Climate change: ski-tastrophe deferred
EURreferendum -
Snow sports have contributed almost £20.5m to the Scottish economy since the start of the latest season, the BBC is reporting – without so much as a blush.
Ski centres at Glenshee, The Lecht, Cairngorms, Nevis Range, and Glencoe have benefited from wintry weather, and Ski-Scotland is saying that this season could be one of the best snow sports seasons in Scotland in recent years.
The BBC, of course, has been making a special “thing” about Scottish skiing and climate change, reporting in June 1999 that the industry was to be used by the UK Government as one of a range of official climate “pointers” in the battle against global warming.
And then there’s the money. In June 2000, the state broadcaster was dutifully reporting that “snowfall levels have dropped over the years”, telling us that a team of university scientists has been awarded a £10,000 grant to study snow in Scotland.
The money was to be used by researchers at Stirling University to examine the effects of climate change in Scotland on skiing and other industries. The previous year, the team, from the university’s department of environmental science, had warned the skiing industry faced a bleak future because climatic changes would leave lower snowfall levels on “nursery slopes”.
In December 2003, the BBC happily retailed a UN environment programme (UNEP) report which warned that many ski resorts faced economic hardship as a result of climate change, noting also the happy coincidence that one ski resort in Scotland, Glencoe, where snow had never been very reliable, had just announced that it is suffering financial difficulties
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