Image of the Day: Sickening Symbolism

Big Brother: Eastasia

China’s national flag is raised during the opening ceremony of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games at the National Stadium, August 8, 2008. REUTERS/Jerry Lampen. Image may be subject to copyright.

Addiction to Symbolism in the ‘CO2 Civilization’

At least 1,000,000 babies born in China in the weeks leading to and during the Beijing Olympics would be registered under the names of

• Aoyun (奥运), which is short for Olympic Games
• Fuwa (福娃), or lucky dolls (or one of the five mascots that are called Beibei, Jingjing, Huanhuan, Yingying or Nini)
• Wenming (文明) meaning [GHG] civilization
• Guoqing, or national celebration

Images of the Day: The Ghost of Tiananmen Returns

Haze returns to Beijing with only 4 days to Olympics

Beijing Olympic Games banners hang from poles along along a main road as cars drive past on a hazy day in Beijing July 28, 2008. REUTERS/David Gray. Image may be subject to copyright. See FEWW Fair use Notice!

Image of the Day: Blocking the Internet

To the Chinese Government: What Else Are You Hiding?

Amnesty International volunteers tie cloth gags across their mouths during a protest in central Sydney July 30, 2008. They demonstrated against what they claim is the Chinese government’s censorship, monitoring and surveillance of internet users in China. REUTERS/Will Burgess. Image may be subject to copyright. See FEWW Fair use Notice!

Related Links:

• Chinese Govt: Mad As Hatters [and criminally insane!]
• Google’s Conspiracy Against the Public
• China Quake: Why Was the Girl Removed from Family?
• Why Didn’t China Prevent the Loss of 86,000 Lives?

Smoke Olympics, SO

The Olympics of Madness, TOM

What’s in an acronym: CFO, carbon free Olympics, or FCO, free carbon Olympics?

Try AAAAI which stands for the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology. AAAAI experts say that the air pollution in Beijing could pose problems for competitors, especially those with asthma.

Heavy pollution hangs over downtown Beijing on May 25, 2008. Continual air pollution in China’s capital remains a top concern for many athletes due to descend upon Beijing in less than two months. (UPI Photo/Stephen Shaver). Image may be subject to copyright. See FEWW Fair Use Notice!

AAAAI experts also say exercise-induced asthma, EIA, affects an estimated 20 percent of top athletes and about one in six of all Olympic athletes. EIA also affects individuals who are not chronic asthma sufferers.

AAAI will publish their new study about EIA in, wait for it, JACI. JACI stands for the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

EIA [not the energy information people] can be controlled with some asthma drugs, but the experts warned athletes to seek official approval first to prevent breach of ADR (anti-doping regulations), which restrict the use of many asthma drugs at the Olympics.

“Athletes consume more air and this can end in cardiovascular problems. Particulates can get into the respiratory system and blood, creating an inflammatory response,” said Wong Chitming of the University of Hong Kong’s Department of Community Medicine (WC of UHKDCM).

“Blood viscosity goes up and this affects circulation and … energy distribution. Muscles that need the energy may not get it. At worst, people can even land in hospital.” He said.

WC advises athletes to avoid crowded places and eat lots of vegetables and fruit.

“Fruit and vegetables may help. Our past study has shown that they can reduce the ill effects of air pollution,” he said. [As for the effects of diarrhea, that’s another matter!]

Smoke billows from a chimney at a chemical factory in Tianjin municipality, neighboring Beijing February 22, 2008. Tianjin has ordered 40 factories to shut for the Olympics. Image may be subject to copyright. See FEWW Fair Use Notice!

The Chinese Capital Beijing (CCB), as you’ll all know by now, is one of world’s most polluted cities. To keep down the number of claims for health damage [indeed suffocation by polluted air] by foreign athletes and visitors alike, the authorities have removed up to a half of a million cars off the capital’s roads [they will also operate an odd-even license plate system to allow only half the cities 3.2 million cars on the roads each day] and closed down about 500 factories in a 150-km radius of Beijing.

Now that’s what you call MASYB, or massive action to save your butt!

