Global warming being caused in part by internal combustion engines and aviation results in less snow for skiers... Solution? Chopper some more snow in to counter the effects of I.C.E's and aviation. Huhmmmm.... Does anyone else spot a dichotomy in thinking here?
However, the heli strategy did not work, as the CEO explains in “Capital”: “This attempt did not work,” says In-Albon. The amount of snow per flight is too small and loading and unloading too difficult.
Complaining about celebs is mostly because they are big pushers for green energy and climate change mitigation, then they go ahead and fly private planes everywhere. Rules for thee...
Some people feel like they're treated like serfs: you stay in your village, on car, no flights, no tourism, save water, wave electricity, while I, the nobleman, get to travel to climate change conferences in private planes, because I am important to the cause.
You realize there are entire towns and villages whose lives depend on this tourism, right? I'm not saying it's a perfect solution to fly snow in, but you can't discount the impact this has on the population if the resorts close down.
Written from the comfort of your warm home with your secure, easily replaceable tech job. It's very easy to be philosophical when it's not your entire life and family history at stake.
Answering questions like "what should people do instead?" is important to figuring out how we can move away from things that damage the climate. If you just tell people "your life and livelihood isn't as important as X" isn't going to get that person to agree with you.
I don’t really appreciate the spin you’re putting to my comment, but I think you’re just missing the point.
The point of my comment is not to trivialize the livelihoods of the inhabitants of “a few villages”. As you correctly point out, that would be crass and unfair.
The point of my comment is that climate change is an existential crisis at a scale much larger than “a few villages”: it’s fairly likely to result in an extinction event. For all villages.
Typical human behavior to constantly seek to push their luck, past the point of sustainability. Any resource-based community, tied to a single commodity, must know it is living on borrowed time.
What other occupation do you think they should have living far from the big cities? It’s either builders, farmers, public sector or some shop or motel or all of them.
There are entire towns and villages on the floodplains of rivers whose course meanders over time. There are lots of resorts and cottages on shallow coastal barrier islands that are inundated frequently by hurricanes and rising oceans. If you put down a deep well in an arid region, you can often find an aquifer with enough water to last a small town or farm for a few decades that replenishes on a scale of millennia.
The earth changes. Humanity doesn't have a responsibility to a resort owner keep things the same as they were when we started keeping good records.
Is not dumping some snow with a helicopter going to prevent the sea levels from rising? Or would that require something on the scale of banning all aviation forever?
If we take an approach of one at a time looking at each activity and going "is this going to stop global warming?" the answer is always going to be "no" and we're going to be left going "well, there's nothing we could do, we couldn't find any activity that would stop it".
No single wasteful activity is going to stop it. We need to stop a lot of them. This could and possibly should be one of them.
This seems like me not taking the insurance money after the hail storm, and watching all my neighbors put free new roofs on. My insurance premiums go up anyway because of them, but I can feel good about myself paying for my roof out of pocket in a few years.
I am generally not inclined to engage with comments like this, but in this case I will: I am a pragmatist and not an absolutist, stopping all tourism is obviously a non-starter, so are other things that would be high impact like making everyone be vegan or banning gasoline outright. Burning tons of fuel to haul snow to a place that no longer gets enough snow because of how much fuel we've burned is, in my opinion... not in that category. I also think that people do not have to be "perfect" themselves before advocating for change.
On the topic of wilderness trips: I am of the mind that many people are totally disconnected from the natural world these days, and people are not generally inclined to care about things in the abstract. Getting out in nature has been demonstrated to promote environmentalism^, so if people are going to be traveling anyway, these are trips that could have some impact.
There are very few groups of people I would feel less sorry for.
I grew up in one of those tourism towns. It's like old school strip mining but for society. Instead of poisoning watersheds it poisons society. It turns businessmen into swindlers. It turns culture into caricature. It turns the economy into a disgusting web of perverse incentives in which every actor is constantly dealing in way that would give a mafia run dumpster company pause. Good riddance.
And you can add the water and power that was wasted before that...snowcanon's...bring up food and beer so the skiers can eat a schnitzel and drink a beer there, and about 70% come with their cars, and all the helicopter flights and explosives to prevent avalanches, oh and the nightly Snowcats to make the slope beautiful.
At what point does human enjoyment become waste of energy? And so what if energy is wasted? Is greenhouse gas the problem?
Paradoxically, global warming benefited Europe this winter, reducing the influence of the Russian gas embargo.
In any case, European countries have lower greenhouse gas emissions per citizen than, say, the US or Australia (since we actually have emissions taxes).
There was a nice comic that expressed things in terms of horse-power or "invisible slaves" working for you.
When your enjoyment requires the equivalent of thousands working for you, and it is from a resource that is finite and non-renewable, then it is probably wasteful.
Then it's a beautiful thing that modern life allows even those of humble means to enjoy the comforts for which kings of old would have needed thousands of actual slaves.
