The snows of Kilimanjaro are melting, Machu Picchu is about to slide into the abyss, and tourists are carting off pieces of the temple at Luxor on a daily basis. The latest International Newsweek cover story—The 7 Most Endangered Wonders of the World—gets off to a pretty glum start. Among the 17 pieces in the issue, there’s some frank discussion of how tourist development can help or harm a destination—e.g. how the UNESCO World Heritage designation can bring thousands more visitors to a site, but comes with next to no cash attached to help support that level of interest. From there, however, things devolve pretty quickly into a hedging-their-bets apologia to the tourism industry for running the cover in the first place. Concerned about where you will vacation once Venice and the Maldives finally succumb to rising ocean levels? Never fear: you can always see one of the new “Wonders”, such as Lakewood Evangelical church in Houston (wha?), clearly an acceptable substitute. Why bother even leaving your own country, actually, when savvy entrepreneurs are building indoor ski-slopes in Dubai and tropical lagoons in Germany. “Location” is all just an abstract concept, anyway.

Elsewhere:
-If you’re looking for a better list of jaw-dropping new man-made spectacles than Newsweek dredged up, try this year’s (you guessed it) “Next 7 Wonders” from Condé Nast Traveler’s April issue.