The Nabataeans understood that prosperity in the desert depended on respecting environmental limits. Two thousand years later, Petra's greatest attraction may still be the wisdom of the people who learned to live within them.
From Bill McKibben to climate organizers across the Middle East, Green Prophet has followed 350.org for 16 years. At COP31 in Türkiye, the movement is demanding an end to fossil fuel expansion and a fair transition to renewable energy.
One of the most persistent questions in seismology concerns whether scientists will eventually be able to predict major earthquakes before they happen.
I believe Jordan needs a cultural transformation alongside its infrastructure investments. We must begin by redefining social prestige. Why should ownership of an expensive car be considered a greater achievement than making an environmentally responsible transportation choice? Why should travelling by bus carry a social stigma?
Unstageable wounds are another group of pressure injuries characterized by slough or eschar covering, which makes it hard to determine the real depth of the wound.
The Nabataeans understood that prosperity in the desert depended on respecting environmental limits. Two thousand years later, Petra's greatest attraction may still be the wisdom of the people who learned to live within them.
From Bill McKibben to climate organizers across the Middle East, Green Prophet has followed 350.org for 16 years. At COP31 in Türkiye, the movement is demanding an end to fossil fuel expansion and a fair transition to renewable energy.
One of the most persistent questions in seismology concerns whether scientists will eventually be able to predict major earthquakes before they happen.
I believe Jordan needs a cultural transformation alongside its infrastructure investments. We must begin by redefining social prestige. Why should ownership of an expensive car be considered a greater achievement than making an environmentally responsible transportation choice? Why should travelling by bus carry a social stigma?
Unstageable wounds are another group of pressure injuries characterized by slough or eschar covering, which makes it hard to determine the real depth of the wound.
The Nabataeans understood that prosperity in the desert depended on respecting environmental limits. Two thousand years later, Petra's greatest attraction may still be the wisdom of the people who learned to live within them.
From Bill McKibben to climate organizers across the Middle East, Green Prophet has followed 350.org for 16 years. At COP31 in Türkiye, the movement is demanding an end to fossil fuel expansion and a fair transition to renewable energy.
One of the most persistent questions in seismology concerns whether scientists will eventually be able to predict major earthquakes before they happen.
I believe Jordan needs a cultural transformation alongside its infrastructure investments. We must begin by redefining social prestige. Why should ownership of an expensive car be considered a greater achievement than making an environmentally responsible transportation choice? Why should travelling by bus carry a social stigma?
Unstageable wounds are another group of pressure injuries characterized by slough or eschar covering, which makes it hard to determine the real depth of the wound.
The Nabataeans understood that prosperity in the desert depended on respecting environmental limits. Two thousand years later, Petra's greatest attraction may still be the wisdom of the people who learned to live within them.
From Bill McKibben to climate organizers across the Middle East, Green Prophet has followed 350.org for 16 years. At COP31 in Türkiye, the movement is demanding an end to fossil fuel expansion and a fair transition to renewable energy.
One of the most persistent questions in seismology concerns whether scientists will eventually be able to predict major earthquakes before they happen.
I believe Jordan needs a cultural transformation alongside its infrastructure investments. We must begin by redefining social prestige. Why should ownership of an expensive car be considered a greater achievement than making an environmentally responsible transportation choice? Why should travelling by bus carry a social stigma?
Unstageable wounds are another group of pressure injuries characterized by slough or eschar covering, which makes it hard to determine the real depth of the wound.
The Nabataeans understood that prosperity in the desert depended on respecting environmental limits. Two thousand years later, Petra's greatest attraction may still be the wisdom of the people who learned to live within them.
From Bill McKibben to climate organizers across the Middle East, Green Prophet has followed 350.org for 16 years. At COP31 in Türkiye, the movement is demanding an end to fossil fuel expansion and a fair transition to renewable energy.
One of the most persistent questions in seismology concerns whether scientists will eventually be able to predict major earthquakes before they happen.
I believe Jordan needs a cultural transformation alongside its infrastructure investments. We must begin by redefining social prestige. Why should ownership of an expensive car be considered a greater achievement than making an environmentally responsible transportation choice? Why should travelling by bus carry a social stigma?
Unstageable wounds are another group of pressure injuries characterized by slough or eschar covering, which makes it hard to determine the real depth of the wound.
The Nabataeans understood that prosperity in the desert depended on respecting environmental limits. Two thousand years later, Petra's greatest attraction may still be the wisdom of the people who learned to live within them.
From Bill McKibben to climate organizers across the Middle East, Green Prophet has followed 350.org for 16 years. At COP31 in Türkiye, the movement is demanding an end to fossil fuel expansion and a fair transition to renewable energy.
One of the most persistent questions in seismology concerns whether scientists will eventually be able to predict major earthquakes before they happen.
I believe Jordan needs a cultural transformation alongside its infrastructure investments. We must begin by redefining social prestige. Why should ownership of an expensive car be considered a greater achievement than making an environmentally responsible transportation choice? Why should travelling by bus carry a social stigma?
Unstageable wounds are another group of pressure injuries characterized by slough or eschar covering, which makes it hard to determine the real depth of the wound.
The Nabataeans understood that prosperity in the desert depended on respecting environmental limits. Two thousand years later, Petra's greatest attraction may still be the wisdom of the people who learned to live within them.
From Bill McKibben to climate organizers across the Middle East, Green Prophet has followed 350.org for 16 years. At COP31 in Türkiye, the movement is demanding an end to fossil fuel expansion and a fair transition to renewable energy.
One of the most persistent questions in seismology concerns whether scientists will eventually be able to predict major earthquakes before they happen.
I believe Jordan needs a cultural transformation alongside its infrastructure investments. We must begin by redefining social prestige. Why should ownership of an expensive car be considered a greater achievement than making an environmentally responsible transportation choice? Why should travelling by bus carry a social stigma?
Unstageable wounds are another group of pressure injuries characterized by slough or eschar covering, which makes it hard to determine the real depth of the wound.
The Nabataeans understood that prosperity in the desert depended on respecting environmental limits. Two thousand years later, Petra's greatest attraction may still be the wisdom of the people who learned to live within them.
From Bill McKibben to climate organizers across the Middle East, Green Prophet has followed 350.org for 16 years. At COP31 in Türkiye, the movement is demanding an end to fossil fuel expansion and a fair transition to renewable energy.
One of the most persistent questions in seismology concerns whether scientists will eventually be able to predict major earthquakes before they happen.
I believe Jordan needs a cultural transformation alongside its infrastructure investments. We must begin by redefining social prestige. Why should ownership of an expensive car be considered a greater achievement than making an environmentally responsible transportation choice? Why should travelling by bus carry a social stigma?
Unstageable wounds are another group of pressure injuries characterized by slough or eschar covering, which makes it hard to determine the real depth of the wound.
Oskar Shindler’s grave in Jerusalem, by Karin Kloosterman
I did not go looking for Oskar Schindler. But he found me. One day, while wandering through an old cemetery near Zion Gate in Jerusalem with my mother—who had come to the Holy Land to feel the Bible—I came across his grave.
The cemetery sits just outside the Old City walls. It is simple and unadorned. Before me lay a modest grave slab covered with piles of stones, as Jewish people do when they visit a loved one. This grave had more stones than any other. The name belonged to a man who was not Jewish, yet chose the Jews when it mattered most.
Before his death in 1974, Schindler asked to be buried in Jerusalem. He rests there because he risked everything to save Jewish lives during the Holocaust. For his moral courage, he is remembered as one of the Righteous Among the Nations. The Talmud, compiled roughly 1,800 years ago, teaches that righteous people from any nation or faith are granted a share in the World to Come. In Judaism, the olam ha-ba is not simply heaven. It is the world you help create through your actions.
A view of Jerusalem from the gravesite of Oskar Schindler
Schindler chose to build his place in that world. Standing by his grave, I hoped that some of his righteousness might rub off on me. I feel the same way when I think about those who stand with Jews today, even when doing so brings isolation, financial loss, and threats to their safety.
Douglas Murray speaks openly about rising antisemitism in the West. Luai Ahmed challenges antisemitism in the Arab world and supports Israel despite the personal cost. Goldie Ghamari, an Iranian Canadian politician, has spoken forcefully against antisemitism and has received death threats.
Then there is Paul Finlayson. “I said I stood with Israel, and I was called a criminal,” he told me. Paul is a Canadian educator whose life changed after he compared Hamas to the Nazis. He says the statement led to his dismissal from his teaching positions and devastated his career and family.
According to Paul, he went from earning $300,000 a year to $24,000. “My income has been reduced by 90%,” he said. “My family is shattered.” These are his claims. Whether one agrees with him or not, his story raises important questions about free speech, due process, and what happens to people who publicly support Israel.
