Cell Phone Recycler Talks Trash

By Felicia Russell

Tall and slim, wearing a dark, double-breasted suit, Peter Schindler casually fingered his black Motorola Moto Razr V3 cell phone—which PCMag.com calls "the ultimate see-and-be-seen phone for style mavens who don't care about price."

"For me, I'm very simplistic about phones; I'd like not to own one," said Schindler, 31.

Not one to pass on an opportunity, however, Schindler saw a chance to capitalize on the popularity and perceived disposability of cell phones, and at the same time, do something positive for the environment and community.

CEO and founder of The Wireless Alliance Peter Schindler (Photo/TWA)

Four years ago, Schindler founded The Wireless Alliance (TWA), which has recently partnered with the University of Colorado at Boulder to collect used cell phones. The phones will be sold for parts or refurbishing, and a portion of the money earned will be donated to charities and student groups.

Although he employs just three other men, Schindler says he has big dreams for the future. "I would like to have our 'recycle your wireless phone' logo on the back of every phone with our 1-866 number on there," Schindler says.

The Wireless Alliance's "Recycle your wireless phone" logo (Image/TWA)

He has yet to splash his logo across the back of cell phones everywhere, but it is popping up on the CU campus.

The campus cell phone recycling effort, which is being led by the university's recycling director, Jack DeBell, began in late February with a 3-foot-tall plastic box. This box, bearing TWA's logo, has been placed in the University Memorial Center to encourage students to collect their old phones and donate them to the charity or student group of the month.

Profits from the first round of recycled cell phones will go to the Emergency Family Assistance Association, a Boulder-based group that provides emergency assistance for people struggling to pay housing, utilities and other necessary expenses. DeBell says he hopes that the association's high profile will stimulate interest among other non-profits in the community.

While DeBell says he doesn't really know Schindler, he is optimistic about the program.

"The one time that I visited Peter's Boulder location, I was impressed with the flurry of activity. It reminded me of our offices here. There was a sense of urgency, of excitement, and of potential," DeBell said.

Indeed, Schindler seems to be a font of energy and enthusiasm.

"I first went door to door literally asking my neighbors for their old phones. On my old street—Kohler Drive—I got about 1.8 phones per household. If you multiply this by the number of households using wireless phones, you get between 700 million to 1 billion out-of-use handsets in the United States alone," he said.

Schindler officially started TWA in January 2002. His first client was Midwest Wireless, a cell phone provider that serves people in Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin.

TWA placed drop boxes in Midwest Wireless stores where customers could recycle their old phones.

"We're quite pleased with his performance and use him as our sole source of liquidation and recycling," said Tim Johnson, the Product Distribution Supervisor for Midwest Wireless.

Although he couldn't put a number on it, Johnson estimated that the recycling program has raised "hundreds of thousands of dollars," which the company then donates to non-profits like United Way and the American Cancer Society.

Johnson said that TWA is an extension of Schindler's personal values, and that it "stands for what he stands for."

"Peter is, among other things, extremely helpful. He is the type of person who will go out of his way to make things happen for you," says Johnson. "He is a generous person with his time and resources."

TWA has also developed a postage-paid mail-back program to encourage people to recycle cell phones they've stashed in drawers and closets. Midwest Wireless and KALW radio in Schindler's hometown of San Francisco are both using the mailing program.

Schindler says he comes from a long line of inventors including his mother, Anita, who developed Brainwash, which he says is the first café-laundromat in San Francisco, and his father, Robert, who retired from the University of California at San Francisco after a career spent advancing cochlear implant technology, which can help some deaf people hear.

Schindler recalls having always had a passion for art and music. He studied art history as a student at CU. After graduating in 1996, Schindler spent a brief time in his home state of California before returning to Colorado to work in the music industry. He worked for a Boulder company that managed the Greyboy Allstars, a band out of San Diego whose music can be heard in the film Zero Effect.

"Then after a while the music industry didn't pay for what it required. So, I got into cell phones. Once I realized the value of used phones and the good I could do by collecting them for donation—environmental reasons, etcetera—I went with that," Schindler said.

According to Schindler, his "stab at the American Dream" has been successful. Although he refused to say what his profits were in 2005, Schindler says that the money generated from selling the collected cell phones to be melted down or refurbished totaled as much as $4.2 million one year. The average inflow, he says, is about $3 million per year.

TWA pays part of that money back to its partners, who can earn 5 cents to more than $75 a phone, but tend to average $2 per phone, says Schindler. He declined to say what percentage of TWA's income is paid back to charities, but says his clients are happy.

"Generally, we like to give back 20 percent of the collection total at the end as a bonus. It is a strategy that has separated me from my competitors when dealing with non-profits," Schindler said. "They love it."

While he wouldn't say if TWA is out of the red and making a profit, records from his 2005 divorce suggest that the company is still in debt. Both he and his ex-wife were responsible for paying up to $100,000 towards the company's debt.

Nestled beside the Avery Brewery in a small warehouse in East Boulder, operating with only four sets of hands, TWA is earning enough to pay Schindler what he calls a "modest" income. According to his divorce records, that totaled $100,776 in 2005.

If trends in the wireless industry continue as they have in recent years, TWA faces a bright financial future.

Over the last 20 years, the number of wireless subscribers in the United States has risen from about 203,600 people to nearly 195 million people, according to the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association.

Cell phones have become a valuable tool in American society. However, wireless companies in the United States commonly mark down new cell phones and include the cost in their wireless plan, which makes them appear cheaper than they really are. This also makes them seem more disposable in the eyes of consumers.

In fact, most phones are only used for 18 months before being replaced with newer models, according to a study by Inform Inc., called "Waste in the Wireless World." The high turnover of phones in the United States is generating an estimated 130 million cell phones or 65,000 tons of waste per year.

Many of these phones wind up in landfills where they can become an environmental hazard. Like other electronic equipment, or e-waste, cell phones contain a number of heavy metals that could leach out and contaminate ground water.

A 2004 EPA-sponsored study found that nearly three-quarters of the 38 cell phones tested released enough lead to be considered toxic waste by the government when exposed to landfill-like conditions. Timothy G. Townsend, an associate professor in environmental engineering at the University of Florida, led the study.

"They (the public) should not be concerned about any grave threat to the environment by disposal of (cell phones) in modern lined landfills," Townsend wrote in an e-mail. "But, it is certainly understandable to in general be concerned where wastes that contain toxic chemicals are disposed and whether we should be finding alternatives to toxic chemicals in our products and whether we should do more to recycle them."

