The world’s largest and most advanced airport building - not only technologically, but also in terms of passenger experience, operational efficiency and sustainability – Beijing Airport will be welcoming and uplifting. A symbol of place, its soaring aerodynamic roof and dragon-like form will celebrate the thrill of flight and evoke traditional Chinese colours and symbols. -- from the British architects, Norman Foster and PartnersNot content with their dominance of the world economy, the Chinese want to show the rest of us they mean business with an airport shaped like a dragon. Forster contrasted the new Beijing terminal with the new London Heathrow terminal 5. He indicated that the Chinese had completed the building in less time than the four-year public inquiry was undertaken about Heathrow.
I'm not entirely sure which is better - a system that doesn't bother to ask what you think at all, or a system which asks, but then overrules the views of the majority of non-corporate participants during an extended legal process.
China's economic growth is so rapid that it became the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases last year, years before it was expected to reach that particular tipping point. The flights to carry tens of millions of extra air passengers is only going to make the environmental situation worse.
Meanwhile, attempts by the British government to regulate the carbon offsetting market has produced a new set of proposals and a new set of criticisms. As Kevin Smith eloquently put it here on the Celsias blog, the whole system is built on hot air. Giving money to developing countries is welcome, but does not help address the problem in any meaningful way.
We have no moral authority to question China's development whilst we continue to hide our own carbon addiction and refuse to enter treatment. Shame be on all of us.
