Sunday, November 3, 2013

Shanghaî Disneyland : Will you be able to see the top of SDL castle when you'll walk in the park ?



Shanghaî Disneyland will open at the end of 2015. Great. But will you be able to see the top of SDL castle when you'll be in the park? What a question, normally the answer should be "yes, of course", right? Well, most of the time it will be the case but the pollution problem in China is just so big now that some days the answer might be "no", specially if you'll be there in one of the peak pollution days like it happened last January ( see Shanghaî picture below shot at that time ).

You may think i exaggerate, and i agree as most of the year Shanghaî is "visible", but to give you an idea of how big the pollution problem is in China, up in the north, in Beijing the air is so bad that it has reached 380 on the Air Quality Index (AQI), i.e 15 times the limit fixed by the OMS. And mid january the AQI index jumped to 900, i.e 40 times the OMS limit. This month it even went up to a AQI 1000! At this point the air you're breathing is killing you, purely and simply ( if i can say ).

China's government finally decided that over a certain pollution point there will be an alternate driving ( meaning that some cars will be allowed to drive, others not ) and of course fireworks are forbidden. Can you imagine a Disney theme park "lost in the pollution fog" and with no fireworks? I can't, but it might happen if China's pollution problem get worst, mostly because cars and coal factories which of course China central government is not willing to close right now. Not a funny vision for SDL future, i agree, but i wouldn't bet that it won't happen.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Pollutants from China are blown to Hong Kong by the winter monsoon too.

Anonymous said...

Alain, I couldn't agree more. This is something that truly struck me when I was in Shanghai a couple years ago.

Something The Mouse should have thought about before...

Allan said...

Xi Jinping is rumoured to be seriously considering moving the Chinese capital away from Beijing during his two terms as Chinese president. Two reasons, pollution and congestion.