I just got home from a great weekend working/skiing at
Moonlight Basin Resort in Big Sky, MT. I
was working with the USGBC Montana Chapter (I’m on the board) for our first
(hopefully annual) Keep
It Deep event on climate change awareness and advocacy. We partnered with the Climate Reality Project (yes, that Climate Reality Project, the one Al
Gore started) and POW (Protect Our
Winters) to raise awareness of the impacts of climate change on winter
recreation in the Northern Rockies. Kevin
Germaine, General Manager at Moonlight Basin, outlined some of the steps the
resort is taking to implement sustainable practices, and emphasized just how
much more they have to do to adapt in the face of the changing climate. Jordy Hendrikx, the Director of the Snow &
Avalanche Laboratory at Montana State University shared his experience as a
Snow and Ice Scientist living in Christchurch, New Zealand and how he has seen
climate change impact the winter landscape.
We kicked off the day skiing. It was beautiful, unseasonably so. It was about 36 degrees, bluebird skies and . The NRDC
Report I referenced last fall reported the strongest winter warming trends
to be in the northern US, where snowpack is a critical component of winter
economies. Last year, Moonlight Basin
recorded its lowest snowfall on record for the month of January, at just 34
inches. How does 2013 compare, you might
ask? Frighteningly. To date, Moonlight has received just 17
inches, half of its worst year ever. We’re
all holding our breath for more snowfall over the next few months; the better
the snowpack, the lower the wildfire danger.
At the event, we encouraged people to take the climate
pledge, record a message to send to our legislators on why climate change is an
important issue, and helped to promote the Climate Reality Project’s new
campaign, I Am Pro Snow,
a partnership with Warren Miller Entertainment.
We shared a clip of their new film, Flow State, which
documents the travels of premier skiers to areas impacted by climate
change. Their message:
I Am Pro Snow.
I will ski anything.
I will ride anywhere.
I will take on
anything.
The steep. The deep.
The long, cold hikes
that give me
A view that makes God
envious.
But, fellow Powder
Hounds, the Big Melt is on.
Mother Nature has a
fever.
And Old Man Winter is
sporting a tan.
Our season is getting
shorter and shorter.
Our earth is getting
warmer and warmer.
Climate change is
real. It’s here.
And it’s just met its
match in boots.
I stand for snow. I need snow.
But, right now, snow
needs me.
I am pro snow.
We handed out “I Am Pro Snow” hats and stickers, we struck
up conversations with strangers about why they loved to ski or snowboard. We even had a woman theatrically stomp off,
furious and offended that this event had anything to do with Al Gore.
All in all, it was a successful first go-round. We hope to take this to more ski areas across
the region, and continue to work with the individuals and organizations that
are creating the structure for positive action to address climate change.
Please, whether you love or hate Al Gore, please take the pledge:
“I pledge my name in support of a better tomorrow, one
powered by clean energy. I demand action from our leaders to work on solutions to
the climate crisis. I pledge to get involved. And I pledge to share this global
promise. By uniting my voice with a million others, we have the power to change
the world.“
Interesting post. I saw Flow State late last year and was excited to see Warren Miller promoting this. Is Moonlight Basin part of Sustainable Slopes? Are there other/better/competing certification programs for ski areas? What is the biggest carbon cost/environmental impact of operating a ski resort? Guest travel (http://www.b-e-f.org/our-solutions/carbon/skigreen/)? And your comment about the woman stomping off is interesting. Any ideas about the demographics of skiers and how their views about climate and environmental issues? Clearly ski resorts have a strong reason to mitigate any impacts from climate change. Are they doing enough?
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments, Bert. Yes, Moonlight Basin is part of Sustainable Slopes, but not to the extent that it truly drives their daily decisions. They also went through the 2 year sustainable operations program that I manage with Yellowstone Business Partnership, but their two internal champions were both laid off shortly after they graduated from the program and its kind of been haphazard since then. I think the biggest carbon costs with operating ski resorts are the travel involved with getting skiers to the resorts (they are mostly all destination resorts), the energy and water use associated with snow making (increasing as climate change impacts snowfall), and the energy in running the lifts. There are a lot of strategies resorts can implement--when we were working with Moonlight, they saved $15K monthly by understanding their power bill and avoiding peak power when possible. We haven't seen it yet but I anticipate that resorts will start opening later in the year (why do we insist on skiing on Thanksgiving Day when there is no snow, forcing them to use hundreds of thousands of gallons of water to make enough snow for crappy conditions?), and stay open later--we routinely get more snow in late spring in the past 5 years than a lot of the rest of the winter, usually the two weeks right after the ski resorts close. :)
ReplyDeleteAs far as demographics, that is a tough one. There are the local resorts, where most of the skiers are residents of that community, and some really care about sustainability and climate issues. Then close by we have Big Sky, Yellowstone Club, and to some extent, Moonlight. Big Sky is a huge destination for wealthy people, and Yellowstone Club is a private millionaires ski resort. I have a friend that cleans houses at the Yellowstone Club and while she's cleaning the 45,000 square foot mansions (I am not exaggerating), she tells me of the incredible waste with people heating their homes year round when they are only there for 2 weeks, insane amounts of single use bottled water, and running these lifts when there might be 1 or 2 skiers on the mountain. That's what their multi-million dollar memberships get them, I guess. But not by any stretch of the imagination sustainable. I know this is an extreme example and a generalization in some ways, but in others it's not. There will be wealthy and poor climate warriors, and wealthy and poor dirt bags who don't care. I think the demographics are hard to single out and it's up to the resorts to take action.
So, no I don't think ski resorts are doing enough. They are especially missing the opportunity with educating their clientele and communicating about their successes and sustainability initiatives. They should be the forefront of mitigation for climate change because their survival is dependent on it!