Every resource is finite and non-renewable considering even the sun will go out at some point. Let's not bemoan the use of fossil-sourced energy until the point we level up in technology and can master less polluting sources. After all, fossil fuels have fostered more human life than climate change will ever destroy.
> fossil fuels have fostered more human life than climate change will ever destroy.
That remains to be seen.
And Big Oil worked very hard for decades at smothering any effort to develop less polluting alternative energy sources. They’re still doing it by suing the EU for mandating laws to reduce fossil fuel usage.
I am not worried about fossil fuel running out. That is because, as it becomes more limited in supply, it becomes more expensive.
This will force people into reducing its use. Companies producing more efficient or alternatively-powered technology will gain the most. So, the market would address this.
On top of this, OPEC playing games is also prompting importers to find alternatives.
But I am indeed worried about the impact on the environment.
But, what about the races?! According to the organizer, this was absolutely justified because of the... added value!
> “Of course it sounds incredibly stupid to transport snow by helicopter. But that was the only way we could save the slalom and combined races. The effort was absolutely justified.” He referred to the very high added value for the entire region.
Yeah, light cars are rare, especially in the US. A brand-new base model Hyundai Elantra, which is a very mainstream compact sedan, weighs 2,725 lbs. The lightest new passenger car sold is the Mitsubishi Mirage at 2,095 lbs. It has all of 78 horsepower. ;-)
This was 1 chopper doing private property management to increase its value, yet outrage here resembles end of world... lets be a bit smarter. Ie one can save 1000x more energy every year to resettle people from places like Phoenix to location where AC nor heating is not needed. We can sit all day coming up with fantasies what to ban to cut down energy consumption
Not if you heat with a heat pump, as is quite common with new construction. They're both equally efficient, since they're the same device running in opposite directions.
> Huhmmmm.... Does anyone else spot a dichotomy in thinking here?
No because we've accepted rich flying their private jets and lecturing everyone about how they are causing climate change by driving their suv to drop off kids at school.
I think the point is that if you're gonna tell other people what to do you need to set some semblance of an example by putting your money where your mouth is. For example no religion that preaches the traditional sorts of stuff religions preach tolerates clergy who act like Charlie Sheen.
> Global warming being caused in part by internal combustion engines and aviation results in less snow for skiers... Solution? Chopper some more snow in to counter the effects of I.C.E's and aviation. Huhmmmm.... Does anyone else spot a dichotomy in thinking here?
Well, they're doing it to keep their income and profits coming. A major part of it in fact - probably half the yearly income.
Since you're probably from a western country, how much of an income cut and inconvenience when driving/commuting were you prepared to take to combat climate change until now?
Because that's really what you're asking here - are you going to take a 50% paycut and stop using your ICE vehicle forever?
Exactly! That's the thing happening here - "I'm going to keep my convenience until everyone else changes their mind!" being used as an excuse to do nothing and just point fingers at others.
Not really the same thing. Snow in low-altitude stations is running out. Bringing it in via helicopter is not gonna work forever. People cannot keep relying on it for their income.
The most extreme heatwave in European history just happened this past week. The point of this article isn't that weather changes day to day or week to week. The point is this is a metaphor for the absurdity of the situation
I know Europe isn't as anti climate change as US but I really hope rhat the world atarts taking this seriously
When Europe is as hot as Asia during summers and as hot as Asia during respective winters that clearly proves beyond a shadow of doubt that global warming is real
Because Trump had said "it is snowing here" to justify xlimate denying. They have extreme polar vortex over there so they haven't yet faced the severity of climate change, I think.
it was just an issue with your phrasing of 'anti climate change'. I think you meant 'climate change denying' or something like that, then it makes more sense. Being 'anti climate change' to me means that you try to stop the change, and by your comment I read it as the US being more advanced in that regard.
This very much varies depending on where you are in Europe and who you are talking to. Much of Western Europe gets a climate that is warmer than the same latitude in the US because of the Gulf Stream. It's possible that climate change might disrupt that resulting in certain regions being _colder_.
In the meantime, the latitudes at which you can economically grow wine grapes are gradually moving northwards.
- Microstates/islands which have very inefficient generation
- and then Estonia is worse than the US, because it still has lots of Soviet-era coal generation.
Most of Europe has per-capita emissions about half those of the US, comparable to those of China. The US has bad emissions because of cheap petrol and over 200GW of coal fired power stations.
Sadly this is a global problem and no matter what tiny Switzerland does to be green, it has almost zero effect when the big polluters are still arguing if climate change is real.
The article is okayish, even if its exaggarated and misleading. But as a swiss i would not trust this page.
The article is written as if the whole sky resort looks as in the picture. While they actually tried to fix some patches of the route which had to few snow. Usually they fix it by moving snow around with a plow. Which they can not because the snow is to thin currently. Also they aborted after trying 9 times, because it was not economical.
