Olympics 2008

Olympics, 2008, Light The Torch

I plan on skipping the Olympics.

I Wonder, Which Country Has The Worst Smog

The National Stadium know as the 'Bird's Nest' seen through thick smog Photo: AFP/GETTY

The area where the games will take place failed the government's own smog targets, even as officials opened the Olympic Village with great fanfare.

What do you think would be the response if this were a USA city? Fortunately, the USA has the money and the know how to clean up their own messes, and smog.

Here is another view, if you think the Chinese are making progress on combating smog and pollution.


It's there somewhere ... the Bird's Nest shrouded in smog 12 days out from the start of the Games.

The 'Pollution Olympics'

Bailing the algae ... caused by pollution at the site of the upcoming 'water games' for the 2008 Olympics.

It's going to be interesting viewing watching the drive-by media try to paper over the obvious, China, is a terribly polluted place, anybody that has ever been there knows. An article of what is to come.

Sometimes it's the little stories that tell us the most. Consider the news of a keel-crippling algal bloom covering a third of the Olympic sailing course in Qingdao, China. While a small army of workers, a large armada of boats, and a full battalion of dump trucks and bulldozers are desperately trying to clear up this embarrassing counterpoint to China's claim of a "green games", international competitors desperate for practice are forced to stew in dry dock.

In fact, this kind of event is far from atypical in the world's most polluted nation. Today, fully 70% of China's seven major rivers are severely polluted, 80% of its rivers fail to meet standards for fishing, and 90% of the country's cities suffer from some degree of water pollution. As a result, over 700 million Chinese drink fetid water of a quality well below World Health Organization standards. Meanwhile, liver and stomach cancers related to water pollution are among the leading causes of death in the countryside, while 21 cities along the Yellow River are characterized by the highest measurable levels of pollution.

As for this particular - and particularly extensive - algal bloom in Qingdao, it is being caused in large part by equally massive misuse of fertilizer. As the world's largest fertilizer user, China consumes more than 50 million tonnes annually. Far too often, untrained peasants apply far too much fertilizer to their meager plots in the false hopes of boosting yields. The result has been a new kind of "flooding" problem, that of excess fertilizer runoff flooding into rivers and streams.

The truth would do, but they have to preserve the hoax.

Bejing Olympics

Beijing China, about one year ago.

Olympics 2008 will be hosted by the most polluted country in the world, China. Beijing is one of the most polluted city in China. China is the number one polluter in the world. The cold weather brought on by what else but 'global warming' hasn't helped either. They heat mostly with wood and coal in the outlying areas, or don't heat at all. They obvously haven't perfected the home scrubbers for their chimneys.

I wonder what the drive-by media will do when you can't see the Olympic action for all the smog? I don't watch sports, well maybe a little curling every now and then.