Sporadic street violence, economic distress and political polarization were mostly put on ice this past Sunday as Egyptians of all classes and religions held picnics, took boat rides on the Nile and celebrated Sham el-Nessim, a holiday whose roots most believe date back to this land’s ancient inhabitants. The event features a stinky fish.
Live animal exports to Egypt from Australia have been suspended after Animals Australia – a leading animal rights organization who has exposed cruelty in the controversial export trade – revealed new evidence of widespread animal cruelty in the North African country.
Lotus flowers were once considered sacred in Egypt and parts of Asia. They hold a secret to a clean nanotechnology. Like the ancient blue pigment found in ancient Egypt, old spiritual materials like the lotus flower inspire new environmental science: As assistant professor of Environmental Sciences and Engineering at King Abdulla University of Science and [...]
Egypt is not a country that is fond of reporting oil spills – whether they occur on the Red Sea, in the Suez Canal or the Nile. But it has managed to start clean up a worrying diesel spill into the Nile River, a spill which has leaked onto the shores of Lake Nasser, China.org is reporting. [...]
For ancient Egyptians blue was the color of rebirth. Today their chemical invention of artificial lapiz lazuli means new advances for lights, lasers and more. According to a new paper published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society the ancient pigment known as Egyptian blue may have important new applications in nanotechnology. Researchers at [...]
Is the Red Sea shark spotted at Eilat beach, Israel escaping illegal hunters in Egypt? While it’s rare to find sharks in the Mediterranean Sea (they are almost extinct), they are not so uncommon in the Red Sea. Its warm waters and ample food source bait sharks who sometimes get personal with bathers and divers. [...]
Middle East city heads want to make their cities more sustainable. The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is 60 percent urbanized compared to the global average of 52 percent and is home to one of the world’s most rapidly expanding populations. By 2030, a 45 percent increase of MENA’s urban population will add [...]
Ahmed Abdel Azim and his team at Suez Canal University advance research in mycology (fungi) Its not the first time that Green Prophet covers stories on how Egyptian scientists are applying science to public policy. In 2011 Azza Abdel Hamid Faiad, winner of the European Union Contest for Young Scientists, found a new way of turning [...]
Mediterranean sharks risk extinction while “serious implications” feared for marine ecosystems and beyond. Accidental catches and sharks for fin soup are to blame Shark populations in the Mediterranean and Black Sea have dropped dramatically over the last two centuries and now risk extinction, with serious implications for the region’s entire marine ecosystem and food chains, [...]
Water scarcity has already become a fact of daily life for Egyptians The world’s driest region, the Middle East* and North Africa (MENA), is getting drier at an alarming rate. And yet, despite massive population growth (the Middle East’s population grew 61 percent from 1990 to 2010 to 205 million people) predictions of so-called “water [...]
UCLA and Egyptian scientist accidentally find a new way to bottle stored energy. This missing link for solar energy, hydro and electric cars could be a fast, tiny, biodegradable battery Penicillin, Teflon, microwave ovens and superglue were all discovered by accident. And now graphene super-capacitors might be the most important accidental discovery of our time [...]
Besides the really terrible ew factor, the consequences for the environment are as equally yuck: the Egyptian army is looking to stall and stop Gazan smugglers from digging tunnels from the Gaza Strip to Egypt’s Sinai have found a new and dirty way to flush out smugglers: they are pouring raw sewage into the underground tunnels. Leaders [...]
Like in biblical times locust swarms threaten Egyptian crops. Scattered pockets of locusts in southern Egypt and northern Sudan are a threat to agricultural land, warns the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Countries along the Red Sea should remain on “high alert and make every effort to find and treat all infestations”, it says. [...]
Vernon Hugh Bowman, farmer vs Monsanto, billion dollar seed and biotech company. It sounds like something from a book about the perils of the future, a future that is strangely today reality: The seed-engineering company Monsanto genetically engineers seeds to have desirable traits that make them hearty or the plants resistant to the effects of herbicides [...]
R2D2 – Tunisia’s landscape and subterranean dwellings have made it ideal for filming our Star Wars movies! When the Star Wars films began they chose Turkey and its fairy chimneys for the futuristic backdrop of the science fiction films. Later films were shot in Tunisia and some fans have even gone so far as to [...]
Joseph’s lungs didn’t like the return to polluted Cairo. It caused a dangerous bout of asthma. Returning to the city I have lived for more than a decade this January, Cairo, I was definitely not expecting to end up at the doctor’s office with days of near constant asthma problems. After 10 years, one would think [...]
Taking irrigated water from the Nile, the Toshka pumping station in upper Egypt was supposed to help combat encroaching desert Political tension in Egypt in the aftermath of the revolution which began nearly two years ago, has hit tourism, led to high food prices, and caused an economic slowdown which is raising food security concerns. [...]
The year in retrospect has been a positive one. Despite civil unrest, dangerous regimes, and appalling environmental crimes and neglect, there are good green things afoot for the Middle East. Today we recap some of our green leaders of 2012, the people of the Middle East and for the Middle East who have made 2012, [...]
Afghanistan, Iraq, North Korea, Myanmar and Yemen are still using leaded gasoline and many others have lead contaminated plumbing, soil, paint and household products. How can we reduce the world’s crime rate, particularly the rate of violent crime? When the crime rate rises or a horrific crime takes place, people are quick to find blame [...]
