Going green doesn’t come naturally to wealthy villa owners in the Gulf. An online real estate company listed a seven bedroom villa in Dubai’s neighboring Emirate Abu Dhabi for $95,300 a year, which amounts to nearly $8,000 a month. Anyone who can afford to spend that much money on rent probably has little incentive to […]
10 King and 10 Gentoo Penguins imported from Texas are now living at Ski Dubai – an indoor ski slope in the desert! Picture : © Samuel Blanc / www.sblanc.com It’s bizarre enough that Dubai has an indoor ski slope despite outdoor summer temperatures averaging at over 40 degrees Celsius, but now a colony of penguins has […]
Looks good – tastes good for meat eaters. But how much of that meat patty is pink slime? Ever wonder what makes the meat patties used in hamburgers in fast food eateries like McDonalds and Burger King seem so fresh? The secret is not really how much meat glue is used, or whether the meat […]
Crystal Lagoons has developed an alternative cooling and energy harvesting system for power plants that doesn’t require the use of seawater. Gulf countries that lack freshwater resources rely deeply on seawater desalination to meet their daily needs and cool down thermal generation plants. According to Gulf News, the United Arab Emirates alone uses four trillion litres […]
Etihad Airways operates first biofuel powered delivery flight with Boeing and Sky Energy Etihad Airways from the United Arab Emirates scores a double play in the Green World Series: Becoming both the first airline to fly on biofuel directly from the factory and the first biofuel-flying Gulf carrier. Not yet on its fuel-efficient Dreamliners, Etihad’s new […]
Barcelona hopes to have an indoor ski slope as nice as Ski Dubai (pictured), but carbon neutral. Barcelona is not as hot as places like Abu Dhabi and Dubai, which now has an indoor snow ski slope. But they appear to be envious of Dubai’s very ungreen approach to denying that the country is a […]
Ziad Tassabehji is one of the most influential men in the new green Middle East. Until now he’s kept pretty quiet about his involvement in Masdar. He came from the dot-com market with a boom and a bust, but in the Arab world. Ziad Tassabehji (pictured above with his son) has always been an entrepreneur […]
Because cheetahs don’t belong on leashes, Dubai’s neighbor, Ajman, has passed a law that makes it illegal for anyone to have wild animals or reptiles in their homes. Remember the Porsche driver in Dubai who thought it was cool to walk his pet cheetah on a leash in the middle of a busy urban center? […]
Walnut floors and bookshelves gives “warmth”, but at a cost of live trees that take 50 years to grow The use of ornate wood products in building homes, furniture and ships has been part of humanity since time began. Even the Bible gives note to using wood for ornate construction projects with such examples as King […]
The Green Sheikh explains why the late Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan is his eco-hero. Not all country leaders are alike but I admire those who spread wisdom throughout their country in order to enhance every single aspect of their people’s lifestyle, such as our former President of the United Arab Emirates Sheikh Zayed Bin […]
This Foster & Partner’s project completed in 2004 is green and deeply respectful of its environment – why did they change their design approach? In 2004, Foster & Partners completed this gorgeous Chesa Futura apartment building in Switzerland using a combination of modern modeling tools and ancient construction techniques. Situated on the edge of a […]
Dubai is expected to run out of oil by 2020. It will invest billions in solar instead. Dubai produces only around 100,000 barrels per day of oil from four existing fields, and is dependent on fossil fuels for electricity production and for water, which must be desalinated. So news that Dubai is planning a gigantic […]
Is augmented reality projections the new fireworks of the Middle East? We hope so To celebrate a wedding it is common for Middle East men to shoot guns into the air, with stray bullets eventually falling to the sky, killing wildlife and sometimes people. This still happens in Gaza and Jordan for instance, although authorities […]
Time to scale down on Diamond Class sleeping suits? Image via Etihad United Arab Emirates-based airlines, Emirates and Etihad Airways warn of higher ticket prices as they seek to pass on costs of a European Union (EU) aviation carbon trading scheme to passengers. Dubai’s Emirates will spend almost $52 million US this year to purchase […]
Although many people in our region revere wildlife, too often we write about egregious abuse. Here are 7 of the saddest wildlife stories from the Middle East, and what you can do to help such harmful practices come to an end. Many people living in the Middle East believe that it is haram to harm […]