Mr. Jones is calling for unity. But the climate issue might be politicized beyond repair. Photo: PM
Two years ago, Jeremy Jones released Purple Mountains. The professional snowboarder and founder of Protect Our Winters has witnessed the mountains changing over the course of four decades spent outside. Ultimately, the extreme weather patterns, the lack of snowfall, and the strain on the people working in the outdoor industry was too much to ignore. Jones set out to tackle the issue head on.
This issue at hand is not the general topic of climate change, as one might expect. The issue is simply that any meaningful conversation around climate change has been avoided because the topic has become a political issue instead of something to universally rally behind. Jones can’t understand why. Thus, just two years after releasing Purple Mountains, due to the issues being ongoing, Jones released a sequel to the original documentary: Purple Mountains Live Free or Die.
The doc has been on tour since October 7th, kicking off in Bozeman, Montana. The screenings will continue across the country in states from Montana to Colorado to New Hampshire.
This second documentary, which is shorter than the original Purple Mountains with a run time of just over 30 minutes, focuses on Jones’ journey back to New England where he grew up. Although Jones was not from New Hampshire, the “Live Free or Die” state played a critical part of his early days snowboarding. New Hampshire is also New England’s most purple state, without an overwhelming majority towards either political party.
Jeremy Jones is hardly a stranger to putting out films as a director, producer, and athlete. He’s the director behind Jeremy Jones’ Deeper (2010), Jeremy Jones’ Higher (2014), and Ode to Muir: The High Sierra (2018). He produced The Ultimate Rush (2013). He is featured in Teton Gravity Research’s Winterland (2019), Lost and Found (2007), and Mountain Revelations (2021), among others.
Despite his experience to pull from, making this documentary came with its own set of unique challenges. “This type of film is more difficult than a snowboarding film,” Jones told me. “At the end of the day, there’s just more tension and more complexities to it than going on this trip to go climb a mountain and tell a story about climbing a mountain. At this point, that type of film is a vacation for me.”
The biggest challenge with creating Purple Mountains Live Free or Die was simply getting people to take part in the film at all. “I didn’t know if I had a good enough Rolodex for New Hampshire, or if it’s just an example of the country, but it was really hard to get people with different views to talk on camera,” he said. “We had some interviews with outdoor-loving Republicans lined up, and then once we were on location, they stopped answering their phones.”
Reflecting on the situation, Jones admitted that it can be difficult for people to engage with the issue given the current political climate. He guessed that “the toxicity of all things politics has gotten so bad that people just don’t even want to talk about it anymore.”
“It was frustrating for sure, but I still have relationships with people who hold different political views. Danny, the Hard Rock miner that I go snowboarding with, we’re still friends. I went to a cookout at his parents’ house, and we still communicate all the time.”
There were also silver linings. While some of the adults in the conversation may have been difficult to contact, New Hampshire’s youth is as stoked as ever. One scene from Purple Mountains Live Free or Die shows Jones riding around with the Abenaki Ski Team in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire. Jones said, “it both warms my heart and breaks my heart because at the end of the day, it’s the kids who are doing the work for it. To see the joy that they get from simply sliding on snow, that’s so near and dear to my heart.”
Plus, some adults also provided a breath of fresh air, spreading hope for a changing era of unity as opposed to separation. Jones remembered his time riding and filming with Mardi Fuller, an outdoor community leader focused on getting people of color outside, fondly.
Fuller works to improve access to the outdoors because, according to a 2021-22 survey by the National Ski Areas Association, 89 percent of skiers are white. The United States of America, New Hampshire especially, prides itself on freedom. This freedom includes the equal opportunity for everyone in America to enjoy what the country has to offer. Moreover, no matter who you are, a love of America’s outdoor resources fosters community and an appreciation for the environment. Perhaps a potential path forward, for our environment and to tackle our country’s political polarization, looks less like high-powered debates and more like skiing with people in our communities.
“Mardi’s group was really energizing to be around,” Jones said. “They’re all relatively new to the mountains, but with that comes stoke and energy and joy from all these little things. It is easy to take that stuff for granted. Hanging out with people who are new to the sport and just seeing how much they love all the different facets of it is really soul-filling.”
So what impact does Jones expect Purple Mountains Live Free or Die to have on its audience? First and foremost, Jones hopes society regains its trust in science. “Science leads everything for us. Unfortunately, as a society, we’ve gotten to this point where we don’t like the science. We start trying to poke holes in it or ignore it. To be clear, the scientific method is based on people trying to rebuke science,” Jones said. “But the science denial that is going on because a lot of people don’t agree with it or don’t like the results of it is what’s really put us on this super dangerous path.”
Jones also sees the immediate need for change. “We are in the climate crisis now. It’s here. It’s a question of what levels will it get to?”
Jones also wants to hammer home why it is so unfortunate that the topic of climate change, and what can be done to address it, has become a political issue. “It’s a political issue because to get the large-scale systemic change, we need to change the systems. In order to do that, we must do it through large scale policy change.”
“Unfortunately, half of our elected officials receive funding from the fossil fuel industry who are doing everything in their power to keep us burning as much of their product as possible and staying on this current path in the name of profit,” Jones said. “They are the reason why it is a political issue, and unfortunately it falls into identity politics.”
Jones insists that climate issues shouldn’t be identity based: “Once your issue ends up alongside guns and abortion and these other big identity politics issues, it gets stuck and it’s hard to make real progress. The only way we’re going to get real progress is to send a clear message to our elected officials that we want them to take the climate seriously and push for real c02 reducing policies.”
Jones ended with another reality check. “The sad truth is that there really has been no politician who has lost an election due to taking bad votes for climate action,” he said. “At the end of the day, politicians don’t want to lose their job. In that sense, they’d listen to their voters. They measure out, ‘if I take this vote, is it going to help or hurt me getting reelected? We’ve let them get away with using any and all chance to vote against climate with zero backlash.”
Jones has experienced this first-hand in his home state of California, and this is exactly why he is calling on everyone in his state to unify. “If we did, it would be hard for our lawmakers to ignore climate issues.”
On a larger scale, Jones understands the power we all hold as individuals in America. This is timelier than ever with the upcoming election. No matter who you are voting for, or what party you affiliate with, Jones said, “in order for democracy to work, it requires participation.”
Despite the elections of 2018, 2020 and 2022 being three of the highest-turnout U.S. elections of their respective types in decades, a large portion of the voting-eligible population continues to throw away their votes. In the 2020 presidential election, only around two-thirds (66%) of the voting-eligible population voted. Jones is confident that, “if just half of these people did (vote), there would not be room for climate deniers in office.”
