One could also break the Olympics up, and host the gymnastics in one city and the swimming events in another etc. Then it wouldn't be such an overwhelming financial/infrastructure burden for any particular host.
Although to be fair, most of the multi-sport athletes complete in closely-related sports (which would likely be held in the same location) or are from the old days when tug-of-war was an Olympic sport.
Also, I think the old days with tug of war are the last time anyone won medals in unrelated sports (so not something like fencing and modern pentathlon, or cross-country skiing and Nordic combined) at the same Olympics. Usually it's a case of switching sports between Olympics, like Rebecca Romero between rowing and cycling or Roswitha Krause between swimming and handball.
Obviously those aren't as different as swimming and handball though.
Honestly, I don't think the idea of splitting the Olympics over several sites is a bad one. The advantages (less construction at each site, more ideal conditions for each sport) might outweigh the disadvantages (less opportunity for multi-sport athletes, less interaction between athletes from different sports). I always like seeing the USA men's basketball team show up to watch the USA swimmers, but it wouldn't be the end of the world if that tradition doesn't continue.
This carbon footprint BS is always trotted out. If these folk really cared about that then actually attack the real companies that contribute the most to the carbon footprint. Otherwise it's just a waste of space.
This article wasn't proofread as there were no 2021 London Olympics.
BTW, the Olympics is meant to showcase the city/country that the event is in for that particular Games. It has knock on effect for tourism, economic impact and the like.
Right, this sort of thing drives me a bit nuts as well.
Yearly global CO2 emissions are at 31Gt. This article is complaining because the Olympics adds 0.0004Gt -> 0.003Gt?
I dislike this part of the green movement. Absolutely it's important to cut down CO2 emissions. However, worrying about the emissions of a sporting event, even a really big one, is really just asinine.
Basically any complex thing humans do consumes energy and therefore emits carbon dioxide. So you can selectively criticize anything you want by invoking carbon emissions. It's pretty funny actually, especially considering how much sway it seems to have over peoples' minds these days.
The conspiracy side of my mind says it's likely by design.
The fossil fuel industry used solar to attack nuclear back in the day. I'm pretty suspicious that a lot of that is happening today. Distract with minor issues while the big ones go unaddressed.
A funny slippery slope Ive read is "you are the carbon they want to remove" as some CO2 debates are rooted in misanthropy and the premise that earth is overpopulated and headed for an inevitable malthusian crisis.
An event only accounting for 1/10,000th of global emissions doesn't mean it is asinine to worry or complain about it. That very much depends on how easy it is to cut it relative to other sources. If it's easy, it's absolutely worth complaining about: if you can find a thousand such events to eliminate, that's 10% of global emissions (I know, there aren't a thousand olympics :P)
I'm not saying this particular argument has any merit, mind you. Just that it's legitimate to care about smaller sources of pollution if the effort required to eliminate them is proportionately smaller.
It makes sense for the same reason that advertizing at the olympics makes sense: It's a global event that a lot of people pay attention to. You can use it to make the topic that everything has to reduce CO2 emissions stay at the front of people's minds. Depending on which bubble one is in, that's not always a given.
I do agree though, it does seem to have significant overlap with the idea that replacing plastic straws will save the ... something (?) ...
Movements that depend on being at the forefront of peoples’ minds are precisely what people don’t want.
Human activity of every kind is going to have environmental impacts of some variety, and part of that impact will increase atmospheric carbon dioxide. Given that there are now more people alive today than at any other point in history, seriously, every single day we’re breaking that record, human activity will remain high, and so will our environmental impact projected out into the future. When there are more deaths than births on a consistent basis, environmental measurements will be lagging indicators of a decrease in human activity.
That does not mean we have to depend on combustible hydrocarbons in order to continue or advance our industry, if the concern is actually carbon dioxide, but we are almost entirely unwilling to build the one kind of power plant that would short circuit our carbon dioxide output in the shortest amount of time: nuclear plants.
Instead we spend our time and waste our energy arguing about consumer uses of energy rather than how we can produce more or the same amount of energy with less carbon dioxide output because at the end of the day it always comes down to: how can we control our neighbors and make them live down to or below our standards?
CO2 emissions are a chemical problem. We know the answer to the chemical/physical problem: stop doing the reactions which produce CO2 gas as an output.
But what makes it so confounding is it's also a political problem: people get to decide for themselves whether to do those reactions, and they overwhelmingly choose to do them.
