2016 Olympics could be one of the last, warns governor

The 2016 Olympic Games could be one of the last for mankind warned Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara on Wednesday because of the parlous state of the environment.

The 2016 Olympic Games could be one of the last for mankind warned Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara, pictured in April 2009, on Wednesday because of the parlous state of the environment.

Ishihara, who was celebrating his 77th birthday, is the president of the Tokyo bid to win the right to host the 2016 Games which will be voted on by the 100-plus International Olympic Committee (IOC) members here on Friday.

Ishihara, who won won the prestigious Akutagawa Prize for the best young author for his novel 'Season of the Sun' before he had graduated from university in 1956, said that unless the world took note of what was happening to the environment and global warming the Olympic Games faced a bleak future.

"I think this (the 2016 Games) could be the last for mankind," he said at a reception for the bid, though, his opinion will come as a shock to his fellow bid members as they have been speaking of leaving a legacy that will last for at least the rest of the century should they host the Games.

"However, more realistically we have to come up with measures without which the Olympics cannot last long.

"Tokyo is prepared to do everything to create the best conditions for the athletes environmentally speaking.

"But if things are left unattended the Olympic Games will not continue for long.

"I want people to make choices with consideration for the environment.

"Global warming is getting worse. Scientists have said that the earth has passed the point of no return," added Ishihara, whose focus on the environment is one of the major priorities in Tokyo's bid.

The Governor, a former Minister of Transport before resigning from The Diet in 1995 and in his present post since 1999, said that he had been given a wake up call about the state of the environment when he attended a speech given by Professor Stephen Hawking some years ago.

"I asked him how long is instance of time in universe from time on earth. He responded a 100 years. That was 35 years ago which gives you an indication of how long we have left."

Ishihara, who wrote among other things a musical version of the classic Robert Louis Stevenson novel Treasure Island, said that time was definitely running out for the planet if things were not changed radically with among other things the level of gas emissions.

"The time remaining for us is very short," he said.

"The most senior professor at NASA has said that the Arctic Circle will melt in the next 10 years.

"Ice that melts will never return to ice."

Ishihara, whose late brother Yujiro was one of Japan's leading screen idols, said that he had been astonished when he attended a conference many years ago and asked respected scientists how many other planets resembled Earth.

"They replied 2000. Well then I asked them why have we not seen spaceships and extra terrestrial beings descending on earth. They had no answer."

Tokyo, the only one of the four candidates to have hosted the Olympics back in 1964, is competing against odds-on favourites Chicago, Rio de Janeiro, bidding to become the first South American city to host them, and rank outsiders Madrid.