Why would the 19 million acres
of wilderness that make up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the
potential oil beneath it, plus its resident herd of caribou, matter
at all to the ski industry?
Sure, the refuge in Alaska is
wild and beautiful, it’s pristine, it’s a crown jewel of
wilderness. We in the ski industry fancy ourselves environmentally
conscious, so we should want to protect it. But that’s abstract,
and it could even be disingenuous. Do we support protection because
we want to paint ourselves green, taking a stand where we have
nothing to lose?
But there is a compelling reason that
the ski industry should care deeply about the Arctic Refuge, and it
isn’t just about caribou, and it’s not just about wilderness. It’s
about energy policy.
Energy policy decisions threaten to
take the ski industry to its knees. Overwhelming research is
showing that climate change is more than hypothetical, it is
happening, and humans — largely by virtue of our energy
choices — are responsible. Last August,
Science magazine declared a consensus on climate
change, after reviewing 928 papers and finding that they all agreed
that the earth was heating up, and humans were responsible.
Whenever I say things like this, I get rafts of mail telling me I’m
wrong. My response is that I’ll side with groups like the National
Academy of Sciences and the vast bulk of climatologists for now.
By deciding to drill in the Arctic Refuge, we’re saying
we’re unwilling to take any additional steps, no matter how modest,
to reduce our dependence on oil, steps that would coincidentally
address the greenhouse warming problem and improve national
security.
As Amory Lovins put it: “When you’re addicted
to drugs, you’re told to cut off the supply. But when you’re
addicted to oil, you try to find more.”
By drilling in
Alaska, are we then saying that we’re willing to pursue an energy
“strategy” that threatens the ski industry and the future viability
of people’s lives, communities and children, because we don’t want
— for example — to increase automobile fuel efficiency
standards by a few painless miles per gallon?
Well, yes,
that is exactly what we’re saying. With the climate changing
and threatening not just skiing but every industry, the federal
government has not been willing to order cars to go farther on a
gallon of gas. The government is also not willing to make energy
more expensive when it pollutes, nor to encourage with incentives
what we need more of, which is a greater dependence on renewable
energy sources and energy efficiency.
Even though between
1979 and 1986, we saved an Arctic Refuge’s (predicted) annual
output of oil every five months with efficiency standards that
didn’t ruin our economy, we’re getting ready to drill. We’ll drill
in Alaska, even though, as Bill McKibben points out in
Orion Magazine, the most optimistic estimates
assume that the Arctic Refuge can supply the world with only about
five more months of oil.
Fortunately, not all of our
leaders have their heads in the sand. Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar, D,
understands the impact of energy policy on the state’s
economy, and he opposed drilling in the Arctic Refuge. Sen. Wayne
Allard, D-Colo., not linking the future of Colorado’s recreation
industry to decisions made in Alaska, supported drilling and a
policy of unmitigated consumption.
Decisions like
drilling in the Arctic are part of a broad national policy that, if
continued, will make skiing impossible for future generations. So
this isn’t just about the caribou. It’s about how we’re selling out
our children by ruining their chance for the kind of prosperity we
enjoyed. It’s about how we’re selling out our industry and all the
other aspects of the West’s ski tourism economy — now a
$2 billion money-maker in Colorado alone — because we’re too
lazy or arrogant to make any sacrifice at all, even the relatively
painless ones.
Protecting the Arctic Refuge isn’t just
about the Arctic Refuge; it’s about skiing.
Pat
O’Donnell is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service
of High Country News (hcn.org). He is president
and chief operating officer of the Aspen Skiing
Company.
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