But it’s nice to see many people here are conscious that the everybody should be responsilbe for the global warmming problem, not criticising blindly.

20 year\’s ago, nobody criticised that when developed country were crazily generating CO2.
10 year\’s ago, when developed county started moving lots of industry to the developing conuntries like China, India, they wanted labours there and clean their own countries.

Don\’t you think it\’s ridiculous, they were just shift CO2 generation to Asia, not out of the earth. Since the problems are there, we should look at it with active attitude and do more for the future.

China as a growing industrial power is where the USA was in perhaps the late 50’s and thus not as “enlightened” as you might like. The reality is that regardless of what the west thinks, until China reaches a similar living standard of modern nations, environmental issues will not be a priority… Secure income, Putting food on the table, building a home, purchasing your first car, offering your children an education, these issues dominate the everyday thoughts of over 1.4 billion Chinese.

Although I do agree that China doesn’t do enough- especially since they are such a huge polluter; we can’t simply shift the blame. It’s time to man up and accept responsibility not only for our individual actions but the actions of our government and citizens as well.

These Olympics Gardens are just one of million things that China had done to clean up the environment. I think you should applaud their efforts and not be blinded with a smaller picture.

Toan

When our EXAMPLE ’shames’ China. They will save face by attempting to go us one better on the ‘green’ front ! So it’s really up to US… as in the US – A.

You may be right about these pictures being from Shanghai. As mentioned above, we had some difficulties sourcing the photos but after some digging we found this article:
http://www.lifeinthefastlane.ca/stunning-beijing-olympic-topiary-gardens/

Apparently, there are over 50 Olympic Gardens throughout China, so while this may not be the actual garden in Beijing, it is a part of the Olympic Gardens. I think no matter where the garden is, the objective of creating a ‘green’ facade still remains the same.

More information on China’s pre-Olympics greenwashing can be found at these links:
http://english.hanban.edu.cn/english/olympic/189176.htm
http://www.bgci.org/china_en/news/0513/

Alexandra

You may be right, we had a hard time sourcing the pictures as mentioned above but I think the overall idea still stands. Whether in Beijing or Shanghai, there seems to be a veil of greenwashing throughout China for the upcoming Olympics in a time when environmental issues are prominent and pressing. As one of the world’s greatest polluters and host to the world’s greatest athletic event, China should be doing everything within its means to clear the air for the athletes and the thousands (millions?) of visitors in the country to see them, if not for their own people.

Alexandra