
Artificial snow – Mrs. Holle becomes a Terminator

Winter and the ski season are quickly approaching, complete with fun in the huts, artificial snow and great panoramic views.
The bad aftertaste: The cold and the snow in recent years have not really answered the call of the winter sports resort owners and it is not uncommon for the opening of the season to take place at temperatures above zero and the slopes shine in lush green. And artificial snow.
In recent years, desperate piste operators have increasingly resorted to artificial snow to help with the existing thin snow cover or to transform green areas into a winter landscape.
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In the popular winter sports resort of Schladming in Austria, around 2.5 million cubic meters of artificial snow are distributed around the slopes every year from hundreds of snow lances and snow cannons. In addition to the enormous water consumption, the costs involved are two to three euros per cubic meter, which amounts to a total cost of between 5 and 7.5 million euros, depending on how much the temperatures rise or fall.
Artificial snowmaking follows a strict process; up to 90% of the slopes have to be fully snowed, especially during the Christmas holidays. Since the cold periods are increasingly being postponed until after Christmas, the costs for operators are enormous.
This also explains the continuous increase in the price of lift tickets every year. Anyone who is annoyed by the ever-increasing prices at Oktoberfest needs to have thick skin and a good financial cushion to buy lift tickets.
In this way, the course of nature is reinforced with artificial snow. However, the enormous cost factor also entails risks. Many winter areas are designed to squeeze the maximum occupancy out of the winter areas in order to operate lucratively. There is increasing reliance on foreign tourists, while many locals are groaning under the burden of tourists.
Skiing also puts a massive strain on the environment.
A groundbreaking ruling by the Tyrol Regional Administrative Court has shown that it is entirely permissible to add additives to artificial snow in order to make the snow more durable.
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The bacterial additives used prevent the snow from thawing quickly and thus simplify artificial snowmaking on the slopes.
Although the verdict from various quarters; While the tourism association, local ski lift operators and tourists viewed it critically, this results in the need and responsibility of the individual ski tourist to take a closer look in the future at whether an area was made of snow using “natural” artificial snow, i.e. from air and water, or “chemical” artificial snow.
In addition to the problem of artificial snow, the massive utilization of the ski areas is also a danger to the nature in the snow areas.
Building a track on a mountainside means clearing the forest on it, removing all roots to make a straight track, blowing up and removing all rocks and driving away all animals that live there.
In addition to the slopes themselves, space must also be created for parking spaces, hotels and lifts that are not used outside of the ski season.
The problem is that the trees on mountain slopes act as avalanche traps and also serve as a natural drain for condensation that forms when the snow melts.
The massive use of the snow cannons mentioned above is also problematic, as they draw their water from surrounding freshwater sources such as rivers and lakes, which dry them out by up to 70% and endanger biodiversity.
In addition to the direct impact on local nature, the ecological footprint of winter tourists is also enormous. The snow cannons and lighting use a huge amount of energy, and the fact that tourists often only travel for a few days is also a climate killer.
What is certain is that skiing is a hotly contested economic field for the affected areas, with higher profit prospects every year.
Only the future can answer whether nature will endure the burden of winter tourists and the associated artificial changes to the environment in the long term.
What needs to be critically questioned in any case is the trend that winter sports resorts are trying to open earlier every year, to squeeze the maximum profit out of the affected areas and whether the aforementioned ruling by the Tyrol State Administrative Court has opened the door to environmentally questionable methods of extending the winter .
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References:
Author: Alexander Herberstein, article image by al7 / Shutterstock.com
Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication
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The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual articles (not fact checks) were created using machine help and
were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )
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