The Not-So-Green Olympics
China says their Olympics will be the "Green Games." Not exactly.
Here are a few points about blue-green algae. It is natural and it is green. What more should the environmentalists love? You see, the algae feeds off of the nutrients in the water. Nutrients that come from high fertilizer runoff and biological compounds from sewage releases into the waterways. The funny thing is that the algae blooms will not go away till the nutrients have gone away.
China can try all it wants to pull and rake the algae from the beaches and ocean, but as long as the food source is there, the algae will continue to grow and spread. You wonder why the algae-eating fish come from China?
China’s response to this latest explosion of algae?
China, embarrassed by the most vivid proof yet of its environmental problems, says the algae is a natural occurrence, and blames the sea for being too salty, the sun for being too hot. At a news conference earlier in the day one official suggested that algae could be good for you. “The Japanese eat it,” she said.
I think I have heard it all now. Global warming has now been blamed for making the sea too salty. I thought global warming was supposed to melt the glaciers and dilute the saltiness of the oceans with freshwater? But then again, this could be a boon to China if they wanted to commercialize the algae.
Raking algae isn’t the only way China is trying to appear green. Take a look at this photo and its caption:
Smoke billows from a chimney at a chemical factory in Tianjin municipality, neighboring Beijing, February 22, 2008. Tianjin has ordered 40 factories to shut for the Olympics, the latest dramatic step taken by China to ensure that pollution does not spoil the Games in August.
China is actually going to shut down parts of their country, forcing factories and businesses to close, all because they want to be seen as being “green” during the Olympics. Who cares that the low-level workers manning these factories will in all likelihood not get paid during these next few months? Or that the factories will return to their polluting ways after the Games are over? All that matters to China and the elitists is the emerald tint of their image.
But then, isn’t that what environmentalism is all about lately? It is all about the appearance of caring — the perception that one is doing something to protect the environment.
But how many times, over and over, are we finding that these stupid, idiotic, painful, and expensive ideas that the greenie (greedy) environmentalists concoct and force us into actually do more harm to the environment than help it??
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Dee McClanahan is a fishery biologist and systems administrator from Oklahoma. He co-blogs at Snapped Shot.
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9 Comments
1. Suzanne Pomeranz:It’s, of course, way past time to cancel these Olympic Games and let China know that it was a HUGE mistake to even give it the possibility of hosting them. From human rights abuses which continue in the shadows of preparations to bad water to the earthquake(s) – which need the Chinese government attention much more than the Olympic games – to quick & possibly poor construction, etc. etc. etc. – China is NOT the right place for these games or any other such world event.
suzanne
Jul 21, 2008 - 3:47 am 2. CaptDMO:Trying to appear “green”? I think not.
I suspect that hoards of international athletes
crumbling to the ground as their bodies revolt
from lack of oxygen as they try to compete at their highest level is to be avoided.
I predict that the cold smoke stacks, restricted auto traffic, additional buses (from where?) at discounted rates, and currently locked-out factory worker event supernumeraries will all vaporize as fast as dukats, and closeting services, for the homeless after the Democratic Convention in Colorado, when all the private jets and “news” trucks move on to greener pastures.
Jul 21, 2008 - 7:08 am 3. Boris:I could be wrong.
“But how many times, over and over, are we finding that these stupid, idiotic, painful, and expensive ideas that the greenie (greedy) environmentalists concoct and force us into actually do more harm to the environment than help it??”
It wouldn’t be pajamas media without an uniformed shot at environmentalism.
Jul 21, 2008 - 8:10 am 4. kabud:Suzanne Pomeranz:
west is scared, you and readers here may be not informed but believe me THE RULERS of this country knows but are hiding the truth from us:
Asian communism has no remorse to kill all of us
http://en.epochtimes.com/news/5-8-8/31055.html
Jul 21, 2008 - 9:10 am 5. Bruce Padgett:We’re taking the Olympic “party” to a country who still uses imprisonment and firing squads for dissenters, has no regard for the world’s future except for lining their pockets, and sucks the oil out of Africa while watching the locals butcher each other.
Jul 21, 2008 - 12:29 pm 6. pch1013:So, do we patronize this farce by attending with Mr. Bush?
“It wouldn’t be pajamas media without an uniformed shot at environmentalism.”
Or an anti-Muslim diatribe. I can’t believe Roger actually green-lighted this piece (pun intended); Dee missed a golden opportunity to equate the green of noxious algae with the green of radical Islam.
Jul 21, 2008 - 12:48 pm 7. Zach:To answer the last question (and of the top of my head): banning DDT, smog-reducing summer blend gasoline in California that contaminates groundwater, banning forest management that allows for major wildfires rather than small controlled fires and cutting, mandating corn ethanol that encourages more land to be converted to agricultural land, etc, etc.
Jul 22, 2008 - 3:36 pm 8. Hell_Is_Like_Newark:Environmentalists don’t seem to understand the law of unintended consequences.
My wife’s company imports garments from China. Production has come to a halt due to the lack of electricity (all those coal burning plants being turned off). Production is now being shifted to Indonesia, India, Vietnam. Not sure if China will get the business back. Meanwhile, a lot of Chinese are out of work. I wonder how much the average Chinese citizen is paying to host this event?
Jul 24, 2008 - 4:26 pm 9. Bruce Padgett:China’a Billionaires which for the most part are like the other Billionaires around the world should get together for a summit and actually change the “party”, and the New World Order “Bush/Cheny” Cheny’s been there since Nixon. As this planet get’s hotter we have the technology for solar and alternative energy soucres. The other Bruce Padgett’s never been to China and met the wonderful people of it’s country who are still oppressed like the middle class of America. The leaders of the US, the Phillipines, Singapore and Europe, along with the billionaires can change this if they wanted to share some wealth and get rid of the greed. Absolute power absolutly corrupts.
Aug 2, 2008 - 4:06 pm