Masdar

The Dark Cloud: How the Digital World Is Costing the Earth
by Guillaume Pitron
Published 14 Jun 2023

What makes this dune-locked city out of the space age so fascinating are the technologically ambitious plans in store for its development.1 The Emirati government plans to make Masdar — the Arabic word for ‘source’ — the world’s most sustainable eco-city, using the most modern digital technologies ever designed.2 By 2030, and with 17 billion euros in investments, Masdar promises to be the regional if not global model of smart urban design.3 One promotional video boasts that the city’s 50,000 future inhabitants will enjoy ‘the highest quality of life with the lowest possible environmental impact’.4 Masdar City is already a dream coming true, and that is to be one of the most enjoyable cities to live in on Earth. Smart cities in aid of the planet Masdar City is the embodiment of the hopes that have been pinned on smart cities and digital technology to improve our lives.

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Chapter One: The digital world’s environmental benefits 1 Turkish researcher Gökçe Günel describes Masdar City in her book, Spaceship in the Desert: energy, climate change and urban design in Abu Dhabi, Duke University Press, 2019. The pandemic made it impossible to travel to Masdar, and so I base my descriptions on official promotional material. 2 Federico Cugurullo, Exposing smart cities and eco-cities: Frankenstein urbanism and the sustainability challenges of the experimental city, Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 16 November 2017. 3 Op. cit. 4 See ‘Welcome to Masdar City’ on YouTube. More promotional material available at masdarcity.ae/en. 5 Interview with Federico Cugurullo, Assistant Professor in Smart and Sustainable Urbanism at Trinity College Dublin, 2020. 6 fosterandpartners.com/projects/masdar-city/ 7 For example, if a bird flies in front of a self-driving car it would grind to a halt to avoid hitting it.

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I want to make sense of the dark side of this industry as it shies away from the light; to explore the geography of a supposedly abstract notion; to reveal the anatomy of a technology that, in the name of a dematerialistic ideal bordering on the mystic, is building a modern world that is completely materialistic; and to expose the plain fact that every email and ‘like’ we send produces enormous challenges that have so far escaped our senses. CHAPTER ONE The digital world’s environmental benefits: fiction vs. fact FROM THE ROARING CITY OF ABU DHABI IN THE UNITED ARAB Emirates it is a half-hour drive to Masdar City. Built over 640 hectares of burning desert sand, running alongside the Persian Gulf highway to Saudi Arabia, Masdar City is an inward-facing fortress of aluminium, glass, and red-tinted concrete. Silhouettes wearing dishdasha, traditional long white garments, glide through the inner city’s narrow streets shaded by palm trees. Mashrabiya lattices adorning the facades of the buildings further soften the intrusive rays of the sun.

Norman Foster: A Life in Architecture
by Deyan Sudjic
Published 1 Sep 2010

On the main site, concrete structures have risen eight and ten storeys high on some buildings. They have been herded together so as to create shaded lanes narrow enough to generate a cooling breeze, like a traditional walled city. This is Masdar, the Arab word for source. Construction workers moved on to the site three months after Foster won a competition to do the plan. It is called a city, but that is putting it perhaps too optimistically. Masdar is one of the string of settlements sprouting up between Abu Dhabi and Dubai. What makes Masdar different from what is around it – the airport compound that houses flight crews, next door, the golf course, or the Formula One track – is that this is an experimental laboratory for a world that is waking up to the fear that it might be making itself uninhabitable.

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The shaded streets are intended to encourage walking – no small ambition in the climate of the Gulf, where in August the temperature is a brutal fifty degrees. In its optimism and its search for answers, Masdar is an echo of the first city of the future that Norman Foster explored with his adolescent imagination growing up in Manchester. Long before he met Buckminster Fuller, he never missed an instalment of Dan Dare: Pilot of the Future. As a young teenager Foster read the comic strip, with its intricate depiction of a world of atomic-powered monorails and levitating taxis (which look a lot like Masdar’s personal rapid transits), every week in the Eagle, the comic aimed at middle-class adolescents in the England of the 1950s.

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S., 8, 12 Luzhkov, Yuri, 244 Maison de Verre, Paris, 247–8 Majidi, Mouzhan, 270, 276 Manchester Town Hall, 27, 28–30, 33, 34–5 Manchester University, School of Architecture, 41–8, 51–2, 54, 206 Mao Tse Tung, 163, 175, 226 Marks, David: London Eye, London, 275 Marshall, Gordon, 130–1, 138 Masdar Development, Abu Dhabi (NF), 1–3, 155, 264 Masdar Institute of Science and Technology, 2 mass-produced homes, 144, 290–2 McMorran, Donald: Wood Street Police Station, 101 Médiathèque de Nîmes (NF), 249, 257–8 Meller, James, 150, 272 Mendelsohn, Erich, 84 Millau Viaduct, France (NF), 197–8 Millennium Bridge, London (NF), 11, 95, 143, 216–24, 275, 286 Millennium Dome, Greenwich (O2 Arena) (NF), 123 Millennium Tower projects (NF; unbuilt) Japan, 189–91 London, 191–2 model-making, 25–6, 281–3, 287 Monadnock Building, Chicago, 90 Moore, Charles, 78–9 Moore, Henry, 127, 149, 198 More London Masterplan (NF), 286 Morris, Marcus, 8 Morris, William, 214, 284 Munden, Roy, 164, 166, 170, 175 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (NF), 258 NACO, 225 national service, 33–4, 35 National Westminster Bank Headquarters, London, 158, 183, 218 Nazarbayev, Nursultan, 196, 197, 246 Nelson, David, 117, 189–90, 191, 204, 240, 255, 256, 257, 266, 270, 275 Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, 132 Neues Museum, Berlin, 275 New Architecture Exhibition: Fosters, Rogers, Stirling Royal Academy of Art (1986), 100–1 New Holland Island, Russia (NF), 242, 243, 246 New York Public Library (NF), 18 Newby, Frank, 159 Newport School, South Wales, 76, 105 Nouvel, Jean, 233, 258, 285 Agbar Tower, Barcelona, 185 O2 Arena, Greenwich (Millennium Dome) (NF), 123 Obayashi Corporation Millennium Tower, Japan, 188–9, 190 Ochoa, Elena see Foster, Elena Olmsted, Frederick Law: Central Park, New York, 245 Olsen, Fred, 107, 109, 111, 112, 118, 143, 288 dock amenities, Millwall (NF), 107, 108–12, 113–15, 122, 124, 128, 135 Gomera scheme, 112–13 headquarters, Vestby, Norway (NF), 112, 150, 205 Regent Street showroom (NF), 112, 253 Orange Hand store, Hampstead, 104–5, 253 Ove Arup, 217, 220, 221–3, 225, 271 Palace of Peace and Reconciliation, Kazakhstan (NF), 196–7, 241, 249, 290 Palladio, Andrea, 59, 161 Palmer and Turner, 160 Pan Am Building, New York, 83 Parker, Peter, 75 Pedersen and Tilney, 91 peerage, 11, 193–4, 284 Pei, I.M., 56–7, 66, 126 Bank of China Tower, Hong Kong, 175 Fragrant Hills Hotel, 227 Hancock Tower, Chicago, 173 Pelli, Cesar, 179 International Finance Centre Tower, Hong Kong, 182 Petronas Tower, Kuala Lumpur, 189 People’s Liberation Army, China, 227 Petronas Tower, Kuala Lumpur, 189 Petronas University of Technology, Malaysia (NF), 284 Pevsner, Nikolaus, 79 Philips, Graham, 255, 266 Pittsburgh Patent Glazing Corporation, 114–15 politics and architecture, 193–5, 198, 199–201, 202–3, 207–11, 224–5, 226, 238–9, 244 Pompidou Centre, Paris (Beaubourg), 81–2, 102, 177 Pont Millau, France (NF), 197–8, 264, 285 Ponti, Gio: Pirelli Tower, Milan, 157 Prince of Asturias Prize, 284 Prince of Wales, 50–1, 77, 100, 141, 193, 217 Pritchard, Tony, 135 Pritzker Prize, 284 Prix Imperium Award, Japan, 284 Prouvé, Jean, 151, 253, 291 Pushkin Museum, Moscow, 242–3, 290 Extension (NF), 242, 245 Putin, Vladimir, 245, 290 Rand, Ayn, 39, 68 Regent Street Polytechnic (University of Westminster), 51, 94 Reichstag, New German Parliament (NF), 127, 140, 197, 198–204, 206–11, 263, 282 see also politics and architecture; Wallot, Paul Reliance Controls Factory, Swindon (Team Four), 76, 93, 100, 105, 106, 111, 122–3 Renault Distribution Centre, Swindon (NF), 10–11, 257 Ridsdill-Smith, Roger, 217, 219 Ritchie, Ian, 265 Rogers, Richard, 41, 53, 58–9, 64, 73–4, 92, 99–100, 143, 193, 194, 265 collaborates with NF at Yale, 76–7, 91 88 Wood Street, London, 101–2, 103 Lloyds Building, London, 101, 103, 164, 177 New Architecture exhibition (1986), 100, 101 Pompidou Centre (Beaubourg), 81–2, 102, 177, 256 see also Team Four Rogers, Su, 74, 75, 91, 92, 98–9 Rohe, Mies van der, 32, 90, 125, 158, 173, 184, 255, 282–3 Illinois Institute of Technology, 56 Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, 132 Seagram Tower, New York, 56, 83, 173, 185 Ronan Point, London, 139 Root, John Wellborn: Monadnock Building, 90 Rossiya Hotel, Moscow, 242, 243 Rossiya Tower, Moscow (NF; unbuilt), 182, 242, 243 Rotis font, 152 Royal Air Force, 34 Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), 163, 164 Rudolph, Paul, 56–7, 71–3, 81–2, 89, 98, 143, 253, 270 Art and Architecture Building, Yale, 68, 70, 72, 77–80 Blue Cross, Blue Shield offices, Boston, 76 Cocoon House, Siesta Key, 66 Foster and Roger’s work, 81–2 house and studio, 68–70 NF’s Yale projects, 76, 117, 158 School of Forestry, Yale, 66 Temple Street car park, New Haven, 67 Rufford Hall, Cheshire, 45 Russia, 240–6 Saarinen, Eero, 56, 126 Ezra Stiles and Morse colleges, Yale University, 65 TWA terminal, Idlewild Airport, 60 Sackler Galleries, Royal Academy of Arts (NF), 69, 258 Sagoo, Narinder, 270 Sainsbury, David, 142–3 Sainsbury, David, Baron, 11, 193 Sainsbury, Robert and Lisa, 127–30, 132–3, 134, 136, 137, 138, 141, 143 Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts (NF), 84, 98, 105, 131–42, 198, 282 Samuel Beckett Theatre project (NF; unbuilt), 149–50 Sandberg, Michael, 157, 162, 163, 165 Scholl family, 151–2 Scott, Peter, 184 Scully, Vincent, 65, 79, 82–3 Seagram Building, New York, 56, 83, 90, 173 Sears Tower, Chicago, 158 Seidler, Harry, 157 Hong Kong Club Building, 181–2 Seifert, Richard: National Westminster Bank Headquarters, London, 158 Serra, Richard, 208, 217, 250 Sert, Jose Lluis, 57 Shuttleworth, Ken, 255, 266, 275 Simpson, Ian, 265 Sitte, Camillo, 48 Skybreak House, Hertfordshire (Team Four), 93 Small, John, 255 Smirke, Robert, 211, 213–14 Smithson, Peter and Alison, 147 Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, 214 SOM, 58, 271 Lever House, New York, 83 Space City, Russia, 240–1 Spence, Basil: Coventry Cathedral, 10 sports see hobbies St Paul’s Cathedral, London, 217, 244, 282 Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart, 115–16 Stansted Airport (NF), 136, 234, 235–6, 257, 258, 286 Stanton, Alan, 105, 106, 265 Stern, Bob, 77 Stevens, Jocelyn, 211–12 Stirling, James, 32, 55, 70, 75–6, 90, 100, 105, 147 Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart, 115–16 Stirling Prize, 284 Street Porter, Tim, 116 Stubbins, Hugh, 157 Citicorp Tower, New York, 160 Federal Reserve Tower, Boston, 160 Sullivan, Louis, 90 Sussmuth, Rita, 199, 207 Sutcliffe, Mark, 271 Swiss RE Headquarters, London (NF), 103, 154–5, 182–5, 186–7, 191, 192, 217, 275, 283, 286 Sydney Opera House, 49, 164, 220 symbolism and architecture, 197–9, 203, 208–10, 238 see also politics and architecture Tate Gallery, St Ives, 73 Team Four, 41, 66, 75, 93–4, 95–9, 103, 106, 266, 270 Team Ten, 93 Television House, Manchester, 38 Temple Street car park, New Haven, 67 Thatcher, Margaret, 101, 259 Thompson, Mike, 107, 109–10, 112 Tigerman, Stanley, 77 Torre de Collserola, Barcelona (NF), 182, 275 Torre Velasca, Milan, 49 Tower 42, London, 158, 183, 218 Trafalgar Square Redevelopment (NF), 216 Tubbs, Ralph: Dome of Discovery, Festival of Britain, 9 TWA terminal, Idlewild Airport, 60 Ulm School of Design, 151–2 Union Station, New Haven, 62 Unite d’Habitation, Marseilles, 11 Urban, Joseph, 187 Utzon, Jorn Oberg: Sydney Opera House, 49, 256 Vanbrugh, John: Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, 202 Vanity Fair, 258–9 Virlogeux, Michel, 198 Vogue, 67–8 Walker, Derek, 159 Walker, John, 116 Wallis, Barnes, 145 Wallot, Paul: Reichstag, Berlin (original building), 199–200, 201, 203 Waterhouse, Alfred, 271 Manchester Town Hall, 27 Natural History Museum, London, 28 Watts, Thomas, 213 Webb, Philip: Red House, Bexleyheath, 284–5 Weidenfeld, George, Baron, 11, 193 Wembley Stadium, London (NF), 264, 286 Wen Jiabao, 238–9 Whitby, George: Wood Street Police Station, 101 Whitney Museum, New York, 159–60, 180–1 Wilkinson, Chris: Gateshead Bridge, 275 Williams, Owen: Express Newspapers’ Buildings, 30–2 Willis Faber and Dumas Headquarters, Ipswich (NF), 31–2, 115, 116, 123–6, 140–1, 151, 253, 266 Wilson, Colin St John: British Library, 75 Witchita House project, 144 Wood Street, London, 101–3 Woolworth Building, New York, 173 World Trade Center, New York, 158 Wren, Christopher, 101 St Paul’s Cathedral, 217, 244, 282 Wright, Frank Lloyd, 11, 37, 39, 80, 82, 207 Falling Water, Pittsburgh, 89–90 Guggenheim Museum, New York, 90, 186, 285 Larkin Guaranty Offices, Buffalo, 77 Yakubu, Armstrong, 270 Yale Daily News, 78 Yale University, 53, 57–8 NF arrives, 60–1, 62, 63–4, 65–6 NF collaborates with Richard Rogers, 76–7 NF influenced by Paul Rudolph, 68–9, 70–2, 76 NF’s student travel and lifestyle, 73–5, 89–90 see also Art and Architecture Building; Chermayeff, Serge; Johnson, Philip; Rogers, Richard; Rudolph, Paul; Scully, Vincent Zunz, Jack, 172 Bicycles have fascinated Foster since he was an adolescent: for their mechanical precision, as well as their performance.

