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Global Warming Scare Hits Ski Country

Global Warming Scare Hits Ski Country Residents of Park City, Utah Turn Out in Force to Hear About Global Warming, and the News Wasn’t Good By BILL REDEKER

PARK CITY, Utah, Jan. 12, 2007 - “The Greatest Snow on Earth” is emblazoned across Utah license plates. Park City, Utah, was the alpine venue during the Winter Olympic Games in 2002. A World Cup freestyle skiing competition was held this week in neighboring Deer Valley. The arctic scenes in the movie, “National Treasure” were filmed here. As they are fond of saying in this old mining town, “when the silver mines closed, we discovered white gold.”

Watch the full report on “World News with Charles Gibson” tonight.

So this week, when the results of a $60,000 climatology study were released, more than 1,000 residents of this town of 8,500 crowded into an auditorium to hear the news.

“Temperatures are projected to rise 6 to 50 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century,” announced Mark Williams, a University of Colorado scientist who specializes in temperature and precipitation modeling.

“For the high emission scenario, there’s just no snow on Park City’s mountains,” said fellow scientist Brian Lazar, who explained that “high emission” meant that the world would continue to accelerate its use of carbon based fuels that create greenhouse emissions.

Armed with graphics and statistical models, the scientists delivered the sobering message to the nervous crowd.

“I’ve been very scared for some time,” said one resident, addressing the experts. “I’m scared primarily for my grandchildren, great-grandchildren,” he said.

Global Warming Could Cut the Green in the Ski Industry

His concern may be well-founded. Williams and Lazar, who relied on seven different projections formulated by a United Nations team of experts, predicted dire consequences for the winter sports industry unless energy consumption is curbed.

Even under the best scenario the so-called “green” scenario, which anticipates dramatic cuts in greenhouse emissions, the ski season at the turn of the century could extend only from Christmas to President’s Day, eliminating the profitable shoulder season in the ski and snowboard industry.

Williams said carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases thicken the atmosphere and make the planet’s surface hotter.

“The mountains of the American West are the first to heat up,” he said. “You are the canary in the coal mine” he added, referring to the old mining practice of placing a bird in a cage in a mine shaft to alert miners to poisonous gases.”

“One thing to keep in mind is, when we emit carbon dioxide, it stays in the atmosphere for 50 years. Regardless of what we do today, there’s a 50-year lag time,” Williams added. “That has a huge effect on the ski conditions. We’d be going from Park City champagne powder — light, dry snow — to Sierra cement — heavy, wet snow.

Leading the Fight Against Global Warming

The study was underwritten by POWDR Corporation, which operates Park City Mountain Resort. When asked why he funded research that predicts the end of his business, CEO John Cumming told ABC News if he believed it was hopeless, he would sell his resorts in Utah, Nevada, Oregon and California. However, he is not selling, and has become a leader in the fight against global warming.

“We have visitors from around the world that come here and hopefully see that we’ve opted for doing something different that will,” Cumming said.

Installing compact fluorescent light bulbs, turning off lights and unplugging electronic devices when not in use, driving with cruise control, enrolling in paperless billing and buying energy generated by windmills are a few steps that Cumming advocates. His resort has improved the efficiency of snow making equipment and reduced emissions from vehicles used in the upkeep of the resort.

It’s not just skiing and snowboarding that are threatened. Without snow, the entire mountain economy, including the booming housing market, would suffer. Last year, more than $2 billion worth of real estate was sold in the Park City area.

“Snow is our industry, our economy,” said Dena Fleming, a leading real estate broker. “It has us all concerned as skiing is our number one industry.”

But Fleming quickly put the best face on it by touting the city’s sunny, green summer season. “The summertime is why we all stayed here,” she quickly added.

Cumming agrees [ sort of. “People more and more are flocking to the mountains in the summer time maybe it’s to escape the heat, maybe that’s an opportunity for us in the future,” he said. “I sure don’t want to find out.”

Myles Rademan, the city’s public relations guru, answers the question everyone here has: What can a small town really do to reverse global warming?

“I think we’re in a unique position because of the kinds of people who come here,” he said. “These are decisionmakers, people who are captains of industry, captains of the media. They will start talking about these issues.”

‘Save Our Snow’

In fact, the Sundance Film Festival opens next week in Park City.

At KPCW, the local radio station, station manager Blair Feulner leads the local media campaign. “Save Our Snow” bellows a pre-recorded announcement. Feulner, along with Cumming, are the force behind the city’s anti-global warming campaign.