I did not grow up Jewish. By the time I was eighteen, I had met only a handful of Jewish people. But over the years, getting close to Jews and to Israel changed me. My family comes from Europe, where too many people stood by while their Jewish neighbors were taken away. That history still echoes through generations. The thread runs from Oskar Schindler to the present day.
Supporting what is right requires action. Who will stand up for Paul? If not me, then who?
I am picky about bags. Not in a fashion way because I don’t care about logos. I care about whether a thing will hold up when I’m hiking a ridge in the Galilee, or sweating through a farmers market in July, or stuffing a laptop and two days of clothes into whatever fits behind the passenger seat. I care about whether the person who made it gave a damn. That’s a short list. Pilsok just made it. They turn garbage into works of art.
Pilsok is a handmade backpack and bag label out of Kyiv, Ukraine. Founded in 2007 by Dmytro Isaienko, it’s been quietly building a cult following among people who go places, and we are talking ahout real places, not Instagram approximations of places. Because I’ve been all over the world and see the angles that influencers use. That’s not real life.
If you’ve been searching for the Pilsok beetle bag or the Pilsok backpack and wondering if it’s worth it, I’ll give you a straight answer: yes. Here’s why.
What Is the Pilsok Beetle Bag, Exactly?
Pilsok beetle bag made from upcycled car airbag nylon, handmade in Kyiv Ukraine
The name alone tells you something. Pilsok’s beetle bag — their standout shoulder bag — is cut from Cordura, a fabric that laughs at rain, mud, and the kind of abuse vanlifers inflict on their gear daily. The hardware is solid, the stitching is done by hand, in-house, in Kyiv. (Just like the guys who built Havie, also from Kiev) When you open it, you can feel that someone actually thought about how a person uses a bag, not how a bag looks on a shelf.
Every piece Pilsok makes is slightly different, because it’s made by a human being with their hands and they are using upcycled material, or deadstock like Reformation.
The Airbag Collection: Upcycling Done for Real
Pilsok beetle bag made from upcycled car airbag nylon, showing original seams and fabric codes, handmade in Kyiv UkrainePilsok handmade beetle bag crafted from decommissioned car airbag material showing original folds and printed codes
Here’s where it gets interesting for those of us who think about what we buy. And this is how we found them. Emirates built a line of luxury carry-ons from airplane interiors. Pilsok released a line of backpacks and bags made from decommissioned car airbags, the ones pulled from disassembled vehicles that would otherwise head to landfill. The line is called N08-AIRBAG (30L) and they sold out almost as fast as they were made.
The airbags used in the beetle backpacks were never deployed so they are perfectly perfect. It takes roughly three airbags to make one backpack. The material is a waterproof, tear-resistant nylon with polyurethane impregnation, originally engineered to deploy at 200 mph and cushion a human body. Now it carries your water bottle, Sony camera, and your journal. The problem is good luck if you can ever buy one. That’s what real craft does: it creates demand for the hands.
You can still see the folds, the seams, sometimes even the printed codes from the original airbag. Reminds me of Ilanit Nutra’s upcycled bags from car tire inner tubes. Each Pilsok bag wears its past life on its surface. I find that honest in a way that most “sustainable fashion” is not.
Ukrainian design studio Pilsok transforms recycled automotive airbags into the Second Life jacket, a tribute to Ukraine’s emergency rescuers, for Parajumpers’ 20th anniversary.
There’s no greenwashing here, no vague promise of a better world attached to a product that still shipped from a factory farm of cheap labor. This is a small studio in a country still at war, turning industrial salvage into something people will carry for decades.
When I write about circular design, and I’ve been writing about it since before most brands knew what the word meant (see some problems in the sustainable wool industry here), I’m looking for this: materials that carry on, objects that can be passed down, things built to outlast trends. The Pilsok airbag backpack is one of the cleaner examples I’ve encountered.
Why Millennials Who Actually Live the Life Will Get It
You know the type. They own a Patagonia jacket that’s twelve years old and they’ve re-seamed it twice. They drove their van to Baja last winter and their gear had to survive salt air, sand, and a busted zipper situation at 11 p.m. in the dark. They bike to the farmers market, they go to Burning Man and build a time machine out of upcycled fishing huts. They’re skeptical of anything that costs $400 and comes with a sustainability certificate PDF they’ve never read.
The Pilsok backpack, rolltop, Cordura, built for city streets or trail access roads, speaks directly to that person. Not because of the story marketing, but because of what happens when you actually use it. Reviewers keep using words like “slick,” “durable,” “quality.” One person on Etsy said it’s the best bag they’ve ever owned, no qualifier. Another said it holds up for hiking and still looks right in the city. That’s the duality this crowd lives every day.
And for the Venice Beach crowd, people who want to look intentional without looking like they tried, the Pilsok is that bag. It doesn’t have a brand splashed across the front. It’s the kind of thing you notice on someone and ask about quietly.
Where to Buy the Pilsok Backpack
Pilsok sells through their Etsy shop (search: Pilsok, or Pilsock) and through their Instagram, @pilsok. The airbag upcycle line has sold through Instagram in particular. Stock is limited by the nature of the materials: they can only work with what gets salvaged.
Price-wise, these aren’t fast fashion and they are also not luxury markup. Sort of like Cotopaxis bags we’ve reviewed here. We bought one 5 years ago and it’s still our favorite duffel.
If you’re looking for the Pilsok backpack price or asking where to buy a Pilsok backpack for sale, Etsy is your most reliable entry point right now. Pilsok bags show up there in rotating inventory: rolltop backpacks, messenger bags, waist packs, the beetle bag shoulder style. Sign up for their shop notifications so you catch restocks.
Is This the Sustainable Backpack You’ve Been Looking For?
Let me be direct. Most “eco” bags on the market are made from recycled plastic bottles by brands that care more about the press release than the product. Pilsok came at it the other way: they started with solid craft, with a city, with a specific material sourced from car graveyards, and they built something that works. The sustainability isn’t marketing. It’s what the bag is made of. If you want a handmade Kyiv backpack that’ll survive #vanlife, trail access, city commutes, and fifteen years of you not being gentle with your things, and you want the object to carry some meaning beyond its function — this is it.
According to the National Safety Council, the year 2024 recorded 5,218 deaths involving large trucks. This figure represents a 3% decline relative to the previous year. Looking back at the statistics over the last ten years, it can be said that deaths from truck accidents have increased.
Truck accidents can result in catastrophic injuries. With the disparity of weight between a passenger car and commercial trucks, there is an obvious increase in severity when they are involved in an accident together. Smaller vehicle drivers experience collision impacts that their vehicle safety systems cannot control when two vehicles crash. In Canada, a trucker killed a team of teen hockey players, leading to catastrophic losses to an entire community. Safer trucking, greener trucking, is sustainable trucking. Let’s discuss the contributing factors that allow trucks to cause catastrophic injuries.
Why Truck Crashes Produce Injuries at a Different Scale
A road train trucking cargo across Australia
Heavy and large as they are, trucks travel at highway speeds with vastly greater energy than a car cruising at the same speed. The height differential between trucks and passenger vehicles creates its own category of extreme injuries.
Passenger cars are designed to absorb energy at bumper height. A truck trailer bed reaches chest height or roof height for most cars, which results in the complete bypassing of protective vehicle design in particular crash situations.
Collision Types That Cause the Most Severe Injuries
Aurora tests self-driving trucks in Texas
Underride crashes
A rear underride occurs when a car moves underneath the truck trailer instead of hitting the front bumper. In case of a side underride, truck drivers tend to turn or change lanes, with the edge of the trailer striking the windshields or rooftops of adjacent vehicles. The results become deadly since the safety systems designed to keep passengers safe inside the vehicle stop functioning. The three protective systems of airbags and seatbelts and crumple zones protect against bumper-height impacts. A trailer that enters at roof or windshield height compresses the occupant space directly, crushing or severing whatever is in its path. Underride crashes result in traumatic brain injuries, decapitation, partial decapitation, spinal cord injuries, and chest crush injuries.
By 1998, the federal government legislated the mandatory requirement of rear underride protection for trailers. Unfortunately, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) found this requirement inadequate. The National Highway Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimates that side underride guards could save 89-200 lives each year, yet there are hardly any federal mandates in sight for implementing them.
According to Gonzales catastrophic injury lawyer Andre P. Gauthier, one aspect that makes accident claims involving trucks more complex is that numerous parties could be held liable for the accident. In underride crashes, the driver, truck manufacturer, and carrier share liability when an underride guard breaks during testing or when no adequate guard exists.
Jackknife crashes
A Tesla Semi. An all EV transport truck. How will they perform in crashes?
