The World Today & Skiing

Samckoy

Samckoy

Member
Climate Change, Population, Pollution, Natural Resources, Human Expansion, Skiing and BACKCOUNTRY


Climate Change (previously referred to as global warming). Many claim that it is real beyond doubt and we have to act now. Others are skeptical, it has become so political that the question arrises: do the facts match the assumptions. Some say Yes, some No. I don't know the answer. Some say that carbon dioxide is the main cause and some say there is no relations whatsoever. Here are some things to consider: before life started on our planet, the atmosphere was filled with carbon dioxide and nitrogen. Since then life has slowly expanded and when plants first made their appearance they absorbed the carbon dioxide to produce more oxygen. When those plants die, the carbon dioxide they absorb has been trapped into the ground. Since then life has grown exponentially and carbon dioxide has been trapped in the ground as coal, oil and other fossil fuels for the most part. Here we are digging up these fossil fuels and burning them; releasing the carbon dioxide back up into the atmosphere. This can't be a good, wether it does or doesn't affect the climate. There is another thing to consider. Money, admit it, humans are greedy. Watch Planet Earth and they describe the riches that the environment has to offer. If sustained, reefs in the ocean offer billions of dollars. The only thing is that you can only take so much at a time. Then there are those people up high who will scoop all the fish out of a certain part the ocean, ruining the ecosystem of a certain reef by affecting the food chain for a fraction of the cost. There are pretty big politicians behind enforcing skepticism, they make millions maybe billions out of fossil fuels, and for a few hundred thousand, they hope to keep making billions by influencing others that using oil so much is just fine. The same thing happened with cigarettes. There were doctors saying that cigarettes aren't bad for you at all.
Population. We can see developing countries expanding like crazy and with a population of over 6 billion, how much more strain can we put on the environment. There are plenty of starving mouths as it is. I think there is a statistic saying that over 2 billion live on just a dollar a day. Medicine and food processing is great, it has allowed for a population boom. Problem is that it's still growing, fast.
Pollution. With so many people, pollution is increasing. Dumping in the ocean (apparently it's fine if it's in international waters). Garbage dumps. Air pollution and even light pollution. I want to stress on light pollution a little. Electricity has proven to be quite useful. Many things require electricity and it is though to be completely clean. In a way it is. But producing electricity isn't always so clean. Nuclear plants produce electricity and we think that since it's so abundant that we can light everything up at night and waste so much electricity that the sky is yellow and the stars can't be seen. I find it so sad that there are people who never see the stars at night...
Natural Resources. With population so high, natural resources become higher and higher in demand. Trees need to be logged more and more for paper and wood. Agriculture is strained as it needs more room. There are countries with beautiful lush rainforest that have been cut down for agriculture. Take Borneo for example. In Planet Earth, they show how millions of species and a huge biodiversity in the rainforest has been cut down for agriculture of one specie. Palm oil.
Human Expansion. WIth more and more people, more and more room is going to be needed to house these people. Take Europe for example. There is little to no wild forests left throughout. It has been cleared to house more people.
Skiing. Skiing is fantastic, but as it becomes more and more popular, more and more resorts are made on various mountain. Take the east for example, any mountain big enough and with enough snow has a resort, big or small. That means expansion around the resort because of the income it brings, and it means cutting down more forest to expand skiing. When it comes to the Northwest (BC and Yukon), the only reason there aren't more resorts is because the mountains are hard to access and require a lot of money to build. But as more and more are built, more and more pristine places become crowded, pollute and aren't so pristine anymore. This is why I encourage backcountry so much.

I am a fanatic of mountains, skiing, cold, wind, snow, etc. It's great to have a lift to bring you up and a resort lodge to eat in. In a way, there should be more to the sport. A lot of you whine about gapers but what do you expect. Ski resorts attract all kind of people. When it comes to the backcountry, you skin your way to the top and you ski natural terrain. You play the risks of avalanche and I think it is the purest the sports can get. You don't get machine groomed, the powder is unlimited, it's wild and it's untamed. Just as I think it should be. I don't mean to say this in too much of a bad way, but Newschoolers involves a lot of skiers that have gotten accustomed to park and resort lifestyle. I believe it is only a stepping stone, the learning ground.
Tell me what you think about all or any of these points. I will read any and every answer. I prefer nothing stupid disclaiming global warming or any of that. I want to start discussion. Preferably, give me more to read in your answers.
Thanks. Sam.
 
i will tell what i think. i think, as long as its winter and its a weekend, amkinfg this kinda thread should be illeagle! fuck it, im going out to ski and have fun, and love this world while its still here.

