumb predictions, lazy journalism, Canada tourism, the experts are wrong