ADTA/TDIC Headquarters project

The Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority (ADTA) and Tourism Development & Investment Company (TDIC), the emirate's leading tourism asset developer, have broken ground on their new waterfront joint headquarters conceptualised to be at the forefront of intuitive sustainable design. The corporate headquarters for TDIC and the Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority is being built adjacent to Maqta Bridge, the main gateway to Abu Dhabi city. The building has been designed by Singapore’s Surbana Consultants with Japan's leading architect Shigeru Ban being commissioned for the atrium design.

The building has been designed to benefit from several eco-friendly energy conservation features. There is a Building Integrated Photovoltaic roof to supply energy saving options for the running of potential display screens and lighting within areas of the basement car parking, as well as ample green decks at the rooftop level of adjoining blocks to actively reduce heat transfer into the building. There are also innovative control strategies to optimize energy consumption and the use of daylight and sun pipe to minimize the use of artificial lighting, but maximize the use of natural light. Also, there is eco courtyard with lush landscape and water features encourages evaporative cooling. Finally for constructions, they use low emitting materials. Another energy saving feature which can be added is using hybrid cars or any other type of eco-friendly transportation.

To sum up, I think that the ADTA/TDIC Headquarters project is a good example of sustainable eco- friendly projects, which cares about our environment. The main goal of these projects is not only to develop the region, also to build a healthy clean environment which reduce the global warming. I think I will give a green mark of “ A” for this project.

References: http://www.tdic.ae/?aspxerrorpath=/Default.aspx

Al Raha Beach Video:

References: http://www.aldar.com/al_raha_beach_video.en

SDCJ cool cities

Cool cities are cities that build to reduce global warming using renewable energy instead of fossil fuel. Everything in these cities is Eco-friendly. For example, they will use cleaner vehicles which use renewable energy, and Eco- friendly buildings. These cities will improve public health and will reduce global warming by reducing energy, waste and pollution.

These cities contain two types of network, residential and urban. Also they contain many zones: the business and public zone, the residential zone, the resort zone, the culture and sports zone, the solar powered plant farms and the Jatropha forests. Some zones contain offices, hotels, villas and hospitals. Other zones have public centers such as: schools, police stations, museums, retail, restaurants, mosque and stadium.

UAE will build a cool city promoted by SDCJ. It is a sustainable city based on the principles of eco- friendly infrastructure and buildings using the latest green technology. For transport, they will use hybrid cars and solar ships. This city will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 60% and provides us with enjoyable life style.

To sum up, in my opinion I think that, it’s good to see UAE cares about our environment and our health. Also, wants to reduce the global warming. These cities will help in reducing carbon dioxide and controlling the global warming using sustainable energies such as solar energy and wind power.

Refrences:

http://www.uaepropertytrends.com/ptrends/mvnforum/viewthread?thread=2538

Videos related to global warming

References:

http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/environment/global-warming-environment/

Cars emission

My opinion about "An Inconvenient Truth"

I think the film was great. Many people think that the film is political rather than scientific, maybe because of the past history of Al Gore, when he used to be the vice president of US. In my opinion, I think that the movie is scientific because in the slide show Gore reviews many scientific facts.

I think everybody should see it. Global warming is all man-made and we all must do something to control it. The charts show the rate of global warming increased dramatically with the industrial revolution. I didn’t know how serious is the global warming until I saw this documentary. We all know that the US is the largest culprit of carbon emissions, and yet, it refuses to ratify the Kyoto protocol. This film like a wakeup call for us, people must be aware of the serious effects of the global warming and do something to control this problem. We can do many things, for example, we can use more efficient electricity appliances, or using renewable technologies, or using public transport. Another thing that I liked about this movie is that Al Gore used different ways to communicate with his audience; he used the slide show and different charts. Also he told some stories and some jokes to make people laugh.

Overall, the movie was good. It makes us to care more about our planet and try to reduce the global warming.

Summary about the movie " An Inconvenient Truth"

Former vice president Al Gore shares his concerns on the pressing issue of global warming in this documentary, which called An Inconvenient Truth. An Inconvenient Truth focuses on Al Gore and his travels in support of his efforts to educate the public about the severity of the climate crisis.

In the first scene he shows us rivers and green trees to make us comfortable and relax and he tries to show the environment a nice place. The film closely follows a keynote presentation that Gore presented throughout the world. It intersperses Gore's exploration of data and predictions regarding climate change and its potential for disaster with Gore's life story, including his college education with early climate expert Roger Revelle at Harvard University, his sister's death from lung cancer , and his young son's near-fatal car accident. He describes the consequences he believes global climate change will produce if the amount of human-generated greenhouse gases is not significantly reduced in the very near future. A centerpoint of the film is his examination of the annual temperature and CO2 levels for the past 650,000 years in Antarctic ice core sampels by examining the bubbles of atmosphere presents in the ice. Also Gore discusses the possibility of the collapse of a major ice sheet in Greenland or in West Antarctica, either of which could raise global sea levels by approximately 20 feet (6 m), flooding coastal areas and producing 100 million refugees. Melt water from Greenland, because of its lower salinity, could then halt the currents that keep northern Europe warm and quickly trigger dramatic local cooling there.

The documentary ends with Gore arguing that if appropriate actions are taken soon, the effects of global warming can be successfully reversed by releasing less CO2 and planting more vegetation to consume existing CO2. Gore calls upon his viewers to learn how they can help him in these efforts. Many Americans have done to reduce the global warming, for example, Pennsylvania is a leadership on using solar energy and wind power.

Introduction to Global Warming

The global warming is a serious problem. The scientists agree that global warming is real, it’s already happening and that it is the result of our activities and not a natural occurrence. Our life, our planet and our children are in real danger, unless we take steps now to control global warming.

The earth is protected by a thin layer of atmosphere which keeps temperature, air and water in balance to maintain life, but by burning fossil fuels such as coal, gas and oil and clearing forests and by building up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere such as carbon dioxide and methane we have increased the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. As a result the temperature is rising.

This is a serious problem because the global warming effects our lives. The rise in the earth’s temperature causes more intense storms and hurricanes and many plants and animals are moving closer to the poles. We must do something to reduce or minimize the global warming or in the future many things will happen. For example, deaths will double in just 25 years to 300,000 people a year; sea levels could rise by more than 20 feet and more than a million species worldwide could be driven to extinction by 2050.

I got some of the informations from : http://www.sierraclub.org/foundation/redirect/issues/globalwarming.asp?gclid=CKmq-rrgv5UCFQyvQwodFm1LRQ

Here some videos: