{"id":23128,"date":"2017-12-21T14:26:24","date_gmt":"2017-12-21T22:26:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/?p=23128"},"modified":"2018-11-11T22:25:51","modified_gmt":"2018-11-12T06:25:51","slug":"meet-mario-molina-the-new-executive-director-of-protect-our-winters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/news\/meet-mario-molina-the-new-executive-director-of-protect-our-winters","title":{"rendered":"Meet Mario Molina, the new executive director of Protect Our Winters"},"content":{"rendered":"

Why he thinks the outdoor industry needs a stronger stance on climate change.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mario Molina lives in the mountains above Boulder, Colorado, in a tiny town called Nederland. He\u2019s a snowboarder, a mountain biker and a climber. He grew up in the highlands of Guatemala, attended school in the U.S. and moved here permanently in 2010 to work as the deputy director for the Alliance for Climate Education. In November, Protect Our Winters<\/a> (POW), the nonprofit climate change advocacy group founded by pro snowboarder Jeremy Jones in 2007, hired Molina to serve as its new executive director.<\/p>\n

\"Mario

Photo Courtesy: Protect Our Winters<\/p><\/div>\n

We called up Molina soon after he took over the job to find out what his goals are at POW, why he thinks climate change should be the outdoor industry\u2019s next big issue and his vision for what a ski resort of the future could look like.<\/p>\n

The U.S. pulled out of the Paris Climate Agreement this past summer. Seems like a tough time to work in climate change. <\/strong><\/p>\n

We don\u2019t expect to see action from the federal government in the near future, but what we are seeing are states, cities, private business and municipalities actually taking a lead, moving to renewable energy and supporting carbon legislation at the state level, like we\u2019re seeing in the state of Washington<\/a>. Right now, it seems we\u2019re on track<\/a> to meet the U.S. commitment in Paris, even without federal action. But in the long term, if we really want to address the climate crisis, it\u2019s going to require \u200ba proactive national policy.<\/p>\n

What were you doing prior to joining Protect Our Winters?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was the international director for the Climate Reality Project. I looked at strategic implementation for post-Paris engagement\u00a0by civil society\u200b\u00a0in\u00a0Europe, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa and the Philippines. I spent a lot of time working with policy wonks and \u200bgovernment officials. It was a great learning experience. But I wouldn\u2019t say those people are my crew.<\/p>\n

Have you found your tribe now?<\/strong><\/p>\n

As a climber and snowboarder, it\u2019s a great fit, in terms of working within a culture that I feel is my own. Protect Our Winters fills a unique niche within the climate movement in that it can mobilize the outdoor industry, which still needs to take a stronger stance on climate\u2014just like it did with public lands. Ultimately, we are responding to the same threat: Public lands are being opened up to extraction, and a lot of that extraction will be\u00a0for \u200bfossil fuels. Climate projections not only show shorter winters, threatening the ski industry, but also increased drought and fire seasons. Protect Our Winters has consistently made the strong case for\u00a0the need to build\u00a0\u200balliances across our outdoor\u200b communities\u200b and\u00a0for the\u00a0urgency of climate as an issue that we as an industry need to care about.<\/p>\n

\"Snow-covered<\/p>\n

How do you spread that message to an entire industry? <\/strong><\/p>\n

I like to say Protect Our Winters punches above its weight class. Thanks to the caliber of our athletes\u2014like Jeremy Jones, Conrad Anker, Caroline Gleich and others\u2014we have this reach of millions via social media to mobilize people on the ground. The outdoor community in the U.S. has a long legacy of leading on environmental issues, from John Muir to Theodore Roosevelt to Yvon Chouinard. Climate is part of this battle\u2014it\u2019s the greatest threat to all the things we love most about the outdoors. Across the West, we are seeing average temperatures far above normal and less snow. The amount of April snowpack<\/a> in Colorado has declined by 20 to 60 percent at most monitoring sites in the last 40 years, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.\u00a0Decreases in winter precipitation not only affect winter sports but the creeks and streams that are fed by melting snowpack in the spring and summer. During years of above-normal downpours, which is the other extreme of climate change, the frequency and intensity of floods come with immense cost in infrastructure and erosion in private and public lands.\u00a0This community has both the privilege and responsibility of that legacy to make sure our voices are heard.<\/p>\n

Some types of outdoor recreation\u2014say, ski resorts or heli-skiing\u2014have a big carbon footprint. How can the outdoor industry justify that while also trying to do its part for climate change?<\/strong><\/p>\n

While we recognize the carbon footprint of our activities, our ultimate goal is not a world where we have to choose between climate stability and recreation. Our ultimate goal is a complete shift of the entire economy so that we don\u2019t have to choose. Twenty years ago, traditional environmental thinking was that you had to drive less or not drive at all to reduce your carbon footprint. Then Tesla came along. Innovations and renewables are driving us toward solutions. It\u2019s not difficult to envision a world where we can drive to 100 percent renewable ski lifts in our electric vehicle and ski on gear made of plant-based polymers. The vision we\u2019re working toward is a full transformation, and that transformation will come from large-scale policy change.<\/p>\n

Some people say climate change is a far-away problem. But is it a here and now problem too? <\/strong><\/p>\n

We are already seeing the impacts of climate change on public lands, with large-scale fires that have higher intensity and frequency than ever before. There is a direct relationship between higher average temperatures and increased wildfire frequency<\/a> and intensity. In the Western U.S. fire season is already three months longer on average than it was in the 1970s and those fires burn approximately 30 percent more acreage. What we\u2019re starting to see fits the climate prediction models<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Do you get to go snowboarding with Jeremy Jones and call it work?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We haven\u2019t ridden together yet, but we plan to. We\u2019ve agreed that those will be the real board meetings.<\/p>\n

Editor\u2019s Note: Protect Our Winters is one of REI\u2019s nonprofit partners.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why he thinks the outdoor industry needs a stronger stance on climate change. Mario Molina lives in the mountains above Boulder, Colorado, in a tiny town called Nederland. He\u2019s a snowboarder, a mountain biker and a climber. He grew up in the highlands of Guatemala, attended school in the U.S. and moved here permanently in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":23134,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[685,11],"tags":[795,727,692,1454,473,364,591],"internal-tag":[1683],"class_list":["post-23128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-snowsports","tag-climate-change","tag-latest-posts","tag-news","tag-protect-our-winters","tag-skiing","tag-snowsports","tag-sustainability","internal-tag-pre-redirect-snowsports"],"parsely":{"version":"1.1.0","canonical_url":"https:\/\/rei.com\/blog\/news\/meet-mario-molina-the-new-executive-director-of-protect-our-winters","smart_links":{"inbound":0,"outbound":0},"traffic_boost_suggestions_count":0,"meta":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"Meet Mario Molina, the new executive director of Protect Our Winters","url":"http:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/news\/meet-mario-molina-the-new-executive-director-of-protect-our-winters","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/news\/meet-mario-molina-the-new-executive-director-of-protect-our-winters"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/12\/Rinckenberger_031416_1208_Edit.jpg?resize=150%2C150","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/12\/Rinckenberger_031416_1208_Edit.jpg?fit=3000%2C1997"},"articleSection":"News","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Michelle Flandreau"}],"creator":["Michelle Flandreau"],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Uncommon Path \u2013 An REI Co-op Publication","logo":""},"keywords":["climate change","latest posts","news","protect our winters","skiing","snowsports","sustainability"],"dateCreated":"2017-12-21T22:26:24Z","datePublished":"2017-12-21T22:26:24Z","dateModified":"2018-11-12T06:25:51Z"},"rendered":"