Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
discourses saturated with “betterment” and “quality” have real-world
impacts that are a source of both pride and sadness—sometimes at the same
time—within a person, family, or community.
h is insistent focus on the peasant contrasts to the miniaturized diorama
that highlighted the “People's New Life in Huaming Model Town” (see fi gure
11). h e little animated lifestyle fi gures showcase the new lives for local
peasants in Tianjin eco-city in new apartments. h is vision comes after an
upbeat description of the model town as a “happy” example of “ecological,
harmonious and habitable” living in the brave new future under the eco-
city regime.
conclusion
h e ultimate experience in the Pavilion of the Urban Planet was a fi lm of
tranquil nature images (trees) and sounds (birds chirping) on the domed
ceiling of a small room. According to the designers, audiences reached the
“exciting conclusion” after the “Road of Solutions” in the heart of the “Blue
Planet” in a “fascinating panorama” show. h
e last message is: “We have
only one world.”
From the fi rst image of the Earth from space taken by the Apollo 17 crew
in 1972, the image and idea of “one world” has been central to Western envi-
ronmental discourse. Its adoption within a Chinese environmental context
is not itself surprising. But as the last image and idea in the special pavilions,
the idea of one path has a particular cultural and ideological resonance,
which dovetails with discourses of harmony and technological utopianism.
h e path is clear, and it's not about carbon reduction or personal choices and
practices.
Rather, the one world, one path idea is grounded in technology, top-
down solutions to environmental crises and a teleological narrative. Peas-
ants have little to do with the vision but can be transformed by it into proper
political and ecological subjects in the bold new future that China imagined
