Hello, friend,
Have you ever visited a glacier? If so, do you remember what compelled you to go — and what impressions lingered after your visit?
The first time I set foot on a glacier was in 2009, when some friends and I skied down the Mer de Glace, the largest glacier in the French Alps. I remember it as a thrilling (and exhausting!) day that offered me one of my first real glimpses of the wild and frozen Alpine landscape. Did my day on the glacier change my views of the value of the natural world, or my place in it? Maybe — but then maybe not. To be honest with you, it's kind of hard to say.
In early February, I was back at the Mer de Glace, this time to report a story for The New York Times that ran last week (that's a free link). As often happens, the article used a bit of “news” — the opening of a new lift to the glacier — to initiate a bigger-picture conversation about the topic at hand: glacier tourism in the midst of the climate crisis.
Can visiting a disappearing glacier promote greater environmental awareness among visitors, or is this type of “last-chance tourism” nothing more than a hedonistic indulgence? As I discovered in my reporting, reasonable people disagree on such questions. I would be eager to hear what you think.
And if this topic grabs your interest, you can read about it in much greater depth in my book, which you can pre-order now and which will be published on June 18.
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