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.
In the study, the scientists didn’t just test one plant compound at a time. They tested two traditional Chinese medicine compounds together — luteolin (from flowers like honeysuckle and chrysanthemum) and astragaloside IV (from astragalus root, Huang Qi). These plants have been combined in Chinese herbal formulas for centuries to help the body recover from injury and inflammation.
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.
In the study, the scientists didn’t just test one plant compound at a time. They tested two traditional Chinese medicine compounds together — luteolin (from flowers like honeysuckle and chrysanthemum) and astragaloside IV (from astragalus root, Huang Qi). These plants have been combined in Chinese herbal formulas for centuries to help the body recover from injury and inflammation.
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.
In the study, the scientists didn’t just test one plant compound at a time. They tested two traditional Chinese medicine compounds together — luteolin (from flowers like honeysuckle and chrysanthemum) and astragaloside IV (from astragalus root, Huang Qi). These plants have been combined in Chinese herbal formulas for centuries to help the body recover from injury and inflammation.
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.
In the study, the scientists didn’t just test one plant compound at a time. They tested two traditional Chinese medicine compounds together — luteolin (from flowers like honeysuckle and chrysanthemum) and astragaloside IV (from astragalus root, Huang Qi). These plants have been combined in Chinese herbal formulas for centuries to help the body recover from injury and inflammation.
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.
In the study, the scientists didn’t just test one plant compound at a time. They tested two traditional Chinese medicine compounds together — luteolin (from flowers like honeysuckle and chrysanthemum) and astragaloside IV (from astragalus root, Huang Qi). These plants have been combined in Chinese herbal formulas for centuries to help the body recover from injury and inflammation.
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.
In the study, the scientists didn’t just test one plant compound at a time. They tested two traditional Chinese medicine compounds together — luteolin (from flowers like honeysuckle and chrysanthemum) and astragaloside IV (from astragalus root, Huang Qi). These plants have been combined in Chinese herbal formulas for centuries to help the body recover from injury and inflammation.
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.
In the study, the scientists didn’t just test one plant compound at a time. They tested two traditional Chinese medicine compounds together — luteolin (from flowers like honeysuckle and chrysanthemum) and astragaloside IV (from astragalus root, Huang Qi). These plants have been combined in Chinese herbal formulas for centuries to help the body recover from injury and inflammation.
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.
In the study, the scientists didn’t just test one plant compound at a time. They tested two traditional Chinese medicine compounds together — luteolin (from flowers like honeysuckle and chrysanthemum) and astragaloside IV (from astragalus root, Huang Qi). These plants have been combined in Chinese herbal formulas for centuries to help the body recover from injury and inflammation.
Despite periodic volunteer clean up efforts, much of Israel’s beach front suffers from public littering
Lawyer Amit Bracha, director of Israel’s Union for Environmental Defense, was a recent guest on Israel’s Channel 10 morning TV show, speaking on the official opening of beach season for 2012. Bracha told the program moderators that despite greater efforts being made to clean up the beachfronts many beaches are still very dirty, with the main responsibility for this situation falling on the Israeli public. This statement by Bracha come despite continuing efforts to clean up the country’s beaches with various clean-up projects that been ongoing since at least the summer of 2008.
2012 Marks the ninth year that green globes have been awarded to Israel’s most sustainable movers and shakers, and a small Arab school northeast of Tel Aviv is among this year’s nine recipients. Located in Kafr Qasim, the Alzahraa school has not only established an ecological garden and solar station in their own school, but the headmaster Safwat Tahah told Jerusalem Post that they are particularly proud of engaging with the surrounding community to raise the specter of environmental issues.
The owner Mohammed Awaida opened the zoo shortly before Israel’s three-week offensive against Hamas militants in December, 2008. During that time, he was unable to get to the animals, many of whom succumbed to starvation and neglect. Instead of disposing of their bodies, the self-trained taxidermist went online to learn how to stuff them using formaldehyde and sawdust.
Mangled dead animals
On display are a skeletal lion with a mangy coat, a monkey missing limbs, and a porcupine with a hole in its head. And the 65 live animals, according to Dalia Nammari and Daniella Cheslow, aren’t in much better shape. Since there are no animal activists in the forsaken Gaza Strip nor an official body overseeing zoo facilities, anything goes.
Since Israel has blocked all but one entrance into Gaza to deter Hamas militants, the animals are smuggled to Gaza from Egypt through underground tunnels that have come under fire after three Palestinian men drowned in a wastewater flood. But they are not properly cared for.