Building and Dwelling: Ethics for the City
by Richard Sennett
Published 9 Apr 2018

In less Big Brotherish uses of technology, like the orchestration of traffic lights, a whole, if smallish city now operates at the command of the cockpit – or more precisely, at the behest of the big-data assemblages, interpretative algorithms and monitoring of machines which are displayed visually in the room. Such cockpit control embodies the prescriptive model of a smart city. Songdo’s sister smart city, Masdar, is near to and financed by Abu Dhabi. Masdar is meant more as a smart suburb, its 40,000 residents complemented by 50,000 daily commuters from Abu Dhabi. The United Arab Emirates, all huge consumers of energy, are concerned about shrinking their ecological footprint. As in Songdo, urbanists are bent on showing the way forward to others. In Masdar, as master-planned by Norman Foster, relatively friction-free energy use comes from renewables like solar; in planner-speak, the plan is that ‘synergistic efficient urban design by means of passive design elements is being applied’, making savings of 70 per cent compared to Abu Dhabi nearby.

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Dave Eggers, The Circle (New York: Vintage Books, 2014). 26. Anthony M. Townsend, Smart Cities: Big Data, Civic Hackers, and the Quest for a New Utopia (New York: W. W. Norton, 2013), pp. 93–115. 27. See Greenfield, Against the Smart City. 28. See http://www.masdar.ae/en/masdar-city/the-built-environment. 29. Sam Nader, ‘Paths to a Low-Carbon Economy – The Masdar Example’, Energy Procedia 1, no. 1 (2009): 3591–58. 30. Suzanne Goldenberg, ‘Climate Experts Urge Leading Scientists’ Association: Reject Exxon Sponsorship’, The Guardian, 22 February 2016. 31. Norbert Wiener, Cybernetics, revised edn (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1965), especially ‘Preface to the Second Edition’, pp. vii–xiii. 32.

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(Creative Commons) 27. Edmund Husserl. (Creative Commons) 28. Foreigners of Venice map. 29. Bridge to the Ghetto Nuovo in Venice. 30. The Ninth Avenue façade of 111 Eighth Avenue, in the Chelsea district of Manhattan. (Scott Roy Atwood/Creative Commons) 31. Googleplex interior. (Marcin Wichary) 32. Masdar City centre plan. (LAVA – Laboratory for Visionary Architecture) 33. Songdo Central Park in Incheon, South Korea. (Pkphotograph/Shutterstock) 34. Berm designed as part of the Rebuild by Design proposal for Battery Park. (BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group) 35. Recreation and storm protection, designed as part of the Rebuild by Design proposal for Battery Park.

Cities Are Good for You: The Genius of the Metropolis
by Leo Hollis
Published 31 Mar 2013

With iconic commissions such as the HSBC Bank in Hong Kong, the Gherkin (30 St Mary Axe) in London, and the truly impressive Beijing Airport, Foster has been at the forefront of finding a technical solution to questions of sustainability, investing in new materials, working on designs that reduce energy use, and always remaining visually innovative. Breaking the ground at Masdar The architect’s model for the zero-carbon city At Masdar Foster takes the idea of the sustainable city to its current limits. He began his quest by studying traditional Arabic building methods to understand how societies had grown up and thrived in such a hostile environment. To this he added a lifetime’s passion for the latest technologies and materials.

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Once inside they will be forced to adapt to a more sustainable lifestyle: ‘We are living and experiencing what we are trying to … educate people about … We’re using roughly half the energy of a normal building of this size. We are producing no carbon because it’s all renewable. Our water consumption is less and our waste generation is relatively low.’6 Masdar is an example of the new eco-cities that herald the possible future of urban living. It is ironic, however, that Masdar is only a few miles from the oil fields of Abu Dhabi that paid for the experiment. In fact, while funding the project, the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company is also actively searching for new oil ventures in Oman and Libya as well as south-east Asia.

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Glaeser, E. and Kahn, M., The Greenness of Cities, National Bureau of Economic Research, August 2008, p. 30. 4. Florida, R., ‘Why Young Americans…’, 10 April 2012, www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2012/04/why-young-americans-are-driving-so-much-less-than-their-parents/1712 5. Kahn, M., 2010, Chapter 1. 6. Vidal, J., ‘Masdar City – a Glimpse of the Future in the Desert’, 26 April 2011, www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/apr/26/masdar-city-desert-future 7. Moore, M., ‘Chinese move to the eco-city of the future’, 18 March 2012, www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/9151487/Chinese-move-to-their-eco-city-of-the-future.html 8. Williams, A. and Donald, A., The Lure of the City: From Slums to Suburbs, Pluto Press, 2011, p. 137. 9. www.nyc.gov/html/planyc2030/html/about/about.shtml 10. www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/bicyclists/bikestats.shtml#crashdata 11. transalt.org/about 12. www.nytimes.com/2011/11/16/realestate/commercial/for-those-who-pedal-to-work-a-room-to-store-their-bikes.html 13.

City: A Guidebook for the Urban Age
by P. D. Smith
Published 19 Jun 2012

The water of this desert city will be supplied by a solar-powered desalination plant, with waste water being recycled for irrigation. Residents and visitors must park their cars outside Masdar City and most of the transport in the city will be provided by a futuristic fleet of driverless, pod-shaped electric cars – the personal rapid transport system. Home to hi-tech industries and scientific research institutes, Masdar City is planned as an ‘open-data city’, with free wireless networks providing ubiquitous access to the internet. The Masdar Institute for Science and Technology has already opened, with buildings that have halved the typical energy and water consumption for the UAE.

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Buildings are also designed to reduce the absorption of the sun’s energy and to provide shade. In a warmer urban future, such ideas may prove useful in other cities. The first phase of Masdar City is due for completion in 2015, with the entire six-square-kilometre city being finished five or ten years later. Masdar City, designed by Norman Foster, is an eco-city currently being built near Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates. Masdar City is a new, planned city. For older cities, the route to sustainability will be costly and complex. But the price of doing nothing will be immeasurably greater.

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The urban blueprints of many post-war architects and planners occluded that most essential part of any city: their inhabitants. They forgot that in the walkways and tower blocks they were designing, children would play, people would go to work, fall in love, and eventually grow old. Technology allows planners to design and build virtually any city, even self-sufficient eco-cities like Norman Foster’s ambitious Masdar City in Abu Dhabi, being constructed with a budget of $22 billion.60 But even the most visionary plans must allow for change over time and, most importantly, for the needs of their inhabitants. As Sudjic says, ‘successful cities are the ones that allow people to be what they want; unsuccessful ones try to force them to be what others want them to be’.61 Brasília Brasília was a heroic attempt to realise the Modernist urban theories of Le Corbusier and the CIAM.

Scale: The Universal Laws of Growth, Innovation, Sustainability, and the Pace of Life in Organisms, Cities, Economies, and Companies
by Geoffrey West
Published 15 May 2017

Its main business is expected to be the high-tech research and manufacturing of environmentally friendly products to be supported by an influx of an additional sixty thousand commuters from Abu Dhabi itself. Perhaps the most bizarre aspect of Masdar is that its boundaries have been designed to be about as inorganic and unimaginative as possible—they form an exact square. Yes, a square city. It is hard not to perceive Masdar as effectively a large private suburban residential industrial park rather than a vibrant diverse autonomous city. In many ways its philosophy is derivative of Ebenezer Howard’s garden city concept brought into the high-tech culture of the twenty-first century, except that it appears to be designed for the privileged rather than for the working poor.

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In many ways its philosophy is derivative of Ebenezer Howard’s garden city concept brought into the high-tech culture of the twenty-first century, except that it appears to be designed for the privileged rather than for the working poor. Nicolai Ouroussoff, who was the architecture critic for the New York Times from 2004 to 2011, suggested that Masdar is the epitome of a gated community: “the crystallization of another global phenomenon: the growing division of the world into refined, high-end enclaves and vast formless ghettos where issues like sustainability have little immediate relevance.” It’s too early to tell whether Masdar will become a real city or remain just a grandiose upscale “gated community” stuck out in the Arabian desert. The tension between form and function, between town and country, between organic evolutionary development and the parsimony of unadorned steel and concrete, and between the complexity of fractal-like curves and surfaces and the simplicity of Euclidean geometry, remains an ongoing debate with no simple resolution or any easy answer.

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This is reflected in phrases he used such as “cleaning and purging” the city, or developing “a calm and powerful architecture,” and in his insistence that buildings be designed without ornamentation. Thank goodness that his grandiose plans were not acted upon so that we can still enjoy some of the more decadent urban embellishments of central Paris and Stockholm. Top left: An example of Ebenezer Howard’s plans for a garden city; top right: the new city of Masdar in Abu Dhabi; middle and bottom left: examples of Le Corbusier’s design for a new city. Le Corbusier had an enormous influence on architects and urbanists across the globe, as evidenced by the dominance of rigid steel and concrete structures that adorn the central districts of all of our major cities.

The Stack: On Software and Sovereignty
by Benjamin H. Bratton
Published 19 Feb 2016

We imagine Cedric Price's Fun Palace (1961) turned inside out by North Korean stadium pageants where the audience itself is the media content, but instead of free to play, each actor is instead rendered into disciplined pixel within a larger choreography of the spectacular image. We could mark an ancestral trace from Yona Friedman's La Ville Spatiale to the new Asian smart cities such as New Songdo City (“a ubiquitous city,” says its brochure) in South Korea's Incheon development, or see Paolo Soleri's Arcology as a first pass at Masdar, the massive “green” smart city in Abu Dhabi. (Both Songdo and Masdar were built with Cisco and IBM as key partners.) Is Situationist cut-and-paste psychogeography reborn or smashed to bits by Minecraft? What binds the hyperlibertarian secessionism of the Seasteading Institute, which would move whole populations offshore to live on massive ships floating from port to port unmolested by regulation and undesired publics (Facebook funder Peter Thiel is a key funder) with Archigram's Walking City project from 1967, which plotted for Star Wars Land Walker–like city machines to get up and amble away to greener pastures as needed?

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This mix of “real” architects and urbanists with consultants and IT systems architects and administrators is neither intrinsically offensive nor automatically fortunate, but it does alter the relative tabula rasa on which synthetic megacities are built. No more Brasilia or Tsukuba Science City; now we have variations on J. G. Ballard's Super-Cannes: Masdar (Norman Foster, Partners, et al.), Skolkova (Cisco et al.) Songdo City (Cisco, IBM, et al.), KAUST (IBM, HOK, et al.), and on and on.23 These Moon-bases on Earth are spliced from Soviet science cities, Silicon Valley campuses, Orange County gated communities, and a mutual understanding between political despotism and technological innovation.

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The choice of Foster's office for this project like this is not surprising, as he is arguably the preeminent architect of the Google Earth perspective: he might terraform the Moon because he has already, project by project, terraformed Earth. Regardless of how you may like or not like the projects, from Masdar to the new Reichstag and the Gherkin, few contemporary offices have done more to expand the perspectival scale of architectural figuration than his. Architectural students now include “satellite” view along the required plan, section, elevation, and axonometric perspectives on their projects, and his portfolio suggests one reason why.

Overbooked: The Exploding Business of Travel and Tourism
by Elizabeth Becker
Published 16 Apr 2013

About 20 miles outside of Abu Dhabi, a multibillion-dollar project called Masdar is attempting to do just that but on a mammoth scale that has become the norm in the United Arab Emirates. Promising to be the first carbon-neutral city in the world, the architects and engineers are using modern technology and ancient urban desert design like narrow streets and latticework screens that fight off the heat and glare of the sun. Eventually this refuge should show the way to a desert life after the oil economy runs dry. Masdar is part of the larger Masdar Initiative to develop alternative energy in the UAE, investing in solar, wind and nuclear.

