Is Geotectura’s Sun Sail just another clever design, or is it redefining Israel’s building policy?
Bold and innovative, the Israel-based firm Geotectura produces otherworldly designs with a social conscience that even Bill McKibben might endorse. Their CT-cubes and hovering high-rises rival any science fiction graphic, while the X2S shelter, designed to provide physical and medical refuge in disaster zones, is nothing short of genius. But can their fancy become sustainable reality?
New water conservation faucets, solar-powered residential construction, Red-Dead Canal protests and more headlines related to Israeli cleantech and the environment. Image via n0nick.
During the week of July 13, 2010, researchers from Ben-Gurion University received the first US – Israel energy independence grant for their light water reactor research. Motorized bikes are catching on in Israeli cities and a new estimate places the potential electricity demand that wind turbine usage can meet at two-thirds overall. For these stories and more, see this week’s headlines below.
Greening your office space is also about creating the right “peace” of mind. Read on for tips and inspiration.
Why is it that your office colleague, once so sweet, now grates on your nerves? How could it be the long bus ride to the office, which used to be a relaxing hour to catch up on reading, is now your biggest waste of time? Why did the last staff meeting end in tears? You wonder, “Is it me, them or just the office?”
There are things you can do on both the physical and mental levels to connect the spirit, mind and body at work to effect positive change – which can lead to us treading gentler on Planet Earth. Life is precious and everyone wants their work hours (usually most of your day) to be filled with love, compassion, respect and fulfillment. It can be hard sometimes though. Working with spirit and keeping peace in the office can be like walking a tightrope, especially in the Western world where work is associated with ‘having to do…’ or just as a means to make money.
Just can’t wait to get your hands on some watermelon this summer? Well all for good reason. Image via dreamglow pumpkincat210
Summer is here, we are all melting in the heat and humidity of the Middle East, with our skin drying up so one of the main things on everyone’s mind is cooling down. And then out comes the watermelon, no matter how it is cut or presented this is a popular dessert being both sweet and refreshing. But did you know that it is also incredibly nutritious?
We are all well aware of the fact that watermelons are over 90% water with the remaining less than 10% being sugar. Like many other types of fruit, is a great source of Vitamin C, but there is a lot more to this melon which you might not be aware of, like Vitamin B6 and potassium. Read on.Â
Built by the the Safavid Dynasty in the 1650s as a dam and a bridge, Mehrdad asks how the Khaju (or Khajoo) Bridge in Iran can be restored more sustainably.
Eventually all historical monuments and treasures will need preservation and renovation, like the Grand Bazaar in Tehran, but this should always be done with regards to the original aesthetics, sound engineering and sustainability practices in mind. In some cases it has been observed that poor renovation can cause bad reputation for a monument or even cause damage to some parts of it. This is exactly what happened to the Babylon Palace in the time of governance of Saddam Hossein in Iraq.
An Iranian example of this phenomenon is the renovation of Khajoo Bridge in Esfahan, a city about 340 km south of Tehran. The renovation was started in 2009 by the Iranian Organization of Cultural Heritage and it is still going on. Some experts and cultural activists believe that the method of the renovation can cause serious damage to the structure of the bridge in the long run. The work is being done using of cement instead of the original lime, which was used between the stones in the historic construction. The use of cement is in definite contrast to the sustainable restoration of the monument that was built by natural materials.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3xqfNNYjl8&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
A group of Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian environmentalists have put politics aside to fight a $15 billion World Bank plan to revive the Dead Sea, which is dropping by about three feet a year. The bank’s plan proposes building a canal or tunnel to link the salt-laden sea to the Red Sea in the south.
It may look calm, but the Dead Sea is shrinking rapidly and there’s a battle brewing among those who hope to save it. The environmentalists, members of Friends of the Earth Middle East, along with prominent businesses like Israel’s Dead Sea Works, believe the canal could destroy the sea’s fragile and unique ecosystem.
The Dead Sea, one of the saltiest bodies of water on the planet, is bordered by Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority. While it doesn’t support marine life, it is bursting with minerals and salts which provide healing therapies for people suffering from cystic fibrosis to psoriasis.
Find out why the Dead Sea is shrinking and what plans are afoot to save it in ISRAEL21c‘s report, featured above.
Learn how to reduce the carbon footprint of your wedding with tips from eco-Muslim Rianne ten Veen. Image via Amrufum
The sun is shining and the days are long right now in the Middle East, which can only mean one thing- it’s wedding season! Invitations are flooding in and every night there seems to be wedding party going on into the small hours. Fireworks, food, fancy clothes and fights is how I would usually sum up an average Muslim wedding in the Middle East but is this leaving behind a trail of waste and carbon emissions?
I spoke to Rianne ten Veen of the book ‘199 Ways to Please God’ who came up with some practical advice for couples on how to ‘green’ their wedding as well as their future together. A Muslim convert with a long-standing passion for the environment, Rianne’s suggestions are all based on principles she outlines in her book which are organised around four key areas of Islamic life: beliefs, worship, transactions and moral character.
