Discussion: Making Vancouver 2010 Carbon Neutral

Mike Smith and I (from the Canadian Orienteering Team) are two of over 70 Canadian athletes from a variety of sports who have signed on to encourage the Vancouver Olympic Committee to make the 2010 Olympics Carbon Neutral. There was a national press release today in Canada. We are asking the public to give their support by adding their names to an additional letter. You can check out http://www.davidsuzuki.org/Climate_Change/Projects... for more details. There is also a link to the press release on my blog http://dl1.yukoncollege.yk.ca/brent/newsItems/view...

I have some carbon credits for sale real cheap. With the economy and all I need to let them go. let me know.

Nice, but where do you draw the line?

Do you count all the airline flights of competitors, officials and spectators or just the locally generated carbon?

Apparently, yes you do count all that. See below for some background info.

The Climate Impact of the 2010 Winter Games

In 2007, VANOC asked the David Suzuki Foundation to produce an estimate of the 2010 Games greenhouse gas emissions. The estimate came it at roughly 328,000 tonnes, the equivalent of approximately 65,600 cars on the road for one year. The report, called Meeting the Challenge, also showed how VANOC could make the Games carbon neutral.

The biggest part of VANOC's carbon footprint (69%) is estimated to be from air travel by participants, officials, sponsors, employees, media and spectators. Other major contributors to the carbon footprint include energy use (9%) and local transportation during the Games(10%).

VANOC has reduced its carbon footprint through initiatives such as making its venues more energy efficient. But as the Games approach there are some missing pieces in VANOC's climate action plans. For example, VANOC has not yet said how they will address unavoidable emissions from energy use at venues, local transportation, and air travel to Vancouver by Olympic participants and spectators.

Wow that's a lot of car-years.

Thanks for the update.

These are shocking figures. That huge chunk of carbon makes the Olympics appear horribly self-indulgent regarding its carbon footprint.

To put that figure into perspective, according to the US DOE, North Americans produce an average of 20 tons of carbon per person annually. Each new baby represents 1500 additional tons dumped into the air during its lifetime.

The validity of buying "carbon offsets" and credits remains controversial; many contend that mass behavior change is the only real answer to global warming.

...Some activists disagree with the principle of carbon offsets, likening them to papal indulgences, a way for the guilty to pay for absolution rather than changing their behavior....

It is interesting that so many athletes are concerned. Perhaps we're beginning to see the end of high-carbon events such as the Olympics....and orienteering, as people worldwide become aware of the problem, and change their behavior.

Canada's GHG inventory (2005) puts North America's GHG emissions at:

Canada = 22.9 tonnes CO2-e per person
US = 24.2 tonnes CO2-e per person
(CO2-e = CO2 equivalent)

Here is an interesting comparison of GHG emissions from the three different provinces that have hosted or will soon host the Olympics
(2005 emissions, same units as above)

Quebec (Montreal hosted 1976 Olympics) = 11.8
Alberta (Calgary hosted 1988 Olympics) = 71.0
BC (Vancouver to host 2010 Olympics) = 15.5

Quebec has the lowest per capita emissions in Canada with per capita emissions level similar to many large countries in the EU.

With Alberta producing 5-7 times more carbon than other provinces, it becomes obvious that their oil sands industry in Fort McMurray is having a devastating effect on Global Warming already, just to provide us cheap gas. What's going to happen when gas goes back above $5/gallon, and oil sands recoveries really expand?

This is an admirable goal but as chitownclark's and hammer's figures show the biggest contribution that a young couple could make is to have 1 less kid.
328,000 tonnes correspond to roughly 200 person-lifetimes.

One woman added 4 % of that this week !

I was shocked to see just how much of our ecological footprint was due to air travel. I always thought flying was far more efficient per km than driving, but it turns out it's about the same as driving the same distance solo in a Prius or 2 people in a medium sized car.

Electric train travel is 4X as efficient, but not an option here in Canada.

Barring that, the options are
- Business as usual -"What the hell, offsets are controversial and the flight's practically free with Aeroplan"
- Stay close to home - best for the environment, but you'll miss the Games.
- Buy the best offsets you can find- better than doing nothing.

...328,000 tonnes correspond to roughly 200 person-lifetimes....

So if those 70 concerned athletes, and a couple dozen spectators, vow not to have their 2.1 child allocation, they could make the event truly "carbon neutral"...after 77.4 years (average lifetime) have passed.

Right Clark. We could enlist the Chinese govt to help enforce such "allocations." ;)

Obviously athletes travelling around the world in planes is not good for the environment but let's face it there are limits to what kind of sacrifices we are willing to make. We each have to think about what we personally are willing and able to do and then act on that. No children? :-) Not quite on the same level of sacrifice as that but none of the 70 athletes whose names are on that letter are willing to give up competing at the World Champs, World Cup or Olympics. So although buying offsets is controversial, it is at least, as 'Bent put it, better than doing nothing.