I totally agree to the absurdity to transport snow with a helicopter. However it's a big difference between what people expect when reading this article to what really happened.
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Am I right in thinking that Gstaad is like the Aspen of Switzerland, one of the richest ski resort towns? Is this why they can get away with helicoptering in snow?
Switzerland is a rich country, and just about every ski resort is outrageously expensive (think 14 euro for a beer, 35 for a pizza, 150+/night for a hotel, 50+/day slopes). So financially, they can definitely get away with helicoptering in snow.
The most exclusive ones are probably St. Moritz, Zermatt and Lech, not so sure about Gstaad.
Other than the pizza and beer, I challenge you to find a ski resort in Colorado/Utah much cheaper than the prices you listed. It's crazy here in the US.
I'll be spending a week skiing in Austria next week and altogether it's cheaper than a week of skiing in Colorado.
Gstaad is 'exclusive'. It probably isn't so well known, but it has very expensive resorts and hotels, like https://www.thealpinagstaad.ch/ and its own private bank https://www.saanenbank.ch/ and the centre of the village has a lot of luxury shopping. It is definitely up there in terms of destinations for UHNW people. However I don't think it attracts quite such a percentage of "can afford to go but not ultra high net worth" people, which is much more true of Zermatt, Verbier, St Moritz etc.
When you listed your prices, I was awed by the expense of the beer and pizza, but once you got to the hotels and ski pass, the prices look very reasonable for the US. I pulled up Snowbird in Salt Lake City, Utah which has some of the best skiing in the US and not even fancy like Aspen, Colorado. A hotel up there on a Wednesday in two weeks is 454USD per night. Lift tickets are 142USD per day.
Blows my mind. When I skied there in college in 2012, they were roughly 60-80USD per day and they had free ski between 1500-1700.
There are a lot of Aspens in Switzerland. But seriously, I hope there will be consequences. Everyone in my bubble disapproves this strongly. Yes, there is not much snow. Yes, it is crippling snow tourism. But I can't imagine there are a lot of Swiss people who think that flying in snow is justified in any way.
I do not live in Switzerland anymore, so I cannot do a survey, but I can tell you helicopters are used an absurd amount in Switzerland, and everyone seems fine with it. For instance I personally saw, with my own eyes, helicopters used to:
- install an AC unit on the roof of a university building
- move building material from one side of campus to the other side
- extract dead trees from a small forest with an extensive network of roads and paths
- plant trees in the middle of campus. Which lead to this fantastic exchange with my then 2 yo: "look papa, a flying tree!" "What do you mean?" "There!" "Oh, you are right. A flying tree. Do you want a banana?"
My pet theory is that given the high wages in Switzerland, it quickly becomes cheaper to rent a chopper for two hours then to get a crane built, operated and unbuilt.
It's not cheap but in many cases it's the only way, logging on steep hills or supplies for very remote regions etc.. Only 50% of what Air Zermatt does is rescue.
> But I can't imagine there are a lot of Swiss people who think that flying in snow is justified in any way.
I just got back from skiing in Vail Colorado. People in Europe may object to flying snow to the mountain, but they certainly do not object to flying themselves to the snow.
In the shared gondola and lift rides, people speaking English within their groups were the minority. I am not complaining, it was a wonderful time and I really enjoyed meeting and talking to people from all over the place!
FYI - the storm systems that are flooding California are producing an epic winter for the ski resorts in the western USA. It's been at least 20 years since I've seen anything this nice! It's really not a surprise that people are coming from around the world to experience it.
Yeah it's nuts here in western USA. We've gotten over 200 inches of snow here in Park City Utah and I saw like 10 dump trucks full of snow hauling it away just walking to the grocery store yesterday.
What would you consider a sufficient example to highlight the problematic mindset behind these actions then? On its own, neither the helicopter here, nor the private jet there or the cruiseship in the Mediterranean and so forth are a problem. In total, they absolutely are.
I don't think it's problematic at all. It looks to me a reasonable and proportionate investment that supported a large number of local, seasonal jobs.
Amortize that fossil fuel consumption per capita -- one helicopter, over thousands of vacationers -- and it's an absolutely trivial amount. In terms of pure numbers, most HN'ers did far "worse" things on their most recent vacation, even if it were a short car trip.
If you're open to taxing for carbon footprint (to put it loosely), and it seems that that's your argument, you'll find that ski trips are going to be very costly, even more so when adding the cost of generating snow.
Alpine skiing is an activity that in the long run is on the way out due to climate change. As a result of a warming-induced deterioration of conditions we are burning more fossil fuels to support the industry that we're extinguishing with said fossil fuels.
The fact that it's an activity heavily associated with affluence aids the rage-bait.
This time. They’ve used 100 flights the last time around. And if it had worked you better believe it would have been more than one flight. The very fact that this was even considered as a potential solution is the problem, IMHO.
