Part 2. Eco-conscious construction.
A. Keywords.
eco-city, sustainability, sustainable development, ecologically friendly.
Vocabulary.
projected, sustainability, set the scene, sustainable, compost, fertilizer, pedestrian village, Dongtan, Manhattan, World Future Council.
Listen to a news report on China's first eco-city project at Dongtan, supply the missing words while listening.
Plans are progressing for what the Chinese say will be the world's first eco-city at Dongtan, on an island off the coast of Shanghai.
Dongtan is currently a large area of mostly agricultural land.
But this area is expected eventually to house half a million people in a planned city slightly smaller than Manhattan, at a projected cost of 1.3 billion.
Herbert Girardet is the director of programs of the World Future Council and serves as a sustainability consultant on the Chinese eco-city project.
I think Dongtan will really set the scene for sustainable development of cities for the coming decades.
Girardet told Earth&Sky that it's difficult and expensive to shift the existing infrastructure of cities to a more ecologically friendly model.
He said Dongtan is being planned from the beginning to minimize impact on nature.
It is expected to produce much of its own food from the surrounding countryside.
Energy will come from solar and wind power.
Waste will be composted and then recycled for power and fertilizers.
Plus, the city is being planned as a series of pedestrian villages, and only electric cars will be allowed on the island.