Climate Tradeoffs and Impossible Futures in the United States Ski Industry

• In Event: High-Altitude Commodities in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries

Abstract

In 1970, Ski Area Management published a report that found that only 30% of ski resorts in North America made a profit. In 2019, they reported that 71% of ski areas turned a profit. Yet, due to skiing’s location in alpine environments, ski resorts have warmed at a 25% to 50% faster rate than the global average temperatures over the same period. Since 1970, some resorts have lost an average of 30 days of frost. Moreover, skiing’s reliance on local, national, and international transportation makes it a prime driver of climate change. To this end, climate models suggest that without a rapid decrease in global carbon emissions, ski areas in North America could see their seasons shrink in length by 84% by 2090. Put another way, these ski resorts would almost definitely fail. Thus, this climate-dependent industry has emerged as a historical climate paradox, thriving in the face of climate change all while decreasing its odds of future survival.

This paper highlights the infrastructure, technology, and business models that have allowed the ski industry to thrive despite warming. But it also examines the demands of the many stakeholders involved, thinking carefully about how laborers, migrant communities, understand their own culpability in, and relationship to, climate changes’ impact on the ski industry and ski-centered economies. In the end, I conclude that few people – skiers, industry, restaurant workers, or migrants – are interested in genuinely considering the long-term feasibility of their communities and economies. The historical relationship between transportation and skiing may have left communities and industry trapped in a paradox they cannot escape from.

Author

• Jesse Ritner, The University of Texas at Austin