Dismal state of animal affairs
Awaida receives veterinary advice by telephone from Egypt, which also has a dubious and long record of inflicting abuse and neglect on its wild animals.
“We have humble capabilities, but the ministry encourages zoos,”Hassan Azzam, director of the veterinary services department in Gaza’s ministry of agriculture, told the journalists, who emphasize that despite being a rather grim experience, the Gaza Strip’s 1.7 million residents have few other entertainment options.
A 14 year old boy visiting Khan Younis said he had never seen stuffed animals before and told reporters he was going to put a photo on his wall of him standing next to the bedraggled lion.
It has no uranium, but lots of solar – yet Saudi Arabia plans to double down on nuclear capacity.
As we covered previously, working with China, Saudi Arabia will spend more than $100 billion to build 16 nuclear energy plants within the next few years, as part of ramping up its electric capacity. But the proposed solar budget might shock you.
The rapidly growing nation expects its installed electric capacity to about double by 2030 to 110 GW. Official sources from Saudi Arabia say that they plan to get 20% of their electricity from nuclear, which will remain at a fifth of their electricity, even while domestic demand is growing at an estimated 8% over the next ten years.
“We have allocated $3 billion to produce solar energy panels in Jubail and Yanbu,”Commerce and Industry Minister Abdullah Zainal Alireza told a Saudi U.S. business forum where investment opportunities totaling $385 billion in the Kingdom were outlined.
Non-biodegradable diapers are not only an environmental nightmare, but they often cause terrible rashes and cost a fair sum too. Cloth diapers are one viable alternative, but washing them is time consuming, requires energy and water expenditure, and frankly doesn’t look like an awful lot of fun. So how about mitigating all of these problems by building a Beshik cradle from Uzbekistan? Hit the jump to learn more about baby’s first bed pan.
After sleeping with their mothers for six weeks, Uzbeki babies are treated to their first major celebration — the Beshik Toyi. This involves a gathering with family members who show up with armfuls of food and other essentials, and baby’s new cradle.
The elder women leave the younger generation to create a festive environment while they bed baby down in this unusual contraption using blankets and straps. The cradle is decorated with all sorts of colorful tassels and trinkets, and they come in varying degrees of opulence.
There’s a hole at the base of the Beshik, which appears to be an exit point for baby’s number two, while a bucket at the end of the cradle catches urine transported via a short pole that looks like a very thin and hollow eggplant.
Since boys and girls have different apparatus, it stands to reason that different mechanisms are used to capture their waste.
Having met a handful of talented Uzbeki musicians, I can attest that they seem perfectly normal and not at all traumatized by starting out life strapped to a cradle.
That being said, we are uncertain how long they stay in their Beshik or how they stay clean and dry when running free.
Still, we are big fans of indigenous solutions to daily needs and this is no exception.
Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company announced on Sunday that they have cancelled their agreement to sell natural gas to Israel following at least one dozen attacks on the pipeline linking the two countries. Israeli Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said the move was of “great concern,” but Egypt insists that the decision was motivated purely by commercial reasons, not political.
Israel has received 40% of its natural gas supply from Egypt as part of a 1979 peace accord between the two countries that has been hugely unpopular among Egyptian citizens, who believe that Mubarak sold the gas too cheaply. Meanwhile, Egypt, population 81 million, has been suffering from crippling energy shortages over the last few months.
This week I spoke to Kevin Smith, the CEO of SolarReserve, the U.S. company constructing the largest 24 hour solar project worldwide in Nevada, who told me that they are beginning to be active in the Middle East North Africa region as well.
“We do have projects in development,” he said, “in Morocco, and Algeria and Saudi Arabia, Oman, which we’re looking at. There’s real opportunity there. So we’re looking at projects in those markets there, not as part of the Desertec program, but part of the buildup of the potential of solar in the Middle East and North Africa region.”
A growing but still small cadre of environmentalists are taking on the final frontier: nature and intimacy.
Julie McIntyre, an ‘Earth ceremonialist’ and director for the Center for Earth Relations is an ecological visionary. Trained in plant medicine, Ayurveda, Reiki, medical herbalism, wilderness survival and holistic health, she’s the lastest to write a book about human relationships and the environmental movement: Sex and the Intelligence of the Heart: Nature, Intimacy and Sexual Energy (Destiny Books, 2012).
In this exclusive Earth Day interview, Julie shares her vision for falling in love with the planet, explains why she thinks the environmental movement has shied away from Ecosex, and how the Ecosex movement can mentor in greater environmental awareness in the Middle East.
