Should Winter Sports Venues Use Resource-Intensive Artificial Snow?

The region around this Winter's Olympic venues 'is in an extreme drought,' reports CNN, though 'even in normal years, it isn't particularly suitable for snow sports.' In fact, it's the first year all the snow for the Winter Games has been created by a single company:

It is almost beautiful — except that the venues are surrounded by an endless brown, dry landscape completely devoid of snow. In an Olympic first, though not an achievement to boast about, climate variability has forced the Winter Games to be virtually 100% reliant on artificial snow — part of a trend that is taking place across winter sports venues around the world. Just one of the 21 cities that have hosted the Winter Olympics in the past 50 years will have a climate suitable for winter sports by the end of the century, a recent study found, if fossil fuel emissions remain unchecked.

As the planet warms and the weather becomes increasingly more erratic, natural snow is becoming less reliable for winter sports, which forces venues to lean more on artificial snow. But it comes at a cost: human-made snow is incredibly resource-intensive, requiring massive amounts of energy and water to produce in a climate that's getting warmer and warmer. Elite athletes also say that the sports themselves become trickier and less safe when human-made snow is involved.... 'There have been recent technological advances that allow for the generation of snow when it is above freezing,' explained Jordy Hendrikx, the director of the Snow and Avalanche Laboratory at Montana State University. 'This is not your 'light fluffy' snow that you might think of — it is much denser and not very soft....'

Making snow demands significant resources, namely energy and water.... And with 1.2 million cubic meters of snow needed to cover roughly 800,000 square meters of competition area... the water demand at this year's Winter Olympics is massive. [According to a 'Slippery Slopes' report led by Loughborough University in London on how the climate crisis is affecting the Winter Olympics.] The International Olympic Committee estimated that 49 million gallons of water will be needed to produce snow for The Games, which is a lot when you consider how rapidly the world is running out of freshwater. It's enough to fill 3,600 average-sized backyard swimming pools, or — more to the point — it's a day's worth of drinking water for nearly 100 million people....

The IOC does not face these challenges alone. Artificial snow is being used as a tool to extend ski seasons in competitions and at resorts across the globe, many of which are threatened by the warming temperatures of the climate crisis. These challenges will continue to drive the snow sports industry toward artificial snow when Mother Nature doesn't produce it.

But the question remains — just because we can, does that mean we should?

Read more of this story at Slashdot.