Skis are bad for the environment?

B

BEagle

Member
So i was in one of my business lectures the other day, and the teacher was talking about business ethics and the responsibilities of product managers. She said, "Product managers have to be thinking about consumers in many more ways than just how to please them. The environmental issues that society is aware of today are partly their responsibility. So it raises the question of whether we should even produce environmentally harmful goods like skis..." and i was like hold on, skis are bad for the environment? Well shit, can anyone elaborate on this?
 
it's a cold weather sport, so consider all the energy needed to keep the ski lodge warm, as well as all the residential buildup around the ski mountain.

also consider the commute people make to get to the mountain, the percentage of high emissions vehicles. Not including the ski lifts that run throughout the day and the snow cats that are needed to maintain the operations. Then there's all the people who take skiing vacations and fly out to their destination, and speaking of flying -- heli-skiing.

then there's all the energy required to run the snow making, and power lights for night skiing.

you haven't even gotten started on the manufacturing of skiing essentials. A lot of ski waxes are fluorocarbon compounds which are notoriously bad for the environment.

that's just to get you started, i'm sure you can come up with more.
 
So, i wrote a thread on this last winter, but i can't seam to find it.

Of course skis are bad for the environment - anything, (ANYTHING!) that has plastics is bad for the environment. I actually find it very, very had to believe that you weren't aware of this fact.

Where do you think plastic comes from? your bases, top sheet, the bonding material that keeps it all together: BAD! your bindings aren't any better. or your helmet, or your outerwear.... shit - did you know that gore-tex is a carcinogen.

You should really educate yourself on "stuff".
 
there has been a push for "sustainability" in the ski industry, but anyone with half a brain can understand that sustainability is pipe-dream considering how we live our daily lives.

(what would be required is a change of the system itself, rather than changes within the system)
 
monetary system will never solve any problems that we have just keep adding to them, as long as its around we will keep using cheap materails that are bad for the envirment becuase that is what you need to do in a monatery system to stay in business create cheap products that break and create waste so that we keep consuming to keep the cycle going. in the end we need to move to a resource based economy.
 
value is defined by resource scarcity. money is just a way for us to equate different objects for trade. diamonds have no intrinsic value (they are useless, inanimate carbon), but we place high value in them because of their scarcity.

the same theory applies to all resources.
 
Trust me, some seriously enviro-unfriendly materials go into your skis, I doubt bamboo cores and non-toxic epoxy do much in the grand scheme of things. Even then, I'm only the guy putting it all together, materials we use like fiberglass and edges came from somewhere else...
 
ya, you're not even considering how much weed is smoked by manufacturers all the way through to the consumers. that's a serious burden.
 


flash_video_placeholder.png
Just sayin..
 
ah yes, the eternal question.

Skis are potentially bad for the environment, the industry around it, production, lift opperation.

But so is anything, skiing is a drop in the barrel compared to many industries.

just be smart about how you wax, where and what you ski, and what you do with old gear.

Also, skiing allows people to access the wilderness, which in itself may make some more environmentally responsible.
 
who uses bamboo cores?...the production of skis is not bad for the environment, they are produced in the same general manor that all goods are manufactured. a bigger harm to the environment is all of the flatlanders (NY, NJ, CT, MA, etc) driving their huge SUV's to the mountain.point being - stop polluting my town with your presence
 
If you live in chittenden county then your flatlanders statement is holds no water to begin with...

I agree, the best solution is just to blame someone else and not practice what you preach.

 
Buy Purl wax.
Buy Liberty or Slant skis.
Liberty runs everything off wind power and uses Bamboo cores in all their skis.
 
You sir are wrong. They are made with recycled materials and sublimated top-sheets which have no screen materials or solvents. I have seen/flexed/etc them and they look a little funny because of the environmentalness and different materials. So they are infact more environmentally friendly than any other ski.
 
what do you mean?

i live in vermont, and i drive a little 4 cylinder sedan that gets great mpg. and im sick of ignorant stuck up tourists invading our space.

so.. what is your point bro?
 
why ddidnt you ask your teacher? Im serious, if it bothered you enough to talk about it on the webz then why not ask him
 
everything humans do that doesnt directly target fixing the environment is bad for it in some way or another. its all a matter of making it as sustainable as possible
 
See this is the age old hippy, tree hugging way of explaining how bad things are.

The first thing is, there are tons of recreational things to do in lots of different areas of the world. If skiing had never been invented, those same people would drive their cars and fill another hobby. They would travel across the US to fish, or hunt, or snowshoe. Maybe something else, but they are going to do something, and going to need facilities to do that. So actually considering is bad is just labeling anything is bad, but you need relative comparisons to other hobbies, and linking them to other parts then just the act makes everything worse and I think escapes the point.

