How The Climate Action Community Reacted to Rio’s Olympic Surprise

The Rio 2016 Olympics opening ceremony treated over three billion viewers to a show focused on environmental conservation, and even a special segment about climate change.

It had been announced that the ceremony late on Friday night (5 August, midnight in most of Europe) would feature an overall bio-diversity theme, but a special video segment about climate change took many by surprise.

Some scientists and journalists as well as politicians and activists from around the world were quick to respond on Twitter.

Climate Home editor Edward King summed it up like this: “Surely that was the most high profile and widely watched climate change warning ever broadcast?”

American race car driver and environmental activist Leilani Münter tweeted a partial recording of the Olympic climate change video segment, which featured narration in English and Portuguese.

Lebanese-British clean energy magnate Assaad Razzouk pointed out that the English-language narration of Rio 2016’s climate change segment was handled by actor Judy Dench, calling it “epic.”

Bosnian-Norwegian journalist Milana Knežević tweeted “seriously massive props to the organisers for doing this bit on climate change.”

Ed Hawkins – the British scientist at the University of Reading who came up with the famous spiral GIF – tweeted “Blimey,” after he saw a version of his graphic on TV as part of the 2016 Olympics opening ceremony.

Moroccan climate change minister Hakima El Haite praised the opening ceremony in French as a “strong message about global warming and the environment” in a Tweet. El Haite is set to play a key role in the COP22 climate change summit later this year.

https://twitter.com/HElHaiteCop22/status/761853595046256640

Erik Solheim, the Norwegian in charge of the UN’s Environment Programme (UNEP), tweeted that “rain forests and [the] environment” took “centre stage” at the opening ceremony and called it “inspiring.”

Australian climate tweeter Darren pointed out how on Twitter most people praised the “climate change education” during the Rio 2016 opening and how only “5 per cent said it was a “conspiracy” – before adding “LOL.”

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The founder of global environmental initiative 350.org, Bill McKibben, took to twitter to point out that the Rio 2016 opening ceremony was a reminder for Americans that “in most of the world [climate change] is not controversial,” alluding to the science-denying Republican party in the United States.

Canadian sports writer Daniel Squizzato took to Twitter to quip that the actual purpose of the controversial one-hour delay in the US broadcast of the ceremony (to allow for commercial breaks) could actually have been orchestrated “so they can edit out all this stuff about climate change.”

Meanwhile, Michigan’s former governor Jennifer Granholm – a Canadian-born Democrat – tweeted how she loved that the ceremony “expressly and beautifully educated the globe about climate change.”

UK tweeter James Dixon pointed out that Brazil’s attention for climate change made the Mr. Bean segment of the London 2012 opening ceremony seem “a little trivial.”

Canadian climate change minster Catherine McKenna sent out a tweet calling it “amazing” that the opening ceremony highlighted the need to “act now to tackle climate change,” drawing attention to the upcoming UN climate summit by using the COP22 hashtag.

https://twitter.com/cathmckenna/status/761744755277623296

British Greenpeace activist James Cracknell joked “It’s as if this opening ceremony has actually been written by people who know what’s going on in the world!”

Many were quick to debate Brazil’s environmental record. But 350.org’s Bill McKibben came to the country’s defence saying that although”far from perfect,” Brazil has “done more than any nation to slow climate change.”

Professor Stefan Krauter, a board member of Berlin’s Photo Voltaic Institute, took to Twitter to highlight how the Olympic flame lit at the end of the ceremony symbolised solar power.

Tanya Smith, who watched the ceremony from Vancouver Island on Canada’s West Coast, posted a picture of the flame, hailing “its message about solar energy” as one of her favourite moments.

Climate-KIC tweeted a GIF with the Brazilian flag, thanking Rio 2016 for educating on climate change and “calling for climate action.”

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