By Steve Goreham
Originally published in The Washington Times
Last month, more than 100 ski resorts joined the Business for Innovative Climate & Energy Policy (BICEP) Climate Declaration. The BICEP declaration urges that Americans “use less electricity,” “drive a more efficient car,” and choose “clean energy” to combat climate change. Ski resorts are concerned that global warming will reduce snowfall and hurt the skiing industry.
Skiing executive Auden Schendler said, “Aspen Skiing Company joined the climate declaration because if there is an industry that ought to care about climate change, it’s the ski industry.” The 2007 Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns of a difficult future for the industry: “…snow cover area is projected to contract…mountainous areas will face glacier retreat, reduced snow cover and winter tourism…shifting of ski slopes to higher altitudes.”
There’s just one problem. Continental snowfall has been increasing.
According to the Rutgers University Global Snow Laboratory, North American snowfall extent has been gradually rising over the last 40 years. The year 2010 showed the largest continental land area covered by winter snow since the data set began in 1967.
What makes otherwise sensible people fear that snow is disappearing when snowfall is actually increasing? It’s the ideology of Climatism, the belief that man-made greenhouse gases are destroying Earth’s climate. Belief in this same ideology causes people to purchase light bulbs that are slow to light and to buy electric cars that can’t go very far. Climatism causes state governments to mandate erection of wind turbine towers that often stand idle.
But if snowfall is changing, why do people believe that government action can change such a climatic trend? In the fall of 2009, the mayor of Moscow declared that the Russian Air Force was now able to “keep it from snowing.” Five months later, in February of 2010, Moscow received 21 inches of snow in a single storm. Last winter, Moscow received the most snow in a century.
Nevertheless, we probably have bipartisan support in Congress for regulation of snowfall. Save the polar bears and the snow.
Steve Goreham is Executive Director of the Climate Science Coalition of America and author of the new book The Mad, Mad, Mad World of Climatism: Mankind and Climate Change Mania.
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show of hands…..who cares, other than the Obamas, if the ski season is a week or two shorter
show of hands….who cares if you have a week or two of less winter!
Clearly we should eliminate all non-essential driving and flying to save the planet. Skiing is non-essential activity (though much fun). So we should stop flying or driving to places like Aspen. Ski near home instead.
And how much electricity – the 30-year-old-scotch of our energy supplies – does a Vail or Aspen use for their lifts and their water pumps? I bet it’s in the tens of megawatts.
Hypocrisy, thy name is Ski Industry.
Inviting people to “cold” towns, where they’ll need more heating than at home, is yet another case of vested-interest hypocrisy.
I’m for anything that makes the golf season longer. I only wish I had as much free time to play as the POTUS.
Rutgers University Global Snow Laboratory,????
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But … but … I thought that was Mann’s department at Penn State!
Anyone have any idea how much energy man-made snow takes to make? I know it’s not very common out west, but here in the east every resort uses snow making equipment. I don’t know exactly *how much* it is, but I do know it is the #1 power consumer at a resort that does make snow…
I just wonder at what point our Dear Leaders are going to set up their courts on the beach and order the tide about?
Matt here is the electricity usage for various snow makers … the energy required to make artificial snow is about 0.6 – 0.7 kWh/m³ for lances and 1 – 2 kWh/m³ for fan guns. It would have been nice to get a per hour number but I didn’t see that.
Looks to me that if you draw two trend lines, up to and from the mid 1990s, the first would go down slightly, the second up slightly.
I believe it snowed yesterday in Lourdes, France, and for the first time ever the ski resorts in the Alps are open in June!
Hello!!! Of course snowfall is increasing, and it’s because of global warming. Remember when the envorowackadoos, excuse me, people concerned with global warming were saying that global warming causes more moisture to evaporate into the atmosphere, thus more snow. Now if I can just figure out the part where it has to be cold to snow …
The ski industry sure are shameless in their climate whoremongering.
” …Aspen Skiing Company joined the climate declaration because if there is an industry that ought to care about climate change, it’s the ski industry …”
Fair enough. I credit them with knowing the facts. They don’t want to be declared heretics under the Nicene Creed of climate alarmism.
Makes me glad I stopped skiing.
We are in the first stages of building the Jumbo Glacier Resort here in south east BC so skiing year round can happen, changing climate and all!
Back in the early 80’s . . . just 5 or 6 years into the promised Ice Age . . . mountains in Western Canada were very short on snow for a number of years. Grouse Mtn in North Vancouver went broke. The “experts” said that Grouse may never have snow again.
Fast forward to the New Millenium . . . for well over a decade now Grouse has had over 500 cm of snow every year . . . skiing into the Month of May . . . record snowfalls all over Western Canada for many years now.
Moral of the story . . . if you want to get “Dumbed Down” just consult an “Expert” . . . .
Reality is . . . the Globe has been cooling for 17 years now . . . didn’t Solar Scientisst Willie Soon predict that well over a decade ago ?
Green Germany the new North Korea.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/german-communities-forced-to-find-creative-ways-to-reduce-debt-a-906478.html
“It’s long past midnight. The trees along the streets are little more than shadows, and the only light in the side streets is the weak flickering of TVs seen through living room windows. ”
And more or less the same Dear Leaders .
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/berlin-braces-for-tight-security-during-obama-visit-a-905493.html
Ignorance rules, denial (not by skeptics, by alarmies) rules, hyporcrisy rules, mendacity rules, illogic rules, ad hominem rules, irrationality rules, turpitude rules, torpor rules, stupidity rules, mean-spiritedness rules, venality rules, economic illiteracy rules, disregard of poor people rules, crony capitalism rules, leftist racism rules . . .in the AGW world.
Reblogged this on CraigM350.
When ski resorts start begging people to stop skiing in order to save the planet, then give me a call.
Ski resorts are and have been on green hits lists for a long time for a few reasons . If ‘claiming ‘ to care about AGW , but actually ignoring in pratice what would be required if it was true . Helps them to keep the green meanies of their back , why not ?
There has long been forcasts for ‘no snow ‘ in resorts across the USA and Eurpoea followed by the odd few years of lots of snow when the shut up and odd years of little snow when they come on in full voice again .
A better law: “The snow may never slush upon the hillside. By 9 P.M., the moonlight must appear.”
I suspect that it, like other peripheral organizations (say, the World Bank), were nudged into making this statement by activists inside and outside, by one-sided presentations of the warmist case, and by a lack of nerve about challenging the orthodoxy, and a lack of knowledge of the points contrarians dispute..
Let’s see, people like skiiing, people pay a lot of money to ski and wear all the expensive gear to ski in. If i owned a ski resort i’d want a shorter season, so i could charge more money in the peak season (it’s called supply and demand) and then bugger off somewhere nice for the rest of the year