At TWA, the two men who do the grunt work of recycling have the task of disassembling cell phones. They check to see that the phone works, erase the memory, take out the batteries, and grind up the sim card, which contains personal information like calendars and friends' phone numbers.

Phones that can be resold are carefully catalogued and sorted into storage bins. Those phones that have become obsolete are tossed into a cavernous box containing thousands of other rejected phones.

Schindler's recycling box of 1990s behemoths will be sent to Reldan Metals Inc., where the phones will be shredded and processed to collect metals like gold, platinum, lead, silver and palladium.

According to Schindler, one ton of ancient cell phones might yield $4,000 to $5,000 in precious metals including gold, platinum, silver and palladium, as well as copper and lead. The metals extracted from cell phones might be used to make CDs, underwire bras, drills, tire irons, sandals, remote control cars, even singing bass trophies, says Schindler.

He estimates that 40 percent of the more than 20,000 phones that TWA collected in February went straight to the recycle box. The newer models in Schindler's warehouse are sold each month to companies that refurbish the phones and resell them to customers using a prepaid wireless service.

Schindler doesn't see the market slowing any time in the near future.

"I hope that I can continue this business of recycling and keep it changing like a chameleon with the technology," Schindler said. "I hope to educate as many people as possible about the right thing to do with their phones."

Forest Service plan would sell prime recreational land near Boulder

By Karen Romer

Looking west from Wendy Redal's backyard, the snow-covered slopes of Eldora Ski Area come into view. The pine and fir covered face of Mount Pisgah lies to the southwest and the brown slopes of Sugarloaf Mountain to the north.

The beautiful, unobstructed views from her home in the Sugar Loaf community are what first attracted Redal and her husband to this area. But the views may not be unobstructed for long under a federal plan to sell public land.

"You just don't expect that the public land around you might be sold," Redal said.

Hundreds of acres of public land could be sold near Sugarloaf Mountain (Photo/Wendy Worrall Redal)

Redal's home sits on a long, skinny strip of land sandwiched between two parcels of adjacent Roosevelt National Forest. If the Bush administration's proposal to sell 300,000 acres of U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service land is passed, about 720 acres in the Sugar Loaf community may be on the chopping block, including the open space next to Redal's home.

Each of the Forest Service's nine regional offices were notified by the Washington D.C. office to select parcels of land that are isolated, difficult and expensive to manage, said John Bustos Jr., public affairs officer for the Forest Service's Rocky Mountain Regional Office.

Bustos cited another item on the list of criteria – parcels that are surrounded by private land. Public and private lands are often intermixed in national forests, which makes them more difficult to manage and gives rise to access issues, Bustos said. This criterion fits the Sugar Loaf community's layout.

Residents, recreational groups, land planning organizations and Boulder County Commissioners strongly oppose the Forest Service's proposal. At question is why certain lands in Boulder County, which have obvious recreational and scenic value and are important wildlife and access areas, have been singled out and what will happen to these lands if the proposal goes through.

The Bush administration hopes to raise $800 million by selling isolated parcels of national forest land, which will be used to fund rural schools and county road projects nationwide. Set to expire Sept. 30, 2006, President Bush's proposed 2007 budget would extend the Secure Rural and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000 for another five years.

The Rural Schools Act offsets some of the financial burdens that rural counties face due to decreased federal timber sales. Historically these counties received a cut of timber sale profits and have come to rely on federal subsidies to fund rural school and road projects.

In Colorado, more than 23,000 acres in 11 national forests are being considered. Of the 137,000 acres in Roosevelt and Arapaho National Forests in Boulder County, 2,300 acres or 1.7 percent would be sold, according to Mike Johnson, lands and mineral specialist with the Boulder Ranger District.

About 600 residents live in the Sugar Loaf community, which is located in the foothills several miles west of Boulder and covers 19 square miles of forested land that is sprinkled with homes.

"There are a couple of mountain subdivisions, but most people in this area live on several acres of land," Redal said.

Land in the Sugar Loaf community is more fragmented than any other area managed by the Boulder Ranger District, according to the Forest Service's land and resource management website.

"So what they're saying, that it is really fragments of public land, is true," said Redal, noting that this may be one reason why so many acres in the Sugar Loaf area have been singled out.

Redal and her husband own three acres, a long, thin stretch of land about 150 feet wide that is a former mining claim. Many of her neighbors' homes are similarly situated.

The Redal family's home sits amid fragmented parcels of public and private land (Photo/Wendy Worrall Redal)

"It's an old land-use layout in terms of the mixture of private and public lands," Redal said.

"It's true that there's a focus on former mining claims or strips," said Pat Shanks, chairman of PLAN-Boulder County, a nonprofit political action group in Boulder. Perhaps these strips have a little less value to the Forest Service in terms of pristine open space, Shanks said.

Thousands of former mining claims dot the mountains west of Boulder. Under the Mining Act of 1872, prospectors who discovered gold and other valuable surface minerals could stake claims for these deposits and buy the land for $2.50 or $5.00 an acre. Many small mining towns, including Ward, Magnolia and Sugar Loaf, sprung up in Colorado as a result. Many of these former mining claims are now privately owned.

Bob Ruston, a long-time resident of the Sugar Loaf community, calls these former mining claims "picnic spots." These strips of land, which range in shape from rectangular to long, skinny stretches, and are a good place to get out of your car, spread a blanket and have a picnic on a beautiful summer day, Ruston said.

In 1968 Ruston bought three acres from a friend and built his first home here. Several years after moving to the Sugar Loaf area Ruston discovered Dream Canyon.

"It just knocked my socks off," said Ruston, recalling seeing Dream Canyon for the first time. "It's so vast and crennelated."

Dream Canyon, a popular rock-climbing area above Boulder Falls, is slated to be sold by the Forest Service (Photo/Rockclimbing.com)

Dream Canyon is one of the parcels currently proposed for sale by the Forest Service.

The Dream Canyon trailhead is a 5-minute walk from Redal's home and a short distance from Ruston's place. Ruston owns three plots of land, two of which lie several hundred feet uphill from North Boulder Creek, which winds through the steep canyon walls of Dream Canyon before cascading down Boulder Falls where it meets Middle Boulder Creek.

Tucked just off Boulder Canyon, Dream Canyon has numerous bolted routes and steep granite buttresses that make it a popular climbing area. Ruston has talked to climbers ranging from adventurous youths to spry retirees who come to Dream Canyon from as far away as Europe and Asia.
"Often on the 4th of July there are about 200 people (at Dream Canyon), Ruston said.

