New year, new symbol? Dubai's new tower fits. The $1.5 billion
building unveiled in downtown Dubai Monday is the world's new tallest
tower. More than half a mile high, more than two Empire State
buildings tall, the Dubai tower boasts 169 stories, the world's
highest swimming pool, the world's highest place of worship, and the
world's tallest mountain of denial.
History repeats. Like the Empire State building before it, the Dubai
tower was built in a global depression when cheap labor was
plentiful, as were the dreams of the ambitious and affluent.
The engineering marvel was constructed in the desert heat by low paid
immigrant workers, mostly Indians and Pakistanis, paid 5-20 dollar a
day. (It's a state secret how many lost their lives in the process.)
While the state-owned construction operation suppressed worker
demands and banned unions from the site, it catered to consumer
fantasy with equal extravagance. The tower features 144 apartments
and a hotel designed by Giorgio Armani, the Italian designer. In the
super scraper, the super-affluent can live and vacation without
leaving the brand, or the building.
On Monday, Dubai's Sheikh Mohammed and his Chicago-based architects
hailed their building as a symbol of future good all things great.
There's just one glitch. According to the Sunday Times, that future
involves melting the equivalent of 28 million pounds of ice a day for
air conditioning, and the consumption of billions of gallons of
desalinated water in a city-state that already has the world's
highest per-capita carbon footprint.
The climate actually changes as you ride the elevator. It's way, way
hotter at the bottom. The engineers are doing everything in their
power to counter physics and so far so good. But rising heat of a far
less metaphorical sense already struck in the form of economics.
<http://www.counterpunch.org/flanders01052010.html>Link
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