Muslim couples in Indonesia are now required to plant two trees before receiving their marriage permit
Here at Green Prophet, we are eager to promote all things green in love and marriage. As well as a green guide to Valentine’s Day (not long now!), we have published our top tips for a green Muslim wedding. The authorities in Muslim Indonesia, however, have taken green love one step further with new couples being required to plant a tree before they are granted their marriage permit.
Abu Dhabi will no longer be sharing their precious groundwater.
Dubai’s water scarce neighbor Abu Dhabi recently announced that it has banned all groundwater exports, Gulf News reports. Established yesterday at a Ministerial Service Council meeting chaired by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Presidential Affairs, Sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the ban will keep the Emirate’s dwindling groundwater supply within its own borders.
This elegant cake has a rich note of the Middle East in its very local ingredients.
Vegewarian means choosing more non-meat options in your overall diet. I propose to add: let’s round this philosophy out out to include healthier options all around. For example, we don’t want to give sweet things up altogether, but let’s make desserts with reduced sugars and fats. Searching for a cake to satisfy that craving for something sweet that yet fits that description, this almond torte caught my eye (via the lovely Dinners & Dreams blog).
I fell for this cake because it’s rich in pomegranate molasses, a staple in the Middle Eastern kitchen. Pomegranate molasses is easy to make at home – see our post on making pomegranate molasses. But if you don’t want to wait until the fruit is back in season, you can find pomegranate molasses in any Middle Eastern store. Here it’s paired with a little honey to balance its sweet/sour tartness. Almond meal is the base for this fragrant, subtle creation.And one of the great things about this torte is that it’s a snap to make.
Almond Torte with Pomegranate Molasses
Recipe with permission from Dinners & Dreams
8 Servings
1 ½ cups almond meal
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled (You may substitute a neutral-flavored vegan oil.)
¼ cup plus 1 tablespoon pomegranate molasses
¼ cup honey (or a vegan sweetener like Maple syrup)
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
¼ cup pine nuts
Preheat the oven to 180 C – 350 degrees F. Spray an 8-inch springform non-stick tart pan or individual tartlet pans with cooking spray. (We add: or grease the pan with neutral-flavored oil.)
In a large bowl, combine the almond meal with cinnamon and nutmeg. Add the melted butter, honey, pomegranate molasses, eggs, and vanilla extract. Whisk until well combined into a homogenous batter. Pour the batter in the prepared pan and scatter the pine nuts on top.
Bake until set, 20 to 25 minutes.
More recipes featuring pomegranate molasses and almonds on Green Prophet:
These designed cotton bags are way cooler than plastic.
Plastic bags are undoubtedly bad for the environment, but sometimes it’s hard to get motivated to carry reusable bags with you for those spur-of-the-moment trips to the store. Serious and devoted DIYers and plastic bag avoiders may make their own reusable cloth shopping bags out of materials found at home (such as t-shirts), but for others, reusable bags need to be made convenient or they won’t get used at all.
In order to make reusable bags an easy (and chic) solution for shoppers who want to avoid plastic, Kiosk (a design studio based in Tel Aviv) has created an “I Love Earth” collection of reusable cotton bags with unique printed designs.
Do you feel that the politics behind environmental issues in Israel-Palestine are being sidelined?
A couple of weeks ago, Green Prophet reported on the news that Israelis and Palestinians were working together to build a restorative eco-park. It was a relatively feel-good piece showing that despite the political conflict, joint projects could be useful in building bridges between the two nations. One commentator, however, felt that our coverage was politically naïve.
H.Shaka remarked: “I appreciate that GP is trying to report on ‘green’ in the whole Middle East, including both Israel and the Arab world, and I have come to see this as a step in the right direction. However, given the strong political drivers in the region, I think GP should aim to be much more politically informed and balanced if it wishes to gain the respect of its readers, at least in the Arab world.”
Hazy conditions stemming from dust particles that traveled from North Africa to Israel shut down two Israeli airports last week.
Last week two airports in Israel had to shut down because the sky was so hazy and visibility was so limited, Haaretz reports. Both the Sde Dor Airport in Tel Aviv and Eilat’s airport shut down on 7th of February as a result of air pollution concentrations more than twelve times higher than usual. These conditions are expected to continue through Wednesday.
Israel’s Environmental Ministry explained that a low pressure weather system over Southern Greece moved into Israel and trapped particulates that traveled from a dust storm in North Africa. This is not the first time that Israeli researchers have discovered pollution stemming from outside the borders – sometimes laced with heavy metals.
Your sandblasted Armani jeans could be killing people.
