With the Olympics coming up, China's been getting a lot of flack from the global community for its less than stellar environmental record. There was the marathon runner who dropped out of this year's games because he thought China's air pollution would exacerbate his asthma. Then the U.S. said it was going to bring its own food to keep its athletes safe from insecticides and other chemicals that are found in Chinese food. Teams are even training in Japan or South Korea to ensure their health isn't damaged by the unsafe particulate counts in China's air -- soot that mainly comes from coal power plants.

But now environmentalists have one more reason to hate on China: The 11,000 lbs of C02 being dumped into the atmosphere by flying the Olympic flame from city to city so that people may celebrate the tradition and spirit of the games can try to blow it out and disrupt the relay in protest of the country's human rights record.

China's battle-weary Olympic torch is getting the rock star treatment by having its own private jet transport it to 23 cities, logging over 83,000 miles. The plane is named the Journey of Harmony. Ouch.

Since China has been going as far as to shut down major industries in the provinces around Beijing to improve air quality before the big games, we think they could go the extra mile and plant a few trees or something to offset those carbon emissions. London, which will be hosting the summer Olympics in 2012 already has devised a way to make the Olympic torch parade carbon neutral.

Just to put those 11,000 pounds into perspective, the average American produces about 40,000 lbs of CO2 each year.