As Wired put it recently, the natural environment of Beijing — on a good day — is “a photochemical bouillabaisse of coal smog, steel-mill spume, and tailpipe crud, mingled with concrete dust and baked in the oven formed by the surrounding hills.” So it’s no wonder the Chinese are making a big fuss about using the Summer Olympics as a platform for promoting “green” initiatives. They appear to need it more than the rest of us.
The official Chinese Olympics website even describes how schoolchildren are being taught to “use rainwater to water indoor plants.” In one (likely mandatory, salute-accompanied) activity, students stood “in formation to represent a drop of water and a flower.”
Gosh! Now I feel better about the impending catastrophe Al Gore has been prophesying for years. The Chinese have it covered.
But it’s the Olympic Torch Relay that got Hu Jintao and the rest of the Sino-aristocracy our undivided attention. Hot off the digital presses from ABC News:
If people are looking for another reason to be pissed at China, how about this: By the time this pyro parade is over, it will have produced about 11 million pounds of carbon emissions.
The torch is visiting 23 cities during a global sweep that includes stops in London, Paris, San Francisco, Bangkok, Islamabad and Almaty among others. The Beijing Olympics Organizing Committee says the journey will cover more than 85,000 miles.
So when the torch isn’t being marched through city streets and/or extinguished by protesters, how is it getting around? You guessed it, by plane — an Air China A330 custom painted with the Olympic logo and color scheme. The A330 burns 5.4 gallons of fuel per mile. That translates into 462,400 gallons for the entire trip. With Earthlab estimating that every gallon of jet fuel burned produces 23.88 pounds of CO2, the Olympic Torch Relay is adding about 11 million pounds of carbon to the atmosphere. That’s 5,500 tons.
London has a plan to ensure that the 2012 torch relay ends up carbon neutral, so we figured that Beijing must have one too, right? Sally Lu, the frazzled Olympic media relations rep that we reached in Beijing, says that if there is a plan to neutralize the torch-carrying jet’s carbon emissions, she hasn’t heard about it. But she thinks there is one. Probably.
Confucius say: Olympic torch relay without carbon credits is full of hot air.
Lame pointless jab at Rush Limbaugh. Other than that, good article.
Funny that you take a pot shot at Rush Limbaugh since you spew the same opinionated hot air online. Maybe you should thank him for opening the door for allowing schmucks like you to do what you are doing now.
Amen to Andrew and JK2004. It’s the simple minded that take jabs at easy targets like Rush. But jealousy of the immensely successful (and right) is rampant in the Left.
Love the website though despite the sad liberal mentality of it. Stay off the politics and just keep pointing out the hypocrisy from whomever it may come from.
Would you all have been happier if I wrote “more gas than Al Franken”? Ah, but then the liberal readers would have been all over me.
I had to pick one iconic gasbag. I spun the wheel and Rush’s number came up.
Take a deep breath.
What about the actual torch? How much heat is that thing adding to the atmosphere? Tons I bet. Plus all of that carbon the people running to carry it are exhaling. And exactly how many of those guys are gonna have gay porno ’staches? These are questions I’m gonna need answers to before I support any kind of sporting events in China thats for damn sure. If I had a pet Llama I’d name it Dolly.
I seem to recall Rush being used before though I may be wrong. If I am correct then you need to check that wheel.
Either way, keep up the good work. Funny stuff!
Carbon credits are a crock.
Well, there was this. Quite a vicious attack…
Carbon credits ARE NOT a crock and I’ll prove it. I’m starting a cut rate carbon credit marketing team. You send me $150 for each carbon credit (minimum 10) and I’ll send you a document suitable for framing, on recycled paper, as proof that you bought it. Then as more, and more of these carbon credits are purchased from my team, I will eventually move to a little thatched hut on the shores of a south pacific island with a hammock, and a cooler filled with rum, etc. thereby reducing my carbon out put to almost zero! See they work! Start sending your money now! We only need 10,000 people to buy these for me to reduce my carbon foot print to nothing! Hurry!
NO OVERSEERER, ALLOW ME TO RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGE!!!
You’re right, I wouldn’t have mentioned it if you used Al Franken, probably because I don’t like him. What can I say, I like to try to sound objective only when it suits my needs. Actually, now that I think about it, it’s pretty ironic that’d point that out on this site, of all place. Hell, I might as well send you a tip: One of your very own readers, AndrewGurn, is a hypocrite.
Rush opened the door? Michael Crichton is the first person I read who talked about global warming not being science.