Climate change and food aid – the no snow show connection

Too much snow used to mean too little food for people in cool climates. 
These days, in the energy-intensive global snow tourism industry, too little snow means workers depend on food charity.

 Ski fields in the South Island of New Zealand have traditionally opened for the season on the first weekend of June (even though there has usually been only just enough snow for skiing at that time). Queenstown, the resort town at the centre of the major southern ski-fields, schedules an annual ten day winter festival at the end of June, which includes snow-based activities.

They did not take place this year. With this month tracking to be the warmest June on record, there's still no natural snow down south, and it has been too warm to use the (energy and water intensive) snow-making machines.

No snow = no work = no pay = no food for nearly a thousand seasonal ski-field and related services workers, about half of whom flew into New Zealand at the beginning of June to take up their jobs. The only foreigners eligible for unemployment relief payments are Australians, so foreign workers from the rest of the world are now dependent on charity food parcel handouts from the Salvation Army and local businesses to eat, or free lunches and dinners put on by the companies which will pay them – when the snow comes.

Snow tourism, wherever it takes place, is heavily dependent on fossil fuel energy, and hence a high emitter of CO². Thus it appears to be actively contributing to its own demise, in the same manner as fossil-fuel dependent agriculture. The food insecurity of the ski industry workers is thankfully temporary – this year – but just how sustainable is any industry that contributes to climate change?