Search Articles

United States
view all

All Article Photos

All Article Videos

Get Yer Powder Fix
Great Race Impressions

What Can We Do To Ensure Skiing's Future? | Tahoe, CA United States | 03/13/09, by Dark Star

Will the snow last for our children's children?

This is the first in an environmental series that is designed to gather your thoughts and opinions in a constructive way to help stimulate awareness and solutions.

It's the paramount contradiction of our sport-"green skiing". Whether looking at fake snow, snowmobiles, or a million other things, no matter which way you cut it skiing has an impact on the environment. Arguably it's impossible to think skiing can be done in zero impact fashion. However, that doesn't mean we should just give up and celebrate our impacts.  It also means we shouldn't pretend the ski industry has become green because resorts are offsetting their carbon footprint. What it means is we have a long way to go, to understand what our connection is to sliding on snow and how we can do that in a way that allows future generations to enjoy what's become an integral part of all our lives.

So right about know you're asking, "so how do we do that?" Well, that's still the crux of this situation. Beyond continuing to educate ourselves and others, we must continue to construct a dialogue challenging ourselves as skiers to seek a sustainable path for the ski industry. If you're a thinker and desire the truth rather than ignorance (which beyond a doubt is bliss by the way), examining the impacts of skiing can make you feel pretty bad.   In that light, skiingthebackcountry.com will be offering a forum in the coming weeks, to examine what's been done and what's currently happening that has many asserting the ski industry is or has transformed into a so called green entity. The fact of the matter is we're gonna keep skiing. I'd like to believe if we keep taking the steps to do things appropriately we will find a sustainable way to keep making turns and have our impacts be mitigated in a way that doesn't unnecessarily pollute and consume the resources we need for skiing and ultimately survival. Thankfully some folks have taken a leading role.

Over the past decade ski resorts and the industry as a whole has altered the traditional way of doing business. We can argue that many of the steps taken are on the right track-Alison Gannet's Save our Snow (SOS), Jeremy Jones and Protect our Winters (POW), the Sustainable Slopes Charter creation, and the list goes on. There are even ski manufacturers that are using sustainably harvested materials to make skis, recycled old ski garments to make new clothing, and organic trail food to keep us energized while helping us maintain a sense of consciousness. There's no question that we need these efforts to continue and grow. However, we must also understand that we're all just taking steps along a path to sustainability-we haven't got there yet and no one can justly claim they're already there.

At this point in my life I identify skiing as what's inspired me to develop an environmental ethic, even though I know it fosters great stress to the ecosystems it relies on. When I was young, I never thought ski resorts or anything about skiing could be harmful. But over the years I started wondering what existed on these mountains prior to the lodges, parking lots and chair lifts. As I further probed the footprint of skiing in general, the Sustainable Slopes Charter was crafted to help steer the industry towards sustainability. Then came the Ski Areas Citizen Coalition (SACC), Hal Clifford's monumental book Downhill Slide, and now there's numerous organizations working to lessen the carbon footprint of the ski industry, concerned about the growing threat of climate change, and several others trying to pump green nuances into day-to-day operations. As I've kept skiing the questions have persisted.

Then I started skiing less and less at resorts. Skiing the backcountry is definitely a lesser impact than riding a chairlift everyday. The mantra Couloir Magazine helped embed in our heads during the 90's, "Earn Your Turns", still makes me smile. But alas, we still need gear and have to travel to trailheads and far off locales for the goods. I even met a woman at a Sustainable Slopes Conference in 2004 that told me it's far better to have impacts concentrated at one spot ( a ski resort) than to have humans skiing all over the mountains. Of course she's wrong so long as backcountry skiers maintain the Leave No Trace Ethic as best they can, but these conflicting thoughts are dominant in an industry that just wants to believe everything is fine, when really asking the tough questions and answering them may be harder than you could ever imagine. I should also mention that during this conference I was told reclaimed wastewater is suitable for making artificial snow, even though science has not yet determined what the long-term effects are to humans and ecosystems. "Sure in the short term things look ok, but what about the studies that show downstream species from wastewater treatment plants have had total populations feminized", I asked a representative of the Sustainable Slopes. "What about the tests that show pesticides, birth control medicine, caffeine, and hosts of other untested materials in that water? Should kids be able to eat that snow? What about wildlife?" I was merely told its ok by the Sustainable Slopes Charter, so therefore it's sustainable....right.     

