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Estidama Is the Arab World’s Sustainability Rating System: Watch Films on Estidama

Green Prophet
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Estidama Is the Arab World’s Sustainability Rating System: Watch Films on Estidama

estidama house world future energy summitThese films shown below show the basics of the Estidama Pearl rating system unique to the Abu Dhabi region.

We’ve collected a number of films from around the net on Estidama, a LEED-like sustainability rating for communities, villas and apartments in the United Arab Emirates. A system that makes sense for the challenges of the desert climate, and Muslim communities.

Environmental, economic, social and cultural aspects are woven into the rating systems to include homes, mosques, schools to meet the challenges of Abu Dhabi’s challenging environment: hot and dry!  Watch these films to learn more about this unique system developed to reduce the consumption of local resources. Any companies looking to work in the United Arab Emirates’ green space should watch these movies to get the basics.

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Jerusalem Launches World Pilgrimage Conference for People of Faith

Miriam Kresh
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Jerusalem Launches World Pilgrimage Conference for People of Faith

Jerusalem Symposium on Green Pilgrimage
Green Pilgrim Jerusalem hosts a week-long international symposium on greening pilgrimage, with major religious leaders from around the world.

Faith and community leaders from around the world will be speaking on ecological, urban and social development as influenced by mass pilgrimage.  Our report on the massive urban sprawl that Mecca is becoming illustrates the ecological impact of the Haj, for example. Efforts like this one to make the Haj green need to be supported, and we look forward to hearing encouraging developments along those lines as a result of Jerusalem Symposium on Green Pilgrimage.

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Are Digital Diet Utensils A Forking Joke?

Faisal O'Keefe
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Are Digital Diet Utensils A Forking Joke?

HAPIfork digital diet forkEating too fast leads to poor digestion and poor weight control.  No brainer. But do we need a digital fork to help adhere to that maxim?

Goofing around online, I spot a cool-looking kitchen gadget: a fork that could be a love-child of IKEA and Apple.  I click on the video and nearly spit out my lunch (soup, by the way, not a fork in sight). The HAPIfork is an electronic tool that helps you monitor your eating habits, alerting you with indicator lights and gentle vibrations when you eat too fast.  It tracks “fork servings”, which are the round-trip motions between your plate and your mouth. The device also measures the time it takes to eat your meal and the total number of “fork servings” per minute.

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Will Israel’s Natural Gas Tap Flow to Turkey?

Maurice Picow
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Will Israel’s Natural Gas Tap Flow to Turkey?

shutterstock_92761900Improvement of Turkish and Israeli ties could make Istanbul a hub for Israeli natural gas deliveries to Europe

The discovery and development of large natural gas deposits by Israel in the eastern Mediterranean by local and foreign energy companies such as Delek Energy and Noble Energy  has become a game changer for Israel. Up to now, Israel has had to import most of its energy supplies which became problematic following the frequent attacks against the gas line bringing natural gas from Egypt to both Israel and Jordan. This alone caused Israel to shift its energy attention offshore;  and upon reaching large natural gas deposits in the Tamar undersea gas fields, Israel began constructing an undersea pipeline to bring the gas ashore.

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Egypt’s Green-Roofed Bio Boat Entirely Wind and Solar Powered

Tafline Laylin
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4
Egypt’s Green-Roofed Bio Boat Entirely Wind and Solar Powered

green roof, HEPCA, carbon neutral, green design, solar power, wind power, clean tech, Red Sea, education, US Forest ServiceAmong nature’s most devoted heroes throughout the Middle East and North Africa, the Hurghada Environmental Protection and Conservation Association (HEPCA) has released renders of a new bio boat that will be used to educate children about the Red Sea’s numerous (albeit largely threatened) bio marvels.

Funded in part by the U.S. Forest Service, which has created all kinds of low impact natural wonderlands in parks across the United States, the boat is slated for completion by summer this year.

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Bling for Books: Angelina Jolie Opens School in Afghanistan

Faisal O'Keefe
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3
Bling for Books: Angelina Jolie Opens School in Afghanistan

angelina Jolie in AfghanistanAngelina Jolie funds girls’ schools in Afghanistan with the proceeds of her luxury jewelry line.

