Green Options

Bolivia’s Chacaltaya Glacier, once known as the world’s highest ski run at 17,388 feet, has completely melted away, serving as a vivid example of the effects of climate change on the glaciers around the globe.

“Chacaltaya has disappeared. It no longer exists.” - Dr. Edson Ramirez, Institute of Hydraulics and Hydrology at the Universidad Mayor de San Andres

Editor’s note: The following post was originally published on Green and Clean Mom. “Green & Clean Mom can inspire you to try a little harder, be a catalyst for change and to offer you some new tips and news on how to be the green, sexy and sassy mom…I know you are!”

Winter is long where I live. Long. Snow and cold weather lingers from as early as October to possibly March. A long winter can translate into long days inside which leads to restlessness, more television, boredom, eating and more pounds…for the entire family.  To help make the winter more active and healthy I have begun to employ some new tactics that help everyone watch less television, eat better and get some activity.

Winter sports and activities can be the cure. I don’t like winter and I don’t like cold or snow but it’s where I live and the other months are gorgeous.

I’m trying to embrace the season with a more positive attitude. With a snowy winter there are many healthy active sports that the children and I can enjoy. They get us out of the house and mean physical activity.

Powered by used vegetable oil from Colorado restaurants, a new ski shuttle service is now offering “carbon-neutral” luxury shuttle service from Denver International Airport to Colorado ski resorts like Vail, Aspen, and Breckenridge.

Last month, Denver waiter-turned-entrepreneur Kristopher Klain started offering a more eco-friendly airport shuttle alternative in Colorado Green Shuttle’s flagship seven-passenger retro-fitted Ford Excursion, fueled by 100% straight vegetable oil.

Skiers including Olympic gold medalists made an appeal at the UN climate talks in Poland to do more to slow global warming, keeping skiers in business.

“It looks like the days of skiing on South facing slopes are numbered” remarked the skier to his companion over an apres ski beer in the Swiss resort of Toggenburg. As the two observed the mixture of mud, grass and snow on the slower ski runs on a February afternoon, they murmured about the regretful advance of climate change, the impacts of which were occurring before their very eyes.

Sitting at the table opposite, and having previously wiped mud from my skis for the first time ever, I observed the pair finish their drinks as they continued to discuss the impending catastrophe, before tottering across the car park and jumping in to a large BMW SUV, apparently oblivious to their own part in the play. Similar scenes are replayed daily the world over. Many people agree that human-kind is having a negative impact on our environment, but few are taking direct action. - more on this later.

I traveled recently, by air, to Vail.

Now before you self-styled environmentalists throw a fit, know this: I offset all my travel by trading for credits at Gladropes, my local hemp crafts store and carbon exchange. I found a nice gentleman whom for some reason wanted all my old underwear in exchange for 5,000 gallons of effluence for my personal methane-capture still.

Though I had to breathe into a paper bag to keep from hyperventilating every time

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