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China to Build a Zero-Carbon Green City

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the tired-of-getting-whined-at-for-beijing dept.

gormanw writes "Just outside Shanghai, there is an island about the size of Manhattan. China is going to build its first-ever 'green city', complete with no gasoline/diesel powered vehicles, 100% renewable energy, green roofs, and recycling everything. The city is called Dongtan and it should house about 5,000 people by the end of 2010, with estimates of 500,000 by 2050. The goal is to build a livable city that is energy efficient, non-polluting, and protects the wildlife in the area."

51 of 620 comments (clear)

  1. Good Luck... by iamwhoiamtoday · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I hope that this pans out, but the manufacturing of said Renewable energy will probably offset the whole "Green" side of things... Well, hopefully it will all work out for the best. The question is, apart from Government financing, is it possible for Normal People to buy a Green Home / Car / Life?

    1. Re:Good Luck... by Whiney+Mac+Fanboy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The question is, apart from Government financing, is it possible for Normal People to buy a Green Home / Car / Life?

      Move close to your work (or get a job you can telecommute to), use a bike / walk / public transport wherever possible. Insulate. Put in a water tank.

      There - not that hard & no need to go whining to the government for a hand out.

      --
      There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
    2. Re:Good Luck... by dAzED1 · · Score: 5, Insightful
      you left out:

      become vegan, or at least vegetarian (the cattle industry is extraordinarily destructive to the planet

      fix things, instead of replacing them

      wear studier clothes, longer

    3. Re:Good Luck... by Kell+Bengal · · Score: 3, Insightful
      The GP said "Normal People" - vegetarianism and veganism are, for most of the world, unusual. I'm not going to enter into the debate as to whether they are desirable modes of living or not.

      I think the real question we should be asking wrt to diet is 'How can we make farming and agriculture a green process?'

      --
      Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
      altslashdot.org: The future of slashdot.
    4. Re:Good Luck... by sycodon · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "Move close to your work (or get a job you can telecommute to)"

      The modern day equivalent of "Let them eat cake".

      In general, the cost of housing goes up exponentially the closer you get to the average workplace.

      --
      When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
    5. Re:Good Luck... by mrroot · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Excuses take the responsibility off your shoulders so you can feel good about doing nothing.

      Bite the bullet and make changes. Over two years ago, I cut my commute in half by moving closer to the city (no its not an urban blight neighborhood, nor is it a million dollar condo). While everyone else is complaining about gas prices, I don't give it a second thought. That is nice, but the reason I moved wasn't for gas prices or for the environment, it was to conserve the most precious resource I have... time.

      If you commute 45 minutes each way to work, and let's say you work 5 days a week for 48 weeks out of the year (taking out 4 weeks for vacation and holidays). That means you spend 360 hours per year in your car driving to and from work. How many hours of vacation-time does your employer give you? 80? 120? If you cut your commute in half, you get an extra 180 hours per year!

      By the way, a really good book I read a while back is called "Take Back Your Time", and there is also a Take back your time website.

      --
      I Heart Sorting Networks
    6. Re:Good Luck... by p0tat03 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Move close to your work (or get a job you can telecommute to), use a bike / walk / public transport wherever possible. Insulate. Put in a water tank.

      And have the right attitude.

      Let me explain. Most people can't afford to live close to work, considering how expensive housing is in heavily developed office areas. Here in Seattle it can be up to *millions* to live within walking distance of work. Most people can't afford that.

      So, the next best thing is to live somewhere with good public transportation coverage. This effectively cuts out *all* suburbs, since bus service is invariably trash due to the lack of ridership and the vast areas to cover with way too few vehicles. Your only real choice left are condo complexes built around transit hubs. Most American cities don't even *have* a hub-based public transit system (local traffic around a hub, with high speed links between hubs). So, if you live in the wrong city, you're ALREADY SOL.

