I’m pleased to announce that Green Living Tips will be a Beijing Olympics free zone. This will be the only post referencing the event :). This is not a political protest of any sort, it’s just that:

a) So many others will be covering the Olympics from all sorts of angles, including environmental
b) I dislike sports in general, including the Olympics – but I won’t bore you with why :).

Doesn’t get much simpler than that!

One thing I would like to touch on is something that’s been annoying me in the press regarding Beijing’s pollution. Some have been tch tch’ing the Chinese for the pall of smog that’s covered the city in recent days; almost gleefully – just another way to demonize the country. I’d just like to point out that some of that smog is caused by other countries – including our own.

How so?

Because so many of the products we buy are made in China, we’ve simply outsourced our own pollution and carbon dioxide emissions. In fact, a recent study has found that a third of China’s greenhouse gas emissions are generated by exports to countries such as the USA, Canada, UK and Australia.

Additionally, it wasn’t all that long ago that Beijing was quite a clean city and the predominant form of transport was the bicycle – but the West has continuously pushed its lifestyle onto other countries as being the ideal – including car ownership. Our governments and big business orchestrated the environmental disaster that is the China of today.

So if you’re watching Olympic events through a haze, bear in mind that we have played a role in generating that pollution; and perhaps remind others of that fact too when they criticize China.