The Access Fund, a Boulder-based organization committed to maintaining and preserving public rock climbing sites, has identified Dream Canyon and Bell Buttress, a towering wall located just beyond Boulder Falls, on Forest Service maps. In their letter to the Forest Service, the Access Fund requested that any parcels used for climbing, biking, hiking and other recreational purposes be taken off the list. The organization cited the Forest Service's proposal as a short-term fix that would take thousands of acres of recreational lands and natural areas out of the public's hands.

Like Dream Canyon, several of the identified parcels are located within 'high-use recreation areas,' according to the Forest Service's website. These include Eldora Ski Area and Boulder Creek, Caribou and Sugar Loaf geographic areas.

Two 240-acre parcels in the Sugar Loaf community are located in the Boulder Falls vicinity, which is designated as a critical wildlife corridor and an environmental conservation area under Boulder County's Comprehensive Plan.

Just one and one-half miles past Boulder Falls along the cliffs of Boulder Canyon is golden eagle territory. Golden eagles nest in the upper cliffs of several popular rock climbing areas, including Eagle Rock, Security Risk and Blob Rock.

Other areas in Boulder County are also targeted. Four parcels are located in the Magnolia Road area south of Boulder Creek, a popular mountain biking trail and an important migration corridor for elk that winter in the area. Another parcel is located in Eldora near one of the entrances to the Indian Peaks Wilderness. And several parcels abut land crossed by the Peak-to-Peak Highway and Caribou Ranch Open Space.

Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo., introduced a bill in May 2005, H.R. 2110, to protect the 'open space characteristics' of lands in and adjacent to Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests along Colorado's Front Range. The bill is now undergoing hearings and testimony in the U.S. House of Representatives.

In the bill Rep. Udall outlines several key reasons why land along Colorado's Front Range needs to be protected. First, lands in and adjacent to Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests provide important wildlife habitat and numerous recreational opportunities. In addition, these open spaces are vital to Colorado's communities, not only for their scenic beauty, but also for their economic impact. As the population continues to grow along the Front Range and more land is lost to development, open space in Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests will be increasingly used for recreational purposes.

Determining which parcels are on the Forest Service's proposed list is challenging.

"They (Boulder Ranger District) weren't being uncooperative, but they weren't going out of their way to tell us where those parcels were," Shanks said.

So PLAN-Boulder County made their own maps based on data they downloaded from the Forest Service's website. These maps, which are posted on PLAN-Boulder County's website, list the location, size and significance of the public lands in Boulder County.

"In terms of actual boundaries, it's been hard to figure out," said Redal, explaining that she had trouble using the mapping program on the Forest Service's website and difficulty locating the parcels within the Sugar Loaf community.

The act of selling public lands to fund a federal program has been sharply criticized by citizens in Boulder County and politicians at local, state and national levels.

Sens. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., and Ken Salazar, D-Colo., both oppose the Bush administration's plan to sell public lands to fund a federal program.

"I continue to be very concerned about the Administration's proposal to sell off pieces of America's permanent heritage of public lands as part of a short-term budget issue," said Sen. Salazar in a press release issued Mar. 29, 2006.

Sens. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., coauthors of the Secure Rural and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000, introduced legislation to reinstate the program at its current funding level without resorting to land sales.

Boulder County Commissioners Ben Pearlman, Tom Mayer and Will Toor cited the proposal as being fiscally irresponsible in their letter to Dale Bosworth, forest service chief. 'The federal government has an obligation to live within its means, not sell off a permanent public asset to pay current operating costs of government.'

There is also widespread disapproval among citizens, politicians and local organizations about the Forest Service's process for selecting which public lands would be sold.

The regional offices received quick directions and very little input about how to go about the process, said Jim Maxwell, media relations officer for the Forest Service's Rocky Mountain Regional Office.

"Our lands people at the regional office sat down with maps and determined where isolated and scattered parcels are located in relation to forest service lands," Maxwell said. "Our people were only given a few days to do that."

Maxwell agrees that there's been a lot of controversy over the proposed bill.

"It's facing a very uncertain future," he said.

Agricultural Undersecretary Rey contends that the Rural Schools Act was never meant to be permanent. Legislation was passed to help rural counties transition from relying on federal timber sales to finding other economic sources to generate revenues. Rey estimates that the Forest Service will only have to sell about 175,000 acres out of the proposed 300,000 acres to meet its goal of $800 million.

The first cut of national forest lands proposed for sale was included in the President's Feb. 2006 budget proposal and published in the Federal Registry on Feb. 25, 2006. A public comment period, originally set from Feb. 28 to Mar. 30, was recently extended until May 1 to give the public an additional month to comment on the controversial proposal.

"So far we have received around 4,000 comments," said Undersecretary Rey during a telenews conference with the press on Mar. 29, 2006.

Though Rey didn't know the exact breakdown of the letters, he estimated that at least three-fourths of the letters are against the proposal.

"Lots of people we're hoping will comment on specific parcels," said Maxwell so the Forest Service can revisit the list and make necessary changes.

After the comment period ends, the Forest Service will take the comments they receive into consideration while forming their final list. If Congress approves the proposal, they will get very specific about how many parcels will be sold and the method in which they will be sold, Maxwell explained.

The Boulder Ranger District will not speculate on how the Forest Service would implement the proposal until it is given that authority by Congress. Based on the proposal submitted to Congress, the Forest Service would complete an environmental analysis, Johnson said. An environmental analysis is used to learn about important issues and concerns, find alternatives for completing the project and determine the environmental impacts of those alternatives.

It's uncertain exactly how the land would be sold, though the Forest Service says that the parcels would be sold at fair market value as required by law. Fair market value is determined through an appraisal process based on the value of similar properties.

Historically the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management have conveyed lands that are difficult or uneconomical to manage through land exchanges rather than sales, according to the Colorado Bureau of Land Management's website.

Under the Bush administration's proposal, this policy would change. Not only would it be more difficult for Boulder County to acquire open space through land swaps, selling national forest lands would result in fragmented ownership patterns – something Boulder Parks and Open Space has worked for years to correct.

Based on a Resource Management Plan/Environmental Impact Statement completed in 1986, Boulder County Commissioners decided it was in the county's best interest to acquire all lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management. As Boulder County's population continues to grow and push outwards toward the foothills, the county must deal with increased residential development, right-of-way issues and pending Recreation and Public Purposes Act applications.

