Alpine/Ice Climbing as a Motive for Reduction in Carbon Emissions???

Within the past year issues of the magazines, Rock and Ice and Climbing, both have featured articles about the loss of famous climbs due to the shrinking of ice and snowfields.  The North Face of Eiger is out of condition during the summer.  It appears that the famous snowfields on the Eiger including the White Spider, is gone (at least for a while).  Why is this a concern?  On alpine climbs, snow and ice (permafrost) act as an important "glue", in that, it maintains position of rocks.  When climbs melt out, rockfall increases.  Even in good years, alpine starts are important to avoid rockfall.  What's an alpine start?  A 2 or 3 am start, with headlamps, on alpine climbs with the plan to finish before the sun kicks in.  If the night before involves a few brews, the alpine climb may be replaced with a day cragging on pure rock routes (not a bad option after all of those Odell Cutthroat Porters.)

The Diamond Couloir of Mount Kenya has large portions of it melted out.  In the Climbing article, Jim Donini quotes Yvon Chouinard, who said, "The Diamond Couloir on Mount Kenya, which was a great ice climb thirty years ago, is completely gone."

Will climbers will become more environmentally concerned as there are losses of prime climb areas?  The cynical view: most of us are somewhat environmentally concerned, in that, we are concerned with access issues ( www.accessfund.org); however, Dean Potter's recent ascent of Delicate Arch didn't help.  For a discussion of Potter's climb, see the dirtbag climber post in env-econ.net.  The economics literature shows this access focus with papers such as Grijalva, Therese A., Robert P. Berrens, Alok Bohara, Paul M. Jakus, and W. Douglass Shaw. 2002. "Valuing the Loss of Rock Climbing  Access in Wilderness Areas: A National-Level Random Utility Model." Land Economics, 78(1):103-120.

Paul

P.S.  There are no alpine routes in my future.  Next on my tick list is the Red Rock's classic Epinephrine 5.9 IV.