I had a great meeting yesterday with culture advisors to an American Embassy yesterday in a Middle East location. I won’t say where as the meeting was off the record, but the two were very much following environmental issues in the Middle East. One asked me as the editor of Green Prophet how us “environmentalists” and “treehuggers” reason for or accept the oil and gas industry. I’ve always said that life as we know it is thanks to the oil and gas industry. Cheap oil has made globetrotting and travel not only the domain of the rich and influential, but within the grasp of the middle and lower classes as well. Cheap fuel has helped create access to fresh food even in cold countries or where food can’t be grown. Cheap oil and gas has built the world to its current level of consciousness to knowing now that we have to step back a bit, scale back and think more responsibly about how we use finite resources like fossil fuels. I see the good in us humans being able to do that. I see the good in the problems of global warming in slowing humanity down before it gobbles up every resource on our planet.
Walking the Middle Ground as Oil Feeds Our Energy Needs
Jordan Drops Out of Red Dead Project, Citing Financial Woes
Sketch of the map of the Red Dead Canal commissioned by Jordan.
While we don’t celebrate the energy crisis and financial woes in Jordan, it is poor finances that’s reportedly putting the highly controversial Red-Dead Canal on hold, Israel’s Maariv newspaper reported on Wednesday. The original plan which called for a canal between the Red Sea in the south up to the Dead Sea in the North to “save” the shrinking Dead Sea, has had environmentalists up in arms. The benefits of the canal, proponents say would be a new water source to the shrinking Dead Sea, while the altitude differential getting the water to the Dead Sea will create energy which could fuel a desalination plant to the very thirsty Hashemite Kingdom, Jordan.
Travel Iran for Eight Unforgettable Days with Arab Explorers
Take everything you ever learned about Iran and banish it from your mind. Do it. Do it right now. Because this country is far more interesting than mainstream papers would have you believe.
Boasting one of the world’s oldest continuing civilizations and a trove of architectural, cultural, historical and natural treasures, not to mention some of the most colorful and warm people, what used to be Persia is among the least explored and most diverse tourism destinations in the Middle East region. And now there is an opportunity to experience it yourself.
World Bank Warns Arab World About Action on Climate Change
Consequences of climate change especially acute in the Arab world, and traditional methods for coping with climate are severely stressed finds new World Bank assessment.
All eyes are on Qatar now as the country hosts the UN-sponsored climate change event COP18. We’ve been reporting on COP18 before it began and during, and recently posted about the need for Muslim and Arab-led action in the fight against climate change. Now the World Bank is following the lead of activists in the Middle East region calling for the attention of Arab leaders to help in the global fight, before it is too late.
Dubai Beautified by Small Pockets of Outdoor Art
Dubai is known for many things, but its beauty is no longer one of them. In the last few decades the once barren desert landscape has evolved into a hurried metropolis where row upon row of often unoccupied skyscrapers, hotels, and malls clutter the waterfront and stifle colorful minds.
Perhaps cognizant that buying stuff only provides so much satisfaction and eager to contribute to the Arab world’s creative renaissance, Dubai Culture has commissioned small works of outdoor art that might transform at least small pockets of one of the world’s most materialistic cities into something a little more… interesting.
Climate Change to Worsen Migrant Workers’ Lives in Qatar
Trade unionists have used the COP18 discussions in Qatar to bring the silent but disturbing plight of migrant workers to light. While the emirate boasts about its plans to build a bevy of solar-powered stadiums in advance of the 2022 World Cup in addition to a host of other eco-boosting projects, very little has been said about who is going to do the work. Like Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Saudi Arabia, Qatar relies very heavily on migrant workers, who do all the dirty work but receive few of the benefits of their hard, miserable labor.
Date Palm Leaves Scrub Pharmaceuticals From Hospital Wastewater
Omani scientists have discovered that date palm leaves – the bamboo of the Middle East – can be used to scrub the pernicious pharmaceuticals from hospital wastewater that most conventional sewage treatment plants are unable to process.
The chemists from Sultan Qaboos University (SQU) claim that wasted date palm leaves treated with sulphuric acid at incredibly high temperatures can purify highly polluted water so effectively that it can thereafter be used to irrigate crops. A pilot plant will be inaugurated in Oman early 2013, but skeptics worry that the status quo will interrupt any kind of widespread implementation of this new technology.
Baran Group Anxious Over $14 Million Better Place Debt
Inside a Better Place batter switching station: an idea born too soon?
The fortunes of the Better Place electric car and service network company, which began going downhill when founder Shai Agassi was fired from being international CEO in October, have not improved much despite receiving a $100 million investment boost by the Israel Corporation, its main shareholder last month. The start up company created a large amount of media buzz with its unique concept of opening networks of EV car battery switching stations in Israel and elsewhere to give the car’s lithium battery packs more driving range.
Activists Call for a ‘Robin Hood Tax’ to Boost Climate Change Fund
Activists have gathered at the global COP18 climate event in Doha, Qatar to press negotiators to put aside money from a ‘Robin Hood tax” to boost the climate change fund. Evoking the legend of England’s Robin Hood, who either stole from or persuaded the rich to help the poor depending on which story one believes, a group of youth and environmental activists from around the globe propose that a tiny tax on financial transactions could be used to help the countries that are most vulnerable to climate change.
