Question: What product do we buy just to throw out again? Answer: Garbage bags. New “green” products, like biodegradable garbage bags, are a hot topic. But it’s usually best to manage with fewer products instead of buying more, even if they are “green.” In most cases, biodegradable bags pose less danger to landfills and groundwater and […]
Bats find no-man’s land makes a great “hang-out.” Image via Yuvalh. The song lyrics ask, “War — what’s it good for?” Well, conflicts between peoples may create new opportunities for displaced and endangered animals. Haaretz newspaper reports that Ph.D. student Eran Levin of Tel Aviv University’s Department of Zoology has discovered one of the most […]
Moshe Safdie’s Habitat ’67 designed for Montreal World Fair a model of sustainable living. Image via Wikipedia. Sustainable building is gaining some speed in the Middle East, but at a pace that is powerless against escalating climate damage. The Gutman Visitation Center’s Living Building in Jerusalem and Qatar’s LEED certified convention center offer good examples […]
Etsy, for those who don’t yet know, is an online forum for handmade products. The handmade revolution is green in and of itself, since it attempts to reduce reliance on machine (and electricity powered) made products, but Etsy goes even greener than that. Etsy makes it easy to shop green by making it easy to […]
e-GEO satellite monitoring of Dubai’s Palm Island. Can technology protect the endangered Persian Gulf? Saudi Arabia’s fragile desert and coastal environments will now get “help from above,” thanks to an initiative by a group of Saudi Arabian and European partners (GAF AG and e-GEOS) who have completed a project to implement and provide satellite-based environmental information […]
An Israeli scientist has found a way to pull solar energy from pea plants. If harnessing the unlimited solar power of the sun were easy, we wouldn’t still have the greenhouse gas problem that results from the use of fossil fuel. And while solar energy systems work moderately well in hot desert climates, they are […]
Destertec and Masdar (above) are heating up solar energy opportunities in the Middle East. Tap into this new energy at the 2nd Annual MENASOL conference, this year in Egypt. Image via Masdar website. Green Prophet wants to remind you about MENASOL –– the major solar energy conference taking place in Cairo, Egypt this May. You can […]
Projects like Dubai’s “The World” will cause untold damage of shoreline erosion and habitat loss. So do modern ports, threatening endangered species. But there are solutions, says US expert. Coastal waters are evolutionary hotspots, says Jerry Berne, a shoreline expert from the NGO Sustainable Shorelines in the US. Based in Charlotte, NC, USA, Berne is […]
Support the organic cotton business in Egypt by buying Under the Nile brand toys and baby clothes. While Israel’s Katanchic is making groovy cotton baby clothes, and Turkey is brandishing their organic cotton in the steamy markets of Istanbul, Egypt has long been lauded as the Middle East’s king of cotton. Under the Nile, founded […]
Green Jeddah project wants to teach Saudi youth importance of recycling, cleaning up toxic waste and pollution. Saudi Arabia’s interest in environmental issues and projects is now being tailored to attract the country’s large youth population, now said to compose as much as 60% of the entire population of 28 million. In an article published in […]
Poissins are baby chickens. This recipe calls for pine nuts stuffing.
The Dubai municipality seeks to increase the emirate’s green areas by 4% by the end of next year, including new public parks and additional landscaping, ArabianBusiness.com reported today. According to municipality officials, there is currently the equivalent of 13.18 square meters of green space per capita in Dubai. The aim is to nearly double this figure and […]
Cairo could flood over if climate change predictions come true. Image of smoggy Cairo via ninahale. The Egyptian Minister of Agriculture Amin Abaza confirmed last week that the ministry had prepared a strategy for sustainable agricultural development until 2030. (This comes after gloomy reports for the Cairo region by the year 2020) He said that […]
Yosef Gotlieb, educator and writer, opines on critics of Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth. Image via asterdata. In a meticulously reasoned essay appearing on the Opinion page of the March 1, 2010 edition of the International Herald Tribune (New York Times, Feb 28), Al Gore succeeds in disarming and discrediting the champions of climate change skepticism. […]
The rare and beautiful dugong inspired “tails” about mermaids. This strange creature faces extinction in the Middle East. Image via Christian Haugen. Can you believe that between six and seven thousand “mermaids” still live in the shallow, saline waters of the Persian Gulf? Better known as dugongs or sea cows, these slow moving, gentle herbivores […]