Beijing goes green for Olympics

[Randall]

Beijing Stops Construction for Olympics

 

By ANDREW JACOBS

BEIJING — Chinese officials laid out a sweeping series of measures on Monday that will freeze construction projects, shutter chemical plants and close down obsolete gas stations around Beijing, the capital, this summer in an attempt to clear the air for the Olympics. Even spray painting outdoors will be banned during the weeks before and after sporting events, which begin on August 8.

 

Although the announced plans raise a host of unanswered questions, they represent the most concrete scenario for how Beijing will reach its long-standing pledge to stage a “green games” in one of the world’s most polluted cities.

 

The measures include a two-month halt in construction and government directives that will force coal-burning power plants to reduce their emissions by 30 percent throughout most of the summer.

 

Officials said that 19 heavy-polluting enterprises, including steel mills, coke plants and refineries, would be either temporarily mothballed or forced to reduce production. Quarries will be closed, as will all cement production, and the use of toxic solvents outdoors will be forbidden.

 

“We will do everything possible to honor the promise,” Du Shaozhong, deputy director of Beijing’s Environmental Protection Bureau, said during a news conference. “Just tell everybody they don’t have to worry.”

 

Some Olympic officials and athletes remain unconvinced. Although the government has made notable strides in reducing the brown haze from coal-burning heaters and stoves, the unabated surge in car ownership has erased many of those gains.

 

There are about 3.5 million vehicles choking Beijing’s roadways, and about 1,200 new cars join the honking parade each week. Last August, in a four-day exercise that will most likely be repeated this summer, authorities forced more than half of Beijing’s cars and trucks off the road.

 

Officials said Monday they would present plans to restrict traffic this year at a later date.

 

In recent months, independent scientists who have sampled Beijing’s air say that levels of ozone and particulate matter from diesel engines remains five times higher than standards set by the World Health Organization.

 

The president of the International Olympics Committee, Jacques Rogge, said a particularly smoggy day could prompt officials to postpone outdoor endurance events; some runners have said they will practice outside the city to avoid the worst air, although the suburbs may not provide much refuge: a good deal of Beijing’s foul air drifts in from distant cities and neighboring provinces, some as far away as Inner Mongolia.

 

Mr. Du, the environmental official, dismissed suggestions that the city had failed to make strides in reducing harmful pollution.

 

He said that the number of Blue Sky days — a measure of whether the air is acceptably clean — have more than doubled since 1998, when there were just 100 such days. Last year, he said, that number reached 246. Levels of nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide have dropped significantly in recent years.

 

Officials attained that goal by forcing local plants to upgrade pollution-control equipment and by forcing about 200 of the most noxious to shut down for good.

 

Even on a day when the horizon was notably hazy, he urged the roomful of skeptical reporters to tell the public how much better Beijing’s air had become in recent years. “Please assure all the athletes,” he said.

 

But even if the outdoor air becomes slightly more breathable this summer, it seems unlikely that indoor air quality will improve by the time hundreds of thousands of visitors arrive here. Earlier in the day, government officials announced that a proposed smoking ban in bars and restaurants had been rescinded after proprietors complained that it would cut into their business.

[McBoog]

Photo Oct. 2007

 

I was trying to find some inmages of the city, but the vast majority that clearly showed the city were artists renderings

 

Bank of Beijing

 

Another

 

An unusually clea day in the city.

 

Sure am glad they signed Kyoto!

[H8tank]

If only they would sign kyoto.

[Randall]

So you're turning this into a pro Bush thread?

 

All treaties need to be enforced.

 

The FDA inspected the wrong factory in one case, in others lead toys ended up here. Where was the FDA?

[Egret]

“Just tell everybody they don’t have to worry.”

 

That quote says it all.

[McBoog]

So you're turning this into a pro Bush thread?

 

All treaties need to be enforced.

 

The FDA inspected the wrong factory in one case, in others lead toys ended up here. Where was the FDA?

 

Please stand on the docks of Long Beach as the freighters are being unloaded. Evaluate the situation and enlighten all of us with your plan to inspect all goods entering the country. Thousands of containers daily. Then go to New York, Miami and New Orlenes harbors and then rethink the situation.

 

Secure borders???? We don't even have "control" of our harbors!

 

After you get past the longshoreman and their union, then maybe CBP could hire you as the new boss.

 

Asking any US agency to regulate what china does is

[Skilly]

So they are doing this just because the Olympics are in town?

