| We completed Environmental Science: In Context while working on assignment in China and Cambodia in June 2008. In Beijing preparations for the 2008 Olympics were nearing completion. The last bits of construction were finishing in a flurry of activity. The city and its generous people readied themselves to put their best foot forward as host to the world. Flower boxes lined airports and roadways, all overflowing with beauty. The excitement in the air was palpable, but so too was the smog that, at times, tortured the lungs and brought both real and symbolic tears to the eyes.
Walking along a clean swept road one day, we watched as a small piece of paper, no larger than a gum wrapper, flew off the backpack of a young man speeding along on his bicycle to work or school. The young man never saw the litter and soon turned a corner. The small piece of paper, something that would be inconspicuous among the debris routinely encountered along streets in most of the other great capitals of the world, stood in stark contrast to the clean street and generous bike path. Less than a minute later, however, a woman peddling by in the opposite direction spotted the paper, turned, stopped, dismounted from her bicycle, picked up the paper and put in her own backpack before resuming her journey. |
