Triple Bottom Line: What a winterless Olympics means for climate adaptation
I’ve barely watched the Winter Olympics, but I have to hand it to the athletes — it seems like they’ve thoroughly mastered the art of slipping and sliding across icy surfaces with varying degrees of steepness. But this year’s event is making headlines for a different reason: Beijing is the first winter Olympics to rely entirely on artificial snow.
Beijing was no winter wonderland to begin with. Despite cold temperatures, it has an average February snowfall of less than an inch. However, perhaps you’ve seen footage of the dystopian setup of the Big Air ski jump, a pristine icy slope reminiscent of a Hot Wheels track, shrouded by the decrepit gray cooling towers of an industrial park or photos of the dusty brown hills encasing snowy ski slopes in nearby Zhangjiakou and Yanqing. As improbable as it may seem, Olympic officials have created patches of winter in Beijing.
While many athletes have accepted the conditions for what they are, the artificial snow — albeit somewhat icier than its natural counterpart — comes at a huge cost. China estimates that around 49 million gallons of water will be used to fabricate snow for the Games, and experts think it could actually be up to 10 times that amount. Water is being diverted from reservoirs and siphoned from irrigation systems to meet the demand — a significant worry for a city with preexisting water scarcity issues. It’s also worth mentioning, constructing artificial ski runs in the naturally arid hills can also cause soil erosion and degrade natural vegetation.
This snow deficit is nothing new but should serve as a warning proxy for the consequence of our ever-rising emissions. While past winter Games have been reinforced with artificial snow, the continued warming of the climate will result in a dwindling number of qualified host cities. In fact, one study found that by 2100, only a city in northern Japan would have the necessary climate to host the Games.
As much as I love debating the performance of fake snow, the Olympic Games presents a much bigger quandary to be discussed. It’s no secret that mega events like these bring prestige, international exposure and, in normal times, a whole lot of tourism revenue to economies around the world — but at what cost?
Hosting the Olympics is a multiyear undertaking — arenas, facilities and infrastructure must be built, and the total investment comes out to somewhere in the multibillion dollar range. Especially in the pandemic era of spectatorless events, it begs the question: Why are countries still bidding to host?
Despite the lack of tourism, hosting puts a country back on the map. Long-term investments in infrastructure, as well as the influx of jobs created prior to the event, can boost the economy. Unfortunately, the investment in a city’s glow-up can have big costs for locals. Many farmers in rural areas were resettled as the Chinese government leased out land to wind and solar providers in order to reach green energy goals prior to the start of the Games.
The urban renewal and long-term gentrification routinely sparked by the Games can certainly promote financial gains, but in no way do they outweigh the heavy human costs. Any so-called sustainability is thoroughly compromised when it is achieved at the expense of the livelihood of citizens.
The International Olympic Committee has prioritized sustainability in recent years but so far has not invested in climate risk and adaptation strategies undertaken by host cities every four years, nor has it established protocols for host countries to adhere to. Despite this relatively superficial promotion, sustainability has become a key trait of the Olympic Games. Beijing’s venues are powered by renewable energy, and hydrogen power is in the limelight, used to light the traditional torch, as well as to fuel vehicles.
Although the carbon-intensity of the Games is arguably on a downward trend, the fact of the matter is that in most cases, sustainability is still open to interpretation. From zero waste promises to the carbon neutrality guaranteed by Beijing officials (offset through carbon credits and reforestry, but that’s a topic for another week), there’s still no set metric for how to legitimately determine environmental impact and offsets.
Arguably, hosting the Olympics or other mega events is an opportunity for legitimate sustainable development. But all too often, hosting comes at the cost of the city’s own resources and resident well-being, so how green can any event really be?
Instead of wondering when the world will become too warm to host a legitimate Winter Olympics, we should be internally reflecting on our current climate adaptation strategy or lack thereof.
While Chinese authorities are committed to increasing winter sports participation in China, they’re creating higher demand for something that, by all natural laws, shouldn’t exist at all. Be it running out of water or fossil fuels, resources are finite — at our current rate, we’ll soon hit a breaking point. Although an increased focus on renewables is important for energy-intensive events like the Olympic Games, true sustainable development of any city goes hand in hand with bettering the quality of life of the people that already live there.
This year’s Winter Olympics — and the general dilemma of artificial snow — is a prime example of our convoluted response to the climate crisis we’ve created. If we continue our current patterns, we’ll only slide further down the slippery slope of the fight against climate change.
Montana Denton is a senior writing about environmental issues, sustainability and society. Her column, “Triple Bottom Line,” runs every other Thursday.