2008年7月27日 星期日

Green Olympic?

Beijing win the bid for 2008 Olympic by label it as Green Olympic, and I think label is the best description of the level of understanding of the concept of Environmentalism by Communist China, much akin to its level of understanding of Chinese culture, if any other than the custom and ritual, otherwise why the necessity of Cultural Revolution?
Environmentalism has its roots in beginning which man is separated from Nature as a whole when s/he gain consciousness, then religion is born to compensate this lost. By the advent of industrialization, the relationship between humanity and nature is further deteriorate to the role of exploiter. Capitalism, which is the embodiment of industrialization, has extend the idea of making profit through exploitation instead of cooperation to its fullest extend. Environmentalism grow as a movement to reshape the connection between humanity and nature from that of exploitation to harmony, from competition to cooperation. Therefore the idea Green Capitalism is something close to oxymoron, so do the idea of Green Olympic.
The most Environmental friendly way of doing Olympic is NOT doing it at all. Consider how many carbon dioxide and Green house gas is emitted by sportspersons and tourists when they are traveling to Beijing by airplane or other means of transportation? How would it add to the Green House effect? Is that a requirement of Beijing Olympic committee for all the travel to be carbon neutral? To be less demanding, since Internet is not advance to a level that the sportsperson could compete through the Internet, but at least we can reduce the amount of expenditure of energy by all watching the events from the Internet. Would the holder of Green Olympic welcome this idea if it is sincerely believe in the goods of environment?
Definitely not, since what beneath the surface of Green Olympic is a dog-eat-dog ultra-capitalistic society. The goal of this ‘Green Olympic’ is to maximize the amount of tourist and the amount of consumption to fill the expanding appetite of citizen who substitute the political freedom to that of freedom of buy-and-sell-anything-they-wanted from dog to endangered species to personal airplane to sex salve. How would hundreds and thousands of tourist and sportsperson do to the already fragile and overloaded ecosystem in China? Is that also a requirement from Beijing Olympic Committee for all tourists and sportspersons to behave in ecologically sensitive way throughout the Olympic Game? Does Beijing Olympic Committee constructed the Beijing in such a way that whatever the tourist and sportsperson do, it would always be carbon neutral and not causing any pollution and damage to environment? It certainly contradict the real goal of Beijing Olympic. Do we expect Beijing Olympic Committee to ensure capitalist who just made huge profit during the Olympic Game to be environmental considerate when spending their money? Does Beijing Olympic Committee ever concern of the effect on the environment after this artificial booming of economy?
Moreover, how would it do to the environments other than the city of Beijing when most of resource and attention is devoted to Beijing for the sake of window dressing? Since ecosystem is inherently a connected whole, by overfocusing on one place to be detriment of other would not do much good to environment of China as a whole, let alone the Earth as a whole. How sincere is its goal of benefit the environment of China as a whole when Communist China shut down the website of Green activist, and place them under house arrest, knowing that would increase the level of corruption in other cities?
If Beijing Olympic could be consider as a Green Olympic by solely focus on the process of Olympic Games but not the context under which it is happening, then why don’t we nominate Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Polpot for Nobel Peace Prize because they reduce the load on environment by massacring million of their own citizens?

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