Dubai was already chalking up records for the most power consumption per capita (on the order of 20,000 kWh per year) and the highest water consumption per capita (the desert, get it?) in 2007 and still hitting 15% annual gains in both figures with ease. It is unsustainable. A quick look at the current Dubai Projects would show us how stupid human beings can be...
Dubai in 1990 prior to the craziness
The same street in 2003
In 2008
The madness. Dubai is said to currently have 15-25% of all the world's cranes.
The Dubai Waterfront. When completed it will become the largest waterfront development in the world.
All of this was built in the last 5 years, including that island that looks like a palm tree.
The Palm Islands in Dubai. New Dutch dredging technology was used to create these massive man made islands. They are the largest artificial islands in the world and can be seen from space. Three of these Palms will be made with the last one being the largest of them all.
Upon completion, the resort will have 2,000 villas, 40 luxury hotels, shopping centers, movie theaters, and many other facilities. It is expected to support a population of approximately 500,000 people. It is advertised as being visible from the moon.
The World Islands. 300 artificially created islands in the shape of the world. Each island will have an estimated cost of $25-30 million.
The Burj al-Arab hotel in Dubai. The worlds tallest hotel. Considered the only '7 star' hotel and the most luxurious hotel in the world. It stands on an artificial island in the sea.
Hydropolis, the world's first underwater hotel. Entirely built in Germany and then assembled in Dubai, it is scheduled to be completed by 2009 after many delays.
The Burj Dubai. Construction began in 2005 and is expected to be complete by 2008. At an estimated height of over 800 meters, it will easily be world's tallest building when finished. It will be almost 40% taller than the the current tallest building, the Taipei 101.
This is what downtown Dubai will look like around 2008-2009. More than 140 stories of the Burj Dubai have already been completed. It is already the worlds tallest man made structure and it is still not scheduled to be completed for at least another year.
The Al Burj. This will be the centerpiece of the Dubai Waterfront. Once completed it will take over the title of the tallest structure in the world from the Burj Dubai.
Recently it was announced that the final height of this tower will be 1200 meters. That would make it more than 30% taller than the Burj Dubai and three times as tall as the Empire State Building.
The Trump International Hotel & Tower, which will be the centerpiece of one of the palm islands, The Palm Jumeirah.
Currently, the largest amusement park collection in the world is Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, which is also the largest single-site employer in the United states with 58,000 employees. Dubailand will be twice the size.
Dubailand will be built on 3 billion square feet (107 miles^2) at an estimated $20 billion price tag. The site will include a purported 45 mega projects and 200 hundred other smaller projects.
Dubai Sports City. A huge collection of sports arenas located in Dubailand.
Currently, the Walt Disney World Resort is the #1 tourist destination in the world. Once fully completed, Dubailand will easily take over that title since it is expected to attract 200,000 visitors daily.
The Dubai Marina is an entirely man made development that will contain over 200 highrise buildings when finished. It will be home to some of the tallest residential structures in the world. The completed first phase of the project is shown. Most of the other high rise buildings will be finished by 2009-2010.
The Dubai Mall will be the largest shopping mall in the world with over 9 million square feet of shopping and around 1000 stores. It will be completed in 2008.
Ski Dubai, which is already open, is the largest indoor skiing facility in the world. This is a rendered image of another future indoor skiing facility that is being planned.
Some of the tallest buildings in the world, such as Ocean Heights and The Princess Tower, which will be the largest residential building in the world at over a 100 stories, will line the Dubai Marina.
The UAE Spaceport would be the first spaceport in the world if construction ever gets under way. I'm not joking...
Some other other crazy shit...
- The Dubai Metro system, once completed, will become the largest fully automated rail system in the world.
- The Dubai World Central International Airport will become the largest airport in size when it is completed. It will also eventually become the busiest airport in the world, based on passenger volume.
- There are more construction workers in Dubai than there are actual citizens.
WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON OVER THERE?
China does indeed make very little from its manufacturing. The Chinese bemoan the fact that they're making so much for the world and getting so little in return. The reason is lack of brands - Chinese people just don't see brands as being important. They don't trust anything that they can't hold in their hands, and you wouldn't either if you had just emerged from fifty years of enforced poverty under a radical leftist government. Another problem is the rampant theft of IP and cutthroat domestic competition. Foreign brands have much of the high end, and Chinese companies are forced to viciously compete on price at the low end. And hey, if you do invest in R&D, Chinese IP laws are so weak that you'll get ripped off - why make money for someone else?