It sounds more like a swiss town in crises. The local economy probably relies on visitors coming during the snow season to provide for the rest of the year. It is nothing to do with greed.
It’s not for the wealthy, it’s for the working class. Of course don’t compensate asset price destruction due to climate change except for those who have limited means.
In my coal plant example, workers are typically close to retirement and have limited means. They aren’t financially independent, so they need something to bridge the gap between this painful transition and death. I apologize that wasn’t clear in my original comment.
Help those who need the help, but let the wealthy take the L.
"It’s not for the wealthy, it’s for the working class."
I think the swiss working class is a bit better of, than those in the subsahara facing drought.
They are in the need of transition funds.
I also think it would not be helpful to ban helicopter snow transport or something populistic, but it is really not smart, trying to keep things artificial alife - like certain wintersport areas - by means that contribute to the problem.
You really need to contextualize the working class to the area we're in. Comparing your situation to the entire world's is a bit reductionist and useless as a comparison.
> I think the swiss working class is a bit better of, than those in the subsahara facing drought.
With such an argument we could drop everything we're doing in Switzerland, as we're probably better off than most other people in this world (by average).
Don't make the mistake to think that every Swiss citizen is well off. Very well off compared to the rest of the world, sure. But we have our own class of people who barely get through the month. (These people would be homeless and absolutely devastated in the US, so we have that going for us.)
The only income smaller ski regions have are winter sports. If this goes away, these regions will probably have some very difficult times. Now, I'm talking about the smaller ski regions with not that much wealth. Different story compared to Zermatt, St. Moritz etc.
> it is really not smart, trying to keep things artificial alife
I do agree with your main point! I also smh when I see all of the artificial snow machines which waste lots of water and energy, the tons of cars which travel to these regions, mass tourism etc.
Which doesn't mean that we can't also say, that the working class in these regions will be in serious trouble if we stop.
Which doesn't mean that we shouldn't stop. Complicated, I guess :)
The residents of ski towns aren't rich just because they provide services for the rich. In Switzerland residents in the alps are generally poorer than those on the plateau.
Sure they're "rich", in the same way everyone in France, Italy and Austria are rich in a global context. But those areas are still going to need government support when the basis of their economy is wiped out.
The actual Swiss we interacted with were the most rude and dismissive hosts I’ve ever had to meet. The times when someone (at a restaurant, chalet, train station, truck/road stop) was kind and patient surprised us… and they always ended up being non-Swiss temp workers. I wonder where those workers will go; they are the ones who are going to need financial help with any transition because the Swiss will finally get what we heard many grumbling about - no more tourists.
Seems like they should consider a dome, like Houston (to fight humidity).
If your snow mountain reflects most heat energy, has a great heat pump (including heating the homes and businesses) then you have a huge indoor ski mountain. Bonus if it's made inexpensively with recycled glass and plastic.
This isn't a new phenomenon or something restricted to "exclusive" resorts. I have seen this happen in other alpine ski areas over the last 5-10 years when there has been particularly bad snow. Normally in places that are of high importance and traffic, such as at the top of main lifts.
Ski resorts use helicopters for many logistical activities, if it keeps the area open they will do it. This year the Alps are having a particularly bad January, and with it only being four weeks till the traditional February rolling school holidays for family skiing trips, they are very concerned about keeping the areas open.
That's not to say there isn't a level of absurdity to the whole thing!
Another trick that some resorts that have big competitions (world cup etc) early in the year now do is store snow at the end the year under some insulated plastic and/or saw dust. They can spread that to the slope and guarantee conditions for the big event.
Obviously if it is really warm it will melt away in a few days after that but at least they can have their event.
Maybe they could do the same for these important spots around lifts etc.
I've got to say, "ski resort that already has a helicopter uses it to move snow from one part of the resort to another, to patch a few high-traffic areas" makes more sense to me than "snow flown in" as in my country, having something 'flown in' usually implies transporting it several hundred miles.
I started skiing in the 80s, and even then they had snow machines to make snow when it was lean times. Seems much more practical than using helicopters.
Why is Switzerland so hot? I know climate change is a thing, but many other countries are receiving a lot of big snow falls. What's specifically going on in Switzerland? Jet stream weirdness allowing warm air further north?
This is not limited to Switzerland, but to all the alpine regions in Europe; i.e., also France, Germany, and Austria. Only northern Italy seems to have faired a little bit better, but that is just meteorological luck.
We had a normal beginning of December, but now it's been easily February weather for a couple weeks and forecast isn't any different. Temperatures in Rome last week were more typical of Easter than Christmas; northern Italy was not as extreme only because it's cloudy.
Temperatures reached 20°C in south France, I've even been bitten by mosquitoes (to my surprise, no tiger ones), and did killed a few. What used to be a rare occurrence even in summer, happens during the supposed coolest months.
