Al Gore Comes to Spain

Finds Deserts, Floods, Dumb Asses

Al Gore joined other environmental heavyweights at a conference in Spain last week and was probably entertained but not amused by comments made by Mariano Rajoy, the leader of Spain's conservative party who downplayed the threat from climate change. Rajoy, who is leading his party in a general election set for March 2008, admitted he knew "very little" about the subject but cited his cousin to back his opinion.

His cousin??? The BOOKIE?!

"My cousin he told me: 'I've brought ten of the most important scientists in the world here and not one is able to guarantee what the weather will be like in Seville tomorrow'," Rajoy said. "So, how can anyone claim to know what will happen to the world in 300 years' time?"

Spanish Environment Minister Cristina Narbona meanwhile called Rajoy's statements "eccentric and incredible."

"I didn't think that there were any right- or left-wing leaders left capable of speaking so dismissively about the climate change threat," she added.

Meanwhile –

Headlines Oct. 19 read:

One Man Killed in Devastating Storm
Monsoon-like rains hit Granada and surrounding regions on Fri., Oct. 19, forcing enormous amounts of water through the mountains to the sea in riverbeds unable to handle the deluge. Catastrophic floods in the nearby seaside resort of Almuñécar on Friday killed one man and caused more than 6 million € of damage to public infrastructure. Currently, there is no figure for the vast amount of damage caused to private property.

A German man lost his life when a wave of water hit his apartment block's garage on Friday. He had gone back to get his moped when a retaining wall next to a river gave way, and he was swept beneath a wall of water.

The Spanish branch of the WWF environmental conservation organization said in a press release on Monday that urban expansion along the coastline, as well as construction in normally dry river beds, has destroyed the natural ecosystems which act to alleviate the effects of flash floods by their ability of absorbing the torrential rainfall which is common on the Mediterranean coast at this time of year.

Although the Spanish government is well-aware of the enivironmental damage being done by over-development, building of golf courses with little or no water, depleting of the regional aquifiers, and the increasing desertification of some of its provinces, the lure of staggering profits is proving too much to resist.

Spain Warns Desert is Spreading

by Giles Tremlett, The Guardian

The deserts of north Africa are threatening to leap the Mediterranean and creep through Spain, according to government figures made public as part of a national campaign to halt desertification.

A third of the country is at risk of being turned into desert as climate change and tourism add to the effects of farming.

More than 90% of land bordering the Mediterranean from Almeria in the south to Tarragona in the north is considered to be at high risk. But that figure climbs to almost 100% in Alicante and Murcia.

Spain's environment ministry has announced a £50m programme to combat desertification. Over-grazing and irrigation methods that wash away topsoil were to blame for some of the damage, experts said. Building developments and climate change were doing the rest.

Spain builds an estimated 180,000 holiday homes along its coast every year. "We have grown too quickly without protecting areas of nature," Javier Pedraza of Complutense University, Madrid, said this week.

"If things continue like this we won't need to go to Africa to enjoy the tranquillity of the desert, we can just go to the Canary Islands, Valencia or Murcia," ABC newspaper commented yesterday