Don’t worry about global warming when you’re skiing. Like work, your late rent payment or the friend you just ditched for a shorter singles line, you shouldn’t have to think about climate change when you’re in the mountains.

But read on: since 1950, the U.S. snowpack has halved and winter in California is two weeks shorter. Rocky Mountain States may have 50% less snow by 2050 if present warming trends continue. Never mind Dutch realtors and polar bears—skiers should be the most active supporters for slowing climate change and reducing the emissions of greenhouse gas (GHGs) which cause it.

The Science

Unless you live under a rock or in the White House, you’ve heard the scientific consensus on global warming: climate change is due to increased GHG concentrations in the atmosphere, a consequence of rising fossil fuel use and deforestation. Doubters, the game is up, you’re on the wrong side of the Earth-is-flat debate in the 1500s.

Everything starts with carbon, the building block of most matter, from petroleum to plants. Using fossil fuels or cutting and burning a tree, for example, releases solid carbon into the atmosphere as CO2. Some of this carbon may be absorbed - or sequestered - from the atmosphere by the growth of new trees, but our current emissions far exceed the environment’s capacity for carbon cycling.

GHGs have a higher global warming potential than gases which make up most of the atmospheric mix. As more GHGs are released into the atmosphere, solar heat is captured and retained around the Earth, creating a “greenhouse effect”. This is a change of global GHG levels, so any activity which produces or reduces emissions has an impact (read: we’re all in this together).

The Carbon Market

The most important thing you can do to slow this warming is reduce your personal carbon emissions from fossil fuels. Despite all the climate change press, GHG emission rates are still climbing. However, it’s not easy to emit less than we are used to, and it’s practically impossible to not produce emissions. Enter the carbon market.

You’re probably familiar with the Kyoto Protocol, at least in name. The international treaty limits GHG emissions with the goal of gradually reducing them below 1990 levels using a scheme referred to as “cap and trade”. Emissions limits are established, and if you cannot keep your emissions below your mandatory cap you buy carbon credits from someone who can. The resulting market created to manage these transactions is referred to as the compliance market.

Unfortunately, in the parts of North America with skiing, Kyoto does not apply. Canada signed but later reneged, the U.S. opted out even earlier. But something interesting happened: North American states, cities, corporations and consumers began to demand carbon offsets on their own accord. Entrepreneurship did the rest, and a number of companies are now selling carbon offsets on what is referred to as the voluntary market.

A carbon offset is generated when a project, commonly a wind farm or a methane biodigester, is constructed using investment from the carbon market. The amount of offsets that can be sold from each project is equal to the net GHG savings that the project yields. If a wind farm produces clean electricity and displaces energy generated by a coal-fired power plant, the emissions from the coal that would have been burned to produce that same amount of energy (minus any emissions associated with the wind farm) over the lifetime of the project can be sold as offsets on the market.

Offsets are sold as credits, measured in metric tons of CO2 equivalent GHG reduction. In this way, you can express your lifestyle – or “carbon footprint” - in terms of the amount of carbon credits you would need in order to neutralize your personal impact on the global climate.

Cool It

The average U.S. citizen has a carbon footprint of 21 tons per year, almost five times the global average. How might skiers compare? We certainly travel more than most, own more outdoor equipment, and live in colder climates. For perspective, a ton of CO2 is released when you fly 2000 miles, drive 1350 miles in an SUV or truck, or spend around $10,000 on gear.

To make life easier, many carbon offset companies have simple online calculators that will spit out your footprint in minutes. The average carbon credit retails at about $10 per ton so between $200-300 should make you “carbon neutral” for the year. It’s not a donation, but rather an investment in the renewable energy and carbon sequestration infrastructure of the future.

The next step should be earning your money back in energy savings; cut your energy bill or don’t buy seventy gallons of gasoline. Take the idea to the office, and support companies that are actively trying to reduce their carbon footprint. If you begin to examine products and activities in terms of carbon, you will see the secondary benefit of supporting local farmers and businesses. On a global scale the carbon market is very dynamic, projected to grow 300 percent in ten years from its current value of $30 billion—it’s plain good business.

For all its dependence on cold weather, the ski industry has been surprisingly slow to become involved, but there are notable exceptions and more happening everyday. Aspen Ski Company runs a carbon neutral operation through big energy reductions and the purchase of wind power, H2O Heli Ski Guides sells only carbon neutral trips, and pro skier Allison Gannet has been promoting and demonstrating environmental action for years.

Neutralizing your carbon emissions is not unlike many of the other realities of the skier lifestyle—sometimes a bit challenging to maintain, but worth the effort. In the same way that we work summers and nights to schedule for our turns, if you plan ahead to eliminate your personal carbon emissions for ski season, on powder days you can forget all about global warming along with everything else.

By Alex Eaton - Curtosey of Powder Magazine

http://www.irrimexico.org/

Links and Information

For information on Carbon Offset companies, see A Consumers’ Guide to Retail Carbon Offset Providers released by Clean Air Cool Planet.
http://www.cleanair-coolplanet.org/

Some calculators to get started:
https://sustainabletravelinternational.org/
http://www.drivinggreen.com/
http://www.nativeenergy.com/

For bar stool critics, from the journal Science, BEYOND THE IVORY TOWER: The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change and for the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report.

See what resorts are making changes: National Ski Area Association

Allison Gannet (.com) and Clif Bar (.com) have teamed up on the Save our Snow campaign.

For more links and info see Powdermag.com.

Alex Eaton is the Executive Director of the International Renewable Resources Institute-Mexico, an environmental leadership Fellow with the Switzer Foundation and a Master’s of Science Candidate in the Humboldt State University Energy, Environment, and Society program. He hopes by installing renewable energy systems in pig pens across Latin America he will build -up enough carbon credit to ski for years to come.