Breastfeeding is a natural and “green” way for a mother to feed her baby. Yet misconceptions about how to breastfeed and for how long pervade our modern world. These misunderstandings can lead to frustration and distress for the whole family during a challenging period. Green Prophet gives you 10 reasons to shatter any myths and misconceptions.
Misunderstandings vary, depending on your country and culture, but in Israel, which is similar to European and North American countries, I preface my examples with a telling anecdote. Keep reading for 10 very important misunderstandings and tips about breastfeeding that can change the way your new baby is nourished.
A mother, who worked from home, had just enrolled her 14-month-old daughter in kindergarten (Hebrew: gan) in Israel. Until starting gan the toddler nursed freely throughout the day.
Marlene Ferrer and Johanan Herson are “trying to be artists in the middle of Tel Aviv,” without relinquishing their environmental consciousness. Creating eco-art in an urban setting, Ferrer joined with Herson to found Gebo Gallery Studios as a working, teaching gallery that explores artistic choices in the context of social and ecological awareness.
The installation Wrapping Gebo – Art in Action celebrates the studio’s second anniversary. Ferrer and Herson will paint together on recycled paper that covers the gallery walls. “We are opening up a personal process and inviting people to observe,” says Herson.
Visitors will be able to interact with the work by adding words to the painting. The more introspective Ferrer prefers to work in silence; Herson says he will be open to talking to visitors while he paints.
Canadian-born Herson, who immigrated to Israel in the 1970s, has an extensive theater background, which certainly makes him the artist more likely to talk to the audience. Ferrer, originally from South Africa, has always found her inspiration and materials in the natural environment. In the Galilee she collected stones which she either painted or used to construct sculptures. When living in Herzliya she created totems from wood scraps. A move to Tivon ten years ago was once more reflected in her work. She began to collect palm leaves, assembling them into tall human-like figures.
Last week we wrote about Kibbutz Kramim, a cooperative in the Negev that is currently working on building a multicultural model of environmental sustainability in the form of an eco village.
And this week we’d like to introduce you to Elias Messinas, the green architect behind the operation.
Messinas’ firm is the strategic environmental consultant to the Kramim Eco Village project, which will begin construction during the summer of 2009 and include LEED Platinum certification or compatibility, follow the European Directive for Energy Performance of Buildings, Israeli ‘Green’ Standard IS 5281, and the principle of “One Israel Living.”
The materials used for construction will be local, with an emphasis on low-energy and low-emission materials found in the area such as earth (to make adobe bricks) and straw bale.
In addition to Kramim, though, Messinas works on a variety of architectural projects in Israel, Greece, Cyprus, and the USA. His other projects in Israel include the Mei Mabuah Ecological Center (in the Negev).
For those of you who hate scorching your feet on hot beach sand, the developers of one of Dubai’s latest luxury hotels has the ultimate pampering for you: the climate controlled beach.
No more toasted toes on the way to the waves of the Arab Gulf, promises the Palazzo Versace. The beach will feature a cooling system that will cool the sands and allow the guests to bask in the sun without becoming overheated.
“We will suck the heat out of the sand to keep it cool enough to lie on,” said the founder of the hotel, Soheil Abedian. “This is the kind of luxury that top people want.”
Technological solutions to cool the Middle East sand?
So, how do you keep the sands cool, and can you do it in an environmentally responsible way?
One reported solution is to run coolant pipes under the beach in order to draw the heat out of the sand, and bring it to a comfortable temperature in the scorching heat of the United Arab Emirates.
Sea water itself could be used, in conjunction with a refrigeration/air conditioner system, or on its own. Another source reports that cool sands could be achieved by a combination of clever landscaping and shading by trees, or by forcing air conditioned exhaust air from the hotel and residential building under the beach.
Just roll out the red carpet
While the second solutions appear to be more environmentally responsible, the only effective solutions seems to be the ridiculous option of refrigeration. Maybe putting down a carpet would be the best.
And does it really matter whether it is green, if 60% of Dubai’s power bill goes to air conditioning, and expensive luxury high rises with all of the latest amenities are springing up everywhere, causing traffic jams, congestion and pollution?
