Can there be ways to protect olive oil prices and the sustainable ways of olive farming in the Middle East?
The price for olive oil has dropped to its lowest level in a decade and farmers in the Middle East are bearing the brunt as Spain and Italy dump their government-subsidized stocks at below cost. “The international market prices are going below sustainable levels,” Nasser Abu Farha, the director of Canaan Fair Trade that works with some 1,500 Palestinian farmers, told The Media Line.
Jordan’s hosting of forced migrants is overburdening already stressed water resources.
Humanitarianism has an unanticipated knock-on to fresh water supplies, as Jordan is starting to realize. Syrian refugees harbored in kingdom are draining the desert nation’s scarce water resources, reports Lebanon’s Daily Star. This presents a new setback for Jordan, one of the world’s most water-poor countries, where regional water shortfalls have been making alarming headlines.
Jordan’s average water consumption approximates 900 million cubic meters annually, with more than half consumed by agriculture. Annual per capita share is expected to fall to less than 500 cubic meters within three years: less than a tenth of the average world citizen’s share. Annual per capita share below 500 m3 threatens human life.
This tiny kingdom has historically provided safe haven to refugees from neighboring Arab conflicts. Palestinians and Iraqis have emigrated for decades; more recently, Egyptians and Libyans sought entry. It’s estimated that Syrian violence has resulted in over 120,000 new refugees, and inflow is steady.
Not to be outdone by Masdar City in Abu Dhabi, Dubai will soon begin construction on its own ‘sustainable city,’ where green transportation options include horses. Lest it seem that the new 743,000m2 development project entails a remarkable step backward, solar-powered vehicles are also planned, which is every bit as ambitious (and unlikely) as Masdar’s long-since-abandoned zero carbon, zero waste pipe-dream.
Asbestos, linked directly to mesothelioma, a rare form of lung cancer, is still present in many products used daily in Lebanon. But there’s no protection for workers or the population at large.
In 1998, Lebanon submitted to popular pressure and banned asbestos imports. In 2000, Eternit, the country’s major importer of asbestos closed down. But almost no action has been taken to prevent usage of remaining asbestos products or to find substitutes for them.
Saudi Arabia will save an estimated 690,000 barrels of oil a day by investing in renewables.
Wonder just why Saudi Arabia finally got serious about solar with a $109 billion plan to solar-power a third of the Kingdom? I did. After all, for a long time, while its greener neighbors have been adding thousands of megawatts of clean climate-friendly power, the kingdom has ignored its solar potential. It has next to nothing installed, 50 MW.
What changed? Oil prices are high. With rapidly growing electricity demand, Saudi Arabia is the largest oil consumer in the Middle East.
Jordan’s nuclear industry is wildly volatile, especially when you consider it doesn’t actually exist.
Arwa reported on last week’s parliamentary vote to shelve Jordan’s first nuclear reactor. Exploratory mining for uranium was also stopped. The program will surely resurrect once new feasibility analyses are complete, but against a backdrop of a pressurized economy, scarce water sources and corruption investigations, success is anyone’s guess. The time is now for Jordan’s renewable proponents to demonstrate the viability of alternative energy. Take a page from regional legend David and Goliath, and slay the nuclear beast.
Last April, Jordan’s Parliament adopted the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Law (REEL). REEL is aimed at inciting private-sector investment in Jordan’s nonexistent commercial renewable energy sector, but the law targets homeowners and small businesses too:
Environmental law has proven to be quite dynamic in the Middle East. Some countries have made great strides toward protecting resources and preventing pollution. Others have done little to tackle environmental problems head on due to competing interests or public funding shortfalls. Although the majority of countries in the Middle East are Arab and Muslim, each has a different approach to its regulatory system. Vermont Law School, recognizing the complex issues surrounding environmental law in the region, recently launched the Middle East Environmental Law Project (MEEL). We caught up with John Echeverria, Director of Vermont Law School’s Environmental Law Center. He explains why environmental law is important in the region, and what MEEL is doing to advance it.
Experts are calling on Israel to completely enclose its borders with a barrier to keep out ‘floods of climate refugees’
Around two months ago, a small piece of research carried out by the University of Buffalo found that in environmental disasters, humans tend to make things worse. Rather than getting together to resolve issues, the bickering starts and the fists start to fly. It’s a pretty bleak look at human society but one which I don’t buy into. I’d like to think that if/when things turn ugly due to runaway climate change, that the human race will sit down and try to avoid all sorts of nasty things like water wars. Indeed, there is a growing body of research which suggests that scarce resources could encourage better regional co-operation.
