Dubai Heritage Village Singing
Lootah: Its a nostalgic moment you may say, to see how the house used to be, this is the way people drank their water out of whatever.
GEORGE: If you want a taste of real, vintage Arabia, its probably better not to go to Dubai.
The Dubai Heritage Village and its employees are about as close as youll get to the real McCoy.
Lootah.
Super: Dr HESSAH LOOTAH, University of the Arab Emirates
Lootah: Arabs never thought about museums or cultural villages as one form of museum.
Dubai Heritage Village Its like youre trying to tell people, this is how we were, and sometimes its done by people who dont much understand what the heritage is all about.
Pan to modern Dubai
GEORGE: Across the road from the Heritage Village lies 21st century reality.
GEORGE: Todays Dubai is a place that adores commerce and consumerism and cites mind-boggling growth statistics with as much fervour as a religious text.
Dubai Creek
GEORGE: Only on the Dubai Creek can you still see the citys commercial origins as a port for pearlers and, more romantically, as a smugglers harbour.
Desert/Dubai building sites
Twenty five years ago there was a good deal more sand than city. It took real imagination to conceive of a metropolis rising from the desert, built with the sweat of indentured labour, and driven by a sense of the monumental. And with no more startling effect than the latest landmark.
Ski Dome
GEORGE: So welcome to what must be one of the most bizarre experiences on the planet. Outside its usually about 41 degrees and dry as old toast, inside its minus 3 degree and snowing.
GEORGE: At a reputed cost of over a hundred million dollars, Dubais Ski Dome is part of the Emirates latest obsession: tourism. In one of the hottest, driest places on earth, there are 6000 tonnes of snow.
George with Phil Taylor on slope
Taylor: I was wondering if it was all right with you if I join you for a lesson. My third lesson.
GEORGE: Ski Dubais manager, Phil Taylor, a novice on the slopes but has advanced skills in running public entertainment parks, and at putting his best environmental foot forward.
Taylor: Water is always something we should, wherever we are in the world, should all be aware of its value and how precious it is.
Taylor My clumsy attempts to come down the slope are pushing the snow down the hill, so we make about 30 tonnes of fresh snow up the hill, groom the slope daily, and we take out 30 tonnes of snow at the bottom. And the great thing is, we put that in a special heat exchanger and we use it to air-condition the mall and to irrigate the gardens. So we really are recycling the energy here.
Ski Dome
GEORGE: With restaurants and even hotel suites overlooking the slope from what is the largest shopping mall outside north America, Dubai is going out of its way to please the five million tourists it attracts each year.
Aerial. Smoggy Dubai
Lifes certainly got more prosperous, but the downside, of course, is that the real Dubai is rapidly disappearing sometimes literally in its own smog.
Lootah Lootah: The city itself doesnt look the way it used to be for us, our generation. So we always feel as strangers, and we dont have that sense of belonging.
GEORGE: And that is sad then, isnt it.
Lootah: It is very much sad. You walk around the streets and where are the native people of the land. There are very few. Some of them also changed because of the rapid change of life. There is so much emphasis on the value of materials, rather than the value of feelings or values of human kindness or whatever.
Aerial. Dubai Music
GEORGE: And more than the milk of human kindness is under threat. Dubai desalinates seawater for all its supplies but except for the Americans, its people consume more water than anyone else on earth.
Al Tayer
Some like the head of Dubais water and electricity authority are surprisingly sanguine.
GEORGE: How much water do people in Dubai use per head of population in a year?
Super: Saeed Al Tayer,CEO, Dubai Electricity and water Authority
Al Tayer: Well the figure is high compared to per capita you mean? The figure is high compared to the international standard, but, you know, Dubai
GEORGE: Dubai uses a lot of water.Al Tayer: Because we have a lot of visitors, we have a lot of hotels, we have a lot of resorts.
In Dubai we have a growth of 10 per cent, monthly we have a new project, of course, honestly speaking the consumption will increase.
Habiba
GEORGE: The CEO of the Dubai electricity and water authority says the consumption of water will increase in the future. Does that view concern you?
Super: Habiba Al Marashi,Chairperson, Emirates Environmental Group
Habiba: Absolutely. As it is we are amongst the highest in the world water users. And if that is going higher, it means we are hitting the roof.
Habiba with Indian woman in garden
GEORGE: Gardens are a passion in Dubai and Habiba Al Marashis been teaching people how to conserve water and encouraging them to replace exotics with natives wherever possible.