Their choices are informed by all kinds of social, emotional and symbolic influences - one of which is the Olympics. While the Olympics may not be a huge event relative to the entire global economy, it is pretty big relative to the entire global mindshare.
This makes the assumption that the CO2 chemical experiment is done in a shared manner. That's not the case. In fact, very few organizations run the experiment to an extent that impacts the global climate. Businesses are certainly aware of climate change, who isn't at this point? The issue is that those businesses care FAR more about profit than they do about the future.
You could say "Ok, it's the consumers responsibility to vote with their wallet!" But that doesn't mean anything. How can I impact agricultural CO2 emissions at the grocery store? There's not label on the food goods which says "This is a high CO2 emission product". And even if I did that, how can you expect the general population to do the same? We can't even convince the general population that wearing a mask to slow the spread of a respiratory illness is a good idea. We can't even convince everyone that a vaccine doesn't "magnetize" you.
What's worse, this sort of thing would very likely backfire. Sure, everyone that thinks climate change is an issue will say it's a good to ok move. However, those in deep denial about climate change, the 40% of the population we need to convince it is a problem, will see a move like this as being "liberal cancel culture gone mad!"
If I'm going to poke the outrage machine, I'd rather poke it with measures that are effective at addressing climate change. Carbon taxes and subsidies for green tech and farming.
But isn't that the hypocrisy of it all? People will only be onboard with something until it directly impacts them and the real cost of the burden is disclosed.
what's the "something" here? I'm assuming you intend it to mean "polluting through corporations" but it could also very well mean "saving the environment" (ie. people saying they're pro-environment, but then start hand wringing when costs are brought up)
Indirectly, we all did. By increasing demand for oil. By insisting on higher profits. By voting for politicians that don't put harsher regulations in place. Our way of living became quite an environmental liability it seems, and that makes us all to some degree part of the problem.
No one working for BP asked to spill 5 million barrels of oil either. But they did ask for oil to be extracted, and we all asked them for it so that we could put it in our cars, busses, trains, delivery trucks etc.
Ah yes those pesky companies that exist for no reason, how dare they drill for the oil we demand from them. Nobody is culpable for climate change except “the companies.” Certainly couldn’t blame America for wanting to live in suburbs or their obsession with beef and trucks.
> Ah yes those pesky companies that exist for no reason, how dare they drill for the oil we demand from them.
There actually are, though. Think of how much plastic stuff is packaged in in the US, compared to Europe; there's no way to “vote with your wallet” out of that situation.
If it were actually an issue people cared about as much as they claim they care about it, it would already be solved. European laws are different possibly because Europeans actually do care more than Americans.
> If it were actually an issue people cared about as much as they claim they care about it, it would already be solved.
Can you give an example of a case where this has actually happened? (i.e. an issue that isn't useful as a populism wedge gets solved because people care about it)
The Olympics are usually money losers unless they are overcommercialized like the Atlanta/Coca-Cola olympics in 1996.BThisbmeans you have fewer non-Oligarchs willing to host them.
Are you absolutely certain that the people who complain about the carbon footprint of the Olympics never worry/complain about the carbon footprint of anything else, as well?
The way you write your post suggests that that's an impossibility.
That is an obstacle, but I am not sure why that would be an issue? Is it because we want to have it as a diplomatic card?
I mean getting a favourable mention in the US state of the Union address[0] is also something that would be prestigious for nations, happens every year and is more under US control, so wouldn't that be better?
[0]: When American politicians mention smaller countries it becomes national news in those countries. I doubt the US news spend much time talking about a state visit from Denmark, but Danish news does.
The article doesn’t even address the reasons different countries want to host the games in the first place.
Also, it keeps bringing up the environmental cost of transporting athletes and trainers to the host location, but obviously that’s the same whether the location is reused or not.
I am thinking there are deep rooted problems with IOC. For example it is not a democratic body with a one country one vote system, rather one in which the member individuals nominate other members.
In recent times it has even become less transparent, like how it awarded the 2028 Olympics to Los Angeles without even a proper bid process.
Even for 2032, there is no transparent process, IOC already announced Brisbane as its "preferred host city" even though other cities like Jakarta has prepared serious, viable bids.
Excellent idea. I suggest Athens, for the historical significance, and which also hosted the summer Olympics not too long ago, so the facilities are already there.
I enjoy this suggestion and would be reasonably happy with it. However I'd prefer the games be held somewhere with particularly good air quality. Right now Athens air quality is somewhat low, which could negatively affect results. Additionally, I'd worry about Greece's ability to host winter olympics in the future with continued climate/weather trends.