“If we don’t do something to clean up our act, it’s pretty scary,” he said. “The western United States, the ski areas, are warming at twice to three times the low lying areas, so in the last five years we’ve gone up a couple of degrees Fahrenheit. Us guys in the snow business are going to be in serious hurt in not a lot of years.”

So far, this has been a good, if not spectacular winter. The three local resorts, Park City, Deer Valley and The Canyons, currently boast a four foot base and more snow is on the way.

So, what do skiers think when asked about global warming and predictions that the mountains could someday resemble the Salt Lake City valley below?

“You could go after global warming and crack down on energy use, but you won’t have Park City as it was,” says attorney Donald Little. “It’ll be back like it was in the mining days. And once the mining ran out, this was a ghost town and if you want to make this a ghost town you can do that, but I think you have to be practical and pragmatic about the approach. Global warming needs to be handled on a larger scale.”

Brent Giles, Park City Resort director of operations, had the last word at the town hall meeting.

“If in 2100, we can’t ski, that’s the least of our problems,” he said.

Treasury Yields Plummet

“Money is not coming out of the market,” it’s just being rotated, Jim Cramer said on TheStreet.com TV’s Wall Street Confidential Webcast Tuesday.

Money is shifting from the emerging markets to the Cokes (KO) and Pepsis (PEP) , he told Gregg Greenberg, the host of Wall Street Confidential.

People just want to be on whatever table is hot, Cramer said. Recently, the Chinese and Brazilian tables have been hot, “but most people don’t know anything about these companies or these countries,” Cramer continued. “It’s unnerving to see how much China can unwind.”

People believed these stocks would ramp after the Chinese New Year, but they didn’t, he said.

“If you own any China, even though it is down really huge, it is not too late to sell,” Cramer stressed. “I would sell anything Chinese today.”

What’s happening, he said, “is a thesis that we’re going to go from 4% to 1% GDP and subprime buttresses that thesis.” Therefore, market-players should buy Coke, which was just upgraded by three analysts; Pepsi, which had a good quarter; Procter & Gamble (PG) , which “has been biding time”; or Kimberly-Clark (KMB) , which just boosted its dividend, Cramer said.

People need to understand this is not the end of the market, but another shift of the bull market to the Cokes and the Pepsis, he said.

Regarding tech, Cramer believes it’s “no good.” While Cisco (CSCO) at $25 and Microsoft (MSFT) at $27 are “real good,” tech in general is “wrong” and will not be good until the summer, he said.

Yahoo! (YHOO) , which Cramer owns for his charitable trust, is up because Legg Mason (LM) is buying it, he said.

eBay (EBAY) is going to be up because it is buying back more stock than Cramer said he’s seen, other than IAC/Interactive (IACI) , “which is also going to be up.”

If people don’t like the market, they should sell it, and if they do like the market, they should buy the soft goods stocks, Cramer said. But investors should not be scared, otherwise they’re going to miss the Kellogg, (K) General Mills (GIS) and Pepsi moves up, he said.

UK March mortgage lending highest ever for the month - CML

LONDON (Thomson Financial) - The UK housing market was strong in March with gross mortgage lending registering a record performance for the month, the Council of Mortgage Lenders said.

Gross mortgage lending for March stood at 31.3 bln stg, up 22 pct on February’s figure and 10 pct higher than in March last year.

“It is clear that many borrowers are taking sensible steps to shelter against higher mortgage costs,” CML Director General Michael Coogan said.

“There is still a question mark over just how strong mortgage lending will be over the coming months as the prospect of higher interest rates takes its toll on demand.

“But we continue to expect mortgage lending to reach a record 360 bln stg this year,” he added.

rachel.armstrong@thomson.com

rar

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World Health Organisation says bird flu pandemic could kill up to 7 mln people

MANILA (Thomson Financial) - A global bird flu pandemic could infect 1 bln people and kill between 2 and 7 mln of them, the World Health Organisation said.

“The next pandemic may cause very high morbidity and mortality in a few weeks. It could cause 1 bln cases and 2 to 7 mln deaths,” said Jean-Marc Olive, the organisation’s country representative for the Philippines.

The estimates were derived from models based on previous flu epidemics, he told a forum organised by the Australian embassy.

Even “a modest pandemic lasting over one year might cause losses as high as 3 pct of Asia’s GDP and 0.5 pct of world GDP,” Olive said.

The deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu has killed at least 172 people since 2003, mostly in Southeast Asia, according to the WHO.

The organisation said the evolution of the threat posed by bird flu “cannot be predicted.”

Olive said mass poultry culls could help to avert a human pandemic, and that countries should boost preventative measures, strengthen surveillance and prepare for any outbreak.

tf.TFN-Europe_newsdesk@thomson.com

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Copyright AFX News Limited 2007. All rights reserved.

The copying, republication or redistribution of AFX News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of AFX News.

European shares hit by fears weak dollar will hurt exporters

FRANKFURT: The pound rose to a 26-year high against the dollar on Wednesday and the euro neared its record, an ascent in the major European currencies reflecting a rebalancing of the global economy that is finding Europe on a firmer footing than the United States.

Yet at the same time, major stock markets slipped in Europe - even as U.S. blue chips rose to a record new high - on fears that the roaring European economy could begin to suffer as its exports lose their competitive edge. (Page 15)

Among the European shares to slide Wednesday were exporters like BMW, which could face a tougher time globally as the currency shifts make its cars more expensive.

“The risk is that this will eventually, with the usual delay, lead to a more significant slowdown of European exports and investment growth,” said Thomas Mayer, an economist with Deutsche Bank in London. The dollar is falling sharply against European currencies than others in the world, “which is not a very healthy overall development.”

The dollars broad weakening is expected to continue as the U.S. economy slows, European central banks keep raising interest rates and as policy makers on the European side of the Atlantic keep a public air of unusual calm about the dollars drop.

The pound rose as high as $2.0133, before receding to $2.0068 in late trading in New York. The euro traded at one point at $1.3616, just under its record of $1.3670 in December 2004, before settling at $1.3591. The dollar slipped to 1.2048 Swiss francs.

A major force behind the recent gain in European currencies are expectations that central banks will need to continue to increase interest rates to tame booming economic growth. By contrast, economists believe the U.S. Federal Reserve will hold rates steady, or possibly cut rates in the next few months. Higher interest rates attract investors to pounds and euros because they can result in higher returns on assets denominated in those currencies.

Just over two years ago, when the euro was last trading at its record against the dollar, Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank and the main spokesman for the euro, called the currencys climb “brutal” and “unwelcome.”

Yet a meeting last week of finance ministers and central bank governors from the Group of 7 industrialized nations signaled no new worries about exchange rates. That gave currency traders reason to speculate that officials are far from stepping in to control markets by intervening with their vast currency reserves as a means to keep the dollar from falling.

On Wednesday, Miguel Бngel Fernбndez Ordусez, a member of the ECBs governing council, said in Madrid that the strong euro could indeed “cut growth,” but it also helped keep a lid on inflation, wire services reported.

Europes central bankers are quiet in part because they find the dollars fall inevitable, given the high debt and low savings rates in the United States.

The bankers feel that the relative value of currencies in part mirrors a rebalancing in global growth that has been in place since the middle of last year.

“Slower growth in the U.S. has been countered by a pickup in growth momentum in the euro area and continued solid expansion in Asia,” Irelands central bank said in a report Wednesday.

The euro zone economy is growing at the fastest pace in nearly a decade.

The economy is firing on all cylinders, fueled by exports, corporate investment and domestic demand. The unemployment level is also down sharply, helping consumption.

The European construction sector is also strong, figures showed Wednesday. Production grew 0.9 percent in the euro area in February from the previous month, up from 0.3 percent in January, the European Unions statistics office said.

But a strong currency will exacerbate the problems of European companies that rely on the U.S. economy for a bulk of their business.

Signet, a British jeweler with 75 percent of its sales in the United States, also warned Wednesday that the U.S. slowdown was kicking in, prompting the shares in London to slide 3.25 pence to 122 pence.

“Since the start of the financial year, the trading environment in the U.S. appears to have weakened somewhat,” Signets chief executive, Terry Burman, said in a statement.

The Dow Jones Stoxx 50 index fell 16.02 points to 3,852.47, with traders citing concerns about higher interest rates and a weaker dollar.

The German DAX index fell 66.49 points to 7,282.34, with big exporters like BMW and DaimlerChrysler sinking.

While a weak dollar and fears of higher interest rates are hurting European stocks, U.S. shares have been getting a lift from expectations that the Fed will cut interest rates, keeping borrowing costs low for U.S. companies, said Mike Berg, a currency analyst with 4Cast in London.