January 5, 2004
Bad news for ski bunnies. Global warming has hit the slopes.
Many low-altitude ski resorts face economic hardship and even ruin due to global warming, with the internationally celebrated austrian town of Kitzbuehl threatened with extinction as a winter sports resort, according to a new study released by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
While climate change, in the form of extreme weather such as hurricanes, floods and droughts, put the poorest of the poor in africa, asia and Latin america at greatest risk, the study shows that even rich nations face "potentially massive upheavals with significant economic, social and cultural implications," says UNEP Executive Director Klaus Toepfer.
Snow levels in lower-lying areas will become increasingly unpredictable and unreliable over the coming decades, with between 37 percent and 56 percent of Swiss resorts facing such low levels that many may have acute difficulties attracting overseas tourists and local winter sports enthusiasts, the study says.
Ski resorts in North america and australia will be affected too. Indeed, none of australia’s ski resorts will be economically viable by 2070 under a worse case scenario, according to the study, researched by experts at the University of Zurich in Switzerland.
The 2070 deadline is the same one water barons, including UN undersecretary Maurice Strong predict for water being so scarce, armed guards will have to guard it.
Earth to UNEP: Who wants to ski when there’s no water to drink?
The ski slope findings were presented at the Fifth World Conference on Sport and the Environment in Turin, Italy, host for the 2006 Winter Olympic Games. The conference was organized by the International Olympic Committee in cooperation with the Organizing Committee for the Turin winter games and UNEP.
The study cites Kitzbuehl, popular among the rich and famous, as a prime example of a resort lying at the low altitude of 760 metres, a height that will make it acutely vulnerable to declining and less frequent snow.
The research used temperature forecasts produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a body of some 2,000 scientists established by UNEP and the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) to model the effect of rising levels of carbon monoxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and to offer advice to government on how to deal with the threats.
The IPCC estimates that temperatures will rise by between 1.4 degrees Celsius and 5.8 degrees Celsius by 2100 unless action is taken to significantly reduce emissions from sources such as vehicles, industry, offices and homes. Global warming is expected to be stronger on land areas in the Northern Hemisphere during the winter months, making mountain-based winter tourism (here comes that phrase again) "accutely vulnerable".
Next time they’re in Turin, UNEP should launch a Don’t-Let-Global-Warming-Melt-Your-Ice-Cream-Campaign.
Green, Paul Martin style
There are those still wondering whether Paul Martin will be Canada’s greenest Prime Minister to date.
When the millionaire shipping baron was finance minister, he proposed taxes on pollution, pesticides, non-recycled paper, excess packaging, disposable cameras and gas-guzzling cars. He suggested putting clean air and clean water on the same priority list as traditional indicators like gross national product in measuring Canada’s economic health.
Martin’s money came, in large part from the transportation of millions of tonnes of coal for electrical generation.
Fossil fuels don’t pollute?
Now that he’s "Mr. Prime Minister", Martin’s mammoth shipping company, Canada Steamship Lines, is owned by his sons and its future prosperity depends, in part, on the continued health of the coal industry.
ads expose PETa’s dark side
by Neil Hacioglu
a new ad campaign, launched in December by the Centre for Consumer Freedom, shatters People for the Ethical Treatment of animals’ (PETa’s) self-touted image of caring for the world.
The first commercial features a young woman talking about how she teaches her children to respect animals, but then goes on and denounces PETa’s actions of arson and other violence as inappropriate and extreme. The second commercial shows PETa’s opposition to all medical research on animals, including leukemia, multiple sclerosis and aIDS. It also contains a video of Rodney Coronado, a convicted criminal who received $70,000 from PETa’s tax-exempt contributions (your money). In the video Coronado is shown teaching students how to build a firebomb. Coronado later went on to burn down a Michigan State university lab.
PETa officials responded by claiming that the Centre for Consumer Freedom received $600 from Phillip Morris, a tobacco company.
The general public can draw its own conclusions about the commercials. The ads are currently being broadcast on FOX News and can be viewed online at the Centre’s website at: http://www.consumerfreedom.com.
Eve’s new apple
by Caitlin Low
Yet another food scare has been launched, and this one is pure bologna. Some members of CSPI (Centre for Science in the Public Interest) seem to get by on worrying North americans about the danger of food.
CSPI executive director Michael Jacobson excels at frightening americans away from the dinner table. "CSPI is proud about finding something wrong with practically everything," he says.
Who knows whether Mom’s lectures to "eat you spinach" will find a place on the CSPI hit list?
When it comes to eating, Jacobson is a killjoy. CSPI’s executive director is on a strict diet, loaded down with harsh beliefs. a member of the national board of the animal rights-oriented Great american Meatout, he won’t touch a cookie and won’t allow his staff to eat "bad" food. CSPI house rules are so stringent, that Jacobson once threatened to remove the office coffee maker–until one-third of his staff threatened to resign.
although Jacobson is working at becoming the poster boy for the food fright movement, North americans should be able to enjoy the right to eat the foods they choose. Jacobson is not the father of North america, and should leave off acting like one.
CSPI can find a flaw in any food that passes our lips.
Will humanity be able to survive on what is left?
In the 21st century, the age-old expression of Food for Thought is morphing into obsessive Thought of Food.
Radio for Peace International:
Tracking down Mo
Displaced staff of Radio For Peace International (RFPI) is making a point as sharp as the barbed wire fence that went up at the United Nation’s curious University for Peace, in otherwise tropical Costa Rica. For RFPI staff, unceremoniously being tossed out of their workplace of 16 years combined with the wholesale theft of radio transmitters, antennas and audio equipment could be "a new low" in unethical behavior on the part of an institution that claims conflict resolution and peace as its goals.
The mainline media has been mainly mum on this latest peace tactic.
While RFPI staff continues to struggle in flagging UN attention, it must seem ironic when contemplating that "diplomatic immunity" has been invoked in New York City by dozens of UN diplomats escaping the price of their parking tickets.
Problems for RFPI came to a head when "strongman Maurice Strong" took over the new administration of the University for Peace, where RFPI was headquartered.
The short-wave radio suddenly went off the air in early November when the university cut the power to the transmitting building.
Watching the university’s maintenance staff wrap barbwire around the steel gate–once used to keep cattle out and now serving as an unfriendly reminder that the peace station is no longer welcome at the University of Peace, one staff member wryly quipped: "at least they haven’t electrified it yet."
RFPI have sent two letters to UN Secretary General Kofi annan, but say the man apparently spearheading the ouster effort is University of Peace President and Under-Secretary General of the UN, Canadian Maurice Strong.
Strong, who spends his time at the General assembly in New York and only visits the University of Peace a couple of times a year, repeatedly has declined to comment over the past four months.
Perhaps RFPI staff and listeners can find Strong in the Ottawa offices of Canadian Prime-Minister Paul Martin where he works as the rookie prime minister’s senior advisor.
Pursuant to Title 17 U.S.C. 107, other copyrighted work is provided for educational purposes, research, critical comment, or debate without profit or payment. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for your own purposes beyond the 'fair use' exception, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. Views are those of authors and not necessarily those of Canada Free Press. Content is Copyright 1997-2018 the individual authors. Site Copyright 1997-2018 Canada Free Press.Com Privacy Statement