While mountain air is often cleaner, I think sea level would be most appropriate, again for the fastest times for most events. Very short sprints (100m dash, for example) are faster at high altitudes. The lower oxygen content negatively affects medium and long distance events but the lower atmospheric drag more than compensates for short sprints.
Perhaps you could hold it somewhere like California, Taiwan, Oman, or Alaska, where there are high mountains very close to the coast. That way you could hold events at whatever altitude is most optimal for performance, while minimizing travel distance between the venues.
Anchorage seems like a fine choice at first. Great air quality but not so pristine that the infrastructure would ruin an unspoiled area. There are two mountain ranges within a couple-hour drive. However the tallest range (Alaska Range) is in an undeveloped national park so putting infrastructure there could be quite damaging. Also the tallest peak, Denali, is sacred to Native Americans. The Chugach range is much closer to Anchorage and has quite a bit of tourism infrastructure but the peaks are lower - 7,000 to 8,000 ft peaks vs the 11,000 to 20,000 ft of the undeveloped Alaska Range.
Greece couldn't host the Winter Olympics now. While it has ski resorts which currently have fairly reliable snow, the FIS requirements for Olympic competition include a minimum 800m vertical drop for the downhill course.
While some ski areas, such as Bjelasnica in Sarajevo, were able to meet this requirement by building a raised start structure, there's nowhere in Greece that even comes close.
It's not my reasoning, it's the Progressive Left reasoning.
Basically for everything you do, you need to ask a number of questions: How could this be perceived as racist? Does it elevate and center whiteness? Does it present Western Civilization as a positive thing? Etc...
To quote myself¹: Why is this a problem? Is it everyone’s duty to deny “white supremacists” in all things, to make sure you have absolutely nothing in common? If they tended to shave, would it then be the duty of every right-thinking man to grow a beard?
I suggest Los Angeles, the site of the world’s only profitable Olympics. Most of the infrastructure is already built including permanent media space, sports venues, and entertainment venues. The main issue would be housing the athletes, and what could you morally do with housing between the games in a housing crisis.
Perhaps the reason no other Olympic area has been profitable is because they're basically a one and done? Personally, I think Greece and Athens is the logical choice due to the history behind the Olympics.
I live near Salt Lake City, in the US. We hosted the winter games in 2002. Much of the infrastructure required for a Winter Olympics is still available. So, the powers that be are trying to leverage that to host another Olympics in 2030 or 2034.
I believe a number of locals are excited about that. Getting to be that intimately involved in everything the Olympics offers is a unique experience.
That said, if it came here every four years, the novelty would be gone and the harsh realities would set in. It would be great for tourism-related businesses but quality of life for locals would suffer.
Perhaps the Summer Olympics could find a permanent home. I am not sure any one locale would want to perpetually host the Winter Olympics -- outside of those who believe they could build wealth upon it. It would start destroying the very reason you want to live in the mountains.
I was about to chime in and say, it makes more sense to give the Winter Olympics a permanent home than the Summer Olympics. The Winter events are more dependent on highly unpredictable weather, it would make more sense to pick a spot that was more or less guaranteed to get reliable snow for the next thirty years (Norway? Canada?) than roll the dice every time Sochi or Colorado wants attention.
I agree, the weather is very unpredictable. If the Olympics were next year in Utah it would be a disaster. Because of the drought, there is little water. That makes snow making very difficult.
Perhaps they would take water from others “for this higher purpose” but it doesn’t change the fact that there isn’t enough water.
I’d love the Olympics in SLC in 2030 or 2034 but would support finding a place where the winter will remain for a while.
There is a very obvious place host the summer olympics, which is Greece. That means that the amount of politiking that it takes will just be limiting to if we should do it or not.
The amount of politiking about where to host the winter olympics would be insane.
And with global warming I am not sure we could guarantee winter weather for the next 30 years anywhere on earth. Svalbard might be a place (and it is very nicely international).
They would need to do something about housing, but that’s not as big of an issue as the other infrastructure. The last time it was a tiny bit of a fiasco with the U of U dorms/housing, but I’m sure AirBnB would be a huge hit.
SLC is a no-brainer for winter sports, I’m not sure if it’s still the case but olympic athletes used to also attend Westminster for free too, so a lot of athletes lived there year round anyway.
> That said, if it came here every four years, the novelty would be gone and the harsh realities would set in.
What if it happened once every 12-20 years? I read an article a few years ago (can't find it) that proposed that the Summer Olympics would be hosted on a permanent rotating schedule of 3-5 cities, and likewise, 3-5 different ones for the Winter Olympics (Salt Lake being one of them).
I’d likely welcome that. The novelty would remain and new generations of folks would get to experience what’s great about the Olympics.
The cost to rebuild infrastructure may be more at one time, as every 12 years (likely 3-4 years before the event) there would be a push to upgrade facilities, but I think that could be planned for.
Why not just host olympics in places that already have infrastructure? Yes that would mean limiting the amount of places where the olympics are held, but that doesn't really matter.
The 2012 Olympics was an opportunity to bring Stratford (in London, not upon-avon) a much needed boost. It is now the major hub in the east of London and continues to be a hive of renewal activity even now. The stadiums remain but they seem incidental.
Late, but in my opinion, cities should bid for multiple Olympics, not a single one. This way, stadiums are also reused, and athletes of the host country get world class facilities which are not thrown into disuse after the Olympics
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[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 65.7 ms ] threadAlthough to be fair, most of the multi-sport athletes complete in closely-related sports (which would likely be held in the same location) or are from the old days when tug-of-war was an Olympic sport.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ester_Ledeck%C3%A1
Obviously those aren't as different as swimming and handball though.
Honestly, I don't think the idea of splitting the Olympics over several sites is a bad one. The advantages (less construction at each site, more ideal conditions for each sport) might outweigh the disadvantages (less opportunity for multi-sport athletes, less interaction between athletes from different sports). I always like seeing the USA men's basketball team show up to watch the USA swimmers, but it wouldn't be the end of the world if that tradition doesn't continue.
This article wasn't proofread as there were no 2021 London Olympics.
BTW, the Olympics is meant to showcase the city/country that the event is in for that particular Games. It has knock on effect for tourism, economic impact and the like.
Yearly global CO2 emissions are at 31Gt. This article is complaining because the Olympics adds 0.0004Gt -> 0.003Gt?
I dislike this part of the green movement. Absolutely it's important to cut down CO2 emissions. However, worrying about the emissions of a sporting event, even a really big one, is really just asinine.
The fossil fuel industry used solar to attack nuclear back in the day. I'm pretty suspicious that a lot of that is happening today. Distract with minor issues while the big ones go unaddressed.
I'm not saying this particular argument has any merit, mind you. Just that it's legitimate to care about smaller sources of pollution if the effort required to eliminate them is proportionately smaller.
I do agree though, it does seem to have significant overlap with the idea that replacing plastic straws will save the ... something (?) ...
Human activity of every kind is going to have environmental impacts of some variety, and part of that impact will increase atmospheric carbon dioxide. Given that there are now more people alive today than at any other point in history, seriously, every single day we’re breaking that record, human activity will remain high, and so will our environmental impact projected out into the future. When there are more deaths than births on a consistent basis, environmental measurements will be lagging indicators of a decrease in human activity.
That does not mean we have to depend on combustible hydrocarbons in order to continue or advance our industry, if the concern is actually carbon dioxide, but we are almost entirely unwilling to build the one kind of power plant that would short circuit our carbon dioxide output in the shortest amount of time: nuclear plants.
Instead we spend our time and waste our energy arguing about consumer uses of energy rather than how we can produce more or the same amount of energy with less carbon dioxide output because at the end of the day it always comes down to: how can we control our neighbors and make them live down to or below our standards?
But what makes it so confounding is it's also a political problem: people get to decide for themselves whether to do those reactions, and they overwhelmingly choose to do them.
Their choices are informed by all kinds of social, emotional and symbolic influences - one of which is the Olympics. While the Olympics may not be a huge event relative to the entire global economy, it is pretty big relative to the entire global mindshare.
You could say "Ok, it's the consumers responsibility to vote with their wallet!" But that doesn't mean anything. How can I impact agricultural CO2 emissions at the grocery store? There's not label on the food goods which says "This is a high CO2 emission product". And even if I did that, how can you expect the general population to do the same? We can't even convince the general population that wearing a mask to slow the spread of a respiratory illness is a good idea. We can't even convince everyone that a vaccine doesn't "magnetize" you.
What's worse, this sort of thing would very likely backfire. Sure, everyone that thinks climate change is an issue will say it's a good to ok move. However, those in deep denial about climate change, the 40% of the population we need to convince it is a problem, will see a move like this as being "liberal cancel culture gone mad!"
