Dongtan update - the paranoia sets in while the carbon footprint expands

Now it seems that the paranoia is growing at Dongtan, as they begin to suspect that people are getting wise to their fake eco game.

We recently spoke to a worker at the WorldWatch Institute in Washington DC, which produces the useful State of the World report annually. Dongtan got a couple of favourable mentions in the last report, but now staff there are increasingly concerned they may have been “done over” by the Dongtan press machine, as were most of the international press.

Recently, an international TV crew visited Dongtan to have a look round, and recorded an interview with a local PR person on the wonders of the eco-Arcadia-in-waiting. Then they left. Later a series of hurried and frenetic phone calls ensued from the Dongtan site. Why had the head of PR not done the interview? The TV crew had no idea, and couldn’t care less; they requested a spokesperson and got one. But no, the head guy must be the one to do any interview.

Why? We don’t know – personal vanity would be high on the list, paranoia about the smoke and mirrors act that is Dongtan becoming too public even higher we reckon. What we do know is that the PR honcho immediately rushed to the airport, and flew from Shanghai to Beijing to re-record an interview; such was the state of nervousness.

Yes, that’s right – the chief spokesperson of an eco-city environment project left a carbon footprint of at least 300kg of CO₂ (assuming he flew return in economy, and not including his taxis at either end) to make sure the Dongtan eco-message remained secure. Sadly, this just seems typical.