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Marriott Guanacaste Resort and Spa, 262–63 Kaaba, 184 Kafue, Zambia, 218 Kailua Beach, 387 Kailua Beach and Dune Management Plan, The (report), 385, 387 Kaing Guek Eav, 108 Kales, Arthur and Amy, 294 Kanagaratnam, Tina, 325–26 Kandy, Sri Lanka, 36, 285–86 Kapamba base camp, 214–17, 228 Kapamba River, 215, 216 Kaufmann, Kathy, 128 Kaunda, Kenneth, 218, 230, 236, 238 Kearney, Thomas H., 24 Kempinski hotel, 177 Kennedy, Jacqueline, 88 Kentlands Travel Agency, 381 Kenya, 207, 208, 220, 235, 242 elephant poaching in, 220 wildlife conservation in, 221–23 Kep, Cambodia, 111 Key West, Fla., 152 Khajavi, Alex, 272 Khmer Rouge, 37, 88, 90, 92, 95, 104, 105–8 Kiattiyotcharoen, Narain, 37 Kigali, Rwanda, 106 Killing Fields, The (film), 87 King, Brian, 201 Kirkham, Anthony, 199 Klein, Ross A., 145–46 Knot of Vipers, The (Mauriac), 62 Knowles, Tony, 159 Koh Kong, Cambodia, 111, 112 Korea, demilitarized zone of, 286–87 Krippendorf, Jost, 269 Kruger National Park, 222, 239 Kuchchaveli, Sri Lanka, 280–81 Kusaka, Yoko, 114 Kutay, Sevil, 379 labor unions: globalization and, 141–42 tourism industry and, 373–76 Lansky, Meyer, 368 Laos, 14 Las Perlas Archipelago, 248 Las Vegas, Nev., 362, 367–76 Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, 370, 371 Las Vegas Convention Center, 370 Lawless, Gerald, 195, 196 Leahy, Michael, 28 Leakey, Richard, 221–23, 235, 240–41 Leeds Metropolitan University, 269 Lee Kuan Yew, 369 Lelyveld, Joseph, 28 Lemmo, Samuel J., 385 Leon, Donna, 85–86 Leonardo da Vinci, 39 Leshan Giant Buddha, 339 Levy, Michael, 319 Liang Sicheng, 298 Liberia, 157, 161 ship registry of, 139, 140 Libya, 193 LICADHO, 110 Lichtenwald, Janice, 266 Lindblad Expeditions, 246, 248, 257 Lin Xi, 329–34 Living Planet report, 196 Livingstone, Zambia, 237 “Living Working Countryside” (Taylor), 74 Lloyds Cruise International, 164 London, 1851 Exposition in, 49 London Daily Mail, 72 Los Angeles Times, 30 “Lost Decade, The” (report), 360 Louvre, Abu Dhabi, 191, 192 Louvre, Paris, 38–39, 66 Lovdal, Trond, 225 Love Boat, The (TV show), 137 Luangwa River valley, 211, 212, 218 Lufthansa, 172 Lula da Silva, Luis Inácio, 272–73, 276 Lusaka, Zambia, 209–10, 229 Lustenberger, Joe, 372–73 Maasai, 242 Macao, 113, 295, 306, 314, 368–69 McBride, Kelly, 31 McCain, John, 366 McCartney, Mike, 387 McCullough, David, 248 McDonald’s, 243 McGhee, Dorothy, 376 McMafia (Glenny), 115 Madrid, 7–8, 34 Magic Planet, 176 Maine, 161 Malafante, Marco, 78, 82 Malawi, 218 Malaysia, 377–78 Malkovich, John, 73 Mall of Emirates, 167, 176 Malraux, André, 55–56, 59 Mam, Somaly, 117–18 Manaus, Brazil, 274 Mann, Thomas, 82 Manuel Antonio National Park, 261 Mao Zedong, 292, 297, 299, 300, 313, 330 Marchetti, Marco, 47, 70 Mardi Gras (cruise ship), 136, 137 Marina Bay Sands, 113, 369 marine life, threats to, 156 maritime transport industry: environmental standards for, 157–58 flags of convenience in, 139, 142, 256 pollution from, 156 Marriott, J. W. “Bill,” Jr., 44, 276, 359, 361 Marriott family, 367 Marriott International, 340, 380 Brazilian rainforest preserve of, 271, 274–76 carbon footprint of, 271, 276 Chinese hotels of, 313–14, 315, 322 Marshall Plan, 52–54 Martin, Esmond, 234–35 Masdar, UAE, 195 Masdar Initiative, 195 mass tourism: at Angkor temples, 91, 94–95, 98 dangers of, 47 in Venice, 75, 76–86 Matthews, Charlie, 63–64 Matthews, Kathleen, 270–71, 274 Maud’hui, Philippe, 47, 57, 66, 75 Mauriac, François, 62 Mavrogiannis, Anthony, 381–82 Maxa, Rudy, 32 Mayle, Peter, 72, 73 Mecca, Saudi Arabia, 181–85 media, see travel writers, travel writing medical tourism, 18–19, 348, 376–79 Medina, Saudi Arabia, 182 MediTour Expo, 377 Mérimée, Prosper, 56 Mexico, 116, 377 Meyer, Chris, 371–72, 374 Meyers, Arlen, 377, 378 Mfuwe Lodge, 211–12, 214, 219, 223, 225, 226–27, 240 Miami, Fla., 34 Miami Herald, 26, 27, 32 Miami News, 26 MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions) business, 18, 370–74 middle classes, as tourists, 10, 12 Middleton, Drew, 28 Minc, Alain, 71 mining: in Costa Rica, 258–59 in Zambia, 210, 228, 236 Mitterrand, François, 38 Mitterrand, Frédéric, 67 Mohammed, Prophet, 185, 190 Mohammed Al-Maktoum, Sheikh, 169, 172 Moi, Daniel arap, 221 Moller, Eric, 324–25 Moloka’i, Hawaii, 152 Mona Lisa (Leonardo), 39 Monet, Claude, 47–48, 70, 309 Monterey Bay, 161 Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve, 253–54 Morella, Connie, 348–49, 353 Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park, 237 Motse Lodge, 240 Moulinier, Alain, 68 Mozambique, 208, 235, 238–39 M.

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Organized by New York artists: “130 Artists Call for Guggenheim Boycott over Migrant Worker Exploitation,” WordPress.com, New York, March 17, 2011, http://www.gulflabor.wordpress.com. create an elite battalion of foreign mercenaries: Mark Mazzetti and Emily B. Hager, “Secret Desert Force Set Up by Blackwater’s Founder,” New York Times, June 7, 2011. host its first Green Tourism conference: World Green Tourism Conference, Abu Dhabi, November 27–29, 2010. Masdar is attempting to do just that: Nicolai Ouroussoff, “In Arabian Desert, a Sustainable City Rises,” New York Times, September 26, 2010. Eventually this refuge should show the way: Ucilia Wang, “Abu Dhabi, Rise of a Renewable Energy Titan?” January 2011, http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2011/01/abu-dhabi-rise-of-a-renewable-energy-titan.

Earth Wars: The Battle for Global Resources
by Geoff Hiscock
Published 23 Apr 2012

Rather than a parabolic trough, it uses the newer technology of a bank of mirrors focused on a solar collector at the top of the tower. The first example of this technology, the Gemasolar plant near Seville in Spain, was commissioned in June 2011 as a joint venture between the Abu Dhabi energy investment fund Masdar, and Spanish engineering group SENER. These large-scale solar projects in the United States and elsewhere are typical of the way renewable energy is winning the support of governments and big corporates around the world. Ivanpah backer Google, for example, is also a big investor in two massive U.S. wind farms: Caithness Energy’s 845 MW Shepherds Flat facility in Oregon, and TerraGen’s Alta Wind Energy Centre in California that aims to generate 1,020 MW by 2012 and 1,550 MW on full completion.

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Thanet, which is owned by the Swedish state energy group Vattenfall, has been delivering power into the UK grid since late 2010, and by late 2012 will be joined by two bigger wind farms nearby, the 140-turbine 504 MW Greater Gabbard field and the spectacular 630 MW London Array, a 175-turbine farm spreading across 245 square kilometres of the Thames Estuary between the coasts of Kent and Essex. If all goes well in stage one of the London Array, the consortium behind it—made up of DONG Energy of Denmark, German power company E.ON, and the Abu Dhabi energy fund Masdar—may expand it to 1,000 MW. E.ON already owns and operates three large offshore wind farms in the United Kingdom and is pushing ahead with the 230 MW Humber Gateway off the coast of Yorkshire. The east coast of England is not the United Kingdom’s only suitable location for utility-scale projects. On the other side of Britain, German power company RWE’s UK subsidiary, RWE Npower Renewables, aims to have its 160-turbine 576 MW Gwynt y Mor project off the coast of north Wales in full production by 2014.

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Black Sea Blavatnik, Leonard Bogdanov, Vladimir Bohai Sea Bolivia Bontang, Indonesia Borneo Botswana Bouazizi, Mohammed BP Gulf of Mexico in Russia Brahmaputra River Brazil ethanol iron ore nuclear power, uranium oil and gas presalt Bridas Corp BrightSource Energy Brookings Institution Brunei Bryant, Robert BSG Group, BSG Resources Buenos Aires Buffett, Warren Bulgheroni, Carlos Bumi Resources Bunge Burma (Myanmar) Burundi BYD Co Cairo Caithness Energy Calderon, Felipe Calicut, India Cambodia Cameco Canada tar sands LNG shale nuclear power, uranium Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers Canadian Natural Resources Canadian Solar Inc Cantarell oil field, Mexico Carabobo, Venezuela Cargill Caribbean Sea Carrizo Oil & Gas Carroll, Cynthia Caspian Sea Cecil, Ronnie Central Asia Centre for Global Energy Studies Century Aluminium Cerrejon Ceyhan, Turkey Chad Chalco Changlang district, India Chatterji, Zohra Chavez, Hugo Chenab River Cheniere Energy Chesapeake Energy Chevron Chile copper lithium China 12th Five-Year Plan coal Communist Party copper iron ore investment abroad nuclear power oil and gas rare metals solar power water wind power China Coal Energy China Development Bank China Guangdong Nuclear Power Group (CGNPG) China Investment Corp (CIC) China Iron and Steel Association (CISA) China Metallurgical Group Corp China Metallurgical Mines Association China Minmetals China Mobile China National Coal Group China National Nuclear Corp (CNNC) China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC) China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) China Nonferrous Metal Mining Group Co (CNMC) China Petroleum & Chemical Corp (Sinopec) China Railway Construction Corp China Railway Engineering Corp China Shenhua Coal China State Shipbuilding Corp Chinalco Chodiev, Patokh Chromium Chubu Electric Power Co Chung Joon-yang Chunxiao gas field CITIC Clinton, Bill Clinton, Hillary CNOOC Coal production clean technology metallurgical thermal Coal India Ltd Codelco Codexis COFCO Colombia Common Economic Space Comtec Solar Conde, Alpha Conga, Peru Congo, Democratic Republic (DRC) ConocoPhillips Cosmo Oil Consolidated Thompson Iron Ore Mines Conte, Lansana Copper Cosan Critical Materials Strategy report Cuba Cubapetroleo Currie, Jeffrey Curtis, Nicholas Cyprus Dadis Camara, Moussa Dalian (Port Arthur) D’Amato, Richard Danube River Daqing, China Datong Coal Dauphin, Claude Davis, Mick Daye Non-ferrous Metals Co (DNMC) De Beers DeKastri oil terminal De Margerie, Christophe De Turckheim, Eric Deng Xiaoping Denmark Deripaska, Oleg Diaoyutai (Senkaku islands) Disi-Saq aquifer Domen Kazunari DONG Energy Dongfang Turbine DP Clean Tech Drummond Co Du Plessis, Jan Dubai Dudley, Robert (Bob) Dunand, Marco Dutch East India Company (VOC) Eagle Ford shale field East China Sea East Prinovozemelsky field East Timor (Timor-Leste) EBX Ecuador EDF Elenin, Platon (Boris Berezovsky) Empresas Frisco Enbridge Encana Enercon Enex EngelInvest Group England Eni E.ON Equinox Minerals Erdenes-Tavan Tolgoi Eritrea Escondida mine, Chile Essar Oil Essar Steel Estonia Ethanol Ethiopia Eurasian Energy Corp Eurasian National Resources Corp Europe nuclear power solar power shale wind power European Union (EU) European Wind Energy Association Eurozone Evraz Group Exxon Neftegas ExxonMobil Falklands (Malvinas) Fan Shenggen Fayetteville shale Fedun, Leonid Ferghana Valley, Central Asia Ferreira, Murilo First Quantum First Solar Ford Motor Forrest, Andrew Fortescue Metals Group Foster, Maria das Gracas Silva Fosun International Fox, Josh Fracturing, “fracking” France nuclear power Freeport McMoRan Fresnillo Friedland, Robert Fridman, Mikhail Frolov, Alexander Fu Chengyu Fukushima Gabon Gaddafi, Muammar Galp Energia Gamesa Gandhi, Rahul Gandur, Jean Claude Ganges River Gangotri Glacier Gao Jifan Garnaut, Ross Gas Authority of India Ltd (GAIL) Gazprom Gazprom Neft GCL Poly Energy Gecamines General Electric (GE) GE Wind Energy General Motors (GM) Germany nuclear power solar power wind power Gevo Ghawar oil field, Saudi Arabia Gidropress Gindalbie Metals Gladstone LNG Glasenberg, Ivan Glencore International Glencore Xstrata International Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) Gold Goldman, Arnold Goldman Sachs Google Gorgon LNG project Grasberg mine, Indonesia Great Artesian Basin Great Lakes Great Man-made River (GMR), Libya Greece Green Energy Technology Greenland Greenland Minerals and Energy Grupo Carso Grupo Mexico Guangzhou Guarani aquifer Guinea Gunvor Group Guodian United Power Technology Gutseriev, Mikhai Hainan island Hancock Coal, Hancock Prospecting Hansen Transmissions Hanwha Solarone Hasankeyf Haynesville shale field Hayward, Tony Hebei Iron & Steel Heilongjiang-Amur aquifer Himalayas Hindalco Hindustan Copper Hitachi Hokkaido Holland Hong Kong Hormuz, Strait of Houser, Trevor HRT Participacoes em Petroleo HSBC Hu, Stern Hunan Valin Hunt, Simon Hydro power Ibragimov, Alijan Idemitsu Kosan Ilisu Dam, Turkey Impeccable, USNS Imperial Oil India coal copper hydropower iron ore nuclear power oil and gas solar power wind power Indian Ocean Indian Oil Corp Ltd (IOCL) Indonesia coal oil and gas Indus River Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Industrias Nucleares do Brazil (INB) Industrias Penoles Inmet Inner Mongolia Yitai Coal Inpex International Atomic Energy Agency International Copper Study Group International Energy Agency International Finance Corp International Food Policy Research Institute International Monetary Fund Interros Inuit Iran South Pars Iraq Iraq National Oil Co (INOC) Ireland Iron ore Israel Istanbul Itaipu Dam Italy ITOCHU Ivanhoe Mines Ivory Coast JA Solar Jaeggi, Daniel Jakarta Jamnagar Japan earthquake and tsunami nuclear power and Fukushima disaster solar power steel industry trading houses Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corp (JOGMEC) Japan Petroleum Exploration Co (Japex) Japan Renewable Energy Foundation Jazan JFE Jhelum River Jiang Jiemin Jiang Zemin Jiangsu Shagang Jiangxi Copper Corp Jin Baofang Jinchuan Group Jindal Steel Jordan, Jordan River JSW Steel Jubail JX Holdings Kaltim Prima Coal, Indonesia Kamchatka peninsula Kan Naoto Kansai Electric Power Co Karachaganak field, Kazakhstan Karachi, Pakistan Karakoram Pass Kashagan field, Kazakhstan Kashgar, China Kashmir Katanga Mining Kazmunaigas Khan, German Khartoum, Sudan Kazakhmys Kazakhstan coal copper nuclear test site, uranium oil and gas Kazzinc Kazatomprom Kenya Keystone pipeline Khabarovsk, Russia Khodorkovsky, Mikhail Khudainatov, Eduard Khunjerab Pass Khuzestan province, Iran Kim, Vladimir Kloppers, Marius Koc Holding Koizumi Junichiro Kolkata (Calcutta) Kolomoisky, Igor Korea Electric Power Corp (Kepco) Korea Gas (KoGas) Krishna-Godavari (KG) Basin, India Kuantan, Malaysia Kudankulam, India Kulibayev, Timur Kuwait Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration (Kufpec) Kuwait Petroleum Corp (KPC) Kuzbassrazrezugol Kyrgyzstan Kyushu Electric Power Co Kvanefjeld, Greenland Lagos Lanco Infratech Laos Las Bambas, Peru Lavrov, Sergey LDK Solar Lead Lebanon Legacy Iron Ore Li Keqiang Li Xianshou Li Yihuang Liang Guanglie Liberia Libya Lifton, Jack Liquefied natural gas (LNG) Lisin, Vladimir Lithium Lithuania Lombok Strait Lomonosov ridge Lorenz, Edward Los Bronces, Chile Louis Dreyfus Lu Tingxiu Lu Xiangyang LUKOIL Lumwana, Zambia Lundin Mining Lynas Corp Ma Zhaoxu Maanshan Iron & Steel Macarthur Coal McArthur River McClendon, Aubrey McMahon Line MacMines AustAsia Madagascar Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel (MMK) Makhmudov, Iskander Malacca, Strait of Malaysia Malawi Malvinas (Falklands) Manila Mao Zedong Marcellus shale field Marubeni Corp Mary River Masdar Mashkevich, Alexander Mechel Medcalf, Rory Mediterranean Sea Medvedev, Dmitry MEG Energy Mehta, Sureesh Mekong River Mekong River Commission Melnichenko, Andrey MEMC Mercuria Group Merkel, Angela Metalloinvest Metorex Mexico Mexico City Mexico, Gulf of Miao Liansheng MidAmerican Energy Middle East Mikhelson, Leonid Miller, Alexei Mineralogy/Resourcehouse Mittal, Lakshmi Minmetals Resources Mitsubishi Chemical Mitsubishi Corp Mitsubishi Electric Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Mitsui & Co Modi, Narendra Molycorp Mongolia coal copper uranium Mongolia, Inner Montana Resources Morocco Mordashov, Alexei Mount Weld, Australia Mountain Pass, California Mozambique Mulva, Jim Mumbai (Bombay) Muziris, India Myanmar (Burma) Nabucco project Namcha Barwa, Tibet Namibia Nansha (Spratlys) National Iranian Oil Co (NIOC) National Oil Co of Libya National Mineral Development Corp (NMDC), India National Thermal Power Corp (NTPC), India Natuna field Natural gas Nazarbayev, Nursultan Neelum river Neira, Dr Maria Netherlands New Delhi New Hope Coal Newcastle, Australia Newmont Mining NewZim Steel Niger Nigeria Nigerian National Petroleum Corp Nile River Ningbo Niobrara shale field Niobium Nippon Mining Nippon Oil Nippon Steel Noble Group Noda Yoshihiko Nomura China Non-Proliferation Treaty Norilsk Nickel North Atlantic Gyre North Caspian Operating Co North Korea North Pacific Gyre North Pars field, Iran North Pole North Slope, Alaska North West Shelf, Australia Northern Sea Route, Russia Northwest Passage, Canada Norway Novatek Novolipetsk Steel (NLMK) NRG Energy Nubian Sandstone aquifer Nuclear power Nuclear Power Corp of India Ltd (NPCIL) NUKEM Nunavut Obama, Barack Occidental Petroleum Corp Ogallala aquifer OGX Petroleo & Gas Ohmae Kenichi Oil & Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) Oil India Ltd (OIL) Olam International Olympic Dam Oman Ombai Strait ONEXIM Group ONGC Videsh Opium Wars Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) Origin Energy Oryx Petroleum Osaka Gas Osborne, Milton Oyu Tolgoi, Mongolia Palmer, Clive Pan American Energy Papua New Guinea Paracels Pakistan Paraguay Paraná River Pars Oil & Gas Co Pasha Bulker Patna Peabody Energy Pearl River Pemakochung monastery, Tibet Pemex Peng Xiaofeng Penn West Energy Persian Gulf Pertamina Peru Petrobras PetroChina PetroHawk Energy Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) Petronas Petronet LNG PetroVietnam Philippines Pioneer Natural Resources Pilbara iron ore region, Australia Poland Polo, Marco Popov, Sergey Port Arthur (Dalian) Portugal POSCO Potanin, Vladimir Potash supplies Poussenkova, Dr Nina Praj Industries Pratas islands (Dongsha) Prelude LNG project, Australia Premier Oil Prigorodnoye, Russia PrivatGroup Probo Koala Prodeco Prokhorov, Mikhail Prokopyevskugol PTT Exploration & Production Puducherry (Pondicherry), India Punjab province, Pakistan Putin, Vladimir Qatar QatarGas Qatar General Petroleum Corp (QGPC) Qatar Investment Authority Qatar Petroleum Qteros Quadra FNX Mining Queensland coal basins (Bowen, Galilee, Surat) Rabigh, Saudi Arabia RAIPON Raizen Rare earths Rare metals and materials (indium, gallium, tellurium) Ras Tanura RasGas Rashtriya Ispat Nagam (Vizag Steel) Raspadskaya Rashnikov, Viktor Rave, Dr Klaus Ravi River Red Sea Refineries Reliance Industries ReneSola Renewable Energy Policy Network (REN21) REpower Repsol Repsol Brazil Repsol-YPF Rich, Marc Rio de Janeiro Rio Tinto Plc/Ltd coal copper iron ore uranium Rinehart, Gina Riversdale Mining Roeslani, Rosan Rosatom Rosneft Ross Sea Rothschild, Nathaniel Rousseff, Dilma Royal Dutch Shell Royal Society of Canada Ruia, Shashi and Ravi Rusal RusHydro Russia coal iron ore oil and gas nuclear/uranium Russian Far East Russky Ugol (Russian Coal) Russneft Rwanda RWE Power Saami Sabic Salar de Atacama Salar de Cauchari Salar de Olaroz Salar de Uyuni Sakhalin Sakhalin Oil & Gas Development Saleh, Ali Abdullah Salween River Samruk Energo Samruk Kazyna Samsung Electronics Samsung Heavy Industries Sanaa basin, Yemen Santos basin Santos Ltd Sao Paulo Sargasso Sea Saudi Arabia Saudi Aramco Sawyer, Steve Sechin, Igor Senkaku islands Serageldin, Ismail Sesa Goa Severstal Shanghai Shandong Iron & Steel Group Shanxi Meijin Energy Sharp Corp Shatt al-Arab waterway Shell Australia LNG Shen Wenrong Shenzhen Shi Zhengrong Shougang Beijing Group Shvidler, Eugene Siachen Glacier Siberia Siberian Coal Energy Co (SUEK) Sibneft Siemens Sierra Gorda, Chile Sierra Leone Silver Simandou, Guinea Sindh province, Pakistan Singapore Singh, Manmohan Sino American Silicon SinoHydro Sinopec (China Petroleum & Chemical Corp) Sinosteel Midwest Corp Sinovel Wind Sistema Slavneft Slovakia Soeryadjaya, Edwin SoftBank Sogo Shosha Sojitz Solar power Solar Reserve Son Masayoshi Sonangol Sonatrach South Africa South America South China Sea South Kara Sea South Korea South Kuzbass Coal South Pars field, Iran South Sudan South Yolotan, Turkmenistan Southeast Anatolia Development (GAP) Southeast Asia Southern California Edison Soya Strait Spain Spratlys State Grid, China State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) Statoil Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) Steinmetz, Beny Sterlite Industries Strait of Malacca Strait of Hormuz Strothotte, Willy SUAL Sudan Sumatra Sumitomo Chemicals Sumitomo Corp Sumitomo Metal Suncor Energy Sunda Strait Sundance Resources SunPower Suntech Surgutneftegas Sutlej River Suzlon Energy Swaminathan, M.S.

