‘Economy’ Throttles Ecology!
Look Ma, No Hands!
A Chinese national flag flutters outside a coking plant in Changzhi, Shanxi province May 29, 2008. Origin unknown. Source: Reuters. Image may be subject to copyright. See FEWW Fair Use Notice!
Archive for June 23rd, 2008
Image of the Day: Blood, Tears and CO2e
Posted by feww on June 23, 2008
Posted in Climate Change, energy, environment, food, Global Warming, health, politics, Travel | Tagged: air pollution, beijing olympics, China, CO2, GHG, Look Ma, No Hands!, Olympics, US | Leave a Comment »
Air Quality in Beijing 2008
Posted by terres on June 23, 2008
News of air quality in Beijing aren’t good
But hey, who cares? The athletes would probably be pumped with so much exotic performance enhancers they wouldn’t feel a thing.
As for the foreign visitors, they’ve got to be wealthy enough to travel to China and stay there for a week or two, right? And if you are wealthy, the discourse goes, you would know what’s good for you!
Air pollution can be seen down the main road of Beijing’s Tiananmen Square June 18, 2008 as paramilitary policemen march across it as part of the flag lowering ceremony at sunset. Australian Olympic officials have defended their decision to ban dozens of athletes from marching at the opening ceremony in Beijing because of concerns about pollution in the Chinese capital. Although it is not unusual for Australian athletes competing in the first few days to skip the ceremony to save their energy, Athletics Australia has ordered the entire team to stay away from Beijing for as long as possible because of concerns about air quality. REUTERS/David Gray (CHINA). Image may be subject to copyright. See FEWW Fair Use Notice!
What others say about the air quality, Beijing 2008:
Smoggy smoggy smoggy, oi oi oi
China has even changed the way it measures Beijing air quality so that the results appear better than they really are, report The New York Times and Beijing air-quality blogger pyongyangsquare.com. What could be more thoughtful than that when it comes to putting your guests at ease? …
“We have had athletes come back from a recent test event and one athlete has got 10 days off training because of a respiratory problem,” Athletics Australia’s high performance manager Max Binnington told ABC radio. “We don’t want our athletes to be undertaking that sort of risk.” …
They needn’t worry about making excuses. All Australian attempts to avoid upsetting the hosts will be forgotten once the Americans turn up looking like Darth Vader.
Randy Wilber, the lead exercise physiologist for the US Olympic Committee, has urged American athletes to wear specially designed carbon filtration masks over their nose and mouth from the minute they set foot in Beijing until they begin competing …
Pollution cloud over the Olympics
With 47 days to go to the Olympics China has admitted pollution fears remain high and endurance events may have to be re-scheduled.
China insists Beijing’s air quality will meet World Health Organisation standards in August [Olympics from Aug. 8-24 and the Paralympics from Sept. 6-17.] It is limiting car traffic during the event, suspending construction work and closing and moving factories away from the city.
But it is one of the most polluted cities in the world and, with 3.5 million vehicles on the road, it’s among the most congested.
Beijing Announces Traffic Plan for Olympics
Beijing has 27 air-quality monitoring stations, but some observers have questioned whether the stations, many of which are in rural and mountainous areas in the city’s suburbs, accurately reflect the quality of air in the crowded urban center of the city where most people live — and where most Olympic events will take place. In recent days, one reporter at the news conference remarked, the hazy air has seemed polluted, though the environmental agency’s daily figures say the pollution level has been low.
Blood over Beijing
The Beijing Olympics will not be the world’s least controversial. China is under fire by human rights activists, the Olympic Torch relay has become a focal point for protests, while athletes from some nations have signed gag orders to stop them commenting on anything but sport. So much for sport and politics says Jacqui Lund. …
People and pollution ? two commodities China has in abundance. Both are badly managed, both are currently in the international eye. “This will be the People’s Olympics,” China promised when they were awarded the Olympic Games. “We will make the preparations for the Olympic Games a process of substantially improving the people’s living standards, both materially and culturally,” they claimed.
China budgeted around $37bn on the Olympics in Beijing. Their state-of-the-art Olympic facilities, the ‘Bird?s Nest’ National Stadium and the ‘Water Cube’ Aquatics Centre are structural wonders to behold.
Lurking in the shadows are China’s 40 million people living below the poverty line with no national healthcare system. No-one has been able to say how the Water Cube will feed and medicate the millions.
According to the China Rights Forum, the number of people displaced by Olympics-related development in Beijing is over 1.4 million.
Related Links:
- Will the 2008 Olympics trigger the last phase of Beijing Collapse?
- Collapsing Cities
- Drying Aquifers, Sinking Cities
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Posted in air quality, Climate Change, energy, environment, food, Global Warming, health, politics, Tourism, Travel | Tagged: air pollution, asthma, Australian athletes, Beijing, Beijing Collapse, beijing olympics, China, Chinese capital, displaced people, olympics 2008, Paralympics, performance enhancers, poverty line, running out of air, Smoggy, steroids, synthetic anabolic steroids, terpenoid lipid, U.S. athletes | Leave a Comment »
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