Cities and nations of the world are all bent on carving out their identities through spectacular engineering feats. Its fun enough and well worth following, but is it necessary? Where is it headed, what is driving it and where will it end?
I stood on top of the Empire State Building and the Eiffel Tower, but missed the opportunity to go up the World Trade center tower. However, even then Sears Roebuck in Chicago held the world height record.
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My brother later went up the CN tower in Toronto and walked over its scary glass floor. He claimed the family record, for CN was, at 1,800 or so feet, the tallest building on earth. Then Petronas built its own twin towers in Malasia, but China outdid it with the Shanghai tower, which become the tallest office building at 1,670 feet. Now all that has changed. The Burj Khalifa in Dubai, is not only the tallest office block, it has bypassed CN, topping out at an incredible 2,716 feet or 880 metres: a mere 120 meters short of a kilometer. It holds numerous records including highest free standing structure and tallest office block.
The Japanese are now considering a 1 km building. Maybe we have finally caught up with the biblical goal of Babel. Although we have reached the heavens and now have the power of the gods, via sattelite technology, maybe the quest for tallest building will yet reach extreme levels.
But what is it all about? All this one-upmanship reflects what is happening in the streets below. We are all seeking to define ourselves and outdo others. Divine disruption confused the cause of Babel, but our own mindless quest for power and prominence has confused our entire human objective, for in all our seeking to satisfy human needs, we are fast denying that need to wipe out jobs, erode economies, kill forests, poison rivers and the air about us - all for the sake of progress.
Methinks we are losing the plot. We will indeed lose our way ... until our culture acknowledges and bows to the throne that is higher than any other.
(c) Peter Eleazar @ http://www.4u2live.net/
I stood on top of the Empire State Building and the Eiffel Tower, but missed the opportunity to go up the World Trade center tower. However, even then Sears Roebuck in Chicago held the world height record.
.jpg)
My brother later went up the CN tower in Toronto and walked over its scary glass floor. He claimed the family record, for CN was, at 1,800 or so feet, the tallest building on earth. Then Petronas built its own twin towers in Malasia, but China outdid it with the Shanghai tower, which become the tallest office building at 1,670 feet. Now all that has changed. The Burj Khalifa in Dubai, is not only the tallest office block, it has bypassed CN, topping out at an incredible 2,716 feet or 880 metres: a mere 120 meters short of a kilometer. It holds numerous records including highest free standing structure and tallest office block.The Japanese are now considering a 1 km building. Maybe we have finally caught up with the biblical goal of Babel. Although we have reached the heavens and now have the power of the gods, via sattelite technology, maybe the quest for tallest building will yet reach extreme levels.
But what is it all about? All this one-upmanship reflects what is happening in the streets below. We are all seeking to define ourselves and outdo others. Divine disruption confused the cause of Babel, but our own mindless quest for power and prominence has confused our entire human objective, for in all our seeking to satisfy human needs, we are fast denying that need to wipe out jobs, erode economies, kill forests, poison rivers and the air about us - all for the sake of progress.
Methinks we are losing the plot. We will indeed lose our way ... until our culture acknowledges and bows to the throne that is higher than any other.
(c) Peter Eleazar @ http://www.4u2live.net/
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