Environmental Fun Facts: The Olympics Edition!
- luanniewang
- Aug 17, 2024
- 2 min read
I hope everyone's having a great time watching the 2024 Summer Olympics! I am so proud of my country's performance and amazed at the incredible athletes participating. To celebrate this ever-spectacular event, I'm bringing to you guys a more fun post: 5 environmental facts about the Olympics!
1. Zeroing out Emissions- In this year's Olympics, organizers and officials have reported that electricity and natural gas are to make up <1% of the Games' footprint. Some energy will come from solar panels while the rest will be from the nuclear-powered French power grid; both are great clean energy alternatives!
Image credit: https://www.today.com/health/sleep/olympics-cardboard-beds-rcna163263
2. Cardboard Beds- The beds of the Olympians have gone viral for their interesting cardboard frames. This design is meant to promote sustainability and the beds will be recycled after the Games.
Image credit: https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20240702-no-ac-ambition-for-paris-olympic-village-melts-away
3. Eco-Friendly AC- Instead of traditional air-conditioning systems that emit carbon-dioxide, the Olympic Village has a geothermal cooling system that uses cool water pumped from deep underground. However, knowledge of Paris's summer heat waves caused some teams to bring their own portable AC units to the Village.
Image credit: https://olympics.com/en/news/paris-2024-olympics-the-effects-of-technological-advancements-on-world-record-swimming-times
4. A Shallower Pool- The depth of the 2024 Olympic pool is 2.15 meters, less than the preferred 3 meters but still in the acceptable range of 2-3 meters deep. This can be viewed as an effort to conserve water (check out this post for more: https://luanniewang.wixsite.com/the-sus-spot/post/the-freshwater-crisis), but many people are worried that the shallow depth is slowing down swimmers.
Image credit: https://www.npr.org/2024/07/30/nx-s1-5055810/the-cauldron-of-fire-in-paris-is-more-eco-friendly-clouds-of-mist-and-beams-of-light
5. The Torch Illusion- The iconic Olympic flame was not real fire this year. It's actually a remarkable display of mist and beams of light. This cuts down on possible fine-particle and greenhouse gas air pollution a real fire could have generated. What a cool concept!
There it is! 5 interesting environment-related facts about this year's summer Olympics. I hope this made watching the Games even more exciting and that you feel inspired seeing such important committees make considerable efforts to help our environment.
