MY POV

From Grist on-line magazine.

House shows its green side with votes on Interior Department bill

The House of Representatives was on an eco-roll yesterday as it fixed up an Interior Department spending bill to send to the Senate. Over the objections of top Republicans, lawmakers approved 252-165 a measure that would put oil and gas companies on the hook for billions in royalties they've dodged since the late '90s. A provision to lift the ban on offshore oil drilling was shot down 279-141, with many tourism-conscious, coastal-state Republicans voting to keep the ban; lawmakers voted 217-203 to continue a prohibition on offshore natural-gas drilling. The House also voted to halt federal funds for road-building in Alaska's Tongass National Forest, and told the U.S. EPA not to implement a directive that would reduce wetlands protection and not to weaken a program that tracks toxic releases from industrial sources. We take back all the bad things we ever said about you, House.


Conservative think tank launches climate-skeptic TV ads

"Carbon dioxide: They call it pollution; we call it life." Nope, not a story in The Onion. That's the punch line of two TV ads that the industry-funded Competitive Enterprise Institute began airing in 14 U.S. cities yesterday, timed to correspond with the big-screen debut of Al Gore's climate-change movie An Inconvenient Truth. The ads, replete with happy, energy-guzzling families and a little girl blowing dandelion fluff, protest the maligning of poor, innocent CO2 -- which, according to one ad, "some politicians want to label ... a pollutant." (Gasp.) What will happen if we stop spewing CO2 into the atmosphere? The ads aren't specific, but apparently it has something to do with riding a bike in heavy snow. CEI acknowledges that global temperatures have risen in the past century, but according to president Fred Smith, warming is moving us "a lot closer to heaven than hell." So, the road to heaven is paved with CO2 emissions. The road to hell is paved by Al Gore. And reality has left parody in the dust.

From The Center for American Progress.

CIVIL RIGHTS
Writing Discrimination Into the Constitution

Yesterday, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed a constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage, and likely prohibit civil unions and other forms of domestic partnerships. S.J. Res 1 -- the so-called "Marriage Protection Amendment" -- passed the committee on a 10-8 party-line vote after Chairman Arlen Specter (R-PA), who said he was "totally opposed" to the bill, voted for it. The vote took place in a room just off the Senate floor that was closed to the general public. Instead of acting on the issues that most Americans indicate they are concerned about -- Iraq, gas prices, and stem cells among them -- the Senate is moving ahead with a divisive bill that growing numbers of Americans oppose. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), the committee's ranking member, said the measure is "part of an election-year political agenda" to satisfy the right wing. "The Constitution's too important to be used for such base partisan politics." The Constitution has been amended to eliminate slavery, to give women the right to vote, and to secure for every person the equal protection of the laws. It has never been amended to mandate discrimination.

GOING INTO THE CLOSET: Yesterday's proceedings were removed from the public committee hearing room, where most Judiciary Committee actions take place, to a room that is "not open to the public and does not even have enough chairs for every senator on the committee to sit." Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) expressed his dismay at Specter's decision to pass such a consequential piece of legislation behind closed doors and indicated his desire not to assist the committee in reaching a quorum. "I don't need to be lectured by you. You are no more a protector of the Constitution than am I," shouted Specter in response. "If you want to leave, good riddance." Feingold rose from his seat to leave and said to Specter, "I've enjoyed your lecture, too, Mr. Chairman. See ya." Feingold said in a statement afterwards, "Today's markup of the constitutional amendment concerning marriage, in a small room off the Senate floor with only a handful of people other than Senators and their staffs present, was an affront to the Constitution. ... I am deeply disappointed that the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee went forward with the markup over my objection."Now that the Judiciary Committee has passed the amendment, it will go before the full Senate "on June 5 for what is expected to be a heated debate." The bill is unlikely to succeed because it must first be passed by two-thirds of the Senate, then two-thirds of the House, and finally, three-fourths of the 50 states. Last time the Senate considered the amendment, it failed to win even a simple majority.

