Skiing is ghastly

Is anyone else getting a bit fed up of reading weepy newspaper stories about how the skiing industry is being killed off by climate change? Apparently, 80 ski resorts in the Alps have already closed for good due to a lack of snow, and according to the OECD only 400 of the 666 ski areas in the Alps will remain viable if global temperatures rise by 2º above what they were in the mid 19th century.

If we lose 250 ski resorts that would be a gain for the mountains, as far as I am concerned. I suspect many people who visit the Alps in the summer will agree with me. There is no fairly tale charm then, just a mess of pylons and wires. Want to know what those manicured pistes look like when the snow is gone? Underneath, they are crudely bulldozed trackways, with inconvenient rocks shunted out of the way. Come June and your typical Alpine ski resort looks like the HS2 construction site – but where construction never ends.