Jackknife crashes are defined as when the driver loses control of the truck when its trailer swings outward to a 90-degree angle. This accident is normally caused by both slippery driving conditions and the driver making emergency steering attempts. The trailer sweeps across multiple lanes, and vehicles alongside or behind the truck have no way to avoid it. The sweeping mass of a trailer under high-speed conditions has the potential force to kill passengers of any vehicle it hits, as its abrupt collision can have grave results. Jackknifing typically occurs when there is poor vehicle maintenance, worn brake torque in an emergency braking situation, or a motorcycle driver making a quick lane change.
Rollover crashes
Highway trucks have a high center of gravity. As such, they are prone to rolling over when negotiating sharp turns or making an abrupt shift.
The situation becomes worse if the truck is loaded improperly and does not observe necessary safety precautions. There is a higher chance for them to tip over on sharp turns.
A rolling truck will crush any vehicle caught beneath it. The FMCSA cargo loading standards establish dedicated securement methods that carriers and loading contractors must follow. Any breach of these regulations results in cargo shifting liability, which extends to all parties involved except the driver.
Rear-end collisions
It is usually the smaller vehicle that takes the worst beating in head-on collisions. Trucks, which are bigger and heavier than most vehicles, can cause great damage in a collision with a car.
During such an accident, the car may fail to absorb the force of the impact and then crumple. This will cause several injuries ranging from severe to life-threatening to its occupants.
The Catastrophic Injuries That Result
Traumatic brain injury
During any rapid acceleration or deceleration accident, the brain inside the cranium would be shaken violently and suffer some injuries.
The range of traumatic brain injuries from truck crashes includes concussion and severe diffuse axonal injury. The long-term effects of this condition include cognitive deficits, seizure disorders, personality and behavioral changes, loss of motor function, and, in extreme cases, a permanent inability to live independently. Life care planners who serve as expert witnesses in these cases typically estimate that their clients will require seven-figure lifetime care expenses.
Spinal cord injury
The spinal column suffers various types of injuries, which include compression, shearing, and hyperflexion, during a crash. The cord becomes damaged, which causes people to experience either partial or complete paralysis that extends from the injury site. The effects of cervical injuries extend to both arms, hands, and diaphragm function. Meanwhile, thoracic injuries lead to different levels of paralysis that start from the chest area. Spinal cord injuries need emergency treatment, which requires immediate stabilization through surgical procedures. The lifetime medical costs for a severe spinal cord injury routinely exceed several million dollars.
Internal organ damage and internal bleeding
A truck crash transfers forces that can cause spleen ruptures, liver lacerations, bowel punctures, and vascular structure tears. Drivers who experience internal injuries during a crash will not show any visible signs until actual body harm occurs. A person who walked away from a scene may be bleeding internally without experiencing decisive symptoms for hours. Any person who survived a major truck crash must undergo an urgent emergency examination. People who experience internal injuries risk dying if doctors fail to recognize and operate on their condition.
Burn injuries
Truck fuel tanks hold much greater fuel capacity than passenger cars do. A major truck crash can rupture fuel lines and flammable or hazardous cargo to create dangerous fire conditions. Trucks carrying dangerous goods can either be a fire hazard or a toxic exposure hazard, depending on the type of cargo it carries.
How Federal Regulations Shape Truck Accident Liability
Regulatory schemes give direction to the multifaceted functions of the commercial trucking industry in the United States. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration lays down all possible rules that will control aspects of commercial vehicle operations ranging from driver qualification all the way to vehicle maintenance procedures, such as drug testing practices, cargo securement methods, electronic logging device specifications, and hours-of-service regulations. The violation of hours-of-service rules by a truck driver creates evidence of negligence, especially when the driver becomes fatigued and causes a crash. The maintenance records of a trucking company provide evidence against the carrier when they show that someone discovered a brake defect but left it unfixed.
The company responsible for loading cargo shares liability if their cargo securement procedures failed to meet federal standards, which led to a load shift that caused a rollover accident. Electronic logging devices have become mandatory for most interstate commercial carriers since 2017 to track their drivers’ speed and braking activities. These systems also provide the driver’s GPS location and driving hours.
Event data recorders capture the seconds immediately before a crash. The data can demonstrate if the driver exceeded speed limits, became too tired, or performed hard braking. The preservation of that data needs immediate legal action since it becomes vulnerable to overwriting and erasure within a short time frame after a crash.
Truck accident cases routinely involve multiple defendants. Each defendant maintains separate insurance coverage while facing different degrees of liability. The legal process requires complete identification of all responsible parties because this process affects the calculation of compensation, which must cover long-term costs resulting from catastrophic injuries.
The investigation requires all elements to be completed and a comprehensive investigation needs to start as soon as possible. Evidence exists that connects the carrier to the driver while showing the truck’s maintenance history and the cargo-loading operations.
The Scale of Injury Demands a Matching Legal Response
People who sustain truck accident injuries that reach catastrophic levels require more than three months to recover. The medical treatment, rehabilitation, long-term care, and loss of earning capacity that follow a serious truck crash accumulate over years and decades. Injured individuals and their families require financial resources. The settlements or verdicts must be included in their future expenses.
Immediately after an accident, trucking companies and their insurers begin their crash investigation process. The investigation process needs to reach the same standards that exist for the defense team since the people who suffered from these crashes deserve equal protection. Carrying out investigations will safeguard evidence while establishing all accountable parties and recording their complete financial losses.
Japan is a country that builds 100-year companies; while 50 years ago Made In Japan implied an inferior mass-manufactured product, the quality of Japan today says Switzerland of the East. Tokyo might fool you: it is a city that was so far ahead in the 90s that it still looks high-tech today but most of Japan is built on traditions of hand craft and a quality of design.
While so much has changed since the Iran war started, the stark image of a package of a once very colorful snack brand now in monochrome black and white in Japan throws us back to the feeling of Victory Gardens, and World War I and II when items were rationed and old flour sacks were turned into clothing.
The Holon Design Museum features war-era clothing made from maps and flour sacks.
The move comes in response to “supply instability affecting certain raw materials amid ongoing tensions in the Middle East,” the company said in a statement. “This measure is intended to help maintain a stable supply of products.”
Calbee stresses that what’s inside the bag remains the same and they say the black-and-white change will apply to 14 products sold in Japan. The new packaging will start appearing on May 25 and won’t affect product quality.
A spokesperson from the Japanese government said it had “received no reports of immediate supply issues regarding printing ink or naphtha, and we recognize that the necessary volume for Japan as a whole is being secured.”
Naphtha is a byproduct of the petroleum industry and sometimes used in parts of the ink manufacturing process.
Beyond fuel, crude oil is the foundation for thousands of everyday products. Petrochemicals are used to make plastics, synthetic fabrics such as polyester and nylon, printer and pen inks, paints, detergents, cosmetics, medicines, tires, asphalt, fertilizers, pesticides, and many components in electronics and medical devices.
The packaging around food, the foam in mattresses and car seats, the insulation in buildings, and even items like lipstick may contain oil-derived ingredients. In practical terms, if something is made of plastic, synthetic fibers, rubber, or industrial chemicals, there is a good chance it originated from the oil and gas industry.
Microplastics in chewing gum
Did you know that chewing gum is made from plastic and releases an estimated 3000 pieces plastic particles in a 10 minute chew?
A retired Swiss biology teacher has built one of the most unusual diving devices ever featured on Green Prophet: a sleek, fish-shaped underwater breathing system called Hydrophilis. Inspired by the hydrodynamics of marine animals and refined through dozens of test dives, the compact rebreather allows its inventor, Oliver Isler, to glide underwater with dramatically less effort than conventional scuba gear.
The Hydrophilis rebreather, supplied by Oliver Isler to Green Prophet. If air runs out it can be removed for a quick ascent. Look how streamlined it is with the mask.
Isler under water wearing the oddly shaped, by aerodynamic rebreather
Since then, Isler has continued testing and refining the prototype in Swiss lakes and warm-water seas, completing 54 dives and proving that his idea is far more than a whimsical experiment.
The Hydrophilis resembles an Assyrian invention from 3,000 years ago. It uses an animal bladder filled with air.
Isler is not an engineer. Before retirement, he taught biology in a Swiss secondary school. His ambition was not to launch a company or disrupt the diving industry, but to create a device that would allow him to move through the water as effortlessly and quietly as possible. “The search for symbiosis — to blend into the marine environment — means seeking ease of movement and discretion, in order to disturb the local fauna as little as possible,” he tells Green Prophet in an exclusive interview.
To achieve this, he adopted a NACA airfoil profile, the same aerodynamic geometry used in aircraft wings and submarine bodies. The result is a streamlined shell that dramatically reduces drag.
Faster Than Conventional Scuba
Traditional scuba equipment places cylinders, hoses, and buoyancy devices across a diver’s back and sides, creating significant resistance in the water on the back side of the diver. Hydrophilis was built different.