BASE POLITICS: In his 2004 campaign, President Bush used gay marriage as a political wedge issue to divide the nation and rally conservative supporters, a tactic that deeply offended Vice President Cheney's lesbian daughter, Mary. "I struggled with my decision to stay on the 2004 campaign," Cheney recently told ABC. When Bush proclaimed his support for an amendment banning gay marriage in the 2004 State of the Union, she refused to go. "I didn't want to be there. No one banned me from being there. But I didn't want to stand up and cheer," she said. Shortly after being re-elected, Bush declared "a duty to serve all Americans" and vowed to try again to become a uniter, not a divider -- a theme he campaigned on in 2000. Bush even pledged to drop the issue of gay marriage. In Jan. 2005, he told the Washington Post there was no reason to press for the amendment "because so many senators are convinced that the Defense of Marriage Act -- which says states that outlaw same-sex unions do not have to recognize such marriages conducted outside their borders -- is sufficient. 'Senators have made it clear that so long as DOMA is deemed constitutional, nothing will happen. I'd take their admonition seriously,' [he said]." But with just under six months until the 2006 mid-term elections -- and with his approval ratings submerging into the low 30s and disaffected conservatives indicating their disapproval -- Bush and senior political adviser Karl Rove are once again "coordinating with Congress on social issues such as a ban on gay marriage." In the face of declining support for their efforts, Bush and Rove appear determined to divide the nation again for political gain, disregarding the advice of First Lady Laura Bush, who recently said, "I don't think it should be used as a campaign tool, obviously."

TAKING AN UNPRINCIPLED STAND: The proposed amendment declares that marriage "shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman" and bars the federal and state governments from allowing any other form of marriage. While religious denominations must be free to decide what constitutes religious marriage under the tenets of their faith, the states should be free to decide whether to recognize civil marriage for their gay and lesbian citizens. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has said of the constitutional amendment, "It usurps from the states a fundamental authority they have always possessed and imposes a federal remedy for a problem that most states do not believe confronts them." Former Rep. Bob Barr (R-GA) added, "I believe very strongly in federalism and that is the federal government should not be stepping in and dictating social policy to the states." Other conservatives mouth their support for states' rights and federalism, but they fail to take a principled stand when it comes to the gay marriage amendment.

TAXES -- PAPER DEBUNKS ADMINISTRATION CLAIM THAT TAX CUTS PAY FOR THEMSELVES: "Part of our strategy to cut our deficit in half is to continue to grown this economy," President Bush said Wednesday. "Tax relief has helped a growing economy, which means more tax revenue for the federal treasury." But asked on Wednesday if reductions in capital gains and dividend income "paid for themselves," Treasury Secretary John Snow "acknowledged that they don't." Also, Snow "conceded...that the much-touted tax cuts for capital gains and dividend income don't drive today's strong economy." A fact-check by Knight-Ridder found that Bush's claim that tax reductions lead to higher tax revenue is "just not true. A host of studies, some of them written by economists who served in the Bush administration, have concluded that tax reductions mean less money for the Treasury." Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who formerly served as chief economist for Bush's Council of Economy Advisers, was asked if "the president's 2001 and 2003 tax cuts generated enough additional revenue to pay for themselves." "No," answered Holtz-Eakin.

CONGRESS -- HASTERT THINKS AMERICA'S MIDDLE CLASS DOESN'T PAY TAXES: In a late House session on Wednesday night, House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) claimed that "if you earn $40,000 a year and have a family of two children, you don't pay any taxes. So you probably, if you don't pay any taxes, you are not going to get a very big tax cut." Hastert's attempt to justify conservatives' huge tax cuts for the rich doesn't hold water. While someone with a $40,000 salary and a family of four paid little or no federal income taxes last year, Hastert ignored the other taxes paid by all Americans -- payroll taxes, gas taxes, sales taxes, etc. For example, a family whose entire $40,000 in salary came from wages directly paid $3,060 (7.65 percent of $40,000) in federal payroll taxes last year. (Note: The employer also pays an equal amount on behalf of the family, but most economists "believe that the portion of the payroll tax paid by the employer is borne by the worker.") Hastert, who earns a hefty $212,010 a year salary, doesn't seem to understand that families across America are facing higher health care costs, mortgage payments, and gas prices. And yes, they also have to pay their taxes.

Posted: 16 May 2006

From Grist on-line magazine.

