Oh dear – what do I think of the Olympics? I am struggling. I still can't decide how to balance the personal, national and global implications of a remarkable human experience. It certainly raises some significant questions.

On the one hand, there is so much to admire, most of it to do with the individual skills on display. I am dumfounded by the gymnastics, traditional and rhythmic, and synchronised swimming should be impossible – six regimented young women standing on their heads, in deep water, waving their legs in the air.

I can understand the running, throwing, cycling and rowing, but I have no idea how you persuade a horse to prance, skip and hop – it must take years.

Then there was the organisation and the venues which were complex, well-planned, and fit for purpose, with some interesting new buildings and arenas, as well as the recycling of historic sites in the centre of London and Greenwich.

Added to this was a quite remarkable public response, with crowds ten deep watching the torch on its travels, and then filling the roadsides for distance events and in the various parks. They, and we at home, were trapped in a bubble of awe, of expectation, and national pride, all of it reflecting basic human instincts, and hope for the future.

However, I could take the view that it wasn’t worth all the considerable impact it had on the environment, and that list is almost endless. It ranges from the travel CO2 produced by 10,000 athletes and double that number of support staff from the far reaches of the planet, with more than 200 nations, and the vast numbers of spectators, to the impact of the construction of the stadiums, the 28C heating of the velodrome, and the burning of all that gas from the Olympic flame.

Perhaps, though, we can discount most of this anyway, as it’s not additional and would have happened elsewhere, spread more thinly and not concentrated in one spot and one month.

More importantly, it was the United Nations at play, with 204 countries coming together and showing that at the individual level, at least, they can co-operate and tolerate each other. Where else could an Iranian and an American wrestle without spilling blood?

If all these countries can meet to demonstrate skill and excellence then it shouldn’t be beyond the human spirit to take on other challenges on a global scale. Peace, and food and water for all, seem to be beyond us, but a beginning would be an Olympian approach to reducing CO2.

If the 1992 Rio Earth Summit was the starting gun, then the 2016 Rio Olympics must show the distance covered.