At age 75, using a soft monofin designed for endurance rather than speed, Isler reached 2.2 meters per second in a swimming pool. By comparison, he says that conventional scuba divers rarely exceed 0.7 meters per second even under intense effort. This reduction in drag means less energy expenditure, less noise, and a more meditative experience underwater. You can become one with the water instead of being pressured to maintain buoyancy.
How the Hydrophilis System Works
Hydrophilis is a miniature closed-circuit rebreather. Instead of releasing bubbles with every breath, the diver reuses exhaled gas after carbon dioxide is absorbed by soda lime.
The prototype Isler built includes:
A 1-liter, 300-bar cylinder
A custom 3-liter counterlung
Integrated soda lime scrubber
Modified mouthpiece
Compact helmet and fairing
Weighted belt using dense cobalt shot
Isler dives with pure oxygen to depths of 6 meters, with 90 to 100 minutes of autonomy, or with Nitrox 55 to 20 meters, where he achieves 45 to 50 minutes of dive time.
He says it’s safety through simplicity: Unlike commercial rebreathers, Hydrophilis has no redundant backup system. If anything fails, Isler removes the helmet and ascends directly to the surface while exhaling. This is the nature of the system. Using traditional systems, a diver would face nitrogen poisoning requiring a decompression chamber.
Swim like a shark, and it’s less cumbersome than with tanks on your backA quick ascent without nitrogen poisoning
“With pure oxygen or Nitrox 55%, even from 20 meters, no decompression stop is required,” he says. The philosophy is radical miniaturization rather than electronic complexity.
Will Hydrophilis Ever Be Sold?
Probably not, he says. But would Cousteau be happy? Hell yeah!
Certification standards currently require a counterlung volume of at least 5 liters, while Hydrophilis uses only 3 liters, which Isler says is entirely sufficient. He also questions whether there is a large commercial market for a device requiring soda lime and specialized training.
“My primary goal has always been to explore this hydrodynamic concept and enjoy the experience myself, without aiming for commercialization.”
Hydrophilis is not intended to replace scuba: “I see Hydrophilis as a freediver who does not need to hold their breath,” Isler says.
That may be the best description of this extraordinary invention: a personal experiment in biomimicry, engineering, and underwater grace.
For those who dream of moving like a fish, Oliver Isler has shown that sometimes the most compelling innovations come not from corporations, but from curious individuals willing to challenge convention.
Hydrodynamic. It may include less volume, but you’ll need less air using this streamlined device.
Below is our Q&A interview with Oliver Isler, in his own words:
Green Prophet: Your design seems inspired by fish, dolphins, and the natural shapes of marine animals. Was your goal to mimic nature, or was the streamlined form primarily driven by hydrodynamic engineering?
The goal was to achieve a streamlined shape with minimal drag (resistance to forward motion). While I did want to disturb marine animals as little as possible, the constraints of physics led me to adopt a NACA profile. So it was primarily a technical constraint.
Green Prophet: You are a retired biology teacher, not a professional diving engineer. How did your background in biology shape the concept of Hydrophilis?
I am not a diving engineer. Before retiring, I was a biology teacher at a secondary school. The search for symbiosis — to “blend into” the marine environment — means seeking ease of movement and discretion in order to disturb the local fauna as little as possible.
Green Prophet: Scuba diving equipment has remained largely unchanged for decades. Why do you think there has been so little innovation in underwater breathing systems?
That is a broad question! Indeed, there have been relatively few changes. That said, the basic equipment is functional, and for a standard diver who simply wants to observe the underwater world, it is sufficient. In addition, a second regulator has very often been added, which has further improved safety.
Green Prophet: What are the main performance advantages of Hydrophilis compared with traditional scuba gear?
The original idea was truly to achieve the best possible penetration through the water. Dive duration is not greater than with traditional scuba equipment, but it is very good considering the extremely compact size. Improved hydrodynamics inevitably result in a major reduction in drag, while also allowing faster movement.
I conducted a speed test in a swimming pool. At 75 years old, using a soft monofin (stiffness 3 on a scale of 8), intended more for endurance swimming than pure speed, I was able to reach 2.2 meters per second, which is not bad for my age! With traditional scuba gear, it is difficult to reach even 0.7 m/s under intense effort.
Regarding safety, the only real advantage is the reduced effort required to move forward. Otherwise, in case of a problem, the procedure is simply to return to the surface. With pure oxygen or Nitrox 55%, even from a depth of 20 meters, no decompression stop is required. Therefore, in the event of a breathing-system failure, ascent is normally straightforward.
Without going as far as meditation, the pleasure of effortless movement is obviously present on every dive.
Green Prophet: Switzerland has a history of precision engineering and unusual inventors. Do you think there is something in Swiss culture that encourages independent experimentation?
Difficult to answer. Does the serious — sometimes overly serious — and orderly Swiss mentality encourage people to break free from that psychological framework by attempting somewhat unconventional experiments? Perhaps, but that is only a hypothesis, and I am not sure it is something specifically Swiss.
Green Prophet: Some people on social media have mocked the appearance of Hydrophilis. How do you respond to criticism and jokes about your invention?
With social media, one must expect every possible reaction: supportive or mocking. Comparing my prototype to a penis is not particularly flattering. My hypothesis is that those who reacted that way did so emotionally, without even taking the time to read my article in In DEPTH. Or are they frustrated? Perhaps.
My response to that kind of reaction is this: people who never attempt anything, who have no projects or challenges in their lives, certainly avoid failure. That is true. But I do not envy them, because I find such an existence somewhat dull.
I also believe that any innovation may first be rejected before eventually being accepted.
Green Prophet: Without a traditional backup air source, how do you manage safety if the breathing system fails underwater?
As I explained earlier, safety does not depend on someone else. I trained to simulate a failure scenario. In such a case, I remove the helmet (see photos) and ascend, freediving if necessary, while exhaling slightly to avoid pulmonary overexpansion. Once at the surface, I simply swim back to the boat, for example.
A different protocol would be incompatible with miniaturization, since there is no room for a backup system.
Green Prophet: Do you see Hydrophilis as a replacement for scuba diving, or as an entirely different category of underwater experience?
I see Hydrophilis more as a different approach. Something like a freediver who does not need to hold their breath!
It will never compete with traditional scuba diving, but rather offer a different way of diving and moving through the marine environment.
Green Prophet: What was the greatest engineering challenge in building such a compact underwater breathing system?
For optimal penetration through the water, the fairing had to occupy the smallest possible volume. Miniaturization therefore became an obsession, while still respecting breathing-hose diameters and mouthpiece dimensions compatible with effortless breathing.
For example, I had to modify a mouthpiece so that it would take up the least possible space. The miniature cylinder (1 liter / 300 bar), with its optimal shape, the soda lime filter integrated into the body of the prototype, and the counterlung specially built to conform as closely as possible to the interior of the fairing were all part of this process.
The weighting system as well, using cobalt shot (18 g/cm³), is worn underneath the freediving suit.
Green Prophet: Could Hydrophilis ever become a commercial product?
I honestly have no idea.
The major issue with certification is that the required counterlung volume is at least 5 liters. Mine is about 3 liters, which is entirely sufficient. So it would first require convincing certification experts to change their mindset so that such a design could be recognized. Not simple.
Then there is the question of whether there would even be a market for Hydrophilis. That is uncertain as well, because the use of soda lime means it will never become a true mass-market product.
Personally, my primary goal has always been to explore this hydrodynamic concept and enjoy the experience myself, without aiming for commercialization.
Could it inspire similar projects in the future? Time will tell.
Zara Nur confronts their own mortality, and God?, as they contemplate the fungal networks and neural entanglements lurking or waiting for us in the quantum world
Can Zara speak with their recently departed mother through fungal networks?
In April my mom passed away and I attended her funeral as a relative outsider in her life. Seeking some distance from her friends, I borrowed the Israeli custom of wearing sunglasses to her funeral despite being in the oft-cloudy Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It felt like I needed a reason to be there, so I brought my phone and videoed her funeral for my as-yet non-existant children who will never meet her. Doubtless her funeral wasn’t something I’d have been invited to while she was living, yet death is both a final estrangement and reunion. Due to our relationship in life, my mom’s passing was more relief and closure for me than it was grief.
Grieving Disconnection
In life my mom’s absence brought peace and a feeling of security, albeit with dread anticipation of her presence. Her presence brought chaos, instability, and unpredictability along an inevitable gradient to emotional abuse. Yet her absence and presence mutually denied me one thing: a parent capable of and committed to being a parent. No one else ever met the version of her that I knew, so totally different was her attitude towards other people.
As I grew up, I grew up without really ever seeing my home as a home. Not only uprooted, also disconnected from everyone and everything, especially my own Jewish family and heritage. Naturally this led to my ignorant lack of understanding and deep resentments that isolated me further. In that isolation I became kept, feeling more like a caged experiment that a mother’s child.
