Swiss ski resort tries to cover up climate change

Science News Article | Reuters
Swiss ski resort tries to cover up climate change
Mar 16, 2006

http://today.reuters.com/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=scienceNews&storyID=uri:2006-03-17T032919Z_01_L16784391_RTRUKOC_0_US-ENVIRONMENT-VERBIER.xml&pageNumber=2&summit=

VERBIER, Switzerland (Reuters) - Global warming may be the last thing on the minds of extreme skiers speeding down the blustery cliff faces at Verbier-4 Vallees this winter.

But looking down from the chic Swiss ski resort's 10,800-foot peak, Eric Balet, whose company runs the ski lifts, says climate change has become a business concern.

About one-third of the 300,000 people involved in the Swiss tourist industry -- around 8 percent of the national workforce -- are employed in the ski sector, many making a livelihood by providing services for visitors who swell resorts each winter.

If Switzerland loses its glaciers, said Ferla, "the impact could be dramatic."

Losing tourist visits will be the least of their problems when entire nations start migrating because the areas they live in no longer support human existence. Once the impact and severity of climate change sinks in, I think what is going to happen is the largest mass movement of peoples since the barbarian tribes overran the Roman Empire. The Pentagon thinks so as well, or at least Andrew Marshall's famous paper hints at such things.

BH

the first collective step the world could do to lessen bad air is to pick a day each wk. where the whole world stops driving cars (not trucks, cops, emergency,etc.)

there has to be a first collective step.

soon

like yesterday.

don't like this idea? then suggest your own first step THAT CONSIDERS THE TIME ELEMENT and is something all countries can do, we can't wait until 2010 or some other date. we already are too late.

Most of the models I've read about that show global warming tend to show a break-up of the Gulfstream and various other ocean currents that carry warmer waters north throughout the globe. It's my understanding that those currents tend to make the climates of north-western continental areas more comfortable, and give them warmer winters and mild summers.

If these models are correct and global warming causes the disruptions predicted, wouldn't it be reasonable to suppose that their skiing industry will likely suffer damage from extremely colder temperatures and not from the melting of the glaciers? (I've been skiing at -20F, and it ain't a picnic!)

Do I misunderstand the models? Are there other models which show a gradual increase in temperatures that DON'T disrupt the ocean currents? How realistic are they?

I thought I understood that the Gulfstream is actually noticeably weaker this spring, and that it's temperatures are about 1 degree farenheit higher than usual... did I misread that article?

It's my understanding that global warming tends to lead to extremely lower temperatures (like were nearly parodied by the movie "The Day After Tomorrow") because the warmer temps disrupt the ocean currents which carry warmer waters away from the tropics and cause a reduction in the habitable areas of the globe by creating more extreme temperature variations from poles to equator, with the poles being much colder and the equator being much warmer and there being very violent storms pretty much across the entire spectrum from hurricanes and tornados to monsoons & blizzards. Am I misinformed?

that is what scientists believe will happen, is happening now

but we all will just have to watch and survive.

it's too late to stop it.

however there is still time to make it less lethal, if there is such a thing.

if the world would stop driving cars one day a wk. until better forms of transportation is provided.