Roasting in the summer, freezing in the winter? Welcome to life in my Jerusalem apartment, and thousands of others like it. But if buildings are built according to environmental and climatic principles, it doesn’t have to be that way. “Jerusalem has virtually the perfect temperature for houses,” explained green architecture consultant, Valentina Nelin when I […]
“If the Israeli government can ever formulate a binding peace accord with the Palestinians, both entities could have access to enough natural gas reserves to satisfy their energy needs for at least 100 years.” This statement was made a few years back by a representative of British Gas, one of the world’s largest energy exploration […]
Buckle your (cyber) seatbelts and prep your imaginary passports, because this week we’re continuing our green journey. After eco touring other Middle Eastern countries – such as Jordan, Lebanon, Iran, Syria, Egypt, and Israel – we’re off to pay a green visit to Yemen. Yemen, like other countries in the region, has a variety of […]
In a special guest post, Steve Chase, the founder & director of the Environmental Advocacy & Organising course from Antioch University in New England, shares with Green Prophet his reflections from a University-wide event held this past february in the US that examined climate activism from both Jewish & Christian perspectives. “This week, Antioch University […]
Israel’s water crisis has been in the news a lot lately. We have all heard how low the Kinneret (the Sea of Galilee) is, and seen suggestions on how to save water this summer. Although it receives much less media coverage, water scarcity has also become a major issue in the Palestinian Territories. This past […]
The recent attention given by the news media and this blog concerning our water problems in general, and to the depleting the Kinneret in particular, reminds me of a poster I saw once in a surfing products shop that read: “The Next War in the Middle East Will be Over Water.” Although the poster really […]
“Make sure to place your organic waste in the buckets outside and please use our shampoo and soap when you shower so chemicals don’t enter or gray water system,” my hostess explained to my family as we first arrived in Amirim. I immediately felt at home. We’ve been covering lots of eco-tourism tips and organic […]
Israel’s fastest-growing supermarket chain is the upscale Tiv Taam, where customers can browse shelves of international beers, pick through extensive cheese selections and even purchase pancetta to include in their gourmet dishes at home. At Hinnawi, a Yafo-based butcher with a branch inside the shopping mall in Ramat Aviv, customers can choose between 17 kinds […]
The word “organic” can be applied to many things in our modern day lives. Most commonly, it applies to food that has been grown organically (meaning without pesticides). But as a quick search in Webster’s dictionary showed us, the term organic means “of, relating to, or derived from living organisms.” And Tel Aviv’s “Don’t Panic […]
You’re eating a bag of chips while walking down the street. As you finish you look around to find a trash can but nothing is in sight. Do you drop it? If the city doesn’t bother to make waste bins available, why should you care about the city’s cleanliness? How about eating a piece of […]
Ful medames; ta’miyya; bissara — fava beans have given rise to iconic dishes across the Middle East. Egyptian cuisine is unimaginable without them. They’ve been a staple in the region for about eight thousand years, and were one of the first plants cultivated for food. Most often, they are used in their dried form: rehydrated […]
One of the wonderful elements of the open market is that we actually do have the power to make changes. You don’t like the way a store treats its customers? Tell your friends to complain. If that store is smart, it will change it’s ways. This can be applied to environmental products as well. If […]
If you switch your oven off a few minutes before your food is ready it will stay hot enough to finish cooking the food. Also try to avoid opening the oven too often to check whether your dinner is ready by doing so you are allowing the heat to escape and your oven will have […]
Last week in Haaretz, Naamah Lanski reported on the new green police in town. They’re about a meter tall, can’t read or write yet, and you better not throw away plastic bottles (or any other recyclables), leave lights on, or even pack lunches in plastic bags around them. That’s right. Israel’s kindergartens are going green. […]
Should Israel’s premiere environment preservation group support settlement activities? Regarded as one of, if not the, most respected environmental NGOs in Israel, the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI) has a lot to be proud of. Perhaps best known for its tours and field schools, it also works on grassroots community initiatives […]