I was reading in Business Week and Newsweek that China has paid a great price in an environmental sense for development. The Newsweek article dicussed the contrast between the Olympic facilities, which are state of the art, and the dire environmental picture outside the cities. The article noted that the rivers around Bejing are drying up and the country has resorted to shooting chemicals in the air to try to instigate rainfall. Along with the drought, the Business Week article noted that 70% of China's rivers and lakes are in "grim shape." In addition, 20% of the population lives in severely polluted areas. China is poised to become the biggest emitter of carbon dioxide by 2009.

These statistics are staggering when you think about them. One of the rivers in China used to be viewed as a destructive force, since it flooded areas with a vengeance. Now, it is almost completely dried up. Is it worth Olympic-stadium type of development, if there are no clean natural resources around such development? One notable point made in the Newsweek article was that the country will be hard-pressed to find enough water to fill up the Olympic pool for the upcoming games, given the water shortage. The price for rapid development is indeed very high.