/rant
 
Either you read that really fast or you didn't take the time to read it through. I said I wanted opinion and I appreciate yours, but I'd like it if you put more thought into it.
 
so, i didn't really read it. I read the intro, and the part "skiing"... you did a good job at sounding smart, and it was well written, but I'm not sure if you are basing this on any real facts. for example, you mention that skiing is becoming more popular... is it? are skier visits in north america actually up? I've been under the assumption that in the past decade (maybe longer?) skier visits are slowly declining... combine that with the bad economy in North America, you have yourself a lot of struggling ski resorts, and some closing for what looks like forever.

Another thing is you mentioning the logging of forests to create ski resorts. the amount of forest logged to create a ski resort is miniscule compared to logging around the continent for other industries (mainly - logging... urban development is up there as well).

As I said, I did not read the whole thing, and while writing this I am thinking - perhaps I should read it, but my thoughts probably won't change. Since I didn't read it, I don't know your full point, but I do know - if winters go belly up, it won't be because of skiing, and the fact that we will no longer be able to ski will be the least of our worries.

Climate aside, we are fucking ourselves in more ways than we can imagine. I see from your profile that you are from BC. You should look into and educate yourself on the "run of river" projects going on across the province right now and the environmental and political impacts that they are causing throughout the province. That is something worth putting effort towards, if you want to change things...
 
Thanks for a decent reply. I made sure not to state any facts that were out of proportion. But on the scale of things, look at what skiing used to be way back when they had wooden skis. More and more people go on vacation to go skiing and there is an expansion of resorts. Maybe it has slowed down in the last decade but it is still expanding. There are some struggling ski resorts yes. But only because they are harder and harder to access by tourists. Revelstoke for example almost went bankrupt from their expansion, it party due to the fact that the closest airport is in Calgary or a 7 hour drive from Vancouver. As development occurs in the future, if nothing goes unchanged, places like Revelstoke will be more and more accessible and then resorts will be made further out possibly. This topic is to get you thinking. I'm not trying to sound smart and I included logging and urban development in my writing. The thing is, BC's new prime industry is tourism. As more and more tourist come, the pristine wild becomes more and more tainted, ski resorts aren't under the same protection as National or Provincial Parks. That said, even parks have been overly expanded on to be only a sliver of what they used to be. I grew up in Whistler as a local. Everyone else wants to stay in Whistler and live the life, they come, party, don't give a shit and then leave back to Korea or Ontario or Australia or wherever. Leaving the mess, drugs, etc for the rest of us. Another reason I write this (and yes we are fucking ourselves) is for people to at least understand a little better from a peer and not some politician or teacher. As for the "run of river" project, I have kept track of a lot of it. Don't worry, I'm on top of that and for the most part, they have the right idea but no one wants to spend the money to do it right. Some of the projects damage the environment for more electricity that we are polluting into the atmosphere.
Thank you for you imput though.
On another note. I read through a lot of the global warming threads and a lot of them were just shit shows, a lot of them wern't complete enough and I read a few replies from people claiming they would go all the way talking about it if it was a thread worth discussing. That is what this thread is.
 
