There are signs that after two decades of failure, the world’s media is slowly starting to piece together that no snow is more than just bad news for the ski industry.

While not yet having made the full leap of comprehension, still obsessing with what less snow may mean for skiers over the coming decade or two, repeatedly running the same stories year after year, there are signs that they are starting to connect the dots and realise that there’s a bigger picture. Sadly that’s one of baked cities with chronic water shortages and a lack of snow to melt is catastrophic news for vast swathes of the world’s agricultural land as well as hydro power plants that rely on it might be the greater concern.

CNN’s ‘New artificial snowmaking technology could offer a lifeline to struggling ski resorts‘ does focus on attempts to make snow for skiing at warmer temperatures does have the usual ‘saving ski holidays for a bit against the inevitable’ focus, but six paragraphs from the end does point out that no snow is bad news for the wider world.

Unfortunately though, The Guardian’s ‘Ski resorts battle for a future as snow declines in climate crisis’ …while full of great detail on how bad things are looking for skiing as repeated since the turn of the century, fails to make the jump to notice what this might mean for the wider world and generations to come.

Nikkei Asia though did do what most others didn’t in covering the lack of snowfall at Gulmarg in Kashmir, India, by pointing out that it not only means no skiing, but also no water.

With politicians failing to act, too many of us voting in these failing politicians rather than facing up to reality ourselves and the media failing to highlight the stat we’ve reached, way past the tipping point, it’s essential the world’s media starts doing its job.

The ski industry remains the human race’s canary in the miner’s lamp. Don’t just keep staring at the canary, think about what the dead canary means for everything else.

Common Themes In ‘Ski Resorts In Trouble’ Stories That Have Beern Repeated For Over 20 Years.

The repeated detail: This small ski resort in France closed due to climate change.  As cut and pasted by 101 journalists around the world.

The reality: Hundreds, probably thousands of ski resorts around the world have already closed their ski operations due to climate change (and other related business issues making investment to sustain them pointless).  So why do we keep focusing on the same place?

The repeated detail: The energy used for snowmaking is destroying ski resorts by contributing to climate change.

The reality: Well yes, maybe a bit, but it’s so insignificant compared to everything else in the world causing climate change its very misleading to keep going on about it. And failing to mention that ski resort operators aren’t stupid and lead the world in converting to green energy sources.

The repeated misleading detail: Ski resorts are in trouble because the snow will be gone.

The reality: No, as people fry on beaches and in cities they’ll come to the cooler air of the mountains even with no snow. It’s already happening with booming summer business.  It’s still smart to invest in mountains, even without snow.

The repeated misleading detail: There’s some hope if we belatedly “do something.”

The reality: The evidence is we are never going to do anything until our own homes are on fire or under water. We always put ourselves first and our countries first and just vote in people who blame other countries and anyone but ourselves.  Ironically the ski resorts (who are the ones experiencing  climate change most directly, first hand) seem to be doing the most in terms of generating renewable energy on site and encouraging travel to them by rail, but of course most of us Brits still fly to them (and everywhere else).