The Olympic Green Dream
by Tao Oliveto
Sometimes it’s just a matter of how much you want it.
It looks like China wants to reap the economic benefits of hosting the Olympic Games just badly enough to actually take steps to clean up the air. It seems rising seas, droughts and other environmental disasters, nor risks to the health of their population was not enough to get off the couch for, but the Olympic $$?? Well, that’s another story and China has quickly announced a clean-air plan in preparation for the Games. Read from Grist below:
“Many Beijing-area factories and cement plants will close for two months beginning in late July as a key part of the effort to clean the city’s famously polluted air for the Olympic Games, Chinese officials said. Other clean-air measures include banning the use of half the city’s 3.5 million vehicles, disallowing spray paint and other harsh chemicals to be used outdoors, closing about one-tenth of the city’s gas stations, and halting construction in the Beijing area, which now has about 40 square miles of construction sites. Many heavily polluting industries, including coal-burning power plants, have been asked to cut their pollution by about 30 percent by July or risk getting shut down. If Beijing’s air is still too polluted by the time the games are scheduled to begin, the government said it would take “stringent steps” of one kind or another to shut down major sources of pollution.”
We can make change happen NOW. Readily, enthusiastically, economically on personal and political levels. Let the Games Begin.
April 21st, 2008 at 2:38 pm
talking about china, its not possible to talk about china, without mentioned human freedom. as is important as the air we breath,,,its also the freedom and dignity of its citizens.