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Vimto’s Moldy Soft Drink Recalled in Dubai

Miriam Kresh
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Vimto’s Moldy Soft Drink Recalled in Dubai

vimto mold dubai
Dubai Municipality seizes thousands of Vimto soft drink bottles infested with floating fungi.

Vimto is the Middle East’s favorite soft drink. It’s especially appreciated as an instant energy boost after the daily fast during Ramadan month. We’re well aware that juice and sugary soft drinks increase risk of liver damage. To compound the soft-drink danger in the Middle East, thousands of  Vimto bottles have been found to contain gel-like substances formed of bacteria and fungi.

Rumors that the gel floating in the drink causes cancer were firmly squashed, but attempts to calm the public about its favorite soft drink were less than credible.

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Permaculture Is the Silver-Green Bullet (INTERVIEW)

Arwa Aburawa
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16
Permaculture Is the Silver-Green Bullet (INTERVIEW)

Nadia-lawton-jordan-permaculture-islamJordanian Nadia Lawton, a permaculture teacher tells Green Prophet why she believes permaculture could be the region’s silver green bullet.

“Permaculture made total common sense to me,” insists Nadia Lawton, “it also fitted with my life ethics a a Muslim.” While the first part of Nadia’s statement may not be considered unique, her remark about Islam is. Permaculture is defined as the design and maintenance of agriculturally productive systems that have the diversity, stability and resilience of natural ecosystems. It basically looks at growing in a holistic framework which promotes sustainability, the conservation of resources and biodiversity. It is also generally promoted by atheist Westerners- so as a Jordanian born-Muslim, Nadia Lawton does not exactly fit the mould. I caught up with her to talk about the importance of permaculture in the Middle East, the role of Islam and overcoming barriers.

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LEED Renaissance Tower Adds Unsustainable to Towering Turkey

Faisal O'Keefe
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7
LEED Renaissance Tower Adds Unsustainable to Towering Turkey

renaissance tower, LEED turkey, turkish

Work will soon begin on the 44-story Renaissance Tower in Istanbul, Turkey. The only thing authentically Turkish here is its zip code. Image via FXFOWLE

Located on the Asian side of Istanbul at 606-feet, which is taller than most of its skyline neighbors, this “chiseled obelisk” of an office block is meant to highlight an eastern entry to this remarkable city.

What it highlights instead is a worrying trend wherein new projects earn sustainable street cred while divorcing themselves from the context of their specific sites and cultures, and where developers have opportunities to radically green up the whole building lifecycle in a legitimately newsworthy way but choose to take a pass.

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Underwater City Alternative to Floating Islands?

Maurice Picow
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Underwater City Alternative to Floating Islands?

underwater city dutchAn underground underwater city and water complex idea an alternative to floating islands?

Climate change is causing sea levels to rise, so much that the president of the Maldives wants to locate his island nation. Some parts of the world are preparing themselves for this new reality, while urban planners look for new solutions to deal with rising waters. The Dutch, masters of the dyke concept know the threats of encraoching sea water. Moshe Zwart, a Dutch architect has dreamed up another solution: underwater cities!

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Tel Aviv Fast Lane A Success for this Writer

Maurice Picow
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1
Tel Aviv Fast Lane A Success for this Writer

tel aviv fast lane, toll road IsraelThe fast lane requires a toll fee but this beats an hour’s drive time

Based on algorithms – a pay scale depending on home many drivers are using the road – Tel Aviv’s “Fast Lane” which was opened for use in early 2011 and designed to reduce traffic flow from super congested Highway 1 is now being termed as a big success according to local newspapers. The one lane bypass, which is actually a toll lane, is now being used by hundreds of cars daily. These users  pay tolls ranging from about $5 to $15 US depending on the time of day. A great feature is that it includes free parking and a shuttle bus to inside the city.

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Dubai to Invest $3 Billion in 1,000 MW Solar Farm! …But Slowly

Susan Kraemer
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0
Dubai to Invest $3 Billion in 1,000 MW Solar Farm! …But Slowly

dubai towers oil solar energyDubai is expected to run out of oil by 2020. It will invest billions in solar instead.

Dubai produces only around 100,000 barrels per day of oil from four existing fields, and is dependent on fossil fuels for electricity production and for water, which must be desalinated. So news that Dubai is planning a gigantic solar farm with a capacity of 1,000 MW (1 GW), would seem like an appropriate response, right?

However, the speed of building the Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park – named after the ruler of Dubai – is strikingly at odds with Dubai’s world-famous dispatch in speedy project development. The 1,000 MW solar farm will take till 2030 to complete!

