For oil-rich, environmentally vigilant Gulf states, Astro isn’t just another startup story. It is a blueprint for accelerating an energy transition that is now existential, not optional.
Christ’s thorn jujube (Ziziphus spina-christi) also known as the sidr tree is a real, identifiable tree native to the Middle East, and it appears—directly or indirectly—in Islam, Judaism, and later Christian tradition. The connections between the three faiths are not theological agreements but overlapping uses, names, and symbolic associations rooted in the same landscape.
For oil-rich, environmentally vigilant Gulf states, Astro isn’t just another startup story. It is a blueprint for accelerating an energy transition that is now existential, not optional.
Christ’s thorn jujube (Ziziphus spina-christi) also known as the sidr tree is a real, identifiable tree native to the Middle East, and it appears—directly or indirectly—in Islam, Judaism, and later Christian tradition. The connections between the three faiths are not theological agreements but overlapping uses, names, and symbolic associations rooted in the same landscape.
For oil-rich, environmentally vigilant Gulf states, Astro isn’t just another startup story. It is a blueprint for accelerating an energy transition that is now existential, not optional.
Christ’s thorn jujube (Ziziphus spina-christi) also known as the sidr tree is a real, identifiable tree native to the Middle East, and it appears—directly or indirectly—in Islam, Judaism, and later Christian tradition. The connections between the three faiths are not theological agreements but overlapping uses, names, and symbolic associations rooted in the same landscape.
For oil-rich, environmentally vigilant Gulf states, Astro isn’t just another startup story. It is a blueprint for accelerating an energy transition that is now existential, not optional.
Christ’s thorn jujube (Ziziphus spina-christi) also known as the sidr tree is a real, identifiable tree native to the Middle East, and it appears—directly or indirectly—in Islam, Judaism, and later Christian tradition. The connections between the three faiths are not theological agreements but overlapping uses, names, and symbolic associations rooted in the same landscape.
For oil-rich, environmentally vigilant Gulf states, Astro isn’t just another startup story. It is a blueprint for accelerating an energy transition that is now existential, not optional.
Christ’s thorn jujube (Ziziphus spina-christi) also known as the sidr tree is a real, identifiable tree native to the Middle East, and it appears—directly or indirectly—in Islam, Judaism, and later Christian tradition. The connections between the three faiths are not theological agreements but overlapping uses, names, and symbolic associations rooted in the same landscape.
For oil-rich, environmentally vigilant Gulf states, Astro isn’t just another startup story. It is a blueprint for accelerating an energy transition that is now existential, not optional.
Christ’s thorn jujube (Ziziphus spina-christi) also known as the sidr tree is a real, identifiable tree native to the Middle East, and it appears—directly or indirectly—in Islam, Judaism, and later Christian tradition. The connections between the three faiths are not theological agreements but overlapping uses, names, and symbolic associations rooted in the same landscape.
For oil-rich, environmentally vigilant Gulf states, Astro isn’t just another startup story. It is a blueprint for accelerating an energy transition that is now existential, not optional.
Christ’s thorn jujube (Ziziphus spina-christi) also known as the sidr tree is a real, identifiable tree native to the Middle East, and it appears—directly or indirectly—in Islam, Judaism, and later Christian tradition. The connections between the three faiths are not theological agreements but overlapping uses, names, and symbolic associations rooted in the same landscape.
For oil-rich, environmentally vigilant Gulf states, Astro isn’t just another startup story. It is a blueprint for accelerating an energy transition that is now existential, not optional.
Christ’s thorn jujube (Ziziphus spina-christi) also known as the sidr tree is a real, identifiable tree native to the Middle East, and it appears—directly or indirectly—in Islam, Judaism, and later Christian tradition. The connections between the three faiths are not theological agreements but overlapping uses, names, and symbolic associations rooted in the same landscape.
It seems that the Emirate state of Dubai is continuing to construct projects that are not only grand but totally unique as well (see its wind-powered skyscraper here).
Not only do they have world’s first indoor snow ski slope, the world’s most modern and advanced airport, and most luxurious hotel The Dubai Atlantis (with “Bridge” suites going for $25,000 per night), Dubai now can boast the world’s tallest building the 2,684 foot Burj Dubai Tower (pictured left).
Not only is this unique building special for its architectural design (it was built in sections over a 4 and half year period, beginning in September, 2004), it was constructed to withstand the extreme temperature ranges of this Persian Gulf city-state, where external temperatures during the summer can average more than 50 degrees C (122 degrees F).
