With the Olympics Looming, China Goes Green

April 20, 2007 — -- In Beijing, 1,600 students attend the Number Two Middle School, an institution widely regarded as one of the best secondary schools in China.

The school is revered for producing some of the country's best and brightest, yielding students who receive top scores on China's annual college entrance exams.

The students at Number Two stand out, however, not only because of their academic achievement, but because of their enlightened attitude toward the environment.

Over the last few years, especially since Beijing was awarded the 2008 Olympic Games, environmental awareness has gotten a new emphasis among those who will be the next generation of China's educated leaders.

At the school, there is an environmental curriculum and an active environmental club. All of the attention paid to the environment poses a fundamental question: Can China sustain a booming economy and also protect its environment?

Many at this specific school would say yes, a better environment makes for a better economy. But the balance is not easy to accomplish. In fact, Beijing is struggling to improve its air quality in time for the looming Olympic Games yet the city itself is under construction 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

There is no question China wants to put its best foot forward for the Olympics, but there is a lot of work to be done. For example, because the air in China is still many times dirtier than the air in Los Angles, America's smoggiest city, the government is determined to increase China's air quality and reduce the amount of air pollution.

"We are faced with challenges in our environmental protection work," said Du Shaozhong, Beijing's deputy director of the municipality's Environmental Protection Bureau.

He showed ABC News how the city measured air quality around the clock. It turns out the most polluted time of the day is 10 p.m., when the exhaust-belching commercial trucks make their deliveries to the city.