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I have a friend who is intimately involved in bringing the Games to Chicago in 2016. He's working on the environmental committee trying to make the Games green. At this point, they think that they can make it either carbon neutral or potentially carbon negative (removing more carbon than they use).
Beijing isn't going to be like that.
I was in Beijing in 2000, just before they were awarded the games (a few weeks before Syndey, actually). I remember thinking that the endurance athletes were going to hate it. I sincerely think that we could see some serious health problems in the marathon, some potentially deadly. Even with some of the air pollution cleaned up, it is still going to be as bad or worse than Athens, which was horrible.
Friends, for the 5 days I was in Beijing, the sky was orange in the middle of the day. People who see my pictures ask what happened to the camera.
Politics will not be an issue. The government simply won't allow it to be. Foreigners who come in with the idea to protest (low class, IMO) are going to be quietly escorted back to the airport and sent home. Chinese nationals know better.
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"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo
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