Finding Healing
After some terrible relationships and serious health problems, I took time to heal and grieve my upbringing. Healing is inarguably non-linear lifelong process, something our minds and bodies do, while we can intentionally practice healing deeply. That has been a painfully serious undertaking for me the past two years, though I have been on this path since 2021. And even before then I spent so much time learning embodied arts, to nourish my body, visiting both doctors and therapists. Still, the lasting sense of peace and sure knowledge of security only arrived as my mom passed.
As morbid as that might sound, the way she died was a death I’ve often feared for myself. Confronting that possibility for myself, I am grateful my mom died as she did and grateful for her teaching me something about life through her death. Looking down at her body empty of what was her, I felt an unburdening of that pain and less fear of mortality. Corpses have always haunted my mind and I’ve dreaded mortality since I was little. On some level I’ve always resonated with the idea that there is spiritual contagion in death. In Judaism, contact with dead bodies both human and other-than-human interacts with complex belief which parallel contagion.
Spiritual Contagion
While it’s true that literal disease can reside in corpses, mine was not a fear of some kind of plague. It was a fear beyond the rational in the deep ruminative spiral of my mind. Being released from that fear is the only gift my mom has given me worth carrying and cherishing. No physical gift could match the unburdening from that fear, so utterly crushing has it been.
I am also glad that she chose green burial instead of cremation or an even more ecologically impactful burial. I hope that someday the cemetary here will allow me to plant her grave with the native wild-flowers she loved, for her body to slowly entangle into over time.
Entangled Tales
This Italian firm creates burial pods that turn into trees
I am not a physicist, yet I’ve read that heat destroys quantum entanglement, making cremation weirdly scarring, If there is a trace of what lived, even the trace of an echo, green burial grants continuity. Interestingly, another kind of entanglement persists in death, as I’ve been reading in Merlin Sheldrake’s book Entangled Life.
Fungi are often decomposers, built of ubiquituous microstructures called hyphae that combine like microscopic fibers into larger masses. Mushrooms are one such structure, yet hardly a universal strategy for fungi. Commonly hyphae weave themselves into lacy mycelial nets capable of moving nutrients and information. Fungi also love to interweave with plant roots or deeper still into plants’ own cells.
Not just plants, rather all life is within hyphae’s reach of the venerable fungi. In death fungi return our bodies to that mighty web of life, an undeniable connection to life’s cycle. In returning our bodies for our fungal friends to reunite with the Earth we enact a lasting stewardship, restful and redemptive.
Psychedelic Blessings
Judaism may have a place for fungal blessings in addition to curses, a connection I’ll explore more in anticipation of the Jewish month of Elul. As for the spiritual symptom of contagion of tzaraat often written about in the Torah, it’s as painful and destructive as any curse, yet that moldy affliction is not all fungi offer. Though Sheldrake references a folk medicine called “chamka” that is supposedly in the Talmud, psychedelics are the blessing he argues for the healing power of. While confined to being viewed with suspicion for decades, psychedelic mushrooms are now the basis of nearly-mainstream healing processes. Though Sheldrake describes some of his experiences with the eccentric Terrence McKenna, the science is serious and goes far beyond pioneering psychonauts.
Terrence McKenna from Chacruna.net
Research has consistently shown that the fruits of these enigmatic lifeforms unharnesses our brains from controlling thought patterns. This in turn allows for a healing experience where one rearranges their mental connections. This rewiring often creates an experience I personally relate to being a single hypha in a vast interconnected mycelial lifeweb. It’s beyond a visceral or intellectual experience, a lasting reconnection to a sense of something universal. That experience is like a lifeline in a desert of despair, a door out of isolation, and peace with mortality.
Healing Eternally
A basket of mushrooms collected in Bearland, Ontario, Canada by Karin Kloosterman
Albeit eccentric, McKenna proposed that fungi could speak through our minds with mushrooms acting as messengers. And why not, given the complex chemical interactions that scientists have found? If hyphae carry information and people experiencing psychedelics journey through a spiritual death and rebirth, what if it’s a story of that endless cycle as witnessed by fungi? What if fungi remember through their entanglements with life and tell that story again and again inside human minds? While Sheldrake doesn’t delve deeply into the science of psychedelic experiences and understandably glosses over the details of how growing these mushrooms has become as easy as culinary oyster mushrooms, he perfectly describes this emerging field of medicine.
Amanita or fly agaric is a psychotropic mushroom found widely in Canada
For many, the kind of healing one of my mom’s friends urged on me at her funeral, might be found in that same ancient fungal tale of death and rebirth. In Judaism, there’s a story about the Israelites dropping dead in their tracks and being returned to life, a story that may have a basis in psychedelic experiences more particular to Judaism. While that’s speculative, Sheldrake describes how psychedelic experiences helped McKenna and many other people through the deserts of their fears and the promise of community. That sense of connection breaks down the walls between people and helps them find connections through the substrate of their lives.
Similarly, my own experiences years ago helped me find the perspective to see my mom’s funeral as continuity, a return to universal existence. Despite wearing sunglasses and filming, I felt gratitude during her funeral instead of simply feeling disconnected. I find beauty that through slow decomposition hyphae record, retell, and remember her body’s story to pass onto roots via mycorrhizae and ever onward. I hope someday that story will ride the wind on the seeds of her beloved milkweeds, embroidered into their own story through those hyphae.
Milkweed (aka: Hand with Dandelion) by Ruth Bernhard, 1936
A decade ago, we met Shimrit Perkol-Finkel in a startup incubator in Tel Aviv. She was one of those unforgettable founders who combined scientific rigor with a deep sense of purpose. As a marine ecologist and co-founder of ECOncrete, she challenged the idea that seawalls, ports, and breakwaters were destroying marine ecosystems.
Her vision was to redesign concrete so that infrastructure needed around cities and harbors could protect coastlines while creating habitat for fish, oysters, and other marine life. Her invention has been installed in breakwalls all over the world from New York to Tel Aviv.
Shimrit Perkol Finkel , founder of Econcrete death by scooter
In 2021, Shimrit was killed in a tragic scooter accident in Tel Aviv. She was just 43 years old. Her death sent shockwaves through Israel’s environmental and startup communities.
But her vision did not end there.
This week, ECOncrete announced a $14 million funding round led by Builders Vision, with participation from Barclays Climate Ventures, the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation’s ReOcean Fund, BDT & MSD, DCP, and Open Road Impact.
Now led by co-founder and CEO Dr. Ido Sella, the company is scaling globally. ECOncrete’s biodiversity-enhancing concrete has already been used in marine infrastructure projects from Rotterdam and New York to San Diego, the Mediterranean, and New Zealand.
Over the past 18 months alone, the company has delivered more than 20 projects and created over 90,000 square meters of marine habitat.
Econcrete
Shimrit believed that infrastructure should heal rather than harm. We are happy to see the dream is still alive.
AI makes it easy to dream, develop, and create images of what could be world-changing ideas, until the reality sets in. A new project making the rounds is Aqua Solaire, an alleged French concept for a solar-powered desalination vessel designed to bring drinking water to coastal communities facing drought, storms, and infrastructure failures.
According to project materials attributed to the Agence Française de Développement (AFD), the French Ministry for Overseas Territories, and SUEZ Water France, the vessel is designed to produce up to 500,000 liters of WHO-standard drinking water per day using 1,200 square meters of bifacial solar panels and onboard battery storage.
The ship, they posit, would anchor offshore and begin operating within hours, pumping fresh water ashore through flexible pipelines. This mobile approach could help small islands, cyclone-hit regions, and remote coastal communities that lack permanent desalination plants. The technology itself is not new.
But the package looks fresh because desalination technology usually looks like a factory with pipes, pools and pumps. But commenters on LinkedIn are going crazy over the idea, practically willing it into existence. Aqua Solaire, at least the concept of it, uses reverse osmosis membranes, the same desalination process used in some of the world’s largest water plants, including those in Israel. What is novel is the integration of solar power, battery storage, and marine mobility into one platform.
Desalination is an extremely energy-intense method for creating drinking water. And water experts like Gidon Bromberg say it should always be used as a last resort. The brine disturbs and harms sealife. Carbon emissions are catastrophic. Paired with renewables already takes some of the pressure off but it’s not a golden ticket to free water.
Israel has become the world’s proving ground for desalination. The country now gets roughly 70–80% of its household drinking water from five giant reverse osmosis plants along the Mediterranean coast, including the landmark Sorek facility, which for years was the largest seawater desalination plant on Earth.
The Sorek Desalination Plant
That experience matters.
Israelis know what it takes to turn seawater into affordable drinking water at scale. They understand the energy demands, the membrane fouling, the brine disposal, and the economics. So when Israeli water professionals reacted to the widely shared Aqua Solaire concept, their comments were enthusiastic but grounded in engineering reality.