In keeping with the ever-expanding search for the ultimate tourist attraction, Dubai has an impressive:
The global economic crisis, causing a shortage of disposable income and a severe credit crunch, is bad news for an economy based on tourism, shopping and real estate projects: Dubai’s economy gets less than 6% of its revenue from petroleum and natural gas, as part of a calculated policy to depend on trade, real estate and financial services.
Well, winter is upon us and the rain is finally dampening the earth but that does not mean that we should forget about our water conservation efforts.
One way of saving water and keeping our little ones a little more dry-eyed is by cutting back on bath-time. Coming from England where water conservation was never at the top of the list I was surprised to know that we have a much more eco-friendly (and baby friendly) method for keeping baby nice and clean with or without the bath towel.
Here in Israel (and the Middle East), talking to friends and fellow mums, it seems most people are convinced that baby needs bathing every day. This is not really necessary from a water saving point of view, nor for your stress levels, as not every baby is fond of bath-time and most importantly it is not really beneficial for your baby.
Bathing your baby every day strips their delicate skin of their natural oils and can leave their skin dry and vulnerable. It simply is not a must.
While rockets fly overhead, Bat-Zion Benjaminson tends her garden. The religious mother of four hopes to establish an eco-village in the moshav (cooperative community) of Shokeda, which is located just six kilometers away from the border of Gaza.
According to Bat-Zion, the war being fought in the area is not just with rockets.
“This is an ecological war zone,” Benjaminson told the Jerusalem Post.
We are on the edge of the desert here and our goal is to make it recede. This is a very logical place. That is why I am here. Because it is less expensive, I can achieve sustainability quicker. We are on the cutting edge of ecological living.
Bat-Zion hopes that she and her children will be the start of an eco-village within the existing moshav. Right now Eden’s Herbs Farm, as she has named it, is tended by Bat-Zion and volunteers from abroad. They grow herbs that are native to the region as their main cash crop, as well as bananas and other cultivations–all without pesticides, of course. Chickens roam free of any chicken coop.
First up is a screening of Urban Legend – an environmental documentary by Nitzan Horovitz that was presented a few months ago at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque.
After the 50 minute film is shown, a panel discussion including Horovitz and Orli Ronen-Rotem (the CEO of the Heschel Center) will take place. The movie will be shown on Tuesday, January 6th at 5:30 pm and is free and open to the public (RSVP required to [email protected]).
Green Prophet would love to invite the Splash icon to Israel and other Middle Eastern countries. See the video below where Daryl Hannah, the foxy American actress-turned environmentalist, explores eco-tourism in Egypt.
Some tips to be learned from the vid. For more eco-tourism stops in Sinai-Egypt see our post on Eco-Tourism in Egypt.
This isn’t the forum for politics, but unfortunately so much of what decisions are made in the Middle East (ie funds allocated, prayers made) are determined by the conflict. Above, see a video of the consequences of the Israel-Lebanon war 2.5 years ago.
As an Israeli, I know that untold environmental damage happened south of Lebanon in Israel; thousands of trees burned, landscape devastated. But we know all too well, environmental issues are not confined by borders, and affect all of us on this planet.
Instead of choosing sides, would it be naive to ask people — especially those with limited understanding of what’s happening in the Middle East –– to fight for the environment instead?
By the end of December, almost no rain had fallen on Jordan, says IRIN, threatening crops of vegetables, wheat and barley. Farmers from Deir Ala, in the northern Jordan Valley, said that their government had stopped pumping water to their farms for irrigation in order to keep drinking water reserves stocked.
If you think things seem pretty dicey in the Middle East right now with Israel and Hamas fighting, according to IRIN, expect tensions to become a whole lot worse, once global warming comes into play. Rising sea levels, they say, will have severe environmental, economic and political implications for the already water-stressed Middle East.
The report they site is called “Climate Change: A New Threat to Middle East Security,” written by Friends of the Earth Middle East (FOEME), who we’ve blogged about extensively.
