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Best Way to Defrost Food

Jack Reichert
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Best Way to Defrost Food

The best way to defrost food is in the fridge. It not only keeps the fridge cool, meaning the fridge itself will use less energy to stay cool, but often people leave food out too long with defrosting which causes their food to collect unwanted bacteria.

Many other people use their microwave to defrost food. While it’s debateable whether microwaves are bad for your health it certainly is energy-wasteful.

The only problem with defrosting in the fridge is that you have to decide the night before what you would like to eat for the next day…

Looking to green your life? Find out more! Have a green-living tip to SHARE?

FoEME to Hold Conference on Shared Mountain Aquifer

Rachel Bergstein
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FoEME to Hold Conference on Shared Mountain Aquifer

Friends of the Earth Middle East (FoEME) is a longtime advocate of sustainability and environmental peacebuilding in the region.  Fresh off the pages of Time Magazine, where FoEME’s directors were recently named Heroes of the Environment 2008, FoEME is hosting a conference next week as part of the Pro-Aquifer project.

Over the past two years, the Pro-Aquifer team has worked with pilot municipalities in both Israel and the Palestinian Authorities to assess threats to the shared Mountain Aquifer and develop policy guidelines for pollution prevention.  From these initial case studies in Umm el Fahem on the Israeli side (seen above) and Tulkarm on the Palestinian side, FoEME developed general policy guidelines for all communities in the Mountain Aquifer recharge area.

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Israeli Ministry of Tourism to Invest 20 Million NIS in Promoting the Cycling Tourism Industry

Karen Chernick
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Israeli Ministry of Tourism to Invest 20 Million NIS in Promoting the Cycling Tourism Industry

You first heard it here on Green Prophet a few months ago – the Israeli Ministry of Tourism is spearheading initiatives to promote eco-friendly, green bicycle tourism.  You may also remember that it announced in August that it would be allocating 100 million shekels towards developing the field (which, ahem, is not the number that appears in the title of this post).  But have no fear – 100 million shekels have been allocated overall and 20 million will be invested in the first five years (2009-2013).

According to Tourism Minister Ruhama Avraham-Balila, “the Tourism Ministry is leading the way in promoting the cycling tourism industry with the objective of turning it into an essential component in the leisure and entertainment culture of Israel.”

The Ministry of Tourism has already got the wheels turning (so to speak) on this project and an interim report on the project was recently presented.  The report includes plans to:

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World Usability Day Launches Global Transport Challenge

Green Prophet Guest
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World Usability Day Launches Global Transport Challenge

impact of transportation on environment World Usability Day

World Usability Day was founded in 2005 as an initiative of the Usability Professionals’ Association to ensure that services and products important to human life are easier to access and simpler to use. Each year, on the second Thursday of November, over 225 events are organized in over 40 countries around the world to raise awareness for the general public, and train professionals in the tools and issues central to good usability research, development and practice.

The local Israeli chapter will host the day’s events at the Open University campus in Raanana (see the UPA website for more information; discount price for registering until November 4th).

Each year holds a special theme and then every local event focuses lectures and other initiatives around the subject. This year’s theme is transportation. This follows the Public Transportation Day held in September.

Since transportation has a vast impact on the environment it was decided to raise awareness through a personal challenge.

The Global Transport Challenge is an easy way for you to understand how YOU USE transportation every day and the impact it has on our environment.

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Israeli Army Tries to Go Green

Karen Chernick
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Israeli Army Tries to Go Green

Israeli army goes greenWhen thinking about the Israeli army (or any other army, for that matter) becoming more “green” or environmentally conscious, skepticism is unfortunately the first thing that comes to mind.  Military activity is nasty business, leaving detrimental traces on human relationships, governmental spending, and the environment – to name a few.

Which is why a recent article by Batsheva Sobelman in the LA Times about the Israeli army going green definitely got us standing at attention.

Sobelman’s article, which refers to specific experiences of individual soldiers, explains the specific impact of the IDF on the Israeli environment.  Fifty percent of the Negev is fire zones, with the IDF practicing occasionally in an additional 20 percent overlap area in the Negev.  Translation: there’s army activity going on all over that desert.

So what does that mean for the environment?

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European Union to Help Protect Palestinian Environment

Rachel Bergstein
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1
European Union to Help Protect Palestinian Environment

For Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, lack of infrastructure is a big obstacle for protecting the environment.  Old and malfunctioning infrastructure (or often none at all!) for properly managing things like solid waste and sewage is a major threat to the Palestinian (and Israeli!) environment.

