Basson's passion for the land and its native edibles began when he was a small boy roaming the hillsides and abandoned gardens between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Arab women taught him to forage wild herbs; his father taught him the names and uses of culinary and medicinal plants growing in the home garden.
Concerts are a good way to bring environmentalism to the streets and the general public. Over the past few years, we’ve seen this tactic used to promote the green cause a few times in the Middle East, like the used-falafel-oil-powered Earth Day concerts in Tel Aviv and the “Don’t Panic, It’s Organic” concert. The practice […]
Coyote land or parking space for solar energy? Ask the coyotes first solar energy companies are finding out. Solar energy project promoters may not be paying attention to the ecological impacts of installing large solar panel installations in non-settled desert areas. This issue was brought up recently following the revealing of plans for companies like the […]
[youtube width=”560″ height=”400″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urOoczH5DWE&feature=player_embedded[/youtube] Political extremists launched a boycott campaign targeting Israel last year, pressuring Spain into expelling Ariel University Center (AUC) from the 2010 Solar Decathlon as Green Prophet reported. The Solar Decathlon is an international competition that calls on students in Europe to build a self-sustaining solar house. Ariel’s team was chosen as one […]
Walking the streets of any modern city, you are likely to encounter wasted materials. Materials that – with a little imagination, skill, and love – could be transformed into something beautiful and new. Materials are thankfully being snatched up by design studios all over Tel Aviv in order to recycle and reclaim them. Some of […]
Dolphins “trawling” behind fishermen’s trawling nets are getting snared at sea. If you love fish, there is nothing like catch from the Mediterranean Sea. But extensive commercial fishing, a new study finds, is endanging the sea’ dolphin populations. This has been shown in a new study carried out at the University of Haifa’s Department of […]
Wind versus sun on the Golan Heights: which will win? The Golan Heights, currently under dispute by both Israel and Syria, was thought to become a major location for wind power in Israel when we posted our first Green Prophet article about it back in August, 2008. At that time, there was already a wind farm […]
The Jerusalem Seminar in Architecture, an international conference series initiated in 1992, is devoted to discussing contemporary issues in the fields of architecture, urban planning and design. And since green design is one of the most important issues in contemporary architecture, the last conference (25-27 of January, 2009) was on the subject of Green Design: […]
During the celebrations for Israel’s 50th anniversary in 1998, Israel’s senior publicists were polled to name the most effective public relations campaign in Israel’s history. The winner? A 1965 campaign to publicize the new law prohibiting picking wildflowers. Until the law was passed, families and groups of schoolchildren, along with their teachers, picked flowers as […]
As a kid who grew up in Canada with natural gas heating, cooking and a natural gas clothes dryer, it’s great news to see that a Canadian company, the Bontan Oil and Gas Company, based in Toronto, has found what could be up to $6 billion dollars worth off natural gas off the coast of […]
It can take decades of forest growth before the ‘cooling’ CO2 sequestration can overtake these opposing ‘warming’ processes, finds new study on Yatir Forest (above). We’ve been buying carbon credits, and have been busy planting trees hoping to stave off climate change, but the simple formula we’ve learned in recent years – forests remove the […]
A new fund based in Abu Dhabi to accelerate clean tech has just closed its first round of financing. Masdar City is expected to get a big boost. Abu Dhabi’s “Masdar Clean Tech Fund” just completed its first closure, and was successful in raising an impressive $265 million. The fund is co-managed by Masdar Venture Capital […]
When most of us think about retirement homes, we think about sad, isolated places with TVs turned to the highest possible volume, very few visitors, and a faint smell of old soup. Not so in Neveh Amit in the Jerusalem area, where the residents are energetic and environmentally conscious. The residents/gardeners (aged 75 to 100) […]
Better Place’s financial batteries get “supersharged” with a massive $350 million investment. If you’ve been following clean tech news, you’ll know that Shai Agassi’s Better Place electric car development company has received a substantial “charge” for its financial batteries by receiving funding of $350 million. The investment comes by way of a consortium of investors that […]
Pipe use and smoking is increasing in the Middle East, but new research shows this habit is bad for your heart. While westerners are already too aware of the dangers of smoking, the Middle East culture has a long way to go in education and smoking laws. In some countries, such as Iraq, more and […]