Students throw down the gauntlet to motor manufacturers
By Heather Allen
Lean Green Machine: The Zem concept car is the creation of the TU/ecomotive team at the University of Eindhoven. Photo: Bart van Overbeeke.
An electric passenger car that captures more carbon dioxide than it emits has been developed by students at TU Eindhoven.
The prototype car, called Zem, purifies the air through a specially designed filter. The car stores the CO₂ after capture, ready for convenient disposal, possibly while charging. In this way, the students say, Zem can make a major contribution to reducing global warming. The student team aims to improve the vehicle in the coming years, with the goal of making it carbon-neutral for its entire life cycle. The ultimate aim is for the car to go on sale to the public worldwide.
The TU/ecomotive team points to statistics which show that the transport sector is a major polluter, with recent figures suggesting that the sector produces about a quarter of the EU’s total carbon emissions. Passenger cars are responsible for more than 60 per cent of these emissions, the students say. To help reduce these emissions, the 35 students on the team designed, developed and built a car that produces low or no emissions both during the production process and while in use on the road. The team is also aiming for optimal reusability of materials in the future.
Zem is capable of capturing two kilograms of CO₂ through a special filter, at an estimated 20,000 travel miles per year, which means that ten cars can store as much carbon dioxide as an average tree. The team argues that the overall payoff would be significant if this was implemented on a large scale in every passenger car, as there are more than a billion passenger cars currently in use around the world. If every car captured rather than emitted CO₂, global warming would be significantly reduced, the students point out. The students are in the process of applying for a patent for the filter through which the outside air flows.
“It is really still a proof-of-concept, but we can already see that we will be able to increase the capacity of the filter in the coming years. Capturing CO₂ is a prerequisite for compensating for emissions during production and recycling,” Louise de Laat, TU/ecomotive team manager, says. TU/ecomotive is planning for a future where the full filter can be emptied easily via the charging station when the car is charging. The car can currently drive 320 kilometers before the filter is full.
A life cycle analysis with SimaPro, the environmental life cycle and carbon footprint software, can be used to determine how far the life cycle of the vehicle is CO₂-neutral. Innovations which contribute to this goal include the 3D printing techniques used by the students. Zem is completely 3D-printed using recycled plastic (PETG) strengthened with either glass fibers (body panels), or carbon fibers (monocoque). The interior has been 3D-printed with recycled plastics, including the seats, which are covered with biodegradable foam and finished off with pineapple-based pinatex leather. The student team also prints circular plastics that can be shredded and reused for other projects.
Zem has been designed with a sporty appearance, with the aim of attracting the attention of the automotive industry, according to Nikki Okkels, external relations manager at TU/ecomotive: “We want to tickle the industry by showing what is already possible. If 35 students can design, develop and build an almost carbon-neutral car in a year, then there are also opportunities and possibilities for the industry. We call on the industry to pick up the challenge, and of course we are happy to think along with them. We’re not finished developing yet either, and we want to take some big steps in the coming years. We warmly invite car manufacturers to come and take a look.”
Summer days mean great escapes. Picture of Triumph Bonneville by kind permission of Craig Carey-Clinch
Sophie awoke at the crack of dawn. She did not usually stir until much later, and even then it took an hour or so and a few gallons of coffee for her to pass as human. Today, though, she was fully awake, early, suddenly, all at once, and with a feeling of dread. Something was badly wrong.
She jumped out of bed, padded downstairs, and unlocked the back door to stand in the garden. The birds were just waking up, and bright dew sparkled on the grass. All as usual for an early morning at the end of June. But there was something different. Sophie could feel it, a shifting in the air. Subtle, but tangible, like a pinch of paprika in a stew. A waft of heat in the breeze, a warm breath coming from the south east, infusing the damp morning air.
Frowning, she looked up into the sky, but it yielded no clues. Just a deep, serene blue, without a wisp of cloud. She inhaled deeply. There was a tang in the air, like baked earth or a desert wind. As if a gigantic oven door had been flung open, just over the horizon. She sighed and closed her eyes. So that was it.
