3D printing means fast, rabid prototyping with less waste. There are all kinds of eco printing, 3D and on paper. Like this printer that builds homes.
Being sustainable has never been more important. There has been a push to be more eco-friendly with business taking big leaps to make a positive impact on the environment. Etsy, for example, offsets carbon from deliveries made, meaning every time an item is purchased on the site, the company balances out the carbon emissions by investing in projects which reduce them.
One industry which can make more of a positive impact is printing. If you’re a business that regularly prints, there are some small changes you can make to be more eco-friendly.
Use recycled paper
If you need to print something off, using recycled paper is the greenest solution. Compared to using plain paper made from scratch, it uses far less water, energy produces fewer carbon emissions – did you know that every ton of new paper requires 19,000 gallons of water? Not only does recycled paper help reduce this, but it reduces the amount of paper heading to a landfill. According to research, today 91% of all printed paper is made from non-recycled materials.
Print double-sided
Another way to make sustainable choices is to promote printing double-sided. Not only will it save paper, but it will also save you money. It is estimated that a standard pine tree – which most paper is made from – will produce around 10,000 sheets of paper. In fact, an average-sized office will use the equivalent of one tree every year. But if you default to printing double-sided your office could use less of a tree (if you choose to use recycled paper, that will be even less).
Recycle your cartridges
Where do you dispose of your printer cartridges? Ink cartridges are toxic if they go to landfill. They’re plastic and take years to decompose – but up to 97% of materials used to create ink cartridges can be recycled and reused. Tonergiant.co.uk explains that over 350 million empty cartridges are thrown away each year and they can help direct you to getting your empty cartridges where they need to be and out of the landfill.
Some facts on why it’s important to dispose of your cartridges from TonerGiant.co.uk:
The UK is responsible for disposing of 55 million cartridges.
Cartridges which are disposed of in the bin can cover Old Trafford 119 times.
On average, the components of a cartridge can take 1,000 years to naturally decompose.
Eight cartridges are thrown away every minute. If only four of these were recycled it could produce 20 more cartridges for 80% less energy.
Switch to eco-mode
Another way to be more sustainable when it comes to printing is to invest in a printer with eco mode. It can reduce power consumption, save on ink or toner, and reduce paper usage. You can set this a default setting so you know your printer is being sustainable for every print.
Being more eco-friendly with your printing can have positive impacts all around. Not only does it have a huge benefit on the environment, over time, making greener choices can save you money too.
Black Friday: make a conscious decision to buy nothing.
Retailers and marketers everywhere can thank the Canadians for this killjoy idea that fights for the environment: instead of buying more than you can afford on Black Friday, you get Buy Nothing Day instead. We started writing about Buy Nothing Day in 2008.
The slogan goes like this:
“Every November, for 24 hours, we remember that no one was born to shop – we make a small choice to participate by not participating.”
This year any way you slice it, has posed unprecedented challenges to humanity: from COVID-19 related infections and restrictions to elevated stress levels and an increase in plastic waste.
Consider that Wuhan, the original COVID-19 epicenter, experienced a massive rise in medical waste, from 40 to 50 tons a day before the outbreak to about 247 tons on March 1st. Other urban centers all over the world, from Kuala Lumpur to London, have experienced the same increase.
The effects of this pandemic have already been referenced as a “major setback” in terms of environmental progress of recent years. The exponential use of disposable medical masks is another type of waste, actively adding up to the overall planet pollution.
Many retailers and coffee shops stopped permitting users to bring their reusable cups. Restaurants had to switch to takeout delivery (more plastic!) and supermarkets doubled down on plastic packaging to make products look more “safe.”
The year 2020 is asking us for resilience. On top of that, it is important to be conscientious and cut down on unnecessary spending to not add more waste to an already enormous pile of waste that is poisoning our planet. We already love second and
Did you have those feelings during lockdown that the way we were living was spinning out of control? I remember the freedom of buying nothing, having nowhere to go, nothing I had to become.
Canadian artist Ted Dave started Buy Nothing Day in Vancouver in September but it’s now celebrated on the Friday or Saturday after Thanksgiving and is considered a day for society to assess our overconsumption problem.
Today, over 65 countries have already joined the celebration, calling for consumers to contemplate Black Friday madness and consider creating a more sustainable lifestyle of buying less and producing less waste.
It doesn’t take much to celebrate Buy Nothing Day. You basically don’t buy any more junk you don’t need. Abstaining from shopping is a significant contribution. Spreading awareness through personal channels like social media or microblogs is also a great idea so that more people learn about this initiative and consider participating themselves. Donating a share of the money that you were going to spend on Black Friday sales to an environmental organization will directly help our planet and surely make you feel good too.
Even consumer-facing companies can stand up to the idea of buying nothing, or buying less but buying better.
Made with Respect, a sustainable not-for-profit online, believes that this year it is more important than ever to be conscious of purchases of new clothing, choosing sustainable materials, and being mindful of waste and recycling.
Abu Dhabi-headquartered International Fund for Houbara Conservation (IFHC) has entered a ground-breaking partnership with the Israel Nature & Heritage Foundation (INHF) to collaborate on conservation on threatened birds.
The breakthrough MoU will see both organisations collaborate over the next five years on the conservation of the Houbara bustard and other rare and threatened bird species in Israel.
The MoU was signed on behalf of IFHC by His Excellency Majid Ali Al Mansouri, and on behalf of INHF by Major General Matan Vilnai.
It follows the normalisation of relations between the UAE and Israel with the signing of the Abraham Accords Agreement back in August 2020. All sorts of areas in sustainability are opening up between the nations since. Read our primer here.
“Under this landmark agreement, INHF will benefit from IFHC’s substantial knowledge on the biology, behaviour and population dynamics of the Houbara bustard and other vulnerable species and its expertise in the restoration and preservation of habitats and ecosystems,” said Vilnai.
“Working in coordination with the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, we will now together prepare and implement programmes for effective Houbara conservation within our country.”
“This is a momentous accord for IFHC, allowing us to cooperate with experts in a country that is an intercontinental bird migration junction and where great conservation efforts are being undertaken,” said H.E. Al Mansouri from the Abu Dhabi side.
“In our drive to foster greater global dialogue and cooperation on conservation we are honoured to share IFHC’s years of scientific research and excellence in the field with our fellow committed conservationists in Israel.
“Our organisations will immediately begin working together to identify, assess, document, and present potential projects. We anticipate our collaboration delivering a significant boost to the conservation of rare and threatened bird species within Israel and to the international bank of scientific conservation knowledge.”
