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Environmental issues

#NOlympicsAnywhere: A transnational movement to stop the Olympic Games is gathering strength

Article by Cerianne Robertson, posted on PlaytheGame.org.

NOlympics Anywhere: A transnational movement to stop the Olympic Games is gathering strength


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Another London2012 Olympics Aftermath: a river becomes a sewer

The London2012 Olympics continues to spew out new 'legacies'. The latest is sewage. On April 28th 2020 @DeeDeeMay posted this video on Twitter showing oil coming out of the Channelsea River culvert.

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Online Discussion - The Rise of NoOlympics and the Decline of the Olympic Machine

As part of #RadicalMay, Jules Boykoff, Shireen Ahmed, and Dave Zirin discuss the rise of anti-Olympics organizing and protests, the decline of the Olympic machine, and the future of organised sports in the era of Covid-19, following the publication of Jules Boykoff's book NOlympians: Inside the Fight Against Capitalist Mega-Sports in Los Angeles, Tokyo and Beyond, which is available in stock and available to order online from Fernwood Publishing


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Pyeongchang2018 Olympics at the heart of South Korean corruption scandal

By Julian Cheyne and Rebecca Kim - Researcher at the Democracy & Social Movement Institute, SungkongHoe University, Seoul

Against the background of the all consuming scandal which has engulfed South Korea's now deposed President Park Pyeongchang2018 looms up as the next fixture in the Olympic murk. The scandal surrounding ex-President Park Guen-hye, her confidante, Choi Soon-sil, and South Korea’s secretive companies, or chaebols, such as Samsung, Hyundai, Lotte or Hanjin, has cast a light on the shadowy interactions between the government, the secret services and the chaebols, the companies which came to dominate the South Korean economy during the dictatorship of Park’s father, Park Jung-Hee.


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Skiers and Associated Press just can't understand the problem with cutting down forests!

It's embarrassing to see how poor mainstream media has been in reporting or rather in failing to report the destruction of forests for the latest Winter Olympics at Pyeongchang2018 and Beijing2022. In the case of Beijing2022 not even one article seems to have been written on the subject. The alarm had been raised on Chinese social media and was followed up by Terry Townshend, a British birder living in Beijing writing on his own birding blog. But apart from a specialist paper like Nature Western media paid no attention to the possible damage to the forest on the site even though there was considerable and sensible discusion about the merits of the Beijing bid. In the case of Pyeongchang2018 there doesn't seem to have been any coverage until the Guardian got round to writing a very good article, but almost a year after the forest had been cut down! In January 2013 Games Monitor featured the work of a South Korean environmmental group, The Good Friends to Nature, who warned of the threat to Mount Gariwang and publicised further warnings and actions, including a one man protest in Seoul by a Korean Environmentalist, through to its destruction in the autumn of 2014.

Now as the first test runs are held at Mount Gariwang the Associated Press has leapt into action with a syndicated article representing the position of the skiers who make out that they are puzzled by the controversy surrounding the mountain and the cutting down of an important part of the forest. The organisers insist the restoration plans are still in play despite the ridicule heaped on them by environmentalists as both our article and the Guardian's article make clear. In the Guardian Green Korea is reported as saying:

“The organising committee will perhaps argue that they will replant around 300 trees, but all of them apart from those 181 bigger trees belong to small species under two metres in height. It is difficult to imagine that they plan to replant trees that represent the ecological properties of Mount Gariwang. We think their attitude is patronising.”


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An equestrian return at Greenwich?

Was this an attempt to get a further equestrian event held at Greenwich following London2012? On 5th December 2015 Greenwich Council applied to itself for a licence to hold events on the Circus Field in Blackheath, see attachment. Among the events that could be held, under Section 5, were 'Tournaments, competitions and sporting displays'.


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Learning from London: The other side of the Olympics - a film from Hamburg

A film by Hamburg filmmaker Marlene Wynants on the legacy of the London 2012 Olympics - in English with German subtitles


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They're doing it again - Forest at Beijing Nature Reserve to be cut down for Beijing2022

They are at it again. The International Olympic Committee, which allegedly considers the Environment to be its Third Dimension, having already cut down the sacred forest at Mount Gariwang for the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics is about to repeat this vandalism at the Songshan National Nature Reserve for the Winter Olympics at Beijing in 2022. The news was met with opposition on Chinese social media. One concerned ecologist, Wang Xi, who recently received his PhD and works at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai, overlaid the map of the Nature Reserve with an image of the proposed ski run.

Songshan National Nature Reserve by Wang XiSongshan National Nature Reserve by Wang Xi

However, postings by objectors like doctoral student Lei Gu and Wang Xi on Weibo are said to be no longer available and, typically under these circumstances, neither the Olympic authorities in China nor the IOC would comment on the reports.

A British bird watcher and environmentalist, Terry Townshend, wrote about the Nature Reserve:

'The slopes below this peak contain many rare species, including Beijing’s only Shanxi orchids (Cypripedium shanxiense), not to mention the breeding habitat of several endangered and range restricted birds including Grey-sided Thrush (Turdus feae), Chinese (Green-backed) Flycatcher (Ficedula elisae), Chinese Thrush (Turdus mupinensis) and “Gansu” Red-flanked Bluetail (Tarsiger cyanurus). And it was in late May this year that I enjoyed a fantastic afternoon’s birding at this site with visiting Dick Newell, Rob Joliffe and Lyndon and Hilde Kearsley (here for the Swift project), during which time we encountered 7 species of phylloscopus warbler – Chinese Leaf, Claudia’s Leaf, Eastern Crowned, Hume’s Leaf, Pallas’s Leaf, Yellow-browed and Yellow-streaked as well as brief views of Grey-sided Thrush and ‘heard only’ Slaty-backed Flycatcher and White-throated Rock Thrush.'


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Sweet indeed - Olympic site was 'real hive of activity and industrial innovation'

There must be something in the water! After years of the old industrial sites in the Lea Valley being written off to justify their compulsory purchase and demolition to make way for the London Olympics the LLDC's Sweetwater web page now advertises the area as:

'One of the most important industrial sites in London, the area around Sweetwater has seen some of the UK’s most important innovations.

In the 19th century, the area was home to the East London Waterworks Company, but it was during the late 19th and early 20th century that it really came into its own with the growth of chemical, confectionery and petroleum industries taking off in the area.

Petrol was first registered for a patent by the company Carless, Capel & Leonard in the area around White Post Lane and a company based on White Post Lane first introduced the French process of dry cleaning to the UK.

A German V1 rocket and heavy bombing damaged many of the buildings in the area during World War Two, but industrial development continued from the 1950s onwards with confectionary, fur trade, engineering and fruit businesses, as well as timber yards and warehouses continued to make the area a real hive of activity and industrial innovation.'


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