She studied the garden around her, examined the tender plants, listened to the dawn’s exquisite cacophony while she considered what to do. She didn’t have to check the weather report, she just knew it in her bones. It was that time again. She had caught the breath of Sirius, the dog star, harbinger of heat, bringer of the hot wind. Each year worse. This time, she knew, it would be unbearable.
The dog days were coming, sure. That hideous heat. Fine for some, in fact most people seemed to enjoy it, but not her. They would strip off most of their clothes – really, they would do that! – strip off, and expose their vulnerable flesh to the sun, pronouncing it good as they drowned in their own sweat. Let it flay them, then. Let them burn. Time for her to escape.
Could she outrun the hot wind? She closed her eyes, felt the air shift around her. It was growing closer. She had to try. Instinct said head north, head east. She ran into the house, quickly checked the map, packed her panniers, and wriggled into her leathers. She locked the house and hauled her faithful ‘78 Triumph Bonneville out of the garage, clanging the door down behind her.
“Time for a trip, old girl,” she murmured, as she strapped her luggage into place, then checked tyres, connections, and fuel. Angling the old 750 towards the road, she eased the starter into position, balanced on the foot pegs, and brought her weight down and back onto the pedal. The engine turned over, but didn’t catch. She kicked again. A metallic burble this time, then nothing. Again, and the engine caught with a sputter and a roar. She grinned. Always started on the third kick.
She revved the engine to warm it up, savouring the thump of the big twin. Her next-door neighbour, never a friendly sort, twitched her curtains back and shouted something out of the window. “Yeah, yeah, you’re just jealous,” Sophie muttered, and pulled on her helmet.
With a one-fingered wave at her neighbour, Sophie knocked the Bonnie into gear, eased the throttle open, feathered the clutch and pulled off, the big twin thumping away beneath her. She was glad she always kept her tank full – you never knew when you might need to take off. There was no one to say goodbye to, because she hadn’t, just hadn’t made that kind of connection. No partner, no children, few friends, no one she was close to, no family around. Any work she took on was transitory, fleeting, ephemeral even. She had a small inheritance, enough to get her through the worst of times. And now, here they were. The hot wind was on its way, the hottest yet.
She had to get as far north as she could, as soon as she could. Driven by the wind, she headed for the open road.
Why there’s nothing to fear from checking in with a friend
By Heather Allen
In touch: New research shows that your friends are likely to welcome a surprise contact. Image: Adobe Stock
There’s no denying the profound effect the Covid-19 pandemic had on our social lives. Friendships once kept going by regular, face-to-face meetings were reduced to phone calls, messages and emails, from which state of affairs some have not recovered. Others went the other way and have been strengthened by the move to all-virtual communication. One thing held in common is that people are hesitating to resume pre-pandemic friendships, perhaps because they do not expect a positive response, and the longer we leave it, the more difficult it gets to reach out. We are afraid that our old friends will reject us, that any gesture of reaching out will be taken badly after all this time, and this fear can stop us from making the effort. This can be a particular problem in places and contexts where lives have been set up for isolation rather than spontaneous social interactions, with a steady decline in social interactions in society noted as a key factor in our dwindling confidence to make, remake or strengthen connections.
However, new research from the University of Pittsburgh shows that these fears are largely groundless. The Surprise of Reaching Out: Appreciated More Than We Think is the work of a team of researchers headed by Peggy Liu and published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. The research explores how accurate people are at estimating how much others might value an attempt to connect, and what factors might play into that degree of appreciation. Comprised of an initial literature review plus seven separate experiments involving more than 5,900 participants, the research found that people appreciate an unexpected call, text or email far more than the person making the contact believes that they will. The more surprising the connection, the greater the appreciation.
In one experiment, half of the participants were asked to recall the last time they used email, text, or phone to reach out to someone in their social circle “just because” or “just to catch up” after an extended period without any interaction with them. The remaining participants were prompted to think of a similar situation where someone had reached out to them. Participants were then asked to indicate how much either they or the person they reached out to either appreciated, felt grateful, felt thankful, or felt pleased by the contact using a 7-point scale (1=not at all, 7=to a great extent). People who recalled reaching out thought the gesture they recalled was significantly less appreciated in comparison to those who recalled receiving a communication.
