Make America Deep Again Make America Deep Again Hat

MAKE AMERICA DEEP Over again

On April 29, our partners at Protect Our Winters (Prisoner of war) are marching to Brand America Deep Again.

Lynsey Dyer | Jackson Hole, WY Photo WADE MCKOY

Protect Our Winters and Save the Globe

by Eric Hansen

Jeremy Jones is non an obvious pick for a leader in the fight against global warming. A National Geographic Charlatan of the Year, an O'Neill-sponsored big mountain snowboarder, and the possessor of his own company, Jones Snowboards, the 39-year-former is plenty busy.

He's besides no system man . By his own account, he barely graduated high school. And before starting the Protect Our Winters nonprofit in 2007, beyond tracking the next low-pressure arrangement, he didn't call up as well deeply almost the future of snow. "I definitely wasn't some enviro driving a veggie-oil car," he says.

Simply while traveling the world for pic shoots and ripping his local mountain, California'south Squaw Valley, he started to wonder if it was just him, or if indeed winters were growing more unpredictable. One winter Alaska was getting hammered; the next, information technology was well-nigh dry. A little bit of research suggested there was a genuine problem—ski seasons were getting shorter and more erratic. And then Jones did what many do when faced with a problem of grave severity. He pulled out his checkbook. He set aside proceeds from his signature boards, enlisted the assist of an environmentalist friend, and looked for a suitable nonprofit to support. Problem was, they couldn't find a single advancement grouping representing America's 20 million snow sports enthusiasts. "My friend said, 'Y'all need to start your ain thing!'" says Jones. Two years after, that'south exactly what Jones, reluctantly, did. And Protect Our Winters was born.

Jeremy Jones and Ryland Bell | Mount Timlin, AK
PHOTOGRAPH JEFF CURLEY

Pow, as it's called, is at present but awesome. Based in Pacific Palisades, California, the nonprofit advancement organization touts 30,000 members and dozens of corporate sponsors, including big names and big money similar The N Face, Clif Bar, Patagonia, Vans, and the Mertz Gilmore Foundation. The group lobbies elected officials, speaks at dozens of schools, and commissions studies on how global warming affects the $61 billion American snow sports industry. (Hint: not positively.) The goal is to unite skiers and snowboarders and everyone involved in winter sports against policies and practices that increase greenhouse gas emissions. More than than that though, POW works to change the tone of climatic change discussions from doom and gloom to promise and action.

Part of their success is likely due to the fact that Jones is such a reluctant savior. He has insisted from the first that POW shouldn't exist flamboyant, simply efficient. "From the showtime, I thought, in order for this to piece of work, information technology can't be a Jeremy Jones foundation," he says. "We need people to rally around it and nosotros need to put a microscope on the work." Early on, Jones convinced lawyers, website designers, public relations firms, and marketing man Chris Steinkamp, currently Prisoner of war's executive manager, to volunteer their services. He fabricated certain that at least 85 cents of every dollar went to programs, non paychecks or slush funds. And then POW did something truly hard: The grouping made joining the fight against climate change absurd.

It'due south a vital point given how dry the science has been in the by. It helps that climatic change is no longer a debatable concept. In August, the Un warned that humans are "extremely likely" to have been the "dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century," and warned of "abrupt and irreversible" changes to our planet if carbon dioxide continued to exist emitted at nowadays rates.

However, fighting climate change is not sexy, even by the relatively low standards of environmental groups. There is no global warming backhoe to chain oneself to or global warming owl to rally effectually. The fight is so large that information technology can announced to exist on an altogether inhuman scale. We are, after all, talking about the entire globe. So Jones put a face on the fight. He volunteered his hale mug, not unlike Bono did for African debt relief in the 1990s, and quickly attracted many more pro athlete ambassadors to the crusade.

POW has since signed upwardly some 60 winter sports athletes, from People's republic of china to Michigan, from Olympic medalists to X Games champs, from other large mountain snowboarders to cross-country skiers. The Prisoner of war Riders Brotherhood lends its vocalism to environmental films like final spring'due south Momenta, pens op-eds and talks warming on-camera, and creates large-scale artwork. At this year's Higher movie premiere (the third installment of Jones'south well received human being-powered snowboarding series) Riders Alliance athletes asked the audience to sign a huge banner and write why they want a cooler planet. The overarching goal of the Riders Alliance is to bring withal more people into the fold, and to encourage other skiers and boarders to adopt The POW Seven, which is an outline of the easy ways that nosotros can all advocate for colder, longer winters. Number one on the list is "Get political." Number three is "Detect Your Biggest Lever." Not flamboyant—efficient. Sarah Laskow, writing in environmental magazine Grist, called The Pow Seven "the best green action plan we've ever seen."

The Pow Vii fits in Prisoner of war'southward vision of creating smart programs—as opposed to haranguing people into recycling. "We're a little also far down the timeline for that," says Porter Play a joke on, author of DEEP: The Story of Skiing and The Future of Snow. Instead, Pw is focused squarely on maximizing their bear on—finding that big lever. In this case that means using the Riders Alliance to help recruit an army of young soldiers to the fight against climate change—and through them, urge politicians to exercise the right things. Now.

