Environmental, political climates elicit uneasy feelings ahead of 2028 Olympics in L.A.

The human cost of recent wildfires in Los Angeles is still accruing – 24 deaths so far, and more than 12,000 homes and other buildings destroyed. Photos of burnt-out hellscapes where vibrant neighbourhoods once flourished drives the point home event further.

If this kind of widespread destruction doesn't trigger some anxiety about the fate of the 2028 Summer Olympic Games, it should. Climate change is no longer the future. It's here right now and it's reshaping almost every aspect of our lives, including sports.

Last week, the NFL conceded that the Los Angeles Rams couldn't host the Minnesota Vikings at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood as wildfires raged nearby. So the league, the two teams, and the Arizona Cardinals quickly coordinated to relocate the playoff game to Glendale, Ariz.

But the Olympics? 

We're talking more than 10,000 athletes, along with support staff, volunteers, equipment and infrastructure. You can't move a 16-day sports festival on a few days' notice. You measure that overhaul in months or years.

But while I dream up 2028 hypotheticals, large swaths of the Los Angeles area remain in flames.

By the time the fires die down, U.S. president-elect Donald Trump will have returned to the White House, with significant say over the federal aid Californians will receive. For now, he's serving up scapegoats, like Gavin Newsom, the governor he accuses of hiding water, and L.A. mayor Karen Bass, whose newest budget reduced fire department funding.

Except scapegoats aren't solutions. Many Americans understand that reality. Many who don't voted for Trump, who will be in the last lap of his second presidential term with the Olympic Games slated to return to Los Angeles. It's too early to create an exact picture of the environmental and political landscapes we'll inhabit four years from now, but recent developments have me uneasy.

And that's just as a sports fan.

The region is increasingly prone to wildfires, and the incoming president is still given to authoritarian tendencies. Against the backdrop of those trends, L.A. 2028 is shaping up as the most tense, least cheerful Summer Olympics in decades. 

Before we continue, let's acknowledge that I could be wrong.

WATCH | Canadian pilots help combat L.A. wildfires:

Four years ago, I predicted that the sports world would abandon Trump. I figured his post-election temper tantrums – the vote-tampering in Georgia and the attempted coup on Jan. 6, 2021 would make him radioactive. Sports franchises revere winners; Trump was the sorest loser in recent history.

Four years later, it looks like I overestimated the value of sportsmanship, because here was Trump at UFC fight cards, NASCAR races and at the annual Army-Navy football game. He showed up with VP-elect J.D. Vance, and with Daniel Penny, whose sole claim to fame was beating a homicide charge after choking a homeless man to death on a New York subway. Accepting defeat with dignity? That's for losers, apparently. I should have known.