I’ll just come out and say it, this week’s news about global warming did a number on me. In case you missed it: On Monday, OPB aired a story on NPR which reported the results of a recent Harris Poll. The survey found that nearly half of all Americans do not believe that greenhouses gases are cooking our planet. Yikes.

Then, yesterday, The Washington Post ran an op-ed by Sarah Palin. In it, the former Alaska beauty queen goes all rogue and tells President Obama to boycott this week’s Copenhagen Climate Conference on the basis that leading climate experts had gone all rogue themselves and squelched data which called into question the reality of global warming. Ugh.

Pile on what we reported in our December issue about the walloping the global climate crisis is putting on Mount Hood and I had gone into a bit of a climate crisis of my own. Might as well go see The Road and take notes on what’s coming.

But then I found two things that restored a skip in my step.

First, I stumbled across a new short film by Jackson Hole based ski film purveyor Teton Gravity Research called Generations that takes a look at the consequences of climate change from the prospective of extreme skiers.

Now, let me be the first to say that the prospect of a bunch of ski bums dropping bro-bombs while they wax philosophic on the potential loss of their sport is laughably absurd. I know this. But amid the far-off bro-stares and painful dialog is some incredible ski footage.

More importantly though, and as scary as it is for our country’s English teachers, these guys have the ear of all those pre-teen baggy-panted jibbers inhabiting the terrain parks. In other words, TGR is doing their part to inspire and inform the next generation of decision-makers in a way that speaks to an audience that might not be listening otherwise. Bravo.

Secondly, if you amble on over to Patagonia (a model corporation if there ever was one) in the Pearl, you’ll find that they are giving away everything in the store. Okay, well, not exactly. You have to enter a drawing, and it’s just one item up for grabs, every Monday, until December 21. Cheers.

I didn’t win anything yet. And doubt that I will. But sometimes a little hope is all that you need.