Car, Carbon and Care Free

During January's tour of the Middle East President Bush took time to view a model of Masdar, the first carbon neutral city on Earth. The development, located in Abu Dhabi, is being planned by British architecture heavyweights, Foster + Partners. As Bush was wrapping up his visit he called Masdar "an opportunity to see what works and what won't work, and an opportunity to share their technology with others."

Well yeah… it's a giant experiment to sustain 45,000 people by employing the latest advances in solar power, desalination, public transportation and city planning. But with an estimated completion date of 2018 I don't think we'll reap the benefits of discovering "what works" in a timely manner.

Maybe more insightful was another of the President's comments: "Amazing, isn't it? This country has gotten its wealth from the ground and is now reinvesting in alternative forms of energy, sometimes joint venturing with U.S. institutions, like MIT." Bingo. It's called preserving your economy and it's a great business idea to go ahead and develop the next energy source at the headwaters of the "Oil Amazon". However, it would be an even better idea for us to do it ourselves. Of course no President could say that to their Royal Host… but I feel the need to bring up a certain speech at Greenbuild again.

Thanks DM for the tip.