quote:

---

WWF and the government of Abu Dhabi have launched a Sustainability Strategy to deliver the world’s greenest city – Masdar City. The six square kilometre city, designed by Foster and Associates, is to house an eventual 50,000 people in accordance with WWF One Planet Living sustainability standards which include specific targets for the city’s ecological footprint.

---

Project for a carbon free, zero waste city

... oh, and car free ...

[ 15 January 2008: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Webgear:
That is incredible concept; it would be an amazing city to visit once it is complete. I hope a city like that could be created in Canada.

---

Those would be ideal areas for cities like these considering the majority of Canadians live in these areas.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Webgear:
Imagine the GTA being reformed into these cities.

---

Hope handguns are banned from those cities, but with shitheads like the Harpercons in power, not bloody likely.

ETA: sorry I was so harsh, I was watching coverage of another innocent bystander shot in Toronto this week, outside the Brass Rail. I agree with the Mayor: ban handguns 100%, no collectors, no hobbyists, and so on.

[ 15 January 2008: Message edited by: Boom Boom ]

I wonder what the cost of these cities are? Are they building these cities from scratch? Who is going to live in these new cities?

It also feels like a videogame such SIMCITY, Civilisations or Medieval Total War.

Even if I wanted to live in an urban setting.

[ 15 January 2008: Message edited by: Webgear ]

quote:

---

My impression is that these first cities will be for the rich and powerful.

---

Maybe there is some sort of waste buring/energy producing system in place?

In April 2006, Abu Dhabi took a bold and historic decision to embrace renewable and sustainable energy technologies.

quote:

---

What waste is from desalination?

---

quote:

---

... ocean acidification is for humanity's intents and purposes, a relatively permanent vacation to hell. Sure, acidification can be reversed or repaired, but only after thousands if not millions of years have passed. In other words, not in your lifetime, or your great-great-great grandchildren's lifetimes either.

Which begs the deeper question: Have global desalination efforts, already compromised by technological inefficiencies and overt waste, taken into account the dramatic rise in oceanic acidity? The answer is, not really.

"I do not believe desalination advocates have taken into account the resulting acidification of the ocean that will take place as intensive amounts of salt brine are returned to the seas," Barlow answered. "For every unit of freshwater derived from the process, an equal unit of poisonous salt brine is dumped back into the oceans. Currently, desalination plants produce 5 billion gallons of waste every day. Production of desalination plants is expected to triple by 2015, tripling brine waste dumping and the acidification of the oceans."

---

http://www.alternet.org/environment/73512/?page=2

quote:

---

Originally posted by Frustrated Mess:

You see why I'm a doomer webgear? We are so fucked and we barely no to what scale.

---

I see you as a very positive person.

I do believe that much of the salt that traveled the trading routes was derived this way.

Would not this full evaporation balance out the returning of saltier water to the ocean? Different oceans, I know, but it all mixes in the end.

FM,

Wanted to reply to you in that thread I started: Turning the desert green but was unable to since it was locked.

You were right of course, though my thread was prompted by a different article that stressed hydrogen technology. My remarks might better have been directed toward that thread on the Three Gorges Dam project.

[ 22 January 2008: Message edited by: bliter ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Frustrated Mess:
You see why I'm a doomer webgear? We are so fucked and we barely no to what scale.

---

quote:

---

I don't share those concerns re: damage to the ocean in the desalinization process. In Australia, for instance, and I'm sure other places, sea water is totally evaporated for its salt and other minerals.

---

quote:

---

I'd suggest trying to find an article on desalination that was a bit more fact-driven than that...*ahem* piece of work.

---

quote:

---

sea water is totally evaporated for its salt and other minerals

...

Would not this full evaporation balance out the returning of saltier water to the ocean? Different oceans, I know, but it all mixes in the end.

---

Would have to crunch some numbers Bliter... But I'd suspect that is analogous to cutting down 5 full grown oaks and planting a single acorn to balance it out.... 5 billion gallons per day (I'd probably get a non-rounded figure to use for calculations) is much more than any salt harvesting would be. We'd have to get a general idea on how much would of a percent change to see a significant change, and then see how much 5 billion galloens per day is. I would expect the result to fit into the 'Not our lifetime, something our children will have to deal with' category, but we'll see.

quote:

---

wtf? I'm an asshat because I didn't take an Alternet article as gospel, and I suggested finding other sources of info?

Fuck this, I'm out.

---

quote:

---

Perhaps we can build a car that runs on salt brine?

---

It's moot though, since this is to be a car-free city.

ETA

timmah,

Hope you're still around and have cooled off a tad.

I too had questions regarding that article, and would really appreciate links to other sources from which you might have gleaned further info.

[ 22 January 2008: Message edited by: bliter ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by martin dufresne:
Rather useful in a pickle.

---

quote:

---

FM personal attacks are against this boards rules

---

Here is a country with an economy based on oil, that is building a city to show how very much of that oil may be left in the ground to be replaced by solar and wind power.

Do we imagine this technology will stop at Abu Dhabi - that a ground swell won't develop with others adopting it?

In fact, I think it is amazing and fascinating. But I think we must be careful. So much of the harm we do to ourselves, ultimately, results from being awed at the "gee whiz!" factor and not properly examining all the implications.

For example, while certainly desalination might be a legitimate option in the middle-east and it can, I am sure, even be made a waste free process, in other jurisdictions desalination is given first consideration over good water stewardship, management, and conservation.