Blogs & Ecology

Burj Dubai Tower, still under construction Via:TagPuan

TreeHugger has posted many times on Dubai's sometimes "green," sometimes wretchedly-excessive building boom (please pardon one last requiem use of the now much out-of-favor "green"). The boom is over; and a crash looms for Dubai landlords and credit holders. Falling oil prices have a lot to do with it. See more from a CBS report, below the fold....

This great YouTube clip represents 24 hours of air travel - an astonishing 2 million people in the air at any one time.

Emirates Airline started a new route from Dubai to San Francisco, initiating a number of new features to help it reduce fuel use and CO2 emissions. Subsequently, Emirates referred to this trip as a

It's hot in Dubai, averaging 40C (104F) and often hitting 50C in summer. Perhaps tourists don't check this out (or the rules about what you can do on the beach) before they book their junket. Or perhaps if you can afford to stay at the new Palazzo Versace you expect nature to be bent to your will. You expect cool sand. That is what Soheil Abedian, founder of the hotel, thinks;

Unlimited Wind Tower Image: mishox

Modern air-conditioning has become an essential commodity in many parts of the world, and guzzles more than its fair share of energy as it shifts heat around buildings. But while scientists sweat to find solar solutions to cool this burning energy issue, over a thousand years ago ancient cultures had discovered sustainable precursors to air-conditioning, albeit by and large just for the privileged few. Here are three of the coolest indoor-cooling innovations from those environmentally-savvy ancients – and not a chemical in sight.

Nope, this isn't it - it's a 400-meter-long Dubai advertisement for a real estate development called the Lagoons - not even a third the length of Adrac's billboard.

Vinyl is final, or at least we always used to think so. But advertising and marketing company Adrac, which is trying to get into the Guinness Book of World Records for placing the world's longest billboard in the city of Dubai next spring, promises that its 1.5 kilometer long billboard will be environmentally friendly and made from biodegradable PVC plastic.

World's longest billboard will advertise...real estate

image: Solar Technologies FZE

In an area of the world with no shortage of sunlight, awash in oil wealth (and being able to detect the way the cleantech wind is blowing...) and with a penchant of late of doing things to the n-th degree it should come as no surprise that the Middle East’s largest solar panel manufacturing facility will be built in Dubai.

1-Million Square Foot Facility to Open 2010

What is that thing in the middle at the top of the proposed Anara tower in Dubai? In most of the renderings it looks like a wind turbine integrated into the building, but when you look closely (image below) you can see that the hub is inhabited and that it is supported by the three blades. So now architects don't even bother with the real thing, they just borrow the imagery and put fake turbine-like things on the top of their buildings because they look cool. ...

Roof of Rolf Disch's Heliotrop House.

Passive solar through windows or active solar though hot water or photovoltaics work best when perpendicular to the sun. So cue up Paul McCartney's "I'll follow the sun" and see seven houses and towers that are designed to do exactly that. ...

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Those of us dedicated to sustainable development and engaging new sources of food– especially those of us in America, where a Dollar won’t go as far as a Yen used to (yuk, yuk)– might want to get on the next plane to Dubai.

Image by Yerffej9 on Flickr

Yes, the world’s most luxurious little Emirate has come up with the solution to all of our problems: put bugs in the food.

Designboom calls it "A rather small city that has a population of 1.6 million people and a 37 billion USD economy based largely on trade,manufacturing and financial services." Yet it is employing a quarter of the world's cranes and probably the same proportion of the world's architects.

The White House website details what President Bush outlined in his State of the Union speech this week regarding a "clean energy technology" budget addition in response to the risk posed by climate change.

President Bush is committing $2 billion over the next three years to create a new international clean energy technology fund to help confront climate change worldwide. Along with contributions from other countries, this fund will increase and accelerate...