It was bound to happen, sooner or later. After the kibbutz – the classic Israeli collective community where members shared everything – urban car sharing services were only a hop, skip, and a car engine purr away. Thanks to new Israeli company, Car2go, the concept of car sharing (which has already