      And most transit authorities have no means to fix this problem. This is where attitude comes in. America has been car-obsessed for so long that riding the bus has become taboo - something the neighbours whisper about. "Oh, that poor Bob! They must be in dire straits, he can't even drive a car to work!"

      And indeed it's cyclical. Transit is looked upon as the poor person's choice, and the affluent commuters shun it. This results in less revenue for the bus service, which eventually deteriorates. To maintain some semblance of service, cutbacks have to be made, and obviously the first routes to go are the ones to the rich suburbs - after all, nobody's riding THEM anyways right? That's why in every city I've been to public transit has always been disproportionately well-developed in poorer neighbourhoods. After all, the bus company has to go after its main audience - poor commuters. And on and on this cycle goes, with crappy buses, dirty stations, etc etc.

      Few cities have been spared this cruel fate. Toronto, Canada is one of those few cities where commuting via mass transit is even a viable option for your average working-class guy, or even upper-middle class workers. Seattle is not too bad either - but its success is driven more by a yuppie desire to be green than anything else.

      It's all in the attitude. As soon as we start accepting public transit as an everyday fact of life, whether rich, poor, or somewhere in between, we can start building cities with mass transit in mind.

    7. Re:Good Luck... by timmarhy · · Score: 2, Insightful
      the more people buy up housing close to the city the more expensive it's going to get, so people like you moving in and buying/renting close to the city are the problem.

      facts are there is no where near enough space for all of us to live 5 minutes from our work place, not to mention people change jobs so often it's not possible to move enough to keep up.

      please try again with a solution that works for more than yourself.

      --
      If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
    8. Re:Good Luck... by amRadioHed · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The practices may be uncommon at this time, but I assure you that all of the vegetarians I know are completely normal humans. Anyone can do it.

      And for those who don't have the willpower to completely cut out meat from their diets (such as myself) eating less meat is always an option. It is really unnatural the amount of meat the average American eats anyway.

      --
      We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
    9. Re:Good Luck... by j.+andrew+rogers · · Score: 5, Insightful

      become vegan, or at least vegetarian (the cattle industry is extraordinarily destructive to the planet

      The "cattle industry" is essential to the ecology of places like the American West, where they replaced the critical role of vast herds of wild bison. A major percentage of the American cattle herd is raised on the range, marginally arable land, where bison used to roam. If you remove the cattle, you either have to replace them with bison (in which case there is approximately zero net benefit) or you can collapse the ecosystem -- your choice. In either case, you are neither adding to the amount of plants that can be reasonably grown nor mitigating damage to the environment.

      The idea that all cattle farming is necessarily destructive to the environment is ignorant nonsense. Sure, some of it is, but there is a large percentage that is not only non-destructive but actually allows us to produce food on land that would not otherwise be productive. Cattle were not genetically engineered from whole cloth in a lab by evil scientists somewhere in an effort to destroy the planet, they were a part of many ecosystems in temperate climates. We would not need to cut beef consumption nearly as much as some fringe vegans claim in order for it to be a net *benefit* to both the environment and food production.

      It does not do the credibility of the environmentalist movement any good when they assert the necessity of making dire choices for ideological reasons with no basis in fact. Yes, meat production could stand to be decreased and/or optimized. Completely eliminating beef from the human diet not only serves no practical purpose, it would actually be counterproductive to the stated goals in many cases.

    10. Re:Good Luck... by umbra_dweller · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Veganism and vegetarianism are certainly unusual for most people, but one can still try to "eat green" if they really want to by just eating less meat. These days I am experimenting with buying half as much meat as usual, but buying better quality cuts/dishes when I do eat it.

      I just watched a presentation from TED where New York Times food journalist Mark Bittman said that the average American eats 1/2 pound of meat per day (3.5 pounds/week), which is twice the amount recommended by the USDA. He suggests Americans could try eating 1/2 - 1.5 pounds per week instead - which could mean eating smaller amounts of meat with each meal, or eating the same amount of meat on fewer occasions.

