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The 2008 Olympics are scheduled to kick off in August, and many are concerned over air quality issues in Beijing. Officials there have set up air quality monitors in a quasi-effort to determine if the skies can “officially” be termed – blue. The smog in Beijing is notoriously unhealthy according to the World Health Organizartion, and many Olympic teams are concerned for health and performance reasons.

According to an article in the New York Times today, Beijing officials had to warn residents to stay indoors on Thursday due to exceedingly high pollution indices, which reached 500 on a scale of 500 on Friday. Ironically city officials were prepared to celebrate a sort of environmental victory until the bottom fell out of the smog index this week. In recent years Beijing has made progress toward more “blue sky days”, but China’s unchecked growth continues to exact both a human and environmental toll locally and globally.

Beijing won this Olympics by promising it would be a “green” event, but despite some rather drastic initiatives pollution remains at critical levels. Athletes and coaches worldwide are concerned over respiratory and performance issues that may result from performing in Beijing. China has had continual trouble reconciling geometric growth and often irreversible pollution issues. The potential of these games to showcase “a new China” is no less apparent than the relative public relations nightmare that may arise if these issues are not addressed.

The explosion of China onto the world economy these last years has been fantastic, but the less visible effects of “unsustainable growth” loom large in the skies and rivers of the world’s most populated nation. I have commented many times in articles on Profy and elsewhere about China’s breakneck rise to unrealistic growth. From a geographical standpoint China cannot support the types and degree of industrialization being imposed on an already sensitive eco-structure. Perhaps chocking world class athletes broadcast across the globe is just the ticket to wake Chinese officials up to reality.

Photos and graphic courtesy - The New York Times