The east coast of the US has long used extensive snowmaking capacity to keep slopes open. Most resorts in the east have plenty of cold air, but natural snow is iffy at best for long periods. It’s now common for resorts in the east to have 100% (or close to it) of the mountain equipped with snow guns. It’s not fluffy powder but creates a perfectly acceptable surface.
However if the problem these Swiss resorts are having is that it’s just consistently too warm them this is unfortunately probably the beginning of the end for them. Flying snow in via helicopters strikes me as trying to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Natural snow is more of an “icing on the cake” in the northeast. If you don’t make snow, you might be okay eventually, but you’ll likely miss out on some early major holiday income periods (Christmas week, MLK weekend). Snowmaking is an arms race in that those ski areas that did make snow will take your customers for those times.
Gstaad is quite an exclusive resort, but is relatively low level - the village is at about 1,000m. I once shot some photos for the local ski club at one of the slopes there and they wouldn't let anyone but the racers use the piste as they wanted to keep it in good condition. IIRC it was one of the privately owned runs, and they really didn't want this snowboarder wrecking the piste so I had to hike up to shoot photos...
Anyway, Gstaad is not far from Glacier 3000 which has most of its slopes at, yes, 3,000m, so anyone in Gstaad doesn't have to go far for (currently) guaranteed snow. The snow up there should be pretty good.
Lack of snow in this region isn't unusual at this time of year, we had a good amount at the beginning of Dec. What has been unusual is the high temperatures, which has meant that snow is now mostly gone and the snow generating machines are of no use. We've also had a lot of rain, which has made managing the existing snow difficult.
This is the future of low to mid level resorts however. In a couple of generations time they won't be able to offer skiing, or the length of the ski season will be significantly reduced. I shot a photo project on this when I first arrived here, nearly a decade ago: https://www.formulanon.com/switzerland-bergbahnen
They do, and that grooming cost is indirectly covered by the lift ticket prices or the event sponsors.
But the run will still be closed for a while, because it doesn't make sense to continually groom the run leading up to and during competition or practice. Generally it's not closed to just snowboarders, but to anybody who isn't involved with the event. At least that's how they do it here in CO.
Yes. One easy place to see this is Alta (skiing only) and Snowbird (mixed use) side by side on the same mountain in Utah. I enjoy both and prefer skiing the snow and runs of Alta.
I'd prefer snowboarding Alta too, but seeing for myself the difference to the snow and to the traffic patterns, I can see my snowboard would undermine Alta's preferential characteristics, so I'm happy they're separate.
Nah, this was (IIRC) very much a privately owned piste with a privately owned Poma lift. Not the usual case of "this piste is closed for competition/training".
Gstaad is an interesting place. They have a yacht club but no lake for example...
It is also important to note for our North-American friends what exactly an exclusive resort means in this context. Some North-American exclusive resorts consist more like a golf-club where all slopes are not accessible unless you pay the "club fee" or in some cases buy a house in the village.
While here Gstaad is still open to the "common man". Yes, it's expensive skiing eating and hotels, with a lot of celebrities coming and going. It's also pretty big with 176km of pistes (where in NA how big a resort is is measured in skiable acres instead, so to give you an idea, it has 10 cable cars, 13 chairs and 13 surface lifts). So big enough they have to also aim for "normal people". Just mentioning it since the word exclusive might spring to mind a different kind of resort than some Americans are used to.
>While here Gstaad is still open to the "common man"
The cost to exist and engage in the day to day commerce of life there is sufficiently high that the common man does not and mostly cannot bother hence no need for other forms of exclusivity.
If I were in charge of a ski resort anywhere in the world (and I am not suggesting that I should be), I'd be spending most of my working time trying to come up with a radical transition plan, to an industry with a viable future. I'm not sure if there's much you can do with a mountain that's covered in mud instead of snow though.
The fact that this was obvious to you and not me suggests that you should be the one running this ski resort. I'm not sure how I ended up here in the first place.
So interesting that we (as humans in a system) can choose to fly snow in so we can keep making money even though Mother Nature is clearly telling is we’ve taken too much.
Is there nothing the pursuit of profit won’t exploit?
There is nothing exclusive about the resort. It’s pricey but nothing stops anyone coming, and many do.
The question is, why would you when the skiing really is average compared to its near by Neighbours.
This is obscene and idiotic. Could there be a link between this exceptionally warm winter in Switzerland and that kind of idiocy?
In my city, the Christmas tree is flown in by helicopter each Christmas… because we have too much money I guess? It would totally fit by other means (truck, crane, however the rest of the world does it) but no we have to have this gigantic tree cut down, helicoptered in, and disposed of a month later. Infuriating.
I wonder if there is an environmentally sustainable solution to converting established ski resorts that become unviable due to climate change into indoor ski resorts. Indoor ski resorts are already a thing but generally they suck[1]
2) If that building were highly insulated, but with the option to rapidly circulate outside air inside it (for use at night time, when the weather is colder).
