A large sperm whale has washed ashore on Zikim Beach in southern Israel, marking only the eighth documented case of its kind along the country’s Mediterranean coast since monitoring began.
For millennia, the Middle East's water crisis seemed an immutable fact of geography — a region defined as much by what it lacked as by what lay beneath its sands. Today, a convergence of plummeting solar costs, advancing membrane technology, and hard-won engineering expertise is rewriting that story.
Adults who are 21 or older can carry up to 30 grams. This amount applies to personal use within Pittsburgh’s limits. Carrying more could lead to confiscation or legal action. Staying under the limit avoids problems during any public stop.
A large sperm whale has washed ashore on Zikim Beach in southern Israel, marking only the eighth documented case of its kind along the country’s Mediterranean coast since monitoring began.
For millennia, the Middle East's water crisis seemed an immutable fact of geography — a region defined as much by what it lacked as by what lay beneath its sands. Today, a convergence of plummeting solar costs, advancing membrane technology, and hard-won engineering expertise is rewriting that story.
Adults who are 21 or older can carry up to 30 grams. This amount applies to personal use within Pittsburgh’s limits. Carrying more could lead to confiscation or legal action. Staying under the limit avoids problems during any public stop.
A large sperm whale has washed ashore on Zikim Beach in southern Israel, marking only the eighth documented case of its kind along the country’s Mediterranean coast since monitoring began.
For millennia, the Middle East's water crisis seemed an immutable fact of geography — a region defined as much by what it lacked as by what lay beneath its sands. Today, a convergence of plummeting solar costs, advancing membrane technology, and hard-won engineering expertise is rewriting that story.
Adults who are 21 or older can carry up to 30 grams. This amount applies to personal use within Pittsburgh’s limits. Carrying more could lead to confiscation or legal action. Staying under the limit avoids problems during any public stop.
A large sperm whale has washed ashore on Zikim Beach in southern Israel, marking only the eighth documented case of its kind along the country’s Mediterranean coast since monitoring began.
For millennia, the Middle East's water crisis seemed an immutable fact of geography — a region defined as much by what it lacked as by what lay beneath its sands. Today, a convergence of plummeting solar costs, advancing membrane technology, and hard-won engineering expertise is rewriting that story.
Adults who are 21 or older can carry up to 30 grams. This amount applies to personal use within Pittsburgh’s limits. Carrying more could lead to confiscation or legal action. Staying under the limit avoids problems during any public stop.
A large sperm whale has washed ashore on Zikim Beach in southern Israel, marking only the eighth documented case of its kind along the country’s Mediterranean coast since monitoring began.
For millennia, the Middle East's water crisis seemed an immutable fact of geography — a region defined as much by what it lacked as by what lay beneath its sands. Today, a convergence of plummeting solar costs, advancing membrane technology, and hard-won engineering expertise is rewriting that story.
Adults who are 21 or older can carry up to 30 grams. This amount applies to personal use within Pittsburgh’s limits. Carrying more could lead to confiscation or legal action. Staying under the limit avoids problems during any public stop.
A large sperm whale has washed ashore on Zikim Beach in southern Israel, marking only the eighth documented case of its kind along the country’s Mediterranean coast since monitoring began.
For millennia, the Middle East's water crisis seemed an immutable fact of geography — a region defined as much by what it lacked as by what lay beneath its sands. Today, a convergence of plummeting solar costs, advancing membrane technology, and hard-won engineering expertise is rewriting that story.
Adults who are 21 or older can carry up to 30 grams. This amount applies to personal use within Pittsburgh’s limits. Carrying more could lead to confiscation or legal action. Staying under the limit avoids problems during any public stop.
A large sperm whale has washed ashore on Zikim Beach in southern Israel, marking only the eighth documented case of its kind along the country’s Mediterranean coast since monitoring began.
For millennia, the Middle East's water crisis seemed an immutable fact of geography — a region defined as much by what it lacked as by what lay beneath its sands. Today, a convergence of plummeting solar costs, advancing membrane technology, and hard-won engineering expertise is rewriting that story.
Adults who are 21 or older can carry up to 30 grams. This amount applies to personal use within Pittsburgh’s limits. Carrying more could lead to confiscation or legal action. Staying under the limit avoids problems during any public stop.