In other experiments, participants sent a short note, or a note and a small gift, to someone in their social circle with whom they had not interacted in a while. Again, participants who initiated contact were asked to rate on a 7-point scale the extent to which they thought the recipient would appreciate, feel grateful for, and feel pleased by the contact. After the notes and gifts were sent, researchers also asked the recipients to rate their appreciation.
Across all experiments, those who initiated the communication significantly underestimated the extent to which recipients would appreciate the act of reaching out. However, the key element to appreciation was surprise.
“We found that people receiving the communication placed greater focus than those initiating the communication on the surprise element, and this heightened focus on surprise was associated with higher appreciation,” Ms Liu said. “We also found that people underestimated others’ appreciation to a greater extent when the communication was more surprising, as opposed to part of a regular communication pattern, or the social ties between the two participants were weak.”
In the study, ‘reaching out’ was taken to mean a purely social interaction, defined broadly to involve a minimum criterion consisting of a gesture to check-in with someone to show that one is thinking of them, such a brief text saying “Hi”, “I’m thinking of you”, “Hope you are well”, or sending a small, thoughtful gift. The study specifically excluded other elements, such as asking for help, offering a compliment, or expressing gratitude.
The research also found that in a face-to-face social interaction, people tend to be focussed on their own actions and overestimate the salience of these actions to others, thereby often underestimating how much their conversation partners enjoyed their company. People focus on their own internal monologues, which are frequently self-critical and negative. Crucially, many people bring their own egocentric perspectives to bear when predicting other’s mental states, the study points out, and so initiators are less focussed on the responder’s positive feelings of surprise than the responder is. The research found that responders are more focused on their own feelings of surprise when reached out to, both because the unexpectedness of the event is salient for them, but also because they are attuned to cues of the warmth of others. By contrast, the unexpectedness is not a salient feature for the initiators, given that the reach-out is not a surprise for them.
Early work cited by the study conceptualised surprise as one of the basic emotions, along with happiness, sadness, anger, fear, and disgust. Surprise can make a positive event more positive, or a negative event more negative. Surprise gifts, as an example, can have a positive effect when they signal warmth and care on the part of the giver – body lotion for a new mum, a new book by a favourite author for a sick friend and so on. However, surprise gifts can be negative when they overreach the boundaries of the relationship (hold off on the ostentatious bouquet for an acquaintance), or insulting in the context of a relationship (an unasked-for vacuum cleaner as an anniversary present from a spouse is unlikely to be met with enthusiasm). Neither a brief message or a small gift are likely to be perceived as bad or uncomfortable among acquaintances, the research finds.
“I sometimes pause before reaching out to people from my pre-pandemic social circle for a variety of reasons. When that happens, I think about these research findings and remind myself that other people may also want to reach out to me and hesitate for the same reasons,” Ms Liu said. “I then tell myself that I would appreciate it so much if they reached out to me and that there is no reason to think they would not similarly appreciate my reaching out to them.”
Researchers hope that the findings will encourage people to reach out to their social contacts more often, “just because”. Such gestures are likely to be appreciated more than people predict. People may underestimate the extent to which simple reach-outs may serve not just to maintain relationships, but to strengthen them as well.
“For those treading back into the social milieu with caution and trepidation, feeling woefully out of practice and unsure, our work provides robust evidence and an encouraging green light to go ahead and surprise someone by reaching out,” the study concludes. “Such reach-outs are likely to be appreciated more than one thinks.”
There you have it. No more excuses. They really won’t mind, you know. Get on the phone, get texting, emailing, messaging or whatever. Get in touch with those long-lost friends. You’ll be glad you did.