Your dumb
In response to the creator. Im not quite sure what you are arguing. Is Global Warming happening? Is Skiing Bad for the environment? We should all ski back country. I'll start from the top.
Anyone with half a brain realizes that global worming is real, is man made, and something needs to be done about it. There will always be the ignorant, right wing, crazies out there that think its a giant conspiracy by scientists to hurt the poor helpless energy companies out there. You can argue all you want you will never change there minds.
Skiing ,like pretty much everything humanity does, has negative effects on the environment. But we are smart enough as a species (i hope) to continue to enjoy the things we have grown accustomed to while also having a minimal effect on the environment. Switching to renewable energy, making sure local wildlife can still flourish, and buying eco friendly equipment to name a few. It is important to have large ski resorts because it keeps the majority of people concentrated in a relatively small area. If everybody went out and did back country the mountain side constantly crowded and littered with garbage. Plus park is the greatest thing since butter on toast.
Its a good point your trying to make but on forums and especially on NS keep it short and sweet and you will get our point across much better.
 
I'm not making an argument. It's just a thread to discuss the points I touched upon. I've also seen a lot of stupid remarks here on Newschoolers saying that global warming is fake so we can keep doing what we are doing. Wrong. I added skiing for the interest of others and I added backcountry because it is my interest. As for what you said about everyone being in the backcountry. I think that just isn't possible. People don't want to put in a bunch of effort to hike and learn to use transceivers, dig snow pits, etc. Besides, there are plenty of mountains around (especially where I'm from). The size of this topic is 1. To throw people off who have no intellect to even discuss the topic because there is too much to read and 2. to cover all that I need to enough to get information across.
 
You sir have clearly not done your research. Ever wonder why it's now PC to refer to the situation as "Climate Change" and not "Global Warming."
Yes, humans are destroying their environment and we need to make change, big change.
No, humans are not the only cause of Climate Change, in fact, new research into ice core sampling suggests that CO2 levels actually DO NOT drive temperature change and it may be entirely possible that temperature change fuels CO2 increase. Think of this, what happens when you warm up a coca-cola, like the one sitting in the center console of your car on a hot summer day, you open the bottle and it makes a pshh sound. This is because as the coca-cola warmed, it released CO2 into the gaseous state increasing the pressure inside the bottle.
No I am not dumb, but you sure sound it. I suggested formulating your own educated opinion. This means taking into consideration the science and opinions of the right wing radicals, as well as those from the left. Do you believe everything your told? Sure sounds like it.
Is CO2 increase even a bad thing? Increased CO2 levels has proven to increase crop yield. Want proof, ask anyone that grows pot. Growing marijuana indoors using CO2 increases to increase yield is the perfect at home example (on a miniature scale) of the CO2 dilemma, or lack there of. No, I don't grow marijuana, but again, I am not ignorant and I listen to all aspects of a matter to formulate my own opinion.
What we ought to focus on is over population and over consumption. If we fix this, the condition of the earth will follow.
So you are so motivated to save the world from global warming, what have you done? And incase you are wondering where to start, maybe you could look into thermal heat for your home, solar and wind energy for your small business, re-usable materials, and so on. I bet your home is vinyl siding isn't it? Did you know vinyl is one of the worst products in terms of the amount of CO2 and other greenhouse gases released from it once it goes to the scrap yard in the entire world?
Don't be so quick to insult, maybe you should consider both sides of the situation.

 
^ THAT should have been your original reply. Nice to get that information out. I'm still against using fossil fuels. Despite any information that it isn't a problem. It's only a matter of time before those fossil fuels start to be harder to find and the prices go up. Why spend so much on military funding when the money could be spent on soooo many other things.
 
no, the run of river projects that are going on around the province right now are really bad. they put up gates at the head of the valley, blocking off access to the public, log and blast the banks of the river to create the diversion of water, most of the projects end up diverting up to 90% of the flow. the projects are under American control and most of the energy created is sent down to the states.

At first, like most, I thought the Run of river projects were good, and on paper, they are good... but like everything else those crafty politicians do, it turns out - we're getting fucked over so the province can make a bit of extra cash. It's a very short term plan that doesn't benefit anyone in the province, or improve our hydro infrastructure.
 
I heard a few people talk about that. I wasn't sure if it was true, all i know is that it was damaging the environment claiming to be a good source of renewable energy. Either way, I'm against it. If there wasn't so much wasting of electricity we wouldn't need all this extra juice. Like what I wrote on light pollution. So many towns and cities light up the sky so much that when you look at a picture of the world at night it's yellow.
 
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