I live in ski country, its also liberal land. You can't go one day without something, or many days, everything being the result of climate change or global warming, or whatever they are going to call it next. The idiots get a dry year for snow like a couple years ago and they preach that the end is near, that it will never snow like it did in the past. Except that about 40 years ago it was so dry that Independence Pass stayed open all winter, they seem to forget about those dry or warm years that happen every now and then.
The Aspen Skiing Company is quite vocal about climate change and what a catastrophe it will become. But, they remove live healthy trees every year, they dig up the earth to collect water and distribute it around the mountain for snow making, and they expand skier terrain whenever possible. Expanding skier terrain is another way to say funny shaped clear cut. They burn all of their slash in big piles, piles that they use dozens of gallons of diesel to light. They proclaim their use of "green" energy or electricity from "renewable sources", and they use a bunch of power! They run diesel powered snowcats, dozens of them, every night to groom the snow. They transport food and supplies up the mountain with other cargo cats. They heat the buildings on the mountain with propane and or electricity, and it's cold here in the mountains.
Their customers come here largely by commercial airline, which lately, is one of the whacko environmentalist's most hated producers of CO2. Some come by car, driving 3 to 4 hours or more from Denver, usually in a Yukon or something like it. Then they stay at some super fancy hotel with exotic stone floors, counter tops and showers, all lit up with super expensive electric lighting that stays on all night. These hotels are always nice and warm, heated by natural gas, just like their outdoor hot tubs and pools. They take long hot showers after their hard day on the slopes, water heated by natural gas. Wasting water that could have flowed down the river to Lake Powell, which they never fail to remind us is quite low.
They all carry around their latest Iphone or equivalent, made overseas and shipped across the ocean on boats powered by diesel. Then trucked to every city in the country on trucks that also burn diesel. Their phones use exotic minerals in their batteries and circuits, minerals that have to be mined and refined somewhere.
Their ski gear cannot possibly be environmentally friendly to produce, being largely made of plastics, and equally unfriendly to the environment when it is disposed of after 2 seasons of part time use.
The ones that live here profess environmentalism even more, proclaiming what great stewards of the environment they are, because they appreciate the great outdoors. They drive Subarus and other SUV's, they put a coffin on the roof diminishing the already poor fuel mileage, and then they drive far in excess of the speed limit. Apparently no one told them that drag increases exponentially with velocity! They too heat their houses with natural gas, which is extracted from the ground within short distance of Aspen. But, they protest the drilling, they protest the pipelines that bring it to them. They pass laws to make it harder for companies to provide the natural gas that they use to heat their homes, water, and offices, all of which have thermostats set higher than the AC is set in the summer time.
They ride their fat tire bikes all over the BLM and forest service land, often times on illegally created trails. Then they stare stupidly when you tell them that the elk herd is down by 60%, likely due to human encroachment. They let their dogs run loose on all hiking and biking trails, leaving excrement everywhere and further harassing wildlife. The first half mile of every popular trail smells like a giant pile of dog doo. They come to meetings discussing wildlife management and profess that they love wildlife but don't understand why they can't have their precious ski area expansion and mountain bike trails through elk calving areas. They then go out and violate the closures.
They are against development and sprawl, but continuously want to build more slums, sorry, I mean employee housing. They don't want anyone tearing up ground for a gravel pit, or a road, or mineral extraction, but they will spend $3.4 million to tear up a river bed and change it to create a "whitewater park", only to have to try to fix it every year after their man mad feature nearly drowns some family in a raft.
Perhaps they should modify their lives instead of telling me to modify mine??
The Aspen Skiing Company is quite vocal about climate change and what a catastrophe it will become. But, they remove live healthy trees every year, they dig up the earth to collect water and distribute it around the mountain for snow making, and they expand skier terrain whenever possible. Expanding skier terrain is another way to say funny shaped clear cut. They burn all of their slash in big piles, piles that they use dozens of gallons of diesel to light. They proclaim their use of "green" energy or electricity from "renewable sources", and they use a bunch of power! They run diesel powered snowcats, dozens of them, every night to groom the snow. They transport food and supplies up the mountain with other cargo cats. They heat the buildings on the mountain with propane and or electricity, and it's cold here in the mountains.
Their customers come here largely by commercial airline, which lately, is one of the whacko environmentalist's most hated producers of CO2. Some come by car, driving 3 to 4 hours or more from Denver, usually in a Yukon or something like it. Then they stay at some super fancy hotel with exotic stone floors, counter tops and showers, all lit up with super expensive electric lighting that stays on all night. These hotels are always nice and warm, heated by natural gas, just like their outdoor hot tubs and pools. They take long hot showers after their hard day on the slopes, water heated by natural gas. Wasting water that could have flowed down the river to Lake Powell, which they never fail to remind us is quite low.
They all carry around their latest Iphone or equivalent, made overseas and shipped across the ocean on boats powered by diesel. Then trucked to every city in the country on trucks that also burn diesel. Their phones use exotic minerals in their batteries and circuits, minerals that have to be mined and refined somewhere.
Their ski gear cannot possibly be environmentally friendly to produce, being largely made of plastics, and equally unfriendly to the environment when it is disposed of after 2 seasons of part time use.
The ones that live here profess environmentalism even more, proclaiming what great stewards of the environment they are, because they appreciate the great outdoors. They drive Subarus and other SUV's, they put a coffin on the roof diminishing the already poor fuel mileage, and then they drive far in excess of the speed limit. Apparently no one told them that drag increases exponentially with velocity! They too heat their houses with natural gas, which is extracted from the ground within short distance of Aspen. But, they protest the drilling, they protest the pipelines that bring it to them. They pass laws to make it harder for companies to provide the natural gas that they use to heat their homes, water, and offices, all of which have thermostats set higher than the AC is set in the summer time.
They ride their fat tire bikes all over the BLM and forest service land, often times on illegally created trails. Then they stare stupidly when you tell them that the elk herd is down by 60%, likely due to human encroachment. They let their dogs run loose on all hiking and biking trails, leaving excrement everywhere and further harassing wildlife. The first half mile of every popular trail smells like a giant pile of dog doo. They come to meetings discussing wildlife management and profess that they love wildlife but don't understand why they can't have their precious ski area expansion and mountain bike trails through elk calving areas. They then go out and violate the closures.
They are against development and sprawl, but continuously want to build more slums, sorry, I mean employee housing. They don't want anyone tearing up ground for a gravel pit, or a road, or mineral extraction, but they will spend $3.4 million to tear up a river bed and change it to create a "whitewater park", only to have to try to fix it every year after their man mad feature nearly drowns some family in a raft.
Perhaps they should modify their lives instead of telling me to modify mine??