The Recreation and Public Purposes Act, administered by the Bureau of Land Management, authorizes state and local governments to purchase land at low costs for recreational and public purposes. Under the act, government entities can purchase up to 640 acres per year for recreational uses, such as parks and campgrounds, and another 640 acres for public purposes, such as municipal facilities and schools.

The Bureau of Land Management has agreed to several land exchanges with Boulder County, which involves small tracts of land, namely old mining claims, being exchanged for lands that benefit the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management. Land exchanges and private conservation easements have created more cohesive patterns of ownership and improved Boulder County's ability to effectively manage its open space program.

During the first exchange, which took place in March 2003, Boulder County acquired 705 acres of public land and the federal government received two parcels, a 165-acre parcel in Boulder County and a 484-acre parcel in Teller County.

In the Forest Service's Feb. 28, 2006 posting on the Federal Register, the Forest Service admits that it hasn't surveyed many of the selected parcels for 'natural or cultural resources specific to this proposal.' This raises the question of who would be responsible for surveying and assessing the land if it's sold.

Ruston estimates it would cost around $100,000 to $200,000 just to survey the land around his place. The Forest Service could send out their own surveying team to each identified parcel, but that process could take years, Ruston said. Instead Ruston surmises the Forest Service will probably leave the surveying process up to the prospective property owner.

"If they do a slipshod job and just draw lines on the map, they'll leave it up to the person who buys it," Ruston said.

This could be an expensive task. While Boulder County Commissioners paid for the surveying and appraisal costs under its land exchange agreement with the Bureau of Land Management, it would be far too expensive for the county to purchase isolated parcels of Forest Service lands at fair market value, especially if appraisal costs are heaped on.

The Boulder County Commissioners stated in their letter to Forest Service Chief Bosworth that working with the federal government to preserve open space through land swaps is an inefficient process. 'The costs of closing on federal land, including survey and appraisal costs, will significantly reduce any return to the Federal treasury,' the Boulder County Commissioners stated in their letter.

Since the passage of the Rural Schools Act in 1999, $1.9 billion of federal funds have been allocated to eligible counties. By 2013, the only guaranteed payments that these counties would receive would be 25 percent of timber sales from forest revenues. The payments will be capped, gradually adjusted downwards over the next five years and phased out by 2013, according to information on the Forest Service's website.

During 2000 to 2006 allocated funds were distributed to counties where Forest Service lands are located. If the Rural Schools Act is extended, these payments would instead go to counties that have been most affected by reduced timber sales.

Though Forest Service lands in Colorado would account for 7.2 percent of the proposed 300,000 acres, only 1.67 percent of the allocated funds would reach the state. And Boulder County wouldn't receive any of these funds.

If the public land next to Redal's home were sold, the property value of her home would decrease. But Redal isn't bothered so much about this aspect. Her main concern is that she'd lose the open space surrounding her home and the beautiful views she loves.

"So this is what President Bush wants to sell – negligible pieces of land with no scenic value," said Redal, with irony in her voice while gazing upward at the steep, creviced walls of Dream Canyon.

Law Seminar to Colorado Plateau Leaves Fellows Spellbound

By Wendy Worrall Redal

On a cool March night atop Black Mesa, a fire crackled against the dark sky. To a circle of rapt listeners, Vernon Masayesva recounted Hopi legends while his guests ate the thin, parchment-like bread traditionally served to visitors, made from blue corn and soot. Every so often his cousin Jerry would stir the fire, sending sparks swirling up around Vernon's head, rising toward the stars above.

The mesa, the guests learned, is the center of the earth for the Hopi people who have lived there for hundreds of years. Beneath it lies a breathing aquifer, drawing in rain and snow and exhaling it in the form of springs. The springs are breathing holes, passageways from the mesa's surface to Paatuuwaqatsi, the sacred water world below.

Out here on the Hopi Reservation, high atop the Colorado Plateau in northern Arizona, Don Hopey was a long way from his Pittsburgh home, where he is the environment reporter for the Post-Gazette. Here, he was a student, and Masayesva was his teacher for the evening.

Don Hopey in Jackass Canyon (Photo/Greg Stahl)

As president of the Black Mesa Trust, Masayesva heads an organization whose mission is to "safeguard, preserve and honor the land and water of Black Mesa." The trust was formed in 1999 by the Hopi people in response to the damage that extensive water withdrawals by the Peabody Coal Company have caused to the Navajo Aquifer beneath Hopi and Navajo lands on the mesa. For nearly 30 years Peabody had been pumping 3.3 million gallons of water a day for its coal slurry operation, causing wells and washes to run dry and ancient springs to vanish, threatening the life and culture of the mesa's inhabitants.

While the Black Mesa Trust relies also on Western science and technology to educate people about environmental impacts, traditional Hopi stories are part of the truth the Trust seeks to impart. For Hopey and the others gathered round the fire, there was power in such poetry.

"It was a magical experience," Hopey said, recalling that night.

As a Ted Scripps Fellow, Hopey visited Black Mesa as part of an 8-day trip around the Colorado Plateau that he and two other fellows participated in during spring break at the University of Colorado. The field tour was a class unlike any other: officially titled Seminar in Advanced Natural Resource Law, the course covered some 2,000 miles of desert, canyon, mountain and mesa while educating students about a range of issues including water, energy, grazing, mining and tribal concerns.

"It was the absolute highlight of the fellowship," said Bebe Crouse, previously National Public Radio's environment editor in Washington, D.C., a position that included a focus on the West.

"No question," Hopey agreed.

Bebe Crouse captures the sounds of the high desert (Photo/Greg Stahl)

Greg Stahl, on leave from the Idaho Mountain Express in Sun Valley where he is the public land and environment reporter, rounded out the Scripps Fellows contingent. The fellows joined 13 CU law students and Professor Charles Wilkinson for the grand high-country loop that took them to Durango, Mexican Hat, Lake Powell, Cedar Mesa, Window Rock, the Grand Canyon, Paria Plateau and Jackass Canyon before returning to Boulder.

Greg Stahl surveys the Colorado Plateau

Wilkinson, who is a Distinguished Professor of Law at CU and an expert on natural resource and public lands issues, has been leading the field seminar for ____ years.

