Try turkey with a Middle Eastern flair this Thanksgiving.
Sometimes an entire roast turkey is just too much. And often there’s so much left over, some of it goes to waste. You like to stick to tradition but need a recipe for a smaller, more intimate Thanksgiving celebration. This succulent alternative, with its fragrance of Middle-Eastern spices, fits the menu. And if you find that there’s still some leftover, try our suggestions for delicious pre-cooked foods.
In the next few days, a pilot project to test destructive oil shale extraction, backed with money from the Rothschilds and billionaire Robert Murdoch (who owns Fox News), is slated to begin. We call on David Rothschild to intervene on Adullam’s behalf.
Dear David:
We have followed your Plastiki initiative with great interest, but now fear that your family’s involvement with the Adullam Oil Shale scheme recently announced by Globes will cancel out your good work, establishing a permanent blight on the Rothschild name. While it is understandable that Israel is eager to discover its oil, and to unlatch its energy supply from the generosity of its Arab neighbors, energy from oil shale – among the most destructive means of obtaining energy – is not the answer.
Your second cousin Lord Jacob Rothschild has been duped into believing that the project is environmentally sound – particularly since the billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch is also involved. This could not be further from the truth. Your family and Mr. Murdoch have enough money to live twelve lifetimes. The people who will be displaced if this ruinous project proceeds can barely afford this one. We urge the Rothschild family, and you as its eco-diplomat, to rescind its shares in what could be one of the most devastating projects to hit Israel’s soil.
Which is a bigger environmental sin – imported produce or imported farmers?
For the past few days Israeli farmers have been protesting a governmental decision to cut the amount of foreign workers legally permitted to come work in the agricultural sector, with the demonstration planned to continue tomorrow as well.
The growers have been demonstrating in several junctions across the country, and their most significant act of protest has been to cut off the supply of vegetables, fruits, milk, eggs, fresh fish and poultry to markets and supermarkets all over the country throughout the duration of the three-day strike. Essentially, the farmers are asking that more imported farmers hands be allowed to work so that they can continue to supply the Israeli public with fresh, local produce.
They are asking the government to reverse a decision that would make it extremely difficult for Israelis to be locavores.
Mr. Sawaya makes no claims about changing the world, though his design could use a touch of green blush.
Born and raised in Lebanon, the Italian designer William Sawaya once admitted to admiring the famous Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid. Known for defying all reason and physics, Ms. Hadid’s architecture trumps convention with boundless (and genius) flights of fancy. Is it possible to judge an artist by his or her heroes?
While his architecture and design are decidedly grounded – solid, simple, and elegant, often taking brief sojourns to an earlier, more classical era, Mr. Sawaya also shows signs of whimsy, always managing to put a new spin on the past, reinventing himself with every new collection. Now – as one of Qatar’s “Stars Of Science” judges – he has an opportunity to inspire young Qatari couch potatoes to do the same.
How to make innovation and science as enthralling to a couch potato as contestants in a TV game show? Make scientists and inventors contestants in a TV game show!
The Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development is trying just that, in an attempt to promote the development of innovation in the Middle East. A glamorous show with high production values is to be broadcast by an unprecedented array of 15 public and private Pan Arab TV channels.
Muslim starts sustainable tree planting operation to make Ethiopia green once again.
Visiting Ethiopia after a thirty year absence, Geshaw Tahir an Ethiopian-born Muslim was struck by one thing. The green landscapes and trees that once surrounded his home had all but disappeared and were replaced with dry fields, eroded and ruined after years of deforestation.
Mountain rivers had dried up, temperatures were rising, malaria was spreading and untold destruction had been done to the environment.
Tahir was so shocked by this sight that he vowed to take action.
Accounting student from Gaza University turns from numbers to chips, and hopes to save lives with his new invention.
When a plant that requires sunlight to grow is stuck in the shade, it will adapt by bending in the direction of the sun. Likewise, Gaza’s residents are adapting to a period of energy depredation by creating alternative solutions. Unfortunately, it is not always easy to be innovative in Gaza.
Either explosions occur that undo months of creative work, or it is impossible to order in necessary supplies. One young man, an accounting student at Gaza University, has developed a cell phone chip that can control generators. He expects that this invention will prevent unnecessary generator explosions that have to date claimed more than two dozen lives.