The surprise of reaching out: Appreciated more than we think. Liu, P. J., Rim, S., Min, L., & Min, K. E. (2022), Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
The sun was high above the horizon by the time Eppie had completed her chores and readied herself and little Molly for their morning walk. Silas, Eppie’s father, was already busy at his loom in the cottage they shared, despite that she had told him he should rest. He had been getting very tired lately, and he did not need to labour so hard, not now.
“What would be the purpose of idleness?” he had replied, turning his large eyes to meet hers. “There is always a need for good cloth, is there not?” She could not disagree with that. There were always customers ready to hand over their gold for a good length of fine-woven fabric, and many uses for his weaving in their home too: clothes for Molly, household linens, and now all the bags and cloths needed for Eppie’s burgeoning trade.
This morning, as on many mornings, she and Molly set out to walk across the fields to the river bank to search for a few particular herbs. Eppie had a fine new rush basket, woven from reeds which had grown around the edge of the Stone-pit near the cottage. She had made a smaller one for Molly. Now they strolled, the golden sun climbing the sky, Molly a miniature of Eppie in her pale blue frock and pinafore, her red-gold curls bouncing as she broke away and ran across the meadow.
“Be careful, sweetheart!” Eppie called out, but knew it was pointless. Telling a six year old to be careful? She recalled her father’s tales of her own exploits as a wild child he could not bear to discipline, and took comfort in the memory. She had turned out well enough, had she not? But now—
“Momma, mom, is this one?”
Molly’s voice rang across the meadow. She stood next to a plant taller than herself, the familiar purple bells arranged around the long stalk, open mouths inviting bees in for a visit. A foxglove, and a fine example, standing at the front of a large patch of its fellows.
“Very good, Molly. Yes, it is. That is a foxglove. Well done.”
Eppie approached the foxglove patch.
“Now then, Molly, stand back. You must not pick this one yourself. It is very poisonous.”
Molly jumped back, her eyes round. “Poisonous? But I thought it was medicine?”
“Yes, but only if you use tiny amounts. It is very good medicine for the dropsy.”
“Dropsy? What is that?”
“It is a nasty thing where your arms and legs swell up. Your grandfather healed a lady in the village of it once. He helped her when the doctor could not.”
“Ooh! Grandaddy’s clever!”
“Yes, he is,” replied Eppie, as she produced her pocket knife from her pinafore pocket. She selected four of the best foxglove spears and deftly cut off the last ten inches. Then, reaching into her basket, she pulled out a square of waxed cloth, and carefully wrapped it around the cut ends of the stalks before putting them in the basket.
It had taken Eppie a long time to persuade her father she should learn to be a herbalist, despite his knowledge and affinity with the subject. He would frequently recall the times as a child when his mother had taken him with her on her plant-gathering walks near the northern town where he grew up. Eppie remembered Silas naming plants for her on their walks in her own childhood, and clearly remembered too the look of pain in his eyes as he did so. She had not understood his sadness at the time, but when she was old enough to understand, he recounted the tale of the time when, not long after his arrival at Raveloe, he used a herbal tincture to heal a lady, and his efforts were met with a confusing mixture of suspicion and demand. His refusal to heal anyone else, and increasing annoyance at the villagers’ pleas, had set minds and hearts against him for a time. Slowly, Silas had accepted Eppie’s exhortations that times had changed (indeed, herbalism was becoming quite the fashionable thing in London, so she had heard), and had begun to share his knowledge with her. As it turned out, that knowledge was extensive.
“You must remember, Molly,” she said as she continued to walk, “that your grandfather was taught how to use plants as medicine by his mother, who used them herself, like her mother before her. He knows the use of plants well, but if he had made a mistake with the dose…” she shook her head.
“The lady would be dead,” Molly said, emphasising the final word with gleeful relish.
“Yes, Molly, but unfortunately so might your grandfather.”
“Why?” the child’s voice was outraged.
“Because, Molly, some folks might think he did it on purpose. If the law ruled against him he might have been…” she swallowed, “hanged.”
“Oough.” Molly shuddered and rubbed at her throat. “Mommy, I hope you never kill anyone!”
“Do not worry, sweetheart,” Eppie said, bending to kiss her daughter’s warm curls, “I know what I’m doing.”
