There is no escape from the frenzy of Beijing Olympics coverage. And the one thing that all the American media can’t talk enough about is how polluted the city and/or country is.

There are daily haze reports, particulate meter readings, algae bloom cleanups, athletes arriving in the airport in masks, athletes training in other countries to only enter Beijing on the day of their event, etc.

China is polluted; there is no doubt about that. But the media coverage so far makes it seem like China is the only country at fault for polluting the Earth and ruining the environment.

All this pollution watch coverage doesn’t deflect from the fact the United States still is one of the top per capita carbon emitters on the planet. But the media seem to overlook this and none have mentioned this in any of their reports about China’s pollution.

China’s population is 1.3 billion people and growing; but each person’s carbon footprint is minimal compared to individual Americans. Most Americans own a car; sometimes a family owns more than one car. And most need to drive to get to work, or run errands, or even to get to spots where we can enjoy nature. We usually live in houses that consume a lot of energy from electronics like computers, flat-screen televisions, washing/drying machines, etc. A lot of rural Chinese don’t have electricity or large houses or cars. Those that live in cities usually live in apartments, which use less electricity than houses, and get around by public transportation or bicycle.

But the Chinese lifestyle and country has changed over the past decades. The opening up of the economy has lifted many of its citizens out of poverty but, in return, has turned them into consumers. Many of the nouveau-riche now want cars, electronics, and other things that make their lives more comfortable, but at the cost to their environment. But why should the media criticize the Chinese for wanting and creating lifestyles that are similar to Americans at the same financial levels yet not pointing out the polluting ways of ourselves?

Foreign companies moved into China to take advantage of cheap labor and thus are directly responsible for creating factories that spew out the pollution that everyone is so critical to the Chinese about. The Chinese government is to blame because they should have put regulations in place to control the levels of toxins emitted instead of just seeing dollar signs in their eyes. But the foreign companies, many of them American, are responsible too, yet they turn a blind eye and also see only profit margins and moneymaking ability.

The media needs to dig deeper in their China pollution coverage to uncover the unpopular truths about who really is to blame and is responsible for the unfortunate environmental problems that China is dealing with now.

They would find that their coverage is hypocritical and irresponsible, especially considering all the airplane rides and energy-consumption their Olympics coverage is using up.

keeping the earth ever green

Lisa Tae-Ran Schroeder