Beijing Skiing - wasting water?
An article in The Telegraph highlights an environmental clash between Chinese skiers and their local government.
China’s new moneyed classes have found a self-indulgent hobby to help them through the sweltering summer: skiing. Beijing’s cool set has been taking to the slopes on winter weekends for years as whole mountainsides are covered with artificial snow to compensate for a lack of the real stuff.
Now enthusiasts who cannot wait for winter can visit Qiaobo Ski and Snow World which opened this month as temperatures outside nudged 100F.
The capital’s first indoor ski resort, named after Ye Qiaobo, China’s ice-skating Olympic medal winner, is set in an enormous warehouse-like structure in the entirely flat northern suburbs. For just over £10 an hour, patrons can snowplough their way down one of two slopes then repair for some après-ski to its bars, massage centre or karaoke room.
But a cloud has appeared over Qiaobo’s man-made mountain. Communist Party leaders, shocked at the western extravagance that skiing represents, are reported to be considering a ban on further resorts. A stern article in the party’s mouthpiece, the China Daily, suggested that converting water into snow for the rich was at odds with official policy of conserving it for farmers and industry.