Although only a portion of the building is actually composed of either offices or residential properties, that portion alone is higher than what used to be known as the Sears Towers in the American city of Chicago.
The building has been specially designed to withstand both moderate earthquake tremors as well as wind resistance to its upper portions. Even so, the top portions of the more than half a mile high edifice have a wind sway of 1.2 meter or 3.9 ft. (And previous reports we’ve covered suggest that no serious environmental impact assessments have been done prior to undertaking these massive land-altering construction projects.)
One might wonder why such a building was built, especially since office suites in the tower go for $4,000 a sq. ft. and residential apartments for a mere $3,500 a sq. ft. But this is just part of the entire scope of this location, which is trying to be the most modern and unique in the world.
Israel’s Lake Kinneret (Sea of Galilee). As compensation for polluting the Yarmouk River, Israel will pump freshwater from the lake into Jordan
As if the regional water scarcity wasn’t bad enough already, Israel will soon begin compensating Jordan with freshwater after oil waste and sewage contaminated the shared Yarmouk River water supply.
After detecting pollution from the Israeli side of the river last week, the Jordanian Ministry of Water and Irrigation suspended pumping from the King Abdullah Canal, which supplies Amman with one-third of its total water demand.
The ministry also filed an official complaint against the Israeli government, claming a violation of Jordan’s 1994 peace treaty with Israel. According to the agreement, Jordan receives 60,000 cubic meters of water daily from Israel’s Lake Kinneret during the month of March. Jordan Valley Authority (JVA) Secretary General Musa Jamaani said Israel will pump up to 180,000 cubic meters from the Kinneret to Jordan, and will pump another 50-60,000 cubic meters this summer.
Mr. Jamaani also indicated that, although the relevant authorities will take steps to prevent similar incidents in the future, there are no safety guarantees. He said, “If it reoccurs, we will close down the waterways and get our compensation. If Israel is fine with supplying us extra water in return for what it pollutes, it’s up to them… the pressure is on them rather than on us.”
While observant Jews bless their food before they eat it, bless first fruits of the season, trees, and guard the cycles of the moon “religiously” to mark their holidays, the Blessing of the Sun occurs only once every 28 years.
The event marking a natural and spiritual phenomenon for Jewish people, will happen on April 8.
According to tradition and (Chabad.org), the blessing of the sun marks the point in time when the sun returns to the exact point in the sky it occupied on the same day of the week during the creation of the world.
So this April, millions of Jews from all over the world are expected to gather to commemorate this day.
Sara Goldstein, a 26-year-old New Zealander will be one of the first to be able to fulfill this commandment this year. “To be the first to bless the sun is quite a privilege,” she said, predicting that thousands of backpackers from Israel along with members of the local community will gather in New Zealand to mark the date.
Green Prophet has presented some solar-powered air conditioning technology developed in the Middle East. While we like to support local innovation, the practical ones might come from afar: A company located in Denver Colorado, USA, have developed on of the most practical solar powered air conditioning systems made to date.
Named the Coolerado, after the mountain state in which the device was developed by its originator and Coolerado Corporation CEO Mike Luby, is a portable completely environmental friendly unit that utilizes both the power of the sun, water, and a clean form of energy from the atmosphere known as psychrometic energy, which deals with the heat transfer of water vapor which results in a virtual cooling process of the air itself.
The units include a set of solar panels which create the electricity used to power the unit. Fresh air is drawn into the unit by means of a special fan. The air then passes through a special filter to remove any impurities, and then enters special chambers known as HMX’s of heat and mass exchanges. Since the air that enters the exchanges contain quantities of water, this water is retuned to outside atmosphere, and the “conditioned” or cooled air is then sent to the structure to be cooled by means of a duct.
To give more efficiency to the solar panels themselves, who lose part of their ability to produce electricity due to overheating, cooled air can be sent to cool the panels from the back side.
My Scottish mother, in her finest Glaswegian accent, used to call my room a “pig sty” when I was a kid. Now an Israeli farm is getting fined for creating a pig sty.
Unbeknownst to many outsiders –– and insiders –– Israel operates farms that raise pigs for selling to the pork market. New immigrants and foreign workers especially create a demand for the pork, while among the mainstream Jewish and Arab population pork is quite taboo.
On February 22, 2009, reports the Israeli Ministry of Environment, the Acre Magistrate’s Court convicted the owners of a pig farm for operating a pig sty without a business license and of polluting water sources.
