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Luxury Fisker Karma Electric Vehicle Hits the Middle East

Tafline Laylin
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Luxury Fisker Karma Electric Vehicle Hits the Middle East

Middle East, MENA, GCC, Gulf, Arabian Gulf, Fisker Karma, Electric Vehicles, eco-friendly car, eco-transportationThere really isn’t a better market than the Arabian Gulf for Fisker’s luxury electric vehicle, that smooth and opulent 5,000 pound Karma, so it comes as no surprise to learn that one of the world’s most expensive electric vehicles will soon be spotted flying down roads throughout the Middle East.

While many western buyers are crippled by economic hardships, except for the so-called one percent and Justin Bieber, certain residents of the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia coasting on oil money can still afford the $136,000 – $163, 320 (AED 500,000 – 600,000) price tag that comes with this ‘eco-friendly sedan.’

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Israelis Design Cardboard Wheelchairs for Africa

Tafline Laylin
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Israelis Design Cardboard Wheelchairs for Africa

cardboard bike, cardboard wheelchair, Izhar Gafni, Israel, recycled materials, I.G. Cardboard Technologies, Nimrod ElmishIzhar Gafni and the same team behind the already world-famous cardboard bicycle have added a few other items to their repertoire, including a cardboard wheelchair. After news of the dirt-cheap cardboard bicycle raced around the globe, an international non-profit organization contacted Israelis Nimrod Elmish and Izhar Gafni of I.G. Cardboard Technologies about developing a cardboard wheelchair that could be distributed to disabled Africans. So they set about making a prototype, which, it turns out, was actually less complicated than the bicycle.

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Steep Decline of Dead Sea Levels Due to Fertilizer Industry

Arwa Aburawa
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Steep Decline of Dead Sea Levels Due to Fertilizer Industry

dead sea shrinkingFriends of the Earth Middle East state that half of the record shrinkage of the Dead Sea is caused by Israeli and Jordanian fertilizer companies

Over the last year alone, the Dead Sea has shrunk by a record 1.5 metres. This ecological catastrophe however isn’t caused by environmental factors alone – according to the environmental organisation Middle East Friends of the Earth, half of the shrinkage was caused by two local fertilizer companies. Speaking to Bloomberg, Gidon Bromberg who is the Israeli director of the Friends of the Earth Middle East, urged Israel Chemicals Ltd and Jordan’s Arab Potash to stop siphoning off so much water and allow the Dead Sea to recover. 

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Natural Holy Land Healing Research Center in Jerusalem

Karin Kloosterman
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Natural Holy Land Healing Research Center in Jerusalem

univerve-seaweed biofuel

Seaweed is prolific in Israel’s Mediterranean Sea. It makes sense, then, that Middle Eastern ancients used it to help alleviate a host of ailments from peptic ulcers to fungal infections and wounds.

Based on past and present literature, archeology, history, biology, linguistics and botany, the Natural Medicine Research Unit for the Study of Complementary, Alternative and Integrated Medicine at Hadassah Medical Organization in Jerusalem is looking into how seaweed can be utilized for its nutritional and medicinal properties. Staffers have been working with Canadian partners to grow the novel idea into commercial projects.

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Green Waste Processing for Boutique Olive Oil Presses and Wineries

Karin Kloosterman
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Green Waste Processing for Boutique Olive Oil Presses and Wineries

green waste refinery water treatment for olive oil press, boutique wineries

An Israeli company makes a mini-sewage plant to help small wineries, olive oil and cheese-makers deal with the pollutants from their industries.

Waste from small olive presses, cheese factories and wineries is not good for the water or soil. Organic farming and the 100-Mile Diet have influenced new college graduates to establish farms instead of seeking jobs in finance. The last decade has seen an explosion of cottage industries in everything from cheese- to wine-making.

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Jerusalem’s Machane Yehuda Market – How to Eat Your Way Through It

Linda Gradstein - The Media Line
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Jerusalem’s Machane Yehuda Market – How to Eat Your Way Through It

Jerusalem shuk bites food tour at Machane Yehuda

Shuk Bites – for $26 you can eat your way through Jerusalem’s famous food market

There are plenty of self-guided tours in Jerusalem, and even a few culinary tours. But combining the two approaches, “Shuk Bites” is the first self-guided culinary tour. [“Shuk” is the Middle Eastern word for market place, seen commonly throughout the region. It often suggests an outdoor presence. – ed.] A cross between a treasure hunt, a scavenger hunt and a walking tour, “Shuk Bites” offers stops and tastings at ten different shops within the Machane Yehuda market, central Jerusalem’s “shuk.”

