Today on the streets of Jaffa, where I live, I saw for the first time in my life a woman in hijab (helmet on top) driving her motorbike in full throttle along Jerusalem Boulevard. She was too quick for me (on my peddle bike!) to take a photo. I was pretty proud of her, because […]
A recent study released by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) concludes that the current drought that began in 1998 in the eastern Mediterranean Levant – which includes Cyprus, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, and Turkey – is the region’s worst dry spell since 1100 C.E.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) upped the wackiness factor of its portfolio of national mega-projects, announcing plans to build an artificial alp so the country can control its weather. Scientists will investigate if a man-made mountain will increase precipitation in cities like Dubai and Abu Dhabi in this nation where rain falls just five days […]
Drop-A-Brick is a clever PR campaign to cut water waste in severely parched California, a state with dwindling aquifers that is experiencing its worst drought in 500 years. It’s a project that can be implemented everywhere there is indoor plumbing, and the concept is sound – displace some tank water and over time, save buckets of the […]
You might not want to tell your Moroccan grandmother, but technology first developed by the European Space Agency (ESA) that recycles urine and waste water is being implemented to provide clean drinking water for 1,200 university students.
Artist Hikaru Cho transforms ordinary foods into completely different foods, not by culinary skill, but with acrylic paint. She painstakingly camouflages veggies, fruits and even eggs into similarly-shaped but totally different foods. Viewers report they can experience the “surprise” in their mouths!
Farming is risky business in Morocco, where a 30 percent drop in precipitation since 1970 makes steady, predictable annual crop yields virtually impossible. So the World Bank was called in to help implement Plan Maroc Vert – an ambitious initiative designed to boost the country’s cereal production and create a more sustainable agricultural sector by 2020. […]
Up to 100,000 people died in Somalia during the 2011 famine that devastated the Horn of Africa, and British scientists have reported that climate change is partly responsible. The short rains at the end of 2010 failed as a result of natural variations in weather caused by La Nina, Peter Stott of Britain’s Met Office […]
According to experts, climate change and rising food insecurity are major contributors to the recent destabilization of Mali and southern Algeria Over the last couple of years, there has been a growing link between climate change and political issues in the Middle East. During the Arab Spring there was a real recognition that rising food […]
Pollen and ash in Nile river delta sediment provides evidence of ancient climactic events including mega-droughts and wildfires which wiped out pyramid-building civilizations, says a study published in the recent July 2012 edition of Geology. They waited seventy days for her to reappear. Finally she came. For a moment just before sunrise, the bright star […]
We speak to Shahrzad Mohtadi about the devastated drought that crippled Syria’s food centre and shook Assad’s political stability The link between climate change and political instability may still be ambiguous, but recent research is uncovering a connection between sustainable water and food policies and the survival of governments. Shahrzad Mohtadi found that whilst a prelonged […]
Years of drought and mass displacement in Syria may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back and led to the ongoing uprising Following the eruption of revolts and riots in 2011 which later became the Arab Spring, the link between food prices and rising political opposition was a difficult one to ignore. The […]
Yemen isn’t as hot as Saudi, but the temperatures this Ramadan have been high enough to make waiting out the long daylight hours without food and drink very, very hard. But that’s not the worst of the country’s troubles. Such spirutally-motivated hunger and thirst would be bearable if families had some nice dates and juice […]
Soaring temperatures and low precipitation could not occur at a worse time for many farmers in the United States, and around the world. Intensifying drought conditions are affecting corn and soybean crops throughout the Midwest, raising grain prices as well as concerns about future food prices. The US Drought Monitor reports that 88 percent of […]
Last week global warming’s wrath swept through the United States and hardly anybody took notice. The worst wildfires in Colorado and Utah history torched hundreds of homes and miles of forest. The Waldo Canyon fire alone, which is still only 45% contained, burned 350 houses right down to the ground. Some residents returned yesterday to […]