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UK Olympic Challenges
London's jubilation over being selected as the site of the 2012 Olympics is already having disquieting echoes for many Londoners. The estimated costs of holding the games, one of the world's biggest spectacles, in the British capital have already risen at least 40% since the city was awarded the honour in 2005. Were that not bad enough, many people think that the additional £900 million figure put forth by the UK’s Culture Secretary, Tessa Jowell, last November, is itself a significant underestimate.
The reasons for the cost rises would appear to be mostly the predictable ones: inflation of construction costs for all of the new facilities needed to host the event and that ever-rising price of all modern events: security. But British government officials alarmed by the ever-rising estimates claim that the 'predictable' increases of both of those costs – and several others – were not factored into the original bid.
'Today’s increase is just a starting point,' Shadow Olympics minister Hugh Robertson told the BBC News. 'While the figures remain ambiguous, we can only expect further increases.'
More immediately, the 2008 Olympics, to be held in Beijing, may hold hidden costs of a different kind for China, some observers are beginning to speculate. There seems little reason to doubt that the country's famously booming economy can pay whatever sticker is attached to the global sporting event. Because actual costs are not only sustained but controlled by the central government, only officials deepest inside the Communist state may ever know the true final costs of the event.
Still, people who view the event from a broader perspective are beginning to ask what impact the Olympics will have on the country by bringing the world's attention to its contribution to worldwide air pollution and, thus, global warming. In addition to being host to the Olympic games, China is home to 60 of the world's most polluted cities, and the poor air quality of its largest, the capital Beijing, will be on display to the enormous international audience that attend the event, many visiting China for the first time.
The Olympics are, after all, at heart an athletics event. Presumably, not all of its contests can be held in indoor stadiums and other venues in which climate can be fully controlled. Even if they were, athletes and spectators alike will have to spend some time outdoors – getting to and from the events, shopping, and sight-seeing – and the physically fit and unfit alike are sure to notice the effect the air has on their lungs and bodies overall. It is now said that any deep breath taken in Beijing comes with a residual taste of coal dust. That’s hardly surprising in a country in which a new coal-powered electricity-generating plant comes on line every week.
At the time it was awarded the Olympics, the Chinese government was thrilled at the prospect of putting the emerging country on show. In the wake of a gathering storm of worldwide conferences about the disastrous effects of greenhouse gas emissions on the environment – and, accordingly, economies – of the planet, one wonders if the industrial giant will be as pleased to have its seriously challenged physical environment on such prominent, worldwide display.
Hugh Nelson is an e-learning specialist who has worked in the education industry for more than 10 years. He currently lives in Hong Kong and is a director of UniRoute, a company that runs educational websites helping students prepare and successfully apply for post-graduate studies abroad.
Source: www.articledashboard.com