Israel is home to resident Asian Houbara mainly observed in the Negev desert. The agreement will involve field studies and research aimed at preserving the Houbara population and its habitat in the region.
Such studies will include monitoring wild populations to assess survival, dispersal, and breeding success.
IFHC will continue leading efforts to rebalance wild Houbara populations across the range countries through its successful breeding and release programme that has so far bred more than 553,119 Houbara and released 375,383 plus birds into the wild since inception.
Palestinian farmers have learned to love, not fear, barn owls
Israel has done enormous things for bird conservation as well. Start with Prof. Yossi Leshem to read about his work conserving owls, kestrels and migratory birds. Some Muslim groups consider owls to be cursed and are often killed in countries like Jordan. A lack of conservation efforts and overwintering ponds in Israel and the region mean migrating birds from Africa to Europe won’t make their journey safely.
Let’s hope the Emirates and Israel bird loving team can also help Cyprus. Locals there kill millions of migrating birds to pickle them in a dish. It’s called ambelopoulia.
A new girlfriend, once interning for O., Oprah’s magazine, lent me an old review copy of Life in Code, by Ellen Ullman. It’s a series of essays by Silicon Valley programmer and author Ullman, one of the rare women who helped build the early days of computer programming, that which our future world of artificial intelligence will be built on. I know from my work founding a tech startup (read Mountain Thinking) that the coders who build algorithms today, are creating the foundations of tomorrow.
In her book Ullman explores the personality that engineers transmit to their code. She explores the racism, sexism, classism that pervaded and still pervades Silicon Valley. She tells us how programs built 40 years ago by the world’s first coders are inexorably intwined with the foundations of every new line of code written today.
Knowing the implications of having a 27-year-old guy who drinks Soylent and who can barely speak to real people –– building the foundations of machine learning and artificial intelligence –– is frightening.
While I don’t wish the life of a coder on anyone – it can be isolating, disconnected from reality, anxiety-inducing –– I do wish that those who go for it come with a set of values that embrace whole planet thinking. How? We need equal opportunities in teaching people how to code. (Read our past story on anglers in A.I.) And we need that code to consider religion, gender, age, opinions, fake news, real news, the language of plants…animals, minerals.
And that is why I like to hear about cities that stand up and teach code to anyone who is not like them.
Asylum seekers to Israel from violent countries like Sudan and Eritrea have had a challenging time integrating into Israel. They’ve crossed deserts, evaded live fire at the Egyptian border –- yet have never really felt at home in the Promised Land.
Social projects in Neve Shaanan
A new project by the City of Tel Aviv-Jaffa is offering a coding course to selected refugees, giving them a jumpstart to a new career path. And in my eyes a chance to influence the machine.
The program is launched by The Platform, a municipal entrepreneurship center located in Tel Aviv’s Neve Shaanan neighborhood, and PresenTense, a social entrepreneurship program in Israel.
Refugees from Sudan learn how to be modern farmers
The coding program is organized in close partnership with the African Refugee Development Center, a non-profit founded in 2004 by asylum seekers and Israeli citizens to empower African refugees, asylum seekers and migrant workers.
The 10-week coding course provides basic coding in Python and entrepreneurial skills to asylum seekers who wish to pursue future studies in the field.
A pilot welcomed a total of 10 students, who were selected from a pool of over 50 applicants following a basic computer and logic skills test, and an interview. All 10 students completed the course successfully and expressed interest in pursuing advanced-level coding programs in future.
Fisseha Tsegai Tesfamichael, an asylum seeker from Eritrea and graduate of the course said, “My hope for the future is to teach young people from my community and share with them what I know and have experienced. The journey of life is short, so let’s make the world better together.”
Shana Krakowski, director of The Platform said: “The dedication of the students in the course exceeded our expectations, with students never missing a class and improving their skills in such a short time. We hope this will be the first of many.”
The course was guided by Ismail Kharoub, a self-taught coder and successful entrepreneur from Jaffa who was able to teach participants in Arabic, Hebrew and English.
Ismail Kharoub
While some students hope that the course will represent their first step toward a tech career, others ultimately hope to start their own businesses building websites or their own applications.
Others aim to transfer their newly acquired knowledge to their respective communities, narrowing digital divides and expanding sought-after opportunities to enter a hi-tech industry that has remained resilient during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Refugee students studying online in one of the computer labs at Arrupe Learning Center, Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya. Via Abdul Patient
You can now find coding workshops all over the world. One of the best workshops I have been exposed to is General Assembly in New York. But you can find classes and mentors at community colleges and online everywhere. Founded by an Israeli, there is also a tuition-free degree and diploma program at University of the People.
Aleph Farms creates non-GMO, slaughter-free steak by cultivating and replicating bovine cells in the lab. The company has started building its BioFarm and blueprints for a farm on Mars.
Aleph Farms, a company that really has nothing to do with farms, is heading towards selling thin steaks made in a lab. The company based in Israel has started to build facilities called the BioFarm to mass produce steak made from cow cells. The idea is to create meat that is exactly like cow flesh, without causing additional animal suffering. And greenhouse gases.
Not sure how vegans will react to this development of meat in the lab and on space when we have so much to deal with at home on Earth but one vegan dog- and chicken-sitter we had agreed to eat our chickens eggs because of how they were raised. Freely and in the sunshine. So there are exceptions and concessions to be made among vegans.
According to Aleph the steaks are grown from non-GMO cells of a living cow, and they taste, look and smell like meat. The company wants to create a terroir experience, eventually.
The prototype of its commercial product was shown in Singapore this weekend as part of a virtual cooking demonstration. The company “beefed-up” its proof-of-concept from 2018, increased the size of its slaughter-free product, and adapted it to fit controlled, automated machines to fit large scale production and economics.
“One of the big challenges of cultivated meat is the ability to produce large quantities efficiently at a cost that can compete with conventional meat industry pricing, without compromising on quality,” says Didier Toubia, Co-Founder and CEO of Aleph Farms.
Didier Toubia grows meat in a lab at Aleph Farms
How to do meat cultivation in the lab?
Aleph Farms mirrors the natural process of tissue regeneration processes that occur in the cow’s body, but outside of it and under controlled conditions. The process is designed to use a fraction of the resources required for raising an entire animal for meat, and without antibiotics.
To successfully grow whole pieces of meat, compared to minced meat, Aleph mimics the extra-cellular matrix found in animals with a plant-based matrix that enables the cells to grow and form structured tissues of meat.
