Skilled snowboarder and climate activist Jeremy Jones is comfortable to discuss riding deep snow in the most recent Teton Gravity Research film “Magic Hour” (Vail Mountain School, Sunday, 7 p.m.), nevertheless it’s very easy to get him off describing perfect powder runs within the Tetons and onto the less-than-perfect Inflation Reduction Act.
First the film – TGR’s latest edition of early-season cinematic stoke. View the trailer here; buy tickets for the Vail premier here (doors open at 6:30 p.m.); and seek for other showings around Colorado and the country here.
“I’m in Teton National Park [in the movie],” Jones told RealVail.com by phone from his home in Truckee, Calif. “I’m certainly not a star of the film, but I’ll say that section of the film that stars Jimmy Ryan and Nathaniel Murphy, from a foot-powered perspective, I consider it groundbreaking when it comes to just with the ability to document the high peaks of the Tetons in the style during which TGR did.”
Asked about skinning up and riding down incredibly exposed lines in the long-lasting Wyoming mountain range named by French fur trappers, the 47-year-old Jones, who’s been fighting for climate change awareness and policy change longer than he’s owned his namesake Jones Snowboards company, still sounds a bit in awe.
“It was a feat unto itself, after which to get these lines in like primo conditions and see these guys skiing and snowboarding these technical, exposed lines that traditionally are type of hop turns, type of Etch A Sketch down, they usually’re similar to railing big open turns and pow …” Jones said. “We find yourself riding Mount Moran at sunrise in deep pow, which was really special. It was magical [laughing at the film title tie-in]. We drop in at like orange light because the sun is cresting to love double overhead pow turns. So yes, we lived as much as the name on that one.”
If recent snowfall on Colorado’s high peaks, locking in season ski passes, heading off to gear swaps, and talk of a third-straight La Niña season hopefully, finally delivering a giant snow season hasn’t been enough to get your blood pumping, then Jones says TGR’s “Magic Hour” will certainly do the trick.
But for the founding father of Protect Our Winters, a nonprofit with greater than 130,000 members worldwide – including among the biggest names within the snow sports world – the thing that gets his blood pumping is Congress finally doing something on climate with the $374 billion in spending within the IRA that some experts estimate will end in greater than $800 billion in climate-mitigation investment overall.
Jones founded POW in 2007 – the 12 months before launching Jones Snowboards – and so to finally see something being done after 15 years is each exhilarating and frustrating in that it took so long. All that climate spending, experts predict, will cut climate pollution by 40% below 2005 levels by 2030.
“At POW … we’re really embracing this progress over perfection,” Jones said. “We call it the BFD Bill – big fucking deal. It’s not perfect, nevertheless it’s progress. And we haven’t been capable of say the words like “definitive progress,” from a climate front, for the 15 years I’ve been dug in on it.”
Youth enthusiasm for climate policy progress, and the growing power of what Jones calls the “Outdoor State” lobbying coalition, must now carry over into the midterm election next month, Jones says.
“I’m within the weeds on this. As we roll into this midterm election, that is type of just like the playoffs for me, and for POW, and so at Protect Our Winters, we would like to unify the Outdoor State around climate motion and send this clear message of, ‘We wish candidates who support climate policy,’” Jones said. “Because, as I said earlier, we’re not getting there without policy giving this tailwind to this transition.”
Jones said climate policy, transitioning to renewable energy, moving the transportation sector toward electrification, all ought to be an enormous, urgent and totally bipartisan push.
“The truth is the Outdoor State is politically very diverse, and I don’t say that in a negative way, nevertheless it’s like roughly 40% Democratic, 30% Republican, 30% Independent,” Jones said. “And so our duty is to clarify that we should always, only for the following election or two, turn the Outdoor State into single-issue voters and say, ‘Look, in case you’re not a climate champion, you’ll be able to’t get elected by the Outdoor State because collectively it’s an even bigger voter block than the NRA, pharmaceuticals and the extraction industry. But because we’re divided, we supply zero weight.”
Coming together can flip the activate where even staunch oil-and-gas-backed Republicans stand on climate, since the outdoor industry supports 7.6 million jobs and $887 billion in economic activity every 12 months, POW contends.
