China's 'green' Olympics

Written - 11 August, 2008

China’s ‘green’ Olympics have turned out to be an embarrassment not only for the country but the world. The air pollution index in Beijing has been temporarily reduced by extreme coercion from the government to levels just slightly more toxic than the World Banks maximum. Unfortunately, air is only one component of the many Olympic related environmental (and social) disasters.

The beautiful hardwood floors that decorate the venues in Beijing are ancient Indonesian rainforest. This choice was not poor taste, but rather reflects China’s stranglehold on the Indonesian export market. For Indonesia, it is more economical to clearcut and convert ancient stands to hardwood floors than to protect them for things such as improved air quality. Of the $40 billion invested in the Olympics, $1 billion has gone towards clearcutting.

To make space for the massive development required for the events, China has also displaced farmers and their crops. Displacing farmers is not new; over 13 million were removed to make way for the Three Gorges Dam. However, China has increasingly been relying on the foreign market for food security and the combination of growth with lost land will both contribute to a looming food crisis. Yet rather than support the displaced, Yang Chunlin is facing 5 years in prison for collecting the signatures of 10,000 ‘dissident’ farmers who merely asked to have their livelihoods back.

Yet as the West denounces these tragedies, our political regime does little to discourage them and our industrial complex actively promotes them. The Olympics are a reflection of our global political economy where China mimics the West, but receives all the criticism. Perhaps a new approach is needed – the Olympics are shared by the world, as much by Indonesia and farmers (and Rwanda and Tibet) as by urban China, so why must some suffer and some benefit?

Perhaps we should realize that it is not only China that is on the world stage, but the global community and our definition of a ‘green’ Olympics. If ‘green’ is social suffering and lost rainforest, we have some tough questions to ask ourselves.