Whistler newest locale for TED talks
WHISTLER, B.C. – Oh the joy. The TED conferences are moving northward along the West Coast, with a new central headquarters in Vancouver and a satellite conference in Whistler beginning in March 2014.

You haven’t heard of TED? Where have you been holed up, Rip Van Winkle? As one person in Whistler told Pique newsmagazine, TED seems to be everywhere: in the news, on the Internet, even in a recent episode of “Grey’s Anatomy.”

TED stands for technology, entertainment, design and it consists primarily of bright people who talk well. Roots are in California’s Silicon Valley, and for many years the conferences were held in Long Beach, with a satellite conference in Palm Springs.

The conference’s mission statement has big arms: “We believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world. So we’re building here a clearinghouse that offers free knowledge and inspiration from the world’s most inspired thinkers, and also a community of curious souls to engage with ideas and each other.”

In 1984, at the first conference, the Macintosh computer was demonstrated. Bill Clinton and Al Gore have presented, as has author Malcolm Gladwell, software and Internet innovators Bill Gates, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, and the list goes on and on.

Not just anybody can show up. Membership is required, at an annual cost of $6,000, and it’s by invitation only. You can, however, watch the lectures for free on the Internet.

Vancouver’s conference will draw 1,200 to 1,400 delegates. The Satellite TEDActive event at Whistler’s Fairmont Hotel will have 700 people.

Why would Whistler and its most prestigious hotel work hard to host an event during March, when typically strong demand already exists?
Most guests will stay mid-week, explained Victoria Dyson, director of marketing and sales for the hotel, but there’s also the benefit of association.

“You can’t put a dollar amount on the exposure that this will be bringing to our hotel and to Whistler,” she told Pique. “We’ve got a contract for two years, 2014 and 2015 — and we’re hoping that this will be continuing for a few more years after that as well.”

Houston gives advice on telling stories
KETCHUM, Idaho –A few decades ago, Pam Houston lived in the Colorado mountain town of Fraser, which sits cheek by jowl with Winter Park, and washed dishes for a living. That was before Cowboys are My Weakness and a bunch of other books, the most recent of which is “Contents May Have Shifted.”

In advance of a visit to Ketchum, she was asked by the Idaho Mountain Express what it means for a writer to have a book out in paperback.
“For me it means I get to go to where my real fans live, like Ketchum and Telluride and Juneau,” she said. “Which usually means I get to bring my dog.”

Houston splits her time between her ranch near Creede and California, where she teaches writing at the Davis campus. She tells the Mountain Express that a writer – whether a memoirist, a novelist, a poet or a short-story writer – needs to have a natural affinity and some “serious training” in working with the language.

“Having a story is only one part of the equation, and I would argue the much smaller part,” she says. “Knowing how to make that story beautiful and compelling on the page, knowing how to shape it into something others can have access to, is far more important than the story itself.”

Paleoecologist charts climate changes
JACKSON, Wyo. – If the 1930s were also hot, last year was one for the record books in large portions of the West. But more important is how this fits in with 30 years of steady heating, says Bryan Shuman, an associate professor of geology and geophysics at the University of Wyoming.
The current warming, he tells the Jackson Hole News&Guide, is comparable to that which occurred when the last ice age ended abruptly 11,000 years ago. But unlike that time, change in the sun’s radiation and the Earth’s orbit are not to blame. The only probable explanation is the fossil fuels being burned, sending heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

“We really are experiencing meaningful change,” he told the newspaper. “It’s impossible to explain how this state became warmer without saying carbon dioxide or greenhouse gases played a part in the warming.”

Shuman runs a lab where he and his students examine past climates and the vegetation and animals that inhabited those times. On his website, Shuman explains that tree-ring data shows that Wyoming and other Rocky Mountain states have historically experienced extended periods of drought, lasting 1,000 years or more. But by studying lakes in the mountain headwaters, he believes dry periods of the deeper past exceeded the severity of those megadroughts. In the mountains along the Colorado-Wyoming border, Shuman has found evidence that lakes have gone down 30 percent or more over the last 4,500 years.

