Last week Teton Gravity Research released a short-film entitled “Generations” on climate change and the current and potential future affects of global warming on winter environments, snowsports and winter sport culture/lifestyle. Fundamentally, this is the first film to shed light on the cultural and intrinsic loss of winter. This comes at a germane time as Copenhagen concludes and polls suggest that fewer Americans prioritize climate change or believe it even exists. According to the latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, those who believe there is solid evidence the earth is getting warmer is down 14 percent (from last year) and Climate Change is ranked dead last on a list of 20 most important issues of our time.

Speculation as to why these numbers are spiraling downward includes the economy but also because of the inability of scientists to directly relate climate change to important factors in peoples’ daily lives. Scientific rhetoric, Al Gore power-point movies and threats to third world countries many Americans have never visited all contribute to an abstraction of the issue and a vulnerability to contracted support in times like these. However, this is where Generations sets itself apart. In the ski and snowboard industry, lifestyle, sport and weather are essentially one: without the snow, there is no sport and without sport there is no lifestyle. And for those who celebrate and live this lifestyle, losing snow and winter is as personal and close-to-home as it gets.