As far as materials and outwear, lots of companies give back much more then the company that molds the steering wheel in your Tahoe. The owner of patagonia< not particularly skiing but involved, is the second largest landowner in the world second only to ted turner. All that land is refuge and protected. Other companies use bamboo cores, and environmentally friendly materials even though they cost more. Some ski areas use alternative energy. Many skiiers do carpool. As far as the skiing itself, its very low impact on the environment.

So its not really they bad as opposed to those companies that created the computer your on or the light bulb in your room, or the socks on your feet. You know how much manufacturing, water, and infastructure it take for you to take a shit?
 
yes but even though bamboo is a grass and grows very fast is way worse for the environment then if you used local sustainably harvested hardwood. Bamboo does not grow locally or even nationally so it has to be imported. It is also a laminate so tons of non renewable and not environmentally friendly chemicals are used. Then again you are gonna have to laminate other wood yourself anyways, but you can use greener epoxies. In the end a ski is never gonna be environmentally friendly even if your core is. Maybe somebody can develop a new material for bases sidewalls topsheets and some kind of help fiberglass. Until then good luck finding skis that are not bad for the environment.
 
quick and dirty refute: no one is going heli-fishing

still relative to other sports, skiing is an environmentally expensive past-time. start with it as a winter recreation; it inherits the high energy cost of keeping warm for people who live in and around ski towns.

also consider all the mechanical energy required to get to the top of a mountain.

people going fishing do not need to sit on a chair on a wire running 30 ft off the ground driven by a motor all the way to the top of a mountain each time they want to cast a line.

at the core; sure perhaps the guy who skins to the top of a natural mountain face and skis down all day has a low footprint, but a ski resort with all the amenities, after lifts/trams etc, all the clearing necessary for trails, and machines for mountain maintenance and operation-- skiing, relative to many other sports, has a significant impact on its surrounding environment.

a final point: the recreation has driven people to develop artificial mountains, complete with snow, in the middle of the desert. People go through a hell of a lot to get some turns on skis... more than most other sports.

 
http://www.emagazine.com/view/?4020



Melting Away

Can Sustainable Skis and Snowboards Save Winter Sports?

here is a good read i did a write up for a class. It talks about how the resins and apoxies are bad and all the plastics and metals do not break down once old skis are thrown away.

Something good to read if you are serious about helping the enviroment

 
actually, people DO go heli-fishing. they go heli-hunting, heli-hiking, etc. I worked at a fishing lodge in the queen charlotte islands that was heli in - heli out. not only that - but they were using a 21 set helicopter (same model the president of the US rides in. it has two pilots and a spotter, and uses way more fuel than an A-star would use for the same trip. There are tons of these lodges all over the coast of BC and probably Alaska as well. The Yukon is also huge on it. heli in to remote lakes to fish, or hunt.
 
congrats you went after the quick and dirty without actually looking at the argument i made.

i'll grant you i didn't realize that there are heli-fishing trips you can go on however looking at skiing as a whole compared to fishing as a whole, more fisherman enjoy their sport locally and have a smaller impact on the environment than the average skier.

do a serious comparison of skiing to fishing for me; look at average transportation costs (i'd grant deep sea fishing is probably really bad) but this needs to be considered with how many more fishermen who simply walk down to their local pier or are canoeing to cast off. Skiing on the other hand needs chairlifts for every run. There are few who actually hike for turns. I'd suspect the average skier travels further than the average fisherman does for their recreation.

also consider the environmental requirements of both sports.

skiing cuts entire mountains into trails and creates a high flow of traffic through out the land surrounding the mountain. Fishers might dam up a river to make a pond; but typically will enjoy the sport in a way that leaves nature untouched.

Continuing, skiing is a cold weather sport, where as fishing can be done wherever there are fish in water.

look at what i actually wrote not the first line and i'm pretty sure there's strong evidence for you to conclude that skiing is, in comparison to other sports. a relatively extreme sport requiring many extra resources just to achieve the minimum or below average standard of activity.

there may be other sports that rival skiing for negative impact on the environment, but for the majority of participants, even for the simplest of skiing activities, requires higher resources.
 
i'm not going to argue with you, in fact, I will agree with you. I was just simply stating that people do take helicopters to fish. that's all.
 
Hmm Lots of hardcore people us helicopter and plains to get to places to fish, and theirs videos and everything just alike to skiing. They drice to docks, then They use boats with big engines that run into whales and fishing line that gets caught on see animals and accidently catch sea. mammals. Their more fishing lodges by quadruple then skiing one is canada and alaska. They also have lots of manufacturing. So who uses more energy 2000 skiers on 8 lifts a day or 2000 fisherman on 500 boats with 350 motors? Comperable. Its al the same its still not BAD.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top