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Bali Green School is a Model for Green Education Everywhere

Miriam Kresh
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Bali Green School is a Model for Green Education Everywhere

image-green-school-bali

Jewelry maker John Hardy’s wife dragged him to a movie he didn’t want to see: An Inconvenient Truth, the film documenting Al Gore’s campaign against global warming. “It ruined my life,” says Hardy.

“I have four kids. Even if part of what Mr. Gore says is true, they’re not going to have the life that I had.” (See Green Prophet on Al Gore’s campaign here.) ” I decided at that time that I would spend the rest of my life doing what I could do improve their possibilities.”

Hardy and his wife, Cynthia are North American ex-pats who met, married, and raised their family on Bali. When they retired, they decided to give back to the community. They built an eco-school where children from kindergarten age through high school learn how to live in sustainability with the environment and each other. (We reported on a Middle-Eastern eco-school here).

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Is Israel’s Oil Shale Pie Big Enough To Shift Oil Politics?

Tafline Laylin
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Is Israel’s Oil Shale Pie Big Enough To Shift Oil Politics?

usgs-oil-shale-israel-jordan-mapRupert Murdoch announced that Israel’s oil shale could potentially shift the international oil dynamic. A 2005 USGS survey presents a less optimistic view.

With the recent announcement that Rupert Murdoch and Lord Jacob Rothschild have bought shares in Genie Oil & Gas Inc., which owns 89% of the company, Israel Energy Initiatives (IEI), granted license to conduct an oil share exploration project in Israel’s Elah Valley, we started thinking: if the big players want a slice, it must be some kind of delicious oil shale pie.

Not so much, according to a 2005 United States Geological Survey. There’s a lot of it. But it is not all easily accessible and the quality is inconsistent, sometimes mediocre. Jordan’s reserves, on the other side of the Dead Sea, are much better. 

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NGO Takes IEI/Genie Oil Shale Plan To Israel’s High Court

Tafline Laylin
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NGO Takes IEI/Genie Oil Shale Plan To Israel’s High Court

adullam-district-elah-valleyDavid fights Goliath again in Israel’s Elah Valley: Union for Environmental Defense takes on Genie Oil & Gas Inc., now backed by some of the world’s most powerful banking, media, and oil barons intent on destructive oil shale exploration.

In 2008, Israel’s Ministry of Infrastructure granted Israel Energy Initiatives (IEI) the right to produce gas and liquid fuel from oil shale in the Elah Valley, where David fought Goliath, without requiring an environmental impact assessment or master plan. (Al Gore calls oil shale “utter insanity”). On 15 August, 2010, the Union for Environmental Defense challenged the legality of those rights, and requested a revocation of IEI’s mining license from the Israeli High Court. A court date is still pending.

The Ministry of Environment pledged it would insist the company produce an environmental impact study prior to proceeding with their pilot project. But last week Globes announced that Lord Jacob Rothschild (2nd cousin to eco-ambassador David de Rothschild) and Rupert Murdoch purchased shares worth $11 million in Genie Oil and Gas Inc., the company that owns 89% of IEI, adding formidable power to the program.

The media mogul told Globes “If Genie’s effort to develop shale oil is successful, as I believe it will be, then the news we’ll report in the coming decades will reflect a more prosperous, more democratic, and more secure world.” No mention has been made of the pending court case.    

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Gore Says Oil Shale is “Utter Insanity” (VIDEO)

Green Prophet
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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0sJm5CDXCc&feature=related[/youtube]

As a quick follow-up to the new oil shale pilot about to be conducted in Israel, here is a video of Al Gore saying how oil shale exploration is “insanity.” From the 2008 video, speaking about oil shale in America, Gore says: “It would vastly multiply the amount of CO2 from every gallon of gasoline. This is utter insanity and demonstrates that the wealth and power and influence of the entranced carbon lobby to twist policy and put out illusory impressions about this is overwhelming free debate.”

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Tiny Nation With Expertize in Rising From the Ashes of War Gives Help to Palestine

Susan Kraemer
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Tiny Nation With Expertize in Rising From the Ashes of War Gives Help to Palestine

japan palestine The Japanese International Cooperation Agency is finalizing “a corridor for peace and prosperity”so the PA can bypass exports via  Jordan. Solar power is in the plan.

