To preserve skiing at all costs, some countries are coming up with even more polluting solutions: covering the glaciers, upstream, with a white plastic sheet.
“There is one in Italy and I saw four in Switzerland, for example. In fact, they cover them with tarpaulins in summer because we know that a glacier that is very white reflects more of the sun’s energy, and therefore tends to melt less. So, as the glaciers are shrinking, we say to ourselves that if we put up very white tarpaulins, they will shrink a little less in summer and there is a greater chance that they will arrive until winter and that we will have then a better run to ski that winter.”
The problem is once once more the snow groomers, but also and above all, the microplastics that these tarpaulins will leave behind. “IWe have to deploy these tarps once more with snow groomers which pollute, as I explained before, but they are also plastic tarps made of a kind of polymer. And so, when we remove the tarpaulins, there are still plenty of fibers of these polymers which accumulate on the glacier or which simply fly away and which will pollute further with microplastics in nature.
We pollute to put up the tarpaulins and take them down
“So, we pollute to put on the tarpaulins and take them off, but also through the materials used. Again, it’s just a matter of postponing a problem that will only happen, but polluting more. And that’s the problem.”
A venture doomed to failure anyway because the glaciers in the French Alps are doomed to disappear. “Glaciers are melting quite quickly and the IPCC report projects that by 2100, 94% of glaciers in the European Alps will have disappeared. It’s quite huge. And the problem with precipitation in the form of rain is that it accelerates the melting of these glaciers. And also, when there’s snow cover and there’s a rain event followingwards at ski resorts, it melts the snow twice as fast.”
An acceleration of the phenomenon which will not make the slopes immaculate for skiers.
