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China Races To Clean Up Olympic Air
Hugh Pickens writes "With the Olympics due to start in less than three weeks, Beijing is cranking up antipollution measures by yanking cars off the roads, expanding mass transit and staggering work hours in a bid to meet its pledge of a 'green' Olympics. Beijing has gone on a spending spree, relocating factories, seeding clouds, retiring old vehicles, planting millions of trees and halting building construction amid concerns that athletes and visitors could suffer breathing problems. For the next two months, owners of 3.3 million private cars can drive only on alternate days in China's capital, based on whether the last digit of their license plates is even or odd. Environmental and sports performance experts have cast doubt on the effectiveness of the measures taken so far. 'Arguably these are all short-term measures, just designed to control air quality for the time when the Olympics are on,' says Dr Andy Jones. Dr Angus Hunter warned that athletes are at risk for low performance if the air quality cannot be brought down to acceptable levels. 'Average times could be lower and the chances of records being broken become less. It's a bit like trying to exercise in a room when the gym is full of smokers.'"
That would be such a neat ad campaign. You could show Mao smiling as he holds a bus pass. I think it would work well in California too.
If only they would do this for the right reasons... They'll be cleaning up for the olympics but it will all go back to hell as soon as it's over. They should try to solve the problem permanently instead of suppressing it so others think it's livable over there.
Just got an email from my PCB Fabrication house :
"For our Printed Circuit Board customers using Chinese vendors, please be aware of the following air quality policy announcement from Chinese authorities:
In preparation for the Olympics, China has announced a factory shutdown for 9 weeks to clear smog and improve air quality in a 200 kilometer radius of Beijing. The shutdown begins July 17th and will extend until September 20th. Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia and Shandong provinces are affected by the shutdown.
If air quality does not improve before the start of the Olympics, there may be an expansion of the shutdown. There are concerns there could also be a bottleneck at two main ports. "
Wonder how it will affect Chip prices
When mom comes around saying he can go play when his room is clean, he frantically shoves the mess into the closet...
But how are they going to stop the sand storms coming from Mongolia?
50 million chinese blowing the other way.
athletes are at risk for low performance if the air quality cannot be brought down to acceptable levels
Uh..call me crazy, but shouldn't this have been something that should have been taken into serious consideration before choosing a place like this for the Olympics? I mean, I may not be an expert on human physiology, but it would seem to me that having clean air for the Olympic competitors to breathe would have ranked among one of the highest in the checklist for selecting a location for the Olympics.
rj
Living the the US is barely tolerable and people die constantly
Gee, that is bad. Over here in the UK, people only die once.
Dude, racist?
"EGG" Foo Young on their face... as in Egg on their face. As in Mr T pitties the FOO that doesn't get a bit of localization in a bad pun. There's nothing racist about that remark that you didn't put there yourself. It's a joke that does not demean them as a race, or even say that they exibit stereotypical behavior. Just that they live in a region that introduced a type of cuisine. he did not even include the more typical dog ingredient jokes for the eastern nations that are much more typical of the belittling by mainstream comedians.
I kinda take offence when people try to make general comments racist. If you stopped and thought about the whole racist issue you would find it disturbing that members of most races can use phrases and words that they do not allow other races to use without calling them racist. Isn't that the definition of racist? Treating a race differently because of their race? Allowing them to do something or forbiding them from something else based solely on their race? If we all kinda got the chip off our shoulders and let these comments go, the words would lose their power and that would be the end of at least a part of the problems we all face every day.
The actions, are a different story of course and I acknowledge that, but the reaction to general comments are sometimes showing of more racist thoughts than the comments themselves.
) Human Kind Vs Human Creation
) It'd be interesting to see how many humans would survive to serve us.
Mexico tried the whole "even or odd" license plate thing a while back (for similar reasons) and it was an epic failure.
Uuuh, as far as I know (asking to my relatives living in Mexico D.F.) the "hoy no circula" program is still going on strong in Mexico City, moreover, the program has just been extended for Saturdays (since July 5).
Saying that it didn't work is a big claim. Granted, some people bought another car, however that is not very common, given the general population does not earn enough money to buy a second car.
And moreover, the IMECA (Metropolitan Index of the Quality of Air, used to monitor the pollution in Mexico City) or AIQ (nowadays between 50 and 70) is not as high as it used to be say, 10 years ago when it usually was between 80 and 110...
You can check it from yourself, all the yearly data for Mexico City atmospheric conditions can be obtained from here.
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'