GES Colloquium- Sandia: A Mountain, a Family, and the Climate Crisis

The Sandia Mountains serve as a majestic backdrop to Albuquerque and are a place of great spiritual significance to the Pueblo of Sandia and other Indigenous peoples of the middle Rio Grande Valley. But the mountain range is also the home to the state’s oldest winter recreation site: the Sandia Peak Ski Area, originally known as La Madera. The ski are was created by Robert Nordhaus, a 10th Mountain Division veteran, co-developed of the Tramway, and scion to a wealthy and influential New Mexico family. Two of his sons, Bob and William Nordhaus, learned to ski there and nurtured their interest in the environment on the Sandia slopes. In their careers, the two men played pivotal roles influencing America’s response to global warming via policy (the Clean Air Act) and economics (carbon pricing). In 2018, William Nordhaus won the Nobel Prize for his groundbreaking work in climate economics. Robert’s grandson, Ted Nordhaus, is a key figure in the development of ecomodernism and a co-founder of the Breakthrough Institute. Yet the ski area their father founded has suffered from a two decade-long megadrought worsened by climate change. Despite new management, its future remains in doubt. My presentation is a small scale, place-based account of Albuquerque’s storied mountain range, its climate change-threatened ski area, and the Nordhauses who, perhaps more than any other American family,