The Middle East has become one of the most popular tourist destinations, and is expected to become even more so, but the current unrest has taken its toll. Even though Dubai has been spared the awful drama that has gripped many countries in the Middle East – most dramatically Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya – the […]
The Ahmad Family in Egypt shows us what they eat. As popular uprisings continue to spread in Middle East, rising food costs for stable crops like rice and wheat cannot be ignored as underlying factors in the political unrest. In a region where Islam and anti-Westernism are usually blamed for driving populist politics, the impact […]
Do women in Cairo have bigger carbon footprints because they are afraid to ride their bikes? Transportation is a large contributor to air-pollution. Today, the whole world is shifting towards more sustainable means of transportation. While in most countries men and women are equally active in such a movement, in more traditional societies, women are […]
The most basic green lessons a mother can teach
A cyclist with a sense of adventure, last year Yasser took his bike for a swim, I mean spin in the Red Sea. Earlier today, our newest superstar blogger called for a cycling revolution. Inji discusses critical mass biking events, a monthly activity that occurs throughout the world and is sometimes referred to as political-protest […]
Before the 25th of January no more than 150 cyclists could pedal together without attracting police authorities’ attention. In Cairo, Inji El Abd from Cycling for Change, talks about a revolution for bikes. Che Guevara had his motorcycle and they had their bicycles: Revolutionaries on wheels went from all corners of Cairo to Tahrir Square to demand […]
Leopards in Egypt are listed as critically endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. During certain periods of ancient Egyptian history it was illegal to kill cats, any cats. The punishment for said infraction? Death. Cats were considered so sacred that only the Pharaoh was permitted to own them. Now, not only […]
You probably won’t be surprised to learn that rising oil prices is at the heart of the reason why the protest are driving up food prices. As Tafline Laylin wrote earlier today, the price of oil has risen 6% to $95.39 per barrel following the turbulence in the MENA region. This is apparently a six-year high.
Around 3,000 horses have faced hardship and even starvation during the protests which rocked Egypt and toppled a 30-year dictatorship It’s been over ten days since Egyptians managed to unchain themselves from a 30-year old dictatorship after weeks of gathering in Tahrir Square to tell Mubarak to leave. According to Human Rights Watch just under […]
Environmental changes may have led to Middle East shark attacks and a worldwide increase. Shark attacks increased a whopping 25% worldwide, including recent attacks in Egypt. In the 2010 report released by the University of Florida International Shark File, file director and shark expert George Burgess said that “the most unusual shark incident of my […]
One unexpected consequence of the riots is cleaner air, because fewer factories are running. Amid the turmoil and disappointment of Egyptian President Mubarak’s refusal to leave Egypt despite ongoing and increasingly desperate protests, an unexpected consequence has emerged. Infamous for its stultifying smog, Cairo is packed with factories and cars that create an unhealthy breathing […]
MENA has enough sun to make everyone smile, so why aren’t we using it? Until 2008, not one of the six Gulf Cooperation Council countries produced a single kilowatt of renewable energy, so reliant are they on oil and natural gas. And yet three of the six are on Al Masah Capital’s list of the […]
Tiny pieces of plastic invisible to humans is likely behind the death of thousands of Mediterranean mammals, turtles, and fish. Maurice once speculated whether the Mediterranean has a plastic waste situation comparable to that of the Pacific, an issue particularly sensitive to our favorite eco-hunk David de Rothschild. His hunch – informed by empirical evidence […]
A bad end to the Egyptian crises could mean an end to natural gas exports to Israel As if the ongoing, and increasingly violent wave of anti-Egyptian President Husni Mubarak protests aren’t enough to cause worries about regional energy cooperation, a takeover by Muslim extremists in Egypt could spell an end to natural gas supplies […]
Climate change, peak oil and too many mouths to feed topples the first of the world’s now fragile economies. Egypt is just the first nation to see the instability predicted as a result of climate change, peak oil and the unsustainable numbers of people on this planet. But this is where we are all headed, […]