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Switzerland: snow flown in by helicopter in attempt to keep ski slopes open

switzerlandtimes.ch

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Re: Switzerland: snow flown in by helicopter in attempt to keep ski slopes open

#91

Post by bonzini »

Freak_NL wrote: post #85
bamboozled wrote: post #60

Why is Switzerland so hot? I know climate change is a thing, but many other countries are receiving a lot of big snow falls. What's specifically going on in Switzerland? Jet stream weirdness allowing warm air further north?

This is not limited to Switzerland, but to all the alpine regions in Europe; i.e., also France, Germany, and Austria. Only northern Italy seems to have faired a little bit better, but that is just meteorological luck.

We had a normal beginning of December, but now it's been easily February weather for a couple weeks and forecast isn't any different. Temperatures in Rome last week were more typical of Easter than Christmas; northern Italy was not as extreme only because it's cloudy.

Re: Switzerland: snow flown in by helicopter in attempt to keep ski slopes open

#92

Post by michaelt »

samwillis wrote: post #58

This isn't a new phenomenon or something restricted to "exclusive" resorts. I have seen this happen in other alpine ski areas over the last 5-10 years when there has been particularly bad snow. Normally in places that are of high importance and traffic, such as at the top of main lifts. Ski resorts use helicopters for many logistical activities, if it keeps the area open they will do it. This year the Alps are having…

I've got to say, "ski resort that already has a helicopter uses it to move snow from one part of the resort to another, to patch a few high-traffic areas" makes more sense to me than "snow flown in" as in my country, having something 'flown in' usually implies transporting it several hundred miles.

Re: Switzerland: snow flown in by helicopter in attempt to keep ski slopes open

#93

Post by tpush »

mythhouse wrote: post #50
tpush wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At what point does human enjoyment become waste of energy? At the point it causes eventual human extinction.

so the problem solves itself? Why should i care if humans go extinct or not.

You can care about what you want, it's just that most people do care (because of their children etc.)

Re: Switzerland: snow flown in by helicopter in attempt to keep ski slopes open

#94

Post by TSiege »

unpopular42 wrote: post #6

Next week it will snow again, we'll all go skiing and forget this

The most extreme heatwave in European history just happened this past week. The point of this article isn't that weather changes day to day or week to week. The point is this is a metaphor for the absurdity of the situation

source on heatwave: https://grist.org/climate/europe-kicks-off-2023-with-a-recor...

Re: Switzerland: snow flown in by helicopter in attempt to keep ski slopes open

#95

Post by nsxwolf »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #53
nsxwolf wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is not dumping some snow with a helicopter going to prevent the sea levels from rising? Or would that require something on the scale of banning all aviation forever?

If we take an approach of one at a time looking at each activity and going "is this going to stop global warming?" the answer is always going to be "no" and we're going to be left going "well, there's nothing we could do, we couldn't find any activity that would stop it". No single wasteful activity is going to stop it. We need to stop a lot of them. This could and possibly should be one of them.

This seems like me not taking the insurance money after the hail storm, and watching all my neighbors put free new roofs on. My insurance premiums go up anyway because of them, but I can feel good about myself paying for my roof out of pocket in a few years.

Re: Switzerland: snow flown in by helicopter in attempt to keep ski slopes open

#96

Post by Sharlin »

samwillis wrote: post #58

This isn't a new phenomenon or something restricted to "exclusive" resorts. I have seen this happen in other alpine ski areas over the last 5-10 years when there has been particularly bad snow. Normally in places that are of high importance and traffic, such as at the top of main lifts. Ski resorts use helicopters for many logistical activities, if it keeps the area open they will do it. This year the Alps are having…

To be fair, "last 5-10 years" is pretty new. I doubt such measures were needed even a few decades ago.

Re: Switzerland: snow flown in by helicopter in attempt to keep ski slopes open

#97

Post by xeromal »

hutzlibu wrote: post #90
toomuchtodo wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not for the wealthy, it’s for the working class. Of course don’t compensate asset price destruction due to climate change except for those who have limited means. In my coal plant example, workers are typically close to retirement and have limited means. They aren’t financially independent, so they need something to bridge the gap between this painful transition and death. I apologize that wasn’t clear in my ori…

"It’s not for the wealthy, it’s for the working class." I think the swiss working class is a bit better of, than those in the subsahara facing drought. They are in the need of transition funds. I also think it would not be helpful to ban helicopter snow transport or something populistic, but it is really not smart, trying to keep things artificial alife - like certain wintersport areas - by means that contribute to t…

You really need to contextualize the working class to the area we're in. Comparing your situation to the entire world's is a bit reductionist and useless as a comparison.

Re: Switzerland: snow flown in by helicopter in attempt to keep ski slopes open

#98

Post by 082349872349872 »

rspoerri wrote: post #43
_Microft wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Search for Gstaad Schnee Helikopter and you will find plenty of German sources for this news. HN doesn't accept foreign language submissions, though.

The article is okayish, even if its exaggarated and misleading. But as a swiss i would not trust this page. The article is written as if the whole sky resort looks as in the picture. While they actually tried to fix some patches of the route which had to few snow. Usually they fix it by moving snow around with a plow. Which they can not because the snow is to thin currently. Also they aborted after trying 9 times, be…

switzerlandtimes.ch does not show up in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_newspapers_in_Switzerl... , which suggests its credibility is well under that of Blick or the train papers.

furthermore, checking on nic.ch yields:

  Domain name   switzerlandtimes.ch
  Registrar     MARCARIA.COM INTERNATIONAL INC.
                501 Silverside Road, Suite 105
                US-19809 Wilmington DE
                Phone +1 3474711962 
                domains@marcaria.com 
  First registration date 20 March 2022
which in my eyes is rather sus.

====

https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng is a nice english-language service.

(unfortunately I doubt it or the NZZ english version will be carrying this story)

Re: Switzerland: snow flown in by helicopter in attempt to keep ski slopes open

#99

Post by saiya-jin »

samwillis wrote: post #58

This isn't a new phenomenon or something restricted to "exclusive" resorts. I have seen this happen in other alpine ski areas over the last 5-10 years when there has been particularly bad snow. Normally in places that are of high importance and traffic, such as at the top of main lifts. Ski resorts use helicopters for many logistical activities, if it keeps the area open they will do it. This year the Alps are having…

Check forecast, in few days there may be up to 1m of additional snow cover. Places like Chamonix should be fine even in lower parts

Re: Switzerland: snow flown in by helicopter in attempt to keep ski slopes open

#100

Post by DoughnutHole »

perihelions wrote: post #67
_Microft wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would you consider a sufficient example to highlight the problematic mindset behind these actions then? On its own, neither the helicopter here, nor the private jet there or the cruiseship in the Mediterranean and so forth are a problem. In total, they absolutely are. What would you suggest to submit instead?

I don't think it's problematic at all. It looks to me a reasonable and proportionate investment that supported a large number of local, seasonal jobs. Amortize that fossil fuel consumption per capita -- one helicopter, over thousands of vacationers -- and it's an absolutely trivial amount. In terms of pure numbers, most HN'ers did far "worse" things on their most recent vacation, even if it were a short car trip.

I'd say the outrage is caused by the symbolism.

Alpine skiing is an activity that in the long run is on the way out due to climate change. As a result of a warming-induced deterioration of conditions we are burning more fossil fuels to support the industry that we're extinguishing with said fossil fuels.

The fact that it's an activity heavily associated with affluence aids the rage-bait.

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