The defendants were convicted of allowing pig farm wastes to flow untreated into unsealed earth pools, from where they overflowed to open space, littering the public domain and endangering water sources with pollution. In addition, says the Ministry, wastewater was discharged from the pools to open space, using leaking pipes, and pig carcasses were discarded on the ground.
The 2009 Week of Love for Nature, Water and the Environment (in short: the week of peace, love and dupey du) took place this week in Israel. It was the seventh year running from March 13 – 21, 2009, according to the Israeli Ministry of Environment.
The annual event, organized by the Ministry of Environmental Protection, Nature and Parks Authority, Israel Water Authority and Ministry of Education, is meant to raise public awareness of nature, heritage, environmental and water protection, so that future generations will also be able to enjoy natural and heritage treasures and will take steps to protect them.
Events during the week include ceremonies, happenings, tours and activities targeted at a wide range of audiences, from decision makers and heads of local authorities to students and the general public. The aim of the week in 2009: to increase public awareness of nature, water and the environment, in general, and of the protection of wildlife and their environment, in particular, says the Ministry.
Israel has already done it. Now the governments of China and Vietnam are conducting their own safety tests on some baby bath products, such as Johnson and Johnson (J&J) No More Tears, found to be contaminated with formaldehyde and 1,4-dioxane in a report issued March 12 by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics.
Some major Chinese, Taiwanese and Vietnamese retailers have pulled these products from their shelves. The Israeli Health Ministry has stated that U.S. baby products with carcinogenic contaminants are not sold in Israel.
Green Prophet got wind of some new courses when “the Sea” called us this week: The school, the Social Economic Academy, with branches in Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem is opening its spring semester this year with the course: “I buy – I exist: A journey in the trail of the consumption culture.”
The course will take a critical outlook at the recent global economic crisis the consumption Western culture and its implication every Wednesday at 7:30 PM at Bikuri Haitim Center on 6 Hestman St. Tel Aviv.
They offer another course to Israelis, which has a green edge too: “The Space between Food and Capital: facts you never knew about food, environment, society and economy.” Michael Pollan would be proud. According to the SEA the course will deal with the impact of the food industry on the quality of life and will take a outlook on this industry’s political side, the injustice in the global food balance and more.
The “WATEC 2009” Exhibition, along with an international conference featuring a problem-solving forum for water, energy, and environmental technology issues, will be held in Israel on November 17-19, 2009. Time to book your hotels, and airplane if you are planning on coming from abroad.
According to Oded Distel, director of the National Water Technology Program at the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor, approximately half of Israel’s water industry leaders are expected to present a sales growth in 2009 despite the global crisis.
Although Mr. Distel believes that the global decline in demand will affect the Israeli water industry – just as it does other aspects of the economy – there is an opposite and strong trend pointing toward an increased demand for solutions to increasing water production and optimizing its use, which will stabilize the current situation and ultimately generate growth in certain companies.
Israeli Researcher Finds Earth Cracks May Contribute to Global Warming
“Fractures breathe, and this process has direct relevance to the question of global warming,” says Dr. Noam Weisbrod –– With the ever increasing shortage in the world’s water resources and dire warning of Israel’s own ongoing drought, research to reduce contamination of existing water resources while developing new potable sources has become a pressing concern, here, as in the rest of the world.
For example, due to massive deterioration of groundwater quality, the Israeli coastal plain aquifer now provides less than 50 percent of its output 20 years ago.
Thus the need to halt or reverse the degradation of the country’s groundwater is crucially important.
Hydrologist Dr. Noam Weisbrod’s research is providing the basic knowledge that can help in solving this crisis by understanding how pollutants reach the subsurface and how they behave underground.
With people losing their jobs in America left, right and center, effects of the global economic crisis are being felt in the Middle East too. Israelis, whose Gross Domestic Produce relies so much on exports has to scale back dramatically when America loses spending power. Yet people are asking here, why isn’t there more recycling.
Today, Green Prophet’s Jeffrey Yoskowitz, a writer and researcher based in New York, asks if recycling is bad for the economy. To get some background on this piece, read his earlier post on Jeffrey’s tour of a recycling facility.
In a bad economy, it’s often the good environmental practices—using energy-efficient light bulbs, insulating homes, driving less, eating less meat—that end up prevailing, in part because they save people money.
But that’s actually not true of recycling, which, for better or worse, is intimately tied to the health of international markets—and the willingness of countries like China to buy our recycled materials. Right now, demand for those materials has shriveled up, which has been a huge blow to recycling plants.
“We were in the red by December,” says John Haas, the recycling coordinator of Ocean County, New Jersey—and it’s the same story throughout North America.
