The photo shows a helicopter delivering snow from a nearby mountain pass to a low-lying ski area for a race to be held Jan. 26-28 in Austria. If you look carefully you can see the suspended net dropping the white stuff on the barren hillside.

The ski race organizers spent $389,000 bringing snow from high to low elevations for an entire week, the New York Times reported on Jan. 19:

If even half the cost went for fuel, and if the fuel cost $3 a gallon, then the aerial ski portage consumed 65,000 gallons of petrol, roughly what 100 SUV's would burn in a year. To enable a ski competition ... incapacitated by global warming!