Presently, the pair came to the river bank, stopping to gather bunches of yarrow and dandelions on the way. Molly skipped along the bank, pointing at flowers.
“Is this one, Mommy?”
“No dear, that’s a buttercup.”
“This one?”
“No, that is a cowslip. Useful, but not what we are looking for.”
“This one?”
She stood by a patch of an unassuming, yellow-flowered plant with large green waxy leaves.
“Yes, my love, you have found the right one. Good girl! Coltsfoot, good for the coughs and the wheezes. This time,” she said, spreading out a piece of sacking and kneeling on it, “I want the whole plant.”
Eppie reached into her basket for a hand fork (a gift from the local blacksmith for helping with his rheumatics), and started to loosen the earth around the plant. Then, very carefully, she slid a trowel (another gift) into the hole she had made, and eased out the roots. She laid the plant to one side, then got to work on another. A third, and she put aside her tools. “That will be enough,” she said. “We have to leave some so they can grow back again.”
“But Mommy, there are lots and lots and lots!” cried Molly, waving her chubby hand up the river bank, where the yellow flowers were abundant.
“Yes, but we only need three. That is more than enough for now. We can always get more later. We must never, ever be greedy.”
Molly pursed her lips and shook her head solemnly. “No, Mommy, we must not.”
Eppie cleaned her tools carefully on a rag she kept for the purpose, then stood up, rolling up her piece of sacking and placing it in the basket with the plants. She smiled at her daughter, who stood in front of her, bouncing up and down, barely able to contain the life in her limbs as she waited for her mother’s next instruction. Eppie gazed across the meadow and saw what she was looking for. A wide expanse of globular purple flowers, nodding in the warm breeze. She smiled.
“A very important job for you now, Molly!”
Molly jumped up and down. “What is it, Momma?”
Eppie walked a few paces and picked a bloom, then held it out to her daughter.
“I want you to pick me some of these. Wait…” for Molly had already set off towards the patch, “you must make sure the stalk is long, like this, and do not disturb the roots!”
Molly glanced back. “I know, Momma!” She ran.
Eppie followed her daughter to the clover patch, picking stray blooms as she went. Clover, good for a gentle sleeping draught. That would help her father, who sometimes had troubled nights. She sighed. He was a good man. Good right to the soles of his worn brown boots. He did not deserve the troubles he had had in his life, but – here she smiled – he had her now, and her Aaron, the friendship of Aaron’s mother Dolly, and now little Molly. He was well respected, these days, in the village. He was a happy man. But sometimes the old troubles came back to haunt him.
Time seemed to slow as Eppie and Molly picked the clover blossoms. The sun was high in the sky now, gathering heat, and Eppie felt the deep contentment she always felt when surrounded by flowers under a clear sky. Birds sang – here a thrush pealing forth its music, there a charm of goldfinches chattering to each other, and there, a flurry of sparrows fluttering from bush to bush, gossiping as they went. She remembered the words of Godfrey Cass, the son of the old squire and the closest thing they had to gentry in these parts, when he had come to the cottage to announce that he was her true father. He had expected her, a grown girl of eighteen by then, to move to the manor with him and his wife, live a life of luxury and eventually marry a man with money. He had been offended when she refused to leave Silas; and incredulous when she married her Aaron, a lowly gardener and the best husband she could ever wish for. Shaking her head, she smiled at the memory. No rich father or high-born husband could make her life any better than this.
Molly came walking towards her, her little basket overflowing with clover blossoms.
“I cannot carry any more, Momma!” she said.
Eppie laughed. “Thank you, my love. You have done very well. Now…” she looked up at the sky, “it is time to go home to grandfather. He will be needing a bite to eat, and he will not stop for it unless I put it in front of him!”
Molly reached up her hand to her mother’s, who took it firmly. Together, they walked along the river bank, back across the meadow, to the little stone cottage that was their home.
