These
winter athletes have experienced first-hand the impact of climate
change, inspiring them to work hard to protect our Earth.
By Mary Kate Campbell
For Jeremy Jones, snow is not just a sign of winter. To the 38-year-old
Truckee, California, native, snowfall is a symbol of his career, his
passion, and his lifestyle. Jones, a 10-time Snowboarder Magazine big-mountain rider of the year and a National Geographic
Adventurer of the Year nominee, worries that climate change will
prevent future generations from experiencing the winter season as we
know it today.
Jones founded Protect
Our Winters in 2007 to unite the winter sports community against climate
change through education, activism, and community projects. The idea
was that winter athletes were the best spokespeople for this topic. They
experience first-hand how climate change is impacting their sports and,
on a larger scale, affecting the Earth.
Carbon
emissions, often produced by burning fossil fuels (like gasoline, for
instance), have contributed to global warming. After seeing resorts
closed and areas that once had great jumps for snowboarding shut down
due to insufficient snowfall, Jones realized that climate change was a
crisis that needed to be addressed. "Our mountains are fine in the
immediate future," Jones says. "I will have snow to ride on, but this is
for the future generations."
Since
2010, Jones has visited Washington, D.C., three times to spark
conversation and bring awareness to Protect Our Winters' cause. Jones
says he can see the issue making progress, as more policy makers see
that climate change can impact everything from the environment to the
economy.
However, the nation's capital
is not the only place where change is taking place. Protect Our Winters
partners with The North Face and Alliance For Climate Education to visit
schools through their Hot Planet/Cool Athletes program. Protect Our
Winters educates students about the issue, using an interactive
presentation with stories from professional winter athletes to inspire
kids to make a difference. Jones says that paying attention to little
things in your day-to-day life can help the environment, too. For
example, he limits his "carbon footprint" by buying locally grown food.
And instead of using snowmobiles and helicopters to get up mountains, he
hikes for his snowboarding adventures. "This is the planet you are
inheriting" Jones says.
Since founding Protect Our Winters, Jones has become a frequent Capitol Hill visitor.
Courtesy Protect Our Winters Protect Our Winters (POW) founder Jeremy Jones was named one of President Barack Obama's "Champions of Change" this spring in a White House ceremony honoring 12 Community Resilience Leaders.
Jones -- 2013 National Geographic "Adventurer of the Year" nominee
and Snowboarder Magazine's 10-time "Best Big Mountain Rider of the Year"
-- started POW to address the effects of climate change he was
witnessing and experiencing firsthand during the filming of his
"Deeper," "Further," "Higher" backcountry snowboarding movie trilogy.
His last trip to Washington, D.C. was to present a study commissioned by
POW and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) detailing the potential economic and job loss in the winter-sports industry and the many towns that industry supports, as snowfall gets increasingly sporadic and unpredictable.
Jones left for a three-week splitboarding adventure in the Eastern
Alaska Range shortly after his trip to the White House, but we managed
to track him down just as he was prepping for his next mission to
Alaska's Denali National Park. XGames.com: We haven't caught up with you since you were honored
at the White House. You've already made several trips to meet with
lawmakers on Capitol Hill. At this rate you're going to need to find a
suit and tie sponsor for all your trips to Washington.
Jeremy Jones: I still don't know how to tie a tie, but maybe a
couple more trips and I'll have that down! The White House Champions of
Change recognition was a huge honor, even though we didn't actually get
to meet Obama.
I've been to Capitol Hill a handful of times now, and it definitely
feels like the conversation about climate change in Washington has
changed a bit in that time. Eight years ago this would have been a
harder Champions of Change group to pull together, and now there are
hundreds of good people out there working on these issues.
I was honored to be among the 12 highlighted this year, but it also
makes it all the more frustrating that we really haven't had any big
victories yet. There's a lot of work ahead of us on every front.
"Less than one
percent of all skiers and snowboarders have gotten involved with our
efforts, and less than one percent of all companies in the snow or
outdoor adventure industry are part of POW."Jeremy JonesAre you surprised by how quickly opportunities like this have come up since starting POW?
In certain matters, yes. Going to the White House? I definitely never anticipated that.
But then again less than one percent of all skiers and snowboarders
have gotten involved with our efforts, and less than one percent of all
companies in the snow or outdoor adventure industry are part of POW.
We have an annual board meeting at SIA and the reality is that there
are still only about five companies who meaningfully support what we're
trying to do.
So this whole thing is really in its infancy with a whole lot of
untapped potential and whole lot still to be done, and you try not to
let walking into the White House go to your head. What are you optimistic about?
We have a couple different efforts that we're doing on the political
front and we continue to get better at that, but what I'm most excited
about is our Hot Planet/Cool Athletes school program, where we go in
with an athlete and a climate specialist and do an interactive
presentation to school kids.