      I experienced this when I lived in Asia for a year. Most of the meals I ate used vegetables, rice and eggs - big pieces of meat like burgers, BBQ and steaks were only eaten occasionally. But on the flip side, most of the vegetable and rice dishes were flavored with meat and fish broth or sauce, which gave meat flavor to each meal without actually including much meat.

    11. Re:Good Luck... by amRadioHed · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Are you forgetting that the meat you raise needs to be fed? Guess what it gets fed with? That's right plants. The same plants that could have been fed directly to vegetarians. Of course if you feed it to the cows first they waste the food by standing around farting methane for a few years.

      Try reading up on trophic levels. Every additional step in the food chain represents about a 90% loss of efficiency, so the benefits of vegetarianism are far from negligible.

      --
      We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
    12. Re:Good Luck... by amRadioHed · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Living close also saves money, for instance you don't need to pay for gas and you spend less time in the car and more time with your family and friends.

      --
      We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
    13. Re:Good Luck... by Toonol · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Try reading up on trophic levels. Every additional step in the food chain represents about a 90% loss of efficiency, so the benefits of vegetarianism are far from negligible.

      True, but I think the gp was referring to the trendy type of vegan that thinks everything should be organically grown. That's absolutely unfeasible on a global scale; it's only possible in trendy American stores because we are so damn rich. Organic vegan food is a massive luxury, and a waste, and (in my opinion) almost immoral.

    14. Re:Good Luck... by Toonol · · Score: 2, Insightful

      But the major cost from rising fuel prices is not in the gas you put into your car; it's transporting commodities. It's great that you took steps to cut your personal fuel consumption, but oranges are still going to cost more and more to be trucked up from Florida... and it doesn't matter how short your commute is.

    15. Re:Good Luck... by Stephen+Ma · · Score: 2, Insightful
      the more people buy up housing close to the city the more expensive it's going to get, so people like you moving in and buying/renting close to the city are the problem.

      The city can always densify: the more apartments there are per square mile, the cheaper they will be. Density can be good: New York City and Hong Kong are two of the most enviable places to live.

    16. Re:Good Luck... by edisrafeht · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Organic does not have to be a luxury. It is more expensive at the moment simply because of supply and demand. We can convert more farms to increase supply, but most growers feel that non-organic and the status quo is still the safe way to do business.

      Organic means natural, sustainable methods and growing and harvesting crops in the right seasons. In fact, it is not a luxury when it comes to convenience. Organic produce means you can only have right crop in the right months. So I would argue that the massive variety available in the mainstream supermarket is the luxury you have become accustomed to.

      Mainstream agriculture uses environmentally-unfriendly chemicals and methods. This maximizes crop in the short term but harms the environment in the long term. Mainstream food distribution sends produce thousands of miles to consumers. This entails shipping pollution. Long-distance food are also picked too early and have sub-optimal taste compared to local organic produce (ripe, natural, and in season..., of course it tates good). It really seems like a waste to ship bad food around like that, so I would also argue that the non-organic way is the immoral one, not organic.

      Lastly, the obvious... of course it's immoral for non-organic growers to use brain-damaging, cancer-causing pesticides regardless of environmental impact. So, at least eat organic for your health, if not for the environment.

      You mentioned that it is unfeasible on a global scale... what did you think people were growing before we had artificial fertilizers and pesticides?

    17. Re:Good Luck... by kklein · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Thank you thank you thank you.

      I grew up in rural Colorado, and every time I'm back there and I look at the nigh-endless pastureland, I think, "what the hell else do you use this land for???"

      Before the Europeans came, much of the American West was empty grassland grazed by unbelievably large herds of buffalo and a few scattered tribes of Native Americans who scratched out a living from following them. With the Europeans came irrigation and we were able to support larger populations on the land and use it to grow things like corn and wheat, but if you want to talk about environmental destruction, it's that corn and wheat that has "damaged" the land. That land, left to its own devices would have always supported huge numbers of grazing animals. Now it supports lush crops as well.

