The Middle Eastern City of the Future.

If leaders of the United Arab Emirates get their way, there will be a revolutionary new urban landscape built in the desert. Masdar City is only a theory now, but if its planned construction outside of Abu Dhabi actually occurs, then the United States could end up falling behind the Middle East in the new global energy paradigm. The word "masdar" means "the source" in Arabic, and considering the global commodity that has transformed this nation of city-states, observers should be stunned when they find out what will actually power the new development. Unlike the Sun Belt cities sprawling through the American Southwest, Masdar City is deliberately being constructed to be sustainable.

The goals of this project are formidable. First of all, there will be absolutely no cars. This proposition by itself is virtually heretical to modern society. The predominant mode of conveyance will be magnetic light rail. The city's energy will be derived mostly from solar and wind powers- sources to be found in great abundance in the dry climate of the region, and alongside the Gulf waters. Age-old wisdom and sensitivity to geography will be employed as well. Designers have imagined narrow streets whereby convective air forces will provide a natural type of "air conditioning". When all is said and done, Masdar City is to have absolutely no ecological footprint, since there will be no carbon emissions or other wastes. This would be remarkable, as the UAE currently produces five times as many carbon pollutants as the world average.

The official plans have set a target for 15,000 inhabitants by 2018. Apparently it is also expected to employ 50,000 workers on a regular basis, and may eventually expand to a population of 100 thousand. Obviously, in a city of any substantial size, energy is not the only problem. In a region with more energy than it can possibly use, water is a much more valuable premium. The planners of Masdar City expect to meet their needs with desalination technology that's been slowly evolving for decades. Meanwhile, palm and grove trees will profit from this inexhaustible supply, and yield biofuels (which the Emirates anticipate as a possible replacement for oil in the future). Crop production will be facilitated by the use of "gray water".

All of this activity will be monitored with a network of sensors and data miners. Academics and efficiency experts will have the chance to continuously re-evaluate their methods, and learn from the mistakes. The Masdar Institute of Science and Technology will be formed, and will work in conjunction with MIT to offer Masters and PhD programs. The real world expertise gleaned from the observation and management of a functionally sustainable city will help provide solutions to current energy and ecological problems throughout the world. Alongside with ambitious plans for carbon sequestration (CO2 Capture and storage), the UAE could well position itself as a global leader for generations to come.

Preparations for this model city mirror a similar project in another nation with a similarly brutal environmental record. China's proposed "zero-emission" city is called Dongtan, and will be located on an island at the mouth of the Yangtse River. Anyway- it's ironic that a Middle Eastern country that has so prospered from the world's dependence on oil can form a vision of foresight that includes a sustainable future once its key resource has run out. While the UAE invests its treasure in alternative energies, the United States wastes its own increasingly limited resources on wars to stabilize their access to "black gold". Even our former Cold War opponent Russia has embraced green technologies with a huge project at the heart of Moscow (using Japanese expertise). If we continue our current trajectory, we are doomed to increasing irrelevance.

Bush, Smoke and Mirrors.

George Bush has just announced his plan to address greenhouse gases, a major contributor to global warming. He pledges that by 2025 the increase of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States will come to a halt. Does this mean that the president has now fully embraced the imminent threat of climate change? No, he's actually relaxing earlier plans to accelerate the process of CO2 reductions. He has certainly spent a lot of time denying that there is a problem that the federal government can play a role in combating. Many of his public statements in the past have attempted to minimize the effect that human beings are having on the environment. In 2004 James R. Mahoney, director of the administration's climate change science program, stated that the largest influence on changing climate conditions was "water vapor". Conservative AM talk radio pundits have parroted the inanities, going so far as to target trees as the main culprit.

The Bush administration's recalcitrance on this issue is nothing new. It was during the three months of his very first term in office that Christy Todd Whitman (Dubya's EPA director at the time) announced that the United States had no intention of honoring the Kyoto Protocol. This took a few of Bush's supporters by surprise, as he had made a campaign promise that he would make sure to seek some sort of carbon dioxide limits. Still his economic adviser Lawrence Lindsay said that it was a very simple choice for the American people- "We have a major energy crisis ... We have a choice in this country of having the lights on or, at least in the short run, having more carbon dioxide.'' Apparently the Bush administration has never considered alternative (non-polluting) energies as a real possibility.

Whenever Bush or his cronies are confronted by the suggestion that we pursue cleaner energy, they respond that such a move will hurt our economy and American workers. They assert that the necessary infrastructure does not exist to make a substantive transformation. This is no doubt true... the only investments the federal government has been willing to make have been for oil pipelines and refineries. No surprise here- the Bush administration is jam-packed with men and women who have made their personal fortunes from the oil industry. That is patently obvious from their foreign policy agenda. Any true assessment of the costs of maintaining the current fossil fuel paradigm must include the resources the US has invested in controlling Middle Eastern affairs.

Another big obstacle to American participation in the Kyoto Protocol is the contention that none of the world's industrialized powers are on board with it. Why should the United States put itself at a competitive disadvantage? Indeed developing nations are expected to decrease their emissions less than first world nations. China and India are often cited as being the monsters within this subgroup. Chinese dependence on coal is the greatest threat to the well-being of future generations of human life. There is no doubt that the United States should build incentives into its relationships with these nations, and levy economic penalties against them until they adopt cleaner energy technologies. The only interests being served by 'free trade' with China are the global corporations that import/export large quantities of Chinese-made products (cue the Walmart jingle now). The American worker certainly doesn't profit from the current trade deficit.

An honest approach to the reduction of greenhouse gases does indeed require a substantial national commitment. If there was no benefit to curbing pollution (besides the potential health of the human race and its quality of life), then perhaps I could understand the resistance of the Bush administration and its 'free-market' libertarian allies. But that's not the case at all. Opening up new avenues of alternative energies will ultimately position the United States to regain its place as one of the economic giants of the world. We could become leaders in the emerging global industry of green technologies. The job growth and profit potential in this arena will help to offset the losses we would suffer in transforming our infrastructure. I understand that this is a huge project requiring the initial investment of large sums of wealth- and I think the project is absolutely necessary for our future.