If I'm going to poke the outrage machine, I'd rather poke it with measures that are effective at addressing climate change. Carbon taxes and subsidies for green tech and farming.
You mean the companies that consumers outsource their pollution to?
There actually are, though. Think of how much plastic stuff is packaged in in the US, compared to Europe; there's no way to “vote with your wallet” out of that situation.
Can you give an example of a case where this has actually happened? (i.e. an issue that isn't useful as a populism wedge gets solved because people care about it)
The way you write your post suggests that that's an impossibility.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/09/revealed...
I mean getting a favourable mention in the US state of the Union address[0] is also something that would be prestigious for nations, happens every year and is more under US control, so wouldn't that be better?
[0]: When American politicians mention smaller countries it becomes national news in those countries. I doubt the US news spend much time talking about a state visit from Denmark, but Danish news does.
Also, it keeps bringing up the environmental cost of transporting athletes and trainers to the host location, but obviously that’s the same whether the location is reused or not.
Just kind of dumb, overall.
In recent times it has even become less transparent, like how it awarded the 2028 Olympics to Los Angeles without even a proper bid process.
Even for 2032, there is no transparent process, IOC already announced Brisbane as its "preferred host city" even though other cities like Jakarta has prepared serious, viable bids.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bids_for_the_2024_and_2028_S...
While mountain air is often cleaner, I think sea level would be most appropriate, again for the fastest times for most events. Very short sprints (100m dash, for example) are faster at high altitudes. The lower oxygen content negatively affects medium and long distance events but the lower atmospheric drag more than compensates for short sprints.
Perhaps you could hold it somewhere like California, Taiwan, Oman, or Alaska, where there are high mountains very close to the coast. That way you could hold events at whatever altitude is most optimal for performance, while minimizing travel distance between the venues.
Anchorage seems like a fine choice at first. Great air quality but not so pristine that the infrastructure would ruin an unspoiled area. There are two mountain ranges within a couple-hour drive. However the tallest range (Alaska Range) is in an undeveloped national park so putting infrastructure there could be quite damaging. Also the tallest peak, Denali, is sacred to Native Americans. The Chugach range is much closer to Anchorage and has quite a bit of tourism infrastructure but the peaks are lower - 7,000 to 8,000 ft peaks vs the 11,000 to 20,000 ft of the undeveloped Alaska Range.
While some ski areas, such as Bjelasnica in Sarajevo, were able to meet this requirement by building a raised start structure, there's nowhere in Greece that even comes close.
https://www.vox.com/2019/11/6/20919221/alt-right-history-gre...
So it would be impossible to host this permanent Olympic city in a European country, and especially not in Greece.
If there were a permanent Olympic city, Equity would require it to be in a majority Black or Brown country.
Basically for everything you do, you need to ask a number of questions: How could this be perceived as racist? Does it elevate and center whiteness? Does it present Western Civilization as a positive thing? Etc...
1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20139520
I believe a number of locals are excited about that. Getting to be that intimately involved in everything the Olympics offers is a unique experience.
That said, if it came here every four years, the novelty would be gone and the harsh realities would set in. It would be great for tourism-related businesses but quality of life for locals would suffer.
Perhaps the Summer Olympics could find a permanent home. I am not sure any one locale would want to perpetually host the Winter Olympics -- outside of those who believe they could build wealth upon it. It would start destroying the very reason you want to live in the mountains.
Perhaps they would take water from others “for this higher purpose” but it doesn’t change the fact that there isn’t enough water.
I’d love the Olympics in SLC in 2030 or 2034 but would support finding a place where the winter will remain for a while.
The amount of politiking about where to host the winter olympics would be insane.
And with global warming I am not sure we could guarantee winter weather for the next 30 years anywhere on earth. Svalbard might be a place (and it is very nicely international).
SLC is a no-brainer for winter sports, I’m not sure if it’s still the case but olympic athletes used to also attend Westminster for free too, so a lot of athletes lived there year round anyway.
What if it happened once every 12-20 years? I read an article a few years ago (can't find it) that proposed that the Summer Olympics would be hosted on a permanent rotating schedule of 3-5 cities, and likewise, 3-5 different ones for the Winter Olympics (Salt Lake being one of them).
The cost to rebuild infrastructure may be more at one time, as every 12 years (likely 3-4 years before the event) there would be a push to upgrade facilities, but I think that could be planned for.
That is an interesting idea.