The Canaries in the Coalmine

A case study of laughable media bias

By the power of Gabriel Calzada Álvarez, I’m going to be a visiting professor this summer at the Universidad de las Hespérides in the Canary Islands. I expect it to be a glorious experience for my entire family. But according to the UK’s Daily Mirror, I’m in for a rude disappointment. Check out this ludicrous headline:

Granted, this is hysterical even by the ordinary standards of the media. But the article captures so many of the failures of modern journalism that I’ve decided to critique it line-by-line.

A Spanish holiday hotspot beloved by Brits is facing imminent collapse, experts have warned.

When experts warn of “imminent collapse,” you should probably get a few details. Starting with: “How soon is ‘imminent’?” and “How bad is ‘collapse’?”

While the terms are not mathematically precise, “imminent” almost always means “less than two years from now” and “collapse” almost always means “a lot more people — at least an extra 5% of the population annually — will die.” Are the experts really saying that? If so, how much are they willing to bet?

Over-tourism has put the Canary Islands and its infrastructure under enormous strain which is no longer sustainable, urban planners have said. If the massive influx of tourists who visit the Canaries is not reduced then it faces "systemic collapse".

Notice: These sentences imply that one way or another, tourism to the Canary Islands will sharply fall in the next few years. If the government of the Canaries fails to push tourism down, the horrors of the “systemic collapse” will scare them away, right?

Anyone who believes this should therefore be willing to make an unconditional bet that tourism in the Canaries will soon decline.

According to SE12, organization's report reads: "The Canary Islands territory was more than overexploited. We had exceeded the carrying capacity of the territory by seven times, resulting in a scenario of systemic collapse due to the urban development structure."

Obvious question: If a country appears to exceed its alleged “carrying capacity” by a factor of seven, is it possible that you have underestimated this carrying capacity?! Indeed, when experts make such claims, the next question to ask is: “How many other countries are drastically exceeding their ‘carrying capacity’?” Followed by, “How many have done so for a century without breaking a sweat?”

Followed by, “Why exactly do you call them ‘experts’ again?”

Locals have begun to push back against the influx of visitors, however, concerned as they are that numbers are growing too high for local infrastructure to cope. The vast majority of food is imported, while the islands have difficulty dealing with the waste such large numbers of visitors produce.

By design, all population centers import the vast majority of their food, and export large quantities of waste. If you’d never seen this process before — tons of food goes in, tons of waste comes out — you could reasonably fear disaster. But centuries of experience have proven than this model is totally workable on a massive scale. In New York City, London, Madrid, and yes, the Canary Islands. As Confucius never said, “The man who says it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.”

The Ben Magec-Ecologists in Action report continues: "Uncontrolled, increase in the non-resident population of European origin, giving rise to completely overcrowded islands in which the generation of waste and the exploitation of resources cause an almost irreversible degradation of our natural ecosystems."

In Fossil Future, Alex Epstein shows that radical environmentalists routinely equivocate between “X is bad for humans” and “X is bad for nature.” They oscillate between predicting the deaths of millions of humans, and bemoaning the extinction of rare species of insects. Yet these are radically different sorts of predictions! Similarly, this article on the Canaries starts by reporting the predicted “collapse” of a society of over two million Spaniards, then ends up quoting experts on “ecosystem degradation.” Which still sounds bad, until you realize that millions of human beings enjoying their lives on the Canaries counts as “degradation” even if the enjoyment goes on forever.

The diverse array of fauna and flora found on the islands increasing [sic] the importance of protecting them. Lanzarote has significant biodiversity which is in part due to the island's volcanic origin. In Timanfaya alone, 180 different plant species have been found, providing a home for Atlantic lizards and the Eastern Canarian gecko.

This is a strong “tell” that the experts don’t believe their own doom-saying. When mass human death actually looms, who frets about lizards or geckos?

Both social and environmental groups took part in the protest last month, according to reports from local publication Canarian Weekly. They waved placards saying “the Canaries are no longer a paradise” and “the Canaries are not for sale” at the gatherings. One protester said that the island community was close to “completely collapsing”.

Is the protestor “an expert” too? Inquiring minds want to know.

They have warned that sewage spills, long traffic jams and environmental damage caused both by over-tourism and new hotel complexes along the popular beaches of south Tenerife were starting to eat into the natural wonder of the island.

“Starting to eat into the natural wonder of the island” is a far cry from “collapse,” no? Indeed, it’s the lowest possible bar. Didn’t the first human who pitched a tent on the Canaries “start to eat into the natural wonder of the island”

What if this article turns out to be correct? That would indeed be tragic. But I’m so confident in my critique that I plan to literally bet my life — and the lives of my entire family — on it. Indeed, I predict that after a month on the islands, I’ll conclude that what they really need is massive housing deregulation, privatization of government land, and congestion pricing. ¡Construye, Cariño, Construye!