In 2022, Vox published an article asking, “Will climate change melt the winter Olympics?” To paraphrase their answer: probably. Vox was not alone. For a few months, Olympic coverage beat the dead horse of climate change, consistently linking global warming and the lack of natural snow in Beijing.[1] The story line became so dominant that the media actively framed articles around this idea, even if they offered a counter narrative.[2] But the 2022 Winter Games were far from the first to become embroiled in international eco-narratives.
The 1976 Denver Olympics never even happened, in large part due to environmental debates over the impacts of development on Colorado’s Rocky Mountains. [3] As PearlAnn Reichwein wrote about in this series, ecological political debates surrounded infrastructure development for the 1988 Calgary Games. The event left an indelible impact on the regional landscape.[4] Only six years later, as Finn Arne Jørgensen writes, the 1994 Lillehammer Winter Olympics had their own eco-narrative, marketed as the first “Green Games”—a title that stands in contrast to the energy intensive infrastructure that is still being used today.
The trend continued. In preparation for the 2018 Pyeongchange Winter Games, in South Korea, organizers destroyed a “sacred” 500-year-old “virgin forest” while building ski slopes. The Guardian described it as “an ecological disaster.” This year is no exception. Environmental groups like Greenpeace have railed against the Italian government for welcoming Eni S.p.A., a massive Italian oil company, as the Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics’ largest sponsor. (See video above). Meanwhile, despite a strong snowpack in Cortina, media about the future of the Winter Olympics is once again filling Instagram and TikTok feeds. (See below.) In each of these cases, the Winter Olympics serve as a parable. Often, that parable focuses on the impacts of the Olympics on the locations where the Winter Games are held. Here, I hope to invert that narrative.
The Winter Games are defined by twin assumptions about landscape and cultural exchange. Olympic spectators often celebrated the romantic alpine landscapes where the Winter Games were held and the unique people, cultures, and foods of the location. Host region both pushed and monetized these romantic eco-narratives by using the Olympics to justify building extensive tourist infrastructure. The eco-narrative that emerges from the Winter Games is bigger than just the location they are held in. Rather, the Games celebrate the idea that travelling to see beautiful landscapes and engage in cultural exchange is a good worthy of pursuing. Neither the Winter nor Summer Games are the prime drivers of ecotourism or cultural tourism. But they are uniquely visible examples of these pursuits. These cultural values do not simply impact the places Olympic spectators visit, they have global environmental consequences.
Scenery at the Winter Games
Chamonix hosted the first winter Olympics in 1924. Much like the Beijing Games in 2022, the first Chamonix Olympics had snow problems. On January 23, “heavy rains… converted the Olympics skating rink into a miniature lake, melted the snow at several turns in the bob-sleigh chute, and caused mud to crop up at sports in the ski jumps.” Despite workmen bringing in snow from higher altitudes and other locations, The New York Times still warned that “it might be necessary to postpone the opening day of the Winter games.” Ice games, in particular, seemed to be impossible without a dramatic drop in temperature.[5]
Despite the inauspicious start to the 102-year history of the Winter Olympics, most of the international press focused on the location. An article published in Santa Barbara, California, was titled “Yank Skiers to Contest in Wonder Spot,” but the article said little about skiers. Instead, it described the “breath-taking beauty… the crystal-clear atmosphere, [how] snowy peaks thrust their summits to the skies out of a maze of glaciers and ridges like the fins of an thousand sharks” [sic].[6] Many papers published daily articles about the sports, but in longer pieces, journalists lost themselves in romantic visions of the French Alps.
In France, Olympic planners became frustrated that the games cost more than they made. Nevertheless, hosts throughout the world quickly looked to the Winter Games as a way to make money—both in the moment and over the coming decades. A quarter-century after Chamonix, Alaxander Cushings, who founded Palisades Tahoe in 1949, actively worked to bring the Winter Olympics to the historic summer tourism hub. Press celebrating the scenery, culture, and general vibes of Olympic destinations were a central aspect of this.
