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 […]
Whenever I read the news about Syria’s refugee and environmental crisis I wonder how Syria’s dictator Bashar Al-Assad’s wife Asma al-Assad, once so vocal about the natural environment (even biking to the West Bank in the past), can let her husband keep this madness up. A little sanity in the craziness that is and has […]
Ridley Scott’s, The Martian is based on Andy Weir’s best-selling novel. It was filmed in Jordan’s beautiful Wadi-Rum desert. Hollywood loves adventure stories, especially tales of humans struggling to survive in the wilderness. The Martian has something in common with The Life of Pi, 127 Hours, Castaway, Into the Wild and All is Lost. But a […]
Why blow your wedding bucks on one extravaganza when you can hold two for the same price? Jordanian newlyweds Mutaz Mango and Basma Omar opted to split their celebration, hosting a private party for family and friends and a second for Iraqi and Syrian refugee children living in the old Hashemi al Shemali neighborhood of […]
Most visitors to Israel concentrate on exploring the many biblical, cultural, and historical sites that abound Israel. And rightfully so! Israel has been the hub of Jewish, Christian, and Islamic history for centuries. These sites are fundamentally important as they inspire a connection with one’s faith as well as a deeper historical understanding. But there […]
There are some things that you can’t put a price tag on – and nature is one of them. Unfortunately, in today’s society value is only understood if it is expressed in currency. This might have been a reason for the United Nations University to try to quantify the losses we suffer each year due […]
Celebrity chef and foraging superstar René Redzepi told the New York Times on Monday that he is closing his Copenhagen restaurant Noma at the end of 2016 and resurrecting it in 2017 with a new menu and a new site in an urban farm setting. This man on a radical new mission had led a popular restaurant […]
Marie Antoinette has nothing on the wealthy Arab clients who commissioned a cake commemorating their daughter’s combo birthday and engagement party. The confection whipped up by a British dress designer cost a whopping $74 million USD. That’s a lot of bread for a cake.
This story is not about the Middle East, although the images are a surreal reminder of what is happening on our Mediterranean shores – albeit with a different species. A world apart, both events are variations on an alarming theme that undermines our effectiveness in protecting this planet. Humans are losing connection with the natural […]
Quick! What’s the best wedding you ever attended? Youtube archives threaten to break the internet with flash mob proposals, bridal party dance antics, and epic fail toasts. Meet a young Turkish couple that refreshingly flipped their big day on its head, making a naturally narcissistic milestone into something all about others. They invited 4,000 Syrian refugees […]
Back in high school we bought a few acres of rainforest in Brazil – to save it. To stop illegal logging. To preserve biodiversity. Instead of buying just an acre or two or a few hundred, a researcher from Israel has a plan to save the world’s biodiversity – by buying 1.4% of the planet […]
Science is a great thing, I think we can all agree on that. Science makes our every day lives easier in ways we might not even recognize – by keeping our food fresh, our water clean, our air at a temperature we can bear. It allows us to keep in touch with our loved ones […]
The press has been flooded with a sensational prediction about a mini ice age coming our way in a few years. Sounds funny since we are also in the middle of global warming, right? A team of researchers at the Northumbria University in the UK, led by Professor Valentina Zharkova, have predicted a 60% fall […]
Big agriculture is mainstream in the US, but growing our food has a long history. Until now, researchers believed farming was “invented” some 12,000 years ago in the Cradle of Civilization — Iraq, the Levant, parts of Turkey and Iran — an area that was home to some of the earliest known human civilizations. A […]
Two 2,000-year-old sling stones were mysteriously dropped in the courtyard of the Museum of Islamic and Near Eastern Cultures (MINEC) in Be’er Sheva last week. Also called “sling bullets”, this ancient ammunition dates back to Neotlithic times, famously used by David in his romp against Goliath. The bag packed with these particular stones included an anonymous note that read, “They […]
Following an international trend pressuring large food chains to think local and source local food, Autogrill, the multinational company known for its motorway and airport restaurants in 30 countries, is partnering with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (or the FAO) to do just that. The chain of restaurants will cut down food waste […]
The Pope has come out, some might argue too late, with his treaty for Climate Change. How can faith leaders, or at least the Church position itself in the face of massive species die-offs, and the change in the way of life as we know it? Can the Pope’s Encyclical, the treaty itself, aims to […]
As I strolled through the aisles of a large supermarket chain recently, I was overwhelmed by the quantity of mass-produced, industrialized food products lining the shelves. Stacks and stacks of processed food items, replete with refined, nutrient-devoid, artificially preserved, chemically altered and/or genetically modified ingredients, as well as produce grown using environmentally and biologically hazardous […]
Pope Francis has penned an official text on the environment, the product of a year’s worth of writing. Yesterday, an Italian news site leaked an early draft and Vatican officials cried foul. One, speaking to Bloomberg News on Monday, called the premature release of the papal encyclical a “heinous act”. The official release is on Thursday. So […]
An inaugural Interfaith Eco Slam is happening in Nachla’ot, Jerusalem tonight, hosted by the Interfaith Center for Sustainable Development (ICSD) and Rabbi Yonatan Neril. Get yourself to the rooftop of 49 Rechov Shabazi for a night of spoken-word poetry that bridges religion and ecology. The event is in honor of World Environment Day, which rolls in tomorrow.
Wild animals shouldn’t live in palaces, connected to leashes and paraded around streets in the Gulf Region like they are trophies. Dolphins shouldn’t be captured to live in cramped, private pools (read this story on the 4 dolphins living in a filthy pool). Elephants shouldn’t be killed for tusks, or wild birds kidnapped from the […]