These ‘cell-banks’ as they call them yield an unlimited source of pluripotent, non-GMO cow cells’ for growing large quantities of meat without the dependency on living animals.
Aleph Farms has designed comfy lab conditions to simulate the biological process occurring in vivo (in the body of a cow), providing the warmth and basic animal-free elements needed to build tissue in nature.
Photo by Kobi Gideon / GPO
This includes water, proteins, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, and minerals.
“It’s delicious and guilt-free, I can’t taste the difference,” declares Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel at a recent tasting. “I have directed the State Secretary Tzahi Braverman to appoint a body to serve these industries in order to connect and oversee all the stakeholders operating in this field. Israel will become a powerhouse for alternative meat and alternative protein.”
The next step seems to be recreating the terroir of single cows, and I think the Jewish grandmother I never had would say oy ve: “Meat can be cultivated from cells isolated from different animal breeds, have different cuts, and it elicits different emotions.
“We see Aleph Farms as crafters of experiences.” Toubia notes in a company press release.
But we need real animals
When it comes to lab-grown meat, plant-grown meat like Impossible Foods, or just any old lab meat (meat glue?) environmentalists will raise eyebrows. The general feeling is that if you want meat, eat organic, or responsibly, hunt your own meat if you live in Canada (and have tags to do so), and eat simply. Eat whole foods. The less a product is processed or manipulated it’s likely better off for you. And for the planet.
We got to a bad place fast because of fast food. Slow Food and fresh food can help us rewind. Growing meat in a lab is much like growing food using hydroponics (see Infarm). It’s a good solution for the interim (as we flail and people starve in some parts of the world) but where we need to go fast is to regenerative agriculture, biodynamic agriculture where all the parts feed into the whole. Mars is a nice story but I will stay on Earth, thank you.
Also adherents to regenerative agriculture like Woody Harrelson and Kiss the Ground are pretty certain about the importance of farm animals in the food chain for helping steward sensibly-sized farms into being sustainable and successful. Grazing animals fertilize the land faster and better than a plant-based compost. Because no one wants to use Miracle Gro, sourced from the chemical industry, on the garden unless they have no choice.
I saw pictures of his farm and he didn’t look like a typical farmer, so I asked about any ideas he might have worth sharing about the process, the mission.
Consider the constant wildfires in California, he said.
“Help California bring back the grazing animals. Those plants evolved to be eaten not just burned!” he wrote to me.
I’d heard that message before. That wildfires are more frequent and intense because land stewardship has changed radically in the last 100 years. Read this block of “why” information from University of California if it interests you.
Livestock grazing reduces fire fuels more effectively than most mechanical methods. Grassland not grazed creates high levels of fine fire fuels which can pose fire hazards. In addition, the invasion of ungrazed lands by shrubs also creates long-term fire fuel issues.
Increased shrub cover from removal of grazing has caused “a general increase in fire hazard within the open spaces of the San Francisco Bay Area” and in the context of the landscape matrix as a whole, this increased hazard indicates a greater possibility of fire being spread into adjacent forested areas and residential communities.
Using livestock to treat fuels has significant potential for managing combustible vegetation.
Anderson tells me to take a look at pictures of his pigs in California and how they live for more insight into my questions.
Tim Anderson’s farm and its animal friends
“Most of what humans do is ridiculous to everyone but them,” Anderson writes. “Tunnel vision makes many odd thoughts and behaviors possible. Presumably on Mars there would be nutrient cycling just like on Earth, but much more obvious.
“We Turn Sewage into Meat in a Lab” would be an exciting slogan for many people, but many more would find it disturbing. There would be a compost pile on Mars. Maybe with worms and bugs in it. Mice and rats would get there of course, maybe on the first ships. So the vegan factory would be full of mouse traps and a compost tumbler that kill mice and worms as part of making meat that doesn’t kill cows,” Anderson offers as strange, but 100% sensible food for thought.
Our great “elder” commenter, Pablo Solomon, environmental activist and artist always weighs in with a dose of much needed sensibility. From his ranch in Texas, Solomon writes:
Environmental artist and designer Pablo Solomon
“Okay, I admit I love beef. My mother’s side of the family have been ranchers for over 170 years here in Texas. I own a ranch now and once owned another. A well managed ranch is great for protein production, fibers for cloth, milk, cheeses, leathers and numerous other natural, sustainable products,” Solomon explains.
(We’ve been enjoying a weekly exchange where he picks a story from my newsletter and then provides some nuggets of wisdom on the story.)
He continues: “In my part of Texas, ranchers rotate cattle, sheep and goats in the pastures as each animal group tends to enjoy different plants. So we are keeping the pastures cleaner and less susceptible to wildfires. The animals naturally fertilize the soil. And the green plants absorb the CO2 released by the animals and use it in photosynthesis.
“The alleged dangers to the atmosphere from methane are so overblown as to be comical. In fact, were vegans and vegetarians so concerned about animal produced methane they would kill fluffy and fido and all other non productive feel good pets before killing off wonderfully productive livestock. And, the vegans eating so much vegetable matter to get enough nourishment creates relatively more human methane. Many ranch operators collect methane and use it to generate electricity. Many prominent vegans only use electricity.
“And of course, I have preached for decades about the “sin” of wasting our research minds and money on nerd toy crap like trips to Mars and driverless cars when immediate problems like providing clean water for humans and fresh water for agriculture remain unsolved.
“As far as “terrified” cows being killed, what a joke. Cows are killed so fast they literally do not know what hit them–yes hit them. Goats and sheep do die terrifying and painful deaths from being killed by coyotes, wolves and other predators which are often protected by insanely broad laws. We use sheep dogs and burros to protect the animals, but the coyotes can often elude them. ( A few years ago, before we could eliminate one particularly vicious pack of coyotes they killed over 50 young lambs in less than a week.)
“The terror these meat haters should care about is that of human parents watching their children die slow horrible deaths from diseases carried in dirty water and/or starving to death due to lack of water for agriculture.
“If you wish to avoid meat in your diet that is your choice. Do not try to forbid the rest of us from enjoying what we want to eat.( what is that mantra?–my body my choice ). I could give a list of things some of the most prominent anti meat people should give up in their lives before meat.”
We’ve ticked off the ticks. A small rise in temperatures and ticks prefer humans over dogs
Ticks carry nasty diseases like lyme disease and the bacteria causing the deadly disease Rocky Mountain spotted fever, with variants of this disease found all over the world, including the Mediterranean and Middle East.
