| Navigate: contents || << previous | next >> |
|
Those Hazy Days of [the 2008] Summer [Olympics]
In Beijing on a bad day, the air can be a bit like peanut butter: chunky or crunchy style. Thanks in part to rapid growth piggybacked on Mao Zedong’s lingering ideology that “man must conquer nature,” environmental issues have taken something of a back burner in China. A back burner on a coal-fueled, sulphur-dioxide emittin’, acid-rain causin’ stove.
The air quality in some cities in China is among the worst in the world, and there are places where the water is too toxic to touch, let alone drink or bathe in. Industrial polluters have been able to dump chemicals and untreated effluent into the water and pump toxins into the air largely unchallenged. Air pollution alone causes hundreds of thousands of avoidable deaths every year, and health issues such as breast cancer, respiratory disease and birth defects are on the rise.
With the 2008 Summer Olympics scheduled to take place in Beijing, there is increasing concern that the city will be unable to host safely the world’s elite athletes and visitors to the Games. It’s difficult to know exactly how bad conditions in the capital are. Air pollutants are rarely measured at the source, and for those that are, the information is not generally released to the public or the media. Despite their lauded 27 monitoring stations around Beijing, city officials refuse to divulge specifics, preferring instead to give city-wide averages. Additionally, Beijing doesn’t measure some of the most serious air pollutants, including ozone and fine particulate matter that can trigger asthma. In a city of 15 million inhabitants, where 1,000 new cars hit the roads each day, careful monitoring of air-borne pollutants has become an urgent – if overlooked – necessity.
Some planned measures to make the city greener before the ‘08 Games have apparently fallen through. Organizers promised to temporarily shut down or move the worst industrial polluters from the city, but complaints from factory owners have derailed those plans. According to Elizabeth C. Economy, director of Asia studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, “Some factory managers are refusing to close down for the Olympics, arguing that they are willing to slow, but not halt production.”
Breathe Easy [well, maybe not “easy”. . . ]
While there are obviously legitimate concerns about environmental issues in China, all the news from Beijing isn’t bad. In fact, there’s some very good news.
In 1986, then-President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Juan Antonio Samaranch declared that the environment, along with sports and culture, would make up the three pillars of the Olympic Games. In 2000, in order to make their bid for the 2008 Olympic Games more attractive, the Chinese organizers promised to meet IOC standards for making the Games green. They would uphold the “third pillar” of the Games, organizers said, and Beijing in 2008 would be the first Games built entirely around the idea of sustainable development.
By the end of October 2007, the Municipal Government and Government of China had spent billions on environmental improvements. According to Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary-General and United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Executive Director, the money has so far been “well spent.” Said Steiner, “The initial score card on the Beijing Olympics and Paralympics 2008 is positive in terms of the greening of the Games.”
In preparation for the 2008 Olympic Games, the city is taking some real steps to reduce air pollution from Beijing’s more than 2.6 million cars. To make possible the “blue sky days” the Chinese government promised, from July 25 to September 17, 2008, the number of cars allowed on the roads will be sharply curtailed. For the two-week period of the actual Olympic games, the number of cars allowed in the city will be fewer than a million. Since car exhaust accounts for some 80% of carbon monoxide hanging over Beijing and blowing into neighboring skies, such a dramatic reduction in pollution should bring literally visible results.
The notion of reducing cars on the road was given a sort of practice run in August of 07. Beijing is notorious for the gray haze that settles on the city during summer months, so in a city-wide experiment, officials ordered motorists with even- or odd-numbered license plates to drive on alternate days. Officials have been cagey with the exact numbers their monitors recorded during the pollution reduction experiment, but over a million cars were removed from city streets during those four days.
Other measures under way will also contribute to an increase in “blue sky days.” Those in Beijing lucky enough to have tickets for the Games will be allowed to travel for free on the city’s public transportation, possibly on one of the nearly 3,800 new buses powered by natural gas. Coal use will be sharply curtailed as users switch from coal to natural gas. Those cars still on the road will likely be emitting fewer pollutants: new emissions standards were implemented in 2005, and those standards are due to be updated in 2008. The city’s fleets of taxis and buses are seeing improvement too, as thousands of old and distinctly environmentally unfriendly vehicles are retired and replaced.
