Saturday, March 26, 2005
Climate change is crippling the ski industry
Add this to the economic impacts of climate change.
Jax
The Alpine ski industry is trying to counter the threat of global warming by building ever higher in the peaks and on the glaciers in order to secure snow guarantees and extend the skiing season. It is also resorting increasingly to the use of snow cannons and artificial snow on the pistes, and to link up existing ski resorts through more chairlifts in order to create mega-skiing regions.
Global warming is the spectre stalking the industry. A study by Zurich university geographers forecast that within a generation up to 70% of the Swiss glaciers will have disappeared. The impact will be even more severe elsewhere where the Alps are not so high. "Many mountain villages in central and eastern parts of Austria will lose their winter tourist industry because of climate change," the geographers predicted. "In Italy, half of the winter sport villages are below 1,300 metres. In future there will only be a few winters with snow in these resorts." This gloomy prognosis means, according to industry analysts, that the future of skiing in the Alps will belong to relatively few but huge and high resorts. (More)
