China to Build a Zero-Carbon Green City

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."

Comments

OMFG FASHION MELTDOWN

[Aardpig]

...red and green should never be seen!

Re:OMFG FASHION MELTDOWN

[arodland]

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.

Re:OMFG FASHION MELTDOWN

[jsiren]

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.

Good Luck...

[iamwhoiamtoday]

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?

Re:Good Luck...

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

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.

Re:Good Luck...

[dAzED1]

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

Re:Good Luck...

[Kell Bengal]

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?'

Re:Good Luck...

[eln]

So basically the solution is to live close to an urban center. Unfortunately, housing is generally prohibitively expensive close to most urban centers (except for the ones that are so far gone with blight that there are no real jobs there anyway).

The American city (especially in the west) is built around personal automobiles. The affordable houses are well outside of walking or biking distance to most of the jobs, and are too chaotically arranged to allow for efficient mass transit.

Individual choice is part of the equation, but sane urban planning is also a big part of it. Cities and counties need to start doing more to encourage high density housing near urban centers and discourage the building of yet more suburbs and exurbs. Unfortunately, most local governments are too far in the pockets of developers to ever enforce strict zoning of that nature. Most of the new development I've seen near urban centers has also tended to be of the million-dollar-condo variety as well, which doesn't do a whole lot to solve the problem either.

Re:Good Luck...

[sycodon]

"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.

Re:Good Luck...

[enoz]

That sounds like a job for Tyler Durden

Re:Good Luck...

[mrroot]

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.

Re:Good Luck...

[NevermindPhreak]

Ah, but riding a bike to work, if you don't live in an area where it is common, is unusual. You're becoming unusual by trying to be more green than the rest of the population around you. Why would becoming a vegan be different?

For the record, i'm a meat-eater. Just like to present other sides. ;)

Re:Good Luck...

[p0tat03]

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.

Re:Good Luck...

[timmarhy]

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.

Re:Good Luck...

[amRadioHed]

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.

Re:Good Luck...

[j. andrew rogers]

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.

Re:Good Luck...

[umbra_dweller]

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.

Re:Good Luck...

[amRadioHed]

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.

Re:Good Luck...

[amRadioHed]

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.

Re:Good Luck...

[Toonol]

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.

Re:Good Luck...

[spydabyte]

So most of the world now means the United States?
Veganism in China and India (two of the worlds most populous countries) may in fact be a majority.

Re:Good Luck...

[Stephen Ma]

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.

Re:Good Luck...

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

vegetarianism and veganism are, for most of the world, unusual.

Hmmmn - I believe you meant 'USA' instead of 'World'.

It's hard to get good figures, but I'd say 1/2 a billion Indians are vegeterian (but eat eggs, dairy)

Billions more eat very little meat. A diet low in meat is normal for most of the world & something easy you can do if you want to be green.

Re:Good Luck...

[edisrafeht]

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?

Re:Good Luck...

[jimdread]

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.

The cattle that live around here eat plants that you can't feed to people. Like grass, for example. People can't live on grass, because they can't digest it. There are cattle living on huge stations where the ground is unsuitable for crops, but can support cattle roaming around eating what grass is available. So you see, not all beef is bad. Beef that eat grass are eating food that humans can't eat, and converting it into food that humans can eat. If some vegetarians suddenly develop some extra stomachs, maybe they can start eating grass.

Re:Good Luck...

[wellingj]

See the state of the art in cattle grazing here. My father has been at the fore front of this debate since the mid 90's. There are very ecologically friendly ways to raise cattle where naturally occurring forage would other wise be under utilized.

Re:Good Luck...

[kklein]

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.)

Re:Good Luck...

[zsau]

Massive car parks at major commuter hubs are very often a bad idea. They seem good, but they actually serve to reduce public transport use.

If people have to get into their cars to drive, they'll drive the whole way unless that's impossible (e.g. because a million people need to go to the city in the morning). This means that public transport will have much less than its potential return on investment; anyone who's not travelling in the peak direction might as well drive. If you're from Melbourne you might know about the recurrent Doncaster line proposals; although I am an advocate of public transport investment, I hope that never gets build. Instead, a subway should be built to replace the 48 tram (and be extended all the way to Doncaster); in this way, the train stations will always be within walking distance of shops and houses and schools and other places people might want to go and the system will be used all day by people who don't have to use the train, but by the same token don't have to use their car.

