Greenland
Though Greenland promoters prefer to avoid using the term “catastrophe tourism” to describe its surging popularity, new weekly flights from Baltimore (late-June through early August in 2008) have indeed made this Danish province the most accessible place to bear first-hand witness to the inconvenient truths of climate change. The five-hour flight lands in Kangerlussuaq, a jumping off point for musk oxen safaris, cultural tours of Inuit settlements, and day trips to the foot of a melting 250-foot high polar icecap. While endangered polar bears are rarely sighted these days, the midnight sun practically guarantees encounters with reindeer, seals, and the narwhal whale, with its nine-foot horn. Fauna-sightings notwithstanding, it's the Arctic island's Ilulissat ice fjord, which has retreated six miles in just a few years, and Warming Island, which is thought to have been part of mainland Greenland until the connecting ice thawed, that tend to leave visitors dumbstruck.
Editors' note: Air Greenland announced in March 2008 that it will discontinue service between Baltimore and Greenland. Alternatively, passengers can reach greenland via Reykjavik, Iceland.
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