At the end of last year the International Olympic Committee (IOC) proposed that the 2034 Winter Olympics be held in Salt Lake City. This may come as a surprise, but I believe that it is actually a very good choice.

As all of us know the impacts of carbon emissions are directly affecting our weather and especially the snowfall accumulation of places around the world. The 2022 Winter Olympics were held in Beijing. At that venue they had to produce over 42.4 million cubic feet of snow which used over 49 million gallons of water, according to the University of Colorado Boulder.

This has been a recent Olympic trend, with the 2018 Pyeongchang games using over 200 million gallons of water to create snow, according to NPR. To put this in perspective, the two Olympic Games use 294 million gallons of water. This is equal to a days worth of drinking water for 900 million people, 2.35 billion water bottles, enough water to satisfy one million U.S households. 

According to Ski Utah, the Utah mountains receive 7.7 trillion gallons of water as snow with very little coming from snow machines. This means that hosting the games in Utah makes perfect sense. With climate change being so evident, making a list of winter Olympic venues that go through a rotation will be the next best step for the IOC.

The Utah Olympic Venues from 2002 are the only Winter Olympic venues still in use. Eventually all this irresponsible water use will catch up with us. We no longer have the means to be dumping this many resources into a two-week long event. The decision of these Games needs to accommodate for the places that can sustainably hold them and not the ones that can bid the most money.

The 2028 Games are predicted to be held in the French Alps. However, 28 European resorts (53%) examined would be at very high risk of a scarce amount of snow. Only the higher elevation ski resorts will be available by 2028.

Our whole planet is in danger. The IOC needs to stop making selfish, money-hungry decisions and make their Games sustainable.