I should also point out that a large number of these athletes are members of Play It Cool where athletes go carbon neutral by FIRST reducing emissions as much as possible and ONLY THEN buying offsets.

Lastly, I think as well as the actual reductions an important thing that hasn't been mentioned is awareness. Millions and millions of people will watch the Olympics and there could be a lot of media exposure about the efforts to make the environmental impact as low as possible. This could inspire the change in behaviour that was referred to earlier. Even the fact that the environment is being discussed in this thread is positive. It will perhaps become a slightly more prominent issue in people's (your?) consciousness. In turn, maybe a few more people will walk instead of driving or look at fuel efficiency when buying their new car, etc.

The Kyoto treaty's attempts to curb man-made emissions of greenhouse gases are being undermined by extra carbon dioxide released naturally from the ground.

Applying selectively bleaching to soil around Vancouver will easily solve for CO2 emissions with minimum efforts.

"If we were prepared to turn all of arable England back to trees, that would work - but there's no realistic possibility of that."

Or plant more trees. Around 2mln should absorb at least CO2 400,000 ton during 10 years.

That even benefits orienteering community more as we would have more orienteering venues.

Wow, make me feel guilty guys. The data above does not even factor in the hundreds of volunteers like myself who will be flying across the country to make sure that the games happen.

Planting trees. That is the carbon offset that I am selling and not the old ones that do nothing. I chopped those all down and am prepared to replace if you buy my credits. I can assuage your guilt.

BTW I have 5 kids and am planning on having as many more.

...Even the fact that the environment is being discussed in this thread is positive. It will perhaps become a slightly more prominent issue in people's (your?) consciousness. In turn, maybe a few more people will walk...theshadow

Education seems to be a slow process. Look at the trend in cigarette smoking: the Surgeon General's report linking smoking with health appeared almost 50 years ago...but we've just recently had the clarity to enact stiff laws and taxes discouraging smoking.

Perhaps it is going to take 50 years for humankind to discourage carbon use with onerous taxes and laws.

here we're talking about transportation (and "buying back" emissions : how hypocritical),
but the real question behind that is what activities and products are really essential
for the games to be a success ? how much people do we need (athletes, spectators... staff,
media, sponsors...) ? How much waste will they generate (any actions towards reducing the
packaging of products by, let's say, the two major sponsors of the Games : Coca-Cola and
Mc Donald's ?) How local will be the food consumed there ?

Let's have a look at the estimates on pages 18-19 and ask simple questions ?
- How much of the 25'000 VANOC fleet emissions are really needed ?
- Should we be surprised by the transportation ratio Olympic Family/
Athletes/Media/Sponsors : .5/1/1/3 ?
- Do we need to use that amount of paper ?
- Given the size of the respective populations, is it acceptable that
the accomodation ratios for spectators/media/sponsors are about the same ?
- What incentive/constraints do the vanoc/partners/contractors have toward
a greener activity ? How strict are the norms that we are demanding from them ?

There certainly are leads for answers on the website and in the report on Environmental Stewardship and Impact Reduction, but are we considering the problem from the source : what product/activities do we really need and what is junk ?
Will we be demanding or just make do with "recommendations on reduction opportunities" ?

The travel to the event (and all the other good points Thomas makes) is just a ceremonial tip of the iceberg considering the mad traveling of athletes for training, promotions and promotional purposes, the travel of tufosi to these promotions and prepatory events, and the casual social traveling of tufosi to tufosi. And thats just one event.

Lets face it, nothing meaningful is going to happen unless almost ALL people almost ALL of the time are able to take a sober look at their OWN lives and willing to act on what they see, and find other, less wasteful and gratuitous ways to accomplish their goals. Then the alternative networks, the public transit, the sustainable industries, the clean car industries will boom.

But nobody wants to hear that, the scary thing is, not even the most conscientious people. Actually, the most conscientious are often the worst. Who, me? It won't make any difference anyway. I'm already somewhat better than most people anyway, after all i recycle aluminum. I deserve a trip to Hawaii, I work hard. I ride my bike twice a week, so its ok to fly to the natural areas so far away. I know what's happening, but I can't help myself. After all, I love them so much, I love them to death.

I think the solution is to return the Olympics to their original incarnation in Olympia and only admit Greeks and not barbarians.

Other implications follow.

Q.E.D.

oooppss, my mistake I thought that this thread involved people that believed in rigorous science and the scientific proccess...not global cooling deniers.

