I don’t have a strong opinion on dog sledding, but if you are a musher you need to know that, like ice fishing and hockey, dog sledding is at risk from climate change. From Vice News, about Alaska’s Iditarod:

…on Tuesday, race organizers announced that the starting point of this year’s race will be moved due to a lack of snow, a change that has happened only one other time in the race’s 43-year history, in 2003.

“While some snow did fall east of the Alaska Range over the past couple of weeks, other parts of the trail, in very critical areas, did not get much or any of it,” Iditarod CEO Stan Hooley said.

Meanwhile, it appears likely that global warming is causing Grizzly Bears to come out of hibernation early, so be careful if you are in or near Yellowstone:

On Monday, park officials confirmed sightings of a grizzly in the center of the park, feeding on a bison carcass. The bears don’t usually begin to emerge from hibernation until the beginning of March, making this bear’s arrival about three weeks early.

“We have had bears observed in February before, in a few other years,” Kerry Gunther, Yellowstone National Park’s bear management biologist, told VICE News. “But this year, lately, it’s been unseasonably warm. Certainly springlike temperatures, almost summerlike temperatures.”

Several grizzlies have also been spotted beyond the park’s boundaries in Montana and Wyoming.

And if you are a ski bunny, Climate Change Could Decimate the American Ski Industry

…The Summit at Snoqualmie, near Seattle, closed its highest and last remaining open slope last week because of poor conditions. The situation there hues closely to what’s happening all across the West.

“Based on a 60-year record, the total amount of snow that we’ve lost in the West varies anywhere from 15 to 60 percent,” Noah Molotch, an assistant professor at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, told VICE News.

… winter sports recreation generates $67 billion annually for the US economy, propping up 900,000 jobs. Its collapse could kill entire local and regional economies across the West or in New England.

Have you read the breakthrough novel of the year? When you are done with that, try:

In Search of Sungudogo by Greg Laden, now in Kindle or Paperback
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