Skip to main content

Olympic opening ceremony leaves some feeling green

For the first time in South America, the ‘greatest show on earth’ opened with a Brazilian bang last Saturday. The ceremony was a colourful celebration of the diversity of Brazilian culture complete with 50m long animated microbes, Amazonian dancers and pop-up favelas. As the BBC’s Andrew Cotter (slightly awkwardly) remarked ‘Beijing was grandiose, London was smart. This is going to be cool’.

Somewhat to my surprise, intertwined with the samba and sparkles the ceremony carried a strong environmental message, showing the world that the diving pool isn’t the only thing with a hint of green in Rio. It was apparent that the organisers planned to tackle the environmental concerns around the most recent Olympics head-on by brazenly exhibiting Brazil’s environmental conscientiousness rather than its negligence. As the ceremony unfolded, this seemed to sit a little uncomfortably against the backdrop of the polluted waters of Gunanabara Bay, which reportedly have resulted in several competitors contracting illnesses.
This is an easy thing to bash from the comfort of our keyboards and credit should be given where it is due. The Brazilians have done something that no country has done before. They had the world’s spotlights on them and instead of producing a nothing but a stream of outlandish pyrotechnics and expensive set design, they took the opportunity to speak directly to the globe about one of the biggest challenges facing humankind. Whatever the motive, this must be a good thing, surely? They screened a film about the causes and effects of sea-level rise and coupled it with stunning footage of the amazon in all its natural beauty. They also gave each competitor a seed which will be planted to form a forest as a legacy of the Rio Olympics.
A Flor e a Nausea by Carlos Drummond de Andrade 
“A flower has sprouted in the street
Buses, streetcars, steel stream of traffic: steer clear!
A flower, still pale, has fooled the police,
it’s breaking through the asphalt.
Let’s have complete silence, halt all business,
I swear that a flower has been born
Its colour is uncertain.
It’s not showing its petals.
Its name isn’t in the books.
It’s ugly. But it really is a flower.
I sit down on the ground of the nation’s capital at five in the afternoon
and fondle with my fingers this precarious form.
It’s ugly. But it’s a flower. It broke through the asphalt, tedium, disgust, and hatred.”
Amongst this, they interwove the poem ‘A Flor e a Nausea’ (Flower and Nausea) by Carlos Drummond de Andrade, which was read by our own Dame Judy Dench. The Portuguese and English recitals rolled into each other as the poem was read out. Married with film of the streets of Rio it expressed both the fragility and resilience of nature amongst the polluted artificial environment. The decision to end on a poetic note was a good one in my opinion, providing a more uplifting conclusion to the climate change-chunk of the proceedings. I came away feeling hopeful that the world might have taken heed and we may see some good come out of it.

This feeling of excitement didn’t last long. Looking through the twitter reaction to the ceremony I can’t help but feel a little frustrated. The most animated response were reserved for Brazilian model Gisele Bundchen’s (albeit impressive) catwalk across the stage and the muscled Tongan flag bearer who was so oiled it would put Dominos pizza to shame. The message of global unity in the fight to prevent irrevocable environmental devastation paled into insignificance against his shiny torso. It seemed that people, in the UK Twittersphere at least, are a little bored of hearing the climate change rhetoric.

Perhaps even more frustrating was the media reaction from some outlets…  I suppose we should be happy at the use of the word ‘lectures’ rather than ‘lies’. Small victories.

In other coverage, the green-theme was simply ignored. The BBC write up lacked even one mention of the words ‘climate’ or ‘environment’: clearly the 11,5000-strong forest being built as the legacy of the games was totally irrelevant compared to Pele’s kidney troubles and the presence of Russians in the stadium.

Still, there are lessons to be learnt everywhere and maybe this wasn’t the best location for this message to be broadcast.  Perhaps the irony of Brazil’s environmental damage and the hypocrisy surrounding a lot of what the games entail was too much for some to bear:


For others, the focus on climate was seen as ‘green-washing’ technique to try and mask the social inequality that is reported across Brazil. Coupled with political turbulence and accusations of corruption, many believe the Olympics games are bad news for the country full stop.

Whatever the answer is, I believe that this was a positive step forward in global climate change acceptance. On a stage that is meant to celebrate some of the greatest achievements of humankind we were brave enough to highlight our failures. With the closing ceremony around the corner, let’s hope it doesn’t get forgotten amongst the excitement of scandals, medals and world records.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
This blog is written by Cabot Institute member Keri McNamara, a PhD student in the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol.
Keri McNamara


Popular posts from this blog

Converting probabilities between time-intervals

This is the first in an irregular sequence of snippets about some of the slightly more technical aspects of uncertainty and risk assessment.  If you have a slightly more technical question, then please email me and I will try to answer it with a snippet. Suppose that an event has a probability of 0.015 (or 1.5%) of happening at least once in the next five years. Then the probability of the event happening at least once in the next year is 0.015 / 5 = 0.003 (or 0.3%), and the probability of it happening at least once in the next 20 years is 0.015 * 4 = 0.06 (or 6%). Here is the rule for scaling probabilities to different time intervals: if both probabilities (the original one and the new one) are no larger than 0.1 (or 10%), then simply multiply the original probability by the ratio of the new time-interval to the original time-interval, to find the new probability. This rule is an approximation which breaks down if either of the probabilities is greater than 0.1. For example

1-in-200 year events

You often read or hear references to the ‘1-in-200 year event’, or ‘200-year event’, or ‘event with a return period of 200 years’. Other popular horizons are 1-in-30 years and 1-in-10,000 years. This term applies to hazards which can occur over a range of magnitudes, like volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, tsunamis, space weather, and various hydro-meteorological hazards like floods, storms, hot or cold spells, and droughts. ‘1-in-200 years’ refers to a particular magnitude. In floods this might be represented as a contour on a map, showing an area that is inundated. If this contour is labelled as ‘1-in-200 years’ this means that the current rate of floods at least as large as this is 1/200 /yr, or 0.005 /yr. So if your house is inside the contour, there is currently a 0.005 (0.5%) chance of being flooded in the next year, and a 0.025 (2.5%) chance of being flooded in the next five years. The general definition is this: ‘1-in-200 year magnitude is x’ = ‘the current rate for eve

Coconuts and climate change

Before pursuing an MSc in Climate Change Science and Policy at the University of Bristol, I completed my undergraduate studies in Environmental Science at the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka. During my final year I carried out a research project that explored the impact of extreme weather events on coconut productivity across the three climatic zones of Sri Lanka. A few months ago, I managed to get a paper published and I thought it would be a good idea to share my findings on this platform. Climate change and crop productivity  There has been a growing concern about the impact of extreme weather events on crop production across the globe, Sri Lanka being no exception. Coconut is becoming a rare commodity in the country, due to several reasons including the changing climate. The price hike in coconuts over the last few years is a good indication of how climate change is affecting coconut productivity across the country. Most coconut trees are no longer bearing fruits and thos