Snowboarding News

Quick Hits on Global Warming and the U.S. Ski Industry

Hey all. Sorry for the lack of posting this week; I was out of town and just got back last night.

Found an interesting global warming article via First Tracks, a good news site that always seems to be on top of the ski, snowboard and ski resort industries. It outlines a hearing held Thursday by a U.S. Senate committee on the topic of global warming; Michael Berry, President of the National Ski Areas Association (NSAA),
was among the witnesses called to speak.

Among the interesting hits of information:

• There are  59 ski and snowboard resorts purchasing renewable energy
  credits or green energy for their facilities and lifts. Of these 59
  resorts, 28 are 100 percent green-powered. This has resulted in the avoidance of 427,596,000 pounds of
  carbon dioxide.
• The industry is experiencing decreases in the amount of snowpack in certain areas of the western United States.
• In 2006,  tourism-related sales amounted to $1.2 trillion dollars and more than 8 million jobs.
• The mountain resort industry is a $5 billion industry that employs 165,000 people (I am assuming this is for the United States only).

Best line of the article goes to Berry, who in discussing solutions said: “The only other alternative for us is to ask Congress to move Christmas to February.”

Also, BONUS LINK: I get a lot of requests for stats and data on skiing, snowboarding and ski resorts. The NSAA has a nifty ski resort industry stats page that links to various types of data, including resorts that don’t allow snowboarding, snowboarder/skier visits, and more.

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