How green can the Olympic Games get?
Try this one: Tokyo is touting a "carbon-minus" event.
Apparently its Olympics would not only not pollute, it would clean the environment!
That's just one of the heady promises bid cities are selling as we go down to the wire to selection day.
Brazil is promising that "the most cheerful people in the world" will enter a "state of grace" if Rio is chosen.
Chicago is claiming that it can raise $1 billion more than its rivals.
Madrid is bragging that it is . . . the safety pick. And Spain is sending its king to Copenhagen to make its case.
America is sending its queen to Copenhagen to make its case.
Chicago has long made a virtue of the relative "compactness" of its proposed Games, but Tokyo says its Games would be the most compact.
Brazil likes to note the fullness of its financial commitment, which is still a sticking point with Chicago's bid.
Madrid is bragging that it is . . . the safety pick.
Each city boasts of some variation of putting on the greenest Games ever.
But Tokyo's carbon-minus pledge is a new one.
Maybe America's secret weapon isn't Barack Obama after all; it's time to bring in the big gun, Al Gore.
For complete coverage of Chicago's Olympic Bid, click here.
Steve Rhodes is the proprietor of The Beachwood Reporter, the greenest Chicago-centric news and culture review ever.