Also, if there's a massive car park around the train station, it makes the station feel less safe and less useful. If you've got a ten or twenty minute wait before the train, you might want to go to shops to have something to do. If you've got to cross the car park, you'll be less likely to do this, you'll get bored, and you'll be more reluctant to catch the train next time. The optimum train station design has ground-level access directly to the street and the surrounding shops.

Also-also, car parks are massively expensive. It's basically dead land, no-one makes any money from them and you hope no-one's living in them. And there's not just the space inside the carpark, but the surrounding roads as well. Instead of having space for one hundred cars, you could put relatively dense housing and commercial development (relatively --- compared to the surrounding area, not compared to the whole city). In fact, a lot of stations which current have masses of car parking would be excellent candidates for the distributed CBDs (e.g. Dandenong in Melbourne).

Add in a decent bus or tram system (depending on the area) collecting people. This satisfies the problem of inefficient public transport; it's only inefficient because currently buses are treated as if they're welfare, whereas they should be treated as if they're a service. Instead of having four bus routes in each suburb running once every hour on different back roads so that no-one knows when they have to be where to take a bus, just run one route on the major roads. Make sure they're neat and tidy, and have schools run 10-4 instead of 9-3 to keep students off the buses when business folk are on them (and to improve concentration in the first period). Essentially treat buses like trams that run on liquefied dead creatures instead of petrified ones.

But cars are not the solution to public transport, cars are never a solution to greenhouse gases. If you try to accommodate cars you will end up having more cars.

Re:Good Luck...

[alecwood]

Didn't you know The world = The United States of America just ask any American

Re:Good Luck...

[zsau]

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.

Re:Good Luck...

[Kjella]

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.

Re:Good Luck...

[Siener]

I'll start eating grass as soon as I've installed my four stomachs. You've got a point if animals are fed foodstuffs that can also be fed to humans, but that is not at all universally the case.

Here in South Africa a lot of our meat is produced in the Karoo. Sheep feed on the natural vegetation and as long as you guard against overgrazing it is 100% sustainable and has very little impact on the environment.

Compare that with trying to grow crops there and the erosion, habitat destruction etc. that goes with that.

One last point: Yes the energy in the methane farts are lost forever, but that is just a fraction of the waste produced by cattle. Most of it takes the form of manure which (surprise, surprise) gets used to fertilize the crops that then again get fed to animals and people.

Re:Good Luck...

[utnapistim]

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

It's not hard to achieve and most ways are known, but don't fit with the industrialization of agriculture:
- rotate the grown cultures every few years to keep the land from loosing nutrients for the crops
- do not use chemically-produced fertilizers
- do not use genetically engineered crops (there may be exceptions to this)
- recycle everything you can: bio-gas, animal waste (for fertilizers)

There are others, that don't come to mind right now. Ask any farmer in eastern Europe and they'll tell you more than enough.

There still are villages in that region that do this (unfortunately they are on the way out as they can't compete with industrialized agriculture and GM crops).

Re:Good Luck...

[nebosuke]

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.

Having both grown up farming both organically and non-organically, as well as currently working in the seeds industry, I can say from both first-hand experience and industry research that that couldn't be more wrong. There are two points in particular that are mistaken.

The first is that the conflation of geographic location with organic production. Most farmers' local markets include a significant (usually majority in my experience) non-organically grown produce. Buying local vs. freighted foods is entirely unconnected to organic/non-organic production.

In many cases locally-grown produce has a higher total energy cost of production than foreign-grown produce. The archetypal example of this is tomatoes grown in the UK vs those shipped from Spain.

In addition to non-optimal local growing conditions requiring more energy, smaller, local food producers almost always burn more energy per unit of produce than larger operations even in the same geographic region because large producers lower the marginal energy cost of production with economies of scale. Japan is an excellent case study of exactly this effect, as its market regulations strongly bias the market to smaller less efficient regional producers, causing the price of food to be significantly higher than it otherwise would be due to higher production costs.

Geographic proximity is absolutely not a reliable indicator of relative energy consumption

As for organic farming being 'sustainable', all it is is substituting human labor, land (production densities must be much lower to avoid pest population buildup), and excess energy (e.g., using a propane torch to kill weeds by application of heat, or more tillage passes to mechanically weed fields) for chemical and fertilizer use. Human labor is anything but cheap energy-wise, unless you're talking about basically slaves who were raised from childhood on an extremely low energy budget, and who are not afforded any of the luxuries of the society for whom they are producing the food.