Hollywood actress and goodwill ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNCHR), Angelina Jolie is building girls-only primary schools throughout the country. One particular school, which opened last November, educates about 300 girls and is located outside Kabul in an area with a high population of refugees. In 2010, she opened her first school in eastern Afghanistan, according to the UNCHR. The focus on all-girls’ schools is intended to counterbalance a cultural bias that values boys’ education over girls’.

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A Greener Sahara for Elephants and Hippos – 5,000 Years Ago

Tafline Laylin
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A Greener Sahara for Elephants and Hippos – 5,000 Years Ago

sahara, green sahara, Columbia University, MIT, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, African Humid Period, camels, science, climate changeResearchers keen to understand the role that dust plays in climate change have discovered that 5,000 years ago, what we now think of as the vast, unforgiving Sahara desert home to nomads and camels was once a green grassland where elephants and giraffe roamed, RD Mag reports.

From 11,000 to 5,000 years ago, the 3.5 million square miles of sand and dunes had pockets of water, where hippos cheerfully went about their business. But then, quite drastically, the climate changed, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Columbia University scientists want to know why.

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Ali Lamu Upcycles Weathered Dhow Sails into Inspiring Art

Tafline Laylin
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Ali Lamu Upcycles Weathered Dhow Sails into Inspiring Art

recycling, upcycling, poverty, Lamu, Shela, Ali Lamu, Kenya, tanga, art, dhow sails,“This is not a romance story,” Daniella told me during a recent interview. I met the petite woman at her home on Lamu Island in northern Kenya to speak with her husband, Ali Lamu, whose name is synonymous with a brand of upcycled dhow sails or tangas that are now distributed throughout the world.

Daniella first visited this remote island, formerly an Omani protectorate, with her ex-boyfriend. He moved on but she, now brokenhearted, decided to stay on in order to compile a “reportage” of the local fishermen. Which is where the love story begins. As Daniella spent more time with these men of the sea, the free-spirited Swiss woman couldn’t help but sympathize with their new world stresses. And they in turn looked to her to help.

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Ormat to Provide 330 Megawatts of Geothermal Energy in Sumatra, Indonesia

Brian Nitz
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Ormat to Provide 330 Megawatts of Geothermal Energy in Sumatra, Indonesia

erupting volcano indonesia lake boatIndonesia has 40 percent of the world’s exploitable geothermal energy potential.

A big congratulations to Ormat technologies of Yavne, Israel for signing a $254 million deal for providing geothermal energy in Indonesia! The first phase of the 330-megawatt Sarulla geothermal power station in Sumatra is due to begin operating in 2016.

Sumatra lies in one of the most geologically active parts of the Pacific ring of fire and is known for numerous active volcanoes. The nearby volcano of Krakatoa was responsible for the largest eruption in recorded history and Sumatra’s Toba volcano was responsible for earth’s largest volcanic eruption in the past two million years. 

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I Scream, You Scream: Iran Targets World Ice Cream Record

Faisal O'Keefe
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I Scream, You Scream: Iran Targets World Ice Cream Record

world's biggest tub of ice creamAn Iranian confectioner packed five tons of ice cream into a a single container to scoop a new world record in desserts.

When you’ve just clinched the title as “monster rat” breeding grounds, why not sweeten your international appeal with the world’s biggest tub of ice cream? Last week in Tehran, Iranian dairy company Choopan popped the lid off a five-ton tub of chocolate ice cream.  Approximately 70 cubic feet of frosty delight that cost it’s makers over $30,000 to produce.

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Is Sugar Toxic?

Miriam Kresh
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Is Sugar Toxic?

image woman checking food labelsIncreasing evidence shows that sugar is a natural enemy to the body.

“Don’t you think I know how hard it is, honey/To get some “sugar” from the phone,” sings country singer Bonnie Raitt, vividly summing up the difficulty of maintaining a long-distance romance. Sugar represents all that’s sweet and desirable, but in the light of recent studies, sugar may come to stand for poison.

Especially toxic to the human metabolism is high-fructose corn syrup, the evil lurking under the sweetness of popular drinks.Stevia, a naturally sweet green herb, will hopefully replace it in commercial drinks and foods.

The historical statistics are startling. The  average sugar consumption in 1700 was 4 lbs – a little under 2 kg, yearly. Compare that to the yearly sugar intake of as many as 50% of today’s Americans:  180 lb. (81.647 kg.) of sugar per year. That’s half a pound – 250 grams of sugar, every day. Looking at the numbers of obese people on the streets in many other countries, like in the Middle East, it’s easy to see that the rest of the world isn’t far behind.