So the real question is what do you think? We're truly all in this together, and while there will be some that resist these deep thoughts, unless skiers continue to take active roles in transforming all that is skiing, climate change may take it all away before our grand kids ever get their first face shot. Climate change is a difficult topic that includes numerous impacts skiing has on the earth: gear creation, running ski resorts, getting to ski resorts, just getting to the trail head, etc.. We all have an impact, so maybe the question isn't if skiing can ever truly be "green", but rather what has been done and what could be done to make sure we're putting our best turns forward on not just our current snowpack, but for future generations and the hopeful storms they will enjoy.  

Helpful Resources:
http://www.nsaa.org/nsaa/environment/sustainable_slopes/
http://www.skiareacitizens.com
http://www.saveoursnowfoundation.org/Save_Our_Snow_Foundation/Welcome.html
http://protectourwinters.org/
http://patagonia.com
http://planetgreen.discovery.com/travel-outdoors/green-skis-buy.html
Get Yer Powder Fix
Great Race Impressions


That's Our Opinion. What's Yours?

freeheelgirl wrote on 03/14/09 at 09:05:40 am pst:

Wow, Dark Star, you sure threw out a (well-written!) ball of wax there....I may be a BC skier, but I still have a resort pass to the biggest evil empire on the planet, Vail, and spend a lot of time driving to my favorite BC haunts. And boy, do have I bought a LOT of gear over the years! Sustainable? Green? Heck no! Can greening ski areas & the ski industry stop global warming in it's tracks? Again - heck, no!
However, awareness followed by action is the best way to start amending our evil ways. As consumers, we can lobby the ski resorts to start doing things like installing windmills on their mountains to generate their own power (four ski resorts have recently done this, and expect to be see returns on their investments in about 7-8 years. Vail, however, stated that "we're not in the business of generating power" and declined to join the rush....despite being in the business of using power, and lots of it).
We can keep pressing the powers-that-be to move us away from carbon-based energy on a macro scale - inarguably the source of global warming - and do our best to conserve energy and resources on a micro scale. Do you really need strawberries flown in from Chile for your morning smoothie, or can you just buy local ones in season, freeze them, and use them all year?
Maybe instead of investing in that new pair of Volkls every year, you can buy a truckload of insulation for your attic, or make a downpayment on a hybrid car, or better yet, a commuter bike. It's thousands of small choices that have brought us to this point, so maybe if we all make thousands of better choices, collectively and individually, we can change course and create a better - and colder! - future for our planet.


Dark Star wrote on 03/15/09 at 10:06:39 am pst:

What great comments freeheel girl. You articulate our exact dilema-sustainable no, but we have many tools in the toolbox for better choices that will help us down that path. Great point on the strawberries and insulation too, although how many would swap a pair of sticks for better insulation? How do we get to that point? I hope we can all help each other get there! Thanks for sharing your thoughts.


Rick wrote on 03/15/09 at 2:13:01 pm pst:

Great article, I think carpooling is the obvious simple thing skiers can do. Besides that it really comes down to what can you do that won't totally change the lifestyle you already have set up? For me I don't recycle all that much because i live in a place that there is no way it ever makes it to a recycling center, and if it does the impact is probably much worse. But i also don't buy any bottled or canned foods or drinks so that cuts back on what i would need to be recycling anyway.