The hugely popular DC-based Muslim hip hop group Native Deen have over 110,000 Facebook followers alone. And one of them, Aisha Ali, says she can’t go to sleep without listening to their songs. So when they release a new music video for a song called “Our Earth,” the diaspora is bound to listen.
Taken from the album “The Remedy,” this gentle environmental tribute diverges widely from many hip hop songs by referencing the importance of recycling and making smarter consumer choices. “What have we done to our earth,” the band asks in the song’s chorus, “When will we open our eyes and change the way we live our lives?”
Following a trip to the stunning gardens of Andalucia, Arwa delves in the world of Islamic gardens
About two weeks ago, I was lucky enough to take a tour around the south of Spain and see the spectacular gardens of Granada, Seville, Malaga and Cordoba. I was completely spellbound.
Built during the Islamic-era, these gardens beautifully combine water features, secluded walkways, geometry and stunning mosaic work. They are little oases of calm situated right in the heart of the city. Walking through the weaving pathways, all your worries just fade away and you’re transported to a world of tranquillity.
Indeed, in Islam paradise is often portrayed as a garden with running water, shade from the sun, sweet scents and exuberant foliage. These gardens also remind you of the calming and rejuvenating power of nature – something we could all do with a little bit more of in our hectic lives.
Just a few plastic containers that can be reused or recycled
Another Earth Day is upon us, and for those of us living the Middle East the very origins of this ecological event have much to do a lot with fossil fuel based energy so prevalent in this region. Aside from the frequently discussed issues surrounding the affects of oil and other fossil fuels on the world’ environment, much has been written and talked about the effects of plastic products on the world’s seas and oceans like “islands” of floating plastic material.
Guests descend like locusts since I moved to Jordan. This time we decided to try something new.
Mass transit is not an option outside Amman city limits. Navigating a rental car through craggy mountains and city roads would test Evel Knievel. My visitors speak no Arabic, further limiting free travel. And most are past their hitchhiking and hostel “sell-by” date. So we devise a speed-date for traveling friends, with us at the wheel, through the Dead Sea, Wadi Rum, and Petra: a Jordanian trifecta. We know the hotel deals, the routes with the vistas, and cool places to grab a coffee or a local meal. Satisfaction delivered every time. Too many times.
Easter break loomed and Hotel Balbo was empty; what to do that’s new? I itch for something different. Wild Jordan tops the list of travel alternatives. We head over to see what appeals.
Sustainable development in Demmer, Tunisia could be lost forever shows this new documentary film.
You cannot be against development, progress, innovation and even education. We count on these things to solve our biggest problems, whether it’s the ecological crisis, malnourishment or peak oil. If you don’t believe in them, you’re a defeatist. But do they earn the blind faith we have in them? The documentary film Green Mirages, directed by Egyptian Nadia Kamal and Tunisian Habib Ayeb, about the Tunisian village of Demmer, suggests we shouldn’t, and points out some important questions to ask.
Often dubbed the “start-up nation,” Israel has repeatedly proven to be fertile soil for cleantech innovators that succeed and are then bought up by international companies.
Israel-based Agro-tech company Rosetta Green has been chosen by international seed manufacturer Bayer CropScience AG for collaboration on a project that will help improve cotton crop for farmers. Rosetta Green, which also manufactures biofuels using algae, has developed microRNA genes that can replace the need for environmentally harmful pesticides, by making certain crops, like cotton resistant to bugs that would kill them.
Dune bashing destroys nature. Here’s why Ajmal prefers dune walking over dune bashing in the region of Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
I almost threw up the very first time I went dune bashing. It was in the Margham Desert area of Dubai sometime in 2002 and the driver of the 4×4, Yasser, me and a friend were in was apparently the most experienced of the lot in the Desert Safari tour operator we had signed up with. After about half an hour of a literal roller-coaster ride across the dune sands, Yasser took a quick peek at his occupants-four of whom (me included) looked like zombies out of Michael Jackson’s Thriller music video. We were paired up with first-time European tourists, all of whom hadn’t ever tried this before. Do you want me to continue or head to the camp? he asked.
A minute later, we were at the desert camp! It’s hard to describe the feeling of being thrown about inside a 4×4 for a person with known motion sickness. It was a disaster right from the word go but I endured it just for the experience. I had to try it. This was my introduction to the bumpy world of dune bashing.