With air pollution 100x worse than NYC the news doesn’t look good for 2013 even though Cairo taxis were offered free natural gas tanks. Two years ago when the Egyptian government began fully implementing taxis run on natural gas, there was much praise and fanfare. Air pollution was at monumental levels in the Egyptian capital [...]
The Medicinal Plants Association in Egypt helps preserve biodiversity and is one of the 25 winners of the Equator Prize 2012. Policy making within the realm of “development” is often burdened by an excessively westernized design resulting in unintended consequences on the welfare of local populations. For example, a previous Green Prophet article “Morocco’s Berbers [...]
Live export controversy hits Middle East with full force: Australia may be merciful when raising its cattle at home. That all changes once they head to the Middle East market. Animals and animal rights are not top on any agenda in the Middle East, but in 2012, a number of incidents brought the controversial live [...]
A poisonous snake bit a man on a flight from Cairo to Kuwait, forcing the pilot to make an emergency landing. A Jordanian passenger who owns a reptile shop in Kuwait smuggled the Egyptian Cobra into his carry-on luggage (a baksheesh or bribe would have made the snake invisible to the Egypt Air security personnel [...]
Who’s got the wind in the Middle East? Morocco and Egypt have the biggest wind power plants, but don’t discount Iraq, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Wind power has taken a backseat to solar power across the Middle East and North Africa, but there are still some ambitious projects in wind power [...]
Solar panels at the pyramids. In the past two years since a popular uprising ousted former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, the question of sustainability, energy and overall environmental awareness has been as evident as a clean street in Cairo. Basically, it has been nonexistent. Actually, it had been nonexistent until recently. Over the past few months, Egyptians have [...]
Egypt and sunshine. The two go hand in hand. Ask any tourist, or come to that, any solar panel maker pulling in the profits. Both are grateful for the sunshine. Even in December, Egypt enjoys an average 6.4 hours of sunshine a day. In June, the average jumps to an incredible 11.9 hours a day. [...]
The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) says that the Mediterranean’s biggest eco-debtor is Italy, meaning that nation uses more resources than it generates. Does that mean Middle Eastern nations bordering the sea are environmentally savvy consumers? Mama Mia, no! The medium is the message, said Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan. And the message is skewed by the words. [...]
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 [...]
Israel’s Negev Desert, Jordan’s Mount Nebo, Medaba and Wadi Rum are a few dark sky destinations for stargazing. Paris is known as the city of lights. So is Medina Saudi Arabia, Be’er Sheva Israel and Las Vegas, Nevada. We shouldn’t overlook Baltimore Maryland, Varanasi India, Quanzhou China and Milford Pennsylvania. Each of these cities is also [...]
Scholarships included to this new 2-year high school study abroad program in Israel. Its founders are looking to fill a high quota of Arab students from the region starting 2014. It will be the first of its kind in Israel: An international two-year boarding school focusing on what Israel knows best – water management, environment [...]
Egypt’s first ever seed bombing event will highlight the importance of preserving Egyptian seeds and promoting local biodiversity Environmental groups across Egypt have come together to launch a unique event that involves two things you wouldn’t normally put together: seeds and bombing. Campaigners from Nawaya, Nabta, Greenpeace Egypt and 350.org have been busy training activists [...]
A bridge over troubled waters still being planned for Saudi Arabia and Sinai. About 20 dive sites will be lost, activists tell Green Prophet. A grassroots environmental group of activists are continuing to put pressure on the Egyptian government to end its plans to develop and erect a bridge linking the Sinai Peninsula with Saudi Arabia. [...]
A flailing Egypt still aims for 20 percent renewables by 2020. Egypt’s Supreme Council of Energy last week pushed forward a new round of concessions aimed at boosting investment in renewable and clean energy in the country. According to the Council, it said it would exempt parts and components used in the production of electricity [...]
The political news from Egypt doesn’t look promising: Cairo and the Sinai Peninsula appear to be more unsettled than ever, with questions about how the military and police maintain the law of rule. That said, brave travellers are still heading to Sinai, the only place in the world where you can do nothing and feel [...]
If you can’t afford your own private submarine, or are afraid of diving, there’s always Google: Google has already taken their street view maps to Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and many other places in many lands. Now they are venturing out into that other seventy percent of the earth, the sea.
Despite attending Egypt’s Bani-Suef University as a student of commerce, 24 year-old Mohamed Gooda’s passion has always been for science. Having pursued his interest in physics in his spare time, he’s come up with a theoretical method of improving upon the efficiency of the photovoltaic solar cells currently in use the world over. He believes [...]
Meet Egypt’s new Solar Energy Association hoping to turn a country’s power crisis into eco-innovation. It’s dark at an upscale Cairo café. It’s not closed and service continues despite the only light coming from windows along two walls. The cause was an electricity outage. While it only lasted around 15 minutes, it was one of [...]
Live long enough and we all know heartbreak, but what happens when a well-loved sustainable project walks away? Looking for day trips to explore modern Middle East architecture, I stumbled across Jordan’s The Aqaba House (TAH). This ambitious little house was the first modern home fully based on green building principles specific to its Aqaba location. Oriented [...]
Tunisian buildings are the most energy intense in the Arab world. Carboun has released a powerful infographic which details how energy is consumed in the Middle East. Using data received from personal contributions, the World Bank and the International Energy Agency, founder Karim Elgendy has mapped out energy use by country in each of the [...]
The rich and famous are now buying private submarines. Good or bad for the environment? Brian explores. My search for bamboo yarn took me to an industrial part of Beijing. The air here smelled of hot steel and coal. I walked past some of the warehouses and workshops behind the Made in China label and [...]