      Good beef is grass-fed, and that is still a large percentage of it. Unless they want to start eating buffalo grass, vegetarians aren't missing out on any potential meals.

      The vast majority of this hippie nature bullshit comes from city kids who were shocked when someone at school told them that meat wasn't just some stuff you bought at the store, and that it used to have big brown eyes. People with little experience out of the city, telling rural people how to live their lives.

      Cities are unsustainable. Not farms. (Full disclosure: I'm typing this from my apartment in Tokyo, one of the biggest and most unsustainable cities in the world! --And a nice place to live.)

    18. Re:Good Luck... by zsau · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The more people buy up housing that's not close to the city the more expensive trips into to work get. It takes me about an hour and a half to get to the city from home in the morning. I don't work in the city so it's not the biggest issue for me, but that's where all the decent jobs are in this town (I'm moving overseas soon) and dad does — and yeah, that's another thing, it also makes housing so expensive that people working full-time in their mid-twenties don't bother moving out because there's nowhere better to go. So just building bigger and bigger cities without building higher cities is not going to work.

      One of many things that Europe's got right. I was — no, I am — amazed that it takes less time to go from Glasgow to Edinburgh than it does to go from one part of Melbourne to another.

      --
      Look out!
    19. Re:Good Luck... by Kjella · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Organic does not have to be a luxury. It is more expensive at the moment simply because of supply and demand. We can convert more farms to increase supply (...) You mentioned that it is unfeasible on a global scale... what did you think people were growing before we had artificial fertilizers and pesticides?

      How many people were there to feed before we had artificial fertilizers and pesticides, and how many are there now? I think you will find there's a few billion more to be fed, from 1900 to 2000 world population increased from 1.65 billion to 6 billion. Organic crops doesn't produce nearly as much crops so the end result is that the rest of the land must be driven even harder to pick up the slack. "We should all eat organic" is unfeasible in the same way as "We should all eat steak", because if we tried the world would starve.

      I've heard that even the best organic crops only deliver half of what regular crops do, so if we can produce food for 8 billion today (there's enough but not in the right places) then say we could grow organic food for 4 billion. That'd be enough for the world ca. 1975, but not nearly enough today. Do you understand what would happen with supply and demand if supply was short? Forget economics, you're talking hunger. Famine. Crime and anarchy as hungry people fight to survive. Mass starvation.

      What we eat is a luxury, to eat is most definately not a luxury. I'm sure there's much better food to be had both for us and the environment than big industrialized farms. We can pay for quality for our own health and the warm and fuzzy feeling that our food is sustainable to the environment. But if you're talking about changing the world, you also have to consider efficiency and whether it's sustainable to the human race. We can not live without an efficient food production to feed the world. Literally.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    20. Re:Good Luck... by BeaverCleaver · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Or at least eat the animals that are native to your area. Here in Australia we have no native hoofed animals, so big heavy beasts like cattle destroy our geologically ancient, fragile soils, and our plants that aren't adapted to the grazing habits of cattle.

      Kangaroos however, taste like beef, are drought-tolerant, don't render land unusable after a couple of generations and also emit a fraction of the methane that big ruminants like cattle do.

      Eat a kangaroo today!

      --
      sustainable living
    21. Re:Good Luck... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Let me see, how much would I need to save in gas to afford $400,000 more on a home...

    22. Re:Good Luck... by jambox · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Oh dear, sounds like your cities are too big!

      Seriously I live in Oxford (UK, genius) and I think we've got this just about right. The council have made it almost impossible to drive into the city centre (to be fair, we all complain bitterly about it!) Instead, there are several "park&ride" bus terminals around the outskirts. People who live outside the city drive to them and then get the bus the rest of the way. That saves people sitting in jams, wasting gas. They're also near the residential areas of the city so people who live nearby can hop on them too.

