BIG Blog - Losing Winter

I’m one of a small minority of people who love winter. And I mean really, really love winter. It’s when I feel most alive.

In winter, I exercise better and faster outside because the cold is numbing. The Winter Solstice and “fall back” (the night daylight savings time ends) are favorites because they mark long, cold nights. When I discovered the Danish philosophy of hygge, I almost cried because there was a name for it – making a home warm, snuggly and full of good food and conviviality, looking out on crisp, falling snow twinkling like fields of diamonds. Naturally, the Danes figured out not only how to survive winter but also how to hibernate well and happily.

I left Texas for Colorado almost 25 years ago in part because I’m a winter chaser. Early on, Denver often had freak snow storms before Labor Day, but that has now drifted closer to my early October birthday, if then. As winter turns to spring (a really short season here) and spring becomes summer, I get a rising dread that summer is on its way, and this has been happening earlier and earlier.

There’s a word for this grief at winter’s loss – solastalgia , a “homesickness we feel when we’re at home.” ?A sadness for something that’s moving away from us. Recently, I’ve been experiencing it more as some predicted snow events (barely storms the past several years) came after a day of two or rain in December, January and February. In peak winter, it’s not supposed to rain here, only snow.

Climate change is melting out high-altitude and high-latitude places fastest, and investing in ski resorts is proving to be a loser because the U.S. ski industry has lost more than $5 billion from planetary warming. The beginnings and ends of ski season have rolled up 5 to 7 days over the past 50 years. One study in the AGU Earth and Space Sciences journal predicts that Aspen will lose half its snow cover by 2080. Snowfall has fallen off in the U.S. Northeast , too. Ice forming in the Great Lakes is 22 percent thinner than it was in 1973. And the 2022 winter in Alaska was the warmest ever recorded.

As one climate scientist said, “We are probably past the era of peak ski seasons."

I don’t kid myself that I have anything like the upheavals others are experiencing. Climate change is dislodging entire populations and countries, forcing people to find more temperate and wetter places to grow food. As a node in the wireless, networked world, I can pack up my laptop and work from anywhere. Rising tides or water tables or sea levels don’t threaten to engulf my home. Denver is 1,000 from any major body of water, and massive tornadoes that sweep the Midwest clean seem to form east of us, thankfully. Plants and animals that sustain me aren’t vanishing or relocating to places out of reach. I benefit from a network of invisible-to-me suppliers who feed me, keep me comfortable and well-provisioned.

Still, I spent decades without deep winter, and now that I found it, it refreshes me like frigid water on a hot day. Sure, I work in sustainability and help businesses reduce carbon footprints. But it’s not enough and definitely not fast enough to stave off the planet’s warming.

The mental health impact

In 2022, the United Nations reported that 7 percent of U.S. adults experience some sort of climate change-related psychological distress and that 3 percent had severe depression or anxiety. Among Gen Z (ages 16 to 25), the numbers are way higher, and a 2021 study found that 45 percent of Gen Z said that “climate anxiety impacted their daily lives.” Even the American Psychological Association calls out the growing risk of climate change impacting peoples’ sense of well-being and ability to do their jobs well .

Because solastalgia can be a form of depression, seeking professional help is one way to address it. Another solution is to go micro and rein in focus from the macro issue that is climate change to local initiatives with immediate and visible impacts – tree planting, reforestation and preserving green spaces (also carbon sinks). Not only does localized work lessen a sense of helplessness, it provides a tribe of like-minded people working toward common goals.

Another group, Protect Our Winters (“POW”) , gathers folks like me who love to play outside in the snow – skiing, snowboarding, ice fishing, outdoor hockey and any other activity on white or frozen surfaces. POW lobbies Congress members, other representatives and voters to move the needle on climate issues. Rather than helplessly watch winter vanish, POW provides a nexus to act and create (hopefully) better outcomes with decision makers.

Lastly, turn off the news . I work in sustainability, and there are times when even I have to do that. Powering down doesn’t suggest that you don’t care about what’s happening. Rather, it shows you care about your mental health and outlook more. When those are stable, any and everything is possible.

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