Protect Our Winters

POW, like us and so many of you, shares a deep love of winter and the conviction that if we don’t take action to slow and reverse climate change, winter and the places we enjoy might not be around forever.

We love powder turns, crisp bluebird skies, and October-to-June ski seasons. This love of winter is what motivates us to protect it. The biggest threat to our ability to enjoy the snow and all of the experiences that come with it is climate change—a human-caused reality that is threatening traditional weather patterns and disrupting predictable snow and colder temperatures.

We believe the greatest way to protect our winters is to help educate our communities on climate change science, what we can do to effect positive change, and how we can ensure that political leaders hear our voices and understand the urgency to make proper policy decisions for our planet.

POW advocates for policy change that results in a reduced human-carbon output. These policies, if enacted, will slow the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Smartwool supports POW on many fronts so we can continue to ski, snowboard, snowshoe, winter camp, fat bike, and hike—doing what we love in the snow, for as long as possible.

We’ve teamed up with POW to bring you a snowboard sock that gives back. We donate a portion of the proceeds from our PhD® Protect Our Winters Snowboard Light Elite Sock to POW to help protect one of our favorite seasons.

POW is leading the charge with help from people like Smartwool athletes Angel Collinson, Chris Benchetler, Griffin Post, Nick Russell, and Austin Smith. But they also rely on everyday people to make a difference. When we come together, we can help reverse the negative effects of climate change.

Protect Our Winters (POW) is an organization that uses a passionate crew of professional athletes and industry brands to help mobilize the outdoor sports community to advocate positive climate action. They focus on educational initiatives, political advocacy, and community-based activism.

In 2007, pro snowboarder Jeremy Jones discovered that more and more of the resorts he’d always counted on for good riding closed early due to lack of snow. Something was clearly going on, and he felt the need to act. But he couldn’t find any organizations focused on mobilizing the snowsports community on climate change. So, Jeremy founded Protect Our Winters.

While POW’s earliest supporters were renowned athletes and respected companies, the movement quickly grew to include the wider outdoor sports community. POW has helped launch a social movement on climate, designed to activate a passionate community and create the political will for meaningful action by state and federal policymakers.

It’s the perfect group to give a national voice to outdoor sports, an industry that supports more than 7.6 million jobs and creates $887 billion in economic revenue. While the fossil fuel lobby may outspend environmentalists 20-1 in Washington, POW shares a passion that crosses party lines, a unique perspective that de-politicizes any climate discussion, and an industry with an economic impact that can’t be ignored.