Thanks to global warming, snow caps in the Rocky Mountains are melting away, according to the 2006 Colorado College State of the Rockies Report Card, released this week. Aside from the boring stuff about the effects of fragmentation of land on biodiversity blahdy blahdy blah, there was a disturbing prophecy:
As conditions worsen for ski sports including downhill skiing, snowboarding, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing and snowmobiling, participation in these sports is likely to decrease and may become unviable by 2050, the report says.
Finally, environmentalists address something we actually care about! Enough crap about polar bears – where am I gonna take my girlfriend while my wife is in Cozumel? Over the next fifty years, snow in Colorado will give way to rain in the winter months, and white peaks will turn into muddy slopes littered with cell phones. Not only will the skiing industry do a faceplant, and the snowboarding industry blast a dookie, it may soon become impossible for Coors Light drinkers to “tap the Rockies.”
Along with the loss of America’s most popular way to court death, peak melt will also endanger the habitat of several rare species, including the airdog, artic cougar, flamboyant weezy, and most notably, the ski bunny. Ski bunnies have populated the Colorado slopes for over half a century, foraging for Red Bull and vodka and hunted by male skiers for their attractive, pink spandex pelts.
Sadly, like every great world crisis, this will hit the $75K-and-up economic bracket the hardest. But we all will be affected in some way, by a loss that will lend a bittersweet, tragic air to the classic “Hot Dog! The Movie.”
Is Colorado's Ski Industry Doomed Due To Global Warming? (ABC News)