TEXT D An avid Bush supporter who
already has 25 shopping malls to his name, Congel himself is not a man you would
expect to entertain an eccentric clean-energy vision. The project—Destiny
U.S.A., a mega-mall—first seized him in 2001, soon after 9/11—and after the
project was under way—during a visit to the D-Day beaches in Normandy. "There I
was looking at those pure white graves of tens of thousands of kids that died
for freedom," Congel reflects, sitting on the veranda of his 6,000-acre farm
just outside Syracuse, where he has imported Russian wild boar and other exotic
game for hunting. "Today our kids are dying in a war for oil. Petroleum
addiction is destroying our country, our economy, our environment."
Several months after returning from Normandy, Congel announced that not a
drop of fossil fuel would be used in the making of Destiny. Almost overnight the
mission of the project changed. It went from the mall that could save the
depressed economy of Syracuse to the mall that could save America by
establishing a new model for green commercial development. But will shoppers
actually want to travel from far and wide to a little-known city’s eco-friendly
mall And even with the green tax benefits, it is vastly more expensive to power
Destiny with renewable sources than with conventional grid energy—so where’s the
financial logic Here’s where Congel’s schemes to create
"monster profits" come in. Intel, Clear Channel, Cisco, Sony and Microsoft are
among the brands that Destiny has recruited to supply its retail, entertainment,
security and energy technologies. Many suppliers are planning to build local
offices that will aid the Syracuse economy, and all have agreed to participate
in the on-site development of new technologies that could be tested on the
captive audience of mall-goers. (Congel will be a co-owner of the patents on all
inventions.) A group of companies hopes to perfect a new wireless radio
frequency identification technology to enable customers to purchase items
instantly without waiting in line. The Department of Homeland Security and
A.D.T., a home-security company, have discussed testing new devices that will
track all visitors entering and leaving the mall. From the passage we can see that the mall______
A.is based on a utopian thought of a utopian man. B.will solely live on the great financial investment from the business giants. C.is environmantally friendly and technologically advanced. D.will not get profits in the author’s opinion.