Hot Olympic Summer: Is Paris Greenwashing the Games?

Outside/In

NHPR

Society & Culture, Documentary, Natural Sciences, Nature, Science

4.7 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 25 July 2024

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Will Simone Biles live up to her moniker as greatest gymnast of all time? Will Lebron James and Team USA continue to dominate men's basketball? And will the Paris 2024 Games be the most sustainable in modern Olympic history? While billions of viewers tune in for the drama of athletes competing on a global stage, climate scientists are tuning in to Paris's climate promises – from the locally sourced catering and carbon neutral Olympic cauldron, to head-scratching “solutions” like a sidewalk made of seashells, and not installing air conditioning in athletes’ housing. Are these solutions making a difference? Or is it plain and simple greenwashing? We put these questions to the test in this episode on the XXXIII Olympiad. Let the games begin! Featuring Martin Müller. SUPPORT Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. Subscribe to our newsletter (it’s free!). Follow Outside/In on Instagram or join our private discussion group on Facebook. LINKS Read Martin Muller’s paper evaluating the sustainability of summer and winter Olympic games from the past 3 decades. Listen to Civics 101’s episode on the politics of the Olympic Games. Check out scenes from Olympic opening ceremonies from London 1908 to Rio 2016. Watch a timelapse video of construction of the temporary beach volleyball venue in front of the Eiffel Tower. Read up on fun Olympics trivia, like what the most common surname of athletes is, and about the time two athletes who tied for second place cut their silver and bronze medals and fused them together to make two “friendship medals.” CREDITS Host: Nate Hegyi Reported, produced, and mixed by Felix Poon Editing by Taylor Quimby. Our staff includes Justine Paradis and Marina Henke. Our intern is Catherine Hurley. Our Executive producer is Taylor Quimby. Rebecca Lavoie is NHPR's Director of On-Demand Audio. Music by Blue Dot Sessions, Joe E. Lee, Jay Varton, Arthur Benson, Philip Ayers, Kikoru, Trabant 33, and Phoenix Tail. Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio Submit a question to the “Outside/Inbox.” We answer queries about the natural world, climate change, sustainability, and human evolution. You can send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is outside in. I'm Nate Hedgy. And I'm Felix Poon.
0:04.0	And we want you to imagine you're an Olympic athlete.
0:10.0	You've just arrived in Paris during the hottest part of the year and your
0:16.3	brand new hotel has no AC. I mean it could be a cultural thing right? From a
0:22.1	European perspective coming to the US
0:24.8	I find air conditioning excessive.
0:27.0	This is Martin Mueller he's a professor of geography and sustainability at the University of
0:32.0	Luzon in Switzerland. Most people in in Paris would and And it's true, AC is way less common in Europe, fewer than 1 in 10 households use AC, compared to almost 9 in 10 in the US.
0:48.4	But actually, the lack of AC at the games is about something else. It's part of a promise Paris made to be the most sustainable
0:57.2	Olympic Games in modern history. Organizers have traded AC units for building techniques designed to keep the Olympic village cool with less energy, better insulation, heat pumps that circulate cooler air from underground, and fans. I wonder if it's one of you know those little
1:14.9	handheld ones that like have little teeny tiny blades I wonder if it's one of those.
1:18.2	Yeah with the with the little sprayer. All this would be fine if it weren't for some countries actively revolting.
1:25.0	A bunch of teams are bringing their own portable AC units.
1:29.0	As an Olympic team that wants to have top performance, you don't want to risk anything right
1:34.4	so they're hedging their bets. Martin does this kind of backfire on those
1:39.3	commitments to have the most sustainable Olympics?
1:43.2	One of the things that you need to realize
1:45.9	is that there are some actions that are very much touted
1:50.6	and marketed, but that are not in themselves making a massive change in the sustainability
1:57.5	of the event.
1:58.9	So National Teams bringing their own AC units is in the end a tempest in a tea pot.
2:05.0	So today on the show, will Paris 2024 be the most sustainable Olympics ever?
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