The title of this post is a lie. I hate pollution. There is nothing worse than waking up in the morning, going outside, and seeing a band of hazy brown smog on the horizon. It makes me want to throw up. This is why I can never live in LA or New York. My ideal local would be in the middle of an aspen forest deep in the Rocky Mountains, or possibly a hidden village filled with idealistic scientists on a tropical jungle, like the island on Lost before Ben killed everyone with poison gas. Which, oddly enough, is precisely what pollution is.
If I was an Olympic athlete I would be boycotting the Beijing games right now just on the grounds of preventing irrevocable respiratory harm to international competitors. I guess the upside would be that I would probably have a better chance of beating everyone who does compete next time, after all that nasty Beijing pollution settles in their lungs and gives them chronic emphysema. But would it be worth it, to come out ahead at the price of harm to so many others? I mean, I know 18 million other people live in Beijing, but only about 2 of them are competing in the 400m hurdles. The rest of them can go about their normal, masked, coughing, polluted lives, because this is their home. The athletes are just visiting, and they deserve the best air in the world for three weeks.
If I was an Olympic athlete I would be boycotting the Beijing games right now just on the grounds of preventing irrevocable respiratory harm to international competitors. I guess the upside would be that I would probably have a better chance of beating everyone who does compete next time, after all that nasty Beijing pollution settles in their lungs and gives them chronic emphysema. But would it be worth it, to come out ahead at the price of harm to so many others? I mean, I know 18 million other people live in Beijing, but only about 2 of them are competing in the 400m hurdles. The rest of them can go about their normal, masked, coughing, polluted lives, because this is their home. The athletes are just visiting, and they deserve the best air in the world for three weeks.
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