In the US, Protect Our Winters has just launched what it is calling its ‘Riders Alliance’, a group of 53 professional snowsports athletes, committed to fighting climate change and speaking out for the environment.
It is a remarkable line up of some of the best skiers and boarders on the planet.
As they say in the release, “Climate change is affecting our lives and careers and it’s in our best interest to use our passion to mobilize the community and bring a new perspective to the policy discussion.”
It’s great to see leadership being taken by so many high profile athletes. The group includesGretchen Bleiler, Jeremy Jones, Sage Cattabriga-Alosa, and Ingrid Backstrom.
The POW Riders Alliance was developed as a central platform for athletes to speak out and create a social movement against climate change. For example, POW recently led a group of 17 athletes to Washington, D.C. for meetings with US Senators and has reached over 20,000 young students with a message of climate action delivered by pro athletes.
POW believes that by combining the athletes’ passion with their influence, first-hand experience and immense media reach, it represents a new, powerful approach to environmental advocacy.
With the Winter Olympics just a couple of weeks away, POW and Olympic athletes from the Riders Alliance will launch an initiative to call attention to climate change on the world’s largest sports stage in Sochi, Russia in partnership with a group of graduate students from the Yale School of Forestry.
The press release is available here, and photos of the skiers/ boarders are available here.
Mountain Journal 
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