Climate Connection – Citizens’ Climate Lobby

Last January, I had the joy of taking my 3 year old daughter ice skating for the first time. I was thrilled. I grew up loving winter. My family hosted an annual sledding party, at which a dozen of our extended family members crammed into our modest house, snow boots and pants and jackets piled high around the wood stove, rivaling the snow drifts piled outside.

As we grew up, we shifted from the sledding hill to ski resorts, not just for our family get together, but regular excursions to different local resorts with college friends, sampling mom-and-pop motels, and local establishments. When I moved to Madison nearly ten years ago, I took up ice skating and pond hockey, and currently live within walking distance of a small outdoor neighborhood rink.

A couple weeks after my daughter's first ice skating outing, she asked if we could go again. It was special to her and to me, an outdoor daddy-daughter bond. Unfortunately, it was 60 degrees in the middle of February, and I had to tell her no, we couldn't go, and we probably could not go again for almost an entire year.

How do I explain to my three-year-old daughter that winter is disappearing? Last year was not an anomaly. Wisconsin has one of the longest running sets of data on lake ice coverage in the world, dating back to the mid-1800s. And the data are clear: ice is forming later and melting earlier than at any point in our state's 150 year history.

Everywhere I look, the stories are the same. Snowmobiles stuck on trailers with trails muddy and closed. Ski resorts struggling to stay open, advertising spring skiing in the dead of February. Ice fishermen trying to enjoy the few weekends a year with good, safe ice.

To be sure, not every winter is warm and short, and there will always be anomalies, like the winter of 2013-2014 during which “polar vortex” became a household word. But these are the exception and not the norm, and any sane businessman, investor, or father would not make economic invests necessitating cold weather. I'd love to buy my daughter skis and snowshoes, but I already don't use mine enough to justify the purchase. Unfortunately, the local ski shops, mom and pop motels, and local restaurants don't have the luxury of opting out of the winter economy. They are already all in. And if climate trends and current policy continues, many will have no choice except to fold.

There is more than my daughter's desire to go skating on a pond at stake. The livelihoods of thousands of small businesses are at stake. Wisconsin identity and culture are at stake, whether its ice fishing, snowmobiling or the Birkebeiner.

For good or ill, the future of winter is not in our hands. It's in yours. We need strong, pragmatic, fair, and effective national policies to slow and even reverse the loss of the winter economy and culture. Please consider a market-based, revenue neutral carbon fee and dividend proposal. A generation from now, when my grandchildren ask me if they can go ice skating, perhaps I can say yes.

Ryan O’Connor

Madison, WI

2nd Congressional District