As the world warms from climate change, researchers find that the ticks that normally feed on dogs, actually prefer humans, when temperatures rise. This is sign that climate change could expand and intensify human disease risks, according to a new study out of the University of California, Davis School of Veterinary Medicine.
“Our work indicates that when the weather gets hot, we should be much more vigilant for infections of Rocky Mountain spotted fever in humans,” said veterinarian Laura Backus, who led the study: “We found that when temperatures rose from about 74 to 100 degrees Fahrenheit, brown dog ticks that carry the disease were 2.5 times more likely to prefer humans over dogs.”
Cases of Rocky Mountain spotted fever and related diseases, collectively known as spotted fever rickettsiosis, have risen dramatically over the last 20 years.
Rickettsia conorii, a variant of the disease, is responsible for Mediterranean spotted fever in the Middle East and parts of Africa and Europe, including in Tunisia, Libya, Israel, Sardinia-Italy, Portugal and Algeria.
The brown dog tick which goes by a Latin name Rhipicephalus sanguineus is the main vector for R. conorii, which is responsible for Mediterranean spotted fever in the Middle East.
In addition to ticks, rickettsiae diseases can also be transmitted by fleas.
Spotted fever rickettsiosis is treatable with antibiotics if detected in the first week of infection, but once an infection takes hold, the fatality rate for spotted fever rickettsiosis victims can exceed 20%. Complications can include damaged blood vessels; inflammation of the heart, lungs or brain; and kidney failure. And we thought Covid was bad?
Backus said there have been indications from earlier work that brown dog ticks, which are found throughout the world, may be more aggressive toward humans in hot weather.
And scientists warn that climate change is greatly expanding areas of the country experiencing multiple days when temperatures top 100 degrees Fahrenheit, or about 38 degrees Celsius. Backus and her colleagues at UC-Davis wanted to gain more definitive insights into how rising temperatures might elevate the risk of tick-borne infections.
Girl grad student in a box
For their experiment, they constructed two large wooden boxes measuring about 3 feet tall and 2 feet wide, which were then connected to each other by a clear plastic tube. They conducted a series of tests that involved putting a human in one box, a dog in the other and ticks in the clear plastic tube between them.
The researchers then observed, over 20-minute intervals, whether the ticks, which seek out hosts to feed on based on smell, preferred dogs or grad student humans –first at temperatures of around 74 degrees Fahrenheit (23.3 degrees Celsius) and then at 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.8 degrees Celsius).
Backus said that at the higher temperature, one type of brown dog tick, known as the tropical lineage tick, was especially decisive in shifting its preferences from dogs to humans.
“We believe that this decreased preference for dogs–combined with a slight increase in preference for humans–suggests that hot temperatures may also elevate risks of Rocky Mountain spotted fever in areas where the temperate ticks are more common,” Backus said.
Does climate change worry you? Some things you can do today:
The most sustainable clothes are the ones in your wardrobe via @J_creativestudio
Buy less
Try low-impact travel and lifestyle. The Moneyless Man is an extreme
Switch to renewables and solar power in your home/work
Islamic lore has it that the angel Gabriel caused water to spring from the desert ground to rescue Abraham’s second wife, Hagar, and their son Ishmael, as they wandered in the wilderness.
Another legend says that Ishmael, tired and thirsty, dragged his feet along the ground, and that holy water flowed from the soil his feet touched.
The well built around the spring is called the Zamzam well, and its water is considered holy, with healing properties to body and soul. It is located in Mecca, in the compound around the Kaaba.
Pilgrims line up for holy Zamzam water
Islamic tradition has it that the prophet Mohammed’s heart was miraculously removed from his living body and rinsed in Zamzam water. When his heart was replaced, the Prophet was filled with renewed wisdom and faith.
Mohammed himself stated that Zamzam water is the purest on earth, and good for whatever purpose a pilgrim intends. It’s also said that he drank it standing out of respect for its holiness.
The original fencing at the mouth of the well has been preserved and is displayed at the Exhibition of the Two Holy Mosques Architecture Museum in Mecca.
Claims for physical healing range from relief from fatigue in illness and pregnancy, reversing thyroid complications, protecting your teeth and eyesight, and curing more or less whatever ails you. It is said to relieve anxiety and endow you with courage.
But over all, the highest value of Zamzam well water is spiritual growth and increase of faith.
Some say that Zamzam water alone is enough to keep a person nourished and healthy, and there are many legends about people who lived on it for 40 days, even growing plumper over that time.
Hajj or Umrah pilgrims make a point of drinking Zamzam well water while walking the seven Tawaaf circles around the Kaaba. They also take bottles of Zamzam water back home with them. However, the Saudi Arabian government forbids exporting Zamzam water commercially.
Water was taken from the Zamzam by buckets and ropes for centuries. In 2015, the late Saudia Arabian king Abdullah renovated the well’s works and access to the water. The renovation was completed in 2018 and cost over SR700 million ($187 million USD).
The well is enclosed in an underground room and may be viewed behind windows. Electric pumps draw the water, which is piped in to the area around the Kaaba.
Visitors may not enter the site of the well, but can view it from behind windows.
Volunteers hand out Zamzam water bottles to pilgrims arriving by bus. Pilgrims can drink and fill bottles with it simply by turning a tap on at a common water station, or from plastic barrels stationed near the starting point of the Taawaf circles on the Kaaba.
The Saudi government refuted this by stating that as commercial exports of the water are illegal, the public should assume that the bottled water being sold in the UK was plain tap water and should not be purchased.
Pilgrims thirsty for water and renewed faith drink holy water from the Zamzam well.
The Saudis then had the Zamzam water immediately tested by laboratories licensed by the French Ministry of Health, with results showing that it’s safe and fit for human consumption.
The Saudi Geological Survey has stated that three samples are taken from the Zamzam well and tested every day. During Ramadan 100 samples are tested daily. The samples are examined in the King Abdullah Zamzam Water Distribution Center in Mecca.
Have you drank zamzam and noticed any unusual or special properties? Peter Steel protector of living water in Canada taught me personally that water is indeed holy. His message before he passed on last year in 2019 was that we need to protect it with all our heart and all our might.
Residential use of solar energy systems is catching on fast as more homeowners seek better energy sources to reduce the cost of energy bills if not do away with it altogether. In addition to its environmentally friendly benefits, solar energy is becoming a hit and a must-have for most people.
However, as with any new technology, some common misconceptions may cause you to be wary of investing in solar panels. Below is a list of the myths and misconceptions regarding solar energy use in your home.
