According to Beijing’s bid to hold the 2022 Winter Olympic Games, the environmental impact of the Games will be “ecofriendly” and “sustainable”. Experts say otherwise: providing snow for events will be tough in a city where “it just doesn’t snow” and “a Martian-like plan” will be needed to create artificial cover. Conservationists worry about moves to build Olympic ski resorts in national parks and protected nature reserves. Ski resorts, meanwhile, require water and lots of it but Beijing doesn’t have water.
To the piste!
The constant stream of news coverage on China’s water crisis hasn’t dampened Beijing’s bid to host the 2022 winter Olympics and the production of a key, water-guzzling component of that bid: snow. The Economist reports.
Sucking Beijing dry
(November 22, 2012) The construction of a massive water-guzzling, water-based theatrical extravaganza in China’s capital, has many questioning the wisdom of such a project in a city as desperately dry as Beijing. Nevermind ‘House of Dancing Water,’ say experts – including Ma Jun and Hu Kanping – the real leisure threats to the city’s parched reserves are golf courses and hot spring pools.
Ski resorts gulp Beijing’s water supplies
(April 29, 2011) In a new report published by the Beijing-based Friends of Nature and Canadian environmental group Probe International, Chinese environmental researcher, Hu Kanping, documents the impact of ski resorts on drought-stricken Beijing.
Beijing’s Ski Slopes as Thirsty as 8,300 Households
(April 21, 2011) Beijing badly lacks water, but much of the available supply is slurped up by luxury apartments and bottling plants. Friends of Nature researchers have recently drawn attention to the additional drain of the million tons a year pumped into artificial snow machines at 17 skiing facilities around the city.
Inspection of city water usage
(March 22, 2010) The authorities are launching an inspection of venues in Beijing that consume the largest amounts of water, with a focus on public baths, as countries around the globe mark World Water Day today.
Patricia Adams
Dai Qing
Fan Xiao
Lawrence Solomon
Mu Lan
Probe International
Lisa Peryman
Probe Media
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Probe International 