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Crushers Reduce Emirate Mountaintops to Rubble in the Name of “Progress”

Richard Allenby Pratt
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Crushers Reduce Emirate Mountaintops to Rubble in the Name of “Progress”

Richard Allenby-Pratt, Consumption, photography, Crushers, UAE, dust, development, eco-art, photographyGreen Prophet’s resident photographer documents “cut” Hajar Mountains in the United Arab Emirates.

Huge swaths of the Hajar Mountains in the UAE’s northern emirates appear ghostly white when viewed on Google Earth. Closer examination of the satellite imagery reveals large chunks of missing hillside and some sort of quarrying operations, and my recent physical visit to the area revealed these to be mostly rock ‘crushers.’

Simply put, sections of the rocky mountainsides are blown up and crushed down to whatever grade of rubble is required. Dust suppression is an important consideration in this industry, but it’s effectiveness seems limited as a pale grey dust coats the mountains around the quarries. 

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Shark Visits Red Sea Bathers in Eilat

Karin Kloosterman
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Shark Visits Red Sea Bathers in Eilat

whale shark red sea, woman swimming with sharks
Is the Red Sea shark spotted at Eilat beach, Israel escaping illegal hunters in Egypt?

While it’s rare to find sharks in the Mediterranean Sea (they are almost extinct), they are not so uncommon in the Red Sea. Its warm waters and ample food source bait sharks who sometimes get personal with bathers and divers. In 2010, a Red Sea white tip shark ate an elderly tourist and just this weekend, a Red Sea shark visited an Eilat, Israel beach, getting within feet of swimmers. There was no mention in media reports if it was a gentle whale shark or a white tip, but in any case no damage was done.

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David Thomas Smith “Google Maps” Your City As a Persian Rug

Faisal O'Keefe
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15
David Thomas Smith “Google Maps” Your City As a Persian Rug

David Thomas Smith's Persian Carpets Made from Google Maps, Beijing Airport as a Persian RugIrish artist David Thomas Smith weaves thousands of Google Maps screen grabs into intricate designs mimicking Persian rugs. 

Look closer, and these symmetrical compositions reveal global landscapes transformed by mankind. Imagine a carpet made up of aerial satellite images of modern infrastructure: concrete roads and rooftops replacing fiber weft and warp.  See this artist’s “rug” made from snaps of Beijing International Airport, above.

According to CoCreate, Smith said the works are meant to reflect upon “global capitalism, transforming the aerial landscapes of sites associated with industries such as oil, precious metals, consumer culture information and excess.”

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Lupini Beans, Traditional Middle-Eastern Snack Food RECIPE

Miriam Kresh
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Lupini Beans, Traditional Middle-Eastern Snack Food RECIPE

cooked lupine beans, lupini turmos israelKnown as turmos in the Levant, lupine beans – poor folk’s food – are a tasty Middle-Eastern snack in need of more recognition.

Except in some South American countries, the Western world doesn’t give lupines much regard. Chickpeas get much more publicity  (like our vegan chickpea and artichoke salad). Maybe it has to do with the long soaking and rinsing that the beans have to undergo in order to lose their bitterness and become edible. Real slow food. But with every food that’s good for you, the effort is worth it. Yes, and lupines are tasty and have high nutritional value. Not to mention that they are an eminently sustainable crop, fixing nitrogen into the soil and (so far) having escaped the clutches of GMO ideology. And of course, eating more pulses and less meat benefits you and the planet.

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Zentera drops “ethical wool” claim after peta exposé into zq-certified farms

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The New Zealand Merino Company, now rebranded as Zentera, has quietly removed the phrase “world’s leading ethical wool brand” from its website, a notable change that comes after a disturbing investigation by PETA Asia-Pacific into the company’s ZQ-certified wool supply chain, PETA reports to Green Prophet.

Fresh Fava Bean Soup, A Vegan Springtime Recipe

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Somehow vegetables with short seasons excite the imagination and appetite more sharply than produce that’s available all year around. Good Middle Eastern cooks have many recipes for delicate fava beans, and this turmeric-fragrant soup is one.

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