Demystifying Smart Cities
by Anders Lisdorf

Smart city projects are frequently airy visions fueled by vendor marketing. Mega vendors like IBM, GE, Siemens, Citrix, Samsung, and Hitachi have been banging the drums for a decade, but while their ideas are visionary, there is a huge gap between the ideas and the realization of them. Some may have heard of futuristic cities like Songdo in South Korea or Masdar in Abu Dhabi. They were envisioned as the smart cities of the future. However, they appear more like greenfield exhibits similar to Versailles than the real-life pulsating cities most people live in and want to live in. They have not been successful in much else than showcasing technology and vendors.

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LisdorfDemystifying Smart Citieshttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-5377-9_7 7. Architect with imagination: Could payphones show the way in an emergency? Anders Lisdorf1 (1)Copenhagen, Denmark Most cities are not greenfield operations that are built from a clean slate like Songdo or Masdar. Most cities are not Versailles that has the luxury of infinite budgets, possibilities, and space. Most cities are like Paris, built according to the way of the pack donkey, in ad hoc and semi-planned fashion through centuries of shifting styles and preferences. The cities we are going to live in in the future are already there with living breathing humans, who depend on them to supply them with basic needs every day.

The Third Industrial Revolution: How Lateral Power Is Transforming Energy, the Economy, and the World
by Jeremy Rifkin
Published 27 Sep 2011

The United Arab Emirates, the fifth-largest oil producing power, is already preparing for a post-oil era. Abu Dhabi is investing billions of dollars in the construction of a new city rising from the desert. It’s called Masdar, a post-carbon city that will be run exclusively by the sun, wind, and other forms of renewable energy. It’s a Third Industrial Revolution urban space, the first of thousands of such cities that will be nodes in the distributed networks that will crisscross every continent. I visited Masdar in 2009 and watched as engineers and construction crews were putting up the first building. The structure was like nothing I’d ever seen before. The design, building material, and facade all looked like something out of a futuristic movie.

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“Skip,” 210–1 Lappé, Frances Moore, 200–1 lateral learning, 244–8 lateral power, 5, 18, 37, 52, 137, 148, 151, 174–5 Lawrence, Elizabeth, 250 Leinen, Joe, 69 Lenglet, Claude, 66–7 Levine, Mark, 219 Linde, 62 Linux, 116 Lloyd, Alan, 78 Locke, John, 198–9, 212, 234 Lombardo, Raffaele, 46 Louv, Richard, 249, 253 Lovelock, James, 223–4 Lovins, Amory, 53 machismo, 139–40 Macy, Joanna, 24 Magnuson, Lisa, 232–3 Mao Zedong, 11 Margulis, Lynn, 223–4 Masdar, 178 McConnell, Mitch, 156 McCormick, Byron, 99–100 Mejia Vélez, Maria Emma, 176 Memory Bridge Initiative, 243–4 Merkel, Angela, 4, 50, 61, 64, 67–9, 149–50 Mexico, 13, 86, 178–9, 181 Microsoft, 20, 84, 116 Miliband, David, 145–9 Miliband, Edward, 147 Miliband, Marion, 146–7 Miliband, Ralph, 146–7 Miller, G.

Smart Cities, Digital Nations
by Caspar Herzberg
Published 13 Apr 2017

Few cities are better suited to a presentation of IoE applications and goals. BUT MUST WE HAVE SMART CITIES? John Kasarda’s coauthor Lindsay admits that the argument for the necessity of aerotropoli is far from over. Many planned cities do not have enviable track records, as critics of Brasilia and Abu Dhabi’s Masdar City will claim. Kasarda believes people must “consciously choose to live in cities built in globalization’s image” or face serious consequences. Those consequences, for the most part, are outside the scope of his book, but they are familiar to most who are worried about the sustainability of living standards on a hotter, drier, more populated planet.

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See also individual cities Cisco and, 124–33, 136–44 consumption in, 172–73 as economic ally of Japan, 133–36 GDP growth of, 22, 132 new cities in, 19, 23, 33, 94, 135 obesity in, 173 as opportunity, 132–33, 143–44 politics of, 123–24, 179 problems of, 124, 131–32, 133, 140–44 urban population growth of, 16, 19, 91, 131–32, 133 water in, 197 Indonesia, 22, 28 Insigma Corporation, 113–16, 119, 203 Intergraph, 110 Internet of Everything (IoE) in brownfields, 34–35, 147–60, 164 definition of, 23–24 effect of, on daily life, 37–39, 160 efficacy of, 188 engineering challenge of, 24 infancy of, 24–25 as Internet of Everywhere, 95 as prosperity tool, 168 small communities and, 210 smart cities and, 32–33 value of, 17–18 Internet of People, 200–201 Internet of Things (IoT) definition of, 17 future of, 19 history of, 77, 124 Internet “Plus” initiative (China), 26 Iskandar, Malaysia, 34, 149 J Jakarta, Indonesia, 28 Japan, 22, 62, 133–36 Jazan Economic City, Saudi Arabia, 46 Jebel Ali Free Zone (JAFZA), 183 Jeddah Economic Forum, 44 K Kamen, Dean, 197, 201 Kansas City, 23, 147 Kasarda, John, 65, 182–84 King Abdullah Economic City, Saudi Arabia Cisco and, 41, 47–59 as early test bed, 17 grand opening of, 55–56 as greenfield development, 33 lessons learned from, 57–59 site of, 53 vision for, 45–46, 49, 184 Knowledge Economic City, Saudi Arabia, 46, 52, 184 Kohn Pedersen Fox, 76, 95 Kotler, Steven, 197 KT Corporation, 75 L Lagos, Nigeria, 179 Las Vegas Sands Corporation, 98 LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification, 78 Lee Myung-bak, 69, 84 LG CNS, 75, 82 Lindsay, Greg, 67, 183, 185 London, 45, 179, 204 M MacArthur, Douglas, 71 Macau, 97–98, 214 Malaysia, 19, 34, 149–50, 173 Manila, Philippines, 28 Masdar City, United Arab Emirates, 185 Medina, Saudi Arabia, 46 Meixi Lake, 95–96 Melco Crown Entertainment, 98–100 Mexico, GDP growth of, 22 Mexico City, 164 Microsoft, 62, 66–67, 117 Modi, Narendra, 123, 132, 140, 179 Moore’s Law, 198 Morgan Stanley Real Estate, 72 Mubarak, Hosni, 164 Mumbai, India, 133, 185.

How to Run the World: Charting a Course to the Next Renaissance
by Parag Khanna
Published 11 Jan 2011

India’s burgeoning second-tier cities like Gwalior are buying energy-efficient fluorescent lighting as well as load-monitoring systems that distribute electricity where it’s most needed. And First Solar of Arizona is building a solar field larger than Manhattan—in Mongolia. Even oil-rich countries are investing in a non-oil future. Abu Dhabi’s Masdar City, a joint venture with General Electric, MIT, and numerous other international partners, aims to create a $22 billion, fully carbon neutral eco-city to be ready by 2016, complete with fifty thousand residents. All power will come from photovoltaic cells and hot-water collectors, cars will be banned, electric-powered shuttles will ferry citizens around, and waste water will irrigate biofuel farms.

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The project’s seventeen major products include the GE90–115B aircraft engine, which in a twin-engine plane emits 141,000 fewer tons of greenhouse gasses than competing four-engine planes, or enough CO2 to be absorbed by thirty-five thousand acres of forest. Ecomagination’s sales are reaching 10 percent of GE’s overall portfolio while making the company’s worldwide customers more energy efficient. Ecomagination is now reaching beyond its Masdar City work in Abu Dhabi. Together with the emirate’s Mubadala sovereign wealth fund, it has announced venture funds of a combined $40 billion to invest in pursuing renewable energy in Africa and Asia and has signed an agreement with China’s National Development and Reform Commission to advance renewable energy in two hundred second-tier Chinese cities.

Adventures in the Anthropocene: A Journey to the Heart of the Planet We Made
by Gaia Vince
Published 19 Oct 2014

Other cities are using intelligent sensors for regulating utilities, designing flood-defence systems, regulating traffic lights and flow, reducing emergency vehicle response times, speeding baggage flows through airports, locating parking spaces for drivers, optimising waste management, reducing peak-load demand on electric grids and even cutting crime rates. Masdar, a new city being built in the desert of Abu Dhabi, has many of these elements designed into it from the start. The entire city is on a raised platform so that the smart-metered services – from waste to water – can be monitored and accessed from underneath. Masdar plans to be carbon neutral and is powered by an enormous solar station and wind farms, with buildings that incorporate smart shading, solar panels and architecture to maximise cooling breezes.

