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It’s cold out and the snow is deep and soft, but 2018 was still the 4th warmest year ever

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February 7, 2019, 8:52 am

A continuous stream of snowfall in the Vail Valley this week has pushed Vail’s seasonal snowfall total to well over 200 inches (213 to be precise), and forecasters are calling for still more snow through the upcoming Presidents’ Day weekend of Feb. 16-18.

The O Zone by David O. Williams
The O. Zone

This is good news for the local ski conditions right now, obviously, and even better news for the snowpack, stream flows and overall forest health of Eagle County. Let’s hope our currently slightly above-average snowpack will translate to reduced wildfire danger this summer.

Still, big picture, the planet is warming (NOAA and NASA just announced 2018 was the fourth hottest on record) and we all need to figure out how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate against the worst impacts of climate change, including our inefficient buildings.

To that end, the Vail Valley Foundation’s Tom Boyd writes in today’s Vail Daily about relatively inexpensive ways to assess and then fix energy leaks in your home – techniques that will save you money and help the Eagle County Climate Action Collaborative get to its goal of a county-wide greenhouse gas reduction of 25 percent by 2025 and 80 percent by 2050.

Former coworkers at the now-defunct Vail Trail, Boyd and I are back in print together for the first time in many years as I did a story for today’s Daily in which I checked in with local DACA recipients about the ongoing border-wall, government-funding debate.

President Donald Trump didn’t mention DACA or the shutdown in Tuesday’s State of the Union speech, and he also failed to talk about climate change – a huge issue for Colorado voters. Fortunately, there’s a lot happening on that front at both the state and local level.

Besides the Climate Action Collaborative, Minturn Mayor Matt Scherr was just named by a Democratic vacancy committee as the Eagle County commissioner who will replace Jill Ryan later this month. Ryan is leaving to head up the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.

From 2004 to 2012, Scherr headed up the Eagle Valley Alliance for Sustainability. Walking Mountains Science Center founder and key Climate Action Collaborative proponent Kim Langmaid, also a Vail Town Council member, made the top three in the commissioner vote, with Habitat for Humanity Vail Valley development director Elyse Howard finishing second.

That’s an encouraging list of candidates focused in on climate change, sustainability and housing issues facing Eagle County.

Other local leaders making headlines include former Vail Town Council member Kerry Donovan – now a Democratic state senator – who has her own solid record on energy and climate issues. She’s also leading the charge to enshrine Colorado’s original constitution in a permanent display at the state capitol in Denver.

And it’s not as if there’s absolutely no positive news on the environment front at the federal level. The congressman who represents the Vail Valley in Washington, U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse, recently teamed up with Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet to introduce the CORE Act – a massive federal lands preservation bill that could be a game-changer if Dems wrestle back control of the White House and Senate in 2020.

Last weekend, at the Outdoor Retailer + Snow Show in Denver, the Outdoor Industry Association announced its “100 percent support of the Colorado Outdoor Recreation and Economy Act.” And Bennet joined Republicans in reintroducing legislation to renew the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), which uses offshore drilling fees to protect access to parks, rivers, forests and public lands. And then there was today’s (Thursday) announcement of a more fleshed-out Green New Deal proposal by prominent Democrats.

Finally, on the topic of ski towns and the ski industry in the greater context of combating climate change, check out this analysis by former Powder Magazine features editor Porter Fox in The New York Times. It includes a rather scathing callout to Republican U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton, who represents many of the ski towns on Colorado’s Western Slope but is not a big proponent of combating human-caused global warming.

Conspicuously absent from his piece is any mention of ever-expanding industry giant Vail Resorts, which in 2017 launched its Commitment to Zero pledge to reach a zero net operating footprint by 2030.

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David O. Williams

Managing Editor at RealVail
David O. Williams is the editor and co-founder of RealVail.com and has had his awarding-winning work (see About Us) published in more than 75 newspapers and magazines around the world, including 5280 Magazine, American Way Magazine (American Airlines), the Anchorage Daily News (Alaska), the Anchorage Daily Press (Alaska), Aspen Daily News, Aspen Journalism, the Aspen Times, Beaver Creek Magazine, the Boulder Daily Camera, the Casper Star Tribune (Wyoming), the Chicago Tribune, Colorado Central Magazine, the Colorado Independent (formerly Colorado Confidential), Colorado Newsline, Colorado Politics (formerly the Colorado Statesman), Colorado Public News, the Colorado Springs Gazette, the Colorado Springs Independent, the Colorado Statesman (now Colorado Politics), the Colorado Times Recorder, the Cortez Journal, the Craig Daily Press, the Curry Coastal Pilot (Oregon), the Daily Trail (Vail), the Del Norte Triplicate (California), the Denver Daily News, the Denver Gazette, the Denver Post, the Durango Herald, the Eagle Valley Enterprise, the Eastside Journal (Bellevue, Washington), ESPN.com, Explore Big Sky (Mont.), the Fort Morgan Times (Colorado), the Glenwood Springs Post-Independent, the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, the Greeley Tribune, the Huffington Post, the King County Journal (Seattle, Washington), the Kingman Daily Miner (Arizona), KUNC.org (northern Colorado), LA Weekly, the Las Vegas Sun, the Leadville Herald-Democrat, the London Daily Mirror, the Moab Times Independent (Utah), the Montgomery Journal (Maryland), the Montrose Daily Press, The New York Times, the Parent’s Handbook, Peaks Magazine (now Epic Life), People Magazine, Powder Magazine, the Pueblo Chieftain, PT Magazine, the Rio Blanco Herald Times (Colorado), Rocky Mountain Golf Magazine, the Rocky Mountain News, RouteFifty.com (formerly Government Executive State and Local), the Salt Lake Tribune, SKI Magazine, Ski Area Management, SKIING Magazine, the Sky-Hi News, the Steamboat Pilot & Today, the Sterling Journal Advocate (Colorado), the Summit Daily News, United Hemispheres (United Airlines), Vail/Beaver Creek Magazine, Vail en Español, Vail Health Magazine, Vail Valley Magazine, the Vail Daily, the Vail Trail, Westword (Denver), Writers on the Range and the Wyoming Tribune Eagle. Williams is also the founder, publisher and editor of RealVail.com and RockyMountainPost.com.