However, every now and then something happens which makes me doubt my faith in humanity and it’s ability to do ‘the right thing’. The recent report presented to Israel’s environment minister suggesting that they build a border fencing – including a marine border in the Mediterranean and Red Seas – to keep climate refugees out is one such example.
Residents of the artificial Jumeirah Island villas in Dubai face cooling bills of up to $1,600 a month – almost double last year’s price, according to The National. So British national and long-time Dubai resident Tony Caden decided to install an array of 38 solar panels and a giant 20 tonne chiller. Now completely independent of Nakheel’s district cooling service, the head of an oil and gas industry service company says that he is ecstatic to have re-gained control over the quality of his own life.
I speak to Qatar-based environmental researcher Mari Luomi about the balancing act Qatar has to perform at the upcoming climate summit
You could say that Mari Luomi’s environmental education began at a very early stage. Wandering through the forests and lakes of Finland when young, she explains that she learnt very quickly that human societies formed a part of the Earth’s ecosystems- and not vice versa. This love and interest in nature later developed into a fully-fledged career and she is now a Post-Doctoral Fellow looking at the environmental issues facing Gulf nations at the Center for International and Regional Studies of Georgetown University in Qatar. In the run of the climate summit in Qatar later this year, I caught up with her to talk politics, the challenge of behaviour change and what an OPEC nation with the world’s largest per capita carbon footprint has to offer the international community in terms of dealing with climate change.
It may surprise many Iranians living in the country’s dense and sprawling desert capital to know that millions of cubic liters of water are wasted every day. But where? Underground mostly, although occasionally modern construction projects smack up against an ancient irrigation system called quanats, resulting in devastating water losses and other destruction.
How to revive one of the world’s most sustainable water irrigation systems that only relies on dynamic aquifers is the focus of an upcoming workshop in Tehran entitled Mesopolis. Although months away, the September workshop led by HydroCity – a Toronto-based academic research team, could use a fiscal boost.
Jordan has supported a parliamentary committee recommendation to suspend Jordan’s projected nuclear programme
It’s certainly been a busy week for Khaled Toukan who is commissioner of the Jordan Atomic Energy Commission. First, a parliamentary committee releases a report which states that he misled the public about the feasibility of uranium mining in Jordan and that the Commission was “hiding facts” about the cost of a nuclear reactor. Then a recording alleged to be of Toukan emerges in which he calls those against the nuclear programme “donkeys and garbage men.” Following these two events, a protest was held calling for his resignation and MPs are now supporting a parliamentary recommendation to suspend the programme citing the hazardous consequences of nuclear.
Jordan’s parliament voted last week to shelve the nation’s nuclear power program due to doubts over project financing. The action stopped this divisive project viewed by some as a solution to the country’s dependence on imported energy, and by others as a reckless use of resources with unacceptable risks. The vote suspended construction of Jordan’s first reactor and also the uranium mining agreement with French energy conglomerate AREVA. Both projects will remain inactive until new economic feasibility studies are completed.
Going green and doing it for the troops, in Cyprus
“Going green” is a new defense tactic modern military: From the use of solar energy to power field re-chargers for communication equipment to finding new ways to supply troops with drinking water by moisture condensation from vehicle AC units. Armies going green is a new tactical offensive in warfare, especially when it means saving fuel and resulting in less need for fuel supply lines. Cyprus, a small EU island off the coast of Greece and Turkey is the latest army to join the trend. Their reasoning: It’s good for the young troops.
Lebanese burn rubber tires as protest, meanwhile the public risks greater chances of cancer
The Daily Star has released a recent on how tire burning is the preferred manifestation of anger and frustration for Lebanese protesters. After each of the recent incidents in Lebanon tire burning took place, during the civil war burning tires were used as makeshift checkpoints, the death of Egyptian president Gamal Abdel-Nasser in the 1970s was mourned by burning tires, in May 2008 Hezbollah Future Movement fighters turned West Beirut into a battle field by burning tires, and when Lebanon’s public transportation sector held a nationwide strike last month: tires were burned. These are just some examples.
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