Home Page #5

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every night.

The days seem no more

than a pale reflection of nights

that turn the city into a starry sky.

Faster and faster.

Distances are no longer

counted in miles, but in minutes.

The automobile shapes new suburbs,

where every home is a castle,

a safe distance

from the asphyxiated city centers,

and where neat rows of houses

huddle around dead-end streets.

The model of a lucky-few countries

has become a universal dream

preached by TVs all over the world.

Even here in Beijing,

it is cloned, copied and reproduced

in these formatted houses

that have wiped pagodas off the map.

The automobile has become the symbol

of comfort and progress.

If this model were followed

by every society,

the planet wouldn't have 900 million

vehicles, as it does today,

but 5 billion.

Faster and faster.

The more the world develops,

the greater its thirst for energy.

Everywhere, machines dig, bore

and rip from the Earth

the pieces of stars buried

in its depths since its creation...

Minerals.

As a privilege of power,

is consumed

by 20% of the world's population.

Before the end of this century,

excessive mining will have exhausted

nearly all the planet's reserves.

Faster and faster.

Shipyards churn out oil tankers,

container ships and gas tankers

to cater for the demands

of globalized industrial production.

Most consumer goods travel

thousands of kilometers

from the country of production

to the country of consumption.

Since 1950, the volume of international

trade has increased 20 times over.

are transported every year.

Headed for the world's major hubs

of consumption,

such as Dubai.

Dubai is a sort of culmination

of the Western model,

a country where the impossible

becomes possible.

Building artificial islands in the sea,

for example.

Dubai has few natural resources,

but with oil money it can bring in

millions of tons of material

and workers from all over the planet.

Dubai has no farmland,

but it can import food.

Dubai has no water, but it can afford

to expend immense amounts of energy

to desalinate seawater and build

the world's highest skyscrapers.

Dubai has endless sun,

but no solar panels.

It is the totem to total modernity

that never fails to amaze the world.

Dubai is like the new beacon

for all the world's money.

Nothing seems further removed

from nature than Dubai,

although nothing depends on nature

more than Dubai.

Dubai is a sort of culmination

of the Western model.

We haven't understood that

we're depleting what nature provides.

Since 1950, fishing catches

have increased fivefold

from 18 to 100 million metric tons

a year.

Thousands of factory ships

are emptying the oceans.

Three-quarters of fishing grounds

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