A Snowless Alpine! Goodbye Ski Resorts in the Alps

[leftchick]

and hello to horrrible flooding. This is scary....

Shrinking Alpine glacier points to snowless future



The colossal sweep of the Aletsch glacier, a remnant of the last Ice Age. This river of ice has retreated 2.1 miles.


http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/05/02/vanishing.glacier.ap/index.html


<snip>

Trends don't bode well for Switzerland's ski resorts, which have been seeing shorter seasons. Average temperatures in the Alps are at their highest since 1500, which many experts blame partly on the burning of fossil fuels increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Many resorts are having to transport people higher and higher to reach skiable areas, Messerli said.

According to a 2005 study by the European Union's environment agency, the previous three years were the hottest on record in Europe, after the continent's average temperature rose by 1.71 degrees during the 20th century.

The report said Alpine glaciers lost about 10 percent of their ice during the summer of 2003, and predicted three-quarters of Switzerland's glaciers would disappear by 2050 if current trends continued unchanged.

[mdmc]

1. mercy

:(

[liberal N proud]

2. But they keep telling us that there is no global warming

[HysteryDiagnosis]

3. Now what..... we'll have to make nitrogen charged skis that

frost up and slide gingerly across the dirt hillsides???

[OregonBlue]

4. When the playgrounds of the rich and richer begin to disappear,

will they finally give a damn or will they just build new resorts in the Himalayas and Andes?