Wilkinson himself is nearly as charismatic a draw as the Plateau's enticing landscapes, according to his students. Typically found in jeans and cowboy boots, admired for his integrity and beloved for his sharp good humor, Wilkinson is the antithesis of the uptight lawyer. His lectures are more captivating narrative than legalese, and the wide-open spaces of the Plateau are a suitably appropriate setting for his teaching.

"Charles Wilkinson's field classes are legendary," said Crouse, who had heard of the professor before arriving at CU to begin her fellowship.

Like Crouse, Hopey was impressed with past fellows' recommendations of his introductory course on natural resources law. After taking that class with her and Stahl during the fall semester, he jumped at the chance to visit the Plateau with Wilkinson.

"He's someone who has a reputation and knowledge of this area that's unparalleled," Hopey said. "Every day on this field tour he gave us these gifts of expertise – from meetings with tribal leaders to out-of-the-way places like Jackass Canyon where tourists never go…His enthusiasm for the subject is infectious."

"He's so completely passionate about this place," said Crouse.

For Stahl, study in the field brought issues alive in a way that doesn't happen in the confines of a classroom.

"There's nothing like cementing textbook reading by seeing what's happening on the ground, " said Stahl. "I can't overstate how much the trip helped me more fully understand the issues we discussed in the seminar."

"It makes everything more real," Crouse agreed, who was able to see places she had assigned stories on yet had never been to, such as Black Mesa and the Navajo Reservation.

Stahl found the camaraderie with the other students equally absorbing. "The classroom atmosphere is sometimes stifling, and it was really nice to get to know people on a more personal level. And that, of course, leads to a freer exchange of ideas."

Given the logistics of the trip, it was inevitable the students would get to know one another well. The group of 17 drove together from Boulder in Wilkinson's SUV, a pick-up truck and several Subarus, staying en route at motels where they sometimes had to share beds, given tight space and a tight budget.

While some of the time they were inside listening to PowerPoint presentations by officials, most of the learning took place outdoors amid the remarkable geological and cultural features of the Plateau.

A moving experience for Crouse was exploring Moon House on Utah's remote Cedar Mesa. The group walked in to the ancient Puebloan ruin with archaeologists and a BLM administrator, and it was "as if we'd discovered it," she said.

"It was a spectacularly beautiful place, even without the ruins," said Crouse, describing the water that had spilled down the face of the slick rock and frozen, leaving icy waterfalls on the stone walls. "It was a really magical, spiritual feeling in there."

The fellows also reveled in hikes up Utah's Dirty Devil River and into Jackass Canyon, which were no small adventures.

The group's guide from the Glen Canyon Institute said, "We're gonna take this little hike – your feet might get a little wet," Crouse said, describing the Dirty Devil trip. They ended up forging their way upstream, pushing against the current, the water above their knees. The reward was an excursion into a maze of swirling slickrock and crenellated canyon walls.

Jackass Canyon was equally dramatic.

Hopey recounted the descent, accompanied by a learned naturalist, into the narrow slot canyon that plummets to the Colorado River on the floor of the Grand Canyon below.

"We had to negotiate these huge rocks that had tumbled down between the canyon walls, which were 150 to 200 feet high."

Stahl reflected that "while the educational parts of the trip were enlightening," it was during such recreational outings that the group really bonded, tossing ideas around in a casual atmosphere while sharing the majesty of the Plateau's natural marvels.

All three fellows concurred that the field tour provided experiences that will transform them as journalists.

Stahl, who is returning to Idaho, comes away with deeper insight into the resource and tribal issues that comprise a fair portion of his beat. There are implications from the Southern Ute water rights issues he studied on the trip, including the massive Animas La Plata dam project, that are significant for his coverage of the Nez Perce and Shoshone-Bannock reservations.

Crouse, too, said she understands "a lot more of the complexities of tribal issues" as a result of her exposure to Wilkinson's classes and the in-person meetings with tribal leaders during the tour.

Especially with regard to water and energy issues, "the tribes are players now," said Hopey. "The energy resources they have on the reservations has given them the power to be players," and that adds a whole new layer in need of understanding, the fellows have come to recognize.

"It's hard to get really good, deep coverage" of the tribes, said Crouse, who appreciates the challenges created by the "cultural divide." "It's a very delicate, difficult little dance," she said, acknowledging she is now more empathetic to reporters who are trying to cover tribal issues.

She also found the field tour helpful context for her fellowship project, a study of the future of ranching in the West. While her focus has been Montana, Wyoming, Oregon and Washington, she said it was illuminating to "go down and look at the places where they are trying to graze cattle" in the Southwest, where water is actually piped in to sustain the herds.

For Hopey, the exposure to mining issues was most relevant. In Pittsburgh, he is far removed from many Western concerns such as grazing permits and arcane water law, but coal mining in particular is a big story in western Pennsylvania.

"My mining stuff is going to be very much impacted" by the fellowship, Hopey said. He is currently working on a coal mining story that takes off from Vernon's campfire oration, discussing the recent shutdown of the Mojave generating plant and resulting closure of Peabody's Black Mesa Mine.

And there were other unexpected connections on the Colorado Plateau with Hopey's life back in Pittsburgh. As the students were entering the Navajo Council Chambers for a presentation, he spotted a guy with two long braids who happened to be wearing a Steelers tie. Instant bond. Hopey discovered that the fellow fan, a Navajo named Frank Seanez, grew up in Pittsburgh and was now an attorney for the Navajo Nation, representing the tribe from its headquarters in Window Rock.

On the Colorado Plateau, modernity is interwoven with timelessness. Science complements myth in a quest to preserve natural resources and ancient ways of life. Policy both protects, and potentially threatens, vulnerable landscapes. These and other lessons the Fellows learned in their sojourn through the pink sandstone and cobalt skies of this vast high desert. While the land may have appeared parched and tormented, beneath their feet streams breathed, and springs bubbled sacred secrets to the surface.

CU scientist says journalists doing better job covering climate change

By Wendy Worrall Redal

In the Spring 2006 issue of SEJournal, published by the Society of Environmental Journalists, Paul Thacker interviews New York Times climate reporter Andrew Revkin to find out how he thinks the media has covered climate change and what advice for future stories he has to offer. In a similar vein, CEJ News/Views posed those questions to University of Colorado climate scientist Jim White. Here's our story:

One of the great credos of journalism is to seek balance in a story, to cover "both sides." But reporters' dogged tendency to do so on the issue of a human role in global warming has had a detrimental impact on the public's understanding of the subject, say many scientists who criticize media coverage of climate change.

