It is certainly true that we do good to the Chinese people, to all the living creatures in China, and to everybody everywhere, to bring attention to environmental problems in that country.

And yet, in the latest Newsweek, the China scholar Orville Schell cautions us, with the counsel that any criticism of China right now is going to backfire.

I for my part am already miserable for having inadvertently driven away our excellent, knowledgeable and beloved correspondent, Patrick in Beijing, perhaps because I offended him, or perhaps because I included links to Tiananmen Square and Tibet in something I posted in response to his own comment.

So, even though it feels very creepy and un-American, we are advised to lie low, for a month.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

While Americans can't lecture anyone else without being at least somewhat hypocritical, the massive ecological destruction that has been taking place in China over the past two or three decades is huge and should not be ignored or suffered in silence.

But from an athlete's perspective, China was a horrible choice for the Olympics.  It would be an incredibly difficult decision, but if I qualified to participate, I'm almost positive I'd have to decline because of the disgustingly filthy air.  Unfortunately, big decisions like this are not made for logical reasons, but for money, advertising, and in this case PR.  While the Olympics themselves cause plenty of pollution and environmental destruction just by their taking place, holding them in a city where one can barely breathe because of pollution is ludicrous.

Corporations have basically "exported" the pollution the US and Europe have been trying--with good success--to suppress for the last 50 yrs. What you see in China is a result of little or no laws governing emissions. If China does have laws on the books governing idustrial pollutants, they should enforce them. What, you say, that would increase the cost of production? That protecting the health of its citizens may lead to a flood of manufacturing and capital leaving the country because of the expense of running a clean operation? That investors and corporations(and apparently the Chinese government)don't give a rats patoot about human life and would rather naw off their left arms than submit to greater controls, lest their profit margins go down? Yeah, it's a damn shame what's happening to capitalists. I mean really, everybody has to die sometime, right? If you go from industrial toxins or a heart attack, what's the dif? Seriously, folks, if fekking China can't stand a little criricism about providing a healthy environment for the athletes--much less its own citizens--it shouldn't have applied for the Games. Whining, insecure, xenophobic creeps.

The mellotron is your friend.

Archigeek is right, but keep in mind that China is not some small, militarily weak country on which the current industrialization was forced.  Its leaders have aggressively pursued this and have publicly said that the economy is more important than the environment.  Well, at least they were honest.

I too oppose insulting others when those insults will be counterproductive.  But there are far more effective methods of opposing China's massive environmental destruction, such as cessation of consumption of needless crap, almost all of which is now made in China.  This would, of course, have the added benefit of addressing one of the physical roots of all environmental problems.  But I guess hoping for significant mental and spiritual evolution by humans is asking too much.  Sigh.

I appreciate the comments above about harsh criticism not being very acceptable in China. I think that it is not their way - they may prefer respectful suggestions. (And so would I if I was receiving them.) So how can we best help them with the pollution problem?  Perhaps the West can offer some of its people (as appropriate) to assist the Chinese officials?

In the longer term, I agree with other posters above that Western consumption of manufactured goods must decrease. I think that we in the West must find other ways to happiness than buying goods, a very high percentage of which only end up in landfills anyway. I think that Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping are helping to spread a very important message. In their film "What Would Jesus Buy?", Professor Bill McKibben says:

"In a hundred years Americans will find another way to have fun besides shopping. My worry is that we won't have time to evolve these changes at the usual rate - by then we will derail the earth's systems, especially its climate."