Beijing was still shrouded in thick smog this week, Reuters reported, with buildings only 100 meters away barely visible.

Related News Links:

• China to shut more factories for Olympics: report

Related Links:

• Air Quality in Beijing 2008
• China “Frankenstein”
• To the Good People of China
• China Under Siege
• 2008 Beijing Olympics

Image of the Day: Blood, Tears and CO2e

‘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!

Air Quality in Beijing 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:

• To the Good People of China
• If you’re flying to Beijing for the Olympics …
• China Under Siege

• Will the 2008 Olympics trigger the last phase of Beijing Collapse?
• Collapsing Cities
• Drying Aquifers, Sinking Cities

–

China “Frankenstein”

Nature Angry About Beijing Olympics?

China competes with Venice

Residents row boats along a flooded street in the township of Yuecheng in Deqing county, west of Guangdong Province, June 18, 2008. REUTERS/Aly Song. Image may be subject to copyright. See FEWW Fair Use Notice!

Here’s what the China “Frankenstein” looks like:

Hundreds of troops, police and rescue workers are shoring up dams which might burst under torrential rain that has already flooded an area of about 24,000 square kilometers, including homes, businesses and farmlands.

The damage:

• Floods have killed about 180 people so far in Guangdong
• Another 60 people are missing
• More rain is expected in the annual flood season
• Six reservoirs are in “danger of bursting” in southern Guangxi region
• About 1.7 million people have been evacuated in nine southern provinces since the start of the flood season earlier this month.
• Floodwater has collapsed about 150,000 homes,
• About 2.4 million hectares (~ 6 million acres) of crops have been damaged or destroyed
• The mounting economic losses already exceed $4 billion

All of this comes in addition to the soaring food prices the have already plagued China, record snowstorms last winter and, of course, the Sichuan earthquake which killed about 70,000 people and left five million homeless. Serious danger of epidemics in the soaring summer temperatures looms.

Droughts, floods and other human-enhanced disasters throughout China are nothing new, of course, but their frequency and intensity this year are alarming experts.

The biggest disaster yet to strike China in 2008 may prove to be a major drought causing water shortages throughout the country later in the summer.

It’s as if nature is mad at China: Drop the Olympics, or have your annual quota of H2O now!

Related Links:

• China rushes to fix dams as 9,000 sq miles flooded
• China earthquake: Teacher left students behind as he ran to safety

• Why Didn’t China Prevent the Loss of 86,000 Lives?
• The Anguished Cries of China Quake Nurse
• Chinese paratroopers rescuing survivors or preventing plague?
• How Many More Survivors?
• Heavy Death Toll, Corruption, Criminal Incompetence
• Why Was the Girl Removed from Family?

• Chinese Leaders Incapable of Handling Quake Aftermath
• Bigger China Disaster Unfolds

• China’s grieving quake parents start to voice anger
• Beijing’s quick response to disaster won’t cover cracks of corruption
• Almost five million left homeless, China says
• Corruption blamed for rising death toll in China
• Parents’ grief turns to anger at shoddily built deathtrap schools

• Earthquake Predictions In China Are Also Political

More Links:

• China “quake lake” fears force new evacuation
• Swelling China lakes a danger 2 weeks after quake
• Big aftershock causes more misery in China

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China’s Coastal Waters Are Terminally Polluted

China would be lucky to find a single healthy fish swimming in its coastal waters by 2011.

A Shrinking World Series

China’s wetlands, coral reefs and mangroves are rapidly disappearing: expert

According to a Chinese specialist, Luan Weixin, a professor at the Economics and Management College at Dalian Maritime University:

• About 50 percent of inland coastal wetlands in china have disapperaed because of excessive reclamation.

• Some 80 percent of coral reefs and mangrove forests had been destroyed over the past 50 years.

• Worst affected areas include estuaries of the Yangtze, Yellow and Zhujiang rivers, and water bodies near East Liaoning, Bohai and Hangzhou bays.

• A total of 145,000 square kilometers of shallow waters along China’s coast are substandard.

