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Realtime Smog in Beijing |
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Anyone looking at reports from Beijing is noticing what I call AMV, ‘Air Made Visible’, which even in Dallas causes unhealthy air quality ratings, a Red Alert. In China I guess Red Alert is a daily thing. Oh forgive me, I forgot that we need a big loan so Red is no longer the PC word about China. By the standards of the news out of the worst administration ever, day is night anyway.
Athletes are being criticized for wearing protective masks, although their breath is vital in practicing their sports. I am just sick that the bicyclists are apologizing for wearing air masks when arriving in Beijing. Those lungs are vital equipment, and saying the air is just fine, when it is obviously not, is a lie. Even by occupied White House standards, denying that viewers can see what the Chinese government is saying isn’t there, is offensive to reason, and to health.
A day before the Games, a BBC reading suggested Beijing’s air quality was far below World Health Organisation (WHO) standards.
It put levels of particulate matter (PM10) at 191 micrograms per cubic metre. This far exceeds the WHO target of 50 micrograms/cubic metre, and also exceeds the WHO target for developing countries of 150 micrograms/cubic metre.
But Mr Rogge insisted there was no threat to Olympic competitors.
“Of course we prefer clear skies, but the most important thing is that the health of the athletes is protected,” Mr Rogge(IOC President) said in the news conference.
He said there was “absolutely no danger” to the health of athletes taking part in events that last less than one hour. But he said if the pollution was bad, events which lasted more than that could be shifted or postponed.
Mr Rogge urged reporters to distinguish between fog and pollution - a point, correspondents say, often made by Chinese authorities.
“The fog, you see, is based on the basis of humidity and heat. It does not mean that this fog is the same as pollution,” he said.
And he praised China’s efforts to clean up the air around Beijing - efforts, he said, which would “continue and have a lasting influence on the climate of Beijing”.
Separately, Mr Rogge said athletes would be prevented from making any political statement or protest in official venues - in accordance with Rule 51 of the Olympic charter, which forbids athletes from making political, religious, commercial or racial propaganda.
But he said they were free to do this in protest areas provided by Chinese authorities, and that “common sense” would be used to judge violations. (Emphasis added.)
Common sense is exactly what rejects the Chinese line, in so many matters. This is not an instance of good international standards of any sort being set, truth least of all. Sadly, it would appear that the world’s propagandists have accepted a view of the American public that the occupied White House projects, that they are idiots who will swallow any line thrown at them. That is the 20% that the war criminals consider their ‘base’, but White House operatives have convinced the Chinese that this is who forms the public in the U.S.
Athletes depend on their health. It is shameful that they should be subjected to unbearable conditions. The IOC needs to be shaken up thoroughly, and concerned protectors of the world’s athletes given a deciding voice in its reviews for further locations of Olympic Games. Air should be breathed, not swum in.
(This post also at http://cabdrollery.blogspot.com/ )
oh boo-hoo..l.a. used to be a smog bath in the 70s and early 80’s..pea soupe brownish yellow looking shit and it smelled like pool clorine..one day in down town your eyes burned and you wnated to go to sleep..may be thats what the olimpics will do for the world in 08′.
Guess I missed those L.A. Olympics. Not a bad prospect if the future in China will see the kind of regulations that CA instituted in answer to the killer air.