Meet the professional snowboarder leading the battle against climate change – The Telegraph

Watching him carve down an Austrian mountainside, throwing up a huge rooster tail of snow, its hard to imagine professional snowboarder Jeremy Jones stalking the corridors of power in Washington DC. Yet increasingly, this is where the 45-year-old American spends his time, swapping his Gore-Tex jacket for a suit, and lobbying lawmakers directly about the issue closest to his heart: climate change.

Its no secret that winter sports are facing an existential crisis. Glaciers are melting at an unprecedented rate, experts predict that the Alps will lose 35 percent of their snow coverage in the next 15 years, and even Japan often billed as the ultimate powdery paradise has been struggling for snow this winter.

Few are more acutely aware of the problem than Jones. Widely recognised as one of the best freeriders ever to strap on a snowboard, hes enjoyed a long and decorated career thats seen him win accolades that include Snowboarder magazines Big Mountain Rider of the Year (an award voted for by his fellow professionals) a record-breaking 10 times. His longevity also means hes witnessed the changes wrought by global warming up close.

Back in 2005, he told me over an aprs-ski beer in the Austrian resort of Damls, I was in northern Canada, in Prince Rupert, on the Alaska border. I was hiking with some locals in February and they were showing me restaurants that had closed. We don't get enough snow anymore, they said.

Realising the devastating impact that the climate crisis would have on mountain communities everywhere, including his hometown of Tahoe, California, Jones set up a charity, Protect Our Winters (POW), in 2007. His aim was to use his profile to raise awareness and campaign for change within the industry. In recent years however, the growing scale of the crisis has forced him to change tack. When we started, we were talking about low-energy light bulbs and reusable water bottles, he said. But as we got more climate experts on board, they said: Look your light bulb is not getting you where we need to go.

POW, Jones he told me, is now a full-on political organisation, and a highly effective one. In 2013, Jones was given a Champion of Change award by then-President Barack Obama for his work on the climate crisis. Yet whats interesting about this move into more direct lobbying is just how apolitical Jones has managed to remain.

Recognising that he risked alienating many of the outdoor enthusiasts that hed need to bring on-side including fishermen, and even hunters hes always been careful to keep any discussion of party allegiances at arms length. POW is, he stresses, a bi-partisan group. If you're a Republican and you're going to take votes on climate action, we've got your back.

In fact, many of Jones recent efforts have been focused specifically on reaching across party divides. He gives the example of a trip he took to Washington with Josh Jespersen, a POW activist and fellow snowboarder whos also a retired NAVY Seal. He did two tours of duty, hes a Republican, a proud American, and hes really fired up about climate change. When Jespersen walks into a Republicans office in Washington, Jones says, people sit up and listen.

Once POW has got their attention, Jones said, our message is simple. This is an economic issue, this is a jobs issue. This is happening, we're seeing the effects, and it's killing us. Given the size of the outdoor recreation industry in the US, the numbers are hard to ignore. According to the latest US government statistics, the sector is worth US$427 billion (329 billion), or 2.2 percent of GDP, and employs hundreds of thousands across the country.

Its bigger than the pharmaceutical industry, it's bigger than the extraction industry and it's bigger than the gun industry, says Jones. And as a CEO himself (he founded his own company, Jones Snowboards, in 2010) hes more than happy talking business with lawmakers.

Of course, politics is about more than whats happening in Washington. POW has off-shoots around the world (including a very active UK branch, based in Aviemore) and with an election coming up, Jones finds himself increasingly focusing on what politicians refer to as the ground game.

Again, his approach is avowedly non-partisan. It revolves around talking to outdoor enthusiasts of all political stripes in a language they can understand, and persuading them to make climate the defining issue when casting their vote. North Carolina, for example, is a big climbing zone. So well go on a climbing gym tour with Tommy Caldwell [star of 2017 extreme-climbing film The Dawn Wall,] and talk about climate change. Or well do events where we bring in a high profile hunter to give a talk. You get people going yeah Im Republican, but Im out in the woods every day and I see the problems.

Putting himself out there as a climate campaigner has meant Jones own behaviour coming under increasing scrutiny. Im hyper aware of my carbon footprint, and I improve every year, he told me, but admits that its far from perfect. He gave up using helicopters and snowmobiles to get to backcountry snow fields years ago, and uses Jones Snowboards as an example of how to run a company as sustainably as possible. Yet most of the constant online attacks he endures are over this issue.

If you look under any post [about me], there will be 400 comments saying I'm the worst human in the world, Jones said, adding that those who write POWs message off because of his personal carbon footprint are missing the point entirely. We need people who eat meat, hop on a plane, or drive a snowmobile - we need those people to vote for climate action. Giving up the personal stuff is good, I mean you need to do everything you can, but really, we need large-scale systemic change.

In the end, any criticism Jones puts up with is a price worth paying, he believes. Its not just a sport he loves thats on the line, but the livelihood of his friends and family, and an entire way of life. Recently I was in the Arlberg [in Austria], looking down over a whole valley. You can see the infrastructure, you can see the fancy lifts, and the villages and the whole lot. I was thinking what happens to all of this?

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Meet the professional snowboarder leading the battle against climate change - The Telegraph