Japan is funding the creation of a $100 million 111.5 hectare agricultural-cum-industrial park near the ancient Palestinian city of Jericho. About $5 million of this amount is to go towards a solar power array to provide power for the park. This week, JICA announced that the first section of the park will be complete in 2012.

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Interview With Israeli Designboom Competition Winner Anna Braverman

Tafline Laylin
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Interview With Israeli Designboom Competition Winner Anna Braverman

designboom-winner-anna-bravermanAlready on her way to international acclaim, Israeli designer Anna Braverman talks to Tafline about the designboom competition, the philosophy of design, and life as a student in Japan.

The winner of the Tokyo Designers Week in Japan and designboom endangered species competition, Anna was chosen out of 2,078 participants from 86 different countries. The competition called for entries that would draw attention to the plight of endangered species in a fresh and inspiring way. In a way that would catalyze positive action.

Called “Living Tracks”, Anna’s entry depicts the footprint of various species of plant and animal and human gradually diminishing to one shoe print – driving home how homo sapiens have effected such widespread destruction of biodiversity. It’s just one of several powerful pieces that Anna has under her sleeve. Here she shares a few more, along with a glimpse into her brilliant design mind.

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Middle Eastern Grassrooters That Keep It Environmentally and Socially Responsible

Karen Chernick
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Middle Eastern Grassrooters That Keep It Environmentally and Socially Responsible

Not all environmental organizations and projects have tunnel vision – some focus on social responsibility as well.

It’s unfortunate that environmental and social responsibility don’t automatically go hand in hand.  What green changes would be possible without effecting society?  And since when does anything involving society or people not effect the environment?  But most organizations and initiatives take a narrower look at things and avoid the environmental-and-social-responsibility-bigger-picture combo.  Which is why it’s so great when you finally do hear of an organization, person, or initiative that casts a wider net.

A few projects encompassing both environmental and social responsibility have popped up in the Middle East over recent years, in all kinds of fields including (among others) food, clothing, and the arts.

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David de Rothschild Responds To Green Prophet’s Oil-Shale Plea

Tafline Laylin
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David de Rothschild Responds To Green Prophet’s Oil-Shale Plea

explorer-david-de-rothschildDavid de Rothschild responds to our open letter urging him to influence his family member to stop oil-shale exploration in Israel’s Elah Valley.

He was named “Emerging Explorer” by the National Geographic Society, “Young Global Leader” by the World Economic Forum, and “Climate Hero” by the United Nations Environment Programme. The founder of Adventure Ecology, David de Rothschild is particularly well known as the young Rothschild who eschewed banking and eventually became head of the Plastiki team, which built and sails a catamaran made of plastic bottles.

After learning that his second cousin Lord Jacob Rothschild and media mogul Rupert Murdoch acquired 11 percent in equal shares of Genie Energy Corporation unit Genie Oil and Gas Inc., which intends to start an environmentally destructive oil-shale exploration program in Israel’s Elah Valley, we published an open letter to David urging him to contact Lord Jacob to discourage such exploration. Not only did he hear our plea, but he has pledged his support.

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Middle Eastern Oil Companies To Try Solar CSP to Boost Oil Production

Susan Kraemer
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Middle Eastern Oil Companies To Try Solar CSP to Boost Oil Production

solar power gulfSolar power is looking cheaper than the traditional fossil energy that is now used in Enhanced Oil Recovery.

By the end of next month, California-based Glasspoint expects to have finalized a sale in the Gulf of the use of solar CSP to make steam for injecting into oil fields, to help in extracting oil, using a process called EOR (Enhanced Oil Recovery).

Currently, natural gas, a much needed fossil fuel, is burned to make steam for this use.

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Saudi Blogger Gets Death Threats for Quitting a Vegan Diet

Hannah Katsman
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Saudi Blogger Gets Death Threats for Quitting a Vegan Diet

fresh vegetables in the market


A Saudi food activist and former vegan questions whether veganism is for your health, and for the planet.

Vegans reading this post might want to think twice about forgoing a slice of turkey this Thanksgiving. Saudi Arabia-based blogger, Tasha of Voracious Eats, runs a well-known vegan cooking site featuring no animal products. This week she made a monumental announcement: Veganism has caused a severe decline in her health, and she has begun eating meat again. And she is back to excellent health.

