Ski resorts fight global warming

He said company resorts like Aspen and Snowmass are at their best when they educate their highly affluent — and politically connected — guests about global warming’s effects.

“You need federal legislation in the U.S.,” he said. “You need it to help drive an international agreement.”

Herbert and Utah’s senior U.S. Senator, Orrin Hatch, recently teamed up to oppose federal cap and trade legislation that many in the ski industry support, saying it could cost jobs in a state that’s heavily dependent on coal for energy.

In the posh ski resort town of Park City, a former mining town that played host to the 2002 Winter Olympics, Mayor Dana Williams says some state leaders don’t seem to grasp how important the ski industry is to the state and what a threat global warming is.

Tourism is a growing $7 billion a year industry in Utah and the state’s 13 ski resorts are directly responsible for roughly $1 billion of that. Williams says the very future of the city that hosts the Sundance Film Festival each winter is at stake with rising temperatures.

A consultant’s report released by the nonprofit community Park City Foundation this fall warned that by 2030 the decrease in snowpack caused by global warming could lead to the loss of more than 1,100 jobs and a $120 million economic loss in that community alone. By 2050, the report says those figures could jump to more than 3,700 lost jobs and a $392 million economic loss as fewer and fewer slopes in the area are able to open and lure visitors from around the world.

The CEOs of Park City’s three resorts — The Canyons, Deer Valley and Park City Mountain Resort — have teamed up to educate anybody who will listen about how global warming threatens their businesses, with Park City Mountain Resort taking the lead.

That resort’s corporate parent, POWDR Corp., owns resorts in and near Las Vegas, Killington, Vt., Lake Tahoe, Calif. and central Oregon.

Brent Giles, POWDR Corp.’s director of environmental affairs, says regardless of what anyone believes about global warming, it makes good business sense for everyone to become more energy efficient and environmentally friendly.

“All you can do is give them what science you’ve got and show how easy it is to make some of these changes and tell them they’re going to save money,” Giles said.

“Why can’t we just do it because it makes sense?”