Magnificent public art or environmental boondoggle? Oil drums stacked to the height of the Giza pyramids.
Christo, the artist who temporarily wrapped acres of fabric around the Pont Neuf and the Reichstag, now plans to stack thousands of empty oil drums in the Abu Dhabi desert in his first ever permanent installation. The finished work will rise 150 meters above the desert, a mass that would eclipse the Great Pyramid of Giza: is this magnificent public art or environmental boondoggle?
Ordering a foul or falafel sandwich at any fast food chain or street vendor in Cairo puts consumers one step closer to triple bypass surgery. This has less to do with the food itself than it does with how it is prepared, since Egyptian cuisine, a fluid, nebulous thing fraught with the influence of so many nations, is often comprised of perfectly healthy ingredients that even vegans can eat, except they’re usually not so fresh and swim in fat.
Now there’s Zööba, a “hip” new restaurant in Zamalek that takes the heart-stopping edge off street food while maintaining both the tradition and the fun. Using mostly seasonal produce and only the freshest ingredients and spices, this tiny concept eatery founded by Chris Khalifa and Moustafa El Refaie offers up wholesome dishes that come with a side of Egyptian pride.
Investing in African Agriculture
This past April, MASHAV, Israel’s agency for international development cooperation, signed a memorandum of understanding with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The memorandum is aimed at addressing food security through partnerships with farmers in Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Rwanda. Israel will contribute expertise in irrigation, water technologies, agricultural production and climate change.
Israeli experts have experience with desertification and hostile, dry environments. The Negev Desert makes up around 60 percent of Israel’s total landmass. Yet, since its establishment in 1948, Israel has managed to create a thriving agricultural economy. This experience could be particularly valuable in African countries with scarce water resources.
Online and remote controls for smart energy solutions for heating, cooling and office space lighting.
About 20 percent of the operational expenses in office buildings, schools and hospitals goes toward energy — HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) and electricity. Usually a default temperature is set for all year round, and the HVAC system and lights stay on even in unused rooms.
Now an Israeli company Beemtech aims to keep managers aware of how the space is being used in order to control the temperature and lighting more efficiently, and reduce costs dramatically, says CEO Nati Freiberg.
A sea level rise of 100 inches or eight feet in Ar Ru’ays, a city at the northern tip of Qatar, would render 100 percent of the population homeless. Considered one of the top ten developing nations that is most vulnerable to rising seas, the host of the 18th Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC has good reason to push for a successful meeting.
17,000 delegates from around the world have gathered in Doha and so much is at stake. This year the existing Kyoto Protocol expires and Canada, Russia, Japan and New Zealand have said they won’t sign on for another round. Those nations that have committed to an amendment must agree on the terms and expiry date, while the battle between developing and developed countries, and who should bear responsibility, desperately needs to be resolved.
Egypt’s youth are an inspiring bunch. They have taken down a dictator, and withstood the subsequent uncertainty, but their hardest battle may come in convincing the country that the natural surroundings are worth saving. But they are not being deterred. A few dedicated environmentalists in the country gathered this month to continue to build the country’s first National Coalition on Climate Change, which will look at a range of issues from recycling and trash to global rises in temperatures and how Egyptians can help the battle.
In a bid to highlight our water use and waste, photographer Peter Holmes has created a series of memorable portraits of water use in different countries.
“Statistics about water consumption are difficult to comprehend and are un-relatable to everyday life – this project attempts to make water consumption visible in a meaningful way.” Well, that’s one way to justify dumping water over people doing something innocent like reading or drinking a cup of tea from places as far afield as Canada and Morocco. It took photographer Peter Holmes over two years to complete the portraits which “bridge the gap between statistics and significance of water use” in a bid to make it more ‘visible’. The stunning results are featured below.
Israel now has relations with 44 African nations, more than at any time in the country’s history. “This is the dawning of a new era in relations between Israel and African states,” according to Lynn Schler, director of the Africa Centre at Ben-Gurion University. During summer 2012, a vast array of high-profile African leaders visited Israel, and Israeli leaders visited partners in Africa, in the hopes of fostering closer economic and agricultural ties. And in May, the first-ever Nigerian delegation of high-profile businessmen attended Agritech Israel 2012, an international agricultural technology exhibition.