“Distressed” jeans are commonly made by blasting the denim with silica (pictured above) after it has been pressurized into miniscule dust particles. But this fashion trend has been lethal for workers in denim sandblasting factories around the world. In Turkey, İdris Oral has become the 50th factory worker to die from inhaling too much silica dust, according to Bianet Independent Media. The 28-year-old spent the last two months of his life at the hospital in his home district of Bingöl, in southeastern Turkey: a province where there are 320 other known cases of silicosis.
Due to the threat of flooding, communities in low-lying valleys in Oman are being encouraged to relocate
It may be a hot and dry country most of the year but Oman, like Saudi Arabia, is prone to flash flooding. In November 2011, around 14 people were reported to have been killed and more than 200 more injured after flash floods hit Oman. The year before, a tropical storm killed 50 people in Oman. Now, Omanis living in places such as Wadi Dayqah are being asked by the government to leave their homes and farmlands behind and relocate to safer areas.
We have collected five inspiring stories that point to the possibility of a freer, greener Tunisia
TIME Magazine paid allegiance to the brave hearted souls in the Middle East North Africa region who rose up against despotic regimes by naming “The Protestor” as their 2011 person of the year. Known now as the Arab Spring, this powerful movement was sparked by the self-immolation of a college-educated fruit vendor in Tunisia who was fed up with corruption and dismal living conditions. Since the subsequent Jasmine Revolution, the country has teetered between its tainted past and uncertainty, but these five stories point to the very real possibility that its residents can look forward to a freer and greener future.
Brian argues that skyscrapers are not only “un-green,” but they could be a precursor to economic turmoil.
The Empire State Building was completed in 1931, the same year E.Y. “Yip” Harburg wrote these lyrics: “Once I built a tower up to the sun, brick and rivet and lime. Once I built a tower, now its done. Brother, can you spare a dime?” The song grew to become an anthem to unemployed American builders during the Great Depression. But these words could easily apply to those put out of work after building Burj Khalifa or one of hundreds of other skyscrapers that now cast long shadows across the Mideast.
Islamic architects piped sunlight into homes using star-shaped skylights but Brian and his wife installed Solotubes.
One of the first changes my wife and I made to our house was to install a Solotube in the kitchen. This device consists of a translucent dome on the roof which is connected to a highly silvered six foot long pipe through the attic. The bottom end of the pipe spills sunlight into the kitchen even during the dullest winter days. But we have discovered that the idea isn’t new. Islamic architects have been using a variation of the technique for hundreds of years.
Sanctions have backed fossil-rich Iran into a corner, which could bode well for the country’s renewable sector.
The western-led sanctions against Iran have crippled the country’s ability to provide for its 74 million strong population, Reuters reports. Food prices have skyrocketed and many ships holding supplies are waiting for payment before allowing Iran to collect inventory. Meanwhile, sanctions have made conducting financial transactions virtually impossible. While the government’s failure to act could be disastrous for Iranian nationals, one potential upside is that the Energy Minister has recently admitted the importance of beefing up the country’s renewable energy sector.
The funding for many of the great renewable energy projects within the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), and other developing regions, will continue to be directed via the World Bank, Reuters reports.
The funds support projects which cut climate-changing greenhouse gas emissions in developing nations under the EU’s cap & trade law, and is likely to be needed for the next five years while the UN designs the climate deal that will supercede it.
A typical example of funding of clean energy projects to cut climate change: Egypt Now Contracting a Whopping 1000 MW Wind Farm!
Eco-tourists may be able to get to see these underwater creatures in Eilat faster due to the construction of a railway line from Tel Aviv.
Eilat, located at the southern tip of Israel, draws both local and international tourists year-round due to its warm weather and marine biodiversity. Though not equipped with an international airport, it does receive domestic flights since the only alternatives are to drive yourself (which takes about six hours from Tel Aviv) or take a public bus (which takes even longer).
The Israeli Cabinet is hoping to improve public transportation to this popular destination and approved the construction of a new railway line from Tel Aviv to Eilat this week. The train would shorten the travel time to a speedy two hours.
Are Islamic banks anti-war? Islamic banks discourage investment in the arms and military industry as well as speculation and taking excessive risks
A couple of weeks ago, I was asked by a fantastic organisation to look into Islamic banking and how ethical it really is. Whilst I learnt that most Islamic banks may not have the best environmental record, I did discover that they do have some distinct ethical selling points. One of which is their reluctance to invest in the arms industry as well as an aversion to speculation and excessive risks which can destabilize the market. At a time when no-one trusts their bank, Islamic banking doesn’t look like such a bad alternative to the conventional profit-driven financial system.
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