Since launching in 2011, POW athletes take visited more than 50 schools in a program cosponsored by The North Face chosen "Hot Planet/Absurd Athletes." At the schools they lead assemblies, play some gnarly clips, and and then become into an engaging talk most how the i.4-degree increase in temperature since 1800 is, well, melting snow. "That generation is and then much more up to the challenge than baby boomers," Jones says. "They're like, 'We want the same globe you grew upward in. Why is this even upwardly for discussion?'"

Things in Washington, D.C. are a flake trickier. Each yr, a dozen athletes from the Riders Alliance and a one-half dozen representatives from the likes of Burton, Patagonia, and Aspen Skiing Company spend a whirlwind day on the colina lobbying senators, congressmen, and members of the EPA. On a recent trip, Jones ended upward in hiking boots, having forgotten his dress shoes. And he still needs help tying his tie. But thankfully, Pow's fish-out-of-water condition inside the Beltway also plays to their reward.

"What virtually all the senators and congressmen said to u.s.a. is, 'You know what, I concord with what yous're doing. Brand me exercise it, force me, on a local level, to vote your way.' In other words, if we tin can build a groundswell around these issues, and then they take to human activity on it. Which is merely what Pow is doing, what it's great at doing. We can motion the needle." —Chris Davenport

"In Washington, a lot of the senators and people hear the same thing over and over from lobbyists," says executive managing director Steinkamp. "Simply when athletes show upwards, information technology's different." He recalls a POW visit to Lisa Murkowski, the Republican senator from Alaska who has been a notorious climate change flip flopper. The Pow folks expected the meeting to terminal 10 minutes. Instead, it lasted an hour. No coal-fired power plants were mothballed, but a surprising alliance was formed. Murkowski, it turned out, is a skier, and her nephew is a founder of ski film company Sweetgrass Productions.

One of POW's biggest successes so far was on June ii of this year. Knowing the EPA was likely to announce stricter carbon emissions standards for power plants, POW turned its members and fans into Tweeting, Instagraming, Facebooking cheerleaders. "We reached out to everyone and said, 'Hither are sample Tweets, hither are some good facts, hither are other things you lot can practice.' So nosotros only lit the place up," says Jones. Internet slacktivism it was non. At the finish of the business mean solar day, a staffer at the White House chosen POW to personally give thanks them for the support.

"I've lived here for 12 years and the snowfall just isn't as consequent. At least Mammoth is high plenty that the freezing level is pretty consistent, but nosotros're still seeing drastic swings. Four years ago, we had our absolute best season on record, followed by our absolute worst." —Kimmy Fasani

PHOTOGRAPH Erin Hogue

To say that POW faces a host of formidable foes is an understatement. The oil industry, for case, has reserves of rough and other fossil fuel discoveries that information technology is not bang-up to abandon, or have regulated. So while Pow fries away, the big five oil companies lobby Congress to maintain the status quo—spending an average of $445,000 on Capitol Colina each twenty-four hours, according to Fox.

Fifty-fifty more than daunting, contempo studies show that somehow, despite the wealth of science, half of Americans still uncertainty that human-caused global warming exists, not to mention could crusade "sharp and irreversible" changes.

Jones and POW respond with immediate stories, or when necessary, they unleash the wonky facts. In May, the White House released the tertiary National Climate Assessment. The president'due south science advisor summarized the scientific consensus on global warming. "On the whole," he said, "summers are longer and hotter, with longer periods of extended heat. Wildfires commencement earlier in the spring and continue later into the fall. Rain comes down in heavier downpours. People are experiencing changes in the length and severity of seasonal allergies. And climate disruptions to water resources and agriculture have been increasing."

Photograph Lee Cohen

With its clear focus on wintertime, POW is able to extract the essential information of business organization to its winter-minded members and followers—many of which are included in the widely publicized study they and the Natural Resources Defense Quango commissioned,Climate Impacts on the Winter Tourism Economy in the The states. Overall, there will exist more than rain in coming decades, thanks to rising temperatures, and ski seasons will get shorter, cheers to longer, warmer shoulder seasons. Tahoe, California, already sees leap two weeks earlier than in 1961. By 2050, half of the ski areas in the Northeast, some 50 resorts, could close, mostly considering they won't have enough snow to open for the lucrative Christmas vacation. And resorts in the West could lose a quarter to all of their midwinter snowpack by 2100.

To this depressing news, Jones replies, "Dude, join Pow."

More important than securing another $20 membership fee is simply increasing membership, increasing the size of the tribe. The more people Prisoner of war represents in D.C., the more than convincing it is with political wafflers. And the sooner Jones, and all of us, tin can go back to doing what we really want to do: riding deep snow.

On April 29, our partners at Protect Our Winters (Pow) are marching to Make America Deep Again. Nosotros're with them. To assist get you on board, nosotros're dedicating the prime existent estate on our site to a smattering of the Pow content that Mount Media has produced over the years. Bank check it out, get inspired, then follow this link http://protectourwinters.org/bring together-a-march/ to find a mount town march near you. #March4POW

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Source: http://www.mountainonline.com/make-america-deep/

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