Watch: How Climate Change Is Melting the Ski Industry


In certain industries, global warming is causing a lot of hurt. One business that will really, really be hit hard? Skiing.

To put it simply, the ski industry’s business model is melting. A number of resorts have already closed due, in part, to lack of snow—and in the future, a much smaller total area of the northeastern US will be good for skiing.

In this talk, University of New Hampshire Ph.D. candidate Elizabeth Burakowski outlines her research on global warming and how it is changing the face of skiing. In the process, she also tells her personal story of becoming fascinated with the study of “albedo,” the reflectivity of surfaces (for instance, snow)—which ultimately helps us to understand the ski industry’s struggles.

Plus: This video features a must-see interpretive dance of the jet stream.

Burakowski’s talk is from a live August 15 event held by Climate Desk—in collaboration with thirstDC and the Science Online Climate conference—to showcase new and innovative communication about climate change.

More Mother Jones reporting on Climate Desk

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WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

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