Is This A Joke?
China is going to host the 2022 Winter Olympics and I was curious to see what's going on with the projects. After running a search I found out that The 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games were introduced to the 74th United Nations General Assembly on Monday at UN headquarters in New York.
China is not a newbie when it comes to hosting Olympics, the 29th Summer Olympic Games was hosted by China in 2008. I remember the event, it wasn't the best as selling broadcasting rights to the major US TV stations turned everything upside down, competitions were held in the morning at crazy hours, athletes could not adjust to the early time but no one cared. As I was saying earlier, money talks and the rest doesn't matter.
Knowing what's happened last time makes me doubt it's going to be any different this time. Knowing China and knowing what it's capable of, I believe we can expect anything. Reading the article I have burst into laugh when I read this.
He noted that China will hold a "green" Olympic Games and "prioritize ecological consideration, resources conservation and environmental friendliness by developing and implementing a low-carbon management work plan, whereby green power will be used in all Winter Olympic venues to strive for carbon neutrality". source
He in this case means Zhang Jun, China's permanent representative to the UN.
When I first read the article I was thinking how can this guy say such things when everyone knows how polluted China is.
Does this image look familiar?
What about this? These are not fashion accessories, people are not wearing masks just to stand out of any crowd. This is a necessity and far from enough if you want to stay healthy. these masks can help but I'm not sure can do the job properly. Nothing substitutes clean air. Besides, what about your eyes? This is just so people can feel protected but what about responsibility towards citizens?
It's very nice to have these plans to minimize carbon emission and use green energy but it's far from enough. They can't clean the air no matter what they do. Cleaning the air by reducing pollution would mean shutting down factories and companies that are producing pollution and they can't afford that.
To be honest, I feel sorry for those participants as they have no choice. If they want a medal, they need to go and face the consequences. I was wondering how it feels like to try to do the best you can while your most important ingredient, the clean air is missing. Most of the athletes who are caught doping are taking performance enhancers. In sports where speed is of the essence, the most used are those who are increasing the oxygen in blood. Do the math and you find out how it is to perform with less oxygen from the start.
I guess each Olympics Game hosting country has it's own problems. I remember in 2016 Rio had the Zika virus threat and there were athletes who preferred not to participate in order to avoid complications of getting infected. I saw some gymnasts brought their sleeping net.
I don't know what set of criteria is considered when choosing a hosting country but I would make pollution be the most important and safety as well. Look at this list and decide for yourself what countries are putting people's health at risk.
Must admit it does make you wonder how the athletes are going to cope especially if the air quality is that bad. Most of us take breathable air for granted but in some countries that is not the case
Those of us who have quality air don't think about that but as soon as they land, they are going to face reality, unfortunately. This is not fair though.
They've actually done a SEMi-decent job of halfway cleaning the air in Beijing. Not by going green, but by moving the pollution-spewing factories Northeast and Southwest into Hebei Province (which already had bad air).
Since the population there does not consist of the elite, Zhongnanhai doesn't care how many of them die from the carcinogenic crap in the air.