Chinese environmentalist faces trial on questionable charges

Chinese environmental activist Tan Kai went on trial yesterday, facing charges widely considered dubious. Inspired by protests in the province of Zhejiang, where residents say chemical plants are destroying crops and causing birth defects, Tan and five others informally launched a group called Green Watch last summer. In October, Tan, a computer technician, was arrested and charged with "illegally obtaining state secrets" after performing a routine backup on a computer belonging to a member of the Zhejiang Communist Party committee. A month later, Green Watch was declared illegal and banned. Said a statement from one human-rights group, "This case raises serious concerns about yet another example of the politicized use of state-secrets charges to silence and intimidate grassroots activists." Hey now, no need to drag the Bush administration into this.


Air Force tests synfuel in jets

The Air Force consumes more than half the fuel used by the entire U.S. government; in fiscal year 2005, it guzzled 3.2 billion gallons of jet fuel at a cost of $4.7 billion. Under a directive from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the military is conducting tests to determine whether jets can fly on fuel blended with a synthetic liquid derived from natural gas. The Air Force's Michael A. Aimone says the intent is "to develop enough independence to have assured domestic supplies for aviation purposes." You know, in case any resource wars break out. Not that they will! Ahem. If tests are successful, other branches of the military may also run on synfuel, which would eventually be derived from coal. Says the CEO of Syntroleum, the military's synfuel provider, "We really believe that one of the things we can do to help our country's energy needs is to use the abundance of coal reserves." Coal and war: a match made ... somewhere.

Posted: 15 May 2006

The Bush regime continues its culture of repression.

Federal Source to ABC News: We Know Who You're Calling
May 15, 2006 10:33 AM
Brian Ross and Richard Esposito Report:

A senior federal law enforcement official tells ABC News the government is tracking the phone numbers we (Brian Ross and Richard Esposito) call in an effort to root out confidential sources.

"It's time for you to get some new cell phones, quick," the source told us in an in-person conversation.

ABC News does not know how the government determined who we are calling, or whether our phone records were provided to the government as part of the recently-disclosed NSA collection of domestic phone calls.

Other sources have told us that phone calls and contacts by reporters for ABC News, along with the New York Times and the Washington Post, are being examined as part of a widespread CIA leak investigation.

One former official was asked to sign a document stating he was not a confidential source for New York Times reporter James Risen.

Our reports on the CIA's secret prisons in Romania and Poland were known to have upset CIA officials. The CIA asked for an FBI investigation of leaks of classified information following those reports.

People questioned by the FBI about leaks of intelligence information say the CIA was also disturbed by ABC News reports that revealed the use of CIA predator missiles inside Pakistan.

Under Bush Administration guidelines, it is not considered illegal for the government to keep track of numbers dialed by phone customers.

The official who warned ABC News said there was no indication our phones were being tapped so the content of the conversation could be recorded.

A pattern of phone calls from a reporter, however, could provide valuable clues for leak investigators.

The Carpetbagger Report
A stunning tolerance for corruption in Iraqi reconstruction aid

Occasionally, I think I can no longer be surprised. Stories like this one in the Wall Street Journal prove me wrong.

The Senate last week approved $109 billion in additional spending for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, including $1.5 billion in added Iraq reconstruction money. The administration has spent $20.9 billion to reconstruct Iraq's infrastructure and modernize its oil industry, but the effort hasn't restored the country's electricity output, water supply or sewage capabilities to prewar levels.

A behind-the-scenes battle among legislators has made a crucial distinction between the new reconstruction money and that already spent: The new funds won't be overseen by the government watchdog charged with curbing the mismanagement that has overshadowed the reconstruction.

The administration's main vehicle for rebuilding Iraq has, in the past, been designated "Relief and Reconstruction" funds, which by law are overseen by a special inspector general, Stuart Bowen. The new money going toward similar reconstruction goals will be classified as coming from "Foreign Operations" accounts. The State Department is responsible for spending both pools of money.

Here's the deal: Stuart Bowen has led the office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. When the White House tapped Bowen for the job in January 2004, Bush critics were deeply disappointed — Bowen was widely recognized as a close Bush ally, so few expected him to be thorough and aggressive.

The critics were wrong. Bowen has not only taken his job as inspector general seriously, he's been the leading figure in exposing fraud and corruption. The Wall Street Journal reported in July that Bowen "has become one of the most prominent and credible critics of how the administration has handled the occupation of Iraq," and considering his record, it's a more-than-fair description. The guy even took on Halliburton.