      The city is very small (150k people I think) so the outskirts aren't that far away. That means it's not the end of the world that property in the centre is bloody expensive (about a million dollars... often more), because house prices are more or less average once you get about 3 miles away (that's where the park&ride stops are). My missus cycles in to work every day, which saves her thousands and thousands per year.

      Lots of small cities seem like a much more scalable design than a few really big ones. There are fringe benefits too, such as more community spirit and regional character, with less depressing crap like identikit, paper-walled apartments.

      --
      You thought you could break the laws of physics without paying the PRICE?
    23. Re:Good Luck... by bs7rphb · · Score: 2, Insightful

      - definitely use genetically engineered crops (there may be exceptions to this)

      There, fixed that for you.

    24. Re:Good Luck... by Abcd1234 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The practices may be uncommon at this time, but I assure you that all of the vegetarians I know are completely normal humans.

      Normal humans... with a vitamin B12 deficiency, unless they really know what they're doing.

      Seriously, go vegetarian/vegan if you like, but don't do it without the help of someone who really knows what they're doing (like a doctor or dietitian). Remember, humans weren't built to be vegetarians, so it takes some special care to live on a diet like that.

    25. Re:Good Luck... by dAzED1 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      humans (sans perhaps Eskimos and such) also weren't meant to eat the amount of low-quality meat that the average American eats these days, either. There is a middle ground. That being said, eating meat isn't necessary anymore; I haven't for 7 years (and vegan for 3), yet I still run 7 miles regularly, work out, get sick once a year if that, etc.

    26. Re:Good Luck... by Al+Dimond · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The concern is that runoff from agricultural chemicals, depletion of topsoil, and maybe some other environmental problems I can't recall right now, which are the results of our efficient (by some measures) food production techniques, will eventually cause our crop yields to decrease. Before you discount these concerns, consider we haven't been doing chemically-intensive, industrialized agriculture for very long (a few generations in most parts of the world), and we're already seeing some of these problems.

      The idea behind sustainable agriculture is that we limit ourselves to techniques we're pretty sure we can keep up in the long term. The environment isn't just some abstract thing, it provides us with the raw materials we need to live and indeed to grow our food. If we feed ourselves now in ways that compromise our future ability to feed ourselves, we'll grow our population beyond what the earth can sustainably carry, and face an extremely painful decline or even crash. Maybe that ship has already sailed, and we'll have to innovate to create farming techniques that increase our very-long-term yields instead of just short-term ones. But the point is that environmental sustainability and human sustainability can't be separated. Not until the technological singularity (or other pie-in-the-sky event/technology that cuts human dependence on biological processes to almost nothing).

    27. Re:Good Luck... by Stephen+Ma · · Score: 2, Insightful
      As a resident of a town small enough that I never lock my doors, and near enough to a major urban center that I have a great tech job, I would like to say: HELL NO.

      Feel free to stay right where you are then -- you'll spend a large chunk of your monthly salary on auto fuel.

      I can't imagine anybody wanting to live in NYC or Hong Kong, except people who are either so ridiculously wealthy they can emulate living somewhere else

      Manhattan and Hong Kong are expensive only because they are islands. Los Angeles and Chicago, for example, would be pretty cheap if they were built up instead of out.

      The first thing I notice when getting off the train in the city every morning is the stench. Cities stink.

      They won't stink after the petroleum era ends.

  2. Obvious by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This is obviously to help out their image after people had to drop out of marathons because of the pollution.

    1. Re:Obvious by icebike · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And looking at the skyline in the TV coverage of the Olympics that is a real possibility. In spite of the cleanup the skys are STILL really thick over there, in spite of their massive efforts to clean them for the events.

      --
      Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
    2. Re:Obvious by jandersen · · Score: 5, Insightful

      My God, This Is So Insightful Of You!!!!

