TRANSCIPT
Welcome to Throw Forward Thursday. My name is Graeme Codrington and come with me again to the future of the Olympics. Last week, we looked at robots and technology and Bionic Olympics. Another potential future for the Olympics is maybe not so fun and a little bit more serious.
And this is the climate change impacted Olympics. We’ve talked about climate change before in the throwforward Thursday studio, and it’s real. Of course, we know that extreme weather and shifts in the climate and the patterns of rain and snow and heat and cold are changing our planet.
And this is going to impact a number of different human activities from where we can live and what food we can grow to what sport we can play in a few months time from when I’m recording this, we’re about to have the Football World Cup in the hottest country we’ve ever had it in before in Qatar, and massive amounts of engineering going into air conditioning entire football stadiums just to make sure that we can play football in the desert. Very difficult to run an Olympics in the desert.
China discovered in 2022 that it’s very difficult to run a Winter Olympics without snow. And they had to spend a fortune of money creating artificial snow. Then in the middle of the Olympics, real snow fell and the real snow on top of the artificial snow made for very dangerous skiing conditions. So, yeah, weather impacts the sport. Any sport that has to be played outdoors is going to be impacted.
And it impacts not just the actual competitions, but the training as well dams and Rivers, not having enough water in it for rowers and sailors to practice, and so on.
In the future, we may have to reconsider some of the sports that we play and not only what sport we play, but where we play it when we play it and how we play those sports. Climate change affects everything. It affects sport, and it will affect the Olympics in the future. The future of the Olympics has to take into account a changing world that we live in.
But that, of course, is true of every industry. And I’m sure it’s true of yours. And I’m sure you are already having conversations about the impact that extreme weather and climate change could have on you. If you’re not, you should. And that is, of course, what Throw Forward Thursday is about sparking your imagination and giving you something to think about.
Make sure that you hit the subscribe and notify buttons, either in the podcast or on the YouTube versions or here on the social channel, depending on where you’re watching this video.
And make sure that you come back next Thursday. When we hop once more into the future of the Olympics one last time, I’ve got some more ideas for the International Olympic Committee.
I’ll see you there.
Graeme Codrington, is an internationally recognized futurist, specializing in the future of work. He helps organizations understand the forces that will shape our lives in the next ten years, and how we can respond in order to confidently stay ahead of change. Chat to us about booking Graeme to help you Re-Imagine and upgrade your thinking to identify the emerging opportunities in your industry.
For the past two decades, Graeme has worked with some of the world’s most recognized brands, travelling to over 80 countries in total, and speaking to around 100,000 people every year. He is the author of 5 best-selling books, and on faculty at 5 top global business schools.