3) If we could invent some new meta-material glass that allows infrared light to pass through it, then we could actually make this out of glass and still have the wonderful views on the mountain without incurring a huge greenhouse effect penalty for the transparency. In fact, if the glass is totally transparent to infrared and visible light LEAVING the covered slops, but slightly tinted for any light entering, then it would naturally be net cooler than the outside.
4) if the additional cooling required is powered by solar and wind.
5) Final ridiculous addition: Make these double paned glass roofs retractable so when real snow happens or the weather is cold enough, it is still outdoors.
Having the ability to still ski on the real slopes all year long would be great.
I would expect people will just have to drive farther to get to a mountain which is the case here. I don’t expect the added cost of driving another hour north to make it attractive enough to dome over and cool ski slopes.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 230 ms ] threadHowever, the heli strategy did not work, as the CEO explains in “Capital”: “This attempt did not work,” says In-Albon. The amount of snow per flight is too small and loading and unloading too difficult.
It didnt even work.
Does taylor swift or ursula von der leyn really need a private plane for traveling 50km?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/11/02/revealed-a...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBNcYxHJPLE
Some people feel like they're treated like serfs: you stay in your village, on car, no flights, no tourism, save water, wave electricity, while I, the nobleman, get to travel to climate change conferences in private planes, because I am important to the cause.
Answering questions like "what should people do instead?" is important to figuring out how we can move away from things that damage the climate. If you just tell people "your life and livelihood isn't as important as X" isn't going to get that person to agree with you.
The point of my comment is not to trivialize the livelihoods of the inhabitants of “a few villages”. As you correctly point out, that would be crass and unfair.
The point of my comment is that climate change is an existential crisis at a scale much larger than “a few villages”: it’s fairly likely to result in an extinction event. For all villages.
The earth changes. Humanity doesn't have a responsibility to a resort owner keep things the same as they were when we started keeping good records.
/s (probably)
No single wasteful activity is going to stop it. We need to stop a lot of them. This could and possibly should be one of them.
On the topic of wilderness trips: I am of the mind that many people are totally disconnected from the natural world these days, and people are not generally inclined to care about things in the abstract. Getting out in nature has been demonstrated to promote environmentalism^, so if people are going to be traveling anyway, these are trips that could have some impact.
^ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8305895/
I grew up in one of those tourism towns. It's like old school strip mining but for society. Instead of poisoning watersheds it poisons society. It turns businessmen into swindlers. It turns culture into caricature. It turns the economy into a disgusting web of perverse incentives in which every actor is constantly dealing in way that would give a mafia run dumpster company pause. Good riddance.
It's a massive waste of energy overall.
Paradoxically, global warming benefited Europe this winter, reducing the influence of the Russian gas embargo.
In any case, European countries have lower greenhouse gas emissions per citizen than, say, the US or Australia (since we actually have emissions taxes).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_greenhous...
When your enjoyment requires the equivalent of thousands working for you, and it is from a resource that is finite and non-renewable, then it is probably wasteful.
Found it: https://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comic/energy-slaves/
Every resource is finite and non-renewable considering even the sun will go out at some point. Let's not bemoan the use of fossil-sourced energy until the point we level up in technology and can master less polluting sources. After all, fossil fuels have fostered more human life than climate change will ever destroy.
That remains to be seen.
And Big Oil worked very hard for decades at smothering any effort to develop less polluting alternative energy sources. They’re still doing it by suing the EU for mandating laws to reduce fossil fuel usage.
This will force people into reducing its use. Companies producing more efficient or alternatively-powered technology will gain the most. So, the market would address this.
On top of this, OPEC playing games is also prompting importers to find alternatives.
But I am indeed worried about the impact on the environment.
Not only that, current "proven reserves" are based on what's economical to extract. As the price of oil rises, we will find more oil.
At the point it causes eventual human extinction.
> “Of course it sounds incredibly stupid to transport snow by helicopter. But that was the only way we could save the slalom and combined races. The effort was absolutely justified.” He referred to the very high added value for the entire region.
We don't need to resettle everyone in the Phoenix because air conditioning uses too much energy...
https://youtu.be/0SYpUSjSgFg?t=66
No because we've accepted rich flying their private jets and lecturing everyone about how they are causing climate change by driving their suv to drop off kids at school.
This isn't any weirder than that.
Well, they're doing it to keep their income and profits coming. A major part of it in fact - probably half the yearly income.
Since you're probably from a western country, how much of an income cut and inconvenience when driving/commuting were you prepared to take to combat climate change until now?
Because that's really what you're asking here - are you going to take a 50% paycut and stop using your ICE vehicle forever?
Only if everyone else does. I.e. a fossil fuel tax so high that it renders helicoptering snow for recreational activities untenable.
Most people I know just commute on bike or public transport.
source on heatwave: https://grist.org/climate/europe-kicks-off-2023-with-a-recor...
