The 'Greenest Olympics' Actually an Environmental Catastrophe

Like a downhill skier that crashes right out of the gate, the Sochi
2014 Organizing Committee has a lot of catching up to do if it wants to
earn a gold medal for "the greenest Olympics." World Wildlife Fund
Russia and Greenpeace Russia resigned from the Games' advisory committee
last year and recently boycotted a visit of U.N. Environment Program
officials who were to inspect the progress, saying, "We do not want to be part of a green PR for the Olympic projects."

What are these NGOs so upset about? Well, dumping, logging,
pipelines, and a lack of transparency, to name a few. The main watchdog,
Environmental Watch on North Caucasus (EWNC), sends weekly email updates with headlines like these:

• South Stream pipeline to cut through five protected areas
• Russian Railways destroyed clear mountain river in the national park with construction
  waste
• Illegal Olympic waste dump threatens Sochi's national park
• The Sochi national park will be cut for the Sochi 2014 Olympics
• Olympic gas pipeline spill is continuing in Sochi National Park

The impacts on the treasured Mzymta River and its valley, plus the
cutting of thousands of hectares of protected forests -- whose trees
include at least two Red List tree species -- have these activists
hopping mad. Suren Gazaryan of EWNC confirmed this cutting to me by
email, saying "It is clear that coastal lands with relict pine forests
will be developed first. Two species of pine, which are main
constituents of these forests, are protected under the Russian
Forest Code and the Red List."

Every Olympics has its burden of impacts
and truly, every one is a minor catastrophe. Is Sochi so much worse?
The impacts to date seem to indicate that it could be. And worse, news
that organizers are planning a million dollar PR center for the Olympics
using funds budgeted for
environmental protection suggests a greenwash.

Perhaps Sochi's biggest challenge will come from the heavens: It's
another temperate maritime city like Vancouver -- where snow had to be
trucked and airlifted in for the ski events in 2010 -- and adequate snow
cover will be a challenge. As a climate scientist said last year,
"I rolled my eyes when they picked a city on the Black Sea," said Simon
Donner. "I'm pretty certain it never snows in the city. They grow palm
trees there."

Who knows how much warmer the temperatures could be for Sochi 2014,
thanks to humanity's continual carbon-loading of the atmosphere over the
next three years?

Concerns about green ski runs aside, the International Olympic
Committee and U.N. Environment Program officials need to begin taking
seriously the bigger on-the-ground impacts being documented by EWNC.
Never mind 2014, the world is already watching.