On Wednesday,  January 26, 2011, ACE and POW were joined by professional snowboarder and environmental champion, Gretchen Bleiler. Not only does she have 4 X Games gold medals and an Olympic silver medal under her belt (or around her neck if you want to get technical), but she recently started a sustainable products company with her husband and is using her star power to raise awareness about climate change and our impact on the planet.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXFMNbhGvF0[/youtube]

She shared some stories about how there was practically no snow at the 2010 Olympics and how when she was in Chile, the pollution was so bad, you could barely see the city from the mountains… both effects of our reliance on dirty energy like gas and coal. Now, you can’t point to any one weather event and say it’s caused by climate change, but the trends we’re seeing globally are starting to change the face of winter – and winter sports.

She also told the crowd what she’s doing about these environmental issues – and shared her DOT (Do One Thing). Gretchen and her husband recently started a sustainable products company and is challenging her friends in the snowboard community – and she even issued this challenge to the students in attendance – to something she calls the 21 Day Challenge.

Stand with Gretchen and the 50,000 other people who have shared their DOT – go now to acespace.org/dot. Coming soon, I’ll post videos from other Olympic and X Games Champions talking about their experiences with climate change. Stay tuned and feel free to comment below or email me if you have any questions or ideas.