Futuristic project has courted controversy from the beginning
By Heather Allen
Drokk that: An artist’s impression of The Line, Saudi Arabia’s futuristic mega city project. Picture: NEOM
How would you like to live in this stunning new residence, which when it’s completed will be over 170 kilometres long, 200 metres wide, and taller than the Empire State Building?
Boasting extensive views of the Red Sea, this sci-fi utopia is The Line, currently being built in the Tabuk province of north-western Saudi Arabia, and it’s apparently going to be a ‘model for nature preservation and enhanced human livability’. Don’t fancy it? But it’s going to be carbon neutral! There will be no cars to pollute and endanger, and everything you could ever need will be within a five-minute walk. You can even look forward to robot maids and flying taxis, if the rumours are true. You sure you wouldn’t fancy it? No?
That’s a shame, because The Line is Saudi Arabia’s ‘linear city of the future’ and is expected to accommodate nine million people when it’s finished. That would not include anyone from my household, however. A quick straw poll of my nearest and dearest led to mutters of ‘eyesore’ and wrinkled noses. But British families used to British architecture are not the targets for this planned development, which is just as well. No, it’s aimed at the ‘cosmopolitan elite’, if the blurb is to be believed.
The designs were launched last week by Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince and de facto ruler, Mohammad bin Salman, a year and a half after the initial plans for the development were announced, live on Saudi TV, in January 2021. The megacity will consist of two parallel structures stretching over 170km (105 miles) running partly along the coastline of the Red Sea. These skyscrapers will be 500m (1,640ft) tall, and the complex will be a mere 200m (656ft) wide by comparison. Sitting on the edge of one of the world’s most prominent shipping lanes, the entire city will cover an area of just 13 square miles – roughly equivalent to the area covered by the combined districts of Westminster, Chelsea and Kensington in London.
According to a hi-tech promotional video that would rival the best efforts of George Lucas and Industrial Light & Magic, The Line will be powered by 100 per cent renewable energy and feature ‘a year-round temperate micro-climate with natural ventilation’. Its residents will not be able to have cars, as there will be no roads to drive them on, or indeed, car parks to park them in. This won’t matter though, according to the architects, because all supermarkets and essential services will be ‘a five-minute walk’ away, either up, down or across the city. Multiple communities will be housed within the glass façade, and residents will be able to ‘organically’ bump into each other as they go about their lives. The Line will also have an underground high-speed train that will allow citizens to go from one end of the city to the other in under 20 minutes, and will maintain an ‘ideal’ climate all year round because of its mix of shade, sunlight and ventilation. Underground tunnels will also be used for deliveries and utilities, so there won’t be pesky, smelly lorries messing things up. It is also rumoured that The Line will have an artificial moon, robot maids and flying taxis – presumably solar powered.
In case your sci-fi senses are tingling at the word ‘megacity’ commonly used in reference to this project, then like me you are probably thinking of Mega-City One, a fictional city which features in the 2000AD and Judge Dredd franchises. Mega-City One is a fictional post-nuclear megalopolis covering much of the Eastern United States and some of Canada. It is formed of colossal city blocks, each one of which is a town in itself. Each block possesses a hospital, gymnasium, school, and shopping district. A citizen can live their whole lives without leaving their block. The parallels are obviously unintentional, and will doubtless end there and not progress to the fate of the fictional Mega-City One, which, as fans will know, was not a happy one.
Saudi projections state that 1.5 million people will live in The Line by 2030 – in just eight years’ time. The Line will cost approximately £262bn to build, a chunk of which will be funded by the Crown Prince himself, as well as the Saudi government, the Saudi Public Investment Fund, and local and international investors. The project is expected to create 380,000 jobs.
The Line is part of the NEOM city project, an £830bn initiative owned by Saudi Arabia’s Sovereign Wealth Fund. The project is headed by the Crown Prince and launched by HRH in October 2017, just four months after his tenure began. NEOM is expected to harness solar and wind energy, and sources say that it will also house the world’s largest green hydrogen plant. Among other initiatives, the project will include a manufacturing and innovation city, called Oxagon, and, incredibly, an outdoor skiing destination in the Arabian Gulf. NEOM is part of Saudi Vision 2030, the stated aims of which are to diversify the country’s economy (not least by attracting more visitors) and to reduce its dependence on oil. The entire NEOM project area extends to the Aqaba Gulf, and includes 468km of coastline with beaches and coral reefs, as well as mountains up to 2,500 metres high. Analysts at The Washington Post have stated that the entire project will be built in phases, and will be completed around 2050: another 28 years.
