Snowball effect…with or without snow?

I have recently had a chance to go back to one of my favourite activities - mountain skiing. We went to our usual place in Soelden, Austria and had a great time! However, it was very different to a “usual” February. It was by far too mild and at the 2.2km altitude the snow was rapidly melting under 5° Celsius. Is this a new norm?

You may have heard that January 2024 was the hottest on record, pushing for the first time 12-month global average temperatures over the 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold. According to Euronews , over 20% of all European ski reports were going to be shut in February.

So I decided to have a look specifically at Austria. There are 439 ski resorts in Austria, if you filter on those where mountain height is up to 2,000 metres, then you get 391 resorts – 89% of all!

So what exactly does it mean? Well, you can easily anticipate that many businesses will just get shut and people working there will lose their income.

Those people who actually want to ski, will have to find a place higher in the mountains (hotel, apartments or any other lodging) and all those who live off it but are located lower in the mountains will have no customers. The snowball effect will of course cover all other sections of the hospitality industry and even schools.

Climate change is happening now…at our doorstep in Europe…on a daily basis…

So the usual question is, what can we do?

Well, those who are not professionally working in this area already can still do a lot. Have you heard about Ecological footprint calculator - ClimateHero? It is an easy way to test your own footprint (as a part of the household) and get very practical advice on where you can do better.

It only takes 5 minutes to test but a whole Earth to save! Are you in??

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