Man-made adult Disneyland–aka Dubai–might be the ultimate hotspot for rich investment bankers, oil tycoons and everyone with an eye for architecture, but, surprise surprise, it’s also hurting our environment.
According to a recent New York Times article, the biggest problem that Dubai faces is the lack of drinkable water. Despite being so close to the gulf, they struggle to purify the water with desalination plants, which in turn give excess emission of carbon dioxide. This process also creates a great amount of heated sludge which is all then thrown out into the sea. It is estimated that the equivalent of four billion water bottles are desalinated every day in Dubai! (Good-bye marine life).
And then there are the sewage problems and the lack of environmental standards applied to the building of all the skyscrapers.
On a positive note though, at least Abu Dhabi is now trying to learn from all the faults in Dubai and has created an interesting recycling system and a pro-environmentalist public awareness campaign. However, if the need to preserve the environment will trump over the need to preserve money flow…well, we’ll see how that goes.
The Urban Nature Files 