Month: February 2022

Well-respected activist Martin Luther King Jr. had once remarked, “It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny.” Perhaps the same can be said about air pollution at the Olympic Games — while its immediate impacts are confined to host cities, these impacts eventually snowball and transcend national boundaries. This interdependence between the local and global, then, is what explains the presence of environmental injustice globally. Similar to city-level environmental injustice where the marginalised are disproportionately affected by air pollution, developing countries are hit more severely by pollution-induced climate impacts.

Developing countries tend to bear the brunt of air pollution impacts, even though such pollution originates from mostly developed host cities (India Today, 2019)

But how exactly does localised air pollution extend to the global scale? The answer lies in the intensification of the greenhouse effect. When Olympic venues are constructed and urban traffic increases, massive amounts of radiation-trapping pollutants — particularly carbon dioxide — are emitted (Schmidt, 2020). This increase in global carbon footprint and trapping of longwave radiation not only raises global atmospheric temperatures, but also influences long-term rainfall availability (Kellogg and Schware, 2019). These climatic changes increase the likelihood of extreme weather events, which greatly devastate developing countries’ economies due to the lack of comprehensive mitigation measures (Kellogg and Schware, 2019).

While data on the exact climatic and socio-economic impact of Olympic-induced air pollution remains limited, it is fair to hypothesise that such pollution worsens environmental injustice. As mentioned previously, air pollution generated at the Olympic Games is inevitably significant, given the large scale of the event and its pollutive activities. In fact, according to Figure 1, new construction is one of the least sustainable but regularly occurring activities at the Olympic Games, with the second lowest sustainability score of 35. This, coupled with recurring incidents where extensive areas of carbon-absorbing vegetation are cut down for venue construction (Konstantaki and Wickens, 2010), reinforces the sheer amount of carbon being released throughout the Olympic Games. Therefore, it is possible that these localised carbon emissions accumulate, eventually altering global climate patterns while causing disproportionate economic damage to developing countries.

Figure 1: An infographic outlining the mean values of nine indicators used in assessing the sustainability of the Olympic Games, and the distribution of values. These indicators are scored from 0 to 100, with 0 meaning ‘least sustainable’ and 100 ‘most sustainable’ (Müller et al., 2021)

Therein lies the manifestation of environmental injustice, which is supported by Borunda’s (2019) findings on climate change-induced inequality. As per figure 2, most countries with high economic damage — who ironically generate the least carbon emissions — lie within the less developed Global South. Considering that these countries inherently suffer from climate vulnerability as they lack sufficient finances to invest in climate-resilient infrastructure, the occurrence of climatic impacts engenders the need for post-disaster relief and worsens their fiscal positions. This further compromises their climate vulnerability as they are unable to implement cost-intensive mitigation measures, creating a vicious cycle where these countries continually experience climate threats and environmental injustice.

Figure 2: A choropleth map illustrating the uneven impact of climate change on countries’ national economies (top) and the global distribution of carbon emissions per capita (bottom) (Borunda, 2019)

Admittedly, such environmental injustice can be lessened through supranational mutual aid programmes, where development agencies offer financial assistance to developing countries to tackle climate impacts. Nevertheless, such measures overlook the root cause of environmental injustice — the generation of pollution. Considering the potential for air pollutants to react with each other and develop into more hazardous secondary pollutants, it is hence crucial to minimise air pollution, especially at mega-events like the Olympic Games. Only then will we be one step closer to eradicating environmental injustice.

References

Borunda, A. (2019, April 23). Inequality is decreasing between countries—but climate change is slowing progress. National Geographic. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/climate-change-economic-inequality-growing 

India Today. (2019). 1 lakh children under 5 years of age die from air pollution in India every year: Study [Online image]. India Today. https://www.indiatoday.in/education-today/latest-studies/story/air-pollution-india-deaths-children-five-years-report-centre-for-science-and-environment-1543779-2019-06-06  

Kellogg, W. W., & Schware, R. (Eds.). (2019). Climate change and society: consequences of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429048739 

Konstantaki, M., & Wickens, E. (2010). Residents’ perceptions of environmental and security issues at the 2012 London Olympic Games. Journal of Sport & Tourism, 15(4), 337-357. https://doi.org/10.1080/14775085.2010.533921 

Müller, M., Wolfe, S. D., Gaffney, C., Gogishvili, D., Hug, M., & Leick, A. (2021). An evaluation of the sustainability of the Olympic Games. Nature sustainability, 4(4), 340-348. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-021-00696-5 

Schmidt, R. (2020). The carbon footprint of the games–International climate change law and the Olympics. American Journal of International Law, 114, 362-367. https://doi.org/10.1017/aju.2020.71

To many of us, there is nothing more gratifying than watching our favourite athletes push their limits and fight for victory at the Olympic Games. After all, it is these magical moments that encapsulate what the Olympic Games is symbolic of — glory, national pride and resilience. Yet, it is also in these very moments of celebration that we forget about those who are negatively and disproportionately impacted by the Olympic Games. This is especially so for air pollution, where we frequently overlook how residents of host cities — especially the marginalised — are widely exposed to pollutants, causing long-term health and socio-economic problems. 

