Air conditioning apartheid at Paris Olympic Games

OPINION:

Oh, the environmental injustice of it all. Organizers of the Paris Olympic Games thought they were going green by building athletic dormitories without supposedly planet-warming air conditioning.

As it turns out, the only athletes going green are those from poor countries.

Wary of risking athletic performance and medal counts on the French idea of a cooling system — cool water piped under floors — athletes from rich countries will reportedly bring portable air conditioners to their rooms to stay cool during the late July and early August games.

Poor countries can’t afford that, though. The president of the Ugandan Olympic Committee told The Washington Post, “We don’t have deep pockets.”

It’s possible that this sort of air conditioning apartheid won’t matter, even though it is supposedly the “hottest year ever.” The long-range forecast is for cooler weather in Paris. But you never know.

So, where are the environmental justice warriors on this?

In particular, where is Greta Thunberg pal and Ugandan youth activist Vanessa Nakate? Though a big supporter of the Paris climate agreement, Ms. Nakate and others have been silent about rich countries putting athletes from Uganda and other poor countries at a disadvantage by breaking the green spirit of the Paris Games.

While there won’t be air conditioning for the athletes or french fries for spectators (both are banned for fire safety reasons), there may very well be unsafe levels of deadly E. coli in the Seine River for the open-water swimming events.  

Water tests from early June have indicated high levels of E. coli present, probably from sewer overflows caused by heavy rain.

There is a lesson in all this.

While the Paris Olympic organizers have been preoccupied with nonsensical green ideas like imagining that uncomfortable athletic dorms will somehow change the weather, actual environmental problems, such as event water polluted with deadly bacteria, remain unresolved.

While the global population has doubled over the past 50 years, much of our vital infrastructure has decayed or crumbled and not kept up with the demands placed on it. Stormwater systems are a great example.

While we require industrial facilities to discharge only the cleanest water to rivers, our stormwater and municipal wastewater systems routinely fail in heavy rain, creating health-threatening — and even life-threatening — water pollution.

We have the technology to solve these problems. Still, we lack the money because our political leaders are fixated on the nutty idea of trying to control the weather with subsidized and mandated wind turbines, solar panels and electric vehicles.

Holocaust survivor Saul Friedlander mocked the Nazis for this sort of thinking as “the use of bureaucratic measures to enforce magical beliefs.”

The Paris Olympic organizers get at least a bronze medal in that event.

• Steve Milloy is a senior legal fellow with the Energy and Environment Legal Institute.