A large sperm whale has washed ashore on Zikim Beach in southern Israel, marking only the eighth documented case of its kind along the country’s Mediterranean coast since monitoring began.
For millennia, the Middle East's water crisis seemed an immutable fact of geography — a region defined as much by what it lacked as by what lay beneath its sands. Today, a convergence of plummeting solar costs, advancing membrane technology, and hard-won engineering expertise is rewriting that story.
Adults who are 21 or older can carry up to 30 grams. This amount applies to personal use within Pittsburgh’s limits. Carrying more could lead to confiscation or legal action. Staying under the limit avoids problems during any public stop.
It’s summertime, which means the ladies can finally break out their planet-friendly dresses and strut the streets in style, so we are giving you a chance to win the dress of your dreams from Greece’s very first organic clothing line. MuMu Organic is giving away one beautiful, handmade cotton dress made with the finest fair-trade materials (you get to choose) and a 50% discount on goods purchased from their e-shop to the first five Green Prophet readers who comment on this post.
How does it work?
i. First, tell us in the comment section at the end of this post why you think that buying organic clothing made in accordance with fair-trade principles is so important.
MuMu Organic was started in the beautiful Cyclades islands in 2009 by designer Athena Bentila and artist Roland Wakker. Their 100% organic cotton dresses are adorned with solid colors, playful patterns, charming colourful dots, and a very fine thread work pattern. They are available for purchase online and can be shipped anywhere in the world. Make sure to sign up for their newsletter for access to stay abreast of their awesome green happenings.
In order to be eligible to win the competition, readers must comment on this post, “like” us on Facebook and sign up for our weekly newsletter. Our judges will pick a name out of a hat and the winner will be announced on July 20, 2012. Although this one is for the ladies, gents are welcome to apply too. If you win, your significant other will thank you for the rest of the year!
To make it as easy as possible for you to enter, we suggest that you click on our Facebook and newsletter links so that they open in a new tab. Thanks for reading and good luck!
We are at the edge of one of the most important epochs in religious architecture. Architects working on mosque designs are bound by energy and resource constraints in addition to escalating temperatures and the threat of rising seas, but they are also restricted by the expectations of tradition. Which is what makes Suhail Mohammed Suleiman’s graduation project so remarkable.
Although mosques have not always had minarets, it’s uncommon to find a contemporary mosque in the Muslim world that does not bear the familiar spire from which the adhan is called five times a day. But Suleiman eschews the status quo, calling for rooftop gardens and solar panels instead. And he has dedicated his project to Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed – Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi in the hopes that it will be built on Saadiyat Island.
Measuring sea levels in the face of global warming isn’t easy, but it’s important to understand on a global scale
Can wasted water contribute to rising sea levels? The answer is a global climate mystery. Given the known increase in average global temperatures, the thermal expansion coefficient of water and the known loss of polar ice, the sea level should rise should be predictable. But the actual rise is slightly higher than predicted. I’ll explain how this works.
Paint researchers at University of Notre Dame go green, and not just ‘cause they’re the “Fighting Irish”
A team of scientists and engineers led by Professor Prashant Kamat is generating energy from solar paint. Building on recent advances in semiconductor nanocrystal research, they’ve developed a one-coat solar paint for designing quantum dot solar cells.
Energy is created when this paste, made of semi-conducting nano-particles of titanium dioxide mixed with cadmium sulfide or cadmium selenide, is applied to a conducting glass surface and annealed at high temperature. Cadmium is a highly toxic metal historically used as a protective coating for steel and as an ingredient in creating red, orange and yellow pigments. This spreadable liquid mimics traditional paint, it’s applied via brushwork or spray painting.
Gmail offers recycling tips. Apparently, they’ve been doing this for years.
What rock have I been under? I was doing some email spring cleaning during an especially snooze-inducing conference call, and there in my Gmail Trash file, up popped a random recycling tip. Newspapers can be reused as wrapping paper for gifts. I’ve been painting the New York Times classified for decades in lieu of Hallmark’s pricey wrapping, so this naturally appealed. But I’m fairly immune to advertising pop-ups, so it’s curious that this caught my eye.
Apparently, Google doesn’t monetize space reserved for Web Clips in their Gmail Trash folder. Instead, it offers clever enviro-tips and recycling facts in that folder’s top bar.
Graduation by Demonstration is a school assignment on steroids.
