How about 'Hypocritical Olympics'?

ARTICLE: Olympic Trials for Polluted Beijing, By Ariana Eunjung Cha, Washington Post , March 30, 2007; Page A01

Attempts to brand Beijing 2008 as the "genocide Olympics" is hypocrisy at its worst: America won't do a damn thing to stop the janjaweed, so it's ALL CHINA'S FAULT, as if the cessation of their investments would bring the mass murdering to an end (yes that would immediately make things better, you just know).

What '08 will really represent (and I've been pushing this concept since the June 2001 workshop atop WTC1 with Cantor Fitzgerald on enviro damage in Asia) is a global and China-specific tipping point on environmental damage from rapid industrialization there, plus the larger reality that China's on the verge of becoming the world's biggest CO2 emitter.

Many embarrassments will result from the bad air, and China will end up being super-motivated to erase that reputational damage.

Plus the world will end up having an even bigger discussion on global warming.

In the end, both will be good things.

As for Darfur, Hollywood bullshit artists better get over their hatred for the U.S. Military if they want that horror show stopped.

Comments

[Anonymous]

The Chinese leadership has shown time and time again (Myanmar especially) that they do have an "embarrassment" threshold, especially when it comes to their public business interests. The fact that the human rights campaigners in the US and elsewhere can't recognize that and adequately exploit it does not make it any less true.In this case anyway, China is "responsible" because it thinks its investments will be secure in Sudan with enough weapons and enough money to the regime, which is an utterly false reading of the security situation there and the loathing most of the tribal groups outside of the capital have for the regime and increasingly for the Chinese who arm and support them.Re: America not doing a damn thing, that is the reflection of the political misleadership more than anything else. Besides, the US military in its current form is a poor short-term solution at best for the crisis there. "Development-in-a-box" on steroids is a different story....

[Mark in Texas]

China has a lot of low hanging fruit that it can pick fairly easily in order to reduce carbon emissions.

One thing that is going to happen pretty soon anyway is that electricity from the three gorges dam is going to become available. A lot of the oil that China imports goes to run generators that factories need in order to keep operating when the power grid goes dead. Those factories are more connected to the global economy than a lot of the Chinese infrastructure. With power equivalent to something like 19 Hoover Dams, the Chinese electric grid will be a lot more reliable and the emergency generators will be running a lot less often.

China also has a number of underground coal fires which put more CO2 into the atmosphere every year than all the trucks in the United States. I don't really see a down side to putting out those fires.

[vinny]

best thing to happen to china is the olympics - where 500,000 capitalistic, democratic visitors come in to witness the olympics. WOW - could one imagine this back in the days of Mao.

Imagine. 500,000 potential political "subversives" spreading the western ideas. A massive influx of connectivity - like moving from dialup modem to broadband, forget the internet or tv censorship, 500,000 individuals that cannot be censored. How will this affect the future of China?

[Mike Zar]

Yellow dust descends on U.S. posts in South Korea

By T.D. Flack, Stars and StripesPacific edition, Tuesday, April 3, 2007SEOUL — Every U.S. military installation in South Korea experienced hazardous yellow dust conditions Sunday as a huge storm crept across the peninsula, stinging eyes, burning throats and prompting the military to issue health advisories.Officials track the number of dust micrograms per cubic meter of air; U.S. Forces Korea considers 500 to 1,000 micrograms “very unhealthy” and more than 1,000 micrograms “dangerous.”U.S. camps Long and Eagle registered 2,109 micrograms during a 4 p.m. reading. Every other U.S. base saw levels above the 1,000 microgram mark during the day.The dust — blown across the sea from China and Mongolia and dumped on the peninsula annually — carries heavy metals that aggravate bronchitis and can cause pink eye, sinusitis, ear infections and respiratory problems.American Forces Network television officials ran an announcement across the bottom of the screen Sunday to warn residents of the health concerns.South Korean officials also issued their own “yellow dust alarm” Sunday, according to local news reports.Visibility in Seoul dropped from the normal six miles to about 1½ miles, according to the Yonhap news service. The last time a yellow dust alarm was issued in Seoul was in early April 2006, according to Yonhap.