Of course, the process was not nearly so simple as that. In her post she describes how the vitamin supplements she was taking weren’t being absorbed by her body, leading to fatigue, depression, pain, indigestion, weight loss, and memory loss.

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Unprecedented Climate Change Research Rig Starts Drilling At Dead Sea

Tafline Laylin
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Unprecedented Climate Change Research Rig Starts Drilling At Dead Sea

dead sea core A ten year dream to dig in the Dead Sea for a history of this portion of the earth’s crust has finally become a reality for eager scientists. It’s a study expected to give unprecedented information about climate change.

It is easy to criticize science for failing to predict the exact temperature to which the earth is expected to rise, or what year it will melt under the weight of our carbon blitz. Climate-change “deniers” then use this lack of precision to throw up their arms, buy hummers, and exploit every last drop of oil left on the planet – at whatever cost. But scientists are up for the challenge.

To find the necessary data to plug into prediction models, a US-manned drilling rig travels around the world churning up samples of the earth’s crust. These are are then used to map out the natural history in each area. That rig, after ten years of urging, has finally landed eight kilometers from Ein Gedi, in the middle of the Dead Sea, where for the next forty days and nights researchers will work around the clock using it to drill for sediment samples that will reveal 500,000 years of natural, and even human history.

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How Books Capture Egyptian Children’s Green Imagination

Tafline Laylin
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How Books Capture Egyptian Children’s Green Imagination

egyptian-children-black-and-whiteInterested in getting your child interested in the environment? Why not try a spunky environmentally-themed book?

Communication absorbs our every day. Even so, sometimes knowing how to communicate certain messages is as tangible as algebra. “Green” media struggles to find the balance between providing pertinent climatic information that bears directly on the public, and being painfully didactic. We hang upside down, pull funny faces, scream, and even whisper – all with the  admirable intention of persuading people to act on the data we share.

Reaching children is even trickier. How do we teach them to not only love nature (which happens easily if they experience its grandeur), but then find the spunk to protect it? Part of the answer may be hidden in the same pages that taught us about the wolf in sheep’s clothing, except now it is apathy whose sneaky disguise must be lifted.

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Israel Cleantech Intelligence: Israel-Jordan Collaboration and 7 More Headlines

Lisa Damast
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Israel Cleantech Intelligence: Israel-Jordan Collaboration and 7 More Headlines

Gulf of Eilat/Aqaba

Israeli GE winners, water shortage plans, Dead Sea insights and more headlines related to Israeli cleantech and the environment.

Israel and Jordan are collaborating on oil pollution combat drills. ETV Motors signed a two-year deal to develop specialty batteries for an aviation company and Israel made its first solar power purchase. For these stories and the rest of this week’s headlines, see below.

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Surprise ! Grand Opening of First Masdar City Building

Susan Kraemer
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Surprise ! Grand Opening of First Masdar City Building

The carbon-neutral Masdar City seems to have been a concept for forever, it seems. In my mind, it has long been filed under “noble theory.” So I was surprised to get an email from Foster+Partners today.

The Architects responsible for the Masdar Institute matter-of-factly announced the opening of the first building in the visionary city-to-be this morning.  Yet, as one of the first town-sized developments in the world to attempt real carbon neutrality – Masdar City has long come up against all the problems inherent in undertaking such an ambitious plan.

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Aga Khan Awards For Architecture Doled Out In Doha Tonight

Tafline Laylin
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china-bridge-school Architecturally excellent, the following five projects are also deemed by His Highness Aga Khan to be the most likely to improve quality of life for Muslims throughout the world.

The Aga Khan Award for Architecture was established in 1977. Every three years since then, His Highness Aga Khan, the Imam of the Shia Imami Ismaili Muslims, has recognized everyone involved with the process of creating projects that aspire to be architecturally, culturally, and spiritually fabulous. All of this year’s 401 nominees (in accordance with competition rules) hailed from regions that have a strong Muslim presence.

Five winners selected from a shortlist of 19 received their awards this evening at a glamorous ceremony in Doha, Qatar, attended by the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, and the Aga Khan. First place went to the Bridge School project by Xiaodong Atelier, which closed the gap between two parts of a village in Xianshi, China, becoming the village’s cultural and spiritual focus.

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