Climate change is threatening the health of this beautiful spinning planet that we enjoy riding upon. Luke Foley is doing something about it. He invited all comers to the “Climb it for Climate” uphill touring rally and film fest on December 13 at Sugarbush. It was a night of skiing in the moonlight with thoughtful discussion about the climate around an informative, educational, wholly enjoyable, even humorous, film festival.
It was a cool night with temperatures in the 20s and a bracing wind blowing through from the west. The skinners brought headlamps, but there was little need, a waxing gibbous moon with clear skies made for an auspicious evening. Skiers, old and young, enjoyed moonshine and a night on the mountain along with an opportunity to discuss this endangered planet with the different perspectives of seniors who have “seen it all” and the younger arrivals with that “WTF,” or “What The Fahrenheit” look on their faces.
Cold. The world around us was different just 20 and 30 years ago. One young man was discussing cold weather and said something about “Negative 20.” If you had spent time in 20 below and colder, you would be more inclined to say “20 below” … with all the frozen pipes and dead batteries that implies.
It gets harder all the time, emotionally, to let go of things like 20 below. It is a Buddhist thing; it is much like impermanence. The human body and our mountain ecosystems are fragile entities. In your 20s or your 60s, it is difficult to accept that nothing lasts like cold winters or your knees.
DEEPLY-SEATED FEELING
Twenty and 30 below registers; it lingers in the mind and body. It is not just the memory of a reading on a thermometer -- it is a deeply-seated feeling, like the song “Sweet Jane” that played between films. Sweet Jane is not just an old rock and roll song. To me, to many of us, it evokes emotions, times, places, and moments in decades of the past like those times when I waited in cars with girls before the start of a Lou Reed concert. But the world is in distress, and Luke is doing something to change that.
There was discussion about the unsustainable aspects of skiing. In one of the films, a Blackcomb helicopter pilot was questioned about the heavy hand of heli-skiing on the environment. The pilot questioned the extravagance of space exploration to Mars, a desert environment, when we could be addressing the challenges presented in conserving this precious planet. The Climate Change discussion is too easily focused on the “other.” Have you seen an overlay of air traffic over the land? The plane icons blot out the map on any given day.
MANY QUESTIONS
There are many questions to explore, and I do not know the answers. Maybe technology will save us. Technology allowed Lindsey Vonn to get back to scoring FIS points at 40 years old. But the fact that the billionaires are abandoning this planet is concerning. When they are comfortably installed in their estates on Mars, what will become of their homes in Aspen and Jackson Hole? Could they be converted to ski bum housing?
Hypocrisy is unavoidable in carbon footprint tallies. If you are human and you live without a great deal of suffering, you suffer hypocrisy. Skiers drive hours in their SUVs to New England and fly to the West or Europe to ride mechanized chairlifts and to ski on trails often covered with artificial snow. Some finish the day with a soak in outdoor hot tubs and pools where BTUs float unimpeded into the sky. Are you comfortable yet, with your carbon footprint? If you live on the earth, you change it, for better or worse. Every action that you take contributes to either chaos or order in your own personal universe as well as the greater one.
The total eclipse from last spring was discussed and apparently had an emotional effect on observers. I have read Mark Twain’s “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court,” so I was prepared to be underwhelmed by the eclipse. Celestial and terrestrial events can have powerful effects on people and planets. Earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, and storms of all manners create visceral changes in the psyche of earthlings as they dramatically restructure the earth.
Luke employed skillful prompts to initiate discussions among the attendees. In the book “Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,” Robert Pirsig said that the place to change the world is first in one’s own heart, head and hands, and then work outward from there. Are enough people trying to make a difference? You could just turn your back on it, and skin! Climb uphill and earn your turns. If you encounter a good thing that you can do, do it. Accept problems as challenges. Even if the odds seem impossible, this challenge is ours to win.
