By James Taylor -January 8, 2022
The New York Times published an article yesterday attempting to frighten skiers into becoming climate activists by claiming snow cover is diminishing throughout the country. “Skiing is an endangered sport,” claims the Times. In reality, objective data show that snow cover has been increasing during the past 30 years and current snowfall in the nation’s best ski country is setting new records this ski season. “All the news that’s fit to print” appears a lot more like “all the propaganda that’s fit to print.”
The Times’ article asserts, “Skiing is an endangered sport, caught between a warming planet and a global pandemic.” Moreover, according to the article, “In recent years, with snow cover diminishing and untouched powder increasingly difficult to reach, skiers like Ms. Backstrom have been pushed onto groomed trails more often.”
Utilizing satellite measurements, the Rutgers University Global Snow Lab (GSL) keeps precise data on global, hemispheric, and continental snow cover dating back to the 1960s. According to the GSL data, the past 30 years have seen no decline in global or North American snow cover. Instead, there has been a modest increase in snow cover during the past three decades.
Even compared to the 1960s, which fell in the middle of the 1945-to-1977 global cooling period, recent North American snow cover is only marginally less than what was the case during that cold era 60 years ago. That small decline is due entirely to snow cover retreating somewhat earlier in the spring. Even so, Northern Hemisphere snow extent has enjoyed long-term growth during the past 60 years during the fall and winter seasons.
The Times’ article is particularly ironic considering the many snowfall records that have been set in prime ski regions during the past year. North Lake Tahoe, which is home to several of the best ski slopes in the country, enjoyed a record 18 feet of snow last month. Yosemite National Park set a snowfall record, also, last month. Even further south, Mammoth, California set snowfall records as recently as May, 2019.
Sorry, New York Times, skiing is not endangered and objective scientific data show powdered ski slopes are increasingly easy to reach.
James Taylor is the President of the Heartland Institute. Taylor is also director of Heartland’s Arthur B. Robinson Center for Climate and Environmental Policy. Taylor is the former managing editor (2001-2014) of Environment & Climate News, a national monthly publication devoted to sound science and free-market environmentalism.
The NYTimes is now what it has been for the last century — A hard left propaganda sheet devoted to the triumph of communism. Almost a century ago they sent Walter Duranty to Moscow from which he spouted propaganda covering up the crimes of Stalin and the Soviet terrorists. They have continued to promote communism ever since. Communism is now racism, transsexualism, and warmunism, and the NYTimes continues its agitprop efforts on behalf of the hard left cause.
I wouldn’t be surprised if snow skiing is on a list of unnecessary things humans do.
I bet scalping trees from the sides of mountains is on the their banned list.
$50 of my epic pass goes to the save the snow foundation every year I write them and tell them how freaking idiotic they are.
Wonder where the money really goes ?
This stratospheric intrusion looks like an Arctic bomb.
Tangentially, from the BBC, more terrible news from Pakistan: “A tourist trapped in her car for hours by unprecedented snowfall in Pakistan has described how she “saw death” in front of her as she waited for help.”
I actually had the pleasure of going through this place on the bus in ~1986. Very pleasant relief from the lowland heat.
Yet the Beeb keeps telling us that snow is a thing of the past due to Global Warming…
Hmmm . . . seems like I heard nearly identical alarmism quite a while ago:
“According to Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia ,within a few years winter snowfall will become ‘a very rare and exciting event. ‘Children just aren’t going to know what snow is,’ he said.” — https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2010/12/global-warming-hysteria-2000-english-children-will-not-know-snow-2010-oops-nevermind
Of course, Viner’s “just a bit outside” prediction was made back in calendar year 2000, some 22 years ago, which interestingly is at the lower limit of the time range defining a “generation”. That is, of course, somewhat longer than “a few years”.
I suspect Ms. Lauren Jackson, author of the above-referenced article in the New York Times, was in kindergarten at the time of Viner’s prediction and that she never learned to do fundamental background checking for facts prior to writing pablum for public consumption.
“NEW YORK TIMES” is all a person needs to know when perusing articles. As soon as that pops up, my bs alarm goes off like the klaxon on a diving submarine. Then I move along to some more credible source not acting as the propaganda arm of the left.
Here in Quebec, in recent years there has been a lot of new investement in ski centers. Are all of these investors stupid?.
A good snow year here in Colorado. Map -% of average snow water equivalent: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwj8hPHgsb_1AhUJIEQIHZvkDxkQFnoECA0QAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov%2Fftpref%2Fdata%2Fwater%2Fwcs%2Fgis%2Fmaps%2Fco_swepctnormal_update.pdf&usg=AOvVaw1Fr7ZDGTNWmaXVJn51XT-q
I don’t read the NYT. I’d rather have my news reported, not faked.