• Some 29,000 square kilometers of seawater is heavily contaminated by chemicals including fertilizers, which contain nitrogen and phosphate.

A child clears water from his boat in the algae-filled Chaohu Lake in Hefei, in east China’s Anhui province October 14, 2007. Blue-green algae has caused water pollution in Chaohu Lake, China’s fifth largest fresh water lake, where the rare whitebait production is on the decline, Xinhua News Agency reported. REUTERS/Jianan Yu (CHINA). Image may be subject to copyright. See FEWW Fair Use Notice!

“Over the past 20 years or so, China’s marine economy has been developing at a staggeringly rapid pace and marine resources are being widely tapped. As a result, the condition of China’s inshore environment is deteriorating and the ocean ecology has been seriously damaged,” he said. (Source)

A man carrying lotus roots walk through an algae-filled pond in Yingtan, east China’s Jiangxi province, October 12, 2007. China’s pollution woes will form the smoggy backdrop to a key Communist Party gathering in October as leaders, who long treated nature as a foe to conquer, now fear that dirty air and water threaten stability and growth. REUTERS/Stringer (CHINA) CHINA OUT. Image may be subject to copyright. See FEWW Fair Use Notice!

Related Links:

• FACTBOX-Cross-border pollution strains ties in Asia
• China using up natural resources fast: report

<>

Wind Energy in Norway, Nuclear in F*nland

Are the Norwegians More Intelligent Than the Finns?

Top 10 Reasons why the Norwegians May Be More Intelligent that the Finns [then again …]:

10. Finland with an estimated population of 5.32million, most of whom are intoxicated most of the time [no offense intended, just citing a matter of fact relayed to us by a Finnish colleague,] wants more nuclear energy despite the fact … well read it for yourself: More nuclear power and How Do You Say ‘Duck-n-Cover’ in Finnish?

As for our Norwegian [distant] cousins, the North Sea gas pipeline operator Gassco has just awarded [Aug 20, 2008] Sweden’s Marine Matteknikk AB “a contract to survey 636 km of seabed for potential pipelines to carry carbon dioxide to offshore burial sites.” (Source)

Let’s hope there’ll never be an earthquake on the Norwegian Continental shelf.

Continued …

Chinese paratroopers rescuing survivors or preventing plague?

The Riddle of the Chinese Paratroopers

China parachutes 100 paratroopers to “cut-off” quake area

The first batch of 100 elite paratroopers were parachuted into an area near the epicenter of Monday’s earthquake in southwest China [“cut-off” area in Maoxian county, northeast of the epicenter in Wenchuan] Wednesday afternoon [about 60 hours later], reported Xinhua.

Elite Paratroopers landing near quake epicenter. Image may be subject to copyright. See FEWW Fair Use Notice!

So what’s the problem?

1. There are an estimated 30,000 people burried in the area. How could 100 paratroopers help rescue such large number of victims?

2. The paratroopers landed two days after the mainshock had struck. By then the survival chances of the victims who had been buried alive had already been reduced by about 80 percent.

3. Anyone rescued from the rubble would need medical attention, freshwater, food, blankets, tents … to survive. Did the paratroopers carry all of the vital supplies in their rucksacks?

Therefore, the question remains: Are the paratroopers sent to rescue the “survivors,” or to “finish off the job,” i.e., bury everyone, alive or dead, to prevent potential outbreaks of plague and other pandemics? [The Beijing Olympics are just around the corner!]

Related Links:

• Official worries over possible plague at Sichuan quake epicenter
• Chinese Leaders Incapable of Handling Quake Aftermath

• The Anguished Cries of Chinese Quake Nurse

::

To the Good People of China

A Condolence Message, a Warning and a Plea

On behalf of the Moderators at FEWW, EDRO, MSRB, RTSF and New Zeelend, we would like to extend our deepest condolences to the Chinese people, especially the families and friends of the victims who lost their lives in the Eastern Sichuan Earthquake.

We would also like to make the following environmental [non-political] plea to the intelligent, cultured and sensible citizens in China:

To prevent additional environmental catastrophes, PLEASE abandon the Beijing Olympics!