PTD wrote on 03/16/09 at 07:38:18 am pst:

I think sustainability in the form of recycled gear and boards will come. The natural inertia in that field is going in the right direction. The men and woman that drive those businesses seem to have personal invested interests in becoming greener. The problem lies, and this is obvious I suppose, in the mass consumer who is generally uneducated on the real impact ski resorts have on the local and broader based environments. Change in this area will only come with education and protest in the written and physical form. The message needs to be delivered to the families who take a annual trip to Vail and the other main resorts. These are the consumers who provide the largest portion of income for the resorts. We need to educate those consumers and get them to join the fight.


Dark Star wrote on 03/16/09 at 11:52:59 am pst:

Great comments Rick and PTD-Consuming less is the obviously #1 thing we can all do. It seems so difficult at times, but every step helps and makes a huge difference over time!

And with knowledge sharing, PTD, you make an excellent point because the consumer would be more empowered to make a sensible decision. If they didn't, hopefully the resort would take the lead and make sustainable policy stick, so the consumer has to follow it and would hopefully learn from it, and be happier and more educated in the end.

I look forward to continuing this conversation! Thanks for your comments.


Snowman wrote on 03/16/09 at 8:46:31 pm pst:

It is a huge problem and we're all part of the solution in the way we live our lives everyday. I don't want to diminish the impact we have as individuals when we consciously minimize our carbon emissions, but the reality is the magnitude of the problem and its urgency demand aggressive action by our elected leaders to create aggressive policies (both carrots and sticks) to accelerate the world's energy revolution from carbon power to electric power from non-carbon sources (sun, wind, tides, geothermal). This truly should be a bi-partisan issue, so we all need to rip into any politician of either party (nicely, of course) if he or she isn't supporting progressive policies and legislation to speed the needed change-over to carbon free energy. Those of us living in gas and coal rich states need to be especially vocal and persistent in hounding our senators and congressmen, because we know who is filling their re-election coffers.
The November 2008 election demonstrated the American public can get behind "change", but once every four years isn't enough to solve this problem.


freeheelgirl wrote on 03/17/09 at 09:43:55 am pst:

Hey, Snowman - right on! It's not just skiers who need to change their awareness and habits, it's all of us. Americans use more power per household than any other country in the world, but other countries are catching up to us. We need to step back and take a look at not just our recreational habits, but our entire energy grid and how we supply and use power. If we all make a stink about it, we might be able to become world leaders in non-carbon power production technology - we just need the will to challenge the status quo and make some changes.
Yes, those changes should start at home - Dark Star, bless your heart for saying it, but I DID give up a new pair of sticks this year to buy insulation for the floor of my house (the attic's already insulated). Even with the price of fuel going up, my bills went down by about 20%. I've used my clothes drier and my A/C both only three times this year - after installing a few ceiling fans, my power bill in July was a whopping $9. Do I care about the planet? Sure! Is it easier to care when I also get to save money? Heck yeah!
It's hard to for me to imagine why more of us don't write those letters to our local school boards and highway districts and mayors and senators and presidents, demanding hefty subsidies for public transportation, greener cities, clean energy and research into clean power technology. It's not any harder to do that than it is to sit under a ceiling fan on a hot summer day, while you sip some iced tea and think about how bitching the skiing will be come winter, if we get enough snow....
(And yes, everyone, I do write those letters....I used to get very nice "get lost" replies from Idaho's former Sen. Craig, of Minneapolis airport-bathroom-sex-sting fame - yeah, he was a douche! and the Ada County Highway District now solicits my extremely valuable opinion on expanding bike lanes. Go, activism!)


powderjunky wrote on 03/17/09 at 10:23:08 am pst:

I am lucky enough to be able to work from home these days. This used to be reserved only for the super rich and such. But these days with instant communication, there is really no need for most employees to go to the office. If people could work from home even just 50% of the time it would cut back a lot of pollution from commuting.



Name:
Email (will not be published):
Url:
The difference of ten - 5: spam Check
Mailing Address For Prize Give-Aways only. Will Not be published
Message