Much as Santa Barbara papers celebrated the stunning scenery of the French Alps, European papers highlighted “the picturesque setting… within sight of the beautiful Lake Tahoe.” A special correspondent for The Guardian wrote that the ski area, “though little known until recently, seems destined to become as famous as Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Germany and Cortina d’Ampezzo in Italy, both of which became better known as winter sports centres after the Olympic games of 1936 and 1956 respectively.”[7] Cushing was counting on his resort becoming as famous as its European counterparts. It did—or, at least, came close. The Olympics motivated Reno, Nevada (the closest city) to build a modern airport and initiated the creation of an Olympic training center developed to keep the ski jumps and bobsled tracks in use. Over 60 years later, the ski area now averages 600,000 visitors annually.[8]
Figure 1 The breathtaking view of Lake Tahoe from the top of Palisades Tahoe. (Palisades Tahoe Ski Resort)
Olympics and Tourism
The Tahoe Games were far from the only time that the Winter Games were used to link the Olympics to long term tourist economies. Early Winter Games in Europe put winter tourism in the Alps on a global stage.[9] Meanwhile, the Tahoe Olympics had proved profitable over the long term. Other places wanted in.
Twenty years after the Tahoe Games, a newspaper in Glens Falls, New York, reported on “the problems, as well as the benefits, spawned by the [1980 Winter] Olympics” in nearby Lake Placid. The town, once the most famous tourist destination in the country, had become quiet since its heyday in the first half of the century. The surge of tourists that followed the Olympics was “cause for general rejoicing.” The new tourists were a different breed, changing an expensive and exclusive resort community into a more middle-class tourism destination.[10] Nonetheless, the games once again turned the town into one of the nation’s most famous tourism destinations.
Despite Lake Placid’s stunning scenery, the games would become most famous for the shocking victory of the U.S. hockey team over the Soviet Union’s “Red Army” team.
Other Winter Games during the decade had similar impacts on global visibility. A study published in 1991 found a dramatic increase in international awareness of Calgary in 20 European and U.S. urban centers following the 1988 competition.[11] Later studies found long term economic benefits as well. For example, a 1999 study found that while the Winter Olympics often cost more than they make, especially in the first few years following the event, in the long term, they were often highly profitable, creating substantial tourism infrastructure that would be difficult to develop otherwise.[12] Since the 2002 Salt Lake City winter games, the city has seen long-term tourism growth with a massive 72% increase in skiers, as Alta, Snowbird, and Park City have gone from being out-of-the-way resorts popular among avid American skiers into global destinations for ski tourism.[13] The return of the Olympics to Salt Lake City in 2034, current debates over choosing Lake Placid for mountain events for a New York City-Lake Placid Winter Games in 2042 or 2046, and the fact that this is the second time that Cortina d’Ampezzo has hosted the Winter Games (the first was in 1956) highlights the long-term economic benefits of the Winter Olympics for regional economies.[14] (Although, there are certainly environmental drawbacks for the people, animals, air, and water in these regions.)
Global Impacts of Winter Olympics
There is a case to be made that one of the largest environmental impacts of the Winter Games is carbon emissions. At times this can be localized. The massive increase in travel to Salt Lake City since the Olympics has played a role in creating some of the most toxic air in the United States. The air quality is so bad that it has led to a dramatic rise in miscarriage rates in the region.[15] In other words, the local is important. But the Olympics have global impacts too. These are often overlooked.
Figure 2: Smog and haze hangs over the Salt Lake valley on a warm, sunny November Saturday. November 5, 2016. (Wikicommons)
These impacts are not from the actual event. Hosting the Olympics is a massive energy suck, but the games this year are estimated to account for less than one-one-thousandth of a percentage point of annual global emissions. They are negligible.
What the Winter Olympics do is highlight a global fascination with travel, cultural exchange, and romantic alpine environments. (The views of the Dolomites from the Downhill slope in Cortina are breathtaking.) They reflect the descriptor of “cosmopolitan” that I hear thrown around on chairlifts and in the oral histories I conduct when people talk about their attraction to skiing.