Educators Michael Gohde and Molly Van Cleave dreamed up this novel project over three years ago as a means to exercise all the skills in an 8th grader’s backpack.
Middle school lays the foundation for high school. Kids learn to write. Really write. They learn to dig in, conduct serious research to support their ideas. They tap into facts and use logic. They’re challenged by teachers and critiqued by their peers. Their minds open to new ideas. They become more effective communicators with key skills that will last a lifetime.
Amman’s American Community School is a melting pot of culture, religion, income and family make-up. The student body is a rich soup made up one part Americans; two parts Jordanians with a US connection; and a heaping spoonful of English-speaking Europeans, Asians, Africans and South/Central Americans with Jordan-employed parents. The faculty is equally diverse.
The district of Sulukule has been home to Istanbul’s Roma community since Byzantine times, but many of its residents were displaced to make way for a development project that started three years ago.
Sulukule was declared a target area for “urban transformation” by the Turkish cabinet in 2006. Six years, four lawsuits, and many evictions later, an Istanbul court has finally declared the project not to be in the public interest, reports Turkish independent media center Bianet. In the meantime, however, irreparable demolition and damage has occurred to the area and its residents.
We’ve never been able to shake the vision of an apocalyptic Dubai – a seemingly inevitable time when the scores of largely unoccupied skyscrapers inching towards the Gulf will be evacuated and swallowed up by the surrounding desert. And now renowned British photographer Richard Allenby Pratt has created a series of images called Abandoned that makes such a nightmare tangible. By inserting images of the odd lion, rhino, or kangaroo in the dry and broken landscape, Richard calls attention to the plight of the world’s creatures that we have so shamelessly plundered in our ceaseless devotion to acquisition.
Israeli diplomats and ministers have taken a quasi-Messianic tone as the Rio+20 United Nations conference approaches.”Our main message is that the world has the problems and challenges and Israel has the solutions,” said Galit Cohen, senior deputy director-general of Israel’s Environment Ministry. “Israeli innovation for the world.”
Israel has a reputation as an international hub of green technology. It has not only fostered a market for clean technology and sustainable innovation, but has also made these developments a national priority.
Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, the Palestinian Authority, Tunisia and Turkey were among the representatives at the SafeMed course on the environmental risk of ballast water last month. The course was offered in Malta and is designed to emphasize the effective implementation of the International Convention for the Control and Management of Ships’ Ballast Water and Sediments (BWM Convention).
SafeMed is funded by a number of Mediterranean nations. It is designed to encourage cooperation between members in maritime safety, security and the prevention of pollution and ecological damage from shipping. Ballast water exchanges are designed to facilitate safe and efficient shipping but if not carefully managed, they can spread invasive species around the world.
The Israeli government continues to process a bill that will regulate, for the first time, management of the country’s electronic waste. If it gets approved by the Knesset, the bill would require manufacturers to finance the proper recycling of their materials.
The bill would also stipulate that by 2020 it would be illegal to send electronic products that had not been recycled or reused to the regular landfill. Data from the Environmental Protection Ministry suggests that Israel produces 85,000 tones of electronic waste a year.
We’ve featured some of the world’s most beautiful mosques on Green Prophet, but this is the first that resembles a cave. Slated for a prairie landscape in Buyuk Cekmece on the outskirts of Istanbul, the Sancaklar Mosque by Emre Arolat Architects is designed to offer genuine reprieve from the growing madness of urban life.
This is achieved in part by surrounding the park’s higher elevation with tall walls that draw a distinct boundary it and the surrounding landscape. And then natural stone steps lead to a peaceful underground space that promotes a heightened spiritual experience.
The mayor of Lebanon’s capital Beirut has launched “Beirut is Amazing,” an ambitious plan to finally green up the infamous concrete city. Following dedicated activism and scores of complaints from urban planners and designers, the city recruited the private sector to help regenerate existing green spaces and to create a few more.
But Horsh Beirut, which constitutes 77% of the city’s green lung, will not be opened to the public yet, though mayor Bilal Hamad told The Daily Star that studies are being conducted to determine how to manage the park so that it is not destroyed. Meanwhile, a coalition of 12 non-government organizations will stage guerrilla picnics tomorrow at 13 spots throughout Beirut as part of ongoing efforts to gain access to the park, which has been closed for 20 years.
