Global warming could kill some winter sports, athletes warn
WASHINGTON When retired NHL goaltender Mike Richter was growing up, the duck ponds around Philadelphia would freeze each winter and neighbourhood kids would lace up their skates.
“I’d be out there all day,” he recalled Wednesday. “My world just stopped.”
With temperatures warming, he fears children today won’t discover and fall in love with ice hockey the way he once did, that outdoor pastime propelling Richter to a career that included a Stanley Cup and an Olympic silver medal.
“When I see a pond melt, I know the lost opportunity for this generation to experience this wonderful game that I was able to grow up with,” the 52-year old told a U.S. Senate special committee. “What we need to understand is that this represents something far more ominous.”
Richter was among the athletes who visited Capitol Hill this week and spoke at a hearing before the Senate Democrats’ special committee on the climate crisis. Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), chair of the panel, convened the group to explore climate change through the lens of sports, calling the hearing: The Fight to Save Winter: Pro Athletes for Climate Action.
While the assembled Democrats and athletes discussed climate change as a critical economic, health and science matter, Schatz said he wanted to highlight that it’s also a pressing lifestyle issue that affects millions of Americans.
“All of your assumptions about how you spend your time in the winter and summers, what you’re able to do with your family when you have free time and a little bit of money are going to change if we don’t take action,” he said.
The athletes told the senators about the changing conditions they see, warming temperatures that threaten the sports and activities that rely on snow, ice and cold.
Jeremy Jones, veteran snowboarder and founder of the advocacy group Protect Our Winters, pointed to a 2017 study by University of Colorado researchers that suggested the length of winter recreation seasons will shrink in some areas by 50 per cent by 2050 and 80 per cent by 2090.
“Which means winter as we know it would be three weeks long,” Jones told the lawmakers. “That is heartbreaking. I’m also a father (and) to think my kids’ kids could be the last generation of skiers is a big deal.”
Climber Tommy Caldwell and ski mountaineer Caroline Gleich also told the senators they regularly see signs that warming temperatures are eroding conditions and will have a devastating effect on sports.
“There is no doubt increased temperatures are melting away both my sport and my livelihood,” Gleich said.
The athletes stressed that while climate change impacts competition and recreation, it’s also a major economic concern for businesses, resorts and towns that rely on cold weather to keep ski lifts open, equipment sales up and visitors filling restaurants and hotel rooms.
The invited athletes are part of a larger group of winter sports competitors who’ve become outspoken about environmental issues in recent years. Others were in the gallery in the hearing room Wednesday and met privately with senators earlier in the week.
Wednesday’s hearing marked the third time the special committee had convened, and the first time it specifically addressed the impact climate change could have on the sports world.