 

Really, are the Olympics even relevant anymore? I say no, especially since they keep adding more and more ridiculous "sports". Any sport that has to be judged by a panel is not a sport. And when the networks try this tape delay crap, it drives me nuts. Any idiot with the internet can get the results instantly, and who really watches the events after they know who wins.

 

It's a different world now, and the Olympics just don't matter anymore.

[Randall]

Please stand on the docks of Long Beach as the freighters are being unloaded. Evaluate the situation and enlighten all of us with your plan to inspect all goods entering the country. Thousands of containers daily. Then go to New York, Miami and New Orlenes harbors and then rethink the situation.

 

Secure borders???? We don't even have "control" of our harbors!

 

After you get past the longshoreman and their union, then maybe CBP could hire you as the new boss.

 

Asking any US agency to regulate what china does is

 

 

Tell the families of those that died "there are so many shipments coming in we were helpless to inspect them all"

 

I'm amazed you have a such a low estate of our abilities as a nation. What are we a third world nation now?

 

They can't do random inspections? They can't inspect products as they arrive at factories?

 

Inspecting will slow down profits. Can't have that.

 

 

 

Read this.

 

"This week, a spokeswoman for Baxter said the number of reports of adverse reactions to heparin had surpassed 400. A spokeswoman for the Food and Drug Administration in the United States said the agency was reviewing the new reports and did not yet have a revised count.

 

The authorities have not determined that problems with the heparin supply chain led to the deaths and adverse reactions, first reported last month in Missouri. Nor have investigators determined that heparin from China was the culprit. Baxter also gets some of its ingredients from a plant in Wisconsin. Neither SPL nor Baxter has been accused of doing anything wrong.

 

Even so, the problems involving heparin have again focused attention on the quality of products from China and the gaps in regulation by both the Chinese and United States governments. SPL's plant in Changzhou was certified by American officials to export to the United States even though neither government had inspected it. The plant has been exporting heparin to Baxter since 2004.That's what regulations are for. "

[McBoog]

Tell the families of those that died "there are so many shipments coming in we were helpless to inspect them all"

 

I'm amazed you have a such a low estate of our abilities as a nation. What are we a third world nation now? ...

 

Hey, shoot the messenger dude! Yeah, I’ll say it to whoever will listen!

 

Your story is sad and I feel for those people. But pointing the finger at a problem that is way beyond your and most people’s comprehension is pointless. Do I wish it was different? Of course! Is it possible? Not in the current GLOBAL dynamic.

 

You have NO IDEA just how porous the borders are. You have no concept of what 3,000 containers, off-loaded from freighters looks like. You have no knowledge of how much power we have given the longshoreman (see union and governmental cave-in to them) as to how things “really” work on the docks! If you think CBP is in control…

 

As a nation, we are UNWILLING to fix this problem. It would require tens of thousands of new governmental employees and the practical shut-down of international importations. They do random inspections and finding violations is like a needle in a haystack. Many of these goods are perishable and time sensitive. They have enough trouble processing the paperwork required to do an importation in a timely manner. Inspect all the goods visually? No way. Testing it all? Only in Fantasy Land. There wouldn’t be enough space to store all the stuff while it backs up waiting for our highly speedy and ultra-efficient government to get the results back and OK its release.

 

Quality control? Should that not be the responsibility and incurred liability of the entity using on/selling/providing to the end client? That is what is known as a free market society. Do you want a government inspector, on site, checking every Big Mac or Whopper for E. Coli before it hits your tray?

 

The international ramifications would be monumental as well. If the mayor of Nogales, Sonora, MX can call the Mayor of Nogales, Arizona, USA and complain that the traffic backup is too long, then the US Mayor calls the Port Director and the Port director instructs the supervisors to tell the troops to start “pumping traffic” (getting it through a lot faster), what kind of politics do you think is involved at major international ports of entry?

 

What you are pointing out is irresponsible business practices and I don’t see the remedy as being the Government. When these companies get the crap sued out of them, possibly to the point of bankruptcy then there will be accountability. Should any potential criminal prosecution for identified and intentional negligent actions be identified, then sure, the G should step in and prosecute.

[AtomicCEO]

Can you imagine how many shipments we could inspect for 1.2 Trillion dollars?

 

It seems like that could buy some serious protection.

It doesn't matter though, because it isn't my money... it's the governments money.

 

Now, if we could only focus on how to lower taxes in the future.

Hmm... I know! Lets stop helping sick people! It's so easy!

Edited April 21, 2008 by AtomicCEO