They claim that in this case, giving equal weight to the opposition – the few remaining skeptics with questionable credibility – skews the accuracy of the story by ignoring the broad scientific consensus around a human link.

Fortunately, however, news coverage is improving, said Jim White, a geologist at the University of Colorado at Boulder who studies the role of greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere, and the causes of abrupt climate change. His research has taken him on many trips to Antarctica and Greenland where he collects ice cores that show climate evolution over time. By melting the samples, scientists are able to analyze the atmospheric gas composition that can cause climate to shift.

CU Professor Jim White in his Boulder office (Photo/ Wendy Worrall Redal)

White, who directed CU's Environmental Studies Program until 2005, regards the role of journalism as crucial in helping to foster effective national policy about climate change. He has been actively involved on the CU campus in furthering dialogue between scientists and journalists aimed at creating better public understanding of the issue.

In just the last year White said he has noticed a significant shift in media coverage of the subject.

"The reporting is better because I don't see the 'other side' anymore."

Making an analogy with another topic once vehemently contested in the media, White said, "We've reached the 'cigarettes cause cancer' point; we don't call the tobacco companies for quotes anymore."

White also identified a second major shift that is getting media attention.

"There have been real cracks in the walls of the climate naysaying community" as skeptics are being converted by mounting evidence in the past five years, White said. Trying to further a defense against global warming is becoming an increasingly lonely mission, and journalists are recognizing that.

"As a scientist, it's laughable," said White. "How can you defend against reality?"

One reality that has captured journalists' attention is sea-level rise. White said he has seen a notable increase in coverage of the subject in the past six months, especially with regard to Antarctica's melting ice sheets.

"It's finally one of those things the press is covering and people are beginning to recognize it's a big problem."

The last time the Earth was as warm as predictions indicate it will be 50 years from now was 140,000 years ago, said White. At that time, the sea level was three meters higher than it is now, putting Baton Rouge on the coast and making Orlando a port city.

White also said Hurricane Katrina has been a major influence on the press's new focus. While it's impossible to say conclusively that global warming is to blame for Katrina's strength, White said, the storm was nonetheless a huge catalyst for a growing press interest in warming and rising seas and their effects.

"I've come to appreciate the power of these seminal events," White said. "These are galvanizing events that focus people's attention on the problems."

He also recognizes that the public is better able to grasp something concrete than the uncertainty inherent in the science around climate change. Especially with regard to predicting what may lay ahead, White said, "It's very difficult to portray the needed nuances in future climate." Yet it is a crucial task for journalists.

"The word 'global warming' has been a very effective rallying tool," said White, "but warming isn't the biggest concern, not by far." At issue are likely to be "changes in rainfall patterns and whether we can grow enough food," as well as what he calls "the two big ugly issues in the future": sea-level rise and abrupt climate change.

"The public does not recognize the non-linear element in climate change. They can't comprehend the possibility of a 10-15 degree centigrade change in their lifetime." Yet evidence of non-linear climate alteration is starting to appear.

White is seeing it in his own realm of study. "The glacier [research] community is now recognizing that these big ice sheets like Antarctica and Greenland have very non-linear behavior."

Warming temperatures are melting Antarctica's ice shelves, spawning massive icebergs (Photo/Josh Landis, National Science Foundation)

"To expect climate to behave in steady, predictable ways is nuts," White said. "That doesn't mean we lack predictability -- preferred states -- but the jet stream can change, and it does…the climate comfort zone is going to be invaded."

How can journalists convey an understanding of that concept to the public? White isn't averse to using elements that people can grasp and relate to, like vanishing sea ice and what that means for polar bear habitat and survival.
"Scientists miss that, " White said. "Many of my colleagues complain that it's all about polar bears -- it is all about polar bears, it's all about seals. You use the ammunition you have."

"The media has an extremely important role over the next two decades in helping to get a clear message to the public. That's beginning to happen."

Ultimately, said White, "We need a partnership between media, scientists and political leaders to deal with sustainability" of the global environment.

"Climate is only one issue that will challenge us. We have to deal with water, pollution, overpopulation, nutrients that will sustain us…" While potential crises "sound far off in the future," according to White, the rate and scale of human environmental impact is "exponential." And people don't get that, which is what worries him.

At the heart of the matter is the ethical concern for future generations, White said, which is lacking.

Threatened polar bears have become a powerful symbol of the consequences of global warming (Photo/Dan Crosbie, Environment Canada)

"We're like a 10-year-old with our foot on the gas pedal, but we can't see over the steering wheel. You just hope you don't hit a tree."

In order "to go into the future with foresight and knowledge, not haphazardly," said White, it's going to take a concerted joint effort, one in which journalists play a key part.

"We need a partnership between those of us who study the problems, between those who take the message to the public, and policymakers who have to make decisions," he said.

White said the press must "keep a long-term role in investigating," to be a "gadfly…to make sure scientists and politicians are not trying to pull the wool over our eyes." At the same time, White challenges his scientist colleagues to understand better "the world of the media, what journalists are up against." He lauds programs like CU's Center for Environmental Journalism, which is dedicated to improving reporting on environmental science and fostering better communication between scientists and the press.

Only with such a focus can society begin to define solutions for a sustainable future, said White. "The time frame between when we realize we have a problem and when we need to find a solution" has been collapsed, he contends, and it's up to journalists to help get that word out.

"The press has an obligation to recognize that we are in a very important transition in the human occupation of the planet," said White. "We can't consider ourselves passive riders on Spaceship Earth. We're not passengers, we're drivers…We need to decide soon where we're going to go."

Meet the 2006-07 Ted Scripps Fellows

Five journalists have been selected as 2006-07 Ted Scripps Fellows in Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

The fellowships, now in their tenth year, are hosted by the Center for Environmental Journalism and funded through a grant from the Scripps Howard Foundation. The nine-month program offers mid-career journalists an opportunity to deepen their understanding of environmental issues and policy through coursework, seminars and field trips in the region.

Meet the new Fellows:

• Jerd Smith is an environment reporter for the Rocky Mountain News in Denver and specializes in water and drought issues. She led a team of journalists who covered the science, money, politics and ecology of water in Colorado from 2002 to 2005. The team won several awards, including the Wirth Chair Media Award for Environmental Coverage. Before working at the Rocky, Smith was the business editor at the Boulder Daily Camera, a business reporter and editor for the Denver Business Journal and a reporter and assistant editor for the Colorado Daily.
  