1. Getting solar panels installed on your roof will damage your roof
This cannot be further from the truth because proper installation of solar panels could help protect and preserve the part of the roof they cover. The design of solar panels has come a long way over the last couple of years, and they are now much easier to install, which means that you do not have to worry about damages during the process. Additionally, if the portion of the roof covered by the solar panels gets damaged in an unforeseeable event, repairing it is easy. They are only mounted on top of the roof. While it’s only natural to be concerned about any damages to your roof with proper installation, you do not have to have such worries. Furthermore, when installed correctly, you can be sure that the warranty will remain unchanged if your roof is under warranty. Ensuring that your roof is free of any damage before installing them can help avoid future problems.
2. They can only be suitable for warm and sunny weather
The thing about solar panels is that they do not rely on the temperatures; instead, they absorb the sun’s radiation energy. They work better in areas that experience lower temperatures all year round because electrical conductivity increases with a decrease in heat. With modern solar panels, a cloudy day is unlikely to have any impact on their efficiency. While it’s true that solar panels source their power from the sun’s rays, it’s also good to remember that the design allows for solar energy storage to compensate for days when the sun is not out.
3. The maintenance cost is high
Solar panels aim at increasing the efficiency of your home for many years. They are therefore designed to be more durable to help avoid the constant need for repair and maintenance. When your solar panel installation is correct, they will require minimal maintenance through an annual inspection is advisable. Solar panels do not / any moving parts; therefore, regular cleaning Is all that they need. Some homeowners do not bother having regular cleaning done; instead, they wait for the rain to wash away dirt. However, it’s necessary to note that you will need to ensure that you remove large debris to protect the solar panels.
4. Solar panels are too expensive
Another one of thesolar myths making most people shy away from installing solar panels is because they think the installation will cost them an arm and a leg. The costs of installing solar panels in your home will depend on several factors, such as your home’s size and the system you wish to purchase. Though the initial costs may seem overwhelming, ultimately, it costs far much less in the long haul. Besides, there are numerous financing options available so that you don’t have to cough up the cash at once. Unbound Solar recommends, “Use a solar cost calculator to get a better understanding of how much your solar system might run you. Being able to clearly see what your initial cost will enable you to see how quickly you will recoup that dollar amount and start earning money back with your energy production.” With time you will realize that the initial cost of installing is a credible investment that pays off as your electricity utility bill reduces significantly. On top of this, if you decide to sell your house in the future, the solar panels will enhance your property’s value.
Conclusion
Solar energy gives the chance to do away or cut the electricity bill. Choosing to switch to solar energy also means that you are doing your part for the environment.
One Particle at a Time: An Examination on How Air Filters Can Control Indoor Pollution
Good science is about using evidence, data, and hard facts to make assessments about our reality. It’s not perfect, but with enough peer review on each finding, we have been able to discover core truths about our world that would have otherwise remained a mystery.
One of those truths is the growth in both quantity and severity of air pollution. Just two hundred and fifty years ago, smog in the world’s major cities was virtually unheard of. Only the areas around the largest mines and refineries were truly polluted. In the cities, where horses were the only source of transportation and oil had yet to be refined en masse, the air was vastly cleaner than it is today.
The industrial revolution, the rise of oil and coal as fuel, and the introduction of toxic chemicals have led to a sharp decrease in the average safety of the air around us. In China, for example, air pollution is leading to almost a million premature deaths per year.
Air pollution has been getting slightly better over the years, thanks to regulations on emissions from vehicles and factories, along with key innovations in emissions control and renewable energy. But there’s another factor in the control of air pollution that few things about – air purification.
Earlier this year, Delhi installed a 20 foot tall air purification tower in its popular Lajpat Nagar market. The tower draws in air, cleans it, and then distributes it back into the market. The visitors to this market enjoy cleaner smelling air, and lower risk of lung damage and disease as a direct result of the construction of the tower. Similar towers have been built, or are being planned, all over the world. Air purification on a large scale is a practical method for clearing up our air and returning it to its natural state.
But what about air purification on a small scale? Most people have a form of air filtration in their homes that they completely forget about. If you have a home HVAC system, your AC is filtered constantly through the air filter, giving you cleaner air as you go about your day. All of the air that is in your house right now was once air from outside. This means that, when you open a door or window, polluted outside air is getting into your home. Contaminants can even be tracked in with clothing and shoes. Scented candles, cooking, and dust also contribute to the pollution in your home.
This means your air indoor can be just as polluted as the air outside. In fact, studies have shown that can be even more polluted, since contaminants can get trapped and concentrated more easily. There’s evidence that air pollution indoors is around 2 to 5 times more severe than pollution outside, with some homes (particularly those with smokers) showing pollution levels of 100 times the safe outdoor limit.
How can we counteract this? How can we protect our family’s lungs from harmful chemicals and smog?
The easiest and cheapest answer is to invest in a higher-grade air filter. Air filters are ranked by their MERV rating. MERV, or Minimum Efficiency Reporting Value, is a number that measures how effective a filter is at grabbing small particles.
A MERV of 1 to 4 characterizes a filter which can only trap 20% of particles with a diameter of fewer than 10 microns. A MERV of 8 can trap around 70% of those particles.
MERV 11s are a sweet spot, balancing cost with effectiveness. They trap about 85% of particles smaller than 10 microns in diameter.
For those with more sensitive lungs, a MERV of 14 can filter out 90% of particles under 3 microns in diameter.
For specialized clean rooms, Ultra Low Particulate Air Filters with MERVs of 20 or higher filter out 99.99997% of particles smaller than 1 micron in diameter.
Indoor air pollution usually consists of smoke particles and aromatic particles. In order to combat it, you’ll need a MERV of at least 13, which can easily be purchased and delivered from air filter stores like Filter King. Prices vary by store, but you can expect to spend around $30 or $40. Buying in bulk, as with most things, gives you a cheaper per unit price.
But a high MERV number is only half the battle when fighting your indoor air pollution. The other half is the frequency with which your air is cycled through the fitler. The best MERV in the world does nothing if no air goes through it.
We measure air movement with cycles per hour, which is calculated by dividing the volume of air an HVAC system is passing through itself by the volume of air in a given room.
The higher number of air cycles per hour, or ACH, the cleaner your air will be. If you can sacrifice some electricity, leaving your AC on higher and longer will help reduce the amount of pollution in your home.
It also helps to turn on your fans, which will mix the air in your home and prevent one area from trapping contaminants.
Pollution is bad, both inside and out. Outdoor pollution can be fixed with technical innovation and regulation. But indoor pollution is something each individual must focus on in their own home. By buying a better filter and allowing your air to cycle more continuously, you make the active decision to protect your family and guests from harmful contaminants.
