...sitting here on Capitol Hill. The clock is ticking while the American Clean Energy Leadership Act (ACELA) sits in a Senate committee. If you're not a policy wonk (political nerd) the US Senate must vote on this bill before April 16, 2010 or it expires. Apparently, some Senators are willing to let the bill die. If you are concerned about reducing CO2 emissions nationally and growing renewable energy, then it's time to call or write your Senator.

It's been quite a while since I've brought home a report card, but I remember it pretty well. A report card with all 'A's was great (although rare), but grades lower than 'B' were cause for a long conversation with my parents. The '09/10 report cards are out for ski areas in the Western United States. Unfortunately, I feel like it's time to have a long conversation with the ski areas in my state. The nearby ski areas have earned no 'A's, a few 'B's and one 'C'. Not a stellar grade point average for my area.

'There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.' That saying applies to skiing and snowboarding as well as time-share condo seminars. Peter Frick-Wright discovered as much in his attempt to reduce his carbon footprint (snowprint?) by snowboarding in the backcountry. Peter rode a train to 'see whether I can ride the rails to a near-zero-emissions vacation'. Unfortunately, Peter wasn't able to avoid car trips to the trailhead and he got a crash-course in backcountry ski safety too.

The modern Olympic Games are a showcase for athletic competition and for the city and country that host them. Vancouver, British Columbia will host the 2010 Winter Olympics and the organizing committee (VANOC) is going all out to present their city at its best.

Get your boot bags together, go bring your ski friends too, ‘cause its getting nearer, it soon will be with you. Yes, the Denver to Winter Park ski train is returning on December 27, 2009. Now called the Rio Grande Scenic Ski Train, the train departs from Union Station in Denver at 7am, arrives at Winter Park at 9:15am. The return trip departs Winter Park at 4:15pm and arrives at Denver at 6:30pm. The ski train will run through March 28, 2010 with a weekend schedule in January, adding Thursday and Friday service in February and March.

Getting your point across often requires taking the extra step. Sometimes you have to take several thousand extra steps, just ask Alison Gannett. She is hiking 250 miles from London to Brussels to make the point that Climate Change threatens the existence of snow and glaciers across the planet. To drive her point home, Alison is hiking with a pair of skis strapped on her full backpack!

When you go skiing how do you get to the mountains? If you can take a bus or train to the mountain, that's great! Unfortunately, for many of us there simply isn't any public transit to the closest ski resort. Speaking for myself, every time I go skiing I drive to the local ski area. Since driving is my only practical option - I carpool to the mountain.

Austria-based Fischer Sports GMBH has fully converted their ski production to run on renewable power. While their Austrian plant has been powered by biomass since 2001, now their larger facility in Mukachevo, Ukraine is run by a 5.5 MW biomass-fueled power plant. The Ukraine plant was built using state-of-the-art engineering and features the necessary filter systems. This represents a major contribution from Fischer towards achieving the Kyoto environmental objectives.