Ravid Levy, an Israeli water technology consultant with more than two decades of experience in cleantech R&D and climate resilience, put the numbers in perspective:
“500 m³/day is not a lot but could be good for small islands or coastal towns and resorts.” We are thinking about Shebara in Saudi Arabia, but they’ve already built a sedentary system on the island.
Shebara from mirror pods above
Levy’s point is important. Aqua Solaire’s claimed production of 500,000 liters per day sounds impressive, but it is tiny compared to Israel’s utility-scale desalination plants.
In other words, Aqua Solaire would produce less than one-tenth of one percent of what Israel’s largest facilities deliver each day.
Levy added another sobering observation: “We can make this capacity in a 20-foot containerized RO system. So the new thing here, and the massive size of vessel, is for the PV and batteries.”
This is perhaps the most important reality check.
The desalination component is not novel. Companies around the world, including Israeli firms, already build compact reverse osmosis systems that fit inside shipping containers and can be deployed rapidly to remote communities.
What is different is the floating solar platform?
Nir Gartzman, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of theDOCK, Israel’s maritime and water innovation hub, questioned whether the vessel exists at all: “Can you share more, company name? Vessel registration? Can’t find anything that supports such in relevant databases.”
Green Prophet searched online and unless this is in stealth mode, we can probably just boil it down to another dream of wishful thinking.
This skepticism reflects a culture shaped by necessity. Israel built its desalination industry under severe water scarcity, where technologies had to perform under real conditions, not just look good in renderings.
Despite the skepticism, Israeli experts acknowledge that the concept could fill a niche. If commercialized, Aqua Solaire could become an important tool for humanitarian response, island resilience, and water security in a warming world. Pair it to a floating bar around the beaches of Sicily and it can help brew endless pints of beer without refilling for water back on shore.
After six or seven trips to Thailand, I thought I knew Bangkok. I’ve visited the busiest roads, like Khao San Road and its side streets. I’ve been to night markets, flower markets, malls, aquariums, and temples. I’ve taken slow boats up the Chaopraya River.
In recent years, I’ve only used Bangkok as a place to sleep before launching to Chiang Mai or for family adventures to Koh Phangan, Phuket, and other islands where life slows to the rhythm of the sea. But I had never really explored Bangkok itself with teens until now.
With two teenagers in tow and four nights to spare, we decided to give Thailand’s capital the attention it deserved. My son had one request: he wanted to rent electric bikes. A friend of his had explored Japan this way, and he was convinced Bangkok would be just as exciting.
He was right.
Ebikes were our best family activity in Bangkok
Getting the daily “medicine”. Well I didn’t let the kids take a shot.
After a quick search, I found Go Bangkok Tours (also known as Go Bangkok E-Bike), a highly rated small-group bike tour company run by a Dutch expat named Ray. The company is based in Bang Rak, one of Bangkok’s oldest and most fascinating neighborhoods, not far from Tower Club at Lebua, the gloriously over-the-top hotel famous for its sweeping city views and its cameo in The Hangover Part II. (Side note: I want to stay there next time.)
The hotel from the movie the Hangover
We booked online without prepayment, showed up with our passports, and were welcomed like old friends. The atmosphere was relaxed and personal. There was plenty of water to drink and even a coconut waiting in the fridge. This wasn’t a giant tour bus operation. It felt more like joining a local friend who happened to know every secret alleyway in Bangkok.
Is it safe to bike in Bangkok with kids?
Quiet side streets where Thai hipsters roam
This was the first question everyone asked when we returned home. “Are you crazy? How do you ride a bike in Bangkok?”
I hadn’t really thought about it because my kids ride bikes in major cities, and we know that in the busiest cities, cars get stuck in traffic and move slowly. I was mostly concerned about the pollution, and surprisingly, it was the least choking air I’d ever experienced in Bangkok.
Bangkok traffic is legendary. Motorbikes weave between cars. Tuk-tuks, which you can hail like an amusement ride, dart in every direction. Crossing the street can feel like a strategic exercise. But the tour was surprisingly safe, except when one rider ran out of power. More on that later.
Our guide was a local Thai, and the tour moved at a relaxed pace. We occasionally crossed busier roads, but most of the ride followed narrow lanes, quiet alleyways, and pedestrian-friendly pathways. Much of the time we were far from heavy traffic, weaving between the backyards and alleys of local communities.
Our guide
And because the bikes were electric, nobody got exhausted.
Why electric bikes are perfect for teenagers
My boy on his electric bike
If you’ve ever traveled with teenagers, you know the secret to a successful trip: to get them off their phones, you need to keep them moving, keep them engaged, and keep them from melting in the heat.
Bangkok in April was blisteringly hot, one of the hottest stretches of weather I’ve experienced in Thailand. The electric bikes solved everything. The pedal assist did most of the work. We still felt active, but there was almost no strain. My teens loved the sense of freedom, gliding through the city with just enough speed to feel adventurous without any real effort.
For families, this is the sweet spot between sightseeing and fun.
One caveat: your teen needs to be at least 160 cm tall.
Ebikes take you to the hidden Bangkok you’d never find in four days
By the river stopping for a shot of a local medicine alcoholic drink
The real magic was seeing parts of Bangkok we never would have discovered by taxi or train.
We passed through narrow canals and quaint neighborhoods where we saw turtles and peacocks. We pedaled through hipster cafés and street art districts, meeting Thai influencers along the way. We explored quiet Buddhist temples, stopped at the bustling flower market, visited a famous hipster coffee shop, and rode through riverside communities before returning by ferry with our bikes.
Another highlight was sampling a strong local herbal spirit nicknamed the Thai answer to Jägermeister. My teenagers were not allowed to join in, and they still haven’t forgiven me.
Feeding turtles in Bangkok
Feedling turtles
Oddly enough, the most memorable part of the day was feeding turtles.
We stopped beside a canal where there was a pond, and we were given a small bag of sausage pieces. For nearly twenty minutes, my kids and I sat together, placing the sausage on sticks and offering it to enormous turtles waiting below. They fought for our meat sticks, and we loved every minute of it.
It was simple, slightly ridiculous, and absolutely unforgettable.
A four-hour shortcut to understanding Bangkok
Looking up at every day family life on the river
Bangkok can be overwhelming. It’s enormous, hot, crowded, and not particularly walkable unless you know exactly where you’re going.
This electric bike tour gave us an insider’s introduction on day one. By the end, we understood the city better and knew which neighborhoods we wanted to revisit.
We also learned about Buddhism, temple etiquette, and the daily rhythms of life in Thailand.
Did you know that spirits in Thailand have a favorite treat?
Those little shrines outside homes, hotels, and businesses are there to attract spirits and ghosts so they don’t move in with you. And their snack of choice? Red Fanta.
If you want to make an offering, crack open a bottle and add a straw.
Don’t avoid Thailand during the rainy season
Placemarking holy trees
Warm tropical rain can be part of the adventure. Getting drenched in Bangkok while riding an electric bike sounds less like a problem and more like a story your family will tell for years.
Cost and value
There are several bike tours on offer in Bangkok. Ours cost around $50 per person, which felt very reasonable considering:
Four hours of guided exploration
Electric bike rental
Ferry ride
Snacks and drinks
Expert local guidance
And for the Dutch guest who ran out of power on his stand-up scooter, there was an extra battery pack fully charged and ready to go.
Near the end of the trip, there was one stretch along a busy road where our guide instructed us not to stop under any circumstances. That, of course, was exactly where his battery ran out.
For us, it was easily one of the best family activities in Bangkok.
Our verdict: 10 out of 10
We’ve done temples, beaches, jungle adventures, and countless city tours.
This electric bike tour in Bangkok stands out as one of our favorite travel experiences in Thailand.
Feeding turtles
Our guide
The hotel from the movie the Hangover
My boy on his electric bike
Bangkok street
See the flower market
Feeding turtles – the best way to end the tour
Flower market
The local influencers come out to film this old rusted car
A shop keeper
Busy streets but the traffic was moving slow
My son on the electric bike we rented from Ray
She makes the potions
Busy street scene
Electric bikes and cycling around Bangkok
Feedling turtles
Getting the daily “medicine”
Feeding the turtles
Quiet side streets where Thai hipsters roam
Shrines and temples along the way
Junk collector
Local artisans and shops
In a hipster coffee shop
Kids feeding the turtles at a shrine
By the river stopping for a shot of a local medicine alcoholic drink
Our guide – he carried an extra battery pack
Hipster coffee and alleys you could never find by walking
You don’t have to languish in jail to make Jailhouse Booze. It’s an easy, fun project you can make in your own kitchen, with fruit juice. Old-time jailbirds used to call it Pruno. We also have another, no-waste, alternative wine recipe: Pea Pod Wine.