So, what do Republicans do in response? They quietly make it easier for corruption to take place by going around Bowen.

By law, Mr. Bowen can oversee only relief and reconstruction funds. Because the new money technically comes from a different source, Mr. Bowen, who has 55 auditors on the ground in Iraq, will be barred from overseeing how the new money is spent. Instead, the funds will be overseen by the State Department's inspector general office, which has a much smaller staff in Iraq and warned in testimony to Congress in the fall that it lacked the resources to continue oversight activities in Iraq.

Wait, the story gets even better.

Now that the secret change that allows more corruption has come to light, everyone's asking how and why this measure was included in the Pentagon spending bill.

In fact, the WSJ reported today that a group of senators, upon learning about the provision that would circumvent Bowen, offered an amendment that would have kept his oversight duties in place. For reasons that are not altogether clear, sponsors of the amendment were denied the chance to bring their measure to the floor for a vote.

So, who wanted the change? Who else? "Republican Appropriations Committee aides say legislators shifted the Iraq money to the foreign operations accounts at the request of the White House," the WSJ reported. The White House says it simply did this for budgetary purposes and to help "streamline accounting." The fact that the move cuts off the most effective auditor in Iraq at the knees, the Bush gang says, is a coincidence.

As Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) put it, "This is nothing more than a transparent attempt to shut down the only effective oversight of this massive reconstruction program which has been plagued by mismanagement and fraud."

Posted: 14 May 2006

This story is being told from one side's point of view, but if it is even partially true, it is horrific.

Cleveland Women Put In Gulag And Held For Psyh Eval For Trying To Put Up Anti-Bush Poster
Carol Fisher is being held indefinitely in a surprise May 9 court hearing, becoming another political prisoner held illegally for speaking out against Bush.
By Greg Szymanski

A Cleveland woman, manhandled by police and charged with two felonies for trying to display anti-Bush posters, was jailed in a Cuyahoga County psych unit last week in what her attorney called a "highly unusual and outrageous" decision.

Carol Fisher, 53, was ordered by state court Judge Timothy McGinty to undergo a psychological examination as a part of her pre-sentencing investigation in the anti-Bush poster incident.

From the onset of the case, Judge McGinty openly claimed Fisher suffered from "mental problems" for resisting a brutal encounter on Jan. 28 when Cleveland Heights police manhandled and arrested her even after complying with orders to not display the anti-Bush posters on a downtown Cleveland Heights street.

And during a last minute May 9 hearing, Judge McGinty said Fischer's opposition to the Bush administration makes her "delusional."

In response, Terry Gilbert, one of Fisher's attorney, said in more than 30 years of practicing law, he has never seen "anything remotely like this," adding legal challenges are ongoing, including a writ of habeas corpus.

"This is gulag stuff," said Gilbert. "Is this the kind of country you want to live in when dissidents are determined to be crazy?"

In a phone call after being put in the psych ward, Fisher said her eyeglasses were taken, she was put on suicide watch and if she doesn't comply with the psych examination, she will be sent to the North Coast Mental Institute for a 20 day evaluation.

During the hearing, Judge McGinty made other strange requests baffling attorneys, asking defense counsel to openly read a lengthy message on Fisher's t-shirt, saying:

"Wanted for Illegally Crossing Borders: The Bush Regime. If you are going to insist that crossing borders illegally is a crime which cannot be tolerated, how about George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice (and yes, Colin Powell) and the rest of that gang, with their highly illegal, and violent, 'crossing of the border'-into Iraq, among other places?!"

Judge McGinty then said this was proof of her delusional state, adding that "Carol wants to go to jail and that she has a martyr complex." Fisher had initially refused to taking a state ordered psych _eval, saying there was no reason for it due to the fact American citizens have the right to express political opinions in an open and honest fashion.

However, Judge McGinty's response to Fisher's refusal and statements was simply that "I don't negotiate with felons."

"I'd be crazy to go along with the psych test," said Fisher, adding she feared being railroaded by crooked state psychiatrists based on her opposition to the Bush administration. "That which you will resist and mobilize to stop, you will learn or be forced to accept."

And looking back on the entire Fisher story, starting with the Jan. 28 police brutality incident involving the anti-Bush posters, her case is a stark example of the fascist climate existing in America, an unsettling climate were dissidents are punished and authority figures are allowed to trample on civil rights.