No firm details have yet been released concerning the environmental impact of the construction. However, the project’s leaders have said that they plan to use digital designs and industrial-scale construction to speed up the building of The Line, and are keen to flag up how they are offsetting the environmental impact. One such initiative is NEOM’s project to plant 100 million native trees, shrubs and grasses by 2030, which they say will aid the restoration of degraded land and the repair of wildlife habitats, and will form part of NEOM’s program to rehabilitate 1.5 million hectares of land. The outer mirror façade of The Line is meant to allow the construction to blend into its environment – because a pair of parallel 170km long, 500-metre-tall mirrors are exactly what you expect to find in the desert, are they not? Concept designs include integrated vertical farming, a yacht marina (of course), and a sports stadium built 305m (1000ft) above ground.
Announcing the designs for The Line, the Crown Prince said: “The designs revealed today for the city’s vertically layered communities will challenge the traditional flat, horizontal cities and create a model for nature preservation and enhanced human livability. The Line will tackle the challenges facing humanity in urban life today and will shine a light on alternative ways to live.” According to the Crown Prince, the project is, “a civilisational revolution that puts humans first, providing an unprecedented urban living experience while preserving the surrounding nature.”
Before you start to wonder why the British Royal Family aren’t putting their hands in their pockets to build such a fantastic project for the good of the people, remember, this is Saudi Arabia we’re talking about. As you would expect, it’s not so simple as all that, nor as benign.
To start with, some experts are sceptical about whether The Line can or should be built at all. Torbjorn Soltvedt, Principal Analyst, Middle East and North Africa, at global risk intelligence company Verisk Maplecroft, said: “The feasibility of Neom as a whole is still unclear given the unprecedented scale and cost of the project.” This scepticism was echoed by Carlosfelipe Pardo, Senior Adviser to the New Urban Mobility Alliance, who voiced his concerns to news outlet NPR about the idea of building new cities from scratch, rather than aiming to solve the problems in existing developments. Pardo points out that the idea of solving urban problems by creating a city from scratch isn’t new, as it has been tried before, from Brasília and India’s Chandigarh to Malaysia’s Putrajaya. “This solution is a little bit like wanting to live on Mars because things on Earth are very messy,” he said. Despite starting with a clean slate, such elaborate urban plans have usually “created new urban settings where problems have also arisen,” Pardo points out. While he grants that the approach can tackle typical city challenges head-on, Pardo says that it will not help people already living with problems elsewhere, and is concerned that The Line’s high-tech approach ignores people’s desire to simply go outside, to experience something in a city that isn’t man-made. “This seems impossible, greatly limited or just plain artificial,” he said – a sentiment which partly explains the negative gut reaction to developments such as this among nature-loving people. He does, however, ring a note of hope, albeit a faint one: “I’m sure several characteristics of this design could be integrated into existing cities, and it would be great to have a way of doing so.” Benefits? Maybe. But the story doesn’t end there.
More concerning than the merely practical is how the rhetoric of ‘enhanced human livability’ clashes with the hard truths of human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia. From the beginning, the project was beset by controversy, because 20,000 people will be forced to relocate as a result of its construction. These residents are members of the Huwaiti tribe, who have lived in the Tabuk province for centuries and who can trace their lineage to before the founding of Saudi Arabia itself. However, none of the official statements regarding the project have even acknowledged the existence of the tribespeople. Certainly, there is no evidence of any attempt to rehouse or compensate them.
