Michelle Obama has made America’s gardening great and she’s now laying down roots so the gardening tradition will continue even after her family leaves the White House this January. Obama created the garden in 2009, and made sure to expand it twice so it will be hard to plow under by the next family. She’s […]
Local, real food (#realfood) is more than a rage. It’s the new everything in food. After decades of eating shipped-in waxy veggies, greens and fruits, consumers and chefs are demanding a new kind of food. Vegetables and fruits that are local, and full of flavor. We want food with high oil and vitamin content that […]
Amid news of France’s overturned ban of the full-body “burkini” swimsuit, Playboy and Women’s Running magazines featuring women in hijab for the first time the hijab is turning heads and making headlines. The hijab or face-covering for Muslim women needs to be comfortable and sport-relevant says Qatar-based founders of Oola Sportswear. They just launched an Indiegogo campaign that […]
Gotham’s green foliage projects in large urban communities like New York City and Chicago, not only produce year around vegetables; but also help preserve vestiges of former wild pastoral glory. An excellent example of efforts made to put abandoned urban space to good use as a garden park is the High Line urban grasslands park in New York […]
I was shopping online for a candle the other day and quickly realized this: candles have gotten very expensive! Soy candles, aromatherapy candles, eco-friendly candles in fancy jars. If only there was a way to create some nice romantic lighting without breaking the bank. But wait – there is! Introducing the orange peel candle: the […]
When there is nothing left to do, you might as well do something. In Syria, where the war is five years and counting, dancing might be the last thing on anyone’s mind. But for Ahmad Joudeh, it is a priority. Dance is his lifeblood, and he is fueling others with it, too. Joudeh teaches dance […]
Take empathy to a new level by living just like a displaced person. A group of Syrian refugees advertised their camp tent as a rentable destination on Airbnb, offering intrepid travelers “scorpions, dehydration and broken promises”. They describe the Ritsona, Greece refugee camp, about 80 kilometers north of Athens, as “the most unique neighborhood in […]
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 […]
I normally write about environmental science and technology but I can’t help but notice when governments and economies behave like damaged environmental systems or unstable high voltage oscillators. Global economies have taxed future generations via inflationary policies and amplified the gap between wealth and poverty. The hot smell of ozone should warn us that a […]
The sheer horror of it was understandable when the first photos of deformed infants began appearing in local and international news reports. Perhaps not as deadly as Ebola, which was considered to be “out of control” in parts of West Africa in 2014, the Zika virus, said to be carried by a once common mosquito, Aedes aegypti (photo […]
Used for perfumes, rose water; and for flavoring sweets like Turkish Delight, Syria’s famed Damask Rose, once championed by romanticists like William Shakespeare, is experiencing hard times due to the ongoing war in its native land. Although also grown in Turkey, Iran and other countries, the 30-petaled Damask rose, which achieved its most fame in areas of Syria near […]
It doesn’t really matter what kind of business you are in. Most businesses in the world still rely on paper. You or people you love are working with paper –– even if they use that paperless declaration in the email signature. Managing a lot of paper is not only bad news for the environment, it’s […]
This past March Abu Dhabi city has witnessed its most intense rain storm in recent memory. Storms usually do not make it to Arabian cities on the Gulf; they jump on summer monsoon winds from the Indian Ocean only to break on unfortunate shores of Oman. I happened to spend my teens in Abu Dhabi, and the […]
We’ve travelled to Casablanca to see where Bogart gave his favorite lines, to learn the movie wasn’t really filmed there. Many of the movies you see are like this: filmed in studios or in locations only resembling the assumed backdrop. In reality, some of the world’s famous hotels were already famous before the film’s success, while […]
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced yesterday the formation of a new, nation-less team of athletes cleared to compete in the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janiero, Brazil this summer. According to a statement released on the IOC website, the all-refugee team will be treated the same as the other teams representing the 206 National […]
So, you care about the environment and ensuring that you play your part in preserving the beauty of nature but how do you go about imparting these lessons to your children? It can be challenging for parents to impart these important lessons to their little ones. As the saying goes, “charity begins at home… ” […]
A new report from the Climate Council of Australia revealed that last year’s global average temperature was the highest since global records began in 1880, with 2015 experiencing its hottest year on record – again – besting the 2014 stats by a jaw-dropping 0.16°C. To paraphrase Paris Hilton, that’s hot.
It goes without saying that life in Gaza is bleak. But for domesticated animals for slaughter, it is living hell. Watch the shocking footage of numerous cow slaughtering attempts and the ways that civilians in Gaza gather around the animals, chained and held captive (below). Cows getting their eyes gouged out, trampled, kicked and mocked […]
A few years ago, Jordan launched an initiative called BADIR to support budding young entrepreneurs, eager to contribute to positive change in their communities. Now Kuwait is following suit: the “n-mu” program endows participants with the skills and resources necessary to create real social change. N-mu? That’s a funny name, you might be thinking. But […]
Does nature have a marketing problem? Headlines about climate change, extreme weather, and their catastrophic impacts to the built environment are overwhelming. It’s easy to feel helpless and at a loss for meaningful action. So the folks at a Colorado-based grassroots environmental group decided to do a bit of alchemy, mixing beautiful images of the natural […]
This year’s Conference of the Parties, known as COP21, may turn out to be the one that finally addresses the ravages of human caused climate change. Or will it? COP21 comes on the heels of some of the worst climate issues that humankind has experienced in recent years; including intense typhoons and hurricanes; and crazy Middle East […]
Watch out world, and those in North Africa and Middle East areas: A swarm of locusts of Biblical proportions could be heading near you. While bugs can form a significant amount of healthy human protein (that’s not kosher), locusts are particularly damaging as they ravage crops in their wake. RELATED: Flying Spark food made in […]
Imagine that you are a castaway on a dead planet. You only have provisions for a few days and you are absolutely alone. How would you survive? Andy Weir turned this question into his best-selling novel, The Martian. It is a tale of man versus Mars.
Dutch Design Week 2015 is a misnomer, the event actually runs over nine days across 100 locations displaying the experiments and ideas of 2400 designers, including works by students from the Design Academy Eindhoven. Participating designers often focus on environmental problems, but this year many tackled humanitarian problems such as the flow of refugees from the Middle […]
Critically acclaimed Scottish photographer Dougie Wallace has stepped on some well-heeled toes with his latest documentary project where he turns his lens to the rising economic power of the “one per cent”. His current exhibition, entitled Harrodsburg, captures the ultra-affluent visitors that inhabit – albeit only seasonally – the super-rich residential and retail district of […]
