Dubai's World Islands cause environmental concern

The Economist featured an article on Dubai’s land reclamation projects off the coast to create a collection of islands that form an image of the world. As luxurious and wonderful I’m sure it would be to visit or live on an island of the world these projects have environmental impacts including ecosystems disturbance. While I think it’s important to protect the animals that live in area, it seems more important to realize what is at stake for the global community in building real estate developments like this. The energy resources to build and support this kind of a life style seem rather extreme. Fresh water resources are scarce and the Economist article notes that most of the water supply in Dubai comes from desalination which uses lots of energy!!! I can’t understand why building these little islands seem like a good idea when global climate change is such a concern worldwide. We should be helping to preserve the land and water we have now, not creating new land whose future may be short lived if we continue with our current behavior.