More alarming still is the news that tribal activist and Tabuk province resident Abdul Rahim al-Huwaiti, who made several videos protesting against these evictions, was shot dead in October 2020 by Saudi security forces after refusing to leave his home. Alya Alhwaiti, a human rights activist from the same tribe but based in London, circulated the videos, in which al-Huwaiti said he would defy the eviction orders, though he expected Saudi authorities would plant weapons in his house to incriminate him. He was later killed by Saudi security forces, who claimed he had opened fire on them. This version of events was disputed by Alya Alhwaiti, who stated that al-Huwaiti did not own firearms. Eight cousins of al-Huwaiti were later arrested for protesting against the eviction order. However, the tribe assert that they are not opposed to the development of NEOM, but simply do not want to be evicted from their traditional homeland. Alya Alhwaiti also claims to have received death threats in relation to her role as spokesperson, which have been reported to British police. Interestingly, prior to the evictions, in June 2020, the Crown Prince signed a contract worth $1.7 million with a US public relations and lobbying firm to counter the criticism and controversies around the NEOM city project. Following on, in November 2020, British lawyers representing the displaced tribe urged the then British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab to boycott the G20 Summit in Saudi Arabia, arguing that Britain has a moral imperative to take a stand in defence of the tribe and to confront Saudi Arabia over its human rights issues. Indeed, pressing questions persist about how tightly Western countries should embrace Saudi Arabia and the Crown Prince, whom the US claims approved the 2018 operation in Istanbul, Turkey, which ended with the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents.
This all makes for uncomfortable reading. But, you may ask, at least the management of NEOM will treat their employees fairly, if they want a job well done? Right? You would think so, but sadly,his does not seem to be the case either. The CEO of the NEOM project, Nadhmi Al-Nasr, was reported by former employees for promoting a management culture that ‘belittled’ expatriates, made unrealistic demands, and neglected discrimination in the workplace, according to reports in Bloomberg Businessweek and The Wall Street Journal. The resignation letter of a former chief executive, Andrew Wirth, accused Nasr’s leadership of being “consistently inclusive of disparagement and inappropriately dismissive and demeaning outbursts”. Nasr, still CEO at the time of writing, was appointed by the Crown Prince and given the responsibility to lead NEOM, and has been accused during his tenure of berating and scaring his employees, as confirmed by present and former staff members. Anthony Harris, a former director of innovation at NEOM’s education team, accused the Crown Prince of a faulty workplace culture since, he says: “Nadhmi takes his cue from his boss and everyone else at NEOM takes their cue from Nadhmi.” In a recording heard by The Wall Street Journal, Nasr once said at a meeting: “I drive everybody like a slave, when they drop down dead, I celebrate. That’s how I do my projects.”
It’s looking less and less attractive, isn’t it? But at least it’s good for the environment. Isn’t it? Well, funny you should say that. While the project’s supporters tout The Line’s zero emissions and a smaller footprint than conventional cities, critics note that those utopian ideals will come at an environmental price, as would be expected due to an entirely new city being created in the desert. Conservationists have also pointed out that a 170km long, 500-metre-high skyscraper straddling migration paths will potentially devastate bird populations, while the impact of the construction itself, plus the placing of two gigantic mirrors under intense sunlight in the desert, are also likely to cause environmental damage.
But surely it will be good for residents, if nothing else? After all, some sources say that it will be run according to ‘progressive laws that are compatible with international norms and conducive to economic growth’ Also, in an apparent effort to ease potential residents’ concerns about living under the kingdom’s restrictive laws, a NEOM tourism official recently told the Saudi Gazette that residents would be called ‘Neomians’ and would be subject to different rules than the rest of the country. After the predictable interest in this comment, NEOM then strenuously backpedalled by denying the idea, saying that while the area would be a special economic zone, it would still be part of the kingdom and “subject to all rules … related to security, defence and border protection”.
So, there we have it. A technological marvel, certainly, if it ever gets built, and with some possible benefits to residents – but given the cost to humanity and the environment, is it really worth it? The world will decide. Meanwhile, my family and I, un-elite, non-cosmopolitan as we apparently are, will be sticking to our British brick-built home, in Britain. You know where you are with bricks.
