CEF Director, Jennifer Turner, quoted by Vice Sports on Water Scarcity and the Winter Olympics Bid

Is China's pollution crisis affecting its chances of winning the Winter Olympics bid?

CEF Director, Dr. Jennifer Turner was recently quoted in a Vice Sports article addressing the nexus between sports, water scarcity, and pollution. As global temperatures continue to rise, finding an appropriate location for the winter olympics will become increasingly hard. At the same time, allocating huge amounts of natural resources such as water towards the games is becoming increasingly controversial.

"The south only has so much water to spare, and water pollution has made a large portion of China's drinking water unsuitable for human use. "When you think about water shortages in China, you should be aware of the huge level of water pollution," Jennifer Turner, director of the China Environment Forum at the Wilson Center in Washington D.C., told me. "China is probably the only country I know of that has the phrase 'water pollution-induced scarcity.'" Turner says pollution in China has gotten so bad that 30 percent of its surface water should not come in contact with humans. Agricultural runoff from factory farms and municipal sewage are some of the biggest contributing factors to this situation."

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