Luckily, however, the European Union announced earlier this week that they awarded 5.2 million Euros to the Palestinian Authority help improve solid waste infrastructure, and therefore help keep the environment healthy and clean.

The donation will go to 26 municipalities in eleven different Palestinian governorate, which were marked as those most urgently needing support for the solid waste management.  The money will go towards the procurement of garbage collection vehicles, containers, and equipment to help manage dumpsites properly, and will be managed by the Palestinian Ministry of Local Government.

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Conference on Corporate Social and Environmental Responsibility in Tel Aviv

Karen Chernick
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3
Conference on Corporate Social and Environmental Responsibility in Tel Aviv

Businesses play a huge role in our everyday impact on the environment.  The way that businesses conduct themselves – ranging from what services or products they provide, to what means they use to provide them, and what kind of energy consumption habits they have – all effect their carbon footprint.  And since we live in a society where businesses are greatly relied upon to do things for us – our carbon footprint is directly related to what businesses we choose to support.

Maala – Business for Social Responsibility, a non-profit organization founded in 1998 to promote socially responsibile corporate behavior, understands the importance of improving our impact on the environment and is integrating this issue into an upcoming conference this Tuesday in Tel Aviv.

Among the many questions that the conference will address, the 600 conference participants will discuss whether sustainability can be a basis for a profitable business model.

The conference’s agenda includes a round table discussion, titled “Who is Responsible for the Environment?” chaired by Dr. Miki Haran, former Director of the Ministry for the Protection of the Environment, and Jerry Greenfield’s speech (that’s right, of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream), “If It’s Not Fun, Why Do It?”

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Middle East Reporters: Consider Society of Environmental Journalists

Daniella Cheslow
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Middle East Reporters: Consider Society of Environmental Journalists

society of environmental reporters

Although there is no shortage of environmental disasters and cleantech innovation pouring out of Israel, there is only so much English-language coverage the local newspapers can take. So if you have already begun pitching stories to the American media, you may want to consider joining the Society of Environmental Journalists.

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Emefcy's An Electrifying Solution for Wastewater Treatment

Karin Kloosterman
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Emefcy's An Electrifying Solution for Wastewater Treatment

emefcy wastewater sewage electric israel photo
Industrial and municipal waste doesn’t go away when we flush it down the drain. It takes an enormous amount of energy for treatment plants to process it, while massive environmental and financial costs go into disposing of the leftover sludge.

Now, two Israelis are about to change the way we look at wastewater, by turning its constituents into a valuable source of power.

Emefcy (M.F.C Microbial Fuel Cell) was founded in 2007 by Eytan Levy and his partner Ronen Shechter. It aims to harness a bacteria found in nature that produces electricity as it decomposes organic matter.

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Kazakh Yurts in an Organic Desert Garden

James Murray-White
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Kazakh Yurts in an Organic Desert Garden

yurt israelA little out of place, a yurt in the Israeli desert offers a neat eco-treat.

Feeling jaded from all the holidays in this country, we decided to retreat to the desert for Shabbat (the Jewish day of rest). And this was no ordinary retreat: arriving into Moshav Dekel, in the Eshkol region of the Negev (bordering on the Gaza Strip), our spirits lift when we see our destination: 36 Figs – A Kazakh Yurt Desert Experience. Following on from previous Green Prophet posts about other yurt destinations in Israel, as a sometime ger/yurt builder myself, having spent time living in them with nomads in Mongolia, I have long wanted to get out and see what’s here – who are the yurt fanatics in Israel, what materials do they use and where are they based.

Boris Moldavski and his wife Rivka are immigrants from Russia, who arrived here many years ago and first lived in Nazareth Illit. Being an engineer, Boris moved around the country a lot, until he and other Russians were offered land down in Sinai. On barren desert soil they created the community of Yamit – until it was evacuated in 1979 after the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt.

Six-hundred families, including Boris and Rivka moved, and many of them came to the Eshkol region, founding 6 new agricultural communities, including Moshav’s Dekel and Avshalom, within an area collectively known as Hevel Shalom.

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Meeting Your Green Love

Daniella Cheslow
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1
Meeting Your Green Love

Winter is on its way, and with it the bone-chilling cold that penetrates every poorly insulated apartment in Israeli cities. Now is the perfect time to stop contemplating global warming alone, and one American Web site, Greensingles, promises to help its members connect to other carborexics with this pitch:

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What to Do With All That Whey – Make Biscuits!