We’ve been wanting to write a post that will get our readers in the mood for summer eco-travel, but it’s bad business to send people to countries that are bubbling with underlying trouble. Here’s the kind of letter we’re expressly trying to avoid: “Your writers recommended that we visit Egypt to sample biomimicry tours or Fayoum’s gorgeous new eco-haven but then we were harassed in Tahrir Square and abducted in Sinai. We’re dumping you!”
Of course, we would never recommend anything we wouldn’t do, and are heading to Egypt next week despite the ongoing uncertainty, but we decided to keep this post really safe by suggesting a visit to five countries that have options for the earth-conscious travelers and that, for now, are unlikely to erupt in mayhem. And we really hope to never eat those words.
Essentially, if you’re coming from the US or Europe, don’t be surprised to find that there are no recycling bins outside your hotel rooms or earth-friendly shampoo in retail outlets. Instead, having a light footprint while traveling through the Middle East and North Africa requires critical thinking and often a little more effort than home.
Here are five countries that make it a little easier to connect with the earth without destroying it:
1. Oman
Technically-speaking, Oman is located in SW Asia on the Arabian Peninsula. But it’s a Sultanate, an Arab-speaking country, and lies within our realm of concern. It is also one of the most beautiful countries in the region, having retained so much more of the slow desert pace than its neighbors Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
There are 2,092 kilometers of shoreline, a central desert plain and rugged mountains in the north and south and 32 Marine and littoral protected areas ensure that these vast natural reserves are reasonably well protected. It is also one of the premier diving spots in the world, a little known fact in the west, with over 100 dive sites to choose from around Musandam alone.
People are friendly and hospitable, it’s easy to obtain visas, and it is incredibly stable and peaceful.
2. Morocco
Although Morocco doesn’t have a pristine human rights record and activists constantly call attention to corruption, somehow King Mohamed VI has managed to quell any would-be riots.
Which means that tourists can travel without fear by bus and train to most locations, ensuring a lighter footprint than that of cars and planes, to resplendent locations that boast the nation’s rich cultural and natural heritage. There are eco-lodges galore, including one that looks like a castle, vegetarian restaurants, local crafts, and outdoor activities that draw scores of French and Spanish tourists from across the Mediterranean each year.
If you haven’t hiked to the top of Mt. Toubkal, slept under the stars in the Sahara, or sampled the ubiquitous tagine, this summer is as good a time as any. (Update 2024: European tourists were murdered on Mt Toubkal a few years ago. Women: travel with caution, and with a guide.
3. Jordan
King Abdullah II of Jordan has not been immune to the Arab Spring uprisings, nor has the country escaped rigorous anti-nuclear activism that has finally paid off, but the country is a reasonably-peaceful place to visit and there are an increasing number of activities for the earth-hearted traveler.
Occasionally there are small protests on Habib Bourguiba Avenue, the main road in downtown Tunis, and social inequities abound, but it’s a rising nation that does boast a small selection of earth-friendly attractions (in addition to a host of pressing ills).
DAR HI eco-retreat in southern Tunisia
For a beautiful place to stay, try the DAR HI eco-retreat in southern Tunisia designed by Matali Crasset, and not far from there, a visit to the Matmata troglodytes are an illuminating experience (especially if undertaken at times when the tourist rush has either yet to fire up or has already simmered for the day.)
5. ISRAEL
Of all these countries, Israel is probably the greenest. And, it is also probably one of the safest despite the impression of relentless violence that mot media outlets portray.
Although political drama abounds, mostly it is restricted to the West Bank and Gaza Strip and even then, visitors are usually perfectly safe traveling through all of the areas that are open to them. The heavy security may be off-putting, but unless you’re actively seeking ways to get involved, it is surprisingly easy to take a break from current events.
We recently reviewed a handy DIY guide to Tel Aviv that points out many of the green options available in the city, including where to eat and sleep, and there are numerous hiking opportunities as well. During summer months, it’s probably more comfortable to hike in the mountains up north, although it isn’t unknown to set out on early morning trips in the Negev or along the Dead Sea.
Happy Summer Green Prophet readers. Stay safe, stay hydrated and most of all, stay green!
The district of Sulukule has been home to Istanbul’s Roma community since Byzantine times, but many of its residents were displaced to make way for a development project that started three years ago.
