The Aspen Times recently had an interesting article on the difficulties of reducing emissions at the local level, based on the experiences of The Aspen Ski Company (h/t
Colorado Power Forecast):
[R]educing the carbon emissions is difficult because the Skico's operations are growing. There are more summer activities and greater use of snowmaking. That results in the Skico burning more fossil fuels that produce carbon emissions. Those greenhouses gases cause climate change. The Skico's extensive environmental policy is concentrated on one goal — battling climate change.
Skico President and CEO Mike Kaplan reinforced that point Wednesday while speaking to more than 200 members of the Aspen Chamber Resort Association at an annual meeting at the Sundeck atop Aspen Mountain. He said the company is lobbying for regional and national legislation to reduce carbon emissions, as well as trying to reduce its own emissions. The fate of the ski industry, and resorts like Aspen, depends on stopping climate change, he said.
“We really do need to put a price on carbon if our kids and grandkids are going to enjoy skiing and snowboarding in this valley,” Kaplan said. “We can't continue as we are.”
Schendler said it will be irrelevant if the Skico reduces its carbon emissions by the targeted 10 percent by 2012 and 25 percent by 2020, but no national action is taken with a carbon tax.
But even taking care of its own carbon isn't a given.
I've maintained all along this is viciously difficult and we can't do it alone,” Schendler said.
The relationship between economic growth and emissions reductions is clear: economic growth wins out. I call this fact -- and it is a fact -- the "iron law of climate policy" in
The Climate Fix. I'll have more more on this in the coming weeks.
11 comments:
I believe you are showing your age. Instead of a skier it should be a shredder. Get with it dude!
Second, the alarmist rhetoric:
“We really do need to put a price on carbon if our kids and grandkids are going to enjoy skiing and snowboarding in this valley,” Kaplan said. “We can't continue as we are.”
should be challenged. A price on carbon will make it snow and arrest climate change? Is there any science that supports such gadfly nonsense?
Another very good example is the announcement by President Obama to invest $50 billions in intensive carbon infrastructure to help the economy.
could you instead call this the "Pielke paradox"? ;)
There is already a global price on carbon, it's rising.
http://graphics.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/JCO_20100809160151.jpg
-4-Harrywr2
Interesting ... can you explain the graph a bit?
I suspect the guy cares less about global warming than he does about appealing to the kind of moneyed liberals who can afford to go to Aspen. A friend of mine grew up going to Aspen to ski, where he met the Kennedys.
They don't sell skiing - they sell 'lifestyle.' How would the business do if the owner announced that he was giving money to anti-gay marriage and pro-life groups? Rule #1 - know your customer, and pander to him/her.
The graph shows coal prices in US$ per metric ton. It seems that carbon you can burn is considerably more valuable than carbon somebody else has promised not to burn?
Physical Realization of Oxymorons
Aspen, a city that survives due solely to the carbon-based money spent by the high-upper-middle class and ultra-rich for activities unnecessary for life, Downhill "The First Clear Cutters" Skiers, with second and third 'homes' totally obscene relative to consumption of natural resources, attempts to cut its Carbon Footprint.
If its customer base reduced their Carbon Footprint to below the obscene level, Aspen could not exist.
Roger,
The graph shows the 'Freight On Board' (on the boat) price for a metric tonne of steam coal with a 6,000 kcal/kg heat content and 1% sulfur content shipping from Richards Bay South Africa.
Due to it's location, South Africa is a main coal exporter to Europe and Asia and as a result is a primary bench mark price.
As the chart shows, in 2002 South African steam coal was selling at $12/tonne. 2003-mid 2007 it hovered around $50/tonne. 2008 had a huge spike due to some flooding in Chinese coal mines. Then we had the recession, prices dropped to $60/ton and are now hovering around $90/tonne.
Here's another chart of Central Appalachian mine mouth coal prices...$30/ton in 2000 hovering around $70/ton now. Central Appalachia accounts for about 25% of US coal production.
http://blogs.wvgazette.com/coaltattoo/files/2010/01/capp_price_productivity1.png
In short, Carbon has a price and it has been rising dramatically everywhere in the world except the Powder River Basin in Wyoming.
According to USGS there are only 10 billion tons of 'cheap coal' left in Wyoming.
http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2008/1202/
From The Guardian, 9/24/08:
"Stewart Barr, of Exeter University, who led the research, said: "Green living is largely something of a myth. There is this middle class environmentalism where being green is part of the desired image. But another part of the desired image is to fly off skiing twice a year. And the carbon savings they make by not driving their kids to school will be obliterated by the pollution from their flights...
The addiction to cheap flights and holidays will be very difficult to break."
Is the Aspen Ski Company going to take out ads that remind customers to count their travel to Aspen when they calculate their carbon footprints?
Carbon reduction wold be easy if people recycled plastic and stopped driving gas guzzlers.
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