Hamutal Dotan
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What to Do With All That Whey – Make Biscuits!

whey biscuits
As you may recall, we recently delved into the wonderful world of cheese-making. And when we did, we told you to save up all that leftover whey, as we’d be featuring it in a recipe sometime soon. Soon, dear cooks and bakers, has arrived.

Now, what if you don’t happen to have embarked on the previously mentioned cheese-making adventure, and thus don’t have a jar of whey kicking around in the back of your fridge? Fret not, for this recipe is charmingly adaptable, and you can use just about any liquid dairy product you happen to have on hand: milk, buttermilk, cream, even leben thinned down with a bit or water or milk would be great.

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Eco-Rabbi: Genesis and Environment

Jack Reichert
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Eco-Rabbi: Genesis and Environment
Yonathan Neril, Eco Bible, Eco Rabbi
Yonathan Neril, co-author of Eco Bible, Interfaith Center for Sustainable Development

“Look at My work, how beautiful and perfect is everything that I created. I created it for you. Be careful not to ruin and destroy My world. If you ruin it, there is nobody to restore it after you.” (Ecclesiastes Rabba 7:28)

What is an eco-rabbi? It’s a person who brings the Jewish faith message to the environmental movement.

It’s not only about carbon offsetting and it’s not about who’s right. The above passage is the bottom line. In this week’s Torah segment God creates the heavens and the earth. He gave it to us “to work it and to keep it” and it doesn’t look too good at the moment.

World-renowned physicist, Stephen Hawking, exclaimed: “The survival of the human race depends on its ability to find new homes elsewhere in the universe because there’s an increasing risk that a disaster will destroy the Earth.”

And the Norwegian government along with the Global Crop Diversity Trust (GCDT) has created a Doomsday Vault. Some 700 km from the North Pole they have established the vault to preserve a wide variety of plant seeds from locations worldwide in an underground cavern. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault holds duplicate samples of seeds held in genebanks worldwide to provide insurance against the loss of seeds in genebanks, as well as a refuge for seeds in the case of large scale regional or global crises.

This all sounds grim but guess what? It is. I usually like to keep these posts upbeat, but there is so much to do yet before we can exhale, knowing that we are leaving a true legacy and not a mess for the upcoming generations.

Let’s not let our climate’s tipping point come and go without a fight. With the new year in let’s all take on a little more. It’s about making change, and lot’s of it!

How about start your conversation with the Eco Bible.

Winter Gas Savings

Jack Reichert
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Winter Gas Savings

car, snow

Cold is on its way in, as tends to happen this time of year, and along with it different driving conditions. Rain and snow seriously inhibit a car’s performance and with it the mileage. Here are a several tips to help you save for these upcoming months:

  • Tune up! Make sure that everything is in tip-top shape. If your car is not running smoothly it wont give you the bang for your buck that you are relying on.
  • Add weight – While during the summer it’s a bad idea, making the engine work more burns more gas, but during the winter it has the opposite effect. If your car has proper traction it won’t have to struggle to get a grip.
  • Check your pressure – For every 5 degrees Celsius the temperature goes down, the air pressure in your tires reduces by one pound per square foot. Keep tabs on your tires for easy riding.

Thanks Daniel for the tips!

Looking to green your life? Find out more! Have a green-living tip to SHARE?

Eco-Friendly Fun for Kids from Israeli Designer, Inbal Limor

Karen Chernick
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0
Eco-Friendly Fun for Kids from Israeli Designer, Inbal Limor

Inbal Limor Israeli designer sustainable artAmong the many environmentally conscious Israeli designers that we’ve featured here on Green Prophet, we wrote about Inbal Limor’s art made out of reused plastic bags a few months ago.  As you may remember, she makes beautiful high art (that could easily be hung on your wall) out of lowly, ubiquitous, everyday plastic bags.

Inbal is now making green designs for a younger audience – kids.

Not only are these products whimsical and fun, but they teach the younger generation some valuable lessons.  First of all, they encourage environmentally responsible behavior such as reducing waste through reuse.  They also encourage creativity when thinking about the environment and the world in general.  And lastly, they prove that being ‘green’ can be fun and mean that you have lots of cool things to play with!

Inbal’s new designs include:

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The Christ’s thorn (sidr tree) is also a well-known folk medicine

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