Green-Washing the Games?
Tags: 2010 Olympics, Carbon Neutral, Carbon Offsets, Climate Change, Green-Washing, Greenest Games Ever, Greening, Vancouver
When the Winter Games began, like any good Canadian kid, I pushed my objections aside and joined in on the festivities. However, it didn’t take more than a couple beer-filled-disposable-plastic-cups at the Molson Canadian Hockey House before I began to acquire a bitter taste in my mouth regarding the ‘greenest games ever.’
This is where I realized two things. One, if I had bought stocks in green paint a year ago, I’d be a millionaire right now. And two, the bar for the ‘greenest’ games ever has apparently been set remarkably low, because VANOC is doing nothing that will actually prevent or mitigate the world’s greatest environmental challenge thus far, climate change.
One doesn’t have to look beyond the impressive athletic performances, or the amazing atmosphere in Vancouver’s downtown to witness the effects of climate change firsthand. The weather in Vancouver has been noticeably warm, and Cypress Mountain, where a number of Olympic events have taken place, has seen barely any snow since mid-January. VANOC is responding to this lack of snow brought on by our warmest winter on record by trucking and helicoptering it in from Manning Park, 260 kilometers away. While in many ways this had to be done, we must also recognize this act as the antithesis to sustainability (or at the very least as not very ‘green’). Burning more fossil fuels to compensate for a warming trend that is caused by the burning of fossil fuels is akin to solving chronic starvation by feeding your child its own arm.
In response to this, VANOC argues that by offsetting the estimated 268,000 tonnes of carbon emissions created by the organizing of the 2010 Winter Games, they will achieve ’carbon neutrality‘, thus rendering the games sustainable (it should be noted that VANOC is not going to offset another estimated 150,000 tonnes of carbon emitted by spectators). Unfortunately, the success of carbon offsets is highly debatable, therefore free of stale beer in plastic cups, this is where the debate about the ‘greenest’ games really lies.
British ecologist, and prize-winning journalist George Monbiot cites carbon offsets as simply an excuse to keep on polluting. Monbiot states that “while the carbon we release by flying or driving is certain and verifiable, the carbon absorbed by offset projects is less attestable.” Similarly, William Rees, originator of the ‘ecological footprint,’ and professor at the University of British Columbia’s School of Community and Regional Planning echoes that carbon offsets allow us to avoid reducing emissions, and worries that offsets “create the illusion of progress where none is being made.”
We need to remind ourselves that we live in an era where environmental experts believe that we need to reduce our global emissions by as much as 80% within the next 10 years if we want to avoid the serious effects of climate change. If carbon offsets continue to distract us from making tangible reductions in carbon emissions, they’ll earn an infamous place in history as an inhibitor of progress rather than as an environmental tool.
Alex B. said:
Feb 25, 10 at 9:47 amThe concerns for Greenwashing are real, but attribution of this year’s weather conditions to climate change and climate change alone are dangerous. This is a strong El Nino year, and though the effects might be exacerbated by climate change, it is important to not conflate weather and climate together.
William said:
Feb 25, 10 at 10:15 amYou’re right Alex. And I do understand that the best way to weaken an argument is to overstate it. That being said, I don’t discredit the effects of El Nino and if you click on my sources they do explain it in more detail than I do.
The general trend, though, is undeniable at this point.
It should also be noted that it starting snowing furiously on Cypress Mountain right after I wrote this.
William said:
Feb 25, 10 at 10:57 amBecause I don’t want to be accused of conflating weather and climate change yet again, I should probably finish that last thought…
What I meant to say is that it has started snowing on Cypress Mountain, but that (along with the fact that this is an El Nino year) does not mean climate change isn’t occurring.
I’ll be the first to admit that this is a complex topic that can’t be fully articulated in one post on PlanningPool.com. At the very least, this has spurred a constructive conversation surrounding the topic.
Karen Quinn Fung said:
Feb 25, 10 at 1:25 pmPerhaps I’ve become cynical, but I take just about any broad proclamation about being the Greenest anything with a grain of salt. I think we do a disservice to people who tried really hard to get things like the carbon offset included in the games, to write those off as trivialities, and having been in Vancouver since the beginning of the bid, the cynicism about being able to walk the green talk was there from the start, even as Vancouver did its darnedest to bake a triple bottom line asssessment into its initial planning around the Games.
That said, the good intentions, of course, do not make up for a lacklustre performance. For instance, I would have loved to have seen the “official vehicle of the Olympics,” Buick SUVs, replaced by those brank-spanking new electric Chevrolet Volts – it would have made me less like to say, as one of them blazed by me in the Olympic Lane, that my tax dollars are propping up someone else’s failed business model.
The early attempts spurred by those green intentions have been steadily whittled away, month by month, until we get the games we have now. I think it’s extremely instructive to examine the precise nature of why we failed to realize our ambitions at lightening the footprint of the games. My entirely uninformed opinion is that processes, ideas and approached underlying the common denominator to all the games, the IOC, is likely one of the largest contributors to that failure.
Alex B. said:
Feb 25, 10 at 7:19 pmDon’t get me wrong, William – I’m a strong believer in climate change, and I don’t mean to discredit the science behind it – nevertheless, the snow (or lack thereof) in Vancouver this winter is only one datapoint – and the inherent variability of weather (it is quite noisy) makes anecdotal evidence fairly poor when applied to climate change. Here on the east cost of the US, we’ve been battered by several snow storms and have been subject to the brunt of the same arguments, but using the anecdotal weather experiences as pseudo-evidence against climate change.
I understand that the format of a blog post isn’t really sufficient to address such issues, but it’s something that I think needs to be noted – as that particular rhetorical flourish gets used on both sides of the debate.
Daniella said:
Feb 28, 10 at 9:27 pmHey William – I worked once in the renewable energy sector and I looked at selling the “environmental attributes” (or renewable energy credits) of the solar power we were going to generate from photovoltaic panels.
As a financial model, it didn’t really look like revenue from renewable energy credits was going to help the business model – the whole argument behind renewable energy credits is that the money they generate by being sold to offset events or travel etc. helps to finance renewable energy projects. In my experience, that wasn’t the case at all.
I’d be interested in hearing more about what you think about renewable energy credits!
William said:
Mar 12, 10 at 11:33 amDaniella, I’m going to admit that I don’t know much about renewable energy credits, but I’d like to learn more.