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Wallboards from Waste Using Cow Pies

Faisal O'Keefe
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Wallboards from Waste Using Cow Pies

man standing beside cow piesA novel way to turn cow poop into profits. Would you wear this molded fibre on your wall?

The quest for construction materials with low environmental impact is leading product developers to new pastures. Literally, in the case of Noble Environmental Technologies Corporation, whose ECORE line of bio-based panels are made from cow poop. American farms produce an estimated 2 trillion pounds of manure each year (comparable stats for Middle East ranchers not readily available).

The smartest way to turn a buck is to convert a problem into a solution that gets you paid both coming and going: get paid to collect a waste (or buy it at deep discount over alternative raw material), and then convert that waste into a resale product.

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New Lake Rose 35 Feet in the Arabian Desert This Past Year Alone

Tafline Laylin
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New Lake Rose 35 Feet in the Arabian Desert This Past Year Alone

desert, United Arab Emirates, lakes, Arabian desert, desalinated waterA handful of new lakes popping up in the vast and formidable Arabian desert are creating whole new ecosystems and attracting rare bird species that breed among the dunes. And, technically, it’s not a naturally-occurring phenomenon.

NPR traveled to the United Arab Emirates to witness firsthand one such lake that rose 35 feet in the last year alone. It was populated by cormorants, herons and even Ferruginous ducks, as well as fish and other species that couldn’t normally survive the harsh desert environment.

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Siemens Exits Israel’s Solel Solar Initiative

Shifra Mincer
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Siemens Exits Israel’s Solel Solar Initiative

siemens exits

Even as some solar projects are just taking flight in Israel, underlining a new wave of optimism about the technology’s ability to succeed in the country, other solar giants are taking their leave of Israel. International energy and infrastructure giant, Siemens, announced last Monday that it was closing down its Siemens-Solel plant in Beit Shemesh, Israel. In the process, 70 of the concentrated solar power (CSP) plant’s employees were laid off.

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Angry Cow Murders Its Gazan Slaughterer During Muslim Eid Festival

Maurice Picow
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Angry Cow Murders Its Gazan Slaughterer During Muslim Eid Festival

cow being slaughtered in Asia

Amateur slaughterers are often injured on the job. Should slaughtering be left to the professionals?

The annual Hajj pilgrimage, on which we wrote about efforts to make it more green, has also become an event in which animals are being slaughtered inhumanely for the accompanying Ein al-Adha  or the Muslim Feast of the Sacrifice holiday.  This form of ritual slaughtering  is also becoming an issue by animal rights activists. An attempt at slaughtering a cow went wrong this year as a Gazan animal took revenge by killing the man about to slaughter it. 

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Noble Energy May be Pushing its Luck by Drilling for Deep Oil in the Med

Maurice Picow
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Noble Energy May be Pushing its Luck by Drilling for Deep Oil in the Med

Satellite view of Deepwater Horizen oil spill slick, April 30, 2010Satellite view of Deepwater Horizen oil spill slick, April 30, 2010: Photo by US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

Noble Energy, the Houston based energy company, has been working with both Israel and Cyprus to find commercial quantities of natural gas under the eastern Mediterranean seabed . Noble Energy’s Mediterranean undersea energy exploration has included the Leviathan and Tamar gas fields, together with energy tycoons like Delek Energy’s  Yitzhak Tshuva. The natural gas finds so far are estimated to be able to provide Israel with enough natural gas to satisfy energy needs for 150 years – if handled wisely.

Further exploration by Noble and other energy companies are now revealing that oil deposits, located under some of the gas fields, may also be worth going after; even though this would involve very deep and environmentally risky drilling processes. These gas fields include the Leviathan field, off Israel’s coastal city of Haifa; and the Aphrodite gas field off the southern coast of Cyprus.

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Seed Money Available to Protect Mediterranean Basin Birds

Faisal O'Keefe
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Seed Money Available to Protect Mediterranean Basin Birds

mediterranean birds sunsetSeed money up to $1 million to protect your local birds. Apply today.

Sick of reading about Cyprus songbirds killed and pickled for snacks?  Weary of wild killing sprees like Egypt’s sanctioned bird hunt ? Or maybe the downed flamingos in Kuwait ruffled your feathers?

BirdLife International has created a fund to underwrite environmental preservation projects in one of the world’s top biodiversity hotspots: the Mediterranean Basin. Check out their new website to learn more about the group and their work.  Especially nice is a link where you can enter your country and see which species are at risk and find resources to get involved locally.  A search on Jordan, as example, leads to The Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature, BirdLife’s partner in Jordan, which in turn will advise on in-kingdom conservation.

