Canadian winter Olympians are urging Prime Minister Stephen Harper to protect winter sports by supporting a fair, ambitious and binding agreement at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen.

Nineteen members of Canada’s Olympic team took a break from their busy training schedules to tell the prime minister that global warming is the greatest threat to Canada’s winter sports. “We’re already seeing the impacts of climate change first-hand. For winter athletes, climate change means less snow and ice and cancelled races due to increasingly unpredictable weather. We can’t sit on the sidelines when solutions exist. As a country we must act,” says Sara Renner, Olympic silver medalist and member of the Canadian Cross-Country Ski Team.

Winter activities across Canada, from Olympic sports like skiing and snowboarding to iconic Canadian pastimes such as pond hockey and tobogganing, will be at risk if we don’t take international action to reduce global warming, according to an open letter by the winter Olympians to the prime minister.

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