Pirate's Cove

You know, perhaps if you ate a few less burgers and rode your bike 10 miles to work each day in clothes that you hand made, this wouldn’t be a problem

In France, the Christmas cheer represented by holiday rinks is competing with growing concerns about the environmental cost of the attractions https://t.co/65sVNHYZVo

— New York Times World (@nytimesworld) December 22, 2019

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In France, Holiday Skating Rinks Are an Unlikely Climate Battleground

On a recent morning, toddlers and teenagers laughed and shouted as they skated around a rink of shiny ice just outside the walls of St.-Malo, a city on the northern coast of Brittany where winters generally hover above freezing.

“Because our region has neither ice nor snow, it’s so magical for the children to get to skate like this,” said Corinne Doli, 65, who snapped photographs of her grandchildren as they glided around on the ice.

Aww, how nice for the kids………NO!!!!! This is horrible!!!! Dooooooom!!!! Climate crisis!!!!!!

But for others, as issues like climate change loom larger than ever in local and national politics, Christmas cheer is competing with growing concern about the environmental cost of holiday rinks.

Though St.-Malo kept its rink, other French cities, including Bordeaux and Rennes, canceled theirs, citing concerns about the size of the carbon footprint needed to maintain them.

Even in St.-Malo, environmentalists contested the plans after the city announced in October that a rink would be installed.