Qatar to Spend Up to $20 Billion on Solar
Like Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia, Qatar uses up a lot of its own fossil fuels – either to power energy-intensive desalination plants or complicated subsidies. The emirate is the world’s largest per capita consumer of energy, a topic that has come up time and again at the ongoing COP18 climate talks in Doha, and one of the slowest to respond to the call for emissions reductions. But that doesn’t mean no progress has been made.
Tatooed Ecologist Tristan Reid Treks Through Turkey To Save Wildlife
One man’s efforts to prevent ecological disaster and to save Turkey’s birds is permanent ink tats on his arms.
It was the close of the day for us birdwatchers at the Hula Valley Bird Festival in Israel. Our guides dropped us off where we were to dine, and while we waited, we talked to the “birders” – passionate bird and wildlife observers – who travel the world to watch bird immigration and give talks on wildlife. One man stood out among the conservatively-dressed birders. The pudgy guy with a Mohawk haircut and earring had his arms covered with colorful tattoos. Not your usual conservation activist. He calls himself The Inked Naturalist.
sOccket, a Fun-Powered Energy Ball Kids Kick for Power
Turning child’s play into power
Fun seems to be the one truly unlimited source of free energy. You can find it in the mountain villages of Turkey, the narrow streets of Jerusalem and the dusty villages of Jordan. Somewhere in Tehran or Cairo or Istanbul even as you read this, this energy is being generated and released as young people practice for the 2014 World Cup. Have you ever wondered at the possibilities of capturing this energy? No I don’t mean harnessing child labor as in some sort of Dickensian dystopia, I mean– what if we could harness some of the boundless energy released when people play, capture it while they are enjoying themselves?
Organic Farming in Palestine
A back-to-the-land movement is blossoming in the Palestinian Authority. “The Palestinian future is in the land.” Farmer Khader Khader said, standing in his organic olive grove in the northern West Bank village of Nus Jubail.
Many Palestinian farmers are switching to organic farming methods, and selling their oil to high-end grocers in the US and Europe.
According to the aid group Oxfam, an estimated 17,000 tons of olive oil is produced annually in the West Bank by thousands of farmers, some of whom are producing fair trade olive products. Olive oil has unique traditional and cultural significance in the region. Most Palestinian olive oil is produced for local consumption. But this product is becoming increasingly important for Palestinians’ connection to the global economy.
The business of organic farming, for international markets, was first introduced to the West Bank in 2004. According to Nasser Abu Farha of the Canaan Fair Trade Association (who we’ve covered here), one of the companies selling organic Palestinian olive oil to distributors abroad, today at least $5 million worth of organic olive oil is exported from the territories every year.
“About half of all Palestinian commercial oil exports,” he said. “The future of Palestinian exports is in added value, through environmental and social accountability. People want to know: Where is this oil coming from? Whose life is it changing?”
Around 930 Palestinian farmers have fair-trade and organic certification. Another 140 are in the process of “converting” their land, which takes two-to three-years of testing and monitoring the soil until it is officially certified as free from pesticides and chemicals.
Lack of rain and Israeli trade restrictions are among the many challenges these farmers face. But new digital technology and the rising demand for organic produce are giving Palestinian farmers new ways to compete in global markets.
In Whole Foods supermarkets in New York and New Jersey, organic Palestinian olive oil is sold under the “Alter Eco” brand, Farha said.
“I don’t throw rocks,” said Khader, in reference to young men who hurl stones at Israeli soldiers. The proud farmer, Khader, gestured towards the rock terraces he built in his organic olive grove. “I use them to build our future.”
Read more about green movements in Palestine:
Mapping Palestine’s Environmental Civil Society – The Good, the Bad and the Uncooperative
Could Phones Revolutionize Palestinian Agriculture?
Investing in Ramallah’s Children Key to Sustainability
Eco-Hybrid Car From Qatar Unveiled During Climate Talks
Counteracting overwhelming criticism leveled at Gulf nations for their lack of environmental accountability, the Gulf Organisation for Research and Development (GORD) unveiled a low-emission, lower fuel consumption hybrid car-concept that can be applied to any vehicle.
“The engine captures thermal waste energy that is utilized to generate electric energy to run hydrogen fuel cells using the potable water as a source for the gas,” GORD announced in a press release. Initial studies show that this technology emits 50% less carbon monoxide (CO) & nitrous oxide (NOX) than conventional oil or natural gas-powered vehicles.
United Arab Emirates Celebrates 41 Years – at the Zoo
The Arab Gulf emirates celebrates National Day at the zoo until Dec 3. Come for a picnic and see the animals.
Al Ain Zoo presents visitors with an exciting programme of events and activities in celebration of the 41st United Arab Emirates National Day. Visitors can also learn about the core of the UAE’s heritage with Arabian wildlife and traditional cultural proceedings at the zoo’s heritage village during the festivities from Thursday 29 November until Monday 3 December.