Today is opening day of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, which is being touted as the greenest Olympics ever. But the warm weather and rain of late at one of the venues has forced the organizers to haul in snow via truck and helicopter (because the Winter Olympics don’t really work without snow). Since trucks and helicopters emit a lot of carbon, critics and protesters are calling out the Vancouver Olympics for their somewhat hypocritical measures to save the 17 day event from total meltdown. So we have to ask – are the Olympics still green if they have to artificially boost the snow pack?
Cypress Mountain, Venue for Freestyle Skiing and Snowboarding
Just north of the city on the coast is Cypress Mountain, home of the freestyle skiing and snowboarding events. The Northshore Mountains have been experiencing unseasonably warm temperatures and rain for this time of year, so much so that the mountains have been mostly green. The organizers of the event felt it necessary to truck in snow to the venue in order to have a good enough snow pack in order for athletes to practice in this last week and to have enough for the games themselves. Dump trucks and helicopters have been used to haul in snow from up to 100 miles north in British Colombia.
It’s been reported in the local media that they’re trucking snow in from Manning Park (250 km from Manning to Cypress).
It’s simple, do you want the olympics or not? They inherited a cluster**** tragedy in the form of one of the world’s largest public venues having the whole carpet (of snow) literally yanked out from beneath them. “The show must go on”. Consider it like this. The whole world just got to see Canada… snowless… in the winter…. deny global warming now. Hopefully this rediculous trucking of snow will be offset by global awareness of severe climate changes.
It’s been reported in the local media that they’re trucking snow in from Manning Park (250 km from Manning to Cypress).