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Jordan Struggles To Provide Water For Syrian Refugees

Arwa Aburawa
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Jordan Struggles To Provide Water For Syrian Refugees

syria water jordan refugeesThe 19-month conflict in Syria goes from bad to worse – and there are environmental impacts for the region too

“The situation is bad and getting worse,” U.N.-Arab League peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi said today, lamenting the collapse of the truce he helped broker over the Eid al-Adha holiday. A car bomb which exploded near a Damascus mosque shattered the fragile ceasefire which had done little to stem violence across the country. And so, the 19-month conflict rages on with costs to the Syrian people and the region. In a previous post, I covered how poor water policies may have aggravated the conflict in Syria but Jordan – which has taken in over 200,000 Syrians- is now struggling with its own water supplies for refugees.

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Etgar Keret’s Skinny House in Poland

Tafline Laylin
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Etgar Keret’s Skinny House in Poland

Ermitage house, Etgar Keret, Israeli writer, skinny house, Warsaw, Poland, tiny house, Jakub Szczensy, CentralaWe’ve all been trying to imagine: just how skinny is Etgar Keret’s Ermitage house in Warsaw, Poland? Literally wedged between two buildings, the studio is one of the most talked about tiny homes on the web. Designed by Jakub Szczensy of Centrala as a tribute to Keret’s family who died during the WWII Holocaust, the project also has a humorous side. Step in for photos and a bonus cartoon at the end which briefly outlines the origin of this crazy idea.

Etgar Keret, Israeli writer, skinny house, Warsaw, Poland, tiny house, Jakub Szczensy, Centrala

The house is so skinny you can hardly see it squeezed between these two larger buildings.

Etgar Keret, Israeli writer, skinny house, Warsaw, Poland, tiny house, Jakub Szczensy, Ermitage house, Centrala

The image on the left of Etgar Keret was taken by Bartek Warzecha and came from the writer’s official Facebook page.

Etgar Keret, Israeli writer, skinny house, Warsaw, Poland, tiny house, Jakub Szczensy, Centrala

This is the westward side of the home. Notice the grid panel that allows natural light and ventilation to penetrate the interior.

Etgar Keret, Israeli writer, skinny house, Warsaw, Poland, tiny house, Jakub Szczensy, Centrala

The door almost seems wider than the house, which will be used as a studio for invited guests – young creators and intellectualists from all over the world, according to a statement from the design team.

etgar keret house bed

“The residential program, conducted in the heart of Wola, is supposed to produce creative work conditions and become a significant platform for world intellectual exchange.”

warsaw skinny house etgar keret at desk

Images via Etgar Keret; Wikicommons; two lower photos via EK News

‘Queen of Mean’ Leona Helmsley’s Trust to Fund Solar Energy Research in Israel

Tafline Laylin
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‘Queen of Mean’ Leona Helmsley’s Trust to Fund Solar Energy Research in Israel

Leona Helmsley, Queen of Mean, Convicted Felon, Will for her Dog, Weizmann Institute, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, renewable energy, solar energy, biofuels, clean techKnown as the ‘Queen of Mean’ because of her tyrannical behavior towards just about everyone who crossed her path, Leona M. Helmsley was also a convicted felon who set up a $12 million trust for her Maltese Trouble. That amount was reduced to a more reasonable $2 million to ensure lifelong care for the dog, while the remaining $10 million was passed on to two grandchildren that Helmsley had disavowed in her will.

Famous for saying “We don’t pay taxes. Only little people pay taxes,” Helmsley left $4 billion for the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust that is now valued at roughly $5-8 billion. And $15 million of that, the trust recently announced, will be used to fund a dynamic joint program between the Weizmann Institute of Science and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology to accelerate renewable energy research.

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Most of the world’s marine protected areas are polluted by sewage

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Research from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the University of Queensland, published in Ocean & Coastal Management, found that nearly three out of four marine protected areas (MPAs) worldwide are exposed to sewage pollution.

Adamah in Los Angeles wants to make Jewish climate action local, practical and spiritual

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At a time when climate anxiety can feel abstract and overwhelming, and being Jewish something people may need to hide in big cities, Adamah Los Angeles is trying something different: turning Jewish values into local climate action with dirt-under-the-fingernails practicality.

How to safely remove astroturf and plastics from your backyard

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For families with kids, pets, or anyone trying to build a cleaner outdoor space, removing old astroturf is one of the simplest ways to reduce unnecessary exposure to plastics and heat. Some past studies suggest that if kids have played on these surfaces you need to wash their hands. 

Is artificial turf bad for your health?

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Artificial turf, the green plastic stuff that is supposed to look like grass, was sold to many home-owners as a clever compromise: a green-looking surface that makes you feel homey, but which needs no mowing. It survives heavy use, and in dry places like Middle East deserts, and in California or Texas, it can replace thirsty lawns. But it is toxic.

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