The Turin of the Screw

Italy Winter Olympics to be carbon-neutral, but enviros aren't mollified

All right, who's ready for a "winning the green medal" joke? Us too! Organizers say the 2006 Winter Olympic Games in Turin, Italy, will have no net impact on global climate disruption, thanks to energy efficiency, clean-energy tech, and tree planting to offset carbon dioxide emissions. Italian enviros, though, contend that other sorts of environmental sins have already been committed. Adding to recent reports that rare wild wolves have been driven from their mountain habitat by pre-games construction, conservationists are dismayed at Olympic villages being constructed on once-pristine mountainsides and hundreds of trees being cut down to build ski jumps and a bobsled run -- which, no offense to bobsledding, will probably sit unused and crumbling after the games. Better to abolish the Winter Olympics, some say, or at least reuse previous sites instead of creating new ones every four years.