I have never driven in the desert so I can’t vouch for anything but the fact that to me it was an unpleasant experience being driven up and down dunes at speed. On multiple subsequent occasions, I have happily declined being driven over dunes in this manner, choosing once to walk 4 km to the highway than dune bash across some nasty-looking dunes. In other words, I am not an ardent supporter of dune-bashing from a personal standpoint, and for environmental reasons.
It was just about daybreak on a fine early morning in October 2011 when I came across an Arabian horned viper lying at the bottom of a low sand dune in the middle of the Sharjah Desert. I was on my usual weekend desert trek and even though on foot, I was just about able to distinguish the shape of the viper as it lay buried in its ambush posture in the desert sand right at the bottom of the dune with only its head sticking out of the sand.
Only later would I realize how easy it would have been for me to have missed its presence. Now imagine being up on a vantage point 6 feet in the air and looking mostly immediately ahead of you rather than below. In other words, sitting on the driver’s seat of a 4×4 vehicle, even the most trained eye would not be able to spot a small depression in the sand where a viper or any other desert creature would have lain.
Add to this a concoction of a bunch of six or more humans hoping for their famed and exalted ‘roller-coaster ride’ in the desert. Well, the right ingredients for all mayhem to break loose on the desert sand. Viper, no viper! – the driver would drive like a maniac totally disregarding the delicate animals and plants of the desert.
His primary goal is to ensure his business runs well by satisfying his customers and getting that extra ‘oomph’ out their excited grunts. The customer’s primary goal is to endure a joyride that they can FaceBook or tweet about later: Guys, we went dunebashing in the middle of the desert yesterday and it was so much fun riding up and down the dunes.
Alas, the reality of the situation is that, tires deflated or not, 4x4s are killer machines on the desert sand and there are plenty of negative repercussions that dune bashing brings about that is clearly visible all across the deserts of the United Arab Emerites. I hope to touch upon some of them in this post.
Impact on wildlife at the dunes
The deserts are not entirely barren: be it the vast, endless dunes of Liwa or the wind-shaped expansive dunes of Abu Dhabi and the Northern Emirates. These deserts are host to a variety of wildlife, from mammals to reptiles to insects. These creatures are all superbly built to utilize the desert sand and survive the harsh environment they live in. Dune bashing literally destroys their natural habitat (breeding grounds, holes, activity areas, etc) forcibly displacing them to move deeper into the desert, thereby putting immense pressure on them to survive.
Adding to this, most of these creatures are extremely shy of humans (such as the Arabian red fox and the sand fox) who will take flight just upon seeing humans. Imagine their plight, when a barrage of weird-looking creatures (vehicles) is headed their way.
To them, a 4×4 is a monster and just hearing the sound of the engines revving up and clouds of sand bursting beneath the tires can scare the living wits out of them. Most insects utilize the desert sand to lay their eggs and in fact many reptiles including skinks and snakes dig under the sand for camouflage, to mate, or attract prey.
Driving irresponsibly (as most dune bashers do) over such areas would only crush any creatures unlucky enough to be under the desert sand. These are just a few of the many negative impacts that dune bashing has on animals.
Plants of the dunes
Desert plants are extremely well suited to survive in the harsh desert climate too. They mostly depend on early morning dew to meet their water requirements and many plants remain dormant for years until a good amount of rain falls on the desert sand whereafter they fruit and flourish in a cyclical manner.
It goes without saying that most of the desert animals are dependent on the flora for their own survival. Dune bashing cases a significant negative environmental impact on plant life especially in inter-dunal plains where most desert plants can be found to flourish. Plants, though, can survive this rampage much more than animals and usually come out of this barrage with just some painful scars but the fact is significant damage does take place.
I am not against driving on the desert sand in a responsible manner. I know personally many individuals who head out on routine desert trips and are respectful of the natural surroundings. I am only critical about how people go about ‘dune bashing’ as in using their powerful 4x4s to run up and down sand dunes in a destructive manner with total disregard to the environment. There is a significant amount of noise and smoke pollution involved with dune bashing too that I must emphasize.
I hope that one day some sort of regulation is brought about by regional authorities and enforced so that irresponsible drivers are taken to task.
Despite periodic volunteer clean up efforts, much of Israel’s beach front suffers from public littering
A growing but still small cadre of environmentalists are taking on the final frontier: nature and intimacy.
Following a trip to the stunning gardens of Andalucia, Arwa delves in the world of Islamic gardens
Just a few plastic containers that can be reused or recycled