  
• Anne Raup is the assistant photo editor for the Anchorage Daily News. As a photographer and as part of editing teams, Raup has earned several photojournalism awards, including the University of Missouri's Best Use of Photography 2000 award. Raup has also worked as a staff photographer for the Anchorage Daily News and as the photo editor and a staff photographer for the Standard Examiner in Ogden, Utah.
  
  
• Anne Keala Kelly is a Hawaii-based freelance journalist and regular radio correspondent for Independent Native News and Free Speech Radio News. She has written for a number of print publications including the Honolulu Weekly and Indian Country Today. Her work focuses on the experiences and perspectives of native Hawaiians. Kelly was awarded the Native American Journalists Association's Best Feature Story 2005 award for her radio program "Native Hawaiians Losing Their Land."
  
  
• Leslie Dodson is a freelance television correspondent who has worked as a reporter, correspondent, anchor, on-air editor, producer and writer for a number of broadcast companies including CNBC, Reuters and CNN. She has been stationed all over the world: in Atlanta, Tokyo, London, New York and in six Latin American countries. Dobson's award-winning work has focused on international business and economic news and regularly has drawn connections between business and the environment.
  
  
• Bruce Barcott is a contributing editor for Outside magazine and regularly writes environmental and adventure features for the magazine. He is also a freelancer. He has written for publications including Harper's, Sports Illustrated, Legal Affairs and the New York Times. The Society of Environmental Journalists awarded his New York Times Magazine article "Up In Smoke" first place for Explanatory Reporting in 2005. He has worked as a staff writer and senior editor for the Seattle Weekly and as a reporter for the trade magazine Investment Dealer's Digest.
  
  

Since 1997, the Scripps Howard Foundation has provided annual grants for its fellowships at CU-Boulder, named for Ted Scripps, grandson of the founder of the E.W. Scripps Co. Ted Scripps distinguished himself as a journalist who cared about First Amendment rights and the environment.

CU Offers New 'Environment, Media & Culture' Class

New for Spring 2006, CU-Boulder students have the opportunity to look critically at media coverage of environmental issues in an interdisciplinary course that examines the intersection of communication and culture with the environment. In an era when environmental policy debates are among the most significant global discussions engaging nations, and in which much of the public gets its knowledge and ideas about environmental issues through media channels, the class explores the key role media institutions play in that arena.

The university has long had a strong reputation for its programs in environmental studies and environmental journalism. Through the former, students study environmental science and policy, while the School of Journalism and Mass Communication offers a master's level specialty in environmental reporting. The new "Environment, Media and Culture" special-topics course (JOUR 4871/ENVS 4100/5100) provides the first media-studies focus on the environment.

Designed and taught by Dr. Wendy Redal, former program coordinator for CU's Center for Environmental Journalism, the course emphasizes the social construction of environmental issues and ideas. "While on one level the environment is a natural, material reality," Redal says, "the way it is understood, interpreted and acted upon is a product of how people think and talk about it, often through media channels."

Students in the class use theories about culture and rhetoric to investigate how environmental stories are told, paying special attention to journalism as well as other forms of popular media such as television and film. Case studies are used to focus inquiry, ranging from old-growth logging in the Pacific Northwest to genetically modified crops to climate change. The course highlights political dimensions of environmental issues, looking at how issues are "framed" by various interests, including industry, activists and government, in order to communicate with strategic effect.

While the course is intended to be of value for any student interested in communication and environmental studies, it is also designed to benefit journalism students by providing an analytical understanding of the media's role in covering the environment. Knowing more from within a theoretical context about the forces and pressures on communicators and audiences alike, journalists can be better prepared to cover environment issues more effectively, Redal says.

She is excited by her students' range of interests, which are evident in the subjects they have chosen for their final research-paper assignment. Asked to investigate a topic that brings together the course emphasis on environment, media and culture, projects include an analysis of the discourse used to market organic, fair-trade coffee; a survey of how the term "junk science" is fought over by competing voices on the global warming issue; rhetorical battles over how wolf reintroduction is framed in Idaho news stories; and scrutiny of way nature is employed and depicted in SUV ads.

For a detailed look at the content of the new course, see the syllabus for Environment, Media and Culture.

Climate Change Could Push Colorado Skiing Downhill

Crawford wrote this story for Tom Yulsman's Science Writing course (JOUR 5812) and it ran in Freeskier Magazine.

By Patrick Crawford

Every spring, when winter loosens its grip on the base of Arapahoe Basin ski area, the parking lot of North America's highest ski area turns into what locals call "the beach." Skiers and boarders still arrive at the ski area early, only instead of jockeying for first chair, they fight for a front-row parking spot at the beach.

By mid-day, an oddball collection of diehard skiers and boarders, frequently clad in shorts and baring their pale winter chests to the spring sun, are a few drinks deep into a massive tailgate party at 10,780 feet. Late in the season, more of the day is reserved for drinking, grilling burgers and playing Frisbee than for skiing. Depending on the year, the scene at the beach gets rolling sometime in mid-April and lasts through the Fourth of July.

Beaching it at A-Basin (Photo/Unknown)

While "the beach" is one of Colorado's great spring traditions, nothing scares the ski industry more than the thought that global warming could make the beach more typical of President's Day than Memorial Day.

With a business that survives on the few degrees of difference between rain and snow, some scientists estimate that Colorado's $2.5 billion-per-year ski industry may be facing a meltdown by the end of the century. But ski areas won't concede defeat. Instead, the state's resort operators are using their unique position as business leaders who sell a healthy environment to fight climate change on multiple fronts.

"In the ski industry, we see this as a global issue," says Melanie Mills, Executive Vice-President of Public Policy for Colorado Ski Country USA. "What we can do is to educate, advocate and implement. In other words, educate the public about the issue, advocate at the legislative level, and implement changes at our own resorts."

For the public, discussions about a few degrees of warming on a global scale may seem esoteric, but for skiers and a massive state industry that survives on Colorado's legendary "champagne powder," climate change is a life and death issue.

Every year evidence that the Earth is experiencing human-caused warming grows. According to a 2001 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a United Nations-sponsored assessment of the state of climate science, the global average temperature has increased about 1.1 degrees Fahrenheit over the last century. The bad news for Colorado's ski industry is that the warming has not been uniform, and the Rocky Mountains have seen a higher-than-average temperature increase.

In September, the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization, a regional environmental group concerned with climate change, released a report that analyzed temperature and snowpack records in five major river basins of the western United States. It found that the upper Colorado River basin, which encompasses much of Colorado's high country, has seen an increase of 2.1 degrees Fahrenheit over the long-term average.