A factor in annual budgets
Ever since recycling centers became widespread in the early 1990s, they’ve turned out to be boons to municipalities, offering a reliable source of local revenue. The more prosperous and more productive the economy, the more revenue that recycling centers generate.
From the late 1990s up until last October, according to Haas, the price of raw materials was so highly inflated and recycling programs were so successful that many municipalities started factoring recycling revenues into their annual budget. Since 1995, for instance, Ocean County’s recycling plant had shared $16 million with its county government.
But, as a result of the current financial crisis, recycling centers aren’t generating enough money any more, costing the city and county governments much-needed cash.
Drops in demand reflect market prices
Since October, demand for manufacturing materials like aluminum, cardboard, and plastic have dropped precipitously, and so have prices. Aluminum, the most profitable material for the New Jersey recycling centers, was selling at $2,100 per ton back last July, but by January had dropped to $944 per ton, as big buyers like Anheuser-Busch lowered their bids to reflect current market values.
Plastics, cardboard, and paper have all seen a drop in demand as well, both because of the lack of new construction projects, and also—most startlingly—as a result of China’s economic slowdown.
“China is a major buyer of cardboard, newsprint and plastic, and usually pays high prices,” explains Haas. “When they stopped buying, it was very significant.” Until recently, the Chinese had been reliably high bidders on paper and cardboard products, which they would then reprocess into boxes to ship consumer goods back to the United States.
What happens when China stops buying
It was a standard formula that provided a stable relationship between recycling centers and Chinese manufacturing—and it helped prop up eco-conscientious recycling programs here in the United States. And it all made sense as long as China’s economy grew exponentially and its consumer goods poured into the U.S. market.
That fact alone raises a few alarming questions about the relationship between recycling and consumption. Is recycling wholly dependent on the reckless consumerism that is, in turn, responsible for many of our environmental problems today? Do, say, paper recycling and other eco-traditions here in the United States depend entirely on China’s continued breakneck growth?
To be sure, recycling will continue with the recession, and despite the hard times, things are looking up. “It will be a challenging year for everyone, but based on prices for March, we feel much better,” said John Haas. “Things are looking up, and we’ll be monitoring it on a regular basis.”
But for now, with fewer purchasers and lower prices, it seems that recycling centers will be forced to sell once-valued commodities for cheap, undercutting their expenses. And, if things worsen and the markets erode further, a great deal of recycling could halt altogether, putting stress on our landfills.
This, in turn could force manufacturers to seek out virgin raw materials to produce what were once products with multiple life spans. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.
No matter how sophisticated modern medicine becomes, common ailments like fungal infections can outrun the best of the world’s antibiotics. In people with compromised immune systems (like premature babies, AIDS victims or those undergoing chemotherapy for cancer) the risk is very high: contracting a fungal infection can be deadly.
Now Tel Aviv University zoologists are diving deep into the sea to collect unique chemicals — drugs of the future — to beat unnecessary death by fungal infection. And their secret weapon is the common marine sponge.
Prof. Micha Ilan from the Department of Zoology at TAU, who is heading the project, has already identified several alternative antibiotic candidates among the unique compounds that help a sponge fend off predators and infections. He and his graduate students are now identifying, isolating and purifying those that could be the super-antibiotics of the future.
The research group at TAU has found and isolated thousands bacteria and fungi, including a few hundred unique actinobacteria. So far, several tens hold promise as new drugs.
Just when we thought the whole world was in an economic slump: The Jewish Funders Network just announced a $750,000 pool of funds earmarked to match first-time major gifts by JFN members to Israeli non-profit environmental organizations, according to eJewish Philanthropy.
The Jewish Funders Network and the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund Matching Grant Initiative for the Environment in Israel, the website reports, will “offer donors an innovative and effective way to leverage an investment to impact the environment in Israel, a critical field which will have long-term impact on the health, economy, and quality of life.”
“JFN’s matching grants programs are a time-proven tool that produces real impact,” said Murray Galinson, the JFN Board Chair. “We are pleased to be able to be able to be able to offer this tool to help maximize the positive impact that donors can make on the environment in Israel.”
According to eJewish Philanthropy, over the past 4 years JFN’s matching grant initiatives have generated over $60 million in new funds for a wide range of causes. Grants will be $25,000 to $50,000.
Time to polish off your proposals: To qualify for the environmental grant in Israel, your NGO organization/group/project must be based in Israel and directly engaged in environmental work.
