Chinese Govt. Tells Elderly, Children In Beijing To Stay Indoors As IOC Boss Issues Warning On Air

[hatrack]

Children and the elderly in Beijing were advised to stay indoors as thick smog choked the city on Friday, a day after a top Olympic official warned that pollution could disrupt next year's Games. Beijing's top weather official, Sun Jisong, said old and young risked contracting respiratory diseases if they went outside. "Wear a face mask if you have to go out today," the official Xinhua news agency quoted Sun as telling all Beijingers.

Xinhua blamed a heavy fog that had enveloped Beijing for trapping the pollution, and the smog caused havoc across the city on Friday. Major highways leading into the Chinese capital, one of the world's most polluted cities, were closed, with visibility reduced to 50 metres (yards) in some areas, state press reported. Thousands of passengers were stranded at Beijing's Capital International Airport in the northeast as the thick grey haze shrouded the runways and forced flight delays, witnesses said.

The spike in Beijing's environmental problems came a day after International Olympic Committee (IOC) chief Jacques Rogge said that events at next year's Olympics could be delayed because of pollution.

Rogge, addressing a major environmental forum here, said Beijing had worked hard to improve its pollution woes but could still fall short of ensuring clean air for athletes, especially those competing in endurance events. "For this reason, we may have to reschedule some events so that the health of athletes is scrupulously protected," he said.

EDIT

http://www.citizen.co.za/index/Article.aspx?pDesc=1,1,22&Type=top&File=071026061337.ro6fope4.xml

[maxsolomon]

1. all the biodiesel we can make won't even dent china's carbon footprint

at least the planet will survive even if we don't.

[earthboundmisfit]

2. Why in the HELL was Beijing ever selected for the Olympics?

These problems didn't just pop up yesterday. What were they thinking?

[Kolesar]

4. This would be laughable if it was not so tragic

The athletes are going to run track and field and marathons in a city where it is not safe to go outside.

I heard on public radio that they are banning spitting in public in Bejing in anticipation of the Olympics. They can clean up the city's image, but people are not allowed to use the only method at their disposal to clear the particulates from their lungs.

Clusterfuck World

[amandabeech]

9. Rising Chinese clout within the Olympic movement.

The Olympics are a prestige event, and holding them in China is something of a "coming out party" for the country and its athletic programs.

I assume that the IOC wants lucrative TV contracts for showing its events in China, as do the individual sports governing bodies.

I'm particularly interested in figure skating, which is governed by the International Skating Union. The ISU governs figure skating AND speed skating, both short and long track. The ISU's revenues in the U.S. for the once-lucrative TV figure skating contract have gone down considerably from its Tonya-Nancy heyday. Revenues for speed skating here are non-existent.

China, on the other hand, is extremely interested in short track speed skating, and they have made a name for themselves in pairs figure skating. Their recently-retired-from-Olympic-style-competition pairs team of Shen and Zhao rank with the best Russians in the minds of some who are knowledgeable on pairs.

I'm guessing that the ISU wanted those games in Beijing as much as anyone else to curry favor with China.

Money does talk in many places.

[Spinzonner]

3. Or they could move them here to Los Angeles

Even in that time frame, they could be put together here.

Everything needed is already available or added since the last Olympics here.

[NNadir]

5. Imagine how polluted Los Angeles would be if it hadn't shipped all its manufacturing to China.

This is the part Amory Lovins doesn't talk about in his Walmart advertisements.

[amandabeech]

6. How much heavy manufacturing was there in LA?

I recall some aeronautics, but nothing as heavy as you saw in the Rust Belt. I thought that the air pollution in LA stemmed from auto exhaust stuck in valleys cooked by lots of sunshine.

Rust Belt air is much cleaner, BTW. You could hold the Olympics in Gary, Ind., or Pittsburgh without the level of air pollution problems that the athletes will find in Beijing.

[NNadir]

7. Lots of it. McCulloch Chain Saws had a plant near LAX for instance.

I had a job in it for a short while, working on the QC line.

It was a big, big deal to get to the assembly line. You had to buy your own tools and you had to be fast with a wrench. I got laid off with about a zillion other guys before I got to the line. The saw manufacturing was shipped to Mexico.

In LA, there were lots of machine shops, lots of tool and die makers, ship building, auto parts and toy manufacturers in LA. Hughes not only produced aircraft there, but some its tool operations were in LA. Mattel - importers of Chinese lead - closed its last plant in Los Angeles in 1988.

Alcoa and Kaiser had aluminum forming and extrusion plants in LA, near Vernon. They shut in the early 1990's.

Fine chemicals were also produced in LA, but almost all the world's fine chemical manufacturers have moved to India and China.

Los Angeles was once a major manufacturing area, but much of that manufacturing - along regrettably with the pollution - has been exported.

[amandabeech]

8. Thanks for the info.

I really wasn't aware that there was so much manufacturing in the area. Cross out most of the ship building and toy manufacturing, and you have a rust belt economy with sunny skies and mild winters. No wonder so many people went out there.

I share your regrets about all those manufacturing jobs leaving. I often wonder whether high transportation costs and perhaps turbulent relations between the U.S. and those countries or within either of them or the U.S. will eventually pull some of those jobs back here.

What's left aside from the entertainment industry?

[NNadir]

10. They still have a tremendous oil refining industry.

And of course, all that crap from China is unloaded for shipment to Walmarts around the country from Terminal Island ports.

Another big industry is freeway building and of course, the old standby, waiting in traffic, which has been a growth industry in LA for many years.

Other important industries include whining about their sports teams, connecting with the dead spirits of dead people, drinking fair trade coffee and watching electronic bill boards.

Driving to Las Vegas to gamble is another important industry in Los Angeles.

[Systematic Chaos]

11. Don't fucking remind me.

One of my favorite bumper stickers around here reads, "If it's tourist season why can't we just shoot them?"

:grr:

[orleans]

12. "the silence of the bees" on pbs' nature show tonight

showed an area of Beijing where the bees have all died and *people* have to pollinate the pear trees

the farmer said it was the pesticides that killed all their bees a few years back

also, in that piece, it said we are buying "royal jelly" from china to feed our bees--and i thought if their bee food is as toxic as the rest of their shit we buy from them then it's no wonder our bees are dropping dead from it.