OLYMPIC WINTER GAMES

Milano – Cortina

We’re not thinking about the planet’s future for a very simple reason: our eyes are focused on today’s speculations, filling our coffers with money. Not all wealth lasts, though, and poverty looms on the horizon

Will we stop the polar ice caps from melting? Will we ensure the white coral reefs and white sandy beaches and their palms, a divine symbol of harmony, aren’t swallowed up by the oceans? Will we able to revert the trend of an ever-hotter India and Pakistan? Will we ensure our common and necessary objectives against land consumption become a priority?

We’re wasting time, focused on useless and devastating wars, dancing to the tune of our own indifference – letting ourselves be swept away by the flow of the river, leading us to our own demise. We continue doing what we should have stopped doing long ago: acting with nonchalance and refuting facts. This short-sightedness should be a wakeup call for me and for people younger than me – we should believe in humanity’s capacity to give their best when backed against a corner, forcing us to come up with ingenious solutions. Solutions which improve the situation, making bold choices. We have to hope the green transition doesn’t equal just an energy transition, which would undermine the fundamental importance of a shift in our lifestyles, aiming to become more moderate. Moderation, finding the middle ground, implies giving something up. Even if it’s just a tiny thing. But this time we have to ensure our actions speak louder than words – for our words in the past have all been in vain, their weight as transitory as today’s ice caps.

I’m not scared of the future, I’m not plagued by insecurities, by speculation dressed up as a beneficial advancement for our communities. We all know they’re tall tales. And yet here we are, telling the same old stories. I’m saddened by the status quo, that’s all. The 2026 Olympics are the exact antithesis of sustainable development from an environmental, societal and economic perspective. The Milano-Cortina Olympic Games are the repeated, terrible example of a short-sighted policy and entrepreneurial project which aims to fill up its coffers before it’s too late; wants to realise its outdated dreams, going against the grain of the Zeitgeist.

I’m convinced there’s hope – our youth. Our staff in our Case. Everyday exchange with other people, leading us to find alternative, creative solutions detached from the established model of raging consumerism. I have hope for a certain something, something that allows humanity to reconnect with the mystery that is life, Nature, and the Cosmos. Something which allows love and poetry to blossom, all following the natural pace of seasonal changes. Spring will always return, as Horatio wrote in his famous Carmina. So, yes, spring will return, even after the next, useless Olympic Winter Games.