Dating back to the second century CE, archeologists uncover Roman-era paw print this week.
It’s not just ancient Roman baths being uncovered in Jerusalem this week. The Israel Antiquities Authorities are reporting a Roman-era dog’s paw print among its finds. Says Dr. Ofer Sion, excavation director in the Old City of Jerusalem: “Another interesting discovery that caused excitement during the excavation is the paw print of a dog that probably belonged to one of the soldiers. The paw print was impressed on the symbol of the legion on one of the roof tiles and it could have happened accidentally or have been intended as a joke.”
Since the hype clearly failed, Masdar and Foster and Partners have turned to the nuts and bolts of building a sustainable city instead.
Masdar and Foster and Partners (F&P) have eaten several servings of humble pie in the last few months. After a barrage of criticism related to the costs and failed expectations of Abu Dhabi’s Zero Carbon, Zero Waste dream, a scaled-down plan was finally unveiled, albeit still shrouded in some mystery. Given its visibility to date, any kind of clandestine planning would only leave the project vulnerable to more criticism.
If Masdar hopes to regain respect and support, their PR department needs to move in a more transparent direction; judging from a new article in Arabian Business, they may be doing just that. This new tactic allows them to put the rhetoric to rest and demonstrate the minutiae involved in building a zero carbon city – an entirely more respectable approach.
The complicated nature of population growth and movement in the Middle East is highlighted by this note from the photographer’s site: “Shahryar is one of Afghanian children who was born in Iran…Iranian government said all of afghaninan must leave Iran as soon as possible.”
Concerned environmentalists in the Middle East may find another worry to add to their list of frustrations. According to a Huffington Post report, the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is urging young women to marry at 16, in a rejection of the “country’s once effective family planning program.”
This is in line with his goal to increase the number of people – already at 75 million in Iran – upwards to 150 million, and counter-productive to the growing interest in eco-sexuality.
From the source article: Following record birth rates in the wake of the 1979 Islamic revolution, Iran implemented an internationally praised family planning program in the 1990s that dramatically reduced the growth rate. Ahmadinejad has criticized the program as an ungodly and a Western import.
“We should take the age of marriage for boys to 20 and for girls to about 16 and 17,” he said, according to the state-owned Jam-e Jam daily. “The marriage age for boys has reached 26 and for girls to 24, and there is no reason for this.”
In July, he inaugurated a new policy to encourage population growth with financial incentives for every new child born, having previously said the country could feed a population of 150 million.
A recent report in Greenprophet.com, however, points to the consequences of unbridled population growth in the Middle East.
From an eco-sexual point of view, the number one thing an individual can do for the planet is to support efforts geared to reducing the number of children born. Population management, an unpopular topic when first introduced decades ago, is also an elemental component of planetary stewardship.
More on eco-sexuality:
Exposure to Toxins Permanently Damages DNA, Sperm, Offspring for Generations
The Ecology of Sustainable Love
Eco-Tourism in the Middle East: Iran
Arava Power, based in Kibbutz Ketura in southern Israel, is blazing the bureaucratic path for solar fields in Israel.
Israel reached a milestone yesterday in its efforts to add a substantial solar component to its electric grid: National Infrastructures Minister Uzi Landau signed the country’s first power purchase agreement (PPA) for solar energy with Ketura Sun, a joint venture of the Arava Power Company and Kibbutz Ketura.
The government’s commitment to a PPA is required for solar installations generating over 50 KW of electricity and is essential for securing project financing. As APC President Yosef Abramowitz explained to the Green Prophet, “what was a high-risk business until yesterday has now become a medium-risk business.”
EV’s phone home: While charging EV’s at home are most convenient, the Israeli EV company is going for a monopoly – making customers charge at Better Place installed outlets.
By the end of 2012, electric cars will be a definite addition to the millions of cars that already ply the streets and motorways of our planet. One of the companies pushing for the technology of electric cars, Better Place Inc, is already establishing itself as a leader by setting up an infrastructure for its vehicles. Better Place recently imported 13 Renault Fluence electric cars into Israel to test the company’s battery recharging and exchange networks being developed there. But critics say the way that customers can charge their cars is a monopoly.