Given current trends, most climate scientists say warming is likely to intensify. Human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide have been on the rise for a century, and with industrialized nations struggling to control their emissions while developing nations burn ever-larger amounts of fossil fuels, the levels of greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere are likely continue to rise along with temperatures through the end of this century, according to the IPCC.

Now scientists are working to understand what that means to people on a local and regional level. A 2004 study by a team of scientists using a climate model developed by the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., estimates that the Colorado River basin will warm by 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit by 2070. The study's authors called this a "best-case scenario," and other models have produced higher estimates. For example, the Canadian Global Coupled Model pegs the increase in the Rocky Mountain and Great Basin region at 5.9 degrees Fahrenheit by 2050. Models like these are used because they successfully predicted observed historical climate changes when scientists ran tests on past scenarios.

One thing all models agree upon is continued warming in the Western U.S., which would cause a shortened snow season.

"Looking forward about 70 years into the future, the runoff will occur about a month earlier, with more rain at the beginning and the end of the winter," says Kevin Trenberth, head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and a lead author for the United Nations' upcoming 2007 IPCC report.

However, scientists insist that long-term climate modeling is complex, and uncertainties increase as models become more localized. Climate models can account for major geographical features like the Rocky Mountains, but not the specific topography of an individual ski area, for example. And, all estimates of future warming work off assumptions about the amount of carbon dioxide humans put into the atmosphere. Tweaking the assumptions about the level of greenhouse gas emissions changes the predictions.

"I think there is less change coming our way than some other people would say," says NCAR researcher Klaus Wolf. "I remain skeptical that the models have a good handle on regional-scale climate change scenarios."

And as far as snowpack is concerned, Wolf says Colorado's elevation works in its favor because the state's high-elevation mountains are so cold. "I'm convinced that we are less vulnerable here at the higher elevations than places that are lower, such as the Pacific Northwest or even the Sierra."

While scientists at climate research centers around the globe continue to improve their ability to make long-term predictions about climate and how weather patterns might change over the next century, the snowsports industry feels that it cannot just wait to see what happens.

Skiing's glamorous image belies the fact that the ski resort operator in some ways has more in common with the Kansas wheat farmer than the New York hotelier. That's because ski areas are massively expensive resort operations fully at the mercy of weather.

"People who own and operate ski resorts do it because they ski," says Molly Cuffe, Director of Communications for Colorado Ski Country USA, the trade organization of Colorado's mountain resorts.

"They love the mountains, they love the mountain environment, and they know that their guests do as well. They know that they're selling the environment, so climate change is something that's very important to the ski industry. "

Keeping Colorado's ski slopes white is integral to the state's winter economy, which climate change may put in jeopardy (Photo/Copper Mountain Ski Resort)

According to Geraldine Link, Director of Public Policy for the National Ski Areas association, the ski industry is somewhat limited in what it can do to adapt to a warmer climate. "There are two things we can do, both of which we're already doing. One is to develop the resorts into year-round destinations by building our summer capabilities. The other is to maximize our snowmaking capabilities."

Unfortunately for Colorado's ski industry, in addition to producing a shorter snow season, warmer temperatures would also make it more difficult for ski areas to compensate for reduced natural snowfall by blowing the manmade kind.

"It's much more economical to make snow when it's cold out," says Auden Schendler, Director of Environmental Affairs at the Aspen Skiing Company. "A degree or so of temperature difference can mean hundreds of thousands of dollars in costs in efficiency,"

Aspen Skiing Company has also added another consideration for the four mountains under its ownership: download lift capacity. In the early and late season, when the snowline is higher on the mountain, many ski areas use their lifts to shuttle skiers up and down from the base area to the snow. If snow stops falling at the base area of resorts, Schendler says, "we may be skiing the tops of the mountains, like we do in early and late season."

But most who make a living off skiing or snowboarding know that downhill lift capacity and snowmaking are just band-aids on a potentially massive problem. Major climate changes could cripple the sport, so many in the business feel that the most important work for the ski industry is to use its sway to affect national and regional environmental policy.

"The ski industry is an interesting, sexy business," Schendler says. "We have a significant amount of lobbying power, and we should be using that."

Colorado's ski industry was a major player in the state's 2004 passage of Amendment 37, which mandates that Colorado public utilities produce a percentage of the state's energy from renewable sources. On the national level, 70 ski areas have put their weight behind the McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship Act, which, if passed, would force the United States to limit industrial greenhouse gas emissions to 2000 levels by 2010.

Many resorts, especially Schendler's Aspen Skiing Company, have been major innovators in developing environmentally friendly building practices. Aspen aims to have the new base village planned at its Snowmass ski area earn green-building certification by the U.S. Green Building Council. Currently, there are only two buildings in Colorado that meet the strict criteria, one of which is owned by Aspen. Schendler also helped institute a unique system that uses heavy spring runoff to create hydroelectricity.

As global warming raises temperatures in the Rockies, epic powder days like this one may become rare (Photo/Dave Lehl, Vail Resorts)

All of this may signal the beginning of a potentially powerful alliance of what would once have been strange bedfellows: ski areas and environmentalists. That would hardly have seemed possible even a few years ago, when relations between the Colorado resort industry and environmentalists reached a nadir after the radical environmentalist group Earth Liberation Front claimed responsibility for burning down Vail's Two Elks Lodge. Many far less extreme environmental groups have battled ski area expansions in Colorado in the courtroom.

Today the ski industry has teamed with the National Resources Defense Council on its "Keep Winter Cool" climate change educational program, and the NRDC has assuaged environmentalists about the ski industry in several instances.

"If you look at difference between the relationship between the ski industry and the environmental community 10 years ago and now, it's a sea change," Schendler says. "Part of that is this climate issue. We've found common ground."

But as much as the snowsports industry is doing to promote its own survival, even ski area employees like Schendler know that in a major climate change scenario, the loss of snowsports recreation would hardly be the worst consequence.

"The discussion that the ski industry is threatened by 2050, it's almost silly," he says. "It's like saying, 'you know, if there's a nuclear war, our milk is going to spoil.' The implications of climate change are so profound for society." Compared to problems for agriculture, potentially more intense hurricanes and other possible impacts from climate change, "the ski industry is one little blip. It's important that people say that societally, we're not going to be worrying about skiing. We're going to have a lot bigger problems to talk about."