This is the Guardian.

The Guardian Archive Long Read.

My name is Simon Parkin. I'm a journalist and an author.

And in 2019 I wrote the piece, Snow Machines and Fleas Blankets

inside the ski industry's battle with climate change.

I was actually getting my hair cut in Brighton and as often happens

these situations had a conversation with the guy who was cutting my hair

and I said well what did you do over the Christmas period?

And he said oh me and my family were in the Alps skiing.

And I said how was that then? And he said well it was okay

but all of the snow had to be generated by snow machines

because it was very sunny and it had all melted.

So that meant that we ended up skiing on artificial snow.

That immediately pricked my interest and led me into this world

of particularly the ski resorts in the Alps that are having to contend

with the accelerated effects of climate change at altitude.

So it affects them more gravely than it does land at lower altitudes

and they found that since 1960 their ski season has reduced by more than a month.

And they're increasingly having patches of where the snow has melted

and in order to continue to attract skiers from around the world

and from Britain in particular they are having to devise these methods

of firing artificial snow from cannons across dozens of square miles of mountain.

...