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Olympics Shaming China Into Change? Print E-mail
Written by Rob Howard   
Friday, 25 July 2008

We were, at least at first, a bit surprised the other day when Huffington Post's Jeremy Haft wrote how this summer's Olympics are helping improve China’s environmental policies. Closing a few factories and taking a few cars off the road—OK, it’s 3 million—a drastic policy shift does not make.

After all, the world’s top marathoner, Haile Gebrselassie of Ethiopia, is skipping the event at the games because of the poor air quality he'd have to endure.

But if you think about it for a minute, China's attempt to clean up its act, at least for the short term, is way more progress than the Bush administration's made with what some consider the world's worst polluter over the last eight years.

Even Andy Revkin of the New York Times has been skeptical about China reducing emissions (see 8th paragraph of Bush’s speech), even just a little, so maybe bringing the circus to town—and the eyes of the world—is working.

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written by Gustavion, July 25, 2008
China is making legitimate strides for the environment... for now. They are certainly cleaning up their act, but what will happen after the olympics? Rather than trusting our governments to save mother nature, we as individuals need to support businesses that benefit the environment. For example, I came across a website http://www.simplestop.net that stops you postal junk mail and benefits the environment.
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written by MV, July 26, 2008
but what will happen after the olympics?


Probably the same thing that happened in Atlanta. Prior to the opening, officials "relocated" the city's homeless in an effort to make a better impression. Once the Olympics were over, everything returned to normal.

I think China's efforts are temporary. It's human rights violations alone prompt me to boycott this Olympiad.
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written by MV, July 26, 2008
Unrelated note: Is there any way to correct or delete a post once it is posted? I just noticed my typo of "its".
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written by Rob Howard, July 26, 2008
MV--good comment re the Atlanta games. I'm sure China will regress to a certain degree, but hopefully with a new president coming in soon after the games and an increased international focus on China's energy/environmental policies, some of the changes will stick.

But that makes me think of another question--how does a communist country formulate energy policy? What type of debate goes on?

Thanks for reading & writing,
Rob

PS--don't think you can amend previous posts.
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written by Kaiying, July 29, 2008
hm, I don't believe that the changes due to the Olympics are temporary. The Olympics were a definite incentive for the government to start their work in environmental clean-ups, but the fact that they have so many long-term goals and plans for the future in their 5-year plan actually changes the situation. I believe that the government is expecting to decrease energy intensity by 20% by 2010, and one of the ways that they are doing this is by looking at countries like the US and taking advice from developed countries in Europe and N. America to improve its own environment.

There is no reason to boycott the Olympics, however. Every country has its faults, and China is being targeted in particular because of its human rights issues and refusal to stop working with Sudan due to the oil reserves there. These are issues that all countries have had to deal with, but because China is more willing to accept foreign ideas than Western media would like to admit, I think that the change will come soon.

There are definitely a lot of skeptics out there, but I am a believer that the Olympics has had an enormous amount of positive impact on the developing country as well as the world.
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written by MarkR, July 29, 2008
"There is no reason to boycott the Olympics"

Kaiying, are you freaking kidding? I can think of 6 of the top of my head.

1. China is fast becoming the worlds worst polluter.

2. China send crap to USA filled with LED paint to poison our kids. and Illegal motor scooters that dont meet emission standards

3. They subsidies their fuel costs to such an extent that businesses are encouraged to pollute.

4. Communist rule and lack of freedom, particularly Tibet.

5. The Olympic Committees whoring of atheletes and to subject atheletes to such horrible air quality.

6. Last but certainly not least, and while this could probably be counted as a part of 5 but I see it as its own issue.
The lack of athletes rights to defend themselves should they be accused of doping. WADA, is about as bad as China and Cuba when it comes to Human rights. Time and time again innocent athletes are crucified with the guilty all in the name of clean sports. Does the OC do anything about this? no. No punishment for the idiot that contaminated the urine or blood sample, no punishment for the lab that hired the incompetent lab tech. that couldn't tell a positive urine test from a control protean sample. O.C. doesn't care about atheletes. All they care about is making money off of free labor.

Those are just a few reasons why I'm boycotting the Olympics.
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written by Kaiying, July 29, 2008
MarkR:

I agree, China is actually already on the road their, but I believe that they're taking steps to stop it.

China did not send lead crap to poison the kids in the US. The situation there was that the US actually changed their regulations for paint materials and did not notify the manufacturing companies. That miscommunication led to potentially poisonous toys and a huge loss of profit for China (much worse for China than for the US).

Businesses are not encouraged to pollute. There are policies set up by the Chinese government that actually ban banks from loaning money to companies that have a history of massive pollution and are not making efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. All manufacturing companies are required to submit forms to the government on the amount of pollution they are creating and plans to cut down the pollution.

Communist rule and lack of freedom. Have you been to China? There are definitely human rights issues, but they aren't applicable to the majority of China.

I agree that the situation with Tibet is a huge concern. I would like to do something about that too, but boycotting the Olympics will hurt more than actually contribute to Western efforts in aiding the people.

I don't really understand what you mean by "whoring of athletes" but the air quality is an issue that's being solved.

I believe that there are so many faults with the Olympics that they cannot all be listed. However, isn't it better to try and solve these problems rather than just blaming the committee for everything?

Everything comes as a result of human action, so why not counter it with our own? One of my own personal goals in the future is to help developing countries like China to stop their faulty practices by getting people who are currently indifferent to these issues, involved. As a student, I'm working on a couple of projects, but I am definitely hoping to make a change when I believe I am more capable.
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written by George, July 29, 2008
1. China is fast becoming the worlds worst polluter.

the way i see it, you tree-hugging liberals care to much about this "pollution problem." place where i live, the outdoors are pristine. plus, China is on the OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD from america, so we don't need to worry about anything. are you trying to say that china's trash is going to magically find its way to AMERICA? let them litter anywhere they want, as long as it's in their own country.

2. China send crap to USA filled with LED paint to poison our kids. and Illegal motor scooters that dont meet emission standards

light emitting diodes are very safe. they are not poisonous. also, we must respect national sovereignty. you can't impose emission standards on another country. also, if the scooters "emit" pollution (how can you prove they pollute, anyways? it's not like you can SEE "pollution" coming from it), we live in a world of capitalism. if they can give us cheap scooters, then hell i'm for it.

3. They subsidies their fuel costs to such an extent that businesses are encouraged to pollute.

i think you're missing a verb their. subsidies is a plural noun. once again, i support national sovereignty. we (anyone not chinese) have no right to interfere with china's internal affairs. also, stop spouting your liberal propaganda about pollution. i don't see any evidence of pollution impacting us.

4. Communist rule and lack of freedom, particularly Tibet.

i like their capitalism. i make lots of money from business in china. personally, i'm a big supporter of legalism. freedom? the chinese government is PROTECTING its people, including tibet, from the terrorists. in this day and age, you have to give up freedom to stay safe. in this post-9/11 world, the terrorists are out to get all of us. we need to let the government have the authority to make sure we're all safe.

5. The Olympic Committees whoring of atheletes and to subject atheletes to such horrible air quality.

what is this air quality? air is air. it's all the same. God made this beautiful world for us. be happy with the air that God has given you.

6. Last but certainly not least...

the system works. when an athlete tests positive for drugs, they're out. enough with your preposterous conspiracy theories!
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written by George, July 29, 2008
"i think you're missing a verb their."

excuse my typo. i was busy shredding documents while i was typing this.
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written by MarkR, July 30, 2008
First Gorge, I'm a Republican that happens to believe some libs have some good points particularly global warming and emissions. so cut you lib crap. Second you've been snowed by the O.C.
My question is do you drink their cool aid straight from the tap?
If you want to bury your head in the sand, be my guest. If you think its ok for innocent people to have their lives ruined with the guilty you are ignorant, and hopefully some day it will happen to you. You probably believe all the headlines and sensationalism you read don't you?
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