When Europe is as hot as Asia during summers and as hot as Asia during respective winters that clearly proves beyond a shadow of doubt that global warming is real
Because Trump had said "it is snowing here" to justify xlimate denying. They have extreme polar vortex over there so they haven't yet faced the severity of climate change, I think.
I feel like this isn't the clearest phrasing. :) Perhaps you meant anti-anti-climate change (clunky) or anti-climate change awareness or similar?
Imagine having to dumpsnow via a helicopter... This means things are going to be worse in the coming years
Every country needs to wake up and fix issues of non renewable energy
In the meantime, the latitudes at which you can economically grow wine grapes are gradually moving northwards.
If you sort https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-pe... by per capita, you see that the biggest emitters are:
- Gulf states which run on oil
- Microstates/islands which have very inefficient generation
- and then Estonia is worse than the US, because it still has lots of Soviet-era coal generation.
Most of Europe has per-capita emissions about half those of the US, comparable to those of China. The US has bad emissions because of cheap petrol and over 200GW of coal fired power stations.
The article is written as if the whole sky resort looks as in the picture. While they actually tried to fix some patches of the route which had to few snow. Usually they fix it by moving snow around with a plow. Which they can not because the snow is to thin currently. Also they aborted after trying 9 times, because it was not economical.
I totally agree to the absurdity to transport snow with a helicopter. However it's a big difference between what people expect when reading this article to what really happened.
furthermore, checking on nic.ch yields:
which in my eyes is rather sus.====
https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng is a nice english-language service.
(unfortunately I doubt it or the NZZ english version will be carrying this story)
As absurd as it is to see (I had my first ski lessons on those very slopes), I think it checks out.
https://www.srf.ch/news/schweiz/wegen-gruener-pisten-gstaad-...
https://www.hauptstadt.be/a/helikopterfluege-hauptstadt-brie...
The most exclusive ones are probably St. Moritz, Zermatt and Lech, not so sure about Gstaad.
I'll be spending a week skiing in Austria next week and altogether it's cheaper than a week of skiing in Colorado.
Blows my mind. When I skied there in college in 2012, they were roughly 60-80USD per day and they had free ski between 1500-1700.
https://www.skibanff.com/ski-ride/passes/day-passes
Half price
- install an AC unit on the roof of a university building
- move building material from one side of campus to the other side
- extract dead trees from a small forest with an extensive network of roads and paths
- plant trees in the middle of campus. Which lead to this fantastic exchange with my then 2 yo: "look papa, a flying tree!" "What do you mean?" "There!" "Oh, you are right. A flying tree. Do you want a banana?"
My pet theory is that given the high wages in Switzerland, it quickly becomes cheaper to rent a chopper for two hours then to get a crane built, operated and unbuilt.
I just got back from skiing in Vail Colorado. People in Europe may object to flying snow to the mountain, but they certainly do not object to flying themselves to the snow.
In the shared gondola and lift rides, people speaking English within their groups were the minority. I am not complaining, it was a wonderful time and I really enjoyed meeting and talking to people from all over the place!
FYI - the storm systems that are flooding California are producing an epic winter for the ski resorts in the western USA. It's been at least 20 years since I've seen anything this nice! It's really not a surprise that people are coming from around the world to experience it.
One helicopter. *One*.
What would you suggest to submit instead?
Amortize that fossil fuel consumption per capita -- one helicopter, over thousands of vacationers -- and it's an absolutely trivial amount. In terms of pure numbers, most HN'ers did far "worse" things on their most recent vacation, even if it were a short car trip.
Alpine skiing is an activity that in the long run is on the way out due to climate change. As a result of a warming-induced deterioration of conditions we are burning more fossil fuels to support the industry that we're extinguishing with said fossil fuels.
The fact that it's an activity heavily associated with affluence aids the rage-bait.
In my coal plant example, workers are typically close to retirement and have limited means. They aren’t financially independent, so they need something to bridge the gap between this painful transition and death. I apologize that wasn’t clear in my original comment.
Help those who need the help, but let the wealthy take the L.
I think the swiss working class is a bit better of, than those in the subsahara facing drought.
They are in the need of transition funds.
I also think it would not be helpful to ban helicopter snow transport or something populistic, but it is really not smart, trying to keep things artificial alife - like certain wintersport areas - by means that contribute to the problem.
"I’m not giving funds to rich ski towns."
Me neither. The swiss might do it themself, but I thought we are arguing here on a more global level.
With such an argument we could drop everything we're doing in Switzerland, as we're probably better off than most other people in this world (by average).
Don't make the mistake to think that every Swiss citizen is well off. Very well off compared to the rest of the world, sure. But we have our own class of people who barely get through the month. (These people would be homeless and absolutely devastated in the US, so we have that going for us.)