As reported in the Arctic Beacon as well as being a guest on Greg Szymanski's radio show the Investigative Journal, Fisher said she was brutalized by Cleveland Heights police, charged with two counts of felony assault and held incommunicado under police custody in the hospital even after complying with orders not to post the anti- Bush signs.

"The facts show that I was willing to take the posters down as the officer requested. But I was arrested anyway. Yet the prosecution intends to distort the facts and police still promote the lie that I was arrested because I refused to comply, and attacked them," said Fisher.

"The real point here is, there need to be more posters all over the place demanding an end to the Bush Regime! The facts clear and simple: I was wrongly arrested and assaulted for putting up anti-Bush posters. I was further punished for defying them.

READ THE REST.

Posted: 12 May 2006

THIS IS IMPORTANT.

What Big Brother sees
by kismet
Thu May 11, 2006 at 10:05:26 AM PDT

Ever since I saw the call records story breaking this morning I've been sitting here with a very visceral visual of exactly what Big Brother knows about me.

See, what I do for a living is, I study gene networks, and specifically methods for monitoring what changes in a network of genetic and biochemical interactions when a perturbation is introduced. We use a lot of graph theory and network analysis in this field. I'm a data miner by trade, although my focus is mostly on cleaning up the signal so others can mine it more effectively, because of course, in networks, errors add up and false connections are made and you get the wrong answer, which means (in biology) that you waste time pursuing irrelevant leads.

So when I think of what a database of all of our call histories looks like I get the heebie jeebies. Because I know with a fair degree of certainty what kind of connections they can look for in that data, and what kinds of events they can flag. With these records, they know who you call, they know when you call them (and can maintain a history that stretches over years) and they know exactly where you call them from.

* Big Brother knows everyone that you care about. Not just your family of birth but your family of choice.

* Big Brother knows who all your friends are, and who their friends are, and friends of their friends. He knows when you make a new friend, and he knows when you stop talking to someone. He knows when that friend you haven't heard from in years suddenly turns up in your life. Big Brother knows that after you got that call from that old friend, your social network lit up with calls back and forth to other old friends to exchange hot gossip.

* Big Brother knows when you're making personal cell phone calls from work. He knows which way you drive home, if you're making calls from your car on the way.

* Big Brother knows that you know a guy who knows a guy. Say, for instance, you call a friend a lot and that friend calls a guy who gets busted for dealing drugs. Big Brother knows that you called your friend and then your friend called his dealer and that this happened to happen in that sequence several Friday nights in a row.

* Big Brother knows when you're calling your illicit lover to arrange an assignation, and he knows when you call your wife from the hotel room to tell her you're working late.

* Big Brother knows when you call that guy you were dating who blew you off and just as quickly hang up the phone.

* Big Brother knows when you went on a trip, where you went, who you called while you were away and when you got back. Big Brother also knows who takes care of your pets while you're gone.

I'm sure there's many more examples of patterns that we could define. But the point is: it's absolutely unprecedented in history for a government to have that kind of detailed knowledge of its citizens' connections and the patterns of their private lives. It brings a whole new level of 'total' to the word 'totalitarian'.

With the start and end time of a phone call, the identities of the originator and receiver (easily mined from other less-secure sources even if the telcos strip them off what they sell to the government), and the cell phone tower location, literally any pattern of associations among people, businesses, places and times can be mined out if there's a smart geek at the data mining end who knows how to formulate the pattern as a query. And your node may not have identifying information attached to it, but it may be associated through a pattern with a node that does -- someone who has somehow gotten on the radar, say, by being rounded up at an anti-war rally or registered to vote as a Democrat or busted for holding a small amount of pot.

The reason that this thing has got me so disturbed today is that I am a smart geek, and I could formulate that query and direct a programmer to implement it, much as I direct students to implement queries in a genomic database. I have the imagination, and the training in looking for patterns in data, to understand how such information could and would be used. In the world of database queries, if you can dream it (formulate the criteria) you can do it.

Sure, the power to know such things seems innocuous. But if you wouldn't trust the Chinese government under Mao with information about who the friend you love to talk to most actually is, then you shouldn't trust your own government. The power to use those connections just needs to be animated by a small amount of will to use them wrongfully and, as I read somewhere else today, you could be stripped of your rights as an American faster than you can say Padilla.