It is easy to blame corporations for global warming—and we should. But there are major cultural hurtles to overcome. One recent study found that tourism accounted for 8% of all global carbon emissions in 2018.[16] Even more troubling, emissions from tourism doubled at twice the rate of the rest of the global economy over a ten-year period from 2009 to 2019.[17] The Winter Olympics might not drive this process, but it is the most visible celebration of these cultural values that are a major contributor to the global climate crisis.
[1] Jaclyn Diaz, “Could the World Become Too Warm to Hold Winter Olympics?,” Climate, NPR, January 21, 2022, https://www.npr.org/2022/01/21/1074872876/could-the-world-become-too-warm-to-hold-winter-olympics; Umair Irfan, “What the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics Say about Climate Change,” Vox, February 2, 2022, https://www.vox.com/22905168/beijing-winter-olympics-2022-climate-change-snow; Chad de Guzman, “What Artificial Snow at the 2022 Olympics Means for the Future of Winter Games,” TIME, February 8, 2022, https://time.com/6146039/artificial-snow-2022-olympics-beijing/.
[2] Jesse H. Ritner, “The Beijing Olympics’ Snow Problem Is More Serious than You Think,” National Opinions, Opinions, Anchorage Daily News, n.d., accessed April 16, 2022, https://www.adn.com/opinions/national-opinions/2022/02/08/opinion-the-beijing-olympics-snow-problem-is-more-serious-than-you-think/.
[3] Michael W. Childers, Colorado Powder Keg: Ski Resorts and the Environmental Movement (University Press of Kansas, 2012), 82-89.
[4] PearlAnn Reichwein, “Politics and Memory of Olympic Winter Games in the Canadian Rockies,” NiCHE, February 11, 2026, https://niche-canada.org/2026/02/11/politics-and-memory-of-olympic-winter-games-in-the-canadian-rockies/.
[5] https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1924/01/24/104029025.html?pageNumber=12
[6] “Yank Skiers to Contest in Wonder Spot,” The Morning Press (Santa Barbara, California), January 16, 1924, 6.
[7] “New Resort Born in Full Pomp and Pageantry at Squaw Valley,” The Guardian (London, England), February 12, 1960, 12.
[8] “Olympic Winter Games 1960: From Remote Backwater to a Leading Ski Destination,” Olympics.Com, January 23, 2024, https://olympics.com/ioc/news/squaw-valley-1960-from-remote-backwater-to-leading-ski-destination.
[9] “New Resort,” The Guardian, 12.
[10] Mary Fiess, “Lake Placid Tourist Trade Booming,” The Post-Star (Glens Falls, New York), August 25, 1980, 37.
[11] J. R. Brent Ritchie and Brian H. Smith, “The Impact Of A Mega-Event On Host Region Awareness: A Longitudinal Study,” Journal of Travel Research 30, no. 1 (1991): 3–10.
[12] J.R. Brent Ritchie, “Lessons Learned, Lessons Learning: Insights from the Calgary and Salt Lake City Olympic Winter Games,” Visions in Leisure and Business 18, no. 1 (1999), 9.
[13] “Economic Impact,” Olympics.Com, October 22, 2020, https://olympics.com/ioc/news/economic-impact.
[14] Tim Rowland, “A Third Winter Olympics in Lake Placid? Explorer Event Examines the Possibility,” Adirondack Explorer, accessed February 12, 2026, https://www.adirondackexplorer.org/community-news/a-third-winter-olympics-in-lake-placid-explorer-panel-debates-the-possibility/.
[15] Claire L. Leiser et al., “Acute Effects of Air Pollutants on Spontaneous Pregnancy Loss: A Case-Crossover Study,” Fertility and Sterility 111, no. 2 (2019): 341–47.
[16] Manfred Lenzen et al., “The Carbon Footprint of Global Tourism,” Nature Climate Change 8, no. 6 (2018): 522–28.
[17] Ya-Yen Sun et al., “Drivers of Global Tourism Carbon Emissions,” Nature Communications 15, no. 1 (2024): 10384.
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