{"id":2443026,"date":"2019-04-16T11:53:21","date_gmt":"2019-04-16T17:53:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=304156"},"modified":"2019-04-16T11:53:21","modified_gmt":"2019-04-16T17:53:21","slug":"scientists-winter-enthusiasts-seek-cultural-shift-on-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/scientists-winter-enthusiasts-seek-cultural-shift-on-climate-change\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists, winter enthusiasts seek cultural shift on climate change"},"content":{"rendered":"
Mario Molina cruises through some powder in the Back Bowls of Vail. The executive director of Protect Our Winters says a cultural shift needs to happen on climate change, just like cigarettes going out of fashion.<\/strong>
David O. Williams\/Courtesy Photo<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Mario Molina was born and raised in the mile-high mountain city of Antigua, Guatemala, but it was at much higher elevations in the Andes of Ecuador where climate change really hit home for him. That\u2019s where he witnessed rapidly receding tropical glaciers over a five-year span in the 2000s.<\/p>\n

On a foot-deep powder day in the Back Bowls of Vail last week, the executive director of Protect Our Winters<\/a> explained on a wind-swept ride up Chair 5 that we already have the technology and financial tools to divest from fossil fuels and invest in renewable energy. What we\u2019re lacking, he says, is the political will and a cultural shift to combat the worst effects of climate change.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first thing is we needed the technical solutions that are both technology and finance,\u201d Molina said. \u201cThe second thing is we need the political will, so we need to elect politicians and press politicians to move policies forward that will get us there. But then the third leg of the stool, without one of which the whole thing topples, is we need a cultural shift.\u201d<\/p>\n

Appetite for destruction<\/h2>\n

Molina, who holds a Masters in Geosystems Analysis<\/a> from Appalachian State in North Carolina, compares climate change to drunk driving and tobacco consumption \u2014 self-destructive practices that decades ago were far more widespread and culturally acceptable in the United States.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose were legislative battles that were fought and won at the policy level, but they\u2019ve endured because they also accomplished a cultural shift,\u201d Molina said. \u201cWhere Protect Our Winters comes in, and conferences like The CampSight<\/a> come in, is mobilizing that cultural shift to a broader community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dubbed \u201can innovation and marketing unconference for outdoor industry brands, adventurous visionaries and bold storytellers,\u201d The CampSight just wrapped up three days in Vail last week.<\/p>\n

Former Protect Our Winters board member Penn Newhard, of Carbondale\u2019s Backbone Media,<\/a> echoed Molina\u2019s take on climate change and the need to quickly make that cultural shift during a CampSight coffee breakout at Yeti\u2019s Grind in Vail.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow it\u2019s actually in the space where people take this kind of cavalier attitude like smokers used to take, like, \u2018Oh yeah, I know it\u2019s really bad for me, but it\u2019s probably not going to immediately kill me,\u201d said Newhard, who founded Backbone<\/a> as a PR, marketing, social media and content firm for the outdoor industry. \u201cClimate change is a PR issue, and it\u2019s the most dominant issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018War on Powder\u2019<\/h2>\n

But it\u2019s also a policy issue, and Molina underscores the importance of the current Colorado legislative push to mitigate against and hopefully reverse climate change impacts \u2014 the so-called Ski Town Caucus fight in the \u201cWar on Powder.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s great to see in Colorado a lot of leadership from the House with the passing of the carbon limit bill<\/a> that\u2019s now going to the Senate,\u201d Molina said. \u201cAs residents of Colorado, those are the kinds of initiatives that we need to get behind. \u2026 That\u2019s where we need people to show up, understand what this bill is trying to accomplish, that it doesn\u2019t come at huge cost to consumers.\u201d<\/p>\n

The cultural shift with climate change will come more quickly, Molina said, when it\u2019s equated with the loss of public lands for fossil fuel extraction and the shrinking of ski seasons, river flows and recreational opportunities. That\u2019s why Protect Our WintersPOW enlists adventure sports athletes as advocates.<\/p>\n