We need to find a way to bring home to non-geeks what the power of such a database can be, to take it out of the realm of geekiness and show how easily it could be used to attach consequences to seemingly innocuous actions and patterns. People should be madder than hell about this. It should drive George Bush's approval rating into the negative numbers.

For medical data, to use that data for research, we have to meet elaborate standards under HIPAA to strip any personally identifying information off the data. What we need is a HIPAA for communications and consumer data. Force the corporations to file off the serial numbers on the information they track about our lives. Let the corporations mine our purchasing and resource use patterns for trends all they want, but let them not connect those trends to individuals unless a warrant is issued to connect the abstract to the individual.

Posted: 7 May 2006

If the US would fabricate something like this, why not for the 9/11 attacks as well?

Police chief- Lockerbie evidence was faked
MARCELLO MEGA

A FORMER Scottish police chief has given lawyers a signed statement claiming that key evidence in the Lockerbie bombing trial was fabricated.

The retired officer - of assistant chief constable rank or higher - has testified that the CIA planted the tiny fragment of circuit board crucial in convicting a Libyan for the 1989 mass murder of 270 people.

The police chief, whose identity has not yet been revealed, gave the statement to lawyers representing Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, currently serving a life sentence in Greenock Prison.

The evidence will form a crucial part of Megrahi's attempt to have a retrial ordered by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC). The claims pose a potentially devastating threat to the reputation of the entire Scottish legal system.

The officer, who was a member of the Association of Chief Police Officers Scotland, is supporting earlier claims by a former CIA agent that his bosses "wrote the script" to incriminate Libya.

READ THE REST.

Posted: 6 May 2006

If you don't want more rigged elections, you'd better speak up and write letters demanding a verifiable paper trail for voting, and an end to these unsafe, easily hacked machines.

NEWLY DISCOVERED DIEBOLD THREAT DESCRIBED AS 'MAJOR NATIONAL SECURITY RISK'!
Voting Systems in Question Were Used Last Week in Ohio Primary, Soon in Pennsylvania, So 'Serious' Few Details Are Being Released
All Diebold Touch-Screen Machines, In All States, Said to be Affected by 'Horrifying' Vulnerability, Systems 'Sequestered' in PA

Voting Systems in Question Were Used Last Week in Ohio Primary, Soon in Pennsylvania, So 'Serious' Few Details Are Being Released All Diebold Touch-Screen Machines, In All States, Said to be Affected by 'Horrifying' Vulnerability, Systems 'Sequestered' in PA

We've now been able to gather a great deal of additional information concerning details about the story we first posted yesterday on the official Pennsylvania state warning issued about the...

We've now been able to gather a great deal of additional information concerning details about the story we first posted yesterday on the official Pennsylvania state warning issued about the new "security vulnerability" discovered in all Diebold touch-screen electronic voting machines.

That warning, which has now brought a lock-down on all Diebold systems in PA, where early absentee (non-machine) voting is about to begin prior to their upcoming May 16th primary election, was reported by the Morning Call yesterday. The warning says the serious security vulnerability could allow "unauthorized software to be loaded on to the system."

Public details about the warning are still sketchy as those in the know have acknowledged that the problem is so serious, they are hoping to keep the info under wraps until mitigation steps can be taken to safeguard systems.

The BRAD BLOG has been told on the record, however, by one person involved in the matter, that the vulnerability is a "major national security risk."

READ THE REST.

From Grist on-line magazine.

Plans for an eco-city in China inspire a green neighborhood in London

The world's largest eco-city is soon to be built in China, on an island at the mouth of the Yangtze River near Shanghai. Dongtan, being developed by London's Arup Urban Design, will consist of village-style neighborhoods and will emphasize pedestrian-friendliness, renewable-energy generation, and self-sufficiency in water and food. The city aims to generate zero carbon emissions and will have no landfill. It should be able to support a population of 80,000 by 2020, which may be not a moment too soon, as an estimated 300 million people will migrate from the Chinese countryside to cities over the next 15 years. While visiting China last month, London Mayor Ken Livingstone introduced plans for a 1,000-home, zero-carbon development modeled on Dongtan. The London community, initially proposed by Greenpeace, will also be designed by Arup. Copycats.

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