“I think every ski area is going to get on the bandwagon, saying ‘OK, what can we do to prevent global warming?’” Fairbank says. Since the ’90s, the resort has backed its environmental ethos with a number of efforts toward sustainability, including installing a nontoxic, energy-saving laundry-water treatment system; recycling everything from paper to motor oil; and replacing the snow grooming machines with more efficient models, which use about 30 percent less fuel.

This summer, with the help of the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, the resort erected a $3.9-million wind turbine, the first at any American ski resort. The 386-foot structure, which sits atop the mountain, fulfills about a third of Jiminy’s total electricity needs, but more than anything, it sends a powerful message to the local and winter-recreation communities.

“Everyone working at Jiminy is proud as punch,” Fairbank says. “Some of the community members don’t love looking at it, but I can’t tell you how many people come up to me and shake my hand and say, ‘You’re doing the right thing.’”

Tom Christopher
Whitewater Activist
Lancaster, Mass.
Tom Christopher, 63, is unabashed about why he still adores whitewater kayaking after 24 years: the adrenaline rush. “The buzz you get when you kayak something really difficult can last quite a few days,” he says. “I’m aggressive and like to beat up things, but I found that I could never beat up the river. The river was constantly beating me up.” Because of this addiction, Christopher, a senior project manager for a gravel-pit reclamation company, still devotes 60 days each year to paddling and countless others to river conservation and whitewater advocacy.

Christopher has served on the board of American Whitewater, a North Carolina-based whitewater-advocacy group, for 14 years—seven of those as the organization’s conservation chair. Thanks in part to his work with the group, six of New England’s dammed rivers have a total of 642 guaranteed paddling days each year, a significant number by countrywide standards. These days were brokered with the help of other organizations, like AMC, Trout Unlimited, and the Conservation Law Foundation, through licensing settlements with hydroelectric companies. Christopher received awards from American Rivers, AMC, American Whitewater, and other organizations for his conservation work. However, those guaranteed days might be in danger if the climate changes significantly, he says.

“There’s no question that certainly in the past several years, there’s clearly been a change in the weather pattern,” Christopher says. “Here in New England, we have milder winters, colder, wetter springs, and summer is extended further into the fall.” If the future brings extended periods of heat and drought, there will likely be more demand for electricity. “We run the risk of having many of our rivers that are smaller and wouldn’t normally be considered ideal for generating electricity being considered.” In addition, he says, the settlement agreements may come under scrutiny—and recreational users may be given less of a priority in the face of energy concerns.
Free-flowing rivers, he says, may also be in danger. Much of the run-off in the spring is sucked up by vegetation, so when snowpack is low, the whitewater season can be abbreviated or even obliterated. “If global warming continues and snowpack decreases, there’s no question that the free-flowing rivers will be impacted.”

He is trying to do his part to prevent such a loss. “We recycle, we turn the thermostat down, we invest in lightbulbs that don’t use much juice,” says Christopher. He and his wife, an environmental educator, built a house that is extremely energy efficient with triple-glazed windows and double insulation, and they share a hybrid car. The couple plans to build another home that is even more green and uses geothermal energy. However, their real legacy, he believes, is in land conservation: As part of their estate planning, they have decided to donate several parcels across New England, including 150 acres of forest in Maine, to conservation in perpetuity.

Kay Shumway
Innkeeper, Moose Mountain Lodge
Etna, N.H.
Kay Shumway is known for her big, homemade breakfasts, which she serves with her own maple syrup at Moose Mountain Lodge, the Etna, N.H., inn she has run with her husband, Peter, for 32 years. To tap maples, one needs perfect conditions: consistent freezing nights and warm days. But the fickle weather has recently made tapping increasingly difficult for Shumway, causing her to realize the potential impacts of climate change on her business—and her traditional New England lifestyle.

“The maple syrup season is so unreliable that everyone is quitting,” she says. “You have to tap earlier and earlier and then the season is much shorter, if [we have one] at all.” According to a recent study by the University of Vermont Proctor Maple Research Center, maple-sugaring seasons shrank by about 10 percent in the last 40 years—on average, starting about a week earlier and ending 10 days earlier. And according to a 2001 report, the New England Regional Assessment Group predicted that maples would dwindle in New England and become more common in southern Canada.

In the last few years, the Shumways have also observed more inconsistencies in the weather, such as “violent storms, shorter winters, [and] fluctuating temps all the time,” says Kay Shumway. ”Usually we have black-eyed Susans in August, and they’re the last flowers in the pastures,” but they were in full bloom in July this year, she notes.

Shumway has also noticed that the cross-country ski season has ended earlier and been less consistent in the last decade, an observation corroborated by other ski businesses in New Hampshire. To do their part, the couple uses compact fluorescent bulbs and is cutting back on as much energy use as possible. They serve food from local farmers, rather than importing items from across the country and creating pollution. Kay doesn’t raise sheep any more, but she tends a large garden full of lettuces, tomatoes, spinach, beans, and other vegetables. In late July and early August, they pick the wild blueberries that grow in the meadows—and this year, those, at least, ripened at exactly the right time.

PREVIOUS PAGE

1 | 2