Fitting birds with GPS backpacks on their legs reveals what we’ve long suspected: urban gulls know when & where to forage for human food.
If you’ve ever seen a seagull snatch a pasty or felt their beady eyes on your sandwich in the park, you’d be right to suspect they know exactly when to strike to increase their chances of getting a human snack.
A new study by the University of Bristol is the most in-depth look to date at the foraging behaviours of urban gulls and how they’ve adapted to us. Birds play an important role in ecosystems, wild and built. Knowing their behaviours and needs can help us protect them.
“Our first day at the school, the students were excited to tell us about the gulls visiting their school at lunch time. Indeed, our data showed that gulls were not only present in high numbers during lunch time to feed on leftovers, but also just before the start of the school and during the first break when students had their snack. Similarly, at the waste centre the gulls were present in higher numbers on weekdays when the centre was open and trucks were unloading food waste,” reports Anouk Spelt, lead author of the paper published in Ibis, the International Journal of Avian Science.
In comparison to natural environments, urban environments are novel for animals on an evolutionary timescale and present a wide array of potential food sources. In urban environments food availability often fluctuates according to patterns of human activity, which can follow a daily or weekly cycle.
However, until now, little has been known about how urban animals adapt to these time differences in behaviour of urban gulls at three different settings in the city: a public park, a school and a waste centre. The study used data from mini GPS tracker backpacks fitted to 12 Lesser Black‐backed Gulls, as well as observations of gull numbers at the different sites.
The team found the birds’ foraging patterns closely matched the timing of school breaks and the opening and closing times of the waste centre, but that their activity in the park appeared to correspond with the availability of natural food sources.
These findings suggest gulls may have the behavioural flexibility to adapt their foraging behaviour to human time schedules when beneficial, and that this trait helps them to thrive in cities.
“Although everybody has experienced or seen gulls stealing food from people in parks, our gulls mainly went to park first thing in the morning and this may be because earthworms and insects are present in higher numbers during these early hours.”
“Some gulls even used all three feeding grounds in the same day, suggesting they might track the availability to optimise their energy intake. These results highlight the behavioural flexibility of gulls and their ability to adapt to the artificial environments and time schedules of urban living,” said Shane Windsor, study co-author.
Barefoot shoes can help relieve pressure on toes squeezed into conventional shoes. They’ve helped me when I run. Like these ones from Vibram. Newer models look better.
Bunions are painful, unattractive, and make choosing shoes a nightmare. If you’ve been trying to ignore your bunions through the summer, the coming of winter and the need for closed shoes may be making you look for new solutions to the problem. Here are some tips for alleviating bunion discomfort and how to know when it’s time for surgery.
How to Reduce Bunion Pain Naturally
1.Throw out the Stilettos
Bunions have genetic as well as lifestyle causes. Still, it’s clear that wearing restrictive shoes or shoes that change the way you walk contributes to the problem. Pick shoes that move with your foot and don’t restrict your toes. Ideally, you can ask your podiatrist to prescribe the best shoes for you.
2. Take Joint Supplements
Arthritis may make your bunion symptoms worse. Take joint supplements to naturally reduce the symptoms of both arthritis and bunions. Do your research to choose supplements that are likely to have real effects based on clinical studies.
3. Maintain a Healthy Weight
More weight on your feet means more pain in your bunions. Even losing a few pounds may make a difference in how you move and the resulting pain in your bunions. If you find it difficult to exercise, a low-impact option like swimming or cycling may be less likely to cause pain than running.
4. Cushion the Bunion
Pressure on your bunions hurts. It also tends to change the shape of your foot or the way you walk, which will increase the bunion. Using a gel-filled or moleskin pad may be a good option to provide some cushioning, no matter what kind of shoes you’re wearing.
5. Shoe Inserts
Shoe inserts are supposed to position your foot correctly to prevent the bunion from getting worse. They may also alleviate some of the pain and pressure of the bunion.
They will not reverse the damage that’s been done or completely prevent the bunion from developing, but they may be able to reduce your symptoms.
6. Reduce Inflammation
The things that you do to reduce inflammation when you’ve had a muscle injury may also be effective for your bunions. Soak your bunion in warm water with Epsom salts, use ice packs and cooling products, or try ultrasound therapy and massage.
How do You Know When it is Time for Surgery?
The pain and frustration from bunions generally start out mild and progress relatively slowly. There are often spikes in the discomfort when you wear restrictive shoes or have flare-ups of arthritis.
These variations in your discomfort may cause you to think that it will get better and keep delaying surgery. However, the discomfort from bunions can be very significant. It may affect your life in ways you don’t entirely realize since the symptoms came on so slowly and have been going on for so long.
If you’ve tried some of these at-home remedies and you’re still experiencing discomfort, it is time for you to get a real bunion cure. Surgery will correct the ligaments, muscles, and tendons that are unbalanced and realign the big toe, eliminating the bunion for good.
The kingdom announced the launch of ‘Let’s Make it Green’ – a plan to plant 10 million trees across the country by April, 2021. Cut one down and pay a heavy price.
Does the punishment fit the crime? A new law in Saudi Arabia states that the maximum fine –– an $8 million USD equivalent fine and 10 years in jail –– could be your punishment for cutting down a tree in the Kingdom, according to a government tweet on Twitter.
“Cutting down trees, shrubs, herbs, or plans [and] uprooting, moving, stripping them of their bark, leaves or any part, or moving their soil,” could land offenders with the maximum fine and jail time, the Saudi public prosecution said on Twitter last week.
This is all part of Saudi Arabia’s off-kilter Saudi Vision 2030 development plan to achieve environmental sustainability by the end of the decade. Saudi Vision 2030 (Arabic: رؤية السعودية 2030) is a strategic framework to reduce Saudi Arabia’s dependence on oil, diversify its economy, and develop public service sectors such as health, education, infrastructure, recreation, and tourism.
One part of their plan is to build an eco-city to bring in tourists from around the world, in what I would call an eco-nightmare city on the Red Sea called Neom. They have already forcefully displaced people living there, leaving one who refused to vacate dead.
As it’s sometimes hard to separate fact from fiction in Saudi Arabia: a fine for tree-cutters is a good thing, but not one so steep. Would it ever be enacted or just a threat until the wrong Joe makes a mistake? We might think it be better to take an even-handed approach and focus on the treehuggers in Saudi Arabia and reward them when they do good.