      Because, of course the bloody commies are never going to do something good just because it is a good thing - they hate everything that is good. And of course they came up with this idea, the whole plan, the detailed architecture, the city planning, just like that in the about 5 days since the Olympics started.

      Come to think of it - I don't know which is most impressive: Starting a massive, green initiative like that and showing us all the way to the future, or coming up with it in no time at all, when it would have taken everybody else years to work out the plans.

      Back to reality, though: The Chinese have seen reality in the eye, just like we have - they know that this kind of things are necessary if we are to avoid choking in our own filth, and they know it has to happen on an absolutely epic scale. The difference is that they are taking action instead of waffling over who should pay and which foot to stand on.

    3. Re:Obvious by jandersen · · Score: 4, Insightful

      the rushed nature of things like the even/odd car ban and the planting of millions of plants and trees in the months leading up to the Olympics seems entirely too coincidental.

      Rushed? You don't think there is a need to get a bloody move on already? We have wasted the last 8 years of Bush admin on trying to avoid facing up to the enormous task ahead of us, and I won't be surprised at all if the next ten administrations are going to do the same. It is urgent that we do something - we still have time to think (quickly) before we act, but act we must.

      The planting of trees may have picked un in recent months, but it has been going on for a long time in NW China in an effort to stop or at least slow down the desertification, that send such huge clouds of dust in over Beijing, among other things. The smog can be quite bad, but what really is bad is the dust, at least that is what I found when I lived there.

      As for your cheap dig at the Dam - what, in your opinion would have been best, or at least the lesser of evils: building X new coal-fired powerstations or the Three Gorges Dam? I suspect the environmental impact of the dam is likely to be less in the long run. But of course, no matter what China does, it is always wrong. If they build green and introduce legislation to limit pollution, it is "oppression of the free market", if they don't, it shows how callous and uncaring they are about the plight of the common people. If they fight terrorism in Xinjiang it is "oppression of minorities" and if they don't it is because they are incompetent and don't care about the security of their people. Is it any wonder they simply choose to close their ears to whatever criticism comes from the West? How about we once in a while greeted them with some encouragement?

      They are going to build a green, carbon-neutral city? I think that is absolutely fabulous, and I hope they have every success. They open up to Western media, even if it is just a bit? I think it is good - and brave, considering that we can find nothing positive to say about what they do.

    4. Re:Obvious by jandersen · · Score: 2, Insightful

      But of course, no matter what the Bush administration does, it is always wrong.

      There, fixed that for ya'. Isn't that what you meant in your first paragraph?

      As a matter of fact, no. The problem with the Bush administration is not that nothing they do can ever be right, but that they have so amply demonstrated that they are not trustworthy. That and their smug incompetence; but enough about their failings - I have always felt that if one can't see both the good and the evil in every person, there is something missing in one's perception. I don't find it at all unthinkable that I might like GWB if I met him in person; but being likeable is simply not enough to make a good leader. And he really is an appalling leader, he really, really is.

  3. Exporting the pollution by EmbeddedJanitor · · Score: 3, Insightful
    So they'll just export the pollution to a different city which will manufacture goods for them. The roads will still be made of concrete (made with huge energy inputs) and they'll still use diesel earthmoving machines to build the place.

    The people will still eat meat (probably only second to transport as a way people generate carbon footprint).

    Basically its just a greenwashing exercise.

    --
    Engineering is the art of compromise.
    1. Re:Exporting the pollution by Nefarious+Wheel · · Score: 5, Insightful
      No good deed goes unpunished, I see. Now if you were considered a "thought leader" (whether you wanted the appelation or not) of a country of several billion people, and you saw you were increasingly becoming the lead polluter in the world, how would you go about fixing it? Spend trillions of tax dollars directly lining contractors pockets, brutally supress the use of non-green energy, or perhaps -- just perhaps -- try to educate your populace into doing it themselves?

      It's easy to slag these efforts, yes they're flawed, but dammit **something** has to be done. Get out of the road if you can't lend a hand.

