Going, Going Green

BAT BUGS

A warmer climate is inhospitable to ash trees but not to their enemy--the ash borer

MAJOR LEAGUERS come from all over the world, but the ash bats they wield have come from the same northeastern U.S. forests for generations. A cool climate and rocky soil have long made the area from eastern Pennsylvania to the Adirondack region of New York a geographical sweet spot for splendid splinters.

Now, however, a warmer climate threatens the quality of the ash, and of equal concern is the arrival of a tiny beetle, the emerald ash borer (Agrilus planipennis). The ash borer snips the tubes that carry nutrients through the prized trees. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is so concerned that it's collecting ash DNA should the tree be wiped out.

Bat manufacturers have been keeping an eye on the bug too. Until recently the ash borer, which probably hitched a boat ride from Asia to the U.S. in the 1990s, had moved state by state through the Midwest. But last August trees in Maryland started showing the telltale D-shaped holes made by the insect. The ash borer matures faster in warmer conditions, and according to Columbia University entomologist James Danoff-Burg, climate change will hasten the pest's spread.

Many professional baseball players have switched to maple bats for their rigid feel, but for hitters who want a thin handle and a big barrel, "[ash] just makes for a better tool," says Ron Vander Groef, manager of Rawlings' Adirondack bat factory. The only way to save a forest from the ash borer, Danoff-Burg says, is to "keep it from getting there in the first place." It may be too late for that.

MUDDY SLOPES

With less snow falling and warmer temperatures making artificial snow an expensive alternative, World Cup races are being canceled and ski resorts from the Alps to the Poconos are suffering

JULIA MANCUSO has been skiing since she was two, winning an Olympic gold medal last year in Turin when she was 21. Yet on Jan. 6, at the U.S. Women's Ski Team base in Kirchberg, Austria, Mancuso did something on a slope that she had never done--drive a car up one. "The hill was green," says Mancuso. "We were training on just a strip of snow." The team could not practice the giant slalom because the 20-foot-wide swath of white was too narrow to place the gates.

Two weeks later, at nearby Kitzb�hel, more than 100,000 cubic feet of snow had to be hauled by helicopter, at a cost of $389,000, and dumped on verdant slopes so the world-famous Hahnenkamm downhill could be held. Skiers are hoping that this season--with its eight canceled World Cup events through Sunday--is an anomaly, but it is more likely a taste of Alpine winters to come.