Fights over rights to a natural gas field between Israel and the Hezbollah, has gone to the higher powers at the UN.
Israel has struck natural gas, and a new cause for conflict with its northern neighbour Lebanon which also lays claim to the massive gas field. The current Leviathan natural gas field dispute between Israel and Lebanon has now reached the United Nations since Hezbollah is laying claim to the gas fields as well.
Although dust could fill up the Gulf in the next 20-40 years, according to scientists, at the moment it feeds the food chain. [image via treehugger]
Whether from nearby construction zones puffing up plumes of dust and contaminating homes, or a sweeping sand storm, dust permeates every crevice of Middle Eastern life. But recent research suggests that dust swept into the Persian Gulf provides crucial nutrients that are then converted to organic carbon – necessary to fuel the marine ecosystem.
The Jewish holiday Tisha B’Av starts tonight. It gives one license to be sad over the state of the environment.
We know that it’s not productive to dwell on environmental doom and gloom. Green Prophet readers are modern and hip people; we are environmentally responsible, but hey, not totally perfect. Every so often, we just need to cry. We can put on a Tori Amos album, curl up in a ball in our beds and weep like there is no tomorrow. And it can feel good, because sometimes the world and what humans do to it is just plain sad.
America gives more than half a million dollars to Israeli and Palestinian water researchers to clean water in the West Bank.
Ben Gurion University researcher Dr. Moshe Herzberg (above) and Prof. Mohammed Saleem Ali-Shtayeh of the Biodiversity & Environmental Research Center in Nablus, have received an American USAID-MERC grant of $659,410 to increase the clean water supply around Israel and the Middle East.
This study brings together Israelis and Palestinians to address clean water issues in the West Bank area of Nablus over a five-year period. The team includes Dr. Moshe Herzberg (BGU), Dr. Osnat Gillor (BGU), Prof. Mohammed Saleem Ali-Shtayeh (BERC) and Dr. Helen Thanh Nguyen, a grant advisor and assistant professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Our weekly series looking at the Middle East Arabic blogosphere. This week: Iraq. And a green blog that began after Saddam Hussein’s demise.
After looking at Mazen Abboud’s environmental blog from Lebanon and at SAWA for A Better Syrian Society, we are flying this week to Syria’s next-door neighbor, Iraq, and to a blog written in Arabic called The Iraqi Environmental Blog, active from September 2008. This comes in due time, as we learn about Iraqi bird conservationists risking life and “wing” to save birds in the face of Al Qaeda infidels.
This blog is a personal blog written in Arabic by Alaa Kamel Alwan (left), an Iraqi engineer. In his profile, Alaa writes about himself that he lives in Basra, Iraq, and that he is “an environmental activist and an informant as well as a member of the Arab Professional Informants League.”
In his first post  titled “the Iraqi Environmental Blog” Alaa Kamel Alwan writes that this is a “personal initiative,” which aims at supporting the realization of the 10th principle of the Rio Declaration from 1992 concerning the transparent distribution of environmental information among the civilians.
As such, this blog informs the readers about: the Iraqi government ministries, newspapers, societies, and universities which deal with environmental issues; the Iraqi environmental legislation; the activities of the Iraqi environmental societies; the Iraqi environmental publications; and reports on the environment in Basra and the Marshes.
Planning is in full swing for ecoQ, an international environmental protection expo taking place in Qatar in September 2011. (From left to right: Haitham Shehab, Dr. Saif Al Hajari, and a member of the ecoQ team)
Next September, the Qatar International Environment Protection Expo (ecoQ for short) will be presenting an international showcase of eco-friendly technologies, products, and sustainable energy solutions. Environmental standards will be enforced in preparing for the exhibition that will take place at the Doha Exhibitions Center from September 17th-19th, 2011 and occupy a 10,000 square meter space.
A tourist soaks up the Egyptian sun. The Middle East is getting hotter, like the rest of the world, but when is too hot, too much?
It’s hot and getting hotter. But nowhere is the more evident than in Southern Asia and the Middle East. And while daytime temperatures are always hot this time of the year in areas like the Arabian Peninsula, and the Indian Sub-Continent, recording temperatures such as 53.7 degrees Celsius (136 degrees Fahrenheit) in places like Mohanjo-daro, Pakistan.
Even European locations like the Canary Islands and Malaga Spain are recording abnormally high temperatures of 38 degrees Celsius or more, reports an article in the UK-based Guardian. A sign of global warming?
Does your skin sometimes feel as cracked and scaly as this? Well there are some natural “mask” solutions, naturally. Image via Photos8.com
If you pay attention to the ingredients of your skin products, you will realize that you are buying something twice the ordinary price because it is especially designed for summer. Then there are those products out there, which claim to be 100% natural, but if you take a peek at the ingredients, you are in for a surprise. Well there are some other homemade completely natural options (like Karen pointed out earlier today with her homemade sunscreen recipe), which can save your skin.
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