Habiba founded Dubais first environmental group but its an uphill battle in a city where 90 percent of people are foreigners, with no long-term investment in its future.
Habiba: One of the very unique challenges that we face is the different nationalities that live in this country.
Habiba We have around a hundred and thirty or a hundred and thirty-five different nationalities living in this country. So we have turned out to be like a transient society. So when you are dealing with this situation, it is a unique challenge that you do not necessarily face anywhere else in the world.
GEORGE: And if its a transient population, theres no vested interest in looking after the environment.
Habiba: Absolutely. Thats the point, you know, they are here for short term, they are here with a very focussed thing. They have come to better their standard of living and they live. So they put these blinders. They dont want to hear, they dont want to see, they dont want to listen, you know, on anything but their own self interest.
Kore drives George to desert
GEORGE: Theres no going back, of course. To find a decent bit of Arabian desert today, Sundeep Kore has to drive me 40 minutes out of town at about a 160 kilometres an hour. And even here he worries progress for want of a better word will soon overtake him.
Kore: Dubai has been spreading slowly all the time and what used to be the desert all these years ago is now becoming part of the city. What were going to be passing in the desert in the next couple of minutes has again been earmarked for more developments, for highways and city developments like malls.
GEORGE: Sundeep reckons the way things are going, the deserts going to become a bit like the Dubai Heritage Village -- a sort of museum piece.
Kore: The pace of the development going on here, all these areas are going to be closed in, fenced in, and theyre probably going to make it like a national park.
Kore. Super: Sundeep KoreDubai 4WD Club Make it more commercialised and theyre going to charge you for coming in here and its just going to lose its natural beauty, what it is right now.
Four Wheel Drive in desert
GEORGE: History is just history. But amongst those whose roots are truly buried in Dubais desert the descendants of the true sand dwellers theres a growing sense that maybe its time to pause for thought.
Lootah: There is a sense of bringing people from all over the world it creates tension rather than creates harmony.
GEORGE: In that case
Lootah does that make you pessimistic for the next fifty years, or optimistic.
Lootah: I hope they will take a break and think about it and try to see where they are heading to.
Sometimes I see it as a very much alienating place, rather than harmonious place. So I hope they will take a break and think what are we going to do
Four Wheel Drive in desert
and what have we done so far. I think the quality should be there not the quantity.
Lootah: Its a nostalgic moment you may say, to see how the house used to be, this is the way people drank their water out of whatever.
GEORGE: If you want a taste of real, vintage Arabia, its probably better not to go to Dubai.
The Dubai Heritage Village and its employees are about as close as youll get to the real McCoy.
Lootah.
Super: Dr HESSAH LOOTAH, University of the Arab Emirates
Lootah: Arabs never thought about museums or cultural villages as one form of museum.
Dubai Heritage Village Its like youre trying to tell people, this is how we were, and sometimes its done by people who dont much understand what the heritage is all about.
Pan to modern Dubai
GEORGE: Across the road from the Heritage Village lies 21st century reality.
GEORGE: Todays Dubai is a place that adores commerce and consumerism and cites mind-boggling growth statistics with as much fervour as a religious text.
Dubai Creek
GEORGE: Only on the Dubai Creek can you still see the citys commercial origins as a port for pearlers and, more romantically, as a smugglers harbour.
Desert/Dubai building sites
Twenty five years ago there was a good deal more sand than city. It took real imagination to conceive of a metropolis rising from the desert, built with the sweat of indentured labour, and driven by a sense of the monumental. And with no more startling effect than the latest landmark.
Ski Dome
GEORGE: So welcome to what must be one of the most bizarre experiences on the planet. Outside its usually about 41 degrees and dry as old toast, inside its minus 3 degree and snowing.
GEORGE: At a reputed cost of over a hundred million dollars, Dubais Ski Dome is part of the Emirates latest obsession: tourism. In one of the hottest, driest places on earth, there are 6000 tonnes of snow.
George with Phil Taylor on slope
Taylor: I was wondering if it was all right with you if I join you for a lesson. My third lesson.
GEORGE: Ski Dubais manager, Phil Taylor, a novice on the slopes but has advanced skills in running public entertainment parks, and at putting his best environmental foot forward.
Taylor: Water is always something we should, wherever we are in the world, should all be aware of its value and how precious it is.
Taylor My clumsy attempts to come down the slope are pushing the snow down the hill, so we make about 30 tonnes of fresh snow up the hill, groom the slope daily, and we take out 30 tonnes of snow at the bottom. And the great thing is, we put that in a special heat exchanger and we use it to air-condition the mall and to irrigate the gardens. So we really are recycling the energy here.
