A group of 75 snow sports athletes, including Olympic medalist and X-Gamers champions, urged President Obama to use his executive authority to reduce carbon emission produced by the nations power plants and reject the Keystone XL pipeline.
In an April 9 letter, the group called on Obama to follow through on the promise he made in the State of the Union address to fight climate change.
Mr. President, its time to force our transition to clean energy, and we need your leadership, the letter states. The letter references a December 2012 report published by Protect Our Winters (POW) and the Natural Resources Defense Council highlighting how inconsistent winters have affected the U.S. snow sports community and tourism-dependent states.
At risk are the economies of tourist-dependent states where winter tourism generates $12.2 billion in revenue annually, supports 212,000 jobs and $7 billion in salaries, the letter states.
Jeremy Jones, the pro snowboarder who founded POW, was honored April 11 at a White House ceremony along with other Champions of Change in recognition of ordinary Americans doing extraordinary things in their communities to out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world.
