Green City amidst Desert

Article about the upcoming gree city in Abu Dhabi

The construction is the start of a vast experiment, an attempt to create the world's first car-free, zero-carbon-dioxide-emissions, zero-waste city. Due to be completed in 2016, the city is the centerpiece of the Masdar Initiative, a $15 billion investment by the government of Abu Dhabi, which is part of the United Arab Emirates. The new development, being built on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi city, will run almost entirely on energy from the sun and will use just 20 percent as much power as a conventional city of similar size. Garbage will be sorted and recycled or used for compost; sewage will be processed into fuel. Concrete columns will lift the city seven meters off the ground, creating space underneath for a network of automated electric transports that will replace cars. Planners predict that the development will attract 1,500 clean-tech businesses, ranging from large international corporations to startups, and--eventually--some 50,000 residents.

The city will be an oasis of renewable energy in a country of five million, made rich by oil, that consumes the most natural resources per capita in the world. Seen one way, it's just the latest ostentatious project in a country that's been defined by them. Indeed, the UAE is already home to the world's tallest building and an enormous indoor ski facility that features a 200-meter-long black-diamond slope. Real-estate developers have dredged coral and sand from the sea floor, piling it up in the Persian Gulf to create islands in the shape of palm trees and a map of the world.

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Tha painting is by Baldomero Romero Ressendi

‘Going Green’ project targets Olmsted

Olmsted parks will be not only greener but cleaner as new trees are planted and recycling stations pop up throughout the 1,200-acre system over the next few months.

Progress was made on both fronts Saturday in Cazenovia Park, where community volunteers put 50 seedlings in the ground and the first of 28 recyling bins was installed on a well-used pathway.

Dozens more trees were placed in Martin Luther King Park as the autumn planting phase of Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy’s campaign to add 10,000 trees to its historic green spaces over the next decade kicked into gear.

In coming weeks, volunteers will spend their tree-planting energies in Delaware, Front, Riverside and South parks.

The green-and-tan recycling stations with two receptacles — one for aluminum and plastic containers and the other for waste — are part of a long-term “Going Green” program developed by the Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy with a $50,000 grant from HSBC Bank.

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The painting is by Nancy Merkle

Plant Tree for the generations to come

See a fine example by senior people

RIVERSIDE - The 200 senior citizen residents of Mount Rubidoux Manor downtown on Monday showed their commitment to conserve resources on behalf of their grandchildren.

They held a tree-planting ceremony and collected donations toward a Nature Conservancy program aimed at planting 1 billion trees in the Atlantic forest of Brazil.

They called the event Seniors Giving the Gift of Green and many of the residents wore clothes of green or earth tones to the morning gathering.

The residents council at the 16-story senior apartment building earlier this month adopted a resolution calling for a reduction in resource use within each apartment, such as by drawing curtains to reduce air conditioning use, and by turning off the water while brushing their teeth.

The resolution also called for a continuing effort to find more ways to "go green" to make Mount Rubidoux Manor a model for other senior citizen residences to follow.

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The painting is by Nancy Merkle

Miss Earth Wales speaks out about being Green

Recycling your wine bottles has suddenly got sexier – thanks to the newly-crowned Miss Earth Wales.

CLAIRE REES found out how 22-year-old former Miss Wales runner-up Jamie-Lee Williams is aiming to change the nation’s eco-habits – with the beauty queen’s step-by-step guide to being easy on the eye – and the environment

JAMIE-LEE WILLIAMS isn’t just red hot – she’s also as green as they come.

The 22-year-old teaching assistant has just been crowned Miss Earth Wales and is making it her mission to clean up in style at the international final.

Stunning Jamie-Lee, who has a psychology degree and is working with autistic children at a primary school in London as part of her teacher training, won the Wales heat of Miss Earth UK after convincing a panel of judges that not only is she easy on the eye – she’s even easier on the environment.

Because while many beauty pageants delve no deeper than the contestant’s smile, winners of Miss Earth have to prove they know just as much about making a difference as they do about making an entrance.

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The painting is by Laura Tasheiko

Green, green and green - A poem by Sylvia Chidi

Green, green and green

I want a holiday with a scene
Of green, green and green

A summer of green trees
A landscape of green grass
A view full of green vegetables

The colour green
Is a beauty that must be seen!
From a moving vehicles screen

And while we hold onto those machines
That deprives us of the colour green
Remember they provide us vaccines
As well as help the air to be clean


So for green, green and green
I will travel continents across and in-between
And also to any place that I have never been
I will make it routine
Just to see green, green and green


Sylvia Chidi