(The last post) Conclusion

In the article, the author Johann Hari talk about the global warming issue and he says that what people is doing right now is not really effective, and the governments should act on their own. He thinks that these small steps and the small things that people do, won't really have an impact that will be good or can help reduce the global warming effects. He said that what people are doing isn't effective if they work as individuals, but if they want to do something they have to be as groups or to put it in another way, put hands on hands and participate in environmentally organizations to help or else what they do is nothing because the organizations can put pressure on governments and force them to act. Because what the governments can do is much bigger than what we can do. .

In my opinion, I disagree with the writer in many things. Like he said that we can't do anything individually, and what we are doing won't have a big effect and we can't act alone. I think if every single one of us does these small steps of changing and worked hard for them that will change a lot, because if we looked at a 3 planets carbon footprint person and he reduce it to 1 or 1 and a half we will see that if a million person did that as well, the effect will be really huge and they will reduce the CO2 rates amazingly. On the other hand, he said that governments must do the big steps to deal with the issue, and that's right, we know that we can do the small things but most of the job should be done by the government.

(SDSJ) Cool Cities

The revolution of industry and what effects and fatal damages it caused to earth because of it is really dangerous and we have to make an immediate change and start to change before it's too late. Many issues occurred during the last century and the effect is more than what our earth can handle. Problems like increasing of the population and the industry isn't something small and it consuming the earth's natural materials really fast. If we keep going like that we will have to replace our planet or we need to get another one, but that's something that can't be done, so all we can do is to try and keep or let me say save our precious planet. Many people started in the last decades to team-up together and they created many organizations like SDSJ, which meant to work and create societies that are called "cool cities". The idea started in Japan and they were trying to do as much as they can to build theses cities and at the same time to make normal cities do things and sign on agreements, to try and reduce emissions and the carbon dioxide each city produce. And that's to become more environmentally friendly and the same time helps our earth and use less products.

Cool cities depend on alternative energy sources that produce less carbon and it will decrease the emissions. In the cool cities there will be like electric cars or solar vehicles and many other transportation but mostly they will depend on cleaner energy sources. The buildings will be built by using special methods and they will try to use new technologies to heat or cool them. They are aiming to reduce over 60% of emissions each city produce and that's possible if everybody acted together and we put our hands together.

The goals of One Planet Living

1. To make One Planet connected all over the world by a world-wide network.
2. Establish One Planet Living centers in each One Planet Community to teach and educate people on there.
3. To do as much as possible to raise and promote for One planet living and give it more support to make it suit the changing for the governments, business and individuals.
   

One Planet Living

If everyone lived like an average North American we would need five planets.If everyone lived like an average European we would need three planets.If everyone lived like an average Emirati we would need seven planets.Our global warming footprint grew by 0.7 between 1961 and 2003. it is now 30% above the planet's biological capacity to support life on earth.The WWF have ten principles which is called One Planet Living.

Masdar City is going to follow this principles:

1. Zero Carbon:

Try and reduce the carbon footprint and the global warming emissions on the world.

2. Zero Waste:

Wasting used products can cause problems; we have to recycle if possible

3. Sustainable transport:

Use alternative technology for transportation that are clean and reduce global warming effects.

4. Local and sustainable materials:

Use materials that are locally made so it will be better for the environment

5. Local and Sustainable food:

Try and grow food locally, or even use the local food so there won't be any need for import and export which make a lot of problems because of the transportation.

6. Sustainable water:

Try and supply the water locally plus using environmentally friendly ways to do it.

7. Natural habitats and wildlife:

Make the green area bigger and wider so there will be more places for trees and animals to live in.

8. Culture and heritage:

Try and make building designs like it used to be in the past, but more efficient.

9. Equity and fair trade:

Fair trade and make sure poor countries will have a fair trade and what happens on the other part of the world won't affect them whether it's "locally or globally".

10. Health and happiness:

The air is cleaner so the people are healthier and they tend to be happier.

I think that Equity and fair trade plus zero carbon will be a challenge for the Masdar city because it's hard to keep carbon at this rate. They might do it, but there is always a problems when doing huge projects like that, or that's what I'm thinking at least. And the fair trade as well, as I understood from what i read about it. I think it's kind of hard to apply it perfectly in the city.

Why I would like to live in Masdar city

People nowadays really care about things like clean fresh air, healthier environment and things like that. Because we are living in a world that's being destroyed by our hands and what human do for money. In my opinion, i would love to live in a city like Masdar City and at the same time i don't want to live there.
In a city like that, i know that I'll live in a clean environment which is as they say zero carbon and many other things like that. But, at the same time i think living in a place like Al Saadiyat island can be much cooler because it's a city that has many great things that will make people from all over the world come to the UAE just to see it. So I'm not really sure about that because i's really great to live in a "cool city" but at the same time i might find that there are many things that i won't find there.

"Is Abu Dhabi a Cool City?"

As my friends said, Abu Dhabi is not yet a cool city and there are many things that we have to do before we become one. I think as many said, people start to get aware about it. i don't agree with my friend messi when he said that we have to change our life style, because it's not something that we can do just like that. We must do it step by step. ummm... I'm not sure about the store, but i think that as Obaid said, "a store that sells alternatives that can improve the rates of global warming and life in general".

What should Abu Dhabi do to make people aware of global warming

To become a cool city we have to do many things, but before we even start that, Abu Dhabi must do many things to make people living here aware of the global warming, because we can't start solving the problem if there are many people which they don't know about global warming, or they only have a shallow image about this huge issue that's destroying our world. I'll give some ideas about what Abu Dhabi can do to make people more aware about the issue.

• Teach kids at schools and show them what is global warming because they are the next generations and if they don't know what they are facing, they won't care about it because they won't know how big is the situation
• Talk with people and ask them about global warming and what they know about it, because that will give them and the others more information about it
• Discuss the issue in local TV's or radio stations to talk about it, so people can call and give there opinions to benefit the others
• Make a special part in the newspapers that covers 1 or 2 pages that is only talk about global warming, because there is a huge number of people that reads newspapers

these are some steps that we should do to make people aware and to start and focus on the global warming issue as serious problem and put efforts to reduce it's effects on our planet.