If anybody still needs a reason to drop everything and hit the slopes this weekend while the air is sweet and the powder is deep, I recommend a chat with Edward Ramey.
The lawyer for Aspen Skiing Co., who wrote an amicus brief in the case against the Environmental Protection Agency that was argued before the U.S. Supreme Court last week, knows both the law and the science.
His advice: Go skiing. Now.
The suit was brought by 12 states and several environmental groups that contend the EPA has shirked its responsibility to regulate carbon-
dioxide emissions. Global warming is raising sea levels, inundating coastlines, they say. It is changing weather patterns and damaging economies and ecosystems willy-nilly while the EPA does nothing to reduce emissions that contribute to it.
Aspen is not a party to the suit, but it is the only ski company in the country to lend its support through a friend-of-the-court brief.
Ramey said that while some of the states struggled to demonstrate they have standing in the case because much of the impact of global warming is anticipated instead of actual, that would not have been a problem for the ski area. There, the verdict is in.
Aspen is already getting burned.
The evidence is assembled in Ramey’s four-page argument. It’s a brief brief, but it paints a bleak future for the ski industry in Colorado, a $2 billion-a-year economic engine that employs about 31,000 people and generates something like 10 million skier visits a year, a majority coming from other states or countries.
Ramey cites records that show precipitation in Aspen has decreased 6 percent over the past 25 years as average temperatures have increased 3 degrees. Snowfall has declined by 16 percent and frost-free days (a real drag for an industry dependent on mechanical snowmaking) have increased by 20 per year during the same period.
So when Justice Antonin Scalia needled the attorneys for the states, saying their arguments were “a lot of conjecture,” Ramey was back in Colorado trying to control his lawyerly reflexes.
The whole case could turn on standing, he said. “That’s huge, and Aspen does have more standing than some of the states.”
But a friend of the court plays a marginal role.
“Amicus lawyers don’t get to argue,” Ramey said. “You file one very short brief, then you shut up and watch.”
Ramey contends that the research on global warming is vast, thorough and conclusive, and if temperatures continue to rise unabated, “winter recreation resorts like Aspen could potentially become unviable by the year 2050.”
Ski seasons likely will be shortened by a week by 2030 “even under optimistic analyses,” the brief continues, and patterns like those seen in recent years where early snows are depleted by long dry spells in January followed by earlier and earlier springs are expected to become the norm, not the exception.
Aspen joined the petitioners in claiming that the EPA has flouted its obligation under the Clean Air Act. They argued that the agency is required by Congress to regulate emissions that endanger public health and welfare, including those that contribute to global warming.
Bush administration attorneys countered that the agency does not have the authority to regulate gases related to climate change.
The ruling will be a close call, Ramey says. The appeals court decision on this suit was divided, and most court watchers anticipate a 5-4 split, with Justice Anthony Kennedy casting the deciding vote.
Ramey said no matter how this case turns, Aspen is in for the long haul on its campaign to confront global warming and reduce carbon-dioxide emissions. “They care a great deal about this issue.”
It’s easy to see why.
Just look out the window and imagine those peaks without the snow. Imagine the heat, the drought, the golf.
I can’t bear the thought.
Diane Carman’s column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. She can be reached at 303-954-1489 or dcarman@denverpost.com.