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Will Turkey’s New Constitution Include Ecological Protections?

Julia Harte
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Will Turkey’s New Constitution Include Ecological Protections?

Turkish environmental journalist Mahmut Boynudelik has proposed a set of fundamental ecological principles to be enshrined in the country’s new constitution.

Last Wednesday, Turkey’s Constitution Reconciliation Commission was presented with a new series of articles for inclusion in the country’s new constitution. Led by the Turkish Green Party, the articles were submitted by the Initiative for an Ecological Constitution (IEC), and prepared by environmental journalist Mahmut Boynudelik from notes he took at several recent Green Party conferences.

If adopted, Turkey would have a constitution like no other in Europe or North America — but somewhat similar to the constitutions of Ecuador and Bolivia, both of whose constitutions recognize legally binding rights of nature.

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Now Morocco is Looking for Bids for 850 MW of Wind

Susan Kraemer
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Now Morocco is Looking for Bids for 850 MW of Wind

Morocco-bids-850-mw-wind morocco wind energyMorocco already has the world’s most ambitious solar target. Now it is starting on wind.

Morocco’s ascendance in renewable development is continuing apace. Morocco’s state-run power utility has just invited companies to bid on five wind farm projects with a total power generation capacity of 850 megawatts, as part of its plan to build 2,000 MW of wind power by 2020.

Its Atlantic coast has some of the best wind resources in the entire world, and pictured here is its first wind farm – that was already the largest in Africa when it was inaugurated in 2010.

ONE said it will take bids until March 2 from firms or consortia for “the development, design, financing, construction, operation and maintenance” of the five projects.

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Stevia Sweeteners Now Approved in Israel

Miriam Kresh
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5
Stevia Sweeteners Now Approved in Israel

stevia plant IsraelNo-calories, almost no side effects, and naturally sweet. Israel, meet stevia.

Israel’s Ministry of Health approved the use of powdered stevia herb as a natural “table sweetener,” says Israel Solodoch, director of Nufar Natural Products, Israel’s main supplier of stevia-based products. Known in Central and South America for centuries, the sweet leaf has gained popularity in Japan, Europe and the U.S. Japan is reputed to sweeten up to 40% of its sugarless products with stevia.

Now FDA- approved, and undergoing a process that removes a slight aftertaste, stevia is expected to become big business in  Israel, replacing aspartame and similar sweeteners in soft drinks, candies, and baked goods.

Much as we love nutritious honey, it does have calories. The body responds to honey as to any other sugar – a problem for diabetics. On the other hand, stevia’s sweetness adds no calories to your diet. Being water-soluble and heat-resistant, you can bake with it. Up to 300 times sweeter than sugar, a commercial tea bag-sized package will sweeten 5 cups of tea or coffee.

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Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque and Augmented Reality

Karin Kloosterman
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3
Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque and Augmented Reality

augmented reality, Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque
Is augmented reality projections the new fireworks of the Middle East? We hope so

To celebrate a wedding it is common for Middle East men to shoot guns into the air, with stray bullets eventually falling to the sky, killing wildlife and sometimes people. This still happens in Gaza and Jordan for instance, although authorities in Jordan are trying to fight the practice. In Jaffa, Israel the Arabs there shoot off fireworks instead. The booming explosion creates the effect, but we like to see a new direction the Middle East is headed to: augmented reality.

To celebrate the United Arab Emirates National Day 2011, technologists and designers at Obscura Digital created an augmented reality canvas over the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque and the Al Jahili Fort in the Gulf region. Augmenting reality with a projector, and images is a new way of celebrating without creating waste. Although the 44 projectors with a combined brightness of 840,000 lumens does create carbon emissions, we avoid all the toxins and dangers of fireworks –– which the Middle East people so love. See below for mind-blowing images and video.

augmented reality, Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque

The Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque is itself a stunning piece of architecture, highlighting the stunning design and attention to details made famous in the Middle East. On a huge scale, consider the projected area goes over a surface 600ft wide x 351ft high, this new project shows some of the best in eastern design.

Here’s the whole video of the Obscura Design event in Abu Dhabi

Ceramic Cookware Fire Sale After TV Expose

Maurice Picow
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7
Ceramic Cookware Fire Sale After TV Expose

ceramic pan health hazard, IsraelMaurice goes to the store in Israel and sees a “fire sale” of ceramic cookware in Israel – 70% off.

Public awareness of product defects and dangers can work wonders. This appears to be the case with the recent Israel consumer awareness program Kolbotek that pointed out the dangers of cooking with some brands of  ceramic “no-stick”  coated cooking ware.

