 Poster: A snowHead
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I love the mountains, I hate what indifferent tourism does to them, I love snowsports, I hate the damage it causes to the environment, I'd love to make a living from my sport, I hate the fact that thousands of communities would wither and die without ski tourism.
Can I still hug trees at the same time I want to continue my sport?
Http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,12374,1445899,00.html
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Masque, difficult one isn't it, the Swiss in general seem more enviromentaly consious than many other countries but even they make allowances for tourism
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Masque, here's a possible solution. Only done a week of it - but it seemed pretty envronmentally friendly, to me. Boarders were touring too - using snowshoes for the climbing. Not perfectly green - the hut we used had a couple of heli drops a winter to supply it and take away the trash. But not a bad effort all round.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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I guess iots about finding the right balance, i guess you could argue there is ample skiing aorund, maybe we should find ways of making more of what we have, it would be a real shame if we managed to uglify (is that a word?!) one of the most amazing and spectaular mountain ranges on Earth.
Plus more ski infrastructure means less attraction in the summer for the walkers, who im sure spend a fair amount of money too...i certainly wouldnt consider visiting the 3 valleys in the summer when i go hiking! (mountain bikers of course have different needs?)
tricky int it! 
I guess if we could get global warming to reverse then maybe there will be less need to aim higher and higher, but that would be hard!!
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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| Can I still hug trees at the same time I want to continue my sport? |
I contemplated the same thing in Grindelwald over Easter, as I stared down at the mass of human ants crawling down the slopes. It's a toughie, innit.
From a traditional ethics perspective, either humans enter an environment in order to enjoy it (and by their sheer presence fundamentally transform the "naturalness" of the environment thereby making it less "natural") or they don't. Accordingly, the answer ethics provides is a resounding No, you can't tree-hug and ski/board. However to have this kind of ethical relationship with the environment means you would actually need to kill all humans (and then yourself) so that humans can never sully the environment......or at least ban all human use/effect on said environment. 
Strict ethics being a pain in the back bottom, the best workable "ethical" alternative is to balance human use with human abuse of natural environments. So a realistic answer is: get on with enjoying what's left of the great outdoors and act as environmentally aware as you possibly can while doing so.
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