TYPE 2: Episode 003 - Jake Black

Type 2 is a podcast from Looking Sideways in association with Patagonia that explores the intersection between the outdoors, action sports and activism. My guest for this episode of Type 2 is Jake Black. Jake is a snowboarder from Colorado who initially parlayed his love for snowboarding into a professional career but he soon decided he wanted to try and give something back to the industry, and began to broaden his interests - notably as a journalist specialising in issues of sustainability in the snow industry, and then with Protect Our Winters, a none profit organisation that is the leading climate advocacy group in the winter sports world. Today Jake is Program Manager for Protect Our Winters, working to further the group’s climate aims on projects around the world. So he oversees initiatives like the Hot Planet Cool Athletes programme, the ambassador program, and basically acting as the conduit for POW US to the world. I first met Jake up in Lofoten in March 2019. We got on straight away - and not just because he loaned me his crampons during one particularly icy traverse. Like many people working in this sector, Jake has been motivated by his own love for the outdoors, and his personal experiences as a rider and traveller - and I was impressed with his take on the unique climate challenges faced by people in our world. So we arranged to meet later in the summer during his next trip to Europe for the European POW summit in Innsbruck. We sat down to discuss Jake’s career, his take on how to respond to the charges of hypocrisy that anybody attempting to affect change inevitably faces, and how we can reconcile these two seemingly opposing stances. New episodes of Type 2 will be released every four weeks through my Looking Sideways channel. Hear it by subscribing to Looking Sideways via ApplePodcasts, Spotify, Podbean, OvercastFM or any of the usual other podcast providers. Thanks to Ewan Wallace for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson.