What does the proposed new gondola in Bozel say about the future of the ski industry, and our attitudes to climate change? I asked two friends and locals to exchange views - here's how it went down...
The problem of global warming will not be broadly fixed, if in the unlikely situation we cut out emissions globally to zero. We should think of changes to our climate as climate breakdown - regular patterns have been lost and will not just resume once we reduce emissions to zero. Sustainable growth is also a paradox. It is based on extractive industries. Something has to be extracted from the ground and processed to keep growth going. At present this model is causing crop failures, increase intensity of storms (a new category of hurricane is being proposed), large scale flood events, melting ice etc and this is having an uneven, and unfair, impact on the poor and marginalised societies. We HAVE to do things differently and building more stuff for the same reasons is pretty bullshit.
This is such a great format for this kind of discussion! I loved reading this exchange. I love the format, but I also love how the chat moves from the local to the global depending on the point each person is trying to make. Thanks for taking the time to give us this insight. One thing I wondered, and I might be really wrong about this, but neither Gav nor Chris seems French, which means you're migrants (from Britain?) who moved by choice. That's totally fine - I mean, I'm a White Australian so I've no ground to stand on in terms of being a migrant! - but neither of you talk about the changes your own migration already wrought on the town in the past, which means your own "baseline" for community is what you found there and what you moved for. The point being, you've already been part of the changes happening there.
The chat reminds me of the question Matt posed at the end of the podcast ep on Yulex (which I only listened to today, so that's why I remember) about whether intention matters in why we make change, and how we decide on which kinds of changes to make. This discussion shows a few sides of that - ensuring economic growth and preserving "community". Coming from a small town that is now a world famous beach destination, I grew up with a close view of the kinds of damage "growth" can bring so I'm not on the side of business [I'm never on the side of business] but I also know that people have a right to access the beautiful beaches of the area. These days, I live in a very, very urban city, and at a time when the importance of blue and green spaces for our health is being argued so strongly, well, why shouldn't people want to access that?
With all that in mind...
There can be so much certainty in an economic argument because we know the grounds on which we're building your case; business, baby! [insert dancing emoji] But when we fight for community, it's sometimes hard to really articulate what we want to preserve and why. Is "the environment" or "the community" enough? I mean, yes! But I guess what I'm thinking of is the debate about a cable car on kunanyi/Mt Wellington in Hobart, Tasmania. A key opposition there is that the mountain is an important cultural site for Indigenous Tasmanians, who are already super generous in letting residents and visitors go up the mountain when they don't really want us to. Constructing a cable car on that mountain would be great for lots of reasons (the road is hectic!), but since it's opposed by Traditional custodians on cultural grounds, then it seems like a terrible idea to build it. But that cultural argument is about caring for Country, and thus ancestors, and thus people, and thus animals and plants, and thus all future generations. People are part of environments.
Anyway, I'm not sure I'm offering any useful input here except to say that I think it was really interesting to read and I really appreciate the time these guys took to write these answers. And I'm sorry for banging on, but you all made me think about intention and what we're fighting for!
Overall really tricky one and the exact type of decision where a full on 'Systems Thinking' based approach is really needed to deal with the complexities to work out what really is the best solution both for the residents and the environment. (Some info on what that is here https://www.foundation.org.uk/Blog/2021/Systems-thinking-the-key-to-getting-net-zero-right )
I'm shocked it sounds like Gav feels there'd be no or hugely insufficient proper consultation with surveys etc on a project of that size and spend especially if it's with public funding, is that the case?? There should be a participatory decision making for something that size, and it would include a study on numbers using it, wildlife disturbance etc.
Generally ski lifts are a great low-carbon method of transport, but it's a big IF on the longevity of use being enough to give 'payback' on the manufacturing carbon given what climate change will do - and here adds even more complexity as this depends on how well we get on globally with fighting climate change.
The planning process also ideally needs clear national and regional plans for what sustainable tourism in the region looks like in 10-20 years and building with that in mind...
Given the trends of snowfall and 3 Valleys being one of the highest ski resorts, a lift here to expand usage of this resort, could possibly better for the environment than lots of new, higher lifts & runs in other ski resorts, for a given overall assumed demand for ski days, for example. But I feel the major split here is Gav would prefer alpine skiing to have a managed decline because of its impacts, whereas Chris is less convinced of that need? Quite a personal one that - we need to make huge strides in the next decade but it's the flights that need addressing via government intervention, if a ski resort doesn't expand the skiers would probably just go elsewhere...
COULD we have really decently sustainable resorts by 2030-40, yes, will we? We need to push the industry hard and ideally get governments to make it happen across all society by for the love of god STOP DRILLING FOR MORE FOSSIL FUELS.
Having the clear national idea to try to get the sustainability right at a big scale wouldn't necessarily mollify people in this community that didn't want it to become more expensive pushing people out (but given the location a degree of this may be inevitable). Affordable accommodation at desirable resorts is clearly a huge problem. As a personal note I found it was already really hard for workers in Whistler when I did a season there in 2015, and loads more of the cheaper blocks have since been turned into mansions, so it must be crazy now.
One issue raised with the bus vs lift was the bus being free, but not the lift - could the lift be made free for locals (push for this in consultation)? Albeit it only gets you to 1 place - but if that's your commute that's useful. And a survey seems required to see if a bus would take cars off the road vs how many a lift would.
Interesting views on gravity vs non gravity sports. I would suggest *more* people walk and do cross country cycling and other non gravity sports than downhill cycling and probably even skiing - and many are keen to do so in epic mountain scenery. But what these sports are willing to spend on mountain trips, and particularly on lift tickets, is clearly much lower! So a shift to these as snowfall worsens will spell the end of many lower resorts lifts operations, as we're already seeing in so many cases. But not necessarily all tourism to an area...
