Sadly, they failed to improve air quality in Beijing

In the current issue of the Economist, again one article about the coming Olympics, China’s dash for freedom. Not surprisingly, the author compared the Beijing games with the Nazi-organised games in Berlin in 1936.

Let’s not to get bothered by this comparison but focus some other part of the article.

Being a Beijing citizen who has lived here for over decades, I personally have no interesting in any movement towards the bullshit human-rights and so called freedom. The super-grand state of art facilities of games also less contributed my pride, or the so called nationalism if western journalist wishes. People may only concern about their own interest and what they could benefit from the Olympic games, me as well. So, what is it?

For many years we experienced those smoggy days, more and more, year by year. It was promised by authority that government would apply efforts in improving it. Sadly, after seven years the governing people draw that blueprint, the air pollution is getting even worse now. We seldom encountered that smoggy day when we might need to tolerate some sand storm at the time I was in high school, but we need to living in such days with heading up with blue sky but terrible haze in horizontal, despite those sand storm indeed being less occurred. What’s the hell?

As the textbook indicated previously that London is a city in fog. But how could people go there and marveled at its blue sky then wonder where the fog was now. Actually the fog is now coming to Beijing while it is a great shame that neither state nor local authority is going to accept it is haze but call it as fog.

Second, these would be the first “green” Olympics, spurring a badly needed effort to clean up Beijing and other Olympic venues. This was always a ludicrous claim. Heroic efforts to remove toxic algae blooms from the rowing course do not amount to a new environmentalism. The jury is still out on whether Beijing will manage to produce air sufficiently breathable for runners safely to complete a marathon. If it does, it will not have been because of any Olympic-related change of course. Rather it will be the result of desperate measures introduced in recent weeks: production cuts by polluting industries, or simply closing them down; and the banning from the road of half of Beijing’s cars.