Treading Water and Letting in the Sun
Beijing produces roughly 2.78 million cubic meters of wastewater daily. If an Olympic swimming pool has a volume of roughly 2,500 m3, then Beijing could fill 1,112 such pools with gray water every day. In 2001, Beijing promised to be treating 90% of the city’s wastewater – much of which was simply released into nearby waterways – by the time of the Olympics. It looks like Beijing is on track to meet or beat that target; already 10% of the city’s consumption (360 million cubic meters annually) comes from recycled water. As the city is in its eighth year of drought, such a contribution should not be underestimated.
Another treatment center – the Bei Xiao He water reclamation plant – is due to come online by the end of this year, further increasing the city’s capacity for treating waste water. According to the IOC’s Olympic Review, the water will be recycled via a technologically “advanced membrane-filtered wastewater treatment system capable of recycling 80,000 cubic meters of water each day.” Much of the water will be recycled for use on the Olympic Green Hockey Field and the Archery Field. Along with the Qinghe water recycling plant, the Bei Xiao He plant will supply treated and recycled water to six Olympic venues.
The Olympic venues themselves are designed to be water friendly. The permeable blocks that make up the paving at the Fengtai Softball arena allow rainwater to seep through to underground water collection systems; potentially as many as 3,000 cubic meters of rainwater could be captured in the Olympic Media Village, thanks to installation of water-permeable bricks and the addition of pipes and wells.
Solar power is being used extensively throughout the venues: Feng Tai baseball stadium employs a 27 KW photovoltaic system to supply energy to the building, and the National Stadium will be lit by a 130 KW photovoltaic system. Lawns, streets, even the Olympic Village will be illuminated by natural sources.
Green Buildings
A major green component of the Games, and one that is garnering considerable attention, is the sustainable design approach to the construction of Olympic venues. One of the most important considerations for planners was that the buildings not become – as many Olympic venues do – “white elephants” for the city. The venues need to be usable structures that will bring continued value to the city, not costly burdens unable to pay for their own keep.
In addition to having usefulness that extends far beyond the Games, designers and builders looked for innovative ways to make the Olympic structures sustainable in their creation and for their entire life spans. Most of the excitement centers around two unusual buildings: the “Water Cube” and the “Bird’s Nest.”
The gorgeous, bubble-clad Aquatics Centre (nicknamed the “Water Cube”) was initially designed by PTW Architects, CSCEC International Design and Arup. Built by CSCEC (China State Construction Engineering Corporation), the building is covered with over 100,000 square meters of ETFE, a tough, fluoropolymer that can withstand high temperatures over extended periods. The membrane of ETFE “pillows” is thin – only eight one-thousandths of an inch thick – to allow light and heat to penetrate. More efficient than glass, the ETFE could potentially decrease energy costs by up to 30%.
Additionally, after the sun goes down, the 80,000 m2 building will be lit by some 440,000 Cree Xlamp LEDs, embedded throughout the Water Cube. Said Scott Schwab, Cree Asia Pacific managing director, “It’s an extraordinary design that relies on LEDs to create dramatic effects while consuming as little energy as possible.”
The design of Beijing National Stadium, or the “Bird’s Nest,” also took environmental issues under consideration. A collaboration among architectural team Herzog and de Meuron, Arup Sport and China Architecture Design & Research Group, the stadium was dubbed the “Bird’s Nest” thanks to its appearance of “woven” steel bands. The spaces between the steel bands will be filled in with translucent ETFE panels. Lighter than glass, these panels reduce load on the structure and allow natural sunlight to illuminate and heat the stadium and feed the natural grass inside. Ventilation by natural rather than artificial sources will reduce energy consumption and emissions.
Looking Forward: the Games and Beyond
Newly planted trees, a 580 hectare Olympic Forest Park, recycled plastic composites used for picnic tables and window shutters, reusable cups and natural sunlight tunneled through to interior corridors and underground parking garages: the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (BOCOG) is clearly taking its promise of a Green Games very seriously.
And it’s not just the Olympic committees and governmental officials who are looking to green up China. Grassroots organizations – many that have been in existence for some time – are taking advantage of the government’s focus on environmental issues and stepping up their own efforts. Public schools are modeling their behavior on the Olympic values, including sustainability and environmental awareness. New initiatives are underway to protect China’s biodiversity, measure industrial and agricultural pollution sources and educate the public.
Although many point to China as a potential (or actual) environmental time bomb, thanks to its massive population and rapid economic growth, there is reason to be hopeful. Awareness of current and future sustainability concerns is informing decisions and guiding behaviors, and the Chinese people and their government are looking far beyond the 2008 Olympic Games.
If you want one year of prosperity, plant corn.
If you want ten years of prosperity, plant trees.
If you want one hundred years of prosperity, educate people."
— Chinese proverb