They don’t look worried, but Vermont Olympic nordic skiers (l to r) Ida Sargent and Liz Stephen (both cross-country), and Hannah Dreissigacker and Susan Dunklee (both biathlon) held a press conference today to express their concerns about how global climate change is affecting the world and their sport. Just back from six months of competition in Europe, including the Sochi Olympics, they told of lack of snow in traditionally snowy areas and races held primarily on artificial snow and even trucked-in ice chips. A thread of the press conference — held at the Morse Farm in East Montpelier in conjunction with the Vermont Natural Resources Council and the National Wildlife Federation — was that Vermont, small as it is, can lead the way in alternate energy use as it does in winter sports. Four of the 14 members on the U.S. Olympic cross country team were from Vermont and, counting snowboarding, cross-country, biathlon and alpine skiing, there were nearly 20 Vermonters on the U.S. team, from a state with a population of 626,000. Click here for local news story.