Friday, I joined 4 billion people to watch the China’s Olympic Games opening ceremony. And stayed glued to my TV for the whole four hours of the show. How could I not be dazzled?
- (Bullit Marquez/Associated Press)
China’s awesome PR move still cannot hide the grim environmental reality behind the spectacle:
- 16 of the world’s most polluted cities are in China
- 2 million pollution-related cancer deaths in China each year
- 500 million Chinese who lack access to safe drinking water
- 1 percent of China’s 560 million urbanites who breathe air considered safe by European standards
Of course, as the world’s largest importer of China goods, we the American consumers are playing a huge role in the Chinese mess. And we are being paid back in rising world emissions and unhealthy air over our coastlines.
La Marguerite 
I watched part of the opening ceremonies, and they were amazing.
But, one of the things that struck me (in addition to what you, Marguerite, write about) is that Bush, Putin, the President of France, and (I assume) the leader of China, along with other leaders, were all in that same stadium, watching a show that celebrates Earth and all peoples peacefully cohabitating.
How can Bush, Putin, and those other leaders take such a show seriously and then go back to their day jobs and support oil, gas, coal, and a bunch of other stuff, not to mention wars?
I don’t get it. I hate to say this, but they must be either blind, or stupid, or ineffective, or . . . whatever.
What can I say?
(Sorry for the frustration.)
Cheers to all the Margueritians,
Jeff
This is such an important message that somehow has to get across – It is the west that consumes what China produces, therefore the increasing CO2 emissions from China are our responsibility. We need to stop consuming and stop pointing fingers of blame at a country which still has considerably lower per capita CO2 emissions than US and Europe.
Hey guys, might want to check this out for another side of the olympic games;
http://joshxiong.com/?p=60
Dan, I left a comment on Josh’s blog. When asked how they were able to pull off such a feat during the opening ceremony, Chinese officials said: the people. Citizens have a lot of power, as voters, consumers, and potential activists. The collective energy is available. It is a matter of directing it properly.
Jeff, Simon, I could not agree more. The world is coalescing with these tragedies. We the citizens from developed countries are very happy to consume, and do not want to acknowledge our role in unfair work practices and distant sources of environmental pollution. And our leaders confuse endorsement with diplomacy.