The only income smaller ski regions have are winter sports. If this goes away, these regions will probably have some very difficult times. Now, I'm talking about the smaller ski regions with not that much wealth. Different story compared to Zermatt, St. Moritz etc.
> it is really not smart, trying to keep things artificial alife
I do agree with your main point! I also smh when I see all of the artificial snow machines which waste lots of water and energy, the tons of cars which travel to these regions, mass tourism etc.
Which doesn't mean that we can't also say, that the working class in these regions will be in serious trouble if we stop.
Which doesn't mean that we shouldn't stop. Complicated, I guess :)
Sure they're "rich", in the same way everyone in France, Italy and Austria are rich in a global context. But those areas are still going to need government support when the basis of their economy is wiped out.
If your snow mountain reflects most heat energy, has a great heat pump (including heating the homes and businesses) then you have a huge indoor ski mountain. Bonus if it's made inexpensively with recycled glass and plastic.
Ski resorts use helicopters for many logistical activities, if it keeps the area open they will do it. This year the Alps are having a particularly bad January, and with it only being four weeks till the traditional February rolling school holidays for family skiing trips, they are very concerned about keeping the areas open.
That's not to say there isn't a level of absurdity to the whole thing!
Obviously if it is really warm it will melt away in a few days after that but at least they can have their event.
Maybe they could do the same for these important spots around lifts etc.
This Polar Vortex weirdness is what I've been hearing about.
However if the problem these Swiss resorts are having is that it’s just consistently too warm them this is unfortunately probably the beginning of the end for them. Flying snow in via helicopters strikes me as trying to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic.
https://www.alpinevalleyohio.com/
The Great Lakes, except Superior, are nearly ice-free right now. In January! It's not looking good.
Anyway, Gstaad is not far from Glacier 3000 which has most of its slopes at, yes, 3,000m, so anyone in Gstaad doesn't have to go far for (currently) guaranteed snow. The snow up there should be pretty good.
Lack of snow in this region isn't unusual at this time of year, we had a good amount at the beginning of Dec. What has been unusual is the high temperatures, which has meant that snow is now mostly gone and the snow generating machines are of no use. We've also had a lot of rain, which has made managing the existing snow difficult.
This is the future of low to mid level resorts however. In a couple of generations time they won't be able to offer skiing, or the length of the ski season will be significantly reduced. I shot a photo project on this when I first arrived here, nearly a decade ago: https://www.formulanon.com/switzerland-bergbahnen
But the run will still be closed for a while, because it doesn't make sense to continually groom the run leading up to and during competition or practice. Generally it's not closed to just snowboarders, but to anybody who isn't involved with the event. At least that's how they do it here in CO.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPZDEWBzneY
I'd prefer snowboarding Alta too, but seeing for myself the difference to the snow and to the traffic patterns, I can see my snowboard would undermine Alta's preferential characteristics, so I'm happy they're separate.
Gstaad is an interesting place. They have a yacht club but no lake for example...
While here Gstaad is still open to the "common man". Yes, it's expensive skiing eating and hotels, with a lot of celebrities coming and going. It's also pretty big with 176km of pistes (where in NA how big a resort is is measured in skiable acres instead, so to give you an idea, it has 10 cable cars, 13 chairs and 13 surface lifts). So big enough they have to also aim for "normal people". Just mentioning it since the word exclusive might spring to mind a different kind of resort than some Americans are used to.
The cost to exist and engage in the day to day commerce of life there is sufficiently high that the common man does not and mostly cannot bother hence no need for other forms of exclusivity.
Many resorts already do a brisk summer business - snow mass and telluride. For instance… Zermatt…
Is there nothing the pursuit of profit won’t exploit?
When will we actually start to put a higher value on the planet when we make these decisions.
The irony....
In my city, the Christmas tree is flown in by helicopter each Christmas… because we have too much money I guess? It would totally fit by other means (truck, crane, however the rest of the world does it) but no we have to have this gigantic tree cut down, helicoptered in, and disposed of a month later. Infuriating.
Here is a ludicrous futurist thought experiment:
1) If the slopes could be covered in a building, similar to this: https://th-thumbnailer.cdn-si-edu.com/u-PEeOAFNhog5RDbemURPe...
2) If that building were highly insulated, but with the option to rapidly circulate outside air inside it (for use at night time, when the weather is colder).
3) If we could invent some new meta-material glass that allows infrared light to pass through it, then we could actually make this out of glass and still have the wonderful views on the mountain without incurring a huge greenhouse effect penalty for the transparency. In fact, if the glass is totally transparent to infrared and visible light LEAVING the covered slops, but slightly tinted for any light entering, then it would naturally be net cooler than the outside.
4) if the additional cooling required is powered by solar and wind.
5) Final ridiculous addition: Make these double paned glass roofs retractable so when real snow happens or the weather is cold enough, it is still outdoors.
Having the ability to still ski on the real slopes all year long would be great.
[1] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/eight-worlds-coolest-i...