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

Before we had those things, population centers around the world (e.g., Mexico, India, China, Pakistan, etc.) were on the verge of an epic famine and the most extensive die-off of humanity this side of WWIII. A larger portion of agricultural lands were then also comprised of regularly cleared slash-n-burn fields fertilized by the ashes of the forest for a few years before the soil was depleted and more land needed to be cleared.

The only argument that can have merit is the health issue, but that varies significantly by specific grower practice. Proper use of pesticides as per the label is proven to be safe, but it's unfortunately not unheard of for growers to misuse them, both knowingly and unknowingly. Likewise, many organic farmers improperly compost their organic fertilizers and put consumers at higher risk of bacterial contamination. In both cases we have government regulatory agencies watching for infractions, and they generally do a good job of keeping us remarkably safe compared to pre-green revolution days.

Re:Good Luck...

[BeaverCleaver]

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!

Re:Good Luck...

[trendzetter]

In Belgium we eat lots of pork. The pigs are kept in enormous stables and because we do not have enough land to feed the pigs we import it from Latin America where they burn rainforest to grow soya. Because the pigs farmers do not have lots of land they have too much manure. This is the main cause of ground water pollution in Belgium. I think similar problems exist in the US.

Re:Good Luck...

[jambox]

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.

Re:Good Luck...

[g0dsp33d]

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

One word: Soylent.

Re:Good Luck...

[bs7rphb]

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

There, fixed that for you.

Re:Good Luck...

[kabocox]

Billions more eat very little meat. A diet low in meat is normal for most of the world & something easy you can do if you want to be green.

Yeah all you have to do is be dirt poor and all you'd be to afford would be veggies with meat maybe once a month or so on a special occasion. The greens think that's a great thing though so they should all try it themselves.

Re:Good Luck...

[Abcd1234]

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.

Re:Good Luck...

[Abcd1234]

Cities are unsustainable. Not farms.

Don't be idiotic. If we want to support a growing human population, cities are the only way we can achieve it. The concentration of human life means food, water, electricity, and other resources, don't need to be distributed across large geographic ranges, which means *less* energy consumption. Plus, having people closer to their places of work, school, etc, means people themselves travel less, which also means less consumption.

As proof, look up the stats on Manhattan. You may be shocked to discover that, *gasp*, per capita it's one of the most energy efficient places in the world. No, the real inefficiencies are in the ridiculous suburban and ex-urban cultures of the United States, which represent the epitome of selfish, inefficient lifestyles.

Re:Good Luck...

[dAzED1]

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.

Re:Good Luck...

[Abcd1234]

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.

Completely agreed, but that doesn't change my point one iota.

That being said, eating meat isn't necessary anymore;

Nope, it's not. With the advent of vitamin supplements, it's possible to eat a balanced vegetarian/vegan diet and still consume the necessary vitamins and minerals. But, once again, that doesn't change my point. You shouldn't just flip a switch and start eating vegan. It's something you should carefully think about and research before making the switch, because it's *not* a trivial change and you *do* need to work hard to ensure you're getting a balanced diet, because humans are simply not designed to survive on a pure-vegetable diet.

Re:Good Luck...

[Al Dimond]

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).

Re:Good Luck...

[Kelbear]

I have no doubt that many will consider me despicable, but I have a feeling that I am not alone in saying that I will not give up meat voluntarily.

It must either be priced out beyond the reach of my disposable income or an alternative must be proposed that is tastier or cheaper than the meat we have right now. Perhaps vat grown meat, perhaps soy meat(It's quite tasty, but not easy to come by). In any case, I will eat meat.

I believe I am not alone in this because wishful thinking only goes so far in changing behavior. Sure we don't need laws if everbody is willing to act properly, but the simple fact is that many people don't behave unless you make it the best strategy. People can cut gas consumption, it's obvious that we can because we already have during the recent gas price jump. The world didn't end. Why didn't we do it earlier? Because the high price wasn't there to force us to use less gas. Republicans want to open up artic drilling as if that was a good thing, but really, our best insurance against Peak Oil is moderately high oil prices to drive alternative energy investment. Talking about it isn't enough, people need to feel pressure in their practical day-to-day lives.

A smug sense of self-righteousness might be a satisfactory replacement for a steak to some people, but not for me. I'll just eat my steak and be happy. If you want people like me to stop, it must be taken from me.

