Who was Hassan Fathy, the earth based architect who inspired the Middle East? Exactly forty years ago, Hassan Fathy published his groundbreaking book on community-inspired mud architecture in Egypt. To mark his book’s 40th anniversary and commemorate his green legacy, we spoke to Salma Samar Damluji who worked with Fathy in Cairo in 1975 and […]
As urban trash threatens to bury city dwellers in environmental and financial ruin, recycling materials is becoming not only a progressive design technique but also a necessary one. That doesn’t mean that an economy of materials has to be boring, mind you. Often, quite the contrary is true. By using either recycled or inexpensive materials, […]
An Israeli Minister has submitted a bill for approval that would outlaw public nudity anywhere in the country except at established nude beaches. An outspoken opponent of Spencer Tunick’s September, 2011 nude photo shoot at a secret location along the Dead Sea, which attracted 1,000 Israelis keen to draw attention to the dire ecological state […]
With 23 seats and 16 doors, the all electric Superbus is no ordinary car It’s 15 meters long, super luxurious and totally electric powered. It’s called the Superbus, and it was originally proposed as a super fast and luxurious commuter vehicle between the UEA Emirate states of Abu Dhabi and Dubai. This totally electric and […]
Earth’s dust storms and sand storms are becoming more frequent. How does that affect your health? Here in the Middle East, powerful hot winds sometimes drop fine yellowish sand down from the sky, coating the skin and lips irritatingly and making it hard to see across the street. It’s the lashing tail of giant storms […]
Jet fuel in breast milk? Breasts getting bigger than generations ago? These are just two discoveries that investigative journalist, Florence William’s, shares in her latest book about the environmental impact on breasts.
Dr Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, the Masdar CEO, is the recipient of this year’s United Nations’ Champions of the Earth award. The award honours individuals whose actions and leadership have had a far-reaching positive impact on the environment, in advancing clean energy technologies to mitigate the threats of climate change. Abu Dhabi’s multi-faceted renewable energy […]
Waeel Abdessalam breeds rabbits on the third floor of his family home in El-Hamidiyah el-Gadida, a small village in the Fayoum area roughly 100 km southwest of Cairo. A beneficiary of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations’ TeleFood program, the young man tends to the rabbits early in the morning before leaving to […]
Desert locusts traveling southwest from Algeria and Libya threaten to decimate crops in Niger and Mali, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations warned on Wednesday. Since rebel forces killed Gaddafi in October last year, insecurity along both sides of the Algerian-Libyan border has hampered pest control efforts, allowing locusts to swarm across […]
Heaping urban trash may be an even more daunting global phenomenon than climate change, the World Bank warned in a recent report. What a Waste: A Global Review of Solid Waste Management reveals that by 2025, city dwellers could produce as much as 2.2 billion tonnes of solid waste a year, up 70% than the 1.3 billion […]
In occasion of World Oceans Day, Green Prophet provides you with some tools for some (much needed) marine activism. What does sea water mean for you? What memories do you have of swimming in the sea? If you were in the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, Arabian Sea or the Persian Gulf 15 to 20 […]
Greenearth energy looks to Israeli solar tech to make use of Oz’s vast brown coal resources. With the climate change tipping point precipitously close, an Israeli-Australian venture will use solar technology to mitigate the greenhouse gases from coal in Australia. Developed at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel the new venture will reduce carbon […]
It’s never difficult to pick a Moroccan building out of the crowd and this beautiful new Guelmim Technology School is no exception. Bold and red like the nearby desert, the 6,833 square meter campus design by architects Saad El Kabbaj, Driss Kettani, and Mohamed Amine Siana comprises a contemporary twist on vernacular architecture. Hit the jump for […]
A Saudi solar project with gigantic storage could deliver solar at night in South Africa. Saudi Arabia might not spring to mind as a nation creating the top CSP companies globally, but South Africa just selected as a “preferred bidder” to develop solar, a consortium led by the Kingdom’s own power and water group ACWA […]
April 2012 saw Tel Aviv’s first Bridal Fashion Week, featuring fifty up and coming Israeli designers. Israel’s lucrative bridal fashion business is on the rise. And now it appears that Natalie Portman’s eco-friendly engagement ring or vegan shoes are not the only green, Israeli trendsetter snagging headlines. Israeli designer Liraz Rubbin uses natural materials and prides herself on […]