It’s said that the merry prisoners used to save up their lunchtime fruit juice, float a slice of moldy bread on it (for yeast) and ferment it in a milk carton, or even a garbage bag. To hide it from the jailers, they’d stash it behind the toilet, and break it out at night for a soirée in the cell.
I doubt anyone makes Pruno anymore. Today’s jailers know all about it, and know where to find that milk carton or garbage bag bulging with illicit alcohol. But if you’d like to try, I recommend fermenting the juice in a clean glass or plastic jug. Stash it in a dark, cool place instead of in the bathroom.
To get that old-time feeling, keep it under the kitchen sink. Best, and most hygenically, make room in the pantry or garage for it.
Don’t make a lot. And don’t use moldy bread unless you’re willing to risk getting sick. (Or maybe inventing Penicillin.) Pruno’s pretty rough, and there’s no quality guarantee at all.
Pruno, Or Jailhouse Booze
Equipment
A very clean plastic or glass jug of 7- cup capacity
A long-handled spoon
A funnel or large ladle
A latex glove or a balloon, new out of the box
A rubber band
A saucer to put under the container in case of fermentation overflow
Ingredients
1-2/3 cup sugar
1 quart/ 4 cups/ 500 ml. fruit juice, any kind, at room temperature
1/8 teaspoon baker’s yeast
1 small handful raisins or grapes
Dissolve the sugar in the juice, stirring well. Funnel or ladle the juice into the jug.
Add the yeast and raisins or grapes.
Fit the glove or balloon over the mouth of the container.
Tie the rubber band around the glove or balloon: fermentation will make it swell and possibly pop off the container
With a pin or needle, poke a hole in the glove or balloon. This allows fermentation gases to escape while keeping bugs and dust out.
Set the container on top of the saucer and put that bad boy away in a cool, dark place.
The Pruno will be ready when the glove or balloon deflates.
Pour it off the sediment, chill it, and enjoy.
Blue City, smart city, renewable energy city: Rotterdam has it all if you are looking for the sustainable model
True progress happens when environmental ambition meets action. Decarbonizing efficiently is possible for any business in any sector, but actually getting started can sometimes feel daunting.
The trick? It’s to start small and build momentum. Here are five potential projects to help you get started.
Dakpark in Rotterdam
Measure your baseline energy consumption
You can’t manage something if you don’t measure it. That’s why the first step on any sustainability journey is to get data. Start with your utility bills to establish a clear starting point. Track usage over the period of a few months to spot any patterns.
Electric cycling in Japan
Create a culture around sustainability
It’s one thing to talk about sustainability. It’s another to embed it into the way your company operates. Get your staff involved in the journey and talk to them about why you want to reduce your environmental impact.
Encourage a culture where people reduce, reuse, and recycle as much as possible. Provide education on the environmental impact of decisions like taking public transport to work. Run challenges to make sustainability feel fun.
Remember, sustainability only works if the leadership team also lives and breathes its values. Encourage employees to make the most sustainable choices. Having your team use public transit instead of driving, for example, can help lower your Scope 3 emissions. Make it feel like a team effort.
A Tesla Semi. An all EV transport truck
Switch to electric options
If you have a company car or a fleet, consider switching to electric vehicles. Doing so will help reduce your reliance on fossil fuels and align your business with global standards.
Even switching one company vehicle, or providing incentives for employees to switch to electric vehicles, can help reduce your Scope 1 emissions (and your Scope 3 emissions, in some cases).
Secret romantic greenhouse
Look for partners to help you out
Sustainability is a global effort, and it takes a team to do it well.
If you’re a larger business that’s ready to go through bigger decarbonization projects, it might be time to look for a sustainability partner to help you build a strategy that matches your goals.
If you’re a small business that provides services to large global corporations, reach out and ask about their Scope 3 programs. They might have initiatives that can help you decarbonize.
A forest in Nipissing, Ontario near Bearland
Invest in carbon credits
To fully achieve net-zero emissions, many companies need to invest in carbon credits. These are tradeable assets that let companies mitigate their residual emissions by funding verified carbon projects.
The carbon market sounds simple, but in reality, it’s quite complex. It’s important that you source your credits from independently vetted sources that adhere to the highest global quality standards.
Start with the first step
The most difficult part of any sustainability strategy is moving from a goal on paper to the first entry on a spreadsheet. Once you bridge the gap between ambition and your first measurable result, the momentum of success makes the next action easier.
When Green Prophet first wrote about the experimental Hydrophilis rebreather by Swiss inventor Oliver Isler, the internet reacted exactly the way the internet reacts to unusual design.
People compared the sleek underwater breathing device to a phallus. Others joked that divers wearing it would become “shark bait.” Some called it ridiculous. Others said it looked like science fiction. But underneath the mockery there was something else: curiosity. A lot of curiosity.
The original article on Hydrophilis, Isler’s radically streamlined underwater rebreather system, sparked strong reactions because the device doesn’t look like normal scuba gear. Instead of bulky tanks and hoses strapped awkwardly to the back, Hydrophilis wraps the diver into a smooth hydrodynamic shape designed to move through water more like a dolphin than a machine.
And while many commenters laughed, others were fascinated by the possibility of quieter, bubble-free diving with less drag and less physical effort. We reached out to Oliver Isler after the reaction online and asked him what he thought about the sudden attention.
We reached out to Oliver Isler after the reaction online and asked him what he thought about the sudden attention.
“Thank you for article, which explains very well the philosophy behind my prototype, designed to be as much as possible in symbiosis with its environment, moving easily with the least possible effort,” Isler tells Green Prophet.
“The greatest challenge was the miniaturization of everything that could be reduced in size, while still remaining comfortable from a breathing standpoint. I dive either on pure oxygen (0 – 6 m), with an autonomy of about 90 – 100 min., or on Nitrox 55 down to 20 m depth, with an autonomy of 45 – 50 minutes.
“I have completed 54 dives so far. My 2 mm freediving wetsuit is intended for warm water (above 18 degrees).”
The original article on Hydrophilis, Isler’s radically streamlined underwater rebreather system, sparked strong reactions because the device doesn’t look like normal scuba gear. Instead of bulky tanks and hoses strapped awkwardly to the back, Hydrophilis wraps the diver into a smooth hydrodynamic shape designed to move through water more like a dolphin than a machine.
“The goal was never to make something provocative. The idea came from a dream I had more than fifteen years ago where I was swimming peacefully among whales and dolphins.”
That dream eventually became Hydrophilis, a chest-mounted closed-circuit rebreather system that attempts to rethink how humans move underwater. Instead of treating diving like hauling industrial equipment into the sea, Isler designed the system around hydrodynamics and low resistance.
Hydrophilis rebreather
“The ideal shape for minimum resistance is the NACA airfoil,” he explains, referring to the aerodynamic forms developed for aircraft engineering. “Everything was built around that principle.”
The Hydrophilis rebreather currently weighs about 10 kilograms and integrates ballast, breathing equipment, and streamlined body shaping into a single form. Unlike traditional scuba tanks worn on the back, the breathing system sits on the chest. Isler says this decision was partly made “to avoid Immersion Pulmonary Edema (IPE), a dangerous affliction whose risk is higher when inhaling from a back-mounted counterlung.”
The device is still experimental. There is no commercial model yet and no announced certification process. Isler says he has completed several dozen dives while continuing to refine buoyancy, visibility, and breathing performance underwater.
Hydrophilis rebreather
Some divers online questioned whether the design is practical. Others wondered whether the unusual shape could attract sharks.
“Suddenly I feel a little inadequate, wrote one commenter.”
Hydrophilis rebreather reactions
But for many underwater enthusiasts, freedivers, futurists, and marine technology fans, Hydrophilis represents something refreshing: an attempt to rethink scuba from the ground up instead of endlessly refining the same tanks and hoses developed decades ago.
Traditional scuba equipment made humans capable underwater. Hydrophilis asks whether humans can become more natural in the water itself.
That difference may explain why people reacted so strongly.
“There is still work to do,” Isler says cautiously. “It’s impossible to say whether it will become a model for the future.”
Still, the project has already succeeded in doing one thing rare in the diving world: getting people to imagine a completely different relationship between the human body and the ocean.
And maybe that’s why even the critics couldn’t stop talking about it.
Green Prophet looks forward to following Hydrophilis as the technology develops and hopes to speak again with Oliver Isler in future interviews about underwater mobility, silent diving systems, and the future of human interaction with the sea.
An aerial view shows an Amazon data center last year in Ashburn, Virginia. Maryland officials are trying to balance between opponents of data centers and their environmental and energy demands, and the wholesale acceptance of centers by Virginia, for their jobs and tax revenues.
AI may unintentionally become the economic engine that finally modernizes America’s aging grid. California is experiencing a massive AI data center boom, ranking 3rd in the U.S. with 227 operating centers and 54 more in development as of April 2026, according to Stanford.