Suppose there was a phone that did everything the iPhone did, but didn't have the Apple logo on the outside. It wouldn't be nearly as popular, because there are plenty of people willing to pay $$$ for anything with that logo on it. Indeed, American companies come to China to make money, and make it they do. Apple is making money hand over fist with the iPhone. The Chinese get the scraps. Companies like KFC and Nike are kicking ass in China's domestic market.
The part about innovation is spot-on: the Chinese simply don't have that culture of "fixin' things" like we do. The usual attitude is to wait around for the government to do something. I've had my product copied so many times when it would have just been easier (and more educational) for the company to make its own damn product. Who knows, they might have made a better one instead of an inferior copy. But they'll never know because they just can't see past the end of their noses.
"China does indeed make very little from its manufacturing. The Chinese bemoan the fact that they're making so much for the world and getting so little in return. The reason is lack of brands - Chinese people just don't see brands as being important. They don't trust anything that they can't hold in their hands, and you wouldn't either if you had just emerged from fifty years of enforced poverty under a radical leftist government. Another problem is the rampant theft of IP and cutthroat domestic competition. Foreign brands have much of the high end, and Chinese companies are forced to viciously compete on price at the low end. And hey, if you do invest in R&D, Chinese IP laws are so weak that you'll get ripped off - why make money for someone else? Suppose there was a phone that did everything the iPhone did, but didn't have the Apple logo on the outside. It wouldn't be nearly as popular, because there are plenty of people willing to pay $$$ for anything with that logo on it. Indeed, American companies come to China to make money, and make it they do. Apple is making money hand over fist with the iPhone. The Chinese get the scraps. Companies like KFC and Nike are kicking ass in China's domestic market. The part about innovation is spot-on: the Chinese simply don't have that culture of "fixin' things" like we do. The usual attitude is to wait around for the government to do something. I've had my product copied so many times when it would have just been easier (and more educational) for the company to make its own damn product. Who knows, they might have made a better one instead of an inferior copy. But they'll never know because they just can't see past the end of their noses."
- Slashdot Comments | What the iPod Tells Us About the World Economy (view on Google Sidewiki)
Peak oil is the point in time when the maximum rate of global petroleum production is reached, after which the rate of production enters terminal decline. If global consumption is not mitigated before the peak, a world energy crisis may develop because the availability of conventional oil will drop and prices will rise, perhaps dramatically. M. King Hubbert first used the theory in 1956 to accurately predict that United States oil production would peak between 1965 and 1970. His logistic model, now called Hubbert peak theory, has since been used to predict the peak petroleum production of many other countries, and has also proved useful in other limited-resource production-domains. According to the Hubbert model, the production rate of a limited resource will follow a roughly symmetrical bell-shaped curve based on the limits of exploitability and market pressures.
The world's oil supply is fixed because it is no longer being naturally produced. Several hundred million years ago, plankton and bacteria thrived in the oceans of the then carbon dioxide rich atmosphere. Also at that time, volcanic sulfur lined the ocean floor, preventing living creatures from inhabiting, and therefore consuming, the plankton and bacteria after their death. Those plankton and bacteria that settled in porous sandstone or limestone and those plankton and bacteria that were then capped by shale or salt were allowed to heat and become pressurized to form oil.
Some observers, such as petroleum industry experts Kenneth S. Deffeyes and Matthew Simmons, believe the high dependence of most modern industrial transport, agricultural and industrial systems on the relative low cost and high availability of oil will cause the post-peak production decline and possible severe increases in the price of oil to have negative implications for the global economy. Although predictions as to what exactly these negative effects will be vary greatly, "a growing number of oil-industry chieftains are endorsing an idea long deemed fringe: The world is approaching a practical limit to the number of barrels of crude oil that can be pumped every day."
There are some excellent sources, explaining what peak oil is. Some people paint a Doomsday scenario about Peak Oil. While it may be true, that the planet is addicted to endless supply of cheap energy for survival and growth, human ingenuity & innovation cannot be under-estimated.
Some believe that Peak Oil is nothing but a myth. Chief among those opposing Peak Oil theory are Pastor Lindsay Williams, Alex Jones and some other commentators. These people believe that governments, in collusion with large organizations, are using oil as a weapon to control people, by artificially reducing output of oil, in an attempt to control the world and form a One World Government.
Here is a list of some interesting blogs and sites in support of Peak Oil Theory...
http://oilbeseeingyou.blogspot.com/
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/
http://peakoil.blogspot.com/
http://www.oilcrash.com/
Some sites against Peak Oil Theory
http://peakoildebunked.blogspot.com/
http://www.informationpile.com/peak-oil-shock/
http://www.prisonplanet.com/archives/peak_oil/index.htm