Therein lies the issue of environmental injustice, where disadvantaged societal groups are forced to bear the “external costs of [economic] development” (Jerrett, 2009, p. 231). Such environmental injustice inherent to Olympic air pollution is most prominent at the city level, where socioeconomically vulnerable poor and minority communities inevitably face air pollution. Such exposure not only manifests from the construction of Olympic venues near marginalised communities, who lack the bargaining power to protest (Pulido, 2017), but also these communities’ reliance on public transport that increases their exposure to traffic emissions (Pratt et al., 2015). 

Tokyo residents in protest against the 2020 Olympic Games, which they argue will worsen environmental inequalities for the city’s poor (Burack, 2021)

However, you might still be wondering why environmental injustice poses a big problem for marginalised residents of host cities, apart from making them more susceptible to chronic respiratory illnesses. Well, it is precisely this likelihood of falling ill that engenders further socio-economic issues, namely the sustained lack of network capital and concomitant worsening of marginalisation. When residents are unwell, this not only compromises their work productivity, but also their ability to seek employment opportunities. This deprives them of network capital, which Urry (2012, p. 27) defines as the “capacity to engender and sustain relations… which generate practical benefit”, causing residents to be unable to earn livelihoods. More worryingly, however, this establishes a positive feedback loop where impoverished residents slip deeper into marginalisation, making them increasingly vulnerable to discriminatory pollutive practices (Pulido, 2017).

Such phenomena have begun emerging in Los Angeles, which is currently preparing for the 2028 Olympic Games. On the surface, Los Angeles is the epitome of a model host city, being equipped with sufficient finances to construct grand stadiums while pledging to improve minority access to sports spaces. However, this regard for inclusivity does not prove true in reality, as marginalised communities are forced to deal with the air pollution being generated during construction. Since 2016, construction has commenced for three major sports facilities (Mahoney, 2021), with such construction taking place in the predominantly Black city of Inglewood. This has not only heightened the risk of Inglewood residents developing respiratory illnesses, with these residents facing more air pollution than 96% of California state (Mahoney, 2021), but also raised concerns of long-term pollutant exposure from increased traffic (Henry, 2019). The latter is especially ironic — while low-income Inglewood residents use public transport to travel to work, it is also this dependence on public transport that makes residents sick and threatens their sustenance of livelihoods.      

The construction of SoFi Stadium in the black-dominated city of Inglewood has drawn criticism from residents, who experience significant air and noise pollution (Mahoney, 2021)

Hence, it is salient to recognise that while the Olympic Games might be a temporary highlight for host cities, its impacts can be permanent and far-reaching in scale. With that, stay tuned for the next post, which will investigate the environmental injustice of Olympic air pollution at the global scale!

References

Burack, E. (2021). The Olympics Devastate Host Cities and Need a Permanent Location [Online image]. Teen Vogue. https://www.teenvogue.com/story/olympics-host-cities-tokyo-los-angeles  

Henry, J. (2019, December 27). Traffic, noise from new LA Clippers arena would be ‘significant’ and ‘unavoidable,’ report says. Daily Breeze. https://www.dailybreeze.com/2019/12/27/traffic-noise-from-new-la-clippers-arena-would-be-significant-and-unavoidable-report-says/ 

Jerrett, M. (2009). Global geographies of injustice in traffic-related air pollution exposure. Epidemiology, 20(2), 231-233. https://doi.org/10.1097/ede.0b013e31819776a1 

Liu, L. (2013). Geographic approaches to resolving environmental problems in search of the path to sustainability: The case of polluting plant relocation in China. Applied Geography, 45, 138-146. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2013.08.011 

Mahoney, A. (2021, October 12). The environmental justice fight to block the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. Grist. https://grist.org/cities/2028-olympics-los-angeles-environmental-justice-inglewood/ 

Pratt, G. C., Vadali, M. L., Kvale, D. L., & Ellickson, K. M. (2015). Traffic, air pollution, minority and socio-economic status: addressing inequities in exposure and risk. International journal of environmental research and public health, 12(5), 5355-5372. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph120505355 

Pulido, L. (2017). Rethinking environmental racism: White privilege and urban development in Southern California. In K. Anderson and B. Braun (Eds.), Environment (pp. 379-407). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315256351-17 

Urry, J. (2012). Social networks, mobile lives and social inequalities. Journal of transport geography, 21, 24-30. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2011.10.003