Jeremy Jones is known for riding big lines, but his latest film stays closer to home. Photo: Jeff Curley
Purple Mountains is not a typical ski film. That’s made clear in the opening scenes, a montage of TV clips that summarize the evolution of environmental politics over the past 50 years. It is a ski film though, in that skiing, splitboarding and the celebration of snow are key elements of its central message. But showy boastfulness of ski and splitboard porn is largely diffused, interspersed instead with something more public-facing: the power of conversation to break down divisions and establish common ground across political parties.
The film, produced by TGR and free to watch (see below), was released in September. It follows the journey of Jeremy Jones, extreme snowboarder turned climate activist and founder of the climate change advocacy group, Protect Our Winters (POW), as he works to understand America’s current political divisiveness around environmental issues.
Last week, Jeremy chatted with Doug and Randy for the latest episode of the Totally Deep Podcast. The trio discuss the evolution of Jones Boards, challenges of making sustainable gear, and the importance of the messages in Purple Mountains, especially during the upcoming election.
The film
Purple Mountains less about skiing or splitboarding than it is about shared values. It is political, but not, as Jeremy makes clear throughout, partisan. Ten minutes into the film, he confronts criticisms frequently lobbed at the environmentalist Left and particularly POW. An unidentified caller to POW is recorded stating the following:
“I’d like to see if you have any calluses on your hands. I bet most of you came from a lot of money and you love to ski, which is something you know, people with money can do a lot of. And the working Americans like myself, which you have nothing to do with and don’t understand, and don’t respect, they vote and your bullsh*t climate agenda is totally wrong. People like you can ski and play in the snow while the rest of us work our asses off. So that’s why your organization is not going to be around in about 20 years.”
This openness to facing criticism toward ‘greenie’ politics and attempting to dismantle it sets Purple Mountains apart from typical environmental films also. It is a quest to see whether Americans are as divided on the environment as media makes us out to be, and why that division exists. Scenes of Jeremy carving down snowy faces are balanced by his conversations with climate naysayers, scientists and advocates.
Purple Mountains steps away from the typical ski film narrative to confront divisions — and shared values — in current environmental politics. Photo: Courtesy of Purple Mountains
The most thought provoking moments occur in the town of Elko, Nevada. On the edge of the Ruby Mountains, Elko represents the intersection of natural abundance and conservative ideals around extraction. The conversations Jeremy has with residents there — including a rancher who skis from his doorstep, a mine manager, a hunting guide, and a hard rock miner who shows Jeremy around a stunning couloir zone in the Rubies — play out on the basis of curiosity, rather than judgement or division. In the end, we get glimmers of shared values and understanding.
At its core, Purple Mountains seeks to break down the divisions between conservative and liberal Americans, and to highlight that protecting snowpack — and consequently the water cycles that feed irrigation, public water works, healthy ecosystems and more — is fundamentally a human, not partisan, issue. As we head into one of the most contentious elections in recent history, the film offers at least a little bit of rare, honest hope.
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Manasseh Franklin is a writer, editor and big fan of walking uphill. She has an MFA in creative nonfiction and environment and natural resources from the University of Wyoming and especially enjoys writing about glaciers. Find her other work in Alpinist, Adventure Journal, Rock and Ice, Aspen Sojourner, AFAR, Trail Runner and Western Confluence.
7 comments
Climate change is real. It is happening now just like it has many times before for billions of years. A decades long drought 1275 – 1300 wiped out the Anasazi in the American South West. During the almost complete shutdown of vehicle and airline travel this Spring 2020 due to the COVID quarantine, pollution levels barely budged.
Climate change is a natural phenomenon mostly associated with the Sun’s varying output and the dramatic output of gases and dust from mega volcanic eruptions. Believe empirical science and not those directly profiting from this.
Believe in data, correlations and trends, that’s what scientists do. I suggest you examine the graphs and the rates of changes. I want to ski with my grandkids and them to do the same much later. Doing nothing is not an option even though much easier.
There’s little question that to heal the politics divisions in our country, it’s critical that those in a position to do so reach across the aisle. It seems really difficult when we can’t agree on the most basic facts, like the role of human activities in recent climate change, or the role of wearing masks in reducing virus transmission. Yet it clearly isn’t about the facts — it’s about political identify. My optimism about solving this is very low. I will watch the film in the hope it gives me some hope.
This article lightly touched on the real issue, IMO. Actual facts are lost (more likely, tossed) in the interest of politics. The informational age of the internet has given way to the disinformational age of the internet. It saddens me that every single issue we face today, from the climate to BLM, immediately becomes fodder to further political agendas rather than a shared problem we need to work through together.
I have a bone to pick with 1st world ski athletes, actors, and venture capitalists who want to lecture or shame me about climate change. I haven’t seen this movie yet, and it may be different from the steady drumbeat of climate shaming in our media, but I’ve had more than enough tokenism and virtue signaling to last the rest of my natural life from people who are wealthy and feel guilty about their impact on the climate.
Modern 1st world life is incredibly carbon intensive. Driving a Tesla and putting solar panels on your roof will make you feel superior, but won’t affect the climate. If you work using computers, travel by plane, access health care, or eat food from a supermarket, you are contributing to climate change. If you want to have an impact on climate change, move to Costa Rica, grow your own food, weave your own clothes from animal skins and natural fibers, and live in a village in a hut without AC. That’s a movie I would watch!
Look at the home(s) and lifestyles of some of our most vocal advocates for climate change (Al Gore, wealthy venture capitalists and politicians, Hollywood A list people). There is complete hypocrisy in the way they live and what they advise for everyone else. Tokenism is not science. “Raising awareness” is not science. Let’s stop pretending that this is about anything but people feeling guilty and trying to signal their virtue about a problem that is complicated and far beyond any individual effort to contain.
@ Kevin Woolley — those are fair criticisms about the climate movement in general, especially as it is largely driven by more entitled, privileged entities that do consume more than those with less, yet have a bigger voice thanks to the realities of our capitalistic society. It’s worth pointing out though that the focus of this film is more about how engaging in (potentially awkward) conversations can illuminate that people have more in common in what they value about the environment then partisan politics often makes it out to be. Perhaps more openness to talking to one another, regardless of background or socio-economic status could remove some of the tokenism and virtue signaling that often blocks constructive conversations (and I’d argue action) around environmental issues.
To Christie Stem’s comment—-
With a few google searches, it is instantly debunked:
Researchers used data on Earth’s orbit to find the historical warm interglacial period that looks most like the current one and from this have predicted that the next ice age would usually begin within 1,500 years. They go on to say that emissions have been so high that it will not.
Earth is a lucky phenomenon. We are by happenstance the perfect distance from the sun, shielded from solar flares, we have an insulating atmosphere, and water… and carbon. It would be ignorant to assume human’s evolution in technologies wouldn’t disrupt this delicate balance. 97% of scientists agree that this is true.
Many republican presidents have historically been for climate protections acts. Let’s stop fighting about it and go fix the problem so we can all enjoy our very special planet and the opportunities it gives us to express ourselves and find meaning through outdoor recreation.
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