Backbone\u2019s Newhard helped professional big-mountain snowboarder Jeremy Jones found Protect Our Winters in 2007, and ski racers like Olympic gold medalist and Shred gear company founder Ted Ligety support its efforts<\/a>. Other alpine greats such as six-time Olympic medalist and Bomber Ski founder Bode Miller have been equally out front on climate change.<\/a><\/p>\n

Witnesses to waning winters<\/strong><\/h2>\n

But it\u2019s pioneering big-mountain riders like Jones, Cody Townsend<\/a> and the legendary Kristen Ulmer \u2014 firsthand witnesses to the dramatic impact of climate change on first and soon-to-be last descents in Alaska\u2019s Chugach Range and other ski-film locations \u2014 that are the most passionate.<\/p>\n

During her recent induction into the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame<\/a>, Ulmer told a conference room full of ski executives and snow riders in Salt Lake City she only expects the industry to last another 100 years at the current rate of warming.<\/p>\n

Scientists agree that our snowpack is changing, endangering the Colorado River<\/a> and impacting the state\u2019s ski and outdoor recreation industry. And, even during an above-average season for snowfall in Colorado this winter, the trend of warmer, wetter storms is continuing.<\/p>\n

Jeffrey Deems, a research scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder, said in a phone interview last month that the instrument record shows increased rain fraction in the snowpack, shorter snow seasons and higher snow lines during certain storms.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we think about the impact of climate change, it isn\u2019t just, OK, well what does our snowpack look like in 2050, but are we now a maritime or inter-mountain climate?\u201d Deems said. \u201cWhat does that transition look like? Do we get an increased frequency of maritime-like events like this recent atmospheric river event that lands on top of a cold continental Colorado snowpack?\u201d<\/p>\n

Colorado experienced historic avalanches in early March<\/a> after a consistent snowpack was hammered by a heavy, wet southwestern flow of moisture, but Deems says it\u2019s \u201cdodgy\u201d to connect one avalanche cycle to the overall and ongoing trend of climate change.<\/p>\n

Brian Lazar, deputy director of the Colorado Avalanche Information Center, agrees.<\/p>\n

Brian Lazar of the Colorado Avalanche Information Center says the heavy, wet March storms that created a historic avalanche season in Colorado are \u2018not really odd events,\u2019 given the new normal of global climate change. <\/strong>(Special to the Vail Daily)<\/em>
<\/strong>
BrianLazar<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThose kinds of storms are not really odd events; maybe the number of them this year and just how wet and kind of juicy they\u2019ve been is a little bit out of the normal, for sure,\u201d Lazar said in a March phone interview. \u201cThat\u2019s not inconsistent with predictions of a warmer climate. That warm air can kind of just hold more moisture. Colorado is typically colder and drier.\u201d<\/p>\n

Protect Our Winters athletes, for the most part, are operating on anecdotal evidence, like Ligety pointing out the rapid deterioration of the Rettenbach Glacier at the annual World Cup stop in Soelden, Austria. But Lazar, who earned a master\u2019s in engineering studying snow and ice mechanics in Alaska\u2019s Chugach Range, says Colorado snowpack is definitely being impacted by climate change.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re certainly observing rain creeping earlier into the season \u2026 warmer temperatures, and that stuff is observation, so it\u2019s a little bit more than anecdotal,\u201d Lazar said. \u201cWe know things are getting warmer for sure, and we know kind of the frequency of rain on snow events in Colorado is going up from near zero in mid-winter to now where it\u2019s not unheard of anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mario Molina cruises through some powder in the Back Bowls of Vail. The executive director of Protect Our Winters says a cultural shift needs to happen on climate change, just like cigarettes going out of fashion.David O. Williams\/Courtesy Photo Mario Molina was born and raised in the mile-high mountain city of Antigua, Guatemala, but it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2443026","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-16 18:27:47","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2443026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2443026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2443026\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2443026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2443026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2443026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}