The big story of the
day has been the weather. Overnight fog meant that visibility on the mountains
and at the sliding centre was extremely poor resulting in the cross country
skiing and the women's snowboarding events have had to be postponed until tomorrow.
There have also been concerns about the men's two man bobsleigh event.
Although it has been
at its most significant today this is not the first time that the weather has
caused problems at the Sochi games. From the start of the practise events
skiers and snowboarders have been complaining that the warm conditions have
created soft, almost sticky snow that you normally associate with spring. As
this type of snow offers more friction then the harder, more tightly packed
snow that people are used to it has slowed the competitors down meaning that
there is little chance of records being broken at these games. The warm weather
has also been causing problems at the sliding centre where the Luge and
Bobsleigh events are held. Basically as the heat of the the day progresses
moisture builds up in the air. When that moisture comes in contact with the ice
at the sliding centre it forms a top layer of rough, slow ice which is known rather
delightfully as "Whore Ice." Over the course of a day's competition
this can become a serious problem with those competing later simply being
unable to match the times of earlier competitors because the track conditions
don't allow them to.
The problems with the
warm weather has led many to question why a Winter Olympics are being held in a
southern, coastal city which has roughly the same climate as southern European
nations on the Mediterranean Sea and on certain days of competition has been
slightly warmer then Madrid, Spain. The first answer to that question is that
Sochi is Russia's gay capital making it the perfect location for discussions
about gay rights in Russia particularly if you want to spread Sochi's
relatively tolerant attitude to the rest of the country. The second reason is
that the warm weather was always going to cause problems for some of the Winter
Olympic events. That provides a fantastic opportunity for a discussion about
global warming/climate change because I don't think any of the Winter Olympians
are considering a warmer climate to be a good thing.
Throughout the United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) process Russia - along
with the US and the UK - has been one of the most obstructive nations when it
comes to taking action to combat climate change. However far from being caused
by any doubt that climate change is man made Russia's position has come from a
calculation that a warmer climate will melt arctic sea ice opening up more
shipping routes and increasing Russian access to warm water sea ports -
something that has been highly important to Russia since Peter the Great built
the Russian Empire by turning the country into a great seafaring nation. The
discussions and arguments about the quality of the snow and ice on the
mountains and in the sliding centre - particularly how they are being affected
by the heat - are exactly the type of discussions that are had at UNFCCC
conferences only on a much grander scale. The Russian's primary objective is to
promote discussion about climate change to find out where other nations stand
on the issue. However by portraying global warming as something negative Russia also
seems to be re-stating the about turn it announced at the COP19/CMP9 and is now
indicating that it is prepared to take a leading role in the fight against
climate change. I'm obviously pleased about that but with Russia spending the
last 18 years pushing in the wrong direction it will take time to build up
trust that their change of direction is genuine.
Realising that
climate change is becoming one of the main issues at the Sochi games US Secretary
of State John Kerry used a trip to Indonesia yesterday (16/2/14) to focus on the topic. Although I haven't
studied every single word uttered during the visit Kerry's message seemed to be
that he, President Obama and the rest of the Democrat Party are utterly
convinced by global warming and desperately want to take action - it's just
that those nasty Republicans in Congress won't let them. Sadly this "It's all
the Republicans Fault" is very much the narrative of the Democrats 2014
mid-term election campaign that President Obama kicked off with his State of
the Union speech and is being applied to every political issue in the US at the
moment including immigration reform, women's rights and the minimum wage debate
to name but a few. As is such it seems the US' actual position on Climate
Change is that it's a fun thing to have around because it can be used as a way
to discuss other matters and achieve other political goals. This is the
attitude that has plagued the UNFCCC process from the start. As a result the South Korean's response was particularly aggressive but with Kerry in Seoul today's university building roof collapse obviously covers a range of issues besides climate change.
Aside from the fog in
Sochi the environment has been very active in the US and the UK and seems to be
attempting to move the discussion about its future onto the topic of Hydraulic
Fracturing (Fracking). Overnight there was a small (4.1) earthquake in the US
state of Ohio.. Added to the recent small earthquake in the state if Georgia
this is starting to look like a pattern of small earthquakes in an area that
mimics the proposed route of the Keystone XL pipeline and the US' Midwestern
fracking boom. Although there is a lack of good quality data surrounding this
new technology opponents of fracking claim that it can cause small earthquakes
of this type.
Here in the UK we're
all being given a sudden crash course in the phenomenon of Sink Holes. Having
never really experienced these in the UK we've suddenly seen five large ones in
the space of a few days including one that closed a major motorway. These are
almost certainly a consequence of all the recent flooding. Although there can
be certain engineering issues generally sink holes occur when water gets into
the bedrock causing it to dissolve. Once the bedrock has been dissolved you're
left with a cavern meaning that the ground above can no longer support its own
weight so collapses. As the entire point of fracking is to inject pressurised
water and chemicals into bedrock in order to dissolve it I am very interested to
know why supporters of fracking don't think it causes sink holes.
Away from the
discussions about the natural environment/climate change there has inevitably been
some continued fall out from the collapse of the Geneva II process on Syria
over the weekend. Basically this has taken the form of US Secretary of State
Kerry putting out some very aggressive statements blaming the entire failure on
Russia and the Syrian government. I suppose we should be thankful for the fact
that as far as I can tell the US has managed to keep the issue out of the
Olympics themselves although let's be honest the US's sudden interest in gay
rights in Russia is just a device to attack Russia over Syria.
It was the collapse
of the Geneva II process that caused a Ethiopian passenger jet (Boeing 767)
bound for Rome to be hijacked and diverted to Geneva this morning. African
nations - particularly eastern ones bordering Somalia - are very concerned by
the situation in Syria. That's because the international community's failure to
stand up to the Syrian insurgency has sent the message that this sort of
behaviour is acceptable and will go unpunished. As a result you have seen
similar Islamist led insurgencies popping up across Africa in places like
Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya and even as far afield as Nigeria and although I
hesitate to declare it a religious conflict the Central African Republic (CAR).
Last week's London Conference on the Illegal Wildlife Trade 2014 which Ethiopia attended was set up specifically to provide a
coded discussion about Islamist terrorism in Africa. Sadly the objective seemed
to be to allow the UK to better support Islamist terrorists against these
African governments. Needless to Ethiopia which isn't participating at the
Olympics is feeling a bit stressed and trying to work out what is going on.
As such I should
probably point out that the wave of parcel bombs sent to British Army
recruiting centres on the day of the conference were initially supposed to be
interpreted as Islamist attacks. Once it was revealed that they were the work of
'Northern Irish terrorists' it was supposed to promote discussion about the
political situation in Northern Ireland which does have some relevance to the
situations in Nigeria and CAR. Of course in the script I was also meant to chasing
up this criminal damage business at the time which would have helped exert pressure on the African delegates by confusing
matters further although that turned out to be something of a moot point.
So there you have it I've managed to write almost two pages on the days events in and around the Winter Olympics whilst barely mentioning sport at all.
20:10 on 17/2/14 (UK date).
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