I wasn't going to wade into this debate, but comments like this, Glenn Rogers, force me to. I am pretty sure that there are at least two people on here who know a hell of a lot more about the science behind this than some ex-wall street MBA graduate jerk off a-hole like you. Comments like this demonstrate clearly that this is in reality all that you are.

I guess politeness isn't a prerequisite for joining the thread.

I don't think the thread is asking for a rigourous scientific debate, only to show your support if you feel carbon emmissions are a bad idea. If you think they are a good idea, or are neutral on the subject, I suppose you could quietly not show your support. Or, I suppose, start a VANOC carbon positive movement if you want to.

For my part, if you want to talk about science, I think the attempt to show causality via science is as yet inconclusive, yet the evidence is conclusive. So, being the prudent sort that I am, would err on the side of caution until the science becomes non-controversial (which, as an aside, I personally believe will occur at some point, but such notion is irrelevant to the point), so long as the evidence continues to suggest prudence on the issue.

As for not having childern to reduce carbon footprints, that seems a bit paradoxical. I thought the point was to save the planet for future generations. I guess that is one solution.

Finally, and I'm no economist as previous posts have proven (tho that doesn't stop me from playing one in real life anyway), what's the deal with carbon offsets? Is the basic gist that people who can afford to have massive carbon footprints are entitled to do so? How is that different than anything else?

Well, I still like my solution. Lock myself in a closet for the rest of my life. It still seems likely that the athletes that support this initiative use more caloric resources (due to heavy training) than most of the rest of the planet, but I guess that wasn't the question. Personally, I think everyone on the planet should be entitled to consume the same number of calories as everyone else. Then we could have calorie consumption offsets. Oh, we already do, its called money, and for those who don't get enough calories, its called too bad, laizzes-faire, or some other failed concept.

I guess it only goes to prove, that no matter where you are on the guilt chain, you are likely neither on the top nor bottom.

FWIW, I'll be doing my part to not contribute to the carbon footprint in Vancouver. Good luck to the initiative in any case.

I hope that was more polite than the previous post. I guess we'll find out.

drink, run, and then puke on this:

http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/ns/cms/dn1...

An update on this thread...VANOC just announced that Vancouver 2010 will be carbon neutral!

Below is the letter I got from Play It Cool.

Yesterday DSF released Ian Bruce's report about the threat of global warming on Canada's winter sports industry. You can read the full report here: http://www.davidsuzuki.org/Publications/On_Thin_Ic...

The report was released at a well-attended media conference at the IOC and UNEP World Sport and Environment Conference, here in Vancouver.

Ian and David Suzuki spoke, but the highlight was the stories told by three Play It Cool Olympians: Justin Lamoureux (National Snowboard Team), Warren Tanner (National Freestyle Team), and Phil Widmer (National Cross Country Ski Team). Their tales of retreating glaciers, less snowfall, and cancelled races attracted serious media attention!

You can check out the CTV National News coverage at:
http://watch.ctv.ca/news/#clip155810 Part 4.

CBC TV News video coverage:
http://www.cbc.ca/mrl3/8752/bc/ondemand/video/bc-0...

And the Global TV BC segment: http://www.globaltv.com/globaltv/bc/video/index.ht...

The coverage was far and wide, including:
-TV hits on CTV, CBC, Global, MTV
-CBC Radio and Radio Canada featured the story as well as many small radio outlets across the country.
-The Canadian Press, Canwest and Reuters all picked up the story (it was even picked up in Europe and China). Newspaper coverage included the Globe and Mail, Vancouver Sun, Le Soleil, Le Devoir, Edmonton Journal, Ottawa Citizen, Alaska Highway News, Regina Leader Post, Metro News, 24 Hours, New Scientist, etc.

And, immediately following our media conference, VANOC announced that they will be offsetting the entire carbon footprint of the 2010 Games, including spectator air travel (a first for any Olympics)! This is a huge victory, and we couldn't have done it without your support of our campaign. The full plan has yet to be released by VANOC, but your message was heard loud and clear, and we all have real reason to celebrate now!

As for not having childern to reduce carbon footprints, that seems a bit paradoxical. I thought the point was to save the planet for future generations. I guess that is one solution.

That was the Shaker solution. Not surprisingly, they are no longer with us. I believe the current idea isn't to have no children, but fewer children. Well, I did my part last summer and with the wave of a scalpel no longer pose a grave threat to global warming. I will leave behind only one carbon emitter to enjoy a world that used to have two. Of course, she talks at least twice as much as Kate and I together, so it might not be a net gain.

If VANOC would like to buy my vasectomy and count the carbon-lifetime in their credits, I will happily send them a routing and transit number.

Careful there ebuckley.. this thread doesn't take too well to sarcasm or pointing out hypocrisy

Well, they can flame me if they want to, but they'll have to buy more carbon credits.