The fact that the Kingdom last month announced the launch of ‘Let’s Make it Green’ – a plan that seeks to plant 10 million trees across the country by April 2021, seems like a good idea. Saudi Aramco, the largest oil producer, and the richest company in the world has vowed to plant 1 million trees. But where will the water come from for all those trees? Planting them is one thing. Taking care of them quite another. Energy intensive desalination?
Economic and social reforms have gained momentum since Saudi’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, announced his ambitious vision in 2016 to reduce the country’s heavy dependence on oil.
“We will seek to safeguard our environment by increasing the efficiency of waste management, establishing comprehensive recycling projects, reducing all types of pollution and fighting desertification,” reads the vision.
According to Jewish Law it is forbidden to cut a tree-bearing fruit. In practice it happens. We’ve yet to hear of someone who has gone to jail for it. On the upside, planting trees can shape a nation. Israel’s mission with the Jewish Agency to plant trees since its founding in 1948 has led to it becoming the only country in the world with net positive trees than it had 100 years ago.
Planting trees is a great way to suck up carbon dioxide. Environmentalists I’ve spoke with say it’s likely a whole lot more sustainable than carbon capture.
Top image: a rendering of Riyadh, a city that aims to plant 7 million trees
Durrat artificial islands in Bahrain are fed desalinated water. There is no other way for the thirsty and growing Persian Gulf nations.
Two dry Persian Gulf countries are amping up their desalination capacity: Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates. Both have access to Persian Gulf waters but very little freshwater access inland.
Toray, the Japanese builder of desalination plants sent us the official news that they will build two new reverse osmosis plants (RO Plants), the Al Dur 2 Desalination Plant in the Kingdom of Bahrain and Umm Al Quwain Desalination Plant in the United Arab Emirates.
A desalination plant. They all look the same. Lots of pipes and tubes.
An estimated 1,500 seawater desalination plants are operating in the Gulf. Most of these plants, including the 24 largest (based on production capacity ≥100,000 (m3/day), are located on the Arabian coast near the shallow southwestern region of the Gulf (Global Water Intelligence). The Gulf region consumes about 57.9% of the world’s desalinated water.
In the new plants, the combined water capacity will amount to 911,000 m3 /day, and the Umm Al Quwain Desalination Plant alone will hold one of the world’s largest capacity with 681,000 m3 /day fresh water production.
Toray will provide the membranes which are regarded to be the most sophisticated element in a desalination plant. The membrane filters out salt and other impurities, which leaving brine behind.
Persian Gulf countries are heavily investing in water desalination to supply water to a growing population with growing needs in agriculture and industry. The RO desalination plants built by Toray and which countries like Israel also specialises in, consume less energy to operate compared to thermal desalination plants. The world’s largest desalination plant using RO was in Israel. Researchers at its major universities are developing new membrane technologies to make the process more efficient.
Critics of desalination plants say the energy investment to run them is too high and contributes to an unnecessary amount of carbon dioxide emissions, as well as polluting brine which is fed back to the sea.
The Al Dur 2 Desalination Plant:
Al Dur, Kingdom of Bahrain Production capacity: 230,000 cubic meters daily Expected Operation: 2022 EPC Contractor: SIDEM Veolia (France).
Bahrain, or the Kingdom of Bahrain, is a sovereign state in the Persian Gulf. The island nation comprises a small archipelago made up of 51 natural islands and an additional 33 artificial islands, centered around Bahrain Island which makes up around 83 percent of the country’s landmass.
Bahrain does not operate hydroelectic dams, centralized irrigation systems or large water wellfields. Its water infrastructure consists mainly of desalination and wastewater treatment plants.
In the water supply sector the Bahrain government has developed plans for meeting the increasing water (and electricity) demand over the next 15 years. It is expected that by 2030, the total desalinated water production will increase from its current level of 0.82 MCM/d (300 MCM/yr) to 1.41 MCM/d (515 MCM/yr), an increase of about 72%, according to Fanack Water.
It is also expected that all these new desalination plants will be implemented and managed by the private sector, i.e. an independent water and power plant.
Umm Al Quwain Desalination Plant Location:
Umm Al Quwain, United Arab Emirates Production capacity: 681,000 cubic meters daily Expected Operation: 2022 Engineering and Procurement: SIDEM Veolia (France)
The United Arab Emirates sometimes just called the Emirates or the UAE is a sovereign state in Western Asia at the eastern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It borders with Oman and Saudi Arabia, and has maritime borders in the Persian Gulf with Qatar and Iran.
While Abu Dhabi, one of the Emirates nations claims that it is developing technologies to increase rainfall over its desert nation, in reality desalination plants are critical for supplying freshwater to a growing population.
Abu Dhabi’s energy resources and financial wealth from oil and gas make it able to meet water and food needs using desalintion, but these systems can be seen as fragile, and vulnerable in the event there is conflict in the region.
Seawater desalination is not an efficient process, also follow this article with Gidon Bromberg, with unit water costs reaching 5 to 10 times higher than extracting water from an aquifer. The desalination process is damaging to local environmental systems and over time the process becomes even more inefficient as thick saline residues build up. over time due to the thick saline residue left over from desalination. The Gulf States don’t have much of an option and now rely on about 1,500 desalination plants to supply its freshwater.
We did a house swap once with a family from Switzerland. We got their villa paradise on the sea in Costa Rica, they got our villa in Jaffa, Israel. We wanted to use the family unit below for my parents, and the swap family jested: “it’s tarantula mating season. I hope you enjoy seeing this special event that’s happening this time of the year. You might still catch it.”
So, I’d be lucky to see spiders is what she was saying?
The two unit villa, with us on top, wasn’t just a great venue for watching spider mating season. We were mating season. Mating season happened in the open-concept house where cracks an inch wide couldn’t keep out a cat. My parents’ apartment was full of tarantulas not just mating but having an orgy. I have no idea how my mother fell asleep in the room but she was nun-plussed with tarantulas on the wall overhead as she slept, the tarantulas filing in from the grass outside her door.
My dad didn’t bother to shoo them out of the shower and he played footsies with them in the kitchen until he got a bad bite that lasted about 24 hours, as the internet said. My dad could tolerate a lot of pain, but the spider bite made him quite uncomfortable, mainly from the swelling.
Why weren’t we afraid of tarantulas mating in our house? The owners told us in advance there would be spiders and that we’d be lucky to see them and all this somehow made them much less scary than the big black hairy things we’d seen on TV. So knowing they were there in advance lessened the sting.
This is exactly the new research findings of some psychologist scientists from the Haifa University in Israel. When you know the spiders are going to be there in advance, you will have less fear for them when you see them. They offer some advice about fearing Covid too.
