'Masterpiece Terror' Climate Activist Targets Ski Resort... Criticism of Wealthy Leisure

French Les Gets Ski Resort, Artificial Snow Machines Damaged During Christmas Peak
"No Snow, No Skiing"... Hourglass Drawing Also Found

The damaged artificial snow machine at the French Les Gets ski resort. The phrase "No snow, no skiing" is written in red paint. Photo by Yonhap News

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Hyunjung] Climate activists, who had been carrying out 'masterpiece terrorism' at famous museums and art galleries around the world for some time, have targeted ski resorts as their new objective with the arrival of winter.

According to the British Daily Telegraph on the 29th (local time), on the night of Christmas, December 25th, an incident occurred at the Les Gets ski resort located in the southeastern French Alps where the cables of two artificial snow machines were cut, prompting local police to launch an investigation. Artificial snow machines are devices that produce snow artificially.

On the side of the damaged artificial snow machine, a red spray-painted message read "No snow, no skiing," accompanied by an hourglass symbol. The hourglass is the logo of the militant environmental group Extinction Rebellion, which was founded in the UK in 2018 and has expanded its activities worldwide. However, the local branch of this group located in Annecy, a city near the resort where the incident occurred, stated that they are not related to this event.

Benjamin Munier, the resort's marketing manager, said in an interview with France 3, "Despite the difficulties caused by the lack of snow, we were doing our best for the guests visiting the ski resort, so it is heartbreaking that such an incident happened during the busy holiday season." The resort had recently closed 48 out of 68 ski runs early due to heavy rain.

Contrary to North America, which is suffering from heavy snow and extreme cold, Europe, including France, is experiencing an unusually warm winter. The French Meteorological Agency reported that the average temperature on last Christmas was 11.3 degrees Celsius, more than 5.5 degrees higher than usual, making it the second warmest Christmas since 1997 when it was 11.7 degrees. Furthermore, the agency expects December this year to be the warmest since weather observations began in 1900. Because of this, half of the ski resorts in France have closed entirely this year.

The Telegraph reported that recently, a so-called 'ski bashing' movement has been emerging, mainly led by climate activists. Skiing is criticized for wasting water and electricity and being a leisure activity only for a wealthy minority. Moreover, this winter's unprecedented energy crisis has added momentum to such criticism. Earlier this summer, during a severe drought, members of the Extinction Rebellion Toulouse branch trespassed into a nearby golf course and filled the holes with cement.

Meanwhile, according to a survey conducted earlier this year by the global polling firm Ipsos, one-third of French people have never been to a ski resort in their lifetime. Only 13% of French people visit ski resorts every winter, and more than half responded that they do not go to ski resorts at all.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.