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Foundation 342 Goodall, Chris 322 Google 28, 44 Google Earth/Maps 51, 366, 367 Goreau, Thomas 167 gorillas 237, 248, 276 granite 299 graphene 317 grasses/grasslands 7, 106, 109, 129, 221, 222, 231, 238, 240, 271, 287 Great Acceleration 3, 8, 307, 320 Great Barrier Reef, Australia 169 Green Revolution 109, 114, 133, 317 greenhouse gases 8, 23, 34, 35, 51, 67, 68, 144, 146 and biofuel production 145 see also carbon dioxide; methane greenhouses 65 desalinated seawater 219–20 Greenland 73, 177, 178, 182, 215 Greenpeace 183 Gregory, John and Sue 153 Grindr app 367 groundwater 47 contamination of 310 extraction of 50, 72, 115, 203, 215, 379 Groupon (online shopping network) 367 guanacos 74 guano 108 Gujarat, India 110–14, 115–16, 212 Guyana Shield 267 Haber, Fritz 108 Hadley Cell 15–16 Hadley Centre for Climate Research 66 Hadzabe people 223–7, 320 Haiti 28, 366 Haiyan, typhoon 66 Hansen, James 177 Hartmann, Peter 80–82, 85, 86 Haywood, Jim 66 HCFCs 374 helium 298, 329 H5N1 influenza 349 HidroAysén (company) 79–80, 86–7 high-voltage direct current (HVDC) lines 213–14 Hilbertz, Wolf 167 Himalayas 19, 40, 46, 47, 51–3 Hippocrates 304 hippopotamuses 207, 229 Hiroshima, bombing of 327 HIV/Aids 135, 198, 234, 245, 283, 349 Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam 89, 380 Ho Tong Yen 360–61, 362 Hoatzin/‘stink bird’ 271–2 Hobbs, Richard 253–4 Hofmeister, Anke 172 Holocene epoch 4, 7, 8, 9, 17, 238, 264, 299, 338 honey badgers 199–200, 226 honey birds 199–200, 226 Hong Kong 90, 346, 340, 369–70 Hooker, Joseph 285–6 Hoover Dam, USA 77 Huaneng Group: carbon capture facility 330 huemal deer 82, 83 Hulhumalé, the Maldives 162 Hunt Oil 280 hunter gatherers 7, 11, 94, 107, 124, 223–7, 233, 238, 279, 338, 345 Hurricane Katrina (2005) 380 Hurricane Sandy (2012) 379 Huvadhoo atoll, the Maldives 164 hydrocarbon fuels 214, 296 hydrodams see dams hydroelectricity/hydropower 31–2, 39–42, 52, 77–8, 213–14, 327 see also dams hydrogen 16, 214, 298, 329, 365 ‘hydropeaking’ 85 hydropower see dams; hydroelectricity Hydropower Sustainability Assessment Protocol 98 ibex 50, 260 ice ages 7, 17, 34, 264 ice melt 177–81 see also glaciers Iceland 184, 213 ICRISAT see International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics IGCC see integrated gasification combined cycle power plants IMF 135 Imja glacial lake, Nepal 52 Incas, the 62, 270, 333, 334 Independent 178 India 34, 37, 116–17, 147, 320 air-conditioning units 374 air pollution/‘brown cloud’ 37, 38 aquifers 111, 112, 114 biofuel production 145, 332 coal-fired stations 325 GM crops 140, 141 groundwater extraction 115, 117 irrigation 114, 115, 211 land bought in Africa 102–3 mobile phones 28 Slum-Dwellers International network 350 tanka system 115–16, 117 tigers 244, 247 water shortages 110, 114–15 see also Ladakh India Space Research Centre 112 indium 315–16 indium tin oxide (ITO) 316 Indonesia 2, 35, 129, 256 ‘Indus Oasis’ (casino) 113 Indus River 53, 71–2 Industrial Revolution 3, 35, 263, 300, 307, 310 industrial symbiosis manufacture see ‘closed-loop’ manufacture insects 1, 17, 71, 108, 141, 142, 263, 271, 291 as food 97, 148, 388--9 and pest-control 134 see also ants; bees integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) power plants 330, 331, 332 Interface (carpet manufacturer) 319 International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) 139–40 International Energy Agency (IEA) 213, 318, 325 International Institute for Environment and Development 98 International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) 328–9 Internet, the 11, 18, 24, 26, 27, 29–34, 136, 322, 367–9 Inuit, the 182 invasive species 250, 252–6 iron 298, 299, 306, 307 Irrawaddy River 53 irrigation 72, 79, 109, 114, 115, 118, 121, 132, 133, 143 with desalinated seawater 219–20 in deserts 107 drip 112, 113, 114, 120 in India 49, 50, 51, 52, 54, 56, 57, 58, 59, 61, 211 in Libya 215 solar-powered 211 Isiolo, Kenya 193, 194 Isla Incahuasi, Bolivia 334 Israel: electric cars 373 Itaipu dam, Brazil/Paraguay border 102 ITER see International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor ITO see indium tin oxide Ito, Akinori 326 Ituri Forest, Democratic Republic of Congo 246 ivory trade 198, 246 Jadeja, Hardevsinh 110–14, 143 jaguars 240–43, 237, 247, 260, 270, 275, 278 Janjaweed, the 245 Japan 102, 147, 161, 186, 318–19, 327, 340 jatropha 145 jellyfish 185–6 JET experiment 329 jet stream, the 180–81 Jinja, Uganda 122 Jones, Steve 378 Kalinowski, Celestino 279, 280 Kalinowski, Jan 279–80 Kalundborg, Denmark 320 Kampala, Uganda 112 Kandholhudhoo, the Maldives 160, 161, 163 Karachi, Pakistan: Orangi slum 350 Kathmandu, Nepal 18, 30, 32, 36–7, 39, 42 Kenya 135 drought 193, 195–6, 200–1, 206 education 204–5 206 M-Pesa 28 missionaries/missions 193–4, 199, 202, 204–5, 206–7, 208 pastoralists 196, 201, 205–6, 210 road-building 197–8 shanty towns 350 tribal conflict 193, 194–5, 196–7, 201, 206 see also missionaries; Turkana, Lake Kenya, Mount 46, 235 Kew Gardens, London 286 kha-nyou (rodent) 94 Khone Phaphene Falls, Laos 97 Khulna, Bangladesh 343, 346, 347, 352 Kikwete, Jakaya Mrisho, President of Tanzania 230, 259 Kilimanjaro, Mount 46 Kilimo Trust 120 Kinabalu, Mount 46 kingfishers 268, 271 Kipling, Rudyard 18 Kiribati 174–7 Kissinger, Henry 109 koala bears 237, 250 Kolkata, India: 2 Nehru Colony 366–7 Konik ponies 236 Korea, South 90, 102, 124, 346, 365 POSCO iron and steel consortium 336 krill 180 Kubuqi Desert, China 192 Kyakamese village, Uganda 118–20 Laama, Ringin 40 labour, division of 339 Lackner, Klaus 294, 295–6 Ladakh, India 48–51 artificial glaciers 53, 56–61 Laetoli, Tanzania 223–4 landslides 40, 46, 52 languages 26, 55, 62, 224, 273, 277, 347, 378 Lanzhou, China 362 Laos 88, 97, 98, 99 cluster bombs 90 Communist government 90, 91, 94 opium use 89 road-building 91–2 slash-and-burn 89 see also Mekong River La Paz, Bolivia 274, 275, 310 Las Vegas, Nevada 103, 193 ‘Late Heavy Bombardment’ 298 Laurance, Bill 255 lead/lead mining 301, 310, 315, 316 Leakey, Mary 223–4, 232 legumes 38, 133, 134 Leh, Ladakh, India 50–51, 54–5 leishmaniasis 274 lemurs, Madagascan 247, 250, 256 Lenfest Center for Sustainable Energy, Columbia University 294 León, German Cardinas 348 Leonard, Annie: The Story of Stuff 319 leopards 94, 227, 229 snow leopards 33, 260 leprosy 343 Li Quan 247 Libya: Great Man-made River project 215 Licancabur volcano, Bolivia 333 Licapa, Peru 62–4 ‘light-bulb conspiracy’ 312 lighting/light bulbs 315, 371 Lima, Peru 216–17 asentamientos humanos (AAHH; slums) 62, 217, 218, 347–8, 352 fog-harvesting 217–19 lions 227, 228, 229, 239–40, 248 Liquiñe–Ofqui fault line 85 lithium 332, 335–6 Liverpool 349 livestock 147, 148, 196, 200–1, 206 see also cattle; sheep; yaks llamas 74, 221, 300, 334 logging industry 9, 267, 268, 270, 273, 274, 276, 277, 283, 288, 289--90 Loiyangalani, Kenya 199, 204–5, 206–8 London 317, 349, 350, 364, 372, 378 ‘Gherkin’ 374 ‘guerrilla gardeners’ 377 smog 3, 35 Thames Barrier 379 Lopes, Antonio Francisco Bonfim (‘Nem’) 356 Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) 126, 245 Loshner, Gabriella 83 Lovelock, James 294 Lowoi (schoolteacher) 201, 202 Luang Prabang, Laos 89 Lugo, Ariel 254 Luis Val, Adalberto 291, 292 Lummerich, Anne 218 Luna, Javier Torres 217–18 Lyme disease 242 lysine 138 Ma’aden aluminium mine, Saudi Arabia 104 Maasai, the 224, 229–31 macaws 268, 271, 278, 281 McDougall, Gerald 188–9 McKinsey (consultants) 103, 319 Macquarie Island: rabbits 255 Madagascan lemurs 247, 250, 256 Madagascar 93, 124, 237, 264 Madidi National Park, Amazon Basin 267, 269–72, 273–4, 277–8 Madre de Dios region, Peru 278–84 Madre de Dios River, Peru 280–81, 283 Madrid: Canada Real Galiana 344 mahogany trees 270, 275, 279, 289 maize 125, 129, 130, 138, 144, 250 Makerere University, Kampala 137, 138 malaria 43, 121, 135, 199, 224, 274, 283, 293, 341, 367 Malawi 135 Malaysia 28 Petronas Towers 370 see also Singapore Maldives, the 152–3, 156--9, 175, 186 artificial islands/floating islands 157, 162–3 coral reefs 158, 159, 160, 161–2, 164, 166–8 ‘designer islands’ 160–61 heroin dependency 156 overfishing 169–70, 171–2 Soneva Fushi 172–3 tourists 153–4, 156, 158, 160, 163, 171, 172, 173 Malé, the Maldives 153, 154, 156, 161 Mamang-Kanga, Jean-Baptiste 245 Manaus, Brazil 290–91 manta rays 170, 185, 245 Manu National Park, Madre de Dios, Peru 278–80 Manu River 280–81 Manu Wildlife Centre 279, 281 marijuana 357, 369 marine reserves 186–7 Mascho-Piro tribe 279 Masdar, Abu Dhabi 366 Matterhorn, the 48 Mawlamyaing, Burma 91 meat consumption 147, 148, 290, 322 Medellín, Colombia 353–4, 357 Mekong River 53, 88–9, 90–91, 95, 99–101, 105 fish/fishing 95–6, 100, 101 hydrodams 83, 88, 89, 91, 92–4, 95–6 meltwater see glaciers Mesozoic era 221 metals 298, 299–300 rare earth 305, 315, 373 see also copper; gold; gold mining; iron; silver; silver mining methane 41, 78, 129, 134, 178, 214 methanol 296 metro/underground systems 346, 353, 354, 357, 364, 372, 373 Mexico City 379 miconia shrub 252 ‘microloan’ cooperatives 130 millets 130, 139, 143 minerals 191, 272, 298–9, 300, 305 mining 8, 9, 300, 308–9 see also coal; copper mining; gold mining; silver mining miscarriages 203 missionaries/missions see Kenya mobile phones/smartphones 27–9, 34, 118, 136, 210, 212, 231, 300, 304, 311, 312, 315–16, 335, 367 see also M-Pesa Mohammed, Fatima 161 Mojave Desert, California 209, 213, 214 monkeys 275, 291 chimpanzees 3–4, 306 howler monkeys 271, 281 spider monkeys 267, 271, 275–6, 277, 278, 281 Monsanto (company) 140–41 Montana, USA 236 Morales, Evo, President of Bolivia 274, 277, 278, 282, 335, 336 Morgan, Ned 121 mosquitoes 47, 274, 293, 341 moths, urban 377 mountains 8, 45–8, 66–7 painting white 62–4 M-Pesa mobile phone banking service 28, 208, 211, 350 mulch/mulching 133, 134, 145 Mumbai, India 344, 374 Murray River 72 Museveni, Yuweri, President of Uganda 126 mussels 187 Mutharika, Bingu wa, President of Malawi 135 Mwanawasa, Levy, President of Zambia 175 Nagasaki, bombing of 327 Nairobi 200, 207, 209, 210, 344 Nakai, Laos 92–4 Nam Theun II dam, Laos 92–4 Namibia 215, 216, 362 Nangi, Nepal 21, 24, 25–7, 30–32, 33, 36, 43 Napoleon Bonaparte 285 NASA 177, 294, 333 NaSARRI see under Uganda Nasheed, Laila 154 Nasheed, Mohamed (‘Anni’), President of the Maldives 153–8, 160, 161, 163, 172, 173–5, 190 National Geographic 273 Neanderthals 2, 238, 259, 306 Neem trees 134 Nepal 18–20, 21–3, 24–7, 43 Bengal tigers 243–5 electricity 20, 27, 41–2, see also hydropower (below) glacier melt 37, 40–41 hydropower 31–2, 39–40, 41 Internet/Wi-Fi 24, 27, 30–31, 32, 33, 34 tourism 32–3, 39 yak herders 24, 33, 37, 40 see also Kathmandu; Nangi Netherlands, the 236–7, 379 New Guinea: rainforest 264 New Orleans: and Hurricane Katrina 380 New Songdo City, South Korea 365 New York City 35, 317, 349, 350, 365, 378, 379 Bank of America Tower 371 raised railway park 377 water sources 104 New York Times 77 New Zealand 47, 175, 184, 237, 308 Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania 224, 228–30 Niger Delta 309 Nigeria 114 Nile, River 71–2, 79, 103, 122, 204, 207 Nineveh 339, 340 nitrogen 8–9, 16, 108, 133, 146, 373 nitrogen-’fixing’ plants 133, 136, 142, 143–4 Nomura’s jellyfish 186 Norphel, Chewang 53–9, 60–61, 69 North-East Passage 181 North Pole, the 177, 182 Norway: hydroelectricity 213–14 Nottingham, University of: Frozen Ark project 259 Nubian Sandstone Aquifer 215 nuclear energy/power stations 327–8 nuclear fusion plants 328–30 nylon stockings/tights 312 obsolescence, planned 312–14 oceans 150–52 acidification 3, 9, 152, 153, 165, 168–9 conservation zones/reserves 186–7 phytoplankton 152, 180, 190 pollution 152, 187–9 see also Arctic Ocean; sea-levels, rising ocelots 240 Odentethes hatcheri (fish) 83 Ohtake, Ruy 358 oil/oil industry 23–4, 181–2, 183, 280, 284, 296, 308, 309, 318, 326 oil spills 182 Okehampton, Devon 349 Okello, David Kalule 135–9 Olmaikorit-Oumo, Florence 130 Ologara village, Uganda 125–6, 127–31 Oman: peridotite 296 Omo Valley, Ethiopia 203, 204 Omoding, Ephrem 125, 127 Omoding, Winifred 125–7, 129–33, 143 One-Laptop-One-Child organisation 31 Oostvaardersplassen, the Netherlands 236–7 opium industry 89–90 orang-utans 248, 273, 276–7 Ordos, Inner Mongolia 331, 359 organic farming 133–4 orius (pirate bugs) 219 oryx, Arabian 256 oscar (fish) 291–2 ostriches 