The problem of global warming will not be broadly fixed, if in the unlikely situation we cut out emissions globally to zero. We should think of changes to our climate as climate breakdown - regular patterns have been lost and will not just resume once we reduce emissions to zero. Sustainable growth is also a paradox. It is based on extractive industries. Something has to be extracted from the ground and processed to keep growth going. At present this model is causing crop failures, increase intensity of storms (a new category of hurricane is being proposed), large scale flood events, melting ice etc and this is having an uneven, and unfair, impact on the poor and marginalised societies. We HAVE to do things differently and building more stuff for the same reasons is pretty bullshit.
This is such a great format for this kind of discussion! I loved reading this exchange. I love the format, but I also love how the chat moves from the local to the global depending on the point each person is trying to make. Thanks for taking the time to give us this insight. One thing I wondered, and I might be really wrong about this, but neither Gav nor Chris seems French, which means you're migrants (from Britain?) who moved by choice. That's totally fine - I mean, I'm a White Australian so I've no ground to stand on in terms of being a migrant! - but neither of you talk about the changes your own migration already wrought on the town in the past, which means your own "baseline" for community is what you found there and what you moved for. The point being, you've already been part of the changes happening there.
The chat reminds me of the question Matt posed at the end of the podcast ep on Yulex (which I only listened to today, so that's why I remember) about whether intention matters in why we make change, and how we decide on which kinds of changes to make. This discussion shows a few sides of that - ensuring economic growth and preserving "community". Coming from a small town that is now a world famous beach destination, I grew up with a close view of the kinds of damage "growth" can bring so I'm not on the side of business [I'm never on the side of business] but I also know that people have a right to access the beautiful beaches of the area. These days, I live in a very, very urban city, and at a time when the importance of blue and green spaces for our health is being argued so strongly, well, why shouldn't people want to access that?
With all that in mind...
There can be so much certainty in an economic argument because we know the grounds on which we're building your case; business, baby! [insert dancing emoji] But when we fight for community, it's sometimes hard to really articulate what we want to preserve and why. Is "the environment" or "the community" enough? I mean, yes! But I guess what I'm thinking of is the debate about a cable car on kunanyi/Mt Wellington in Hobart, Tasmania. A key opposition there is that the mountain is an important cultural site for Indigenous Tasmanians, who are already super generous in letting residents and visitors go up the mountain when they don't really want us to. Constructing a cable car on that mountain would be great for lots of reasons (the road is hectic!), but since it's opposed by Traditional custodians on cultural grounds, then it seems like a terrible idea to build it. But that cultural argument is about caring for Country, and thus ancestors, and thus people, and thus animals and plants, and thus all future generations. People are part of environments.
Anyway, I'm not sure I'm offering any useful input here except to say that I think it was really interesting to read and I really appreciate the time these guys took to write these answers. And I'm sorry for banging on, but you all made me think about intention and what we're fighting for!
Overall really tricky one and the exact type of decision where a full on 'Systems Thinking' based approach is really needed to deal with the complexities to work out what really is the best solution both for the residents and the environment. (Some info on what that is here https://www.foundation.org.uk/Blog/2021/Systems-thinking-the-key-to-getting-net-zero-right )
I'm shocked it sounds like Gav feels there'd be no or hugely insufficient proper consultation with surveys etc on a project of that size and spend especially if it's with public funding, is that the case?? There should be a participatory decision making for something that size, and it would include a study on numbers using it, wildlife disturbance etc.
Generally ski lifts are a great low-carbon method of transport, but it's a big IF on the longevity of use being enough to give 'payback' on the manufacturing carbon given what climate change will do - and here adds even more complexity as this depends on how well we get on globally with fighting climate change.
The planning process also ideally needs clear national and regional plans for what sustainable tourism in the region looks like in 10-20 years and building with that in mind...
Given the trends of snowfall and 3 Valleys being one of the highest ski resorts, a lift here to expand usage of this resort, could possibly better for the environment than lots of new, higher lifts & runs in other ski resorts, for a given overall assumed demand for ski days, for example. But I feel the major split here is Gav would prefer alpine skiing to have a managed decline because of its impacts, whereas Chris is less convinced of that need? Quite a personal one that - we need to make huge strides in the next decade but it's the flights that need addressing via government intervention, if a ski resort doesn't expand the skiers would probably just go elsewhere...
COULD we have really decently sustainable resorts by 2030-40, yes, will we? We need to push the industry hard and ideally get governments to make it happen across all society by for the love of god STOP DRILLING FOR MORE FOSSIL FUELS.
Having the clear national idea to try to get the sustainability right at a big scale wouldn't necessarily mollify people in this community that didn't want it to become more expensive pushing people out (but given the location a degree of this may be inevitable). Affordable accommodation at desirable resorts is clearly a huge problem. As a personal note I found it was already really hard for workers in Whistler when I did a season there in 2015, and loads more of the cheaper blocks have since been turned into mansions, so it must be crazy now.
One issue raised with the bus vs lift was the bus being free, but not the lift - could the lift be made free for locals (push for this in consultation)? Albeit it only gets you to 1 place - but if that's your commute that's useful. And a survey seems required to see if a bus would take cars off the road vs how many a lift would.
Interesting views on gravity vs non gravity sports. I would suggest *more* people walk and do cross country cycling and other non gravity sports than downhill cycling and probably even skiing - and many are keen to do so in epic mountain scenery. But what these sports are willing to spend on mountain trips, and particularly on lift tickets, is clearly much lower! So a shift to these as snowfall worsens will spell the end of many lower resorts lifts operations, as we're already seeing in so many cases. But not necessarily all tourism to an area...