      --
      Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
  4. Manufacturing... by Max+Littlemore · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Depending on what renewable energy systems are used, manufacturing can be pretty neutral. Windmills take a relatively small amount of energy to produce compared to photovoltaic, or even gas and coal for that matter. Solar thermal is also generally lower input than photovoltaic.

    The question is, apart from Government financing, is it possible for Normal People to buy a Green Home / Car / Life?

    This does raise an interesting counter to the whole capitalism/free market FTW crap that gets spewed by a lot of people. As soon as you start looking at a community or society genuinely taking responsibility for anything, the system fails to deliver. It puts too much power in the hands of a few and the few are usually in that position thanks to their selfishness. Not that I'm completely for government control, mind, I actually find both extremes equally laughable.

    There are of course simple things that everyone can do to reduce our impact, but a lot of people don't want to change, are lazy or ignorant.

    --
    I don't therefore I'm not.
  5. Re:be realistic by icegreentea · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Chill. Its an article headline, and even if it were part of an official plan, it would be a catchy slogan with an asterick to make sure dumbasses dont' start pointing out minor technicalities. Read the fucking article. Aims are to be self sufficient in renewable power, to ban vehicles that emit CO2, among other things.

    But wait! says the nitpicker. Bicycles emit CO2, does that mean they're banned too? NO! Christ, use some fiscking common sense. They clearly mean motor vehicles, and it should be understood by nearly everyone they mean motor vehicles.

  6. if anyone can do it, it's probably china... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    sad but true, all of our government officials here are lawyers that specialize in doubletalk and over billing. In China the government officials are all engineers. There's no government red tape, when they choose to build something somewhere there's no one to oppose because citizens do not own land. If any country in the world can do this, it's probably china because no one in the country would be permitted to complain.

  7. Mod parent up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Mod parent up. Here's a piece by food writer Mark Bittman in the NY Times on the devastating environmental and health/social costs of our current meat consumption:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/weekinreview/27bittman.htm

  8. Oh my, where is the spirit of building things? by 2Bits · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Oh my oh my, where is the spirit of exploration, taking risk, experimenting, building things in this community? I often come here for insight discussion and interesting debate on things that matter, but instead, we got a flame fest.

    So, for this forum, anything done in China must be bad, negative, and nothing good could come out of it.

    Everyone is ohing and ahing when we talk about Mars terraforming. When China is experimenting a new project, everyone must slam about its politics, and there's nothing worth reading and discussing here.

    Tell you what, I'm living in Shanghai, I hate as much as the next guy the corruption, the pollution, the control on free speech, the human rights, ... all the negative things here.

    But for fuck sake, this is a project where the Chinese government is investing in, taking risk, experimenting, building things, ... this is a big project to experiment an alternative way of building human cities, to change the way we work, live, entertain, deal with nature, etc. Where else do you get to experiment at this scale, and with the financial backup like that? Ok, this may be a political show, but I don't see other governments dare to experiment and make a show like that.

    It might be a big flop, and it might be a huge success. The lessons learned might be useful for other regions on this planet, and even might be useful when we need to build outer space colony.

    And guess what, westerners (the Brits, Americans, French, Italians...) have taken a huge part in designing it too. This is not a one country thing.

    For those who only have negative things to say, let's get out of the parent's basement and go out more. Visit other countries, not all is well and perfect, but I'm sure you will learn a lot more too.

    You want to make China a better place? Don't whine in the basement, that won't change anything. Come here, bring your grand vision, your next big thing.

  9. Re:One City is Green .... by pembo13 · · Score: 1, Insightful

    So zero green cities is better than one?

    --
    "Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
  10. Being honest by EmbeddedJanitor · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Sure, this is a great step forward in thinking. However they should call it a "Reduced Carbon Green City" or something similar, not "Zero".

    They also need to be fully transparent about the whole process. Just hiding pollution by exporting it does not make it go away.

