The Greening of the Middle East?

[BridgeTheGap]

February 9 was a historic day in the environmental shaming of the Unites States as Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, broke ground on Masdar City, a $22 billion municipality that will be carless, solar powered, and almost entirely self-contained. Water will come from a seawater desalinization plant, produce will come from surrounding greenhouses, and all waste will be composted or recycled, writes the New York Times.

The groundbreaking came on the heels of a January announcement by the Masdar Initiative, a renewable energy investment company, that the UAE will commit $15 billion dollars for initial research on sustainable programs. This investment represents the biggest government-sponsored renewable energy program in the world, and it comes from a nation that gained much of its wealth through oil and natural gas. This fact has some wondering: Can one grand progressive step erase decades of carbon emissions irresponsibility?

http://tinyurl.com/38upc9

[ananda]

1. While it's all very nice and responsible that..

.. one little city in the ME is doing something
environmentally responsible..

.. that hardly represents the ME.

Still, wouldn't it be nice if every city in the
USA would follow this example.

I wonder if there's any money left for municipalities
to use for such a purpose.

Markets are way down. Bonds are hard to secure.
Loan markets are drying up. People's resources are
strained and property taxes are going to be rather
unreliable sources of income....

[NickB79]

2. Paying for solar panels by selling millions of barrels of oil

Yes, sounds very, very green to me :sarcasm: