The Great Olympic lie: untold story of Winter Games’ huge environmental impact

JVL Introduction

This article reports on the failed promises of the Winter Olympic committee to deliver a sustainable games in Italy in an area where temperatures have risen a shocking 3.6 degrees in the last twenty years.

The organisers pumped water from two drought threatened rivers to create four high level reservoirs in the Alps to fluff up the snow on the ski runs. They destroyed a forest – Bosco di Ronco – for a bobsleigh track. They got away with building a cable car on a landslide.

They ignored proposals for less impactful alternatives from the Italian environment movement and WWF Italy felt forced to distance itself from the games.

We have to face the fact that global warming means ski resorts are disappearing fast with 200 Italian resorts gone since the heyday of the 1960s with the inevitable economic impacts as well as the loss of reflective power of snow.

TB

This article was originally published by the Guardian on Sun 22 Feb 2026. Read the original here.