Kolbotek caused panic among Israeli consumers when the show pointed out that some of the ceramic cookware brands, such as Neoflam, contain high amounts of poisonous metals such as lead and cadmium. While the jury is still out on the effects of the pans, stores are slashing the prices to get rid of potentially defective and dangerous cookware. Maurice’s images above and below, show us so.

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Recycled Furniture from Middle East Rugs and Doors

Karen Chernick
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Recycled Furniture from Middle East Rugs and Doors

"upcycled rug chair"Recycled furniture by Israeli designer Naama Futerman. She gives disposed objects a second life.

If all the products that we ever used or came into contact with only had a “Chapter One”, our landfills would be overflowing.  Thankfully there are people out there, such as Tel Aviv-based designer Naama Futerman, who help give discarded objects what she calls a “Chapter Two” – a second chance to be useful.  Scouring the streets of Tel Aviv for other people’s “junk”, Futerman uses objects such as old carpets and unwanted wooden doors to create interesting pieces of furniture.

Her seemingly antique throne chair, pictured above, is made out of the remains of a carpet that someone tossed out in favor of a more modern look.

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Scotland Lands First Renewable Deal Between Masdar and a Nation

Susan Kraemer
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1
Scotland Lands First Renewable Deal Between Masdar and a Nation

scotland-lands-deal-masdar

Scotland’s first Minister Alex Salmond will travel to Abu Dhabi this week  to address an audience of world leaders at the  World Future Energy Summit as a guest of Masdar.

(Related: Global Clean Energy Brokers Meet at Abu Dhabi Emergy Summit)

But additionally, in a first-ever contract with a country, the clean tech giant Masdar is about to sign a ground-breaking contract with Scotland, and Mr Salmon is there to ink the deal. “This is the first agreement of its kind between Masdar and an individual nation and will work towards developing further university research into renewable energy” said Mr Salmon.

Under the agreement, Scottish universities will work with Masdar academics to develop new wind, solar, wave and tidal technologies. 

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PIP Implant Scare Underscores Natural Options for Breast Enhancement

Tinamarie Bernard
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3
PIP Implant Scare Underscores Natural Options for Breast Enhancement

breasts on tomatoeCan growing and maintaining a healthy pair start in your garden? Tips for improving breast health without silicon.

Call us trendsetters: here at Green Prophet, we’ve long been reporting on breast health as well as the environmental concerns women face with regards to proper care and nutrition of their curves. Now, with the recent news that as many as 850 Israeli women have the faulty breast implants made by a French firm, and thousands more in the Middle East, the consequences underscores two important particulars: Breast enlargement for vanity’s sake is highly controversial from environmental and health points of view.

What’s more, natural mastogenic compounds make getting implants virtually unnecessary for many women, if they only knew about them.

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EU Emissions Tax Blows Change into Middle East Airways

Faisal O'Keefe
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1

etihad diamond class
Time to scale down on Diamond Class sleeping suits? Image via Etihad

United Arab Emirates-based airlines, Emirates and Etihad Airways warn of higher ticket prices as they seek to pass on costs of a European Union (EU) aviation carbon trading scheme to passengers. Dubai’s Emirates will spend almost $52 million US this year to purchase additional emission allowances, with Etihad facing a $394 million bill over the next nine years, according to the head of environment of that Abu Dhabi-based carrier.

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A Face Swap Tool for Training and Internal Comms

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How a tick bite can lead to a life-threatening meat allergy AFG

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Imagine developing a severe allergy to steak after a single tick bite. That's the reality for people with alpha-gal syndrome, a rapidly emerging condition linked to lone star ticks and other tick species. As researchers uncover how tick saliva rewires the immune system, health officials warn that hundreds of thousands of Americans may already be living with this unusual red meat allergy.

Russia’s Arctic superdeep oil drill revives debunked ‘infinite oil’ theory

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Russia is reviving the controversial abiotic oil theory with plans to drill superdeep holes in the Arctic. While small amounts of abiotic methane exist deep within the Earth, most geologists reject the idea that commercial oil reserves originate from non-biological processes, raising questions about the environmental cost and scientific value of the project.

Code Red from the Galapagos: human drugs and sunscreen are polluting the sea

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Millions of visitors swim in the pristine waters of the Galápagos each year, but new research suggests sunscreen chemicals and other human-made pollutants are reaching even the islands' most protected marine habitats. Scientists are calling for urgent monitoring to safeguard one of Earth's most iconic ecosystems.

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