It’s hard to guage sustainable progress vs. more green wash. Perhaps the most prevalent occurance of green wash going on right now is in Beijing and Hong Kong as the world gears up to the 2008 Olympics.

An article in Financial Times today articulates how Chinese leaders “have failed to recognise the extreme seriousness of the country’s air pollution and have favoured the appearance of progress over the difficult actions required to make progress real”. Not to be mistaken as ‘haze’ as officials would like to have us believe, the city of Hong Kong is is apparently suffering the worst pollution levels on record as it prepares to host the equestrian events of the Olympics.

From what I am reading, there appears to be a lot riding on the effect of the wind to clear away the dense smog that is currently looming heavily before the great Olymipic expectations.

Billions of dollars have been invested in the ‘greening’ of the Chinese Olympics but the fact that construction work has been halted, factories are closed and vehicle traffic restrictions (odd/even license plate scheme) demonstrates the severity and immediacy of the environmental crisis afflicting modern China. What a grand experiment, to see how major reduction in emmisions effect air quality in the very short term.

Ask a Chinese Anything is a fabulous blog on devlopment in China.

Back to wind and possibilities. I have always tried to imagine what wind powered freight would look like, while sailing around the massive vessels in English Bay every week. I think about tall ships, kite assisted freighters, and I try to imagine what is inside each container. Yesterday, I came across a post on the NY Times freakonomics blog about the return of the tall ship and wind powered freight. Enjoy it here. Also, a company called SkySails is 'turning wind into profit' with their Beluga kites made for regular freighters to reduce the amount of fuel needed to cross the ocean - up to 35% annually and up to 50% on trips with perfect wind conditions.

In the words of Paul Hawken, "Sustainability means re-imagining the world in such a way that we can stay here."