AI is triggering a new energy panic in America. Across the US states of California, Virginia, Texas, Arizona, and Georgia, residents are pushing back against the explosive growth of data centers powering artificial intelligence. People are worried about rising electricity bills, water use, backup diesel generators, massive transmission lines, and entire landscapes being transformed into server farms. They worry about the expansion and the business around it and believe that AI data centers will exploit the land, and give back little to the people in the communities.
The energy demand from AI is unlike anything the internet economy has seen before. Goldman Sachs estimates data center electricity demand could rise more than 160% by 2030. Utilities that spent years planning for flat electricity growth are suddenly scrambling to build power generation again. In places like Northern Virginia, now nicknamed “Data Center Alley,” local resistance has become fierce. Residents complain about noise, visual pollution, water consumption, and fears that ordinary households will subsidize the AI boom through higher utility costs.
But there’s another side to the story that should be getting attention instead of fear. Renewable energy projects like SunZia — the giant new wind and transmission project connecting New Mexico wind power to California — may show how the AI boom could also accelerate the renewable energy transition.
Tesla Powerpacks store energy for grid stability
SunZia is enormous:
3.5 gigawatts of wind energy
a 550-mile high-voltage transmission line
enough electricity for roughly 3 million people
one of the largest renewable infrastructure projects in North American history.
And it’s arriving at exactly the right moment. The question is how does it scale without becoming an out of date boondoggle like the Ivanpah solar energy project? We interviewed Moshe Luz, one of the executives and founders of the company who has ideas up for grabs.
California already produces huge amounts of daytime solar energy, but AI workloads continue around the clock. Solar fades in the evening just as electricity demand rises. So the innovation doesn’t need to come in adding more solar panels, it’s the need for better battery storage and nighttime renewables. Wind, wave, and geothermal might help.
SunZia’s New Mexico wind profile helps solve that problem because wind often strengthens later in the day and overnight. Instead of relying entirely on natural gas plants after sunset, California can increasingly balance its grid using distant wind resources combined with battery storage.
The project is already beginning to send electricity into California while final testing continues. SunZia is not alone.
An aerial picture of new access roads and tower pad sites west of the San Pedro River, near Redrock Canyon, Arizona. Alex Binford-Walsh/Archaeology Southwest, with the support of Lighthawk
Across the American West, a quiet clean-energy arms race is emerging around AI infrastructure.
In California’s Kern County, the Edwards & Sanborn project combines nearly 900 megawatts of solar with one of the world’s largest battery systems. In Nevada, the Gemini Solar project near Las Vegas pairs utility-scale solar with giant batteries designed to stabilize evening demand.
Texas has become perhaps the most radical experiment of all. Massive wind farms, sprawling solar installations, and grid-scale batteries are now increasingly handling short demand spikes that were once served by gas “peaker” plants. Texas leads America in wind energy, boasting over 30,000 MW of capacity from over 150 wind farms as of 2020, often supplying over 20% of the state’s electricity.
Meanwhile, Google and Microsoft are investing in enhanced geothermal energy projects in Nevada and Utah. Unlike solar and wind, geothermal can run 24 hours a day, making it attractive for AI-driven electricity demand that never sleeps.
Ormat’s geothermal energy providersa re leading in the world.
The bigger shift underway is that AI may unintentionally become the economic engine that finally modernizes America’s aging grid.
For decades, utilities hesitated to build large transmission systems because electricity demand grew slowly. Now AI companies, cloud providers, and electrification trends are forcing states to rethink energy infrastructure entirely.
Ironically, the same technology many fear could overheat the planet may also become one of the biggest drivers of renewable energy investment in modern history.
There are tradeoffs.
Projects like SunZia still face lawsuits from Indigenous groups who argue transmission corridors damage sacred landscapes and fragile ecosystems. It’s difficult to get ecological assessments across state lines. Renewable energy itself is now colliding with difficult questions about land use, mining prime materials, water, and who benefits from “green growth.”
Make fermented pineapple juice with barely no work at all
In Cuba, guarapo is simply freshly-pressed sugar cane juice, and is drunk on the spot, without waiting for it to ferment. But in Colombia, Venezuela, Peru and Mexico, they homebrew guarapo from pineapples or oranges, and the fragrant fluid sits on the kitchen counter top to ferment until it’s bubbly.
I learned to make guarapo de piña – pineapple homebrew – when I lived in Venezuela. It’s the most refreshing drink there is on a torrid summer day, and it has all the flavor and perfume of fresh pineapple. And it’s all natural, with a slight fizz that owes nothing to industrial additives. Venezuelan mothers used to ferment it only one day, and give it to their kids after school while it was still mild and non-alcoholic, to help them withstand the afternoon’s heat. It’s like ginger beer, but made from pineapples. Read below for the easy recipe.
Guarapo de Piña (Fermented Pineapple Juice) recipe
I like to let guarapo de piña ferment for several days and drink it as a mild tipple. But watch out. If ferments more than three or four days, it gets strong. You won’t notice it, relaxing and quaffing along…till you get up from your chair.
Traditionally, guarapo is made with papelón, aka panela or rapadura; a chunk of unrefined cane sugar. But lacking papelón, I’ve made delicious guarapo with brown sugar. The surprising part of guarapo de piña is that it’s made with the pineapple rinds, not the fruit itself. It’s a clever way to use every part of those expensive pineapples you buy as a treat, thus avoiding food waste too.
It couldn’t be easier to make guarapo de piña. Take a ripe, sweet-smelling pineapple, and scrub it, the rind still on, with water only. You want to get rid of any dirt, but not to destroy the natural yeast on the rind. That yeast is what will start the fermentation.
Now stand it on its flat end and slice the rind off, taking some flesh with it. You may want to cube and freeze some of the fruit to drop into the drink instead of ice cubes.
Place the rind pieces in a large bowl or jar with 2 liters (8 cups) of fresh, filtered water.
Stir a cup of brown sugar in.
Cover the jar with a clean kitchen towel. Preferably, the jar should sit in a dark corner. But covering it entirely with the towel will protect the contents from the light and keep houseflies off.
Stir the rinds and water once a day. White bubbles will form on the surface; that’s fine.
Wait 1 day for a mild drink that’s safe for kids to drink. Allow it ferment 2 to 3 days if you want an alcoholic kick to it. Taste the guarapo after 2 days and decide if it’s strong/sweet enough for you. Don’t let it go longer than 4 days, especially in the summer, or it will ferment out and become vinegar.
Strain into a pitcher and sweeten again if needed. Serve with plenty of ice. Transfer it to a clean bottle and store in the refrigerator, but drink it up over the next couple of days. And don’t close it hermetically; it will continue to ferment, even in the fridge. I found that out at dinner once when I opened a tightly-closed bottle of guarapo that fountained all over my lasagna.
Seramic materials and the facade at Masdar, a zero-energy city that failed to create community but which passed tests in building standards
Seramic Materials is part of a new wave of companies rethinking what ceramics are made from and what they can do. Instead of digging raw materials out of the earth, they are using what industry throws away.
Based in Masdar City, Abu Dhabi, Seramic Materials was founded in 2019 by Dr. Nicolas Calvet and Dr. Jean-François Hoffmann, researchers working at the intersection of renewable energy and materials science. The company grew out of the Masdar Institute ecosystem and is supported by clean tech programs like The Catalyst, with early backing of around $150,000 and more than $2 million invested in research and development over time.
The Seramic Team
At its core, Seramic takes industrial waste such as steel slag, incinerator ash, and other mineral byproducts and transforms them into ceramic materials. These materials are then used to create building products like tiles and pavers, as well as advanced technical ceramics. Instead of extracting new clay or minerals, the company treats waste as a resource, reducing landfill use and cutting carbon emissions by at least 20 to 30 percent compared to traditional ceramics.
Seramic equiment
This is where the circular economy becomes real. Ceramics have always been made from earth. Seramic simply expands that idea by using what has already been taken from the earth and discarded. The result is a loop rather than a line. Waste becomes material, material becomes product, and eventually returns without adding new burden.
One of the company’s most important projects is ReThink Seramic Flora, a high temperature ceramic designed for thermal energy storage. It can store heat at temperatures up to 1250°C, making it useful for solar power systems and industrial heat recovery. This connects ceramics directly to the energy transition, allowing renewable energy to be stored and used when needed.
Seramic’s materialMade in the UAE Tech Park
The company is also working with partners like Bee’ah in the UAE to scale waste conversion systems and address growing volumes of industrial ash.
Where this is going is clear. Ceramics are no longer just tiles or bricks. They are becoming part of energy infrastructure, waste management systems, and low carbon manufacturing. Companies like Seramic are turning one of the oldest materials on earth into something that fits a future built on circular thinking.