197 otters 83, 270 oxygen 16, 142, 214, 285, 293–4 lack of 133, 185, 186, 187, 291–2 and photosynthesis 263, 264, 284, 299 oysters 168 ozone 35, 37, 38, 373 ozone layer 3, 11, 17, 66 painting mountains/roofs white 62–4, 374 palm oil 276, 290 palm trees 172, 204, 266, 270, 293, 343 Panama Canal 320–21 pandas, Chinese 257 Pangaea 45 pangolins 245 Pantanal, the 240–42 Paraguay 102, 240 Parana River 102 Parco, Salamon 62–4 Paris 347, 364, 373 Parker, Ted 280 parks, national 236 see Bardia, Madidi, Manu, Serengeti and Yellowstone National Park Pascua River dam, Patagonia 73, 75–6 passenger pigeons 259 pastoralists 205–6, 210, 214, 220, 225 see also Maasai, the Patagonia 74–5, 81, 86 hydroelectric dams 73–4, 75–7, 79–88 Peak District, England 310 peanuts 118–19, 120, 129, 132–3, 136, 143 genetically modified 138, 139–40 peas 51, 139 peat 263, 310 Pemuteran, Bali 167 peridotite 296 Peru 41, 52, 108, 278–84, 332 mountain painting 62–4 pest-control/pesticides 129, 132, 134, 136, 141, 143, 185, 219, 243, 293 petrels 186 petroleum 309, 325–6 Petronas Towers, Malaysia 370 Phakding, Himalayas 39 pharmaceuticals 272 Philippines 28, 65, 66 Phnom Penh, Cambodia 100 Phoenix, Arizona 103, 193 photography 304 photosynthesis 2, 16, 38, 143–4, 165, 180, 190, 214, 263, 264, 265, 284–5, 291, 293–4, 297, 299, 317 photovoltaic (PV) panels see solar energy Phuktse, Ladakh, India: artificial glacier 58–9 phytoplankton 152, 180, 190 piezoelectric generators 363 Pilon Lajas Biosphere Reserve, Bolivia 278 Pinatubo, Mount (Philippines): eruption of (1991) 65 pine beetles 236 Piñera, Sebastian, President of Chile 80, 87 PlanIT Valley, Portugal 365 plankton 84, 168, 185, 309, 386 see also phytoplankton plants 1–2, 47, 70–71, 262, 263, 288, 326 plastic 5, 187–8, 311 bags 4, 128, 189, 323, 341 3D-printed items 317 turning back into oil 326 plate tectonics see tectonic movements platinum 214, 298 Playas de Rosarito, Mexico: proposed desalination plants 102 Pleistocene epoch 236, 237, 238 plutonium 328 Pokhara, Nepal 18, 19–20, 30 polar bears 178, 187 polio vaccination 367 pollution 310, 312, 318, 321, 330, 360–61 and environmental services fees 322–3 radioactive 7, 11 see also air pollution; ocean; waste; polyester garments 187 population growth 3, 9, 11, 36, 146–7, 251 POSCO iron and steel consortium 336 potatoes, sweet 140, 143 Potosí, Bolivia: silver mines 300–6, 307, 310 prickly pear 251, 256 printers, electronic 313 3-D 317 public transport 345, 372–3, see also metro Puerto Maldonado, Peru 283–4, 288 Puerto Rico, Gran Canaria: International Institute of Tropical Forestry 254 pumas 73 pumps, groundwater 50, 51, 115, 121, 122 see also boreholes; wells Pun, Mahabir 18–19, 21–7, 30–33, 37 Pun tribe 24, 27, 41 Putin, Vladimir, President of Russia 181–2 PV panels see solar energy pyrolysis 326 Qatar 219 Quechua 62, 347 Racoviteanu, Adina 60–61 radio 17–18 Rahmsdorf, Stefan 177 rain/rainfall 15, 37–8, 46, 47, 150, 151 acid rain 3, 310 in Africa 118, 122, 195 artificial production of 66, 132 harvesting and storing 115–17, 121–2, 216 in India 49–50, 111 in Lima, Peru 216, 217 in Uganda 118, 119, 122, 128 rainforests 15–16, 262, 264–5, 272–3 Borneo 264, 276–7 see also Amazon rainforests Raj-Samadhiyala, Gujarat, India 110–14 Rajkot, Gujarat, India 110, 115 Rajoelina, Andry, President of Madagascar 124 rats 250, 255 Ravalomanana, Marc, President of Madagascar 124 recycling see waste; water REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) 287–8, 289 redwoods, Californian 218, 293 Rees, Richard 171 refrigerants 17 Reid, Brian 84 reservoir-building 53, 77–8, 104, 112 Restore and Revive 259 rhinoceroses 227, 228, 246, 248, 258 rhododendrons 250 Ribeiro da Silva, José Claudio 268 rice/rice-growing 78, 90, 97, 101, 109, 134, 136, 143–4, 147, 185, 250 genetically modified 140, 141 Rift Valley 203, 223, 232 Rimac River 216 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: favelas 354–8, 367 Rio Grande 72 rivers 4, 8, 50, 53, 70–73, 104, 308 see also dams and specific rivers road-building Amazon rainforest 281–4 Burma–Vietnam 91–2 Serengeti 258–9 Robichaud, Bill 92, 94 Robinah, Byarindaba 118–20, 121 Rockefeller Foundation 138, 139 ‘rock glaciers’ 60 rocks 2, 46, 74, 108, 299–300 Rome/Romans 34, 307 roofs, whitewashing 64, 374 Roosevelt, Theodore, US President 227 Rotterdam, Netherlands 379 Rubbish Island, 163 Ruiz, Rosa Maria 266–72, 273–4, 275, 277, 278 ruminants 221–2, see cattle Rurrenabaque, Bolivia 265–6, 269 Rwanda: gorillas 276 Sahara Desert 195 aquifers 215 Desertec solar power plant 213 Great Green Wall 192 minerals from 191, 272 salamander, jumping 257 Sale, Peter 164, 167 salmon, farmed 185 salt production 334 Salter, Stephen 66 Samburu tribe 195, 197, 201, 204, 208 Samso island, Denmark 325 San Cristobel, Bolivia: silver/zinc mine 333 San Diego, California: Zoo 259 San people 232–5 Sánchez de Lozada, Gonzalo 273 sand dams 198, 216 sanitation 11, 20–21, 38, 115, 339 see also toilets Santa Cruz, island of, Galapagos 251–3 Charles Darwin Research Station 251–2, 253, 254 Santiago, Chile 75 São Paulo, Brazil: Heliopolis favela 358 saola antelope 94 Sarima, Kenya 201–3 SARS 349 satellites 18, 22–3 mapping by 60–61, 112, 367 Saudi Arabia 102, 104, 308 solar-powered desalination plants 216 superfarms 148 savannahs 221–3, 238, 265 Save the Children 135 scalesia (Scalesia pedunculata) 251, 252, 253 schizophrenia 377 schools see education seabirds 186 sea cucumbers 168–9 seagulls 377 sea-levels, rising 5, 9, 52, 151, 153, 159–60, 174–8, 189–90, 343, 379 Seasteading Institute 189 Semiletov, Igor 178 Seoul, South Korea 346 Serengeti National Park 223, 227–32, 256, 258 Serere bird 271–2 Serere Sanctuary, Amazon Basin 268 service manuals 313–14 sesame seeds 125, 131, 138 Shabab, the 245 Shanghai 35, 89, 211, 321, 322, 379 shanty towns see slums sharks 164, 171–2, 185, 242 whale 170–71 shearwaters 186 sheep 74, 81, 82, 221, 236 Shemenauer, Bob 219 ships 65, 317, 320–21 Shivdasani, Sonu 172–3 Shrestha, Alok 41 Siem Reap, Cambodia 99 silica 84 silicosis 301, 302, 303, 306 silver 304–5, 312 silver mining, Bolivian 300–6, 333 silver nitrate 304 Silvestre, Elizabeth 216–17 Simpson Valley, Chile 83 Singapore 90, 346, 360, 362, 369 Marina Bay Sands 376 Si Phan Don, Laos 95 Siteram (Nepali guide) 243–4 Skarra, Ladakh, India 53 Skinner, Jamie 98 skyscrapers 370–71 slash-and-burn 107, 128, 277 sleeping sickness 225 sloths 237, 250, 270 slums/shanty towns 341–4, 346, 347, 348–53, 366–7, 378 in Brazil (favelas) 354–8, 367 smartphones see mobile phones Smil, Vaclav 250–51 Smithsonian Institute, Washington DC 227 Smits, Willie 276–7 social media sites see Facebook; Twitter soil(s) 108, 127–9, 142 solar energy/power 30, 211–14 combined with wind projects 209, 213, 361 for desalination plants 193, 216, 219–20 for public and private buildings 363–4, 366 panels/photovoltaic (PV) panels 116, 211–12, 214, 315, 331, 332 and payback schemes 211, 212, 323 storage and distribution 213–14, 365 solar radiation management 63–5, 68–9, 132 Soneva Fushi, the Maldives 172–3 sorghum 120, 125, 130, 139, 143, 144 Soroti, Uganda 125–6, 132, 135 Soules, Luke 313, 314 South Africa 118, 236, 351–2 Southern Ice Field 73 soya/soybean 281, 289, 290 Spain 65, 128, 184, 213, 216, 301, 307 spotted fever 242 Stakmo, Ladakh, India 48–50, 61 Stanbic Bank Uganda 120 star coral 257 Starbucks 368 steam power 213, 219, 307, 365 Stone Age 2–3, 307 stoves see cooking stromatolites 16 sturgeon 71 sugar cane 122, 144, 145, 290 Sumatra: rainforest 264 Sumerian cities 339 Sundrop Farms, South Australia 219 sunflowers 125, 131, 138, 145 sunlight see solar energy; solar radiation management Survival International 234 sustainability 323–5, 369, 371, 375–6 Suzano (Brazilian consortium) 290 Svalbard islands, the Arctic 37 Switzerland 20, 21, 48, 60 Syncrude mine, Athabasca oil sands, Canada 4 syngas 296, 330 Syngenta 140–41 Tacana people 269, 277 Taiwan 90, 146–7 tamarin, pied 291 tanka system 115–16 Tanzania 223–4 road-building 258–9 tourism 227, 231 UAE hunting reserves 227, 230 see also Serengeti National Park tapirs 237, 240, 270, 275, 281 tar sands 309 tara trees 218 Target (supermarket) 369 tarpans 236 Tashi (Indian farmer) 48, 49, 61 Tasmanian devils 247 Tasmanian tigers 260 taxes 97, 123, 194, 324, 350, 356, 357, 368, 372 tectonic movements 45–6, 73, 85, 250, 263, 299, 334 telegraphy 27 television sets 313, 314, 315 tenebrionid desert beetle 218 Thailand 90, 91, 93, 100, 256 Thakek, Laos 91, 95 Thar Desert, Rajasthan, India 209 Thiel, Peter 189 Thiladhunmathi atoll, the Maldives 164 Thilafushi, the Maldives 163 Thompson, Lonny 64 thorium/thorium reactors 315, 328 3D printing 317 Three Gorges Dam, China 83 Thupstan (Indian farmer) 50 Tianjin, China Eco-city 360–63, 375 GreenGen energy plant 330 Tiedemann, Kai 218 tigers 94, 243–5, 246–8, 249, 260 tiger wine 245, 246 Tigris, River 71–2 tilapia 207, 208 tin/tin mining 299, 301, 310, 316 tin oxides, non-stochiometric 316 Toba, Indonesia: volcanic eruption 2 toilets 20–21, 25, 26, 113, 115, 116, 348, 363 tokamaks 329 tokay geckos 256 Tokyo: population 340 Tomasetti, Roberto 166–7 Tong, Anote, President of Kiribati 174–6, 190 Tonle Sap, Lake 99–100 Torres, Geronimo 63–4 tortoises 214, 250, 251, 252, 253, 255 Toshiba 314 tourism industry/tourists Amazon rainforest 270, 273, 276, 279 Cambodia 99 and ‘conservation fees’ 248 India 50–51, 57, 244 Maldives 153–4, 156, 158, 160, 163, 171, 172, 173 Nepal 32–3, 39 Serengeti 228, 231 in Tanzania 227, 231 TRAFFIC 245, 246 trains, maglev 372 trees 129, 263 artificial 295–6, 297 fog-trapping 218 see also deforestation; forests tryptophan 138 tsetse flies 225 Tsodilo Hills, Botswana 233 tsunamis 160, 161, 328 tuberculosis 135, 234 Tullow Oil 210 tuna 169–70, 185, 187 tundra, Arctic 178, 293 tungsten 298 tunqui (bird) 279 Turkana, Lake (Kenya) 193, 199, 203–4, 205, 208, 209 and see below ‘Turkana Boy’ 203 Turkana Corridor Low Level Jet Stream 208–9 Turkana solar power station 210–11 Turkana tribe 194–5, 197, 201–2, 204, 207–8, 242, 316 Turkana wind farm 208–9, 210 Turkmenistan 59 turtles 170, 174, 185, 187, 268, 280 Tuvalu 174 Twitter 28–9, 367, 368 Uganda 26, 118–22 agriculture 118–22, 125, 126–33, 135, 136, 137–8, 140, 144 gorillas 276 National Semi-Arid Resources Research Institute (NaSARRI) 130–31, 136, 138 roads 144 United Arab Emirates: Tanzanian hunting reserves 227, 230 United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity 247 Environment programme 37, 248 Food and Agriculture programme 145 GRIDMAP programme 203 United States of America 157 Agency for International Development 133 biofuel production 145 dams 77, 98 maglev trains 372 meat consumption 147, 148 National Ignition Facility, California 329 Natural Resources Defense Council 374 no-till agriculture 142 oil consumption 318 water use 102, 362 see also specific states and towns Ur 339 uranium 308, 315, 327, 328 Uribe, Freddie 342 Uunartoq Qeqertaq 178 Uyuni, Bolivia 332–3, 336–7 salar (salt flats) 333–6, 337 Vabbinfaru, the Maldives 166–7 Vanua Levu, Fiji 176 VCRs 313–14 vegetables 26, 61, 65, 97, 272 see also legumes Venice 168 vetifer 129 Victoria, Queen 27 Vientiane, Laos 91 Vietnam 90, 92, 100–1 floating markets 101 Villa Hermosa, Colombia 341, 342–3, 344, 346, 347, 352 villages 338–9, 378 Vio, Francisco 82 Vishwanath (‘Zen Rainman’) 116–17 vitamin A deficiency 140 VoIP phones 31 volcanoes/volcanic eruptions 2, 5, 36, 65, 66, 68, 73, 79, 85, 299, 333 Vong, Mr (restaurateur) 96–7 Wageningen, Carlo van 210 Walker, Barry 279, 280–81 warthogs 229 waste 310–11, 312–13, 361 electronic 311–12, 313 food 144, 147 plastic 5, 187–8, 326 recycling 319–20, 322, 323, 324, 351 waste-pickers 350, 351–2 water 11, 46–7, 72–3, 215 fetching 202–3 recycling 115, 323, 362–3 ‘virtual water’ trade 102–3 see also aquifers; boreholes; dams; desalination; fossil water; glaciers; groundwater; irrigation; rain; reservoirs; rivers; wells water shortages 72–3, 103–4, 215–16 Africa 118, 121, 122–3, 215 India 49–51, 57, 110, 111–13, 114–15 see also droughts wattieza (plants) 263 wells, hand-dug 121, 122, 132 Westpoint Island, Belize 188–9 wetlands 53, 71, 78, 85 artificial 104–5 whale sharks 170–71 whales 73, 164, 180 wheat 7, 23, 38, 43, 51, 88, 109, 136, 138, 193, 250, 251 Wiens, Kyle 313, 314–15 Wi-Fi 24, 30–31, 32, 356 Wikipedia 12 wildebeest 228, 229, 231, 258 wildlife see animals and specific animals Wilson, E.