Priority will be given to:
activism
advocacy
community environmental activity
public environmental education
or youth environmental education
“The need for protecting Israel’s environment is a growing challenge, even as natural resource depletion and clean water shortages escalate,” said Richard N. Goldman, founder and president of the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund. “There is a pressing need to proactively and effectively address the environmental impact of rapid industrialization and population growth.”
The publicity surrounding the emergency landing of U.S. Air Flight 1549 in the Hudson River, was only the tip of the iceberg in regards to the growing dangers of collisions between aircraft and birds, particularly migratory waterfowl, at major airports around the world.
When theses risks have to do with areas located on major migratory bird flyways, however, the risks are even more apparent as they were pointed out in the near tragedy of Flight 1549, which had taken off from LaGuardia airport, located smack dab on one of the American continent’s major bird flyways; the Atlantic Flyway.
Israel’s main international airport, Ben Gurion International Airport, is in a similar situation, as it is also located in proximity to the Syria-African Flyway, where millions of migratory birds, including ducks and geese, storks, pelicans, cranes and egrets, raptors and other types fly across the length of Israel on their annual migratory flights.
Although no passenger airline as been downed so far by birds over Israel airspace, other types of aircraft including two fighter aircraft in which one pilot was killed when a pelican crashed into his plane in 1974, and in 1980 when a honey buzzard crashed through the cockpit of another fighter jet from which the barely injected in time.
The problem of bird vs aircraft has become an intensive area of study by a Tel Aviv University zoology professor Yossi Leshem, who said that the ability of Flight 1549 pilot, Chelsey Sullenberger, to land his wounded aircraft on the water was a sheer miracle, in light of it’s engines being disabled by a flock of geese being sucked into the plane’s engine intakes.
Leshem has been involved in the study of bird habits in relation to aircraft safety for several years, and was awarded a special prize, The Yithak Sade Prize for Military Literature, in 1994 for a book he wrote entitled Flying with the Birds. The book dealt exclusively with the problems that migrating birds have with aircraft in such a tiny airspace as Israel’s where more than 900 million birds, representing at least 300 species, pass through the country annually.
Because Israel depends so heavily on its air force for national defense, military airbases now use special tactics, advised by Leshem, to keep birds away for runways as much as possible. These methods include the use of trained dogs to scare the birds off, as well as certain sounds and “scarecrow” images placed in strategic locations to scare the birds and keep them away.
More recently, Leshem has been awarded other prizes for his work to protect civilian aircraft from being struck by birds, including a special award given during last May’s 60th Anniversary celebrations. As the risks of civilian aircraft, especially large passenger aircraft increases, due to the relative slowness of the planes when taking off and landing, the risks at commercial passenger airports is even greater, according to Leshem.
In addition to working to prevent accidents between birds and aircraft, Leshem is also involved in joint conservation projects with Jordan and the Palestinian Authority in which birds of prey, such as hawks and owls are encouraged to live on farms to protect crops from rodent infestation. Special nesting boxes for these birds are placed on the farms to encourage a natural form of pest control without the need for pesticides.
“Not only is this a good solution for the farmers; it encourages good relations between the people involved in these projects” he was quoted as saying.
Green Prophet received a press announcement that ZenithSolar, an Israeli start-up company that will license revolutionary solar energy technologies, will be launching its first “solar farm” in April 2009 based on Concentrated Photovoltaic (CPV) systems.
The technology was developed by ZenithSolar based on the technology of Prof. David Faiman working with Dr. Andreas Bett, head of Department of Materials – Solar Cells Technology and his staff at Germany’s Fraunhofer Gesellschaft for Solar Energy Systems to create a solar energy system that is more efficient than any similar solar product.
Prof. David Faiman is the Chairman of the Department of Solar Energy and Environmental Physics at Ben Gurion University’s Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research.
ZenithSolar is set to develop and mass produce the most reliable cogeneration solar power system – with a full vertically integrated strategy – that can be deployed as a distributed energy network. The system will harvest more than 70% of incoming solar energy (as compared to industry norms of 10% to 40%).
Founded in 2006, The ZenithSolar system is price competitive with traditional forms of energy without government subsidies. ZenithSolar concentrated solar energy generation system is based on a new paradigm in optical design and high-efficiency solar cells. www.zenithsolar.com
It seems that the Emirate state of Dubai is continuing to construct projects that are not only grand but totally unique as well (see its wind-powered skyscraper here).
Israel’s Lake Kinneret (Sea of Galilee). As compensation for polluting the Yarmouk River, Israel will pump freshwater from the lake into Jordan
Green Prophet has presented some 