“There’s not a politician in D.C. that’s afraid of taking a vote against what everyone within the Outdoor State agrees on, which is clean air, clean water, and a healthy planet,” said Jones, who was named a “Champion of Change” by President Barack Obama in 2013. “I actually have Republican friends, and I like talking to them [about climate policy], quite frankly, but I proceed to get that one who’s like, ‘Love what you do.’ They’ve got their POW sticker on their skis they usually’re like, ‘But there’s no way in hell I used to be voting for [President Joe] Biden. So I’m like, ‘Dude, you’ll be able to’t love all these items after which go and vote for climate deniers.’”
But yelling at people for doing the flawed thing, or profiling someone driving an enormous, diesel-spewing pickup truck, is the flawed approach to go, Jones says. And POW has an excellent answer for many who attempt to shame snow-sports athletes for jetting off to Alaska to fly helicopters to the highest of the Chugach Mountains while the glaciers at their base are receding as a result of carbon emissions causing manmade climate change.
In a 2019 interview in Vail with RealVail.com, POW Executive Director Mario Molina said athletes shouldn’t be afraid of that hypocrisy argument and potential blowback for speaking out on climate issues. Molina identified that the common American produces between 22 to 24 tons of carbon a 12 months, which is a hell of quite a bit greater than the common person living within the Guatemalan mountains where he’s from.
But he said the largest polluting firms on the globe are answerable for a whole bunch upon a whole bunch of thousands and thousands of tons of a carbon a 12 months, they usually’re those who need to vary. “There are 15 to 25 firms that account for 85 percent of all of the greenhouse gas emissions going into the atmosphere every 12 months,” Molina said on the time. “Rossignol, Jones Snowboards, Burton … should not considered one of those 15 to 25 firms. And so, yes, we should always all live one of the best lifestyles that we will, we should always all lead by example, but we should not the primary problem.”
Jones added that considered one of the largest things people can do is demand climate motion from politicians across the political spectrum, starting by voting climate-first on Nov. 8.
David O. Williams is the editor and co-founder of RealVail.com and has had his awarding-winning work (see About Us) published in greater than 75 newspapers and magazines all over the world, including 5280 Magazine, American Way Magazine (American Airlines), the Anchorage Each day News (Alaska), the Anchorage Each day Press (Alaska), Aspen Each day News, Aspen Journalism, the Aspen Times, Beaver Creek Magazine, the Boulder Each day Camera, the Casper Star Tribune (Wyoming), the Chicago Tribune, Colorado Central Magazine, the Colorado Independent (formerly Colorado Confidential), Colorado Newsline, Colorado Politics (formerly the Colorado Statesman), Colorado Public News, the Colorado Springs Gazette, the Colorado Springs Independent, the Colorado Statesman (now Colorado Politics), the Colorado Times Recorder, the Cortez Journal, the Craig Each day Press, the Curry Coastal Pilot (Oregon), the Each day Trail (Vail), the Del Norte Triplicate (California), the Denver Each day News, the Denver Gazette, the Denver Post, the Durango Herald, the Eagle Valley Enterprise, the Eastside Journal (Bellevue, Washington), ESPN.com, Explore Big Sky (Mont.), the Fort Morgan Times (Colorado), the Glenwood Springs Post-Independent, the Grand Junction Each day Sentinel, the Greeley Tribune, the Huffington Post, the King County Journal (Seattle, Washington), the Kingman Each day Miner (Arizona), KUNC.org (northern Colorado), LA Weekly, the Las Vegas Sun, the Leadville Herald-Democrat, the London Each day Mirror, the Moab Times Independent (Utah), the Montgomery Journal (Maryland), the Montrose Each day Press, The Latest York Times, the Parent’s Handbook, Peaks Magazine (now Epic Life), People Magazine, Powder Magazine, the Pueblo Chieftain, PT Magazine, the Rio Blanco Herald Times (Colorado), Rocky Mountain Golf Magazine, the Rocky Mountain News, RouteFifty.com (formerly Government Executive State and Local), the Salt Lake Tribune, SKI Magazine, Ski Area Management, SKIING Magazine, the Sky-Hi News, the Steamboat Pilot & Today, the Sterling Journal Advocate (Colorado), the Summit Each day News, United Hemispheres (United Airlines), Vail/Beaver Creek Magazine, Vail en Español, Vail Health Magazine, Vail Valley Magazine, the Vail Each day, the Vail Trail, Westword (Denver), Writers on the Range and the Wyoming Tribune Eagle. Williams can be the founder, publisher and editor of RealVail.com and RockyMountainPost.com.