Ski Dome
GEORGE: With restaurants and even hotel suites overlooking the slope from what is the largest shopping mall outside north America, Dubai is going out of its way to please the five million tourists it attracts each year.
Aerial. Smoggy Dubai
Lifes certainly got more prosperous, but the downside, of course, is that the real Dubai is rapidly disappearing sometimes literally in its own smog.
Lootah Lootah: The city itself doesnt look the way it used to be for us, our generation. So we always feel as strangers, and we dont have that sense of belonging.
GEORGE: And that is sad then, isnt it.
Lootah: It is very much sad. You walk around the streets and where are the native people of the land. There are very few. Some of them also changed because of the rapid change of life. There is so much emphasis on the value of materials, rather than the value of feelings or values of human kindness or whatever.
Aerial. Dubai Music
GEORGE: And more than the milk of human kindness is under threat. Dubai desalinates seawater for all its supplies but except for the Americans, its people consume more water than anyone else on earth.
Al Tayer
Some like the head of Dubais water and electricity authority are surprisingly sanguine.
GEORGE: How much water do people in Dubai use per head of population in a year?
Super: Saeed Al Tayer,CEO, Dubai Electricity and water Authority
Al Tayer: Well the figure is high compared to per capita you mean? The figure is high compared to the international standard, but, you know, Dubai
GEORGE: Dubai uses a lot of water.Al Tayer: Because we have a lot of visitors, we have a lot of hotels, we have a lot of resorts.
In Dubai we have a growth of 10 per cent, monthly we have a new project, of course, honestly speaking the consumption will increase.
Habiba
GEORGE: The CEO of the Dubai electricity and water authority says the consumption of water will increase in the future. Does that view concern you?
Super: Habiba Al Marashi,Chairperson, Emirates Environmental Group
Habiba: Absolutely. As it is we are amongst the highest in the world water users. And if that is going higher, it means we are hitting the roof.
Habiba with Indian woman in garden
GEORGE: Gardens are a passion in Dubai and Habiba Al Marashis been teaching people how to conserve water and encouraging them to replace exotics with natives wherever possible.
Habiba founded Dubais first environmental group but its an uphill battle in a city where 90 percent of people are foreigners, with no long-term investment in its future.
Habiba: One of the very unique challenges that we face is the different nationalities that live in this country.
Habiba We have around a hundred and thirty or a hundred and thirty-five different nationalities living in this country. So we have turned out to be like a transient society. So when you are dealing with this situation, it is a unique challenge that you do not necessarily face anywhere else in the world.
GEORGE: And if its a transient population, theres no vested interest in looking after the environment.
Habiba: Absolutely. Thats the point, you know, they are here for short term, they are here with a very focussed thing. They have come to better their standard of living and they live. So they put these blinders. They dont want to hear, they dont want to see, they dont want to listen, you know, on anything but their own self interest.
Kore drives George to desert
GEORGE: Theres no going back, of course. To find a decent bit of Arabian desert today, Sundeep Kore has to drive me 40 minutes out of town at about a 160 kilometres an hour. And even here he worries progress for want of a better word will soon overtake him.
Kore: Dubai has been spreading slowly all the time and what used to be the desert all these years ago is now becoming part of the city. What were going to be passing in the desert in the next couple of minutes has again been earmarked for more developments, for highways and city developments like malls.
GEORGE: Sundeep reckons the way things are going, the deserts going to become a bit like the Dubai Heritage Village -- a sort of museum piece.
Kore: The pace of the development going on here, all these areas are going to be closed in, fenced in, and theyre probably going to make it like a national park.
Kore. Super: Sundeep KoreDubai 4WD Club Make it more commercialised and theyre going to charge you for coming in here and its just going to lose its natural beauty, what it is right now.
Four Wheel Drive in desert
GEORGE: History is just history. But amongst those whose roots are truly buried in Dubais desert the descendants of the true sand dwellers theres a growing sense that maybe its time to pause for thought.
Lootah: There is a sense of bringing people from all over the world it creates tension rather than creates harmony.
GEORGE: In that case
Lootah does that make you pessimistic for the next fifty years, or optimistic.
Lootah: I hope they will take a break and think about it and try to see where they are heading to.
Sometimes I see it as a very much alienating place, rather than harmonious place. So I hope they will take a break and think what are we going to do
Four Wheel Drive in desert
and what have we done so far. I think the quality should be there not the quantity.