It’s a S(no)w Brainer
It takes one of two things to still be a climate change sceptic in this day and age — an absolute lack of any common sense or knowledge, or holding the Presidency of the United States. With modern science now proving to us with 95% certainty that human activity is a major cause of global heating, the effects of this phenomenon can be seen to affect our lives today more-so than ever. While some sceptics like to argue that climate change is a hoax created by the Chinese to harm competitive economies; rising global temperatures, increasing greenhouse gas emissions, and rising sea levels, all prove the contrary. Unless of course China has discovered how to harness the power of the moon.
This isn’t an article aiming to prove whether climate change exists, nor is this an article attempting to ridicule certain people in positions of power who hold certain sanity-questioning perceptions on the world, albeit justified. Rather, this is an article exploring the passive effects climate change currently has on one, out of the many different industries being affected — the Ski industry. It is important to note that, with other industries such as agriculture and commercial fishing also being affected quite dramatically, there certainly are bigger fish to fry (or none for that matter). However, I believe that by focusing on a leisure pastime that affects us on an intrinsic level, it may help some sceptics realise the implications this global catastrophe has on everybody’s lives. I’m looking at you Donald.
In the US alone, the Ski industry is worth $20 billion, with over 65 million skiers — 59 of which being tourists — visiting American ski resorts every season. Skiing not only benefits physical health, but it also plays a major role in millions of people’s lives, often being viewed as a sport that builds confidence, and reduces stress. With so many millions of people sharing the same love for the snow, and the large presence it has within the US economy, the fact that research is predicting a potential 80% reduction in season length by 2090 implicates quite a drastic change for the industry as a whole. Predictions aside, one thing we can be sure of is that average snow depths have been decreasing globally over the past decade, with 75% of all North-American resorts seeing declines since 1950.
As easy as it is for sceptics to claim that we are just in another cycle of glacial retreat, much like the prehistoric world was accustomed to, modern science has provided us with evidence that reveals that the current rate of global warming is occurring ten times faster than ever before. While any sceptic would just cry “fake news” and move on with their day, any of their claims can be immediately silenced with the sheer fact that the previously mentioned stat was proposed by NASA — you know… those same people who took us to the moon? To hold the belief that a statistic coming from a company as renowned as NASA is fake is to also hold the belief that, not only was the Moon landing fake, but the Earth is also flat…
Geographically, it comes as no surprise that snow cover in Australian ski resorts is much lower to that of their northern-hemisphere counterparts. Not only is snowfall lower, but so are the heights of our mountains, and with Australia being a much more temperate climate, it puts us at a triple-jeopardy of becoming the first country to see the absolute downfall of the ski industry. A 2010 Journal on the Human Environment predicted that by 2020, 65% of all-natural snow cover in Australia will become inadequate for skiing conditions.
In order to compensate for the loss of snow, a plan was created to increase artificial snow-making across all resorts, which has proved to successfully prevent the aforementioned prediction from occurring. However, while snow machines have been beneficial over the past decade, the increased energy consumption and larger reliance on water makes it financially impossible for resorts to rely on these machines when natural snow fall inevitably drops so low that artificially created snow becomes a necessity for the survival of these mountains.
It’s difficult to predict how different the world would be if we weren’t at the stage of globalisation and technological convergence that we are today. On one hand, convergence has allowed for the introduction of the internet, which created a platform for like-minded people to spread awareness on social issues; free from the constraint of commercialisation, bias, or censorship. This has allowed professional skiers and snowboarders to reach out and address these impending issues to a much wider audience, rather than being shut down and labelled ‘hippies’, much like they were decades ago. However, those very constraints that the internet was free of in its early years have slowly seeped their way into the metaphorical groundwater of the World Wide Web; and much like the groundwater of a town, once it has been contaminated it is almost impossible to rid the water of its contaminant. This is the case with the internet over recent years as it has shifted in to a platform of confusion, deceit, and widespread misinformation with consumers often finding it impossible to discern fake news from reality. Years of progress that has been made towards a variety of social issues has been effectively rendered useless, with some of the most powerful people in the world discounting any need for change, at their own financial gain.
We are at an extremely important time in our history where every action taken against climate change will adversely alter the future of our planet. With the period between 2011 and 2015 attributing to over 20% of the total rise in global temperatures since 1850, and governments working towards undoing previous climate change arrangements, it falls in to the hands of environmentally-sound (and mentally-sound) to make enough noise in order to force some sort of change. If not for the sake of our lives, then for the sake of our leisure.