In other words, what we think of as average won’t necessarily stay that way. The climate is usually on the move, and this time we’re juicing the change with a double latte of greenhouse gases.

Living in ecosystems where fire is good
KETCHUM, Idaho – Forests fires in the West have been getting bigger and bigger, with no end in sight. Experts attribute this to several causes, including a century of fire suppression, warming temperatures and substantial drought that make the forests more vulnerable to bark beetles.

Following a new report from the National Wildlife Federation, which pins blame on the changing climate, the Idaho Mountain Express talked with a Ketchum resident who has a background in forest management.

“What we have seen across the West is almost a 100-year trend,” said Dani Mazzotta, who is with the Idaho Conservation League.

“We have been suppressing these fires around towns and communities, and we are seeing the repercussions,” she says. Fire is a healthy part of a forest’s lifecycles, but the fires in Idaho this past summer were longer and more intense than would have occurred without the heavy fuel loads from beetle-killed trees.

Greenhouses rising in mountain towns
BANFF, Alberta – Greenhouses are going up in ski towns. In Banff, the municipal government has dedicated a portion of a rooftop parking garage for a greenhouse. One already exists, and it has been such a hit that the Banff Greenhouse Gardening Society thought a second enclosure, which costs $35,000, would be good, explains the Rocky Mountain Outlook.

Society members justify the green house by explaining that it could “further enhance the opportunities for growing organic local produce, strengthen interaction amongst community members, and increase knowledge around food security and gardening.”

In Jackson, Wyo., a greenhouse has been in the works. This one would also be in association with a parking garage, but it’s still in the study stage. A local group wants to build a vertical greenhouse on the 28-foot-by-150-foot parcel immediately south of the parking garage. Again, local food production is a goal, as is education about sustainable food and renewable energy.

Drilling ad aimed at White House skiers
ASPEN – It was Presidents’ Day Weekend in a special way at Aspen and Snowmass.

Michelle Obama and Vice President Joe Biden were both there to frolic in what has been, in the context of the last two years, uncommonly good snow.

Pitkin County commissioners saw an opportunity. An area of the county about 30 miles west of Aspen called Thompson Creek has deposits of natural gas. Locals have vehemently maintained that the area is far too nice to be marred by rigs and the mess that drillers, even when on best behavior, tend to leave behind.

With that in mind, the county government bought full-page advertisements in both of the local daily newspapers, reports The Aspen Times.

“We appreciate just how important oil and gas development are to America’s economy and national security. But there are right places to drill and wrong places to drill. No one would, for example, seriously suggest erecting drill rigs in Central Park,” the message said. “We see no exaggeration in saying that Colorado’s mountain country is America’s Central Park — or in saying that drilling here would be similarly destructive to our internationally famous tourist economy.”

Do they honestly think Obama or Biden would read the ad? Probably not, a county commissioner told the Times, but maybe their entourages would.

Events funding has winners and losers
WHISTLER, B.C. – When a municipal government announces the events getting subsidies, there will always be winners and losers. Such was the case in Whistler.

A big winner was Readers and Writers, which got $30,000. That’s small potatoes, but then the festival has existed on a shoestring. Organizers told Pique newsmagazine that they are ecstatic.

Not so happy were producers of WinterPRIDe, the gay ski week held in Whistler. The festival, now in its 21st year, attracts enough people to have a $4.5 million impact on Whistler, supporters say. But without a boost from city government, they warn they may just have to fold up their tent.
Whistler, said organizer Dean Nelson, is competing against Vail, which is well-heeled enough to have a major comedian, Drew Carey, at its gay ski week.

Mayor Nancy Wilhelm-Morden, a judge at the recent Mr. Gay Canada competition, said she would be disappointed if the gay skiers go elsewhere. Whistler, she said, offers an “inclusive atmosphere.”

Other festivals getting part of the $1 million doled out include the Ironman ($250,000), Tough Mudder ($112,000) and Crankworx ($80,000).

 

– Allen Best