“The findings of this study complement those of other studies showing the uncertainty impairs our cognitive abilities and contributes to a higher level of anxiety and depression. This study shows that as certainty rises – even if it is certainty about something we perceive as negative – cognitive impairment falls,” said Dr. Hadas Okon-Singer, the head of the Cognition-Emotion Interaction Lab, where the study was held.
Using spiders to moderate anxiety over Covid
She continues, “In the current context, the Coronavirus epidemic has significantly increased the sense of uncertainty. It is possible that if we can increase the feeling of certainty, the sense of anxiety among the public could be moderated,” she offers.
The question is how?
In the study, the participants – including people with a high level of fear of spiders and those with a low level of fear – were presented with 300 matrices. Each matrix was comprised of nine pictures, eight of which showed butterflies while the ninth was either a spider or a bird.
For each picture, a hint was also provided suggesting whether the ninth picture was a spider or a bird. Attention bias was measured by the speed and accuracy with which the participants managed to identify whether the picture was of a spider or a bird, depending on the preceding hint (if it matched the deviant picture or mismatched it).
In order to vary the levels of certainty, in one experiment most of the deviant pictures were of birds, while in a second experiment most of the deviant pictures were of spiders.
The findings showed that attention bias was reduced as the level of certainty rose, when either type of deviant was presented more often, be it a bird or a spider.
The attention bias was particularly severe when the participants did not know what to expect – a bird or a spider. In these cases, they were unable to use the surrounding hints to respond according to the task.
The researchers explain that the findings of their study can serve as a foundation for research relating to cognitive training and to the development of innovative treatments for phobia, since until now this field of research has paid little attention to the aspect of certainty.
“It seems that uncertainty is one of the main hallmarks of the current period. We don’t know how long this situation will continue, we don’t know whether the education system will be opened or not and whether the lockdown will continue.
“We are basically in an uncertain situation. In light of the findings of the current study, it could be worth examining whether increasing uncertainty – even when it relates to a negative reality – may actually be preferable to maintaining a state of uncertainty,” Okon-Singer concludes.
Keeping spiders at home
Spiders are an important part of every house whether you want them there or not. Most spider bites are rare, and spiders should be seen as your friend. That’s what I tell my kids when they want to smash spiders.
Spiders feed on common indoor pests, such as cockroaches, earwigs, mosquitoes, flies and clothes moths. If left alone, they will consume most of the insects in your home, providing effective home pest control without chemicals. So spiders in my home? If I know they will be there I will not be afraid.
Located near the Great Barrier Reef in Port Douglas, Northern Queensland, Australia, the Living Corals Biobank is the world’s only dedicated coral conservation facility.
If Noah would have had the challenge, this is what his living ark might look like to save the coral reefs.
The thought is frightening that we need “live arks” and seed banks to secure species’ and our survival for the future. In 2008 with the starting effects of global climate change the Svalbard Global seed bank was established to ensure future generations that seeds and seed diversity would be available when and if needed. The bank, built into permafrost, now contains seeds from far and wide — even from Syria where locals feared seed diversity might die out during their civil war.
A nonprofit organization called the Great Barrier Reef Legacy has revealed design plans for the Living Coral Biobank, to conserve a coral ark of 800 at risk coral scleractinia or hard corals species. The species will be from around the world and the center will also offer a landmark to another otherwise unheard of town called Port Douglas, a small coastal community in far northern Queensland, Australia famous for its coral reef research.
A Sydney-based practice Contreras Earl Architecture designed the building along with London-based Arup. They plan for the building to become a world leader in next-generation sustainable design, creating optimal conditions for coral storage while minimising energy consumption. Solar power and special insulation are some of the green features of the building.
“To ensure this priceless living collection is held in perpetuity for generations to come, we need the world’s most advanced facility that also promises to use only renewable energy sources and function with optimum efficiency, while also creating an unforgettable visitor experience—and that’s exactly what this design delivers,” said Dr. Dean Miller, project director of the Living Coral Biobank and managing director of Great Barrier Reef Legacy, in a statement shared by Arup in a press release.
Founders of the coral reef biobankThe design is inspired by coral
The aim is to have the building up and running by 2025 but the group will need to secure funding from an Elon Musk or Richard Branson in order to complete the vision.
Beverly Goodman, National Geographic Explorer
Coral reef and marine researcher expert Beverly Goodman from Canada and Israel isn’t thrilled at the prospect of a Noah’s Coral Ark. Goodman works in the Mediterranean and Red Sea mainly and thinks putting focus on a biobank or showcase distracts from the work needed in coral reef conservation.
She drives home the message that conservation is key, telling Green Prophet: “The basic answer is yes: just like seed banks, having archives of species is important. Whether it is a ‘solution’ to anything is certainly a deeper question and issue. Some fear that such efforts will make conservation efforts seem less important and divert focus,” she explains.
So what can we do today to save the coral reefs? “It sounds like a dodgy answer,” Goodman says, “but ‘everything’. This effort is really important, and will be successful if it is not needed. Marine sanctuaries and protections are probably one of the greatest directly impactful ways to slow the bleed. Education is everyone’s favourite, but in truth good policy and enforcement must exist for education to be impactful.
“It will be successful if it is not needed – is sort of like the issue of good Covid-prevention. If done right, then it will seem like a big waste in the end. I mean no species genetic bank will have to be put into use later.”
Coral reefs in the Middle East
Coral reef die-out is witnessed in Middle East regions that border on seas and oceans. The Red Sea reefs in Eilat, Aqaba and Sinai are a shadow of what they once were, while Red Sea areas off the coast of Saudi Arabia, not popular for beach tourism because of strict conservative social codes, have led to a by-the-way protection of coral reefs.
Saudi Arabian reefs include the Tiran Islands, the Al Wajh Bank, the reefs north of Yanbu, between Obhur and Thuwal north of Jeddah, and the outer Farasan Bank. This could change after the Saudi vision comes to light, along with the creation of the mega eco-disaster city Neom billed as a city of the future.
If conversation is the key to saving the reefs then conservation laws must be put into effect and practiced. It’s highly unlikely to get fined for stepping on or damaging a coral reef in the Red Sea, and if global warming is to blame, companies that are big polluters must face rapid changes and understand that business is no longer as usual. Greta sounded the alarm loudly, now what?
An Asian Houbara, via 
In order to vary the levels of certainty, in one experiment most of the deviant pictures were of birds, while in a second experiment most of the deviant pictures were of spiders.