The message is, "Hey this is the world you're coming into and here
are some people doing some great things to solve some of the problems,
and we need you to step up and face this challenge."
You can really knock your head against the wall in Washington, but
seeing how enthusiastic the kids are and how ready they are is where it
gets uplifting and gives you some hope for what's next. "Higher," the third installment of your movie trilogy, is now
under way. What's different about your approach to this project compared
to the first two films?
I've learned so much over the last five years about going into the
mountains on foot, finding really special lines, and documenting them.
We're just getting started on this two-year project, and already it's
been incredible for us.
I was able to ride off the Grand Teton in knee-deep powder on a line
I'd been trying to put together for five years now. And the other trip
we did this year was in the Eastern Alaska Range.
We thought we'd go in there for 7-10 days and it ended up being 20
days. I rode the biggest and most challenging line I've ever ridden in
Alaska. I feel like we're really hitting our stride, and the attitude
and vibe of these trips has been really special. While you were in Alaska in April you got word that your Jones
Snowboards sales rep Joe Timlin and some other friends and colleagues
were among the dead in the avalanche on Loveland Pass in Colorado. How did getting that news affect that trip?
Courtesy Protect Our WintersA
"Champion of Change" is an honor given by the White House to 12
citizens, businesses, and community leaders who are working to prepare
their communities for the consequences of climate change.
Unfortunately, it wasn't the first time I've gotten a call like that.
But that doesn't make it any easier. I was literally driving to the
airstrip and got the call an hour before I was going into the mountains
for three weeks.
The last thing I wanted to do at that point was go into the
mountains, and I pretty much crawled into them that day. I would say
"timid" is an understatement.
But as sad and horrific as it was for us, and the mood of the camp at
the start of that trip -- which was at an all-time low -- crawling into
the mountains is actually the attitude you want to have. You don't want
to come into serious terrain full of testosterone, over-amped and
overconfident.
But being out there was also a good place for us to work out those
thoughts in our head and begin the healing process. I went and rode the
biggest line of my life, and did it thinking of Joe and those guys.
It was very emotional, and we ended up naming the mountain Mt. Timlin
out of respect. All five of those guys were in our thoughts that whole
trip. Is there any one message you really hope comes across in your films?
The bottom line is I've made thousands of good calls in the mountains
and they don't mean anything tomorrow when I go into the mountains.
We're all one bad call away from not coming home.
The dangers are real, and rule No. 1 is: Come home. The words
"ride to live another day" probably go through my head a hundred times
every day when I'm making decisions in the mountains.
Our list continues with big mountain powerhouse Jeremy Jones, a true snowboarder's snowboarder.
Welcome to Redbull.com’s World Top 20 Snowboarders. What
follows is a rundown of snowboarding’s best pipers, jibbers, big
mountain slayers and jumpers. It is a contentious list compiled by a
panel of industry no-gooders, who by all accounts should know their
tindies from their tailgrabs.
Jeremy Jones is more than just your average professional snowboarder. He’s a father, environmentalist, National Geographic Adventurer of the Year nominee, company owner and Champion of Change. Jeremy
is one of the few that explore the places we all dream about, spending
weeks winter camping in Alaska, hiking and shredding new peaks in the
Alps and dodging polar bears in far away Svalbard. Jeremy is taking
snowboarding to new places and bringing freeriding into the mainstream.
Jones has long been one of the best freeriders in the world. There
are very few who can match his skill and control on a snowboard, and
even less who will drop into the type of lines that Jones feels
comfortable on. He grew up on the East Coast, where board control and
learning to turn on any type of terrain is essential just to make it
down the hill. Like many from the right coast, migration west drew Jones
to bigger mountains with better snow and once there he found his place.
There are not many professionals that have the film history of
Jones, who’s logged parts in films by Standard, Teton Gravity Research
and Brain Farm. His most impressive project started in 2010 with the
release of Deeper, the first video in a three-part documentary that
follows Jones as he adventures around the globe to places off the map
for most snowboarders. The movie was absolutely insane and in 2012 it
was followed up with part two in 2012, Further. Both films were game
changers as Jones demonstrated that even the harshest environments and
mountains have the potential to be ridden.
One characteristic that sets Jones apart is his commitment to the
environment. Let’s face it, climate change is becoming a large issue and
is starting to drastically affect the landscape that us snowboarders
love. Jones realized that something needed to be done to help combat
this issue and out of this ideology Jones started the non-profit
organization Protect Our Winters.
With the support of the winter sport community, Jones and POW have been
working to fight against climate change to keep our winter’s epic.
One characteristic that sets Jones apart is his commitment to the
environment. Let’s face it, climate change is becoming a large issue and
is starting to drastically affect the landscape that us snowboarders
love. Jones realized that something needed to be done to help combat
this issue and out of this ideology Jones started the non-profit
organization