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A Gold Porsche 997 GT2 – The Latest in Ungreen Super Luxury

Maurice Picow
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A Gold Porsche 997 GT2 – The Latest in Ungreen Super Luxury

gold porscheHigh performance and gold plated to boot: a Porsche 997 GT2 on sale in Dubai. Photo: GT Spirit.com

We’ve  written lots about super luxury cars in the Gulf region on Green Prophet. While one of them, a white gold Mercedes sports coup was touted to be able to run on bio-fuel; others like a gold trimmed armored plated Rolls Royce is strictly designed to enable its owner to ride in protected style. For those who are bored with such cars and wish for super luxury versions of high performance sports cars will now be happy to hear that also in that part of the Middle East is none other than a gold version of a gold  Porsche 997 GT2 twin turbo that was advertised for sale in the glitzy city of Dubai.

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Carmen’s Opera at Masada Leaves No Trace

Leigh Cuen
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Carmen’s Opera at Masada Leaves No Trace

carmen masada opera

Israeli Opera Festival 2012 will feature five performances of the classic opera, Carmen, June 7 to 11 at Masada. According to the Israeli Opera’s Artistic Director, Michael Ajzenstadt, 50,000 people from across Israel and all over the world are coming to experience opera at the lowest point on earth, beneath the mountain of Masada and across from the Dead Sea.

Choosing the location for this momentous performance was a delicate balance between aesthetic appeal and the imperative to not effect the historic site in any way. “We wanted to perform opera in the desert, not just to have an opera performance at a desert location,” said Ajzenstadt. “There is no stage. There is sand and rock beneath the mountain. The set is an extension of the surrounding habitat. In three weeks we will deconstruct the set and leave no trace.”

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Cheap Olive Oil Threatens to Destroy Middle East Growers and Suppliers

Arieh O'Sullivan - The Media Line
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Cheap Olive Oil Threatens to Destroy Middle East Growers and Suppliers

arab man olive grove palestineCan 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.

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Refugees to Jordan Flow More Freely Than Water

Faisal O'Keefe
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Refugees to Jordan Flow More Freely Than Water

arab refugees water jordanJordan’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.

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Dubai’s ‘Sustainable City’ to Include Horse Transportation

Tafline Laylin
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1
Dubai’s ‘Sustainable City’ to Include Horse Transportation

Dubai, horses, green transportation, urban, architecture, sustainable developmentNot 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.

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Asbestos Exposure Raises Cancer Rates in Lebanon

Miriam Kresh
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Asbestos Exposure Raises Cancer Rates in Lebanon

image-worker-asbestos-roof mesotheliomaAsbestos, 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.

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Why Did the Saudis Just Go Big in Solar? Oil Prices.

Susan Kraemer
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Why Did the Saudis Just Go Big in Solar? Oil Prices.

Saudi solar oil prices
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.

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Jordan Gets REEL About Renewables

Faisal O'Keefe
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Jordan Gets REEL About Renewables

nuclear energy jordan protests greenpeaceJordan’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:

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The Middle East Environmental Law Project Kickstarted By Vermont Lawyers

Joshua Basofin
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The Middle East Environmental Law Project Kickstarted By Vermont Lawyers

John D. Echeverria vermont law school

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.

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Why Israel Is Wrong To Fear Climate Refugees

Arwa Aburawa
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Why Israel Is Wrong To Fear Climate Refugees

israel-climate-refugees
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.

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Briton Replaces Gulf Developer’s Costly Cooling with Solar

Tafline Laylin
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Briton Replaces Gulf Developer’s Costly Cooling with Solar

solar, artificial islands, Nakheel, Dubai, alternative energy, cleantechResidents 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.

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Can Qatar Balance its Oil Interests and Host a Successful Climate Summit?

Arwa Aburawa
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Can Qatar Balance its Oil Interests and Host a Successful Climate Summit?

qatar-unfccc-climate-change-opec-gasI 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.

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Mesopolis in Tehran: Re-Thinking Daily Floods of Wasted Water

Tafline Laylin
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Mesopolis in Tehran: Re-Thinking Daily Floods of Wasted Water

architecture, urban, planning, water issues, pollutionIt 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. 

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Jordan Suspends Its Nuclear Plans Amid Controversy

Arwa Aburawa
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1
Jordan Suspends Its Nuclear Plans Amid Controversy

jordan nuclear energyJordan 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.

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Jordanian’s Nuclear Meltdown Resembles a Soap Opera

Faisal O'Keefe
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Jordanian’s Nuclear Meltdown Resembles a Soap Opera

jordan nuclear energy nuclear suit
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.

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Street Vegan in Sri Thanu is a must-stop family lunch spot on Koh Phangan, Thailand

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If you’re anywhere near Sri Thanu on Koh Phangan, Thailand, around the yoga centers: Zen Beach, Haad Yao, or Salad Beach—make time for Street Vegan. It's vegan and so satisfying that one meal might convince you that eating plant-based is not a compromise. I suggest for any vegan restaurant owner or chef to come to this modestly-priced venue to learn from a master.

Plants can eat dust and grow – should we stop dusting them?

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Dusty plants? Let them eat their hearts out.

Paris Modest Fashion Week offers style without exposure for Muslims

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France is home to around 5 to 7.5 million Muslims according to estimates, and Özlem Şahin, head of the organization behind Modest Fashion Week, has described Paris as "one of the leading modest fashion capitals in Europe".

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