Saudi America: The Truth About Fracking and How It's Changing the World
by Bethany McLean
Published 10 Sep 2018

As America celebrates its supposed crushing of OPEC, the Middle East is planning for the future. Saudi Arabia, for instance, is planning not just to build Saudi crown prince MBS’s new city powered by renewable energy, but also to spend $50 billion on a massive push into solar. The country just received bids from Abu Dhabi’s Masdar and Electricite de France SA to supply the cheapest solar electricity ever recorded. Even Saudi Arabia is trying to move its economy away from fossil fuels in order to generate as much money as they can from exporting oil—until the day it’s all over. “In twenty years, oil goes to zero, and then renewables take over,” MBS told a gathering of venture capitalists in San Francisco recently, according to the New Yorker.

The Metropolitan Revolution: How Cities and Metros Are Fixing Our Broken Politics and Fragile Economy
by Bruce Katz and Jennifer Bradley
Published 10 Jun 2013

Rio de Janeiro is working with IBM to streamline its emergency response services, including state-of-the-art systems to help monitor weather and traffic, greatly improving response times and the quality of life in Brazil’s frenetic metropolis. On the outskirts of Abu Dhabi, a new zero-carbon, zero-waste metropolis, Masdar City, is springing up from the desert, drawing its energy from solar power and other alternative technologies. A similar movement is happening in metropolitan areas across the United States, where creativity and innovation—two of the nation’s greatest resources—are most concentrated. The timing is no coincidence.

…

See Funding Istrate, Emilia, 33 Jacksonville (Florida) metropolitan area, infrastructure development in, 4 Jacobs, Jane, 34, 113, 150 James, Franklin, 45–46 Jaquay, Bob, 70–71, 78–79 Johnson, Steven, 38, 39, 67, 83 5/20/13 7:04 PM INDEX Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank study, 53 Kendall Square, 122–23, 129 Kenney, Peter, 49, 54, 55, 56, 60, 61, 62–63 Kent State University, 75 Kharas, Homi, 147 Kim, Charlie, 27 Knowledge vs. information, 118 Koonin, Steven, 28, 29, 37 LaHood, Raymond, 138 Latin America: emerging market economies in, 32, 147, 148; innovation in, 204; and international tourism, 153; Miami, influence on, 161–62, 163, 186 Latinos/Latinas: education level of, 93, 103, 104; in suburbs, 99 Leadership, metropolitan vs. state and federal, 3–4, 5–9 Leal, Roberta, 99, 100, 105, 107 Lehman Brothers collapse (2008), 17–18 Lewis, Michael, 196 LG Corporation, 83–84 Light bulbs, metropolitan influence on invention of, 39–40 Liveris, Andrew, 182 London: East End development, viii; trade links with, 162, 165, 167; traffic congestion and pollution control, 204 Los Angeles (California) metropolitan area: game changers for, 197; transit system in, ix, 4, 185–86; vision established for, 196 Lübeck and Hamburg trade agreement, 166–68 Madison, James, 175–76 MAGNET development organization, 83 “Making Northeast Ohio Great Again: A Call to Arms to the Foundation Community” (Fund for Our Economic Future), 70 Manufacturing: additive, 77; and exports, 152; foreign investment in, 155; and innovation, 82–83 Marchio, Nicholas, 33 Marcuse, Peter, 160 Masdar City, viii Massachusetts Institute of Technology. See MIT MassChallenge, 124 McCall, Tom, 156 McDearman, Brad, 152 12-2151-2 index.indd 255 255 McKinsey & Company, 32, 82, 117, 148, 149–50, 165 McShane, Joseph M., 27 Mencia, Manny, 164 Menino, Thomas, 124 Metro builders, 142 Metro Deals program, 189–90, 193 Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation, 50, 55 Metropolitan areas: challenges facing, 41–42, 109; and clean technology, 30–31; composition of, 1; defined, 2, 47; demographic changes in, 1–2, 9, 32, 92, 147, 206; educational inequality in, 102–04; and exports, lack of, 33–35, 150–51; immigrant populations in, 92–93; jurisdictional overlap in, 43–44; and networks of collaboration, 67–68, 69; and next economy, 32–35; patents generated in, 22–23, 118; role of, vii–viii, 171; sovereignty of, 184–87; suburbanization of, 47–49.

The Human Age: The World Shaped by Us
by Diane Ackerman
Published 9 Sep 2014

Yes, the air could be called what it is, “recycled waste,” but where’s the fun in that? Speaking of fun, some wind-harvesting ideas look like they’ve sprung from either an aviary or pages of sci-fi. I have several favorites at the moment. One is Windstalk, created by the New York firm Atelier DNA to provide clean energy for Masdar City, Abu Dhabi. A work of “land art,” it aims to provide wind energy while fluttering, oscillating, vibrating, and generally behaving “as chaotically as possible,” and also being beautiful. The gentle, incantatory winds of an otherworldy oasis infuse the designers’ description with irresistible hints of lounging and longing: Our project starts out as a desire, a whisper, like grasping at straws, clenching water.

…

Moreau, The (Wells), 267–68 Israel, 76 Istanbul, Turkey, 78 Italy, 88, 107 Ithaa Restaurant, 76 Ivanpah, 106 Ivins, Molly, 206 Jaguar Corridor, 123 Jamaica Bay, 119 Jamaican fruit bats, 131 Japan, 88 industrial tourism in, 23 Japan beetles, 295 Japanese honeysuckle, 132 Jarrell, Randall, 45 jellyfish, 65, 181 Jernhusen, 96–97, 98 Jerusalem, 77 Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 220 Jim River, Alaska, 40 Johansson, Klas, 96–97 Johns Hopkins University, 244 Jordan, Terry, 31–32 Jungle Waterfalls, 83 Kahn, Peter H., 196 Kalmar, Sweden, 99–100 kangaroo, 296 Kanzi (bonobo), 202 Katrina, Hurricane, 46 katydids, 173–74 Kawasaki, Japan, 23 Keating, Tim, 147 kelp, 56, 57, 58, 60, 63–64 biofuels from, 64 Kenya, 124 Khoshnevis, Behrokh, 235 Kidd, Captain, 58 kidney, 239 King, Ross, 221 Kiribati, 49 knapweed, 166 knife fish, 147–48 Knights of the Order of the Barrier, 51 koalas, 164 Kockums, 101 Kojo Moe (Ohyama), 23 Korup National Park, 126 krill, 134 Kublai Khan, 272 Kubrick, Stanley, 269 kudzu vine, 132 Kungsbrohuset office building, 96 Kurzweil, Ray, 181, 218 Lactobacillus johnsonii, 301 Lafferty, Kevin, 299 Lake Cayuga, 30–31 Lamarck, Jean-Baptiste, 276–77 Lammens, Kathy, 302 lampreys, 132 Lancet, 277, 278 landscapes, 22–23 manufactured, 23–25 language, 7, 10, 171, 191, 255, 303 of animals, 201–3 Language Research Center, 201–2 Larry (boa), 130 lead, 271 Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), 88 Leaves of Grass (Whitman), 184 Lederberg, Joshua, 289 LED lights, 90, 103–4 Leeuwenhoek, Antonie van, 290 Leno, Jay, 235 leopards, 118 leucine, 179 Library of Congress, 59 lifespan, 13 lights, 17 Lincoln Memorial, 59 Lindholm, Bosse, 100 Linnaeus, Carl, 217 lions, 164, 273 Lipson, Hod, 208–25, 226–27, 229, 235, 247, 250 livers, 150, 248 Living Machines Conference, 218–19 local farms, 88 Lockheed Martin, 236 locusts, 41 London, 50–51 London Zoo, 159 Long Island Sound, 60 loosestrife, 132 Losiny Ostrov National Park, 78 lotusin, 91 Louisiana, 46 Louv, Richard, 196 lungs, 239, 248 Lyme disease, 121 Lyme ticks, 39 lynxes, 132 macaws, 164 Maeslantkering, 50 magnolias, 111–12 magpies, 217 Mail Online, 271 malaria, 302 Malaysia, 79 Maldives, 76–77 mallards, 117 Mall of America, 96 Mandarin Chinese, 281 mantis shrimp, 61 manufactured landscapes, 23–25 manufacturing, 12 mariculture, 56–67 pushback against, 64–65 marigolds, 90 marine transport pollution, 76 Marshall Islands, 314 marsh rabbits, 129 Marsico, Ron, 119 Masdar City, Abu Dhabi, 103–4 Masters, Jeff, 47 mastodons, 31 Mayflower, 132 McDonough, William, 87–88 McGill University, 282, 284 McKibben, Bill, 112 McMurdo Station, 88–90 Meaney, Michael, 282–84 Mecanoo, 104 medical ecology, 300 medicine, 7, 12–13 Medieval Warm Period, 43 Mehler, Mark, 282 memories, 255 Men Who Stare at Goats, The (Ronson), 146 Mercedes, 236 mercury, 271 Mesopotamia, 235 metal alloy teeth, 253 methylation, 281 Mexico, 88 Mexico City, 77, 82–83 mice, 302 Michigan, 132 microbes, 287–304 effects of, on humans, 292, 295–303 evolution affected by, 292–93 microbiome, 289 microscope, 290 microtia, 244–45 Milky Way, 176 Milton, John, 51, 212–13 mining, 11, 21, 24, 34 mitochondria, 291 Mitsuku, 317 Mohali, India, 99 moist shaded zones, 79 Mojave Desert, 22, 106 Mongolia, 132 monkeys, 146, 267 monk parakeets, 131 monkshoods, 125 monsoon season, 51, 53 Montaigne, Michel de, 63 Montana, 117 Mooallem, Jon, 139–40 moon, 306 Moorea, 158 moor frogs, 124 moose, 132 Moscow, 78 MOSE Project, 50 mosquitoes, 302 Motherwell, Robert, 218 Motley Fool, 235 multiple sclerosis, 301 Mumbai, 78 musk oxen, 132 mussels, 58, 60, 66, 78 mussel tissue, 91 Muybridge, Eadweard, 191 Nakamura, Makoto, 238 Naki’o, 256 Namibia, 180–81 nanobots, 181 Nano Impacts Intellectual Community, 183 nanoparticles, 182–83 nanotechnology, 179–87 nanotubes, 179 NASA, 204, 235, 305, 314 Nasheed, Mohamed, 76 National Academy of Science, 266–67 National Arbor Day Foundation, 38 National Institutes of Health (NIH), 285 national parks, 165 National Resources Defense Council, 316 National Zoo, 123 NATO, 237 Natural History of the Senses, A (Ackerman), 175 nature: balance of, 132–33 romance with, 126–27 as term, 25, 111–27, 171–72, 309–10 Nature, 134 nature deficit disorder, 196–97 Nature Neuroscience, 282 Navigenics, 271 Navy, U.S., 145, 147 Nazis, 273–74 Neanderthals, 162, 178, 189, 263 nearsightedness, 192 Nelson Island, 48 Nemo, Blizzard, 58 Nestlé, 212 Netherlands, 101, 124, 132 Netherlands Antilles, 88 neural implants, 253 Nevada, 106 New Forest, 174–75 Newfoundland, 42 New Jersey, 46 New Mexico, 40 Newton, Isaac, 220 New York, 38, 46, 77 New York, N.Y., 55, 73 New York University, 197–98 night fiddlers, 172–73 Nile perch, 131 Nin, Anaïs, 186 nitrogen, 36 NOAA, 210 Norrbotten, Sweden, 275–76, 277–78, 280 North Africa, 106 North Carolina, 46 northern goshawks, 132 Northwest Passage, 135 Norway, 101, 124, 132 Norway maples, 132 nuclear bomb, 191 nuclear power, 22, 100 nuclear winter, 8, 9 Obama, Barack, 177 Obama administration, 233 obesity, 196 ocean, acidification of, 65, 66, 154 octopuses, 202, 216 Ohio, 77 Ohyama, Ken, 23 oil, 99, 106 oil refineries, 22 oil spills, 300 Oman, 132 1D farming, see mariculture Operation Acoustic Kitty, 146 Operation Migration, 139–40 opossums, 129 Orangutan Awareness program, 28 Orangutan Outreach, 5, 6, 313 orangutans, 3–7, 25–28, 132, 216, 217, 231, 296 human genes shared by, 3 impending extinction of, 27–28, 313 solitary lives of, 4 tool use by, 5 orca whales, 135, 144 orchids, 206 Orff, Kate, 55 organic fertilizer, 64 Organovo, 238–39 Ornstein, Len, 54 Orthopets, 256 Oshkosh Airshow, 187 osteoarthritis, 248 otters, 124 Outer Island, 58 ovarian cancer, 281–82 Överkalix, Sweden, 279–80 oxen, 140 oxeye daisies, 132 oxygen, 41, 53 oysters, 54–55, 56, 57, 60, 61–63 Ozawa, Masakatsu, 23 P-52 (python), 128 pacemakers, 253 Panbanisha (bonobo), 201–2, 203 pancreas, 281 pansies, 90 Papua New Guinea, 72 Paradise Lost (Milton), 212–13 Paris, 95–96 Paris Habitat, 96 Parkinson’s disease, 253, 295 parks, 73–74, 78 parrots, 202 parsley, 89 Partula, 156–59 passenger pigeons, 151–52 Pasteur, Louis, 290 Patagonia National Park, 99 pathogens, 290 peacock feathers, 91 Pearce, Mick, 93–94 Pembrey, Marcus, 279, 281 penguins, 134–35 peonies, 125 People’s Daily, 146 peppers, 89 peregrine falcons, 132 periwinkles, 61–62 permafrost, 48 personality, 200, 214, 216–17, 222–23, 229, 253, 292, 297, 299, 303–4, 307 Peru, 77 pesticides, 153, 166 pets, 149–50 Pettit, Don, 16 Phelps, Michael, 258 phenotypic elasticity, 249–50 Philippines, 46 photonic clusters, 35 phytoplankton, 61 piezoelectricity, 317 pigeons, 140, 142, 144, 145–46 pigs, 71 in war, 146 Pistorius, Oscar, 258, 260 Plan Bee, 166 planes, 171, 191 planets, 220–21 Planets, The: A Cosmic Pastoral (Ackerman), 220 plankton, 134–35 PlantLab, 90 plants: in cities, 79–85 texting by, 205–7 plastic stents, 253 Pleistocene Park, 151 Pliocene, 29 PLOS ONE, 271 pneumonia, 183 Poland, 78, 132, 273 polar bears, 134 polar molecules, 35 polar T3, 90 pollution, 154 marine transport, 76 Polo, Marco, 272 polymer teeth, 253 Polynesia, 156, 157 Ponce, Brent, 260–61 ponies, 137–38 Pons, Lily, 264 poppies, 125 population growth, 10 Porter, Eliot, 25 poverty, 285, 286 Power Felt, 185 prairie dogs, 131 presence, 199 Price of Freedom: Americans at War exhibit, 145 probiotics, 300 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 129 produce, 89 Project Orcon, 145 Project Pigeon, 145 Project X-Ray, 145 proprioception, 175–76 prosthetics, 256–58 protein, 190 protozoans, 172, 289–90, 300 Przewalski’s horses, 132 Puerto Rico, 175 Puppe (orangutan), 26–27 purple finch, 137 pyrolysis technology, 76 pythons, 128–31, 133, 140, 315 Quai Branly Museum, 80–82, 84–85 quarries, 24 quasi-crystal, 34 rabbits, 126, 129, 133 rabies, 298 racoons, 129 rail trails, 77 rainforests, 79 rains, 41 Raison, Charles, 300–301 Rambuteau subway station, 95–96 Rand, Ayn, 59 rats, 282–83, 296 reading, 191–92 Reconciliation Ecology, 74 recycling, 52, 74, 78, 87, 88, 90 heat, 95–108 red clover, 166 Red Delicious, 137 red foxes, 153 red kites, 132 Red Sea Star Restaurant, 76 reef death, 36–37 refrigerators, 87 regenerative medicine, 244 Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, 254–55 reindeer, 132 Reiss, Diana, 202, 204 religion, 176 Relman, David, 300 Renaissance, 190 Renault, 83 renewable energy, 307 restaurant rooftop farms, 88 retinas, 253 Revolutionizing Prosthetics program, 258–59 Rezwan, Mohammed, 52–53 rhododendrons, 125 rice, 71 Rice Plant Conservation Science Center, 82 Rig Veda, 257 RinkWatch.org, 40, 314 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 78 Ripasso Energy, 100–101, 106 roadkill, 115–16 robomoths, 146–47 RobotCub Consortium, 218–19 robot fleas, 148 robotic evolution, 210, 213, 224–25 robots, 210–25 rocketships, 171 rock strata, 31, 35 roe deer, 124 Romania, 78, 124 Romans, 185 Rome, 267 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 145 rosemary, 90 Rosenzweig, Michael, 74 roses, 125 Rotterdam, Netherlands, 77 Royal Botanic Gardens, 118 Rwanda, 46 Ryu Chan Hyeon, 102 saber-tooth tigers, 162, 163 Sagan, Carl, 220 sage, 125 Sahara Desert, 54 Sahel, 46 St.