(Does this guy look worried about the frost? A smokin’ vegetable vendor in a Petach Tikva market, Israel. Credit anyalogic)
While North Americans in the higher latitudes are sipping hot cocoa, and have Jack Frost nipping at their noses, farmers in the Middle East pray that the frost won’t come. Last year, sub-zero temperatures wiped out millions of dollars worth of crops in the region, causing basics like lemons to cost a fortune in the supermarket.
Farmers so far, reports The Jordan Times, are in the clear from frost. Although temperatures dipped to sub-zero this week night as a cold and dry air mass overwhelmed the region, Jordan’s Agriculture Ministry officials said no reports on crop damage were received.
The officials, however, renewed a call on farmers to take precautionary measures against frost formation to avoid vast crop damages similar to what happened early last year when over 15,000 dunums of vegetables were damaged in Jordan alone.
In this week’s segment from the Torah, Parshat Vayigash, Jacob and his family go down to Egypt to Joseph, who is now second, only to Pharaoh, in Egypt. On his way down the Bible explains that Jacob went via Beersheba.
The Midrash Bereshit Rabbah, a sixth century commentary on the bible, notices extra language used to describe that journey and explains further. It explains that Jacob, on the way down to Egypt, stopped and cut down the cedar-trees that his grandfather, Abraham, planted.
The Midrash continues that Jacob foresaw that his great-great grandchildren would need that wood, in the desert, to build the Tabernacle on their way back to Israel. This was built from the cedars of Lebanon.
The people of Israel, while in Egypt, kept the wood intact. They did not use it for anything else; their purpose was passed down from one generation to the next. If they had been used for idolatry, while in Egypt, they would not have been suitable to be used in building the Tabernacle. But the message was passed on, along with the wood, from one generation to the next. This message was one of hope that the wood would be needed, on their way out of slavery, back to the Promise Land.
This Midrash has a message of its own, a message of hope as well. Deuteronomy (20:19) likens man to a tree. In Judaism, this parallel is significant. The Midrash is telling us that Jacob passed the message that while in Egypt the Israelites need to remain a holy people; trees fit to worship God in the building of the Tabernacle.
while in the worst conditions, slaves in a society that stood for everything that they did not believe in, they remained a holy people, and the wood was usable in the building of the Tabernacle.
Today we are at a crossroad, similar to the one that Jacob was at. We are living during difficult times, and there may be more difficult times ahead. It is important now, more than ever, to pass the message of the tree onto our children, both actually, and metaphorically. We need to replenish our forests, and all that that signifies: a symbiotic relationship with our planet and a sense of responsibility and caring for the future.
We also need to replenish the forests in our souls: the message that no matter what the situation – markets crashing, war, poverty, global warming or terrorism – it does not justify actions that are in any way less than human. This is the message of Jacob and this is the message that we need to pass on to our children if we want our world to heal on a global level.
With the bombing and chaos in Israel and Gaza right now, it’s a little hard to focus on positive green news from the Middle East. My passion for it, is a little clouded by all the politics and news of violence. See my latest post on TreeHugger “When the Green Side of Israel Gets Tainted Black.”
So instead of looking for green news from the Middle East region, where many people from both sides of the Green Line are looking to survive, we take you from our regularly scheduled programming, and re-visit Tania Guenter, a friend I met in Tel Aviv from New Zealand, as she eco-tours it around Vietnam. You can read her previous post on Where Things Come From in Vietnam.
With so much negativity in the southern part of the country and the Negev right now, it is refreshing to learn about positive things going on in the region, such as the blossoming eco-village Kramim.
Founded recently by a group of visionary young Israelis and immigrant families, Kramim hopes to serve as a multicultural model of environmental sustainability in Israel. As the writers of the Eco-Village Kramim website describe themselves:
“Using sustainable design and ‘green’ architecture, combined with environmental technologies and services, Ecovillage Kramim is set to become a thriving hub of social and business entrepreneurship, multicultural partnerships, fair-trade, environmental initiatives, and a source for the protection of the environment and wildlife in the Negev.”
Marlene Ferrer and Johanan Herson are “trying to be 
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If being more environmentally friendly is one of your New Year’s resolutions, you might consider going to one of the great “green” events hosted by the 