    --
    Engineering is the art of compromise.
  11. Re:zero carbon? by orzetto · · Score: 2, Insightful

    CO2 from humans (or animals, plants, decomposition or any natural phenomenon) is not pollution, since it comes from carbon we took in with our food. Therefore, it is in equilibrium with the carbon cycle.

    The polluting part of CO2 is the one coming from fossil fuels, that is from outside the ecosystem, that gets dumped into it because it's easier than to put it back where you took the carbon.

    --
    Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
  12. Re:OMFG FASHION MELTDOWN by jsiren · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If the internet has taught us anything it's that the Infinite Monkeys Corollary is more important than the Infinite Monkeys Theorem. The corollary reminds us that it doesn't matter whether the monkeys turn out Hamlet, because you'll need to read through an infinity of worthless crap before you find it.

    Which leads to the conclusion that you get the damn thing sooner by writing it yourself than by sorting out an infinity of worthless crap.

    --
    Usage: km/h for speed (kilometers per hour); kph for very slow impulses (kilopond hours).
  13. Re:Dongtag? by hostyle · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Why bother when you're around?

    --
    Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris.
  14. Re:Image is everything, right? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    A quick look at my local Toyota dealer shows that Toyota make the Aygo, Yaris, Auris, Corrolla, Prius, Avensis, and Corolla Verso. SUV/Pickup wise they only make the Rav4, Land Cruiser and Hilux.

    Oh right... Toyota are smart enough to only sell the right vehicles in the right region. Since Americans all want SUV's and pickups, you got SUV's and pickups. It would be a totally different picture again if you went to Japan.

    The prius is not green... knock it for that, but dont knock it for American purchasing habits, thas not Toyotas fault.

  15. Re:zero carbon? by jimdread · · Score: 3, Insightful

    CO2 from humans (or animals, plants, decomposition or any natural phenomenon) is not pollution, since it comes from carbon we took in with our food. Therefore, it is in equilibrium with the carbon cycle. The polluting part of CO2 is the one coming from fossil fuels, that is from outside the ecosystem, that gets dumped into it because it's easier than to put it back where you took the carbon.

    Right, now think carefully. Where did the fossil fuels come from? Did fossil fuels come from animals, plants, decomposition, or any natural phenomenon? If fossil fuels are natural, does that make them "not pollution" by your first definition? So why do you call fossil fuels "pollution" in your second definition?

  16. Re:In other news by One+Childish+N00b · · Score: 2, Insightful

    They did use real fireworks. It was the US broadcast networks that did the CGI fireworks, as they didn't want their helicopters up there dodging millions of tiny sparkly missiles.

    --
    Dealing with lawyers would be a lot less tedious if they all looked like Casey Novak.
  17. Re:Eco-Fascism by kungfugleek · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Someone will exploit the situation, promise salvation, and take control. By then, only drastic measures will do...

    And then the giant robots attack. Seen it a hundred times.

    A democracy can only be as noble as the majority of its populace. A dictatorship is limited by the morality of its dictator (in terms of national actions, at least). The problem with every form of government we humans have is the bloody humans. Get rid of them, problem solved.

    I am Trogdor, and I approve this message.

  18. Re:How vegan are the vitamin supplements? by Abcd1234 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Well, the Vegan society suggests taking a B12 supplement, along with the consumption of fortified foods, in order to ensure a sufficient volume of the vitamin is included in the diet, so I'm assuming such supplements are considered kosher. More specifically, according to Wikipedia, B12 is produced, industrially, "through fermentation of selected microorganisms," which does not, to my knowledge, violate any Vegan precepts.

  19. Re:Not necessarily by jsiren · · Score: 2, Insightful

    So, in other words...

    What we have here is an infinite number of eyes sorting through an infinity of worthless crap being written by an infinite number of monkeys.

    Welcome to Web 2.0...

    --
    Usage: km/h for speed (kilometers per hour); kph for very slow impulses (kilopond hours).