Carrying Coals to Newcastle (Global Warming Version)
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!
Maybe the skiers should refuse to race. Become the shock troops for SACC – Skiers Against Climate Change.
Comment by Nick — January 20, 2007 @ 11:31 am
Somebody, quick–turn on the AC!!
Comment by ddartley — January 22, 2007 @ 1:42 pm
And I thought it was only the americans that wasted fuel!
Your carbon tax would halt this foolishness, no doubt, but then it may also cause the demise of the entire modern ski industry. Ski Resorts use massive quantities of electricity, most of which is generated by burning fossil fuels. Skiers themselves are relient on cheap fuel to get to the mountains, via planes and automobiles, from the far away cities in which they live. The pricing models you project for carbon tax adjusted fuel would make skiing cost prohibitive to all but the very rich. The travel industry, too, would face drastic shrinkage, job loss and might well impoverish far-flung locales fattened on past excess, such as Jamaica, which would slide back to its past role as third world slum.
On the bright side, the Catskills would reclaim their glory as New York City’s top summer escape, and trees would reclaim the former ski slopes, adding precious oxygen to our carbon saturated atmosphere…
Comment by freeheelflyer — January 22, 2007 @ 6:33 pm