Maldives – This island nation, about a thousand miles southwest of Sri Lanka in the Indian Ocean, has declared its intention to become the world’s first carbon-neutral country. President Mohamed Nasheed made the announcement after a screening of the new climate change film, “The Age of Stupid.” President Nasheed has also said that he will be looking for land to buy to move his people because of the distinct possibility that his country will be inundated by sea-level rise. Where will they get the money? From tourism, while their fantastically beautiful country still lies above the water.
This story from Reuters further highlights the zero-carbon initiative. “The $1.1 billion plan would require 155 wind turbines supplying 1.5 megawatts each and a half a square kilometre of solar panels to meet the needs of the islands’ 385,000 people.” Activist and author Mark Lynas worked with the government on their plan and thinks the payback period for the plan could be ten years.
Sicily – This island with its five million people has a similar ambition. They hope to “…blaze a visionary trail based on intensive small-scale use of renewable energy sources and pinned on the concept that individual consumers of electricity will also become producers through their super efficient buildings.” This article from the “FT” last week talks about how Sicily’s powerful and popular governor, Raffaele Lombardo, has embraced a plan that he devised in partnership with Jeremy Rifkin, like Mark Lynas, another noted activist, visionary and author. Rifkin sees a future for Sicily – and the world, for that matter – “based on sun, wind, waves and biomass, and hydrogen technology to store saved electricity.”
This evokes what I wrote last summer about a little Danish island. “My favorite journalist, Elizabeth Kolbert, has another minor masterpiece, at the ‘New Yorker’ this week, The Island in the Wind. She’s writing about a nearly zero-carbon enclave of 4,300 people in a Danish farming community. Using windpower for electricity and biomass for district heating, she uses this microcosm to show what’s possible in the world.”
Dongtan – This story is not as good as the others. It started out that way, but has gone sour. I wrote here a while back about Chongming, a 750-square-mile island near Shanghai that was going to be the site for Dongtan, the world’s first “ecocity.” Well, “The Economist” reports that this City of Dreams has fallen victim to the vicissitudes of politics and real estate development in Shanghai. It’s not pretty. As Robbie Burns said:
The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men,
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy.
