| Salt Lake City |
 |
 |
| GER |
12 |
16 |
7 |
35 |
 |
| USA |
10 |
13 |
11 |
34 |
|
| NOR |
11 |
7 |
6 |
24 |
|
| CAN |
6 |
3 |
8 |
17 |
|
| RUS |
6 |
6 |
4 |
16 |
|
| AUT |
2 |
4 |
10 |
16 |
|
| ITA |
4 |
4 |
4 |
12 |
|
| FRA |
4 |
5 |
2 |
11 |
|
| SUI |
3 |
2 |
6 |
11 |
|
| NED |
3 |
5 |
0 |
8 |
|
|
|
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Global warming a threat to future Winter Games
By Seth Lewis
Deseret News staff writer
Think it's strange to talk about global warming during an inversion-chilled Winter Olympics?
Diane Conrad Gleason doesn't.
"With just a few degrees increase, hosting a Winter Games outdoors would be impossible," said Gleason, the Salt Lake Organizing Committee's director of environmental programs.
This winter, a hefty snowfall and colder-than-usual temperatures saved the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City from the slush of years past.
But be warned, say SLOC officials, scientists and celebrity environmentalists: Future Winter Olympic Games could be doomed by global warming.
"There is no more weather-dependent event than the Winter Olympic Games — and they are at risk," said Jonathan Lash, president of the World Resources Institute, an environmental think tank.
"Ski areas that previously could be depended on for fabulous conditions by December and January now have green slopes where formerly giant slaloms took place."
At a news conference Monday, environmental advocates — including Olympic flagbearer Jean-Michel Cousteau and Hollywood actors — bemoaned a global-warming future of snowless Alps.
But they also toasted the Salt Lake Olympics as the "greenest Games ever," praising SLOC for cleaning the air, choosing eco-friendly venues and spearheading a hotel "greening" initiative.
For a city often clogged with inversion fog and smog, Salt Lake made good use of TRAX and bus transit — and more importantly, environmentalists said, it stuck to its "zero emissions" goal.
SLOC committed to offset its environmental impact by having local companies such as DuPont, Kennecott and Waste Management Inc. agree to cut back their pollution by 500,000 tons.
"We've permanently improved air quality in Salt Lake," Gleason said, "and that's something we're very excited about."
The International Olympic Committee added "environment" to "sport" and "culture" to form its three pillars in 1994, and SLOC responded with what environmentalists call unprecedented eco-conscious efforts, among them:
- Using a combination of waste-stream engineering, recycling and making compost to reuse 90 percent of its waste.
- Planting 18 million trees, including 100,000 in Utah.
- Using some natural-gas-powered buses.
- Getting local hotels to cut down energy use by washing linens every other day.
"That sounds like a minor detail," said actress and environmentalist Mimi Rogers, "but that has a tremendous impact."
Cousteau, founder of the Ocean Futures Society, believes SLOC has set the environmental standard for future Olympics.
"Now we can say the world, 'It works, it can be done,' " he said.
E-mail: slewis@desnews.com
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February 20, 2002
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