Getting your sustainable, vegetarian Omega 3 supplements is easy when they’re hidden inside delicious confections.
Getting kids to take their vitamins can be tough, which is why kids’ vitamins conveniently come in all kinds of fun shapes, colors, and flavors. I was a Flintstone vitamin kid myself, but I had friends who took vitamins disguised as gummy candies or toffees. But when it comes to making adult vitamins and supplements, for some reason manufacturers don’t see the need to make them fun. How about Centrum Plus vitamins shaped like the cast of Glee? Folic Acid supplements in the form of gummy worms?
LycoRed, an Israeli-based company, recently came up with an idea to get adult vegetarians to take their Omega 3 supplements.
Climate change ruins all the fun. Higher temperatures have cut the skiing season in half.
Lebanon’s citizens were not dealt an easy life. Their cultural institutions are crumbling, their portion of the Mediterranean is an apocalyptic zone, and every so often their country comes under a barrage of artillery fire because of deadly political disputes. In such an environment, mother nature has historically come last – a big mistake we now know.
While people were looking elsewhere for its answers to the universe, Earth started heating up, glaciers began to wilt, and a cascade of ecological consequences came tumbling down. In Lebanon, that has culminated in the potential loss not only of its national symbol, the ancient Cedar tree, but one of the country’s most celebrated recreational gems: its ski slopes. (Update 2025 – Where to go skiing in Lebanon)
Lebanon has six ski resorts, the most popular of which may be Mzaar (aka Mzaar) which is said to have “world class” facilities for tourists, even platform lifts found in fancy restaurants. Previously avid snowboarders and skiers could sink their teeth into pristine powder for up to three months at a stretch. But rising temperatures have changed that, according to Reuters.
Mzaar’s manager Christian Rizk refuses to acknowledge that climate change will force a shutdown, insisting instead that the resort has managed to adapt to change. He is willing to acquiesce, however, that times have been rough.
“Last season was catastrophic,” he told Reuters on a sunny late autumn morning near the barren slopes of Jebel Sannin, Lebanon’s second highest mountain at 2,695 meters. “This year we are installing new ski-lifts higher up, above 2,000 meters.”
As Reuters points out, many species climb to higher altitudes in order to reach cooler temperatures, including the Cedar tree. With temperatures climbing, the tree will have no place to go.
“I couldn’t give you a specific date when we might see the last cedar on our mountains, but eventually that might happen,” Vahakn Kabakian, an Environment Ministry official preparing Lebanon’s next climate change report to the United Nations, explained to Reuters.
By 2040, Lebanon could lose 40 percent of its snow, which will not only destroy snow-related tourism, but will also have a devastating impact on groundwater aquifers usually replenished with snow melt. As early as 2015, Lebanon may not be able to keep pace with demand, though the capital is already hydrologically bankrupt.
“In Beirut, summer demand for water already exceeds what the network supplies — partly because around 40 percent is lost to leaks — so many people pump from wells. Over-extraction from coastal aquifers has led to seawater intrusion and salinity,” according to Reuters.
So, if you live in Lebanon (or anywhere else in the hot and dry Middle East), now is a good time to fix those leaky pipes and install a good water catchment system on your roof. You’re going to need it.
No more Mr. Nice Guy! Interpol intends to step up regulation of illegal wildlife trade and other environmental crimes.
What eventually became The International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) began with fits and starts in the early 20th century. Then the Nazis and disturbing fellows like Reinhard Heydrick, Chief Executor of the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question” took control and diluted its vigor as a non-partisan organization devoted to rooting out international crime.
After 1945, Interpol rose up from the ashes and has since become the second largest intergovernmental organization after the United Nations. Such villainy as child pornography, drug and human trafficking, and genocide all fall under their purview. In a sign of just how serious they are, during the recent 79th General Assembly in Qatar, Interpol resolved to place a renewed emphasis on “green crimes.”
Have news to share? Renewable energy news, architectural, artificial intelligence, biotech, sustainable design ideas, eco-architecture, green travel?
Email us: [email protected]
Get important news delivered directly to your inbox and stay connected!
© 2007 to 2026 Green Prophet, All Rights Reserved