No justification here, I'm just pointing out the reality of the situation.

Re:Good Luck...

[T.E.D.]

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

If you see Mark Bittman again, tell him to leave me alone. Its tough enough to eat with an audience. Having somone from the Times show up and give a lecture about my selection is just downright rude.

Re:Good Luck...

[Stephen Ma]

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.

Dongtan?

[Aardpig]

Isn't that what comes from not wearing speedos on the beach?

Obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:Obvious

[icebike]

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.

Re:Obvious

[jandersen]

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.

Re:Obvious

[jandersen]

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.

Re:Obvious

[jandersen]

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.

That would be interesting

[Nefarious Wheel]

I can't think of any country that would benefit more by this sort of thing. A good working template tends to become widely adopted, and they have a visible pressing need to improve their ecological impact and the good will coupled with a lack of general knowledge might find a fertile ground for this sort of thing catching on.

A friend of me says there's a pervasive attitude of "if a little is good, an enormous lot more must be better" when approaching the use of say, pesticides or other chemical intrusions into the local environment.

Classical education doesn't help this attitude much yet, but an excellent and well publicised example community might just make the difference.

Re:That would be interesting

[Ironsides]

I can't think of any country that would benefit more by this sort of thing.

I can. Maybe the US since they do have the highest total annual CO2 emissions and the highest CO2 emissions per capita

Wrong on both counts. China passed the US on CO2 emissions. The US is 10th on a per capita basis. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/jun/19/china.usnews http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita

Re:Dongtag?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's "Dongtan", which would be a good name for a nude beach.

zero carbon?

[kamathln]

Humans breathe out carbon dioxide. Are we banned from this city ?

Re:zero carbon?

[orzetto]

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.

Re:zero carbon?

[jimdread]

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?

Better article from CNN

[SydShamino]

This CNN article (from last year) has much more information:
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/TECH/08/14/dongtan.ecocity/

Wikipedia's article mentions several problems and delays that I hadn't seen in any other stories (some of which lack citations).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dongtan

Um, Earth to China...

[caywen]

I have an even greener idea for China: How about not building the city at all, and greenify an existing city?

Re:Um, Earth to China...

[Cathoderoytube]

I think this might actually be some sort of bizarro prison. You know you get things like 'Arctic Prison Island' or 'Desert Prison Island', this'll be 'Renewable Energy Green Prison Island', from which there is no escape for criminal scum. Because they're justice neutral.

Re:Um, Earth to China...

[niktemadur]

I have an even greener idea for China: How about not building the city at all, and greenify an existing city?

Here's another, halfway between the announcement and your post:

If they're going to build a Green City, how about building it in a valley or plateau, like Beijing? On coastal cities, smog propagates into the ocean, therefore air quality remains fairly decent, so what's the point of building said city on an island?
Let the Chinese government try it where topographical circumstances allow for no leeway and false proclamations of success, where there's no handicap in their favor. If they do it this way, they'll be more likely to truly push technologies and methods of greenifying existing cities. Otherwise, it sounds like yet another propaganda stunt to me, another white elephant in the name of the Party... I mean People (coughs).

Re:Dongtag?

[caywen]

Yeah, what an unfortunate name. I would have avoided that problem altogether and named the city Wangtan. Much better.

coalplants

[the_Bionic_lemming]

I'd settle for them stopping the construction of coal plants which has made them the largest co2 polluter on the planet.

Exporting the pollution

[EmbeddedJanitor]

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.

Re:Exporting the pollution

[Nefarious Wheel]

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.

A great plan and I hope it works!

[houbou]

I hope this project works, because let's face it, an environmental friendly city that functions and coexist with nature is exactly what is required. I find it amazing that we are so worried about money.

Money is really not the issue. If this works, it becomes a goal for any countries' economy. It's idealistic to think this way, I know, but in a way, it's also very practical.

Our economies are skewed right now, our countries don't have any real goals, tangible goals. Building environmentally friendly cities (converting actually), are concrete, positive goals. All will benefit "economically" from such goals.

This is the ultimate job creation idea on a long term basis I would believe!

Yeah, I know, it's sounds simple but anything that gives people work, gives them purpose and makes the money move, which is really what the economy should be about anyways.

"Keep things simple, but not simpler" - Albert Einstein

Image is everything, right?