Spanish fast fashion company Zara has come under intense fire recently for failing to address a Greenpeace report released last year outlining the textile industry’s deleterious impact on China’s waterways. Called Dirty Laundry, the report unveiled that persistent and bio-accumulative hazardous chemicals with hormone-disrupting properties are released into the same water that residents rely on for their livelihoods.
Several other clothing manufacturers rose to the environmental advocacy group’s challenge to clean up their act. Zara’s failure to do the same has resulted in a massive global campaign to besmirch the firm and pressure its leadership to re-evaluate their environmental policies.
Gaza fishermen are now able to sail further out to fish but commercial fish farming may be a better option
Environmental and economic issues facing Palestinians living in Gaza have gone from bad to worse since the previous Cast Lead conflict between Gaza and Israel in 2008 – 2009. This is especially true following the most recent conflict, Pillar of Defense, just now put on hold with an Egyptian-brokered cease fire. Water problems, especially involving flooding by waste water, and a dire shortage of fresh water, may make the strip unlivable by 2020 and its water undrinkable by 2016.
In the Middle East, recipes for stuffed vegetables and leaves evolved from a simple, thrifty way with meat to a culinary passion.
Careful housewives have long known that a little ground meat goes a long way when artfully seasoned and combined with rice.
But it took imagination and care to develop the recipes of stuffed leaves and vegetables in sauce that so entrance the Middle Eastern palate, like our stuffed zucchinis, stuffed potatoes, and stuffed artichoke hearts.
For this recipe, there’s no need to wait for grape vines to put out fresh leaves in spring. Grape leaves that you buy in jars make fine wrappings for the delicately spicy filling below. I find the simple manual process of stuffing and rolling the grape leaves enjoyable and meditative. Mostly, though, I enjoy the compliments when family and guests take “just one more” till the platter is empty.
A SARS-like respiratory illness has claimed the life of a second person from Saudi Arabia, the World Health Organization (WHO) recently announced. The coronavirus sparked worldwide attention in September when an initial alert was sounded, but now a total of six cases have been reported, two of which have been fatal.
A new marketplace for Casablanca – complete with rainwater harvesting and a clever trash chute?
While the souq or market is integral to Moroccan culture, they are frequently crowded and polluted as population density expands throughout the North African country. TomDavid Architecten from The Netherlands submitted a proposal as part of an international design competition for a more sustainable market square that captures and recycles rainwater and surreptitiously directs trash to underground bins.
This clever design, which features an elevated platform shaded by a leaf-shaped canopy and underground shopping, promotes greater ventilation and human circulation and fosters a more sustainable market ethos.
More and more studies highlight the truly drastic action we need to take at Doha to avoid four degree warming – but is it too late?
According to a new report, heat waves in the Middle East with temperatures consistently above 40 degrees could seem like ‘a pleasant prospect in a few decades’ if we don’t take drastic action to stop climate change. The report by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and German NGO Climate Analytics for the World Bank has been released in the lead up to COP18 and is designed to shock us into action. It states that even if the current carbon pledges were met, “there is roughly a 20 percent likelihood of exceeding 4°C by 2100, and a 10 percent chance of 4°C being exceeded as early as the 2070.” An increase of 6°C or more in average summer months was predicted for the Middle East by the report.
Lacking the necessary raw materials has been a major barrier to any kind of paper industry in Oman, but that could change if a young inventor commercializes his patented palm leaf waste to paper technology. A recent graduate of Sultan Qaboos University, Mustafa Salim Abdullah Barami first learned how to use the palm leaf waste as pulp for paper while he was working on his Chemistry and Petrochemicals degree.
Barami has since gone on to win a host of accolades for the patented – and carefully-guarded – process. Now he is working on developing his entrepreneurial skills so that he will be well-poised to take the next step towards scaled production.
Have news to share? Renewable energy news, architectural, artificial intelligence, biotech, sustainable design ideas, eco-architecture, green travel?
Email us: [email protected]
Get important news delivered directly to your inbox and stay connected!
© 2007 to 2026 Green Prophet, All Rights Reserved