Travel Impacts

Author Tom Dempsey last updated this page on March 5, 2010. Send comments to: tom@photoseek.com

"Our species has never mingled so freely, and this exchange of experience is what terrifies the terrorists. Travel is liberalizing, and is accelerating global change and homogenization." said writer William Dietrich, in the Seattle Times, November 5, 2006

Human environmental impacts, ecotourism, ecotravel

Our strong drive for travel has filled every corner of the earth with humans, who now dominate the earth.
     According to the National Geographic Society as of 2002, global human impacts are now a force "on par with volcanism or tectonic shifts." People have transformed 40% of the land area on earth through planting, grazing livestock, paving and building. Half of all forests that stood 8000 years ago have been replaced by farms, ranches for grazing, single-species tree farms, or damaged land . For example in Greece, farmers replaced native cedar forests with vast olive groves on mountainous terrain, causing an environmental disaster over a period of 6000 years: the topsoil washed away, creating the dry, rocky landscape seen throughout much of Greece today. Crete used to be 90% forested, but is now only 17% forest.
     In earth's waters, "70% of major commercial fish stocks are depleted, over fished, or exploited beyond maximum sustainable yield."
     Most scientists are now 90% sure that human-produced carbon dioxide and "greenhouse gases" are causing rapid global warming and climatic shifts.
     Human overpopulation now forces the extinction of other species at a disturbingly high rate. As dominant species, humans must take responsibility for better stewardship of earth's fragile environment. We must not continue polluting our nest. To reach a better balance with Mother Nature, all countries must better educate their women and men to reverse human overpopulation, and to use earth's resources sustainably. With science and greater understanding, let's respect the other species of life on earth, while we also improve our global system of human rights & responsibilities.
     To better balance global human impacts, my wife Carol and I support environmental & social organizations such as The Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund, Earthjustice, Sierra Club, The Wilderness Society, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA), WashPIRG (Washington Public Interest Research Group), and Heifer International. I urge you to join and support these groups.

Image above right: The last rays of sunset strike Machhapuchhre (or Machhapuchhare), the Fish Tail Mountain (22,943 feet / 6997 meters elevation), which is a sacred peak, illegal to climb, in the Annapurna mountains (part of the Himalaya range). Tibetan Buddhist prayer flags invoke compassion for all beings, while flying from a monument at Annapurna South Base Camp (ABC, at 13,550 feet elevation) in the Annapurna Sanctuary, in Nepal. I urge you to invoke compassion for your world through environmental action, such as by recycling waste and conserving energy.

The following rotating ad supports this site but Tom usually has not evaluated their products:

Left: A Zodiac boat explores an arch melted into an iceberg at Neko Harbor, Antarctica. According to National Geographic Magazine August 2007, the Antarctic Peninsula is warming quickly, probably due to human-caused carbon emissions, while other parts of Antarctica may be cooling beneath the seasonal "ozone hole".

Everyone worldwide is genetically one family

Today, science confirms that "race", skin color, eye color and other physical features are genetically superficial, on a genetic continuum, with gene differences of less than 1 out of 1000 between us. Our differences are only skin deep, and everyone on earth belongs to the same closely related family, who spread from Africa less than 2500 generations ago. Accepting these scientific DNA findings can only encourage us to feel closer to people from other countries, cultures and tribes.

South Africa photo workshop October 2010 with Photoseek.com and the Adventure100.com

     According to DNA marker studies, all living humans are descended from a single woman who lived only 150,000 years ago and later from a single man who lived 60,000 years ago, both from central Africa. All non-Africans living today descended from a small tribe who left Africa only 50,000 to 60,000 years ago**, and this one tribe rapidly spread and replaced all earlier types of humans, such as Neanderthals.   [ **Based on Y chromosome marker studies by Dr. Spencer Wells & others. See National Geographic's "Genographic Project" (external link), and compare your ancient ancestral heritage with others using a cheek-swab DNA kit. ]
     In fact, all non-Africans alive today had ancestors with brown or black skin less than 2500 generations ago. Sometime in the past 2500 generations, one letter out of 3.1 billion in the DNA code mutated in one person, disrupted melanin deposition in the skin, and produced the line of white Europeans. In the first Asians, an independent genetic change reduced melanin in the skin by a different process.
     Surprisingly, human genes differ very little from those of a mouse, except in how our genes are regulated as we grow from cells. We are closely tied to the web of all life.
     Evolution can happen much quicker than scientists thought previously. According Hans Eiberg and colleagues at the University of Copenhagen in 2008, the genetic mutation for blue eyes happened only 6,000 to 10,000 years ago, well after agriculture was invented, in one individual somewhere around the Black Sea. Darwin's blue eyes may have come from a misspelled letter in the DNA of a Neolithic farmer! (See "Modern Darwins" in National Geographic Magazine February 2009.)

Below right: Below, a farmer contemplates rice terraces near Kimche, along the trail to Annapurna Sanctuary. In Nepal, humans have worked the land for thousands of years by stripping jungles of firewood, terracing fields for agriculture (to grow grains, rice, potatoes and so forth), and grazing yaks as high as 15,000 feet. Farmers work every patch of arable land to support a dense population.

The joy of travel

I love world travel and have structured my life around it. When I visit other countries, most people eagerly welcome my visit, gladly accept my tourist dollar, or want to practice their English, as I practice their language. Most people worldwide are peace loving, friendly, and are smart enough to treat me as an individual, not as a representative of my country's current political regime. I feel that free and fair economic exchange with other countries encourages world peace through mutual interdependence. While I travel with humility and submit to the kindness of strangers, I also encourage mutual understanding, human rights, environmental responsibility and family planning.

Above: Spanish conquistadors passed in the river valley below but never discovered Machu Picchu, which is at 7870 feet elevation in a remote location of P eru. In 1983, UNESCO listed the Historic Sanctuary of Machu Picchu as a World Heritage Site, which is now one of the most visited places in South America. (Panorama stitched from 5 images).

Above: Humans have migrated to the ends of the earth to cut farms from virgin forests and compete for new resources, such as on the North Island of New Zealand. Sheep are dwarfed by the towering turbine blades of Tararua Wind Farm, the largest wind power installation in the Southern Hemisphere, located on ranch land 10 kilometres northeast of the city of Palmerston North, on a 5 kilometre long ridge in the Tararua Ranges, on the North Island of New Zealand.

Back to Photoseek home. ~ Tom's Portfolio of Published Images ~ My Fine Art Gallery ~ Buy My Images ~ Photo Equipment Advice ~ About This Web Site