[2ms]

Hey it worked for Toyota -- have more models of SUV than any other car manufacturer on planet, but come out with one "green" car and you're a "green" car company, no matter the 8 independent lines of SUV and largest/least full efficient main-line pickups on the market. Likewise -- produce more polution than any other country on the planet, but come out with one "green" city and you're a "green" country, no matter the literal 50% of population having no access to clean drinking water and #1 cause of death in nation being air pollution.

Manufacturing...

[Max Littlemore]

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.

Credit to the Chinese

[Pincus]

For all the pollution problems made more apparent by the Olympics, I give the Chinese a lot of credit for innovation. Between this, their "weather altering rockets" and whatever other efforts I've missed, we can at least say they innovate.

It makes me wonder if such nationalized industry as China contains might actually be good for massive innovation. Surely no corporation would undertake an initiative like this, especially on this scale, as the profits would be far too long term and unlikely.

Make it totally green

[Centurix]

Make the whole city run from manure, thermal energy. Then call it Dungtan.

Re:be realistic

[icegreentea]

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.

Oh my, where is the spirit of building things?

[2Bits]

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.

Re:Oh my, where is the spirit of building things?

[Splezunk]

I agree with you. Sometimes the western world carries on as if their shit doesn't stink.... got news for you, it smells bad... real bad.

I live in the western world, but to believe that there is no corruption or evil in this society is not only naive, it's just pure ignorance. Shows us exactly why western society is rapidly devolving.

Ahh, China...

[Plantain]

"Dongtan ... is being built on a major wetland site that was formerly used for small-scale agriculture and by migrating water birds." - Wikipedia

The only place where "eco-city" means millions of dead migratory birds...

Being honest

[EmbeddedJanitor]

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.

"Compestation" anyone?

[Le Marteau]

They've got a lot of bad press for their pollution. So, like any bureaucracy, they come up with an idiotic solution.

"Do we clean up our country?" No. "Well, what do we do?" Ok, we make a big press release, about a city we will do which will be greener than all. "Sweet."

Re:"Compestation" anyone?

[philspear]

You've got to give them credit for trying SOMETHING. Over here, california tries to raise fuel efficiency standards and gets slapped down by the Bush administration. Did they even bother trying to spin that one?

Anyway, it will be interesting to see if the finished product is green or just green by comparison. Put a landfill next to a radioactive waste site and the landfill suddenly looks pretty eco-friendly.

Greensburg, KS to become first US "green city"

[ObiWonKanblomi]

... ok "green" is sort of ambiguous but oh what the hell. The city of Greensburg, Kansas is attempting to become the first city in the US to meet Platinum LEED certification. What's interesting is that the city was given a chance to become this green city because a huge tornado took out 95% of the city in 2007.

Starship already did this

[navyjeff]

... and it was built on rock and roll.

In other news

[MrKaos]

China is going to allow the free press to use a unrestricted internet China will let people line the road to watch the cycling. China will fix air pollution. China is going to allow protests against the government. China will use real fireworks, next time.

Does anyone believe that China will do something that hasn't got anything to do with 'face' anymore?

Re:In other news

[One Childish N00b]

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.

Re:Dongtag?

[hostyle]

Why bother when you're around?

Re:Two simple regulations

[Poorcku]

To point no.1: imagine a 500.000 people city going hunting.....what could possibly go wrong?

Eco-Fascism

[Tom]

Frankly, this goes to show one thing: That democracy as-we-do-it is a dead end and will lead is straight into self-destruction. Evil dictatorship, on the other hand (China hasn't been a pure communist country for years) can get things done.

Face it: The west is in a dead-lock. We want to save the world, but we can't, because our focus on self-interest and "the market will solve it" very efficiently prevents any common-interest solutions. It's the tragedy of the commons all over again, just on a global scale.

The next step, I fear, will be eco-facism. The system can't heal itself because it's dead-locked. Someone will exploit the situation, promise salvation, and take control. By then, only drastic measures will do, so we will accept them, without further debate because there isn't time for debate. Welcome to facism (again, for some).

Re:Eco-Fascism

[kungfugleek]

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.

Re:How vegan are the vitamin supplements?

[Abcd1234]

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.

Mmmm... People...

[FatLittleMonkey]

You'll need a clever product name, something catchy, something eco-friendly. Hmmm, "something" Green...

Re:Not necessarily

[jsiren]

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...