Aerotropolis
by John D. Kasarda and Greg Lindsay
Published 2 Jan 2009

Abu Dhabi has blown some of its oil wealth on a few trophies of its own—stakes in Virgin Galactic and the Ultimate Fighting Championship, the Chrysler Building, and Masdar, a “zerocarbon” solar-powered city in a country with the highest per capita carbon footprint on earth. Envisioned as a test bed for every type of renewable energy under the sun—picture solar cells powering personal monorails instead of cars—Masdar is a retort to the unsustainable sprawl of Dubai. “One day, all cities will be built like this,” its backers promised, hinting at a multitrillion-dollar industry to follow. MIT faculty consulted on the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology, while the emirate is trying to coax clean-tech companies to move here with the carrot of $250 million in seed money and the usual lures—no taxes, no oversight, and the great basin of two billion customers within a few hours’ flight.

The New Map: Energy, Climate, and the Clash of Nations
by Daniel Yergin
Published 14 Sep 2020

One initiative was Mubadala, a second sovereign wealth fund, with about $230 billion under management, which tilts toward building and investing in companies both in Abu Dhabi and internationally. One of its companies, Strata, makes high-end components for Boeing and Airbus in Abu Dhabi. Another is a partnership with the Cleveland Clinic in a major regional medical center in Abu Dhabi. A second initiative was Masdar, which was set up to diversify in energy beyond oil and gas. It has become a major player in solar and wind both locally and globally as well as a hub for innovation and technology. The third big initiative was Vision 2030 itself, launched in 2007, which laid out the overall strategy. The message was that the country needed to diversify its revenue base, upgrade skills, create jobs, and increase the participation of women in the economy.

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(“Lawrence of Arabia”), 199 League of Nations, 201 Lebanon, 207, 228, 242, 247, 256, 292 Lee Hsien Loong, 426 Lee Kuan Yew, 123 Lenin, Vladimir, 72 Lenovo, 362 Leviathan field, 254–57 Lew, Jacob, 96–97 Libya, 238–39, 246, 270, 272 Limits of Growth, The (Club of Rome), 4 Lindmayer, Joseph, 395 lithium batteries, 327–28, 330, 332, 341, 344–45 Lithuania, 62, 109 Little Ice Age, 378 Liu, Jean, 362–64 Liveris, Andrew, 29–30 López Obrador, Andrés Manuel, 43–44, 320 Louisiana, 32 Lubmin, Germany, 84–85, 89, 107 LUKOIL, 76 Lutz, Robert, 332 Lyft, 360–61, 369, 372 Mackinder, Halford, 120 Macron, Emmanuel, 107 Maduro, Nicolás, 273, 283, 285 Mahathir, Mohammad, 187–88 Maidan Square protests, 81, 93 “Malacca Dilemma,” 157, 182 Malacca Strait, 113, 157, 186 Malaysia, 33, 143, 169n, 232 Maliki, Nouri al-, 230, 233, 267 Manchuria, 139, 156 Mao Zedong, 117, 140, 147, 156, 167 Mapping the Global Future (National Intelligence Council), 314 Marcellus shale, 11, 27, 113 Maritime Silk Road, 179, 186 Markey, Edward, 392 Maronite Christians, 201, 228 Marshall Plan, 181 Marx, Karl, 148 Masdar, 302 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), 369 Mattis, James, 218 Ma Ying-jeou, 146 Mazrouei, Suhail al, 313 McClendon, Aubrey, 35 McLean, Malcom, 161–63 Medvedev, Dmitry, 84–85 Meesemaecker, Georges, 136–38 Menhall, James, 243 Merkel, Angela, 58, 84–85, 102, 105–6, 108, 115, 227, 336 Mesopotamia, 196, 198, 200, 201–2 methane emissions, 28–29, 383, 387, 392, 402 Methane Pioneer, 32, 33 Mexico, 41–44 Middle East and Arab nationalism, 203–5 and Arab Spring, 22, 91, 236–43, 248–52, 254, 429–30 and China Belt and Road initiative, 178, 182 and current geopolitical challenges, 426 and energy transition challenges, xvii–xviii and global oil market, 52, 72, 200, 203, 231–35 and Iranian designs on Iraq, 229–31, 233–35 and Iranian nuclear ambitions, 222–28 and Iranian Revolution, 206–9 mandate system, 201–2, 203, 220 and Persian Gulf wars, 210–19 Russia’s growing influence in, 282 and struggle for Iraq, 229–35 and “Sykes-Picot,” 193–98, 197, 200–202, 215, 270 and Syrian civil war, 241–48 See also specific countries Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), 279, 315 Mikhelson, Leonid, 111 Milestones (Qutb), 261 military power and technology and China-Russia strategic partnership, 117–19 and China’s rise, 167–71, 171–74 and Chinese artificial islands, 143 cruise missile attacks, 286 defense spending, 77, 257 modernization of U.S. military, 133–34 and Russian geopolitical ambitions, 70 and Russia-Ukraine tensions, 94–95 and U.S.

The Data Revolution: Big Data, Open Data, Data Infrastructures and Their Consequences
by Rob Kitchin
Published 25 Aug 2014

Such a smart city vision is being heavily promoted by a number of the world’s largest software services and hardware companies (e.g., IBM, CISCO, Microsoft, Intel, Siemens, Oracle, SAP) and being enthusiastically adopted by municipal, national and supranational institutions who foresee smart city technologies producing socio-economic progress and renewing urban centres as hubs of innovation and work (Kourtit et al. 2012). Whilst some smart city projects are being built from the ground up (e.g., Songdo or Masdar City), most are piecemeal and consist of retrofitting existing infrastructure with digital technology and data solutions. The key function of big data in both cases is to provide real-time analytics to manage how aspects of the city function and are regulated. Such real-time surveillance and data analytics have been employed for a number of years in some sectors.

The Making of a World City: London 1991 to 2021
by Greg Clark
Published 31 Dec 2014

The 175 giant turbines are capable of generating up to 630mW – enough to power two-thirds of the homes in Kent with electricity. Yet like so many of London’s transport projects the London Array has been beset by delays. Shell, one of the original investors, pulled out of the project and had to be replaced by Abu Dhabi’s Masdar. Moreover, a legislative change meant that the generation and transmission assets of the Array have to be in separate ownership, which caused further cost and delay to the investors. A few miles further west is the London Gateway, a deep water port capable of unloading ultra-large container ships.

Places of the Heart: The Psychogeography of Everyday Life
by Colin Ellard
Published 14 May 2015

Rather than concerning themselves with the wiring together of a few household appliances to make our morning routines easier, massive corporations like Siemens and Microsoft are pushing hard to develop comprehensive systems that can do for an entire city what a Nest thermostat, which learns to turn down the heat when you leave your house and can talk to you via your phone, does for an individual abode. Indeed, entire cities such as Songdo City in Korea or Masdar in the United Arab Emirates, are beginning to spring from the ground complete with so-called smart city infrastructure. The utopian vision of the smart city is one in which the entire place is networked together to realize every possible efficiency. There is no traffic congestion, there are instant automated responses to emergencies, adaptive HVAC systems manage energy balances in the most efficient way possible, and other systems designed all the way down to the minute details of the lives of individual residents are there to take care of us.

Street Smart: The Rise of Cities and the Fall of Cars
by Samuel I. Schwartz
Published 17 Aug 2015

e Some argue that this has had an unforeseen consequence: wealthy Bogotáns purchasing additional cars (with different last numbers on their license plates) to evade the restriction. f In both cases, even the inflation-adjusted numbers are about 20 percent lower than the price at the end of 2014. g One of my smaller triumphs as a public servant was getting things like paint classified as a capital expense. h One system currently in development in Masdar City, just outside Abu Dhabi, will run underground. i More or less. The car steered itself, but humans controlled throttle and brake, out of a perfectly reasonable concern for safety. j As of this writing, another technological behemoth, Apple, is rumored to be developing an automobile that may be self-driving.

The Prince of the Marshes: And Other Occupational Hazards of a Year in Iraq
by Rory Stewart
Published 1 Jan 2005

PAGODA The people always desire two things: the first is to avenge themselves against those who were the cause of their being enslaved; the other is to regain their freedom . . . a small part of them desire to be free in order to command; but all the others, the countless majority, desire liberty in order to live in security. —Machiavelli, Discourses, Book I, Chapter 16 FRIDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2003 “Amin masdar quwwat lel ferd we el mujtema,” said Abu Mustafa in my first meeting with the supervisory committee of local leaders appointed by the British military. Security is the basis of the power of the individual and the community. Everyone smiled, recognizing the paraphrase of Saddam’s favorite aphorism.

Autonomous Driving: How the Driverless Revolution Will Change the World
by Andreas Herrmann , Walter Brenner and Rupert Stadler
Published 25 Mar 2018

Each version is designed as an on-demand non-stop transportation system between two points on a network with a maximum speed of 40 kilometres per hour (25 miles per hour) and a range of 60 kilometres (37 miles). The personal vehicle transports up to six passengers and the group vehicle up to 20. The freight vehicle conveys a total weight of up to 1,600 kilograms (3,500 pounds). Such vehicles are already in use at Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and in Masdar City, Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates, and in modified form at numerous other airports. Everywhere in the world, autonomous buses are being tested. In Berlin, German Rail is starting a pilot project on the EUREF Campus. Companies primarily in the areas of energy, sustainability and mobility are located on this research campus set up by the federal government.

If Mayors Ruled the World: Dysfunctional Nations, Rising Cities
by Benjamin R. Barber
Published 5 Nov 2013

A fundamental flaw of market approaches to politics, education, and culture is that they rely on the very market choices that politics, education, and culture are intended to modify—if consumer choices were not subjected to the markets they are trying to alter. 40. Rick Robinson, “Five Roads to a Smarter City,” Sustainable Cities Collective, August 7, 2012. Robinson observes that there may be an impetus to act in new-build cities such as Masdar, or in cities regimented from the outside like Guangzhou in China, or in cities such as Rio facing challenges like preparing for the Olympics, where radical measures are needed but can provoke social unrest and civic protest as they have in Rio. The Second Life venue called Democracy Island was a creation of the same person, Beth Noveck, who worked with President Obama and then Prime Minister Cameron to incorporate notions of the civic web into their administrations.

Public Places, Urban Spaces: The Dimensions of Urban Design
by Matthew Carmona , Tim Heath , Steve Tiesdell and Taner Oc
Published 15 Feb 2010

Other models are increasingly being put forward by high-profile architects that either see sustainable urban design as a return to object-architecture – for example Ken Yeang's vertical ‘green’ skyscrapers – or as technology-driven settlements on a ‘total design’ model (see Chapter 1) with designed lifestyles to match – for example Arups' proposed zero-carbon city in Dongtan, Shanghai (see Chapter 8). Foster & Partners' Masdar City in Abu Dhabi combines both – the whole city is viewed as a single object in which technology enables residents to live carbon-neutral lives in the middle of a desert. FIGURE 13.5 Beddington Zero Energy Development (BedZED) (Image: Matthew Carmona). Deliberately eschewing its suburban context, BedZED establishes itself as a self-contained zero-carbon enclave based on a continuous structure of south-facing terraces These examples suggest a break with urban design as place-making, at least to the extent that form and impact rather than people and place are the priority.