We go on ski holidays for a myriad of reasons - the exhilaration, the change of scenery, to impress our friends, or just for the great craic it induces. But how often do we stop to wonder where it's all going?

James Lovelock, the octogenarian Gaia theorist, discusses our future in more general terms in the Sunday Times.

Without a doubt the world is heating up and heating up at an alarming rate.

Forget about how and why; it's too late for that as temperatures accelerate like a runaway truck down a steep hill. Forget the occasional winter like the one we're having in the UK and the big snowfalls in the Alps. These are blips that can happen at any time and are not direct indicators of the general trend. Forget about carbon foot printing, carbon credits (I ask you!), and the consensual political claptrap that accompanies every incentive to go green, build windmills, drive less polluting cars and recycle our rubbish.

It's too late for all that.

What we really need to do is start working on our own survival and not just tilt at windmills. Tough decisions will have to be made concerning food production, water collection, population movement and energy consumption. No country will be immune but some will be better off than others. By 2030 (just 20 years away) the UK will be flooding consistently, parts of western Europe will be intolerably hot in the summer and progressive starvation will have wiped out the dwindling populations round the edges of the Sahara - and that's a very small slice of the earth's land mass.

There is much more to be said but let's go back to the start. At the risk of appearing selfish and tunnel visioned, how will all this affect  winter sports over the next twenty years? The last forty years has been generally good - tremendous leaps in technical improvements and accessibility have turned a privileged pastime into one that nearly everyone can enjoy, and into an experience I truly believe improves the human condition.

But the honeymoon is over. The annual snow levels are creeping higher up the Alps and the glaciers on top are disappearing fast. Although there will be more precipitation over parts of western Europe, the countries bordering the Mediterranean and the alpine regions will get less rain and snow, with low levels becoming too hot to live on.

It's not a bright future then and all this to come when we are having the best snow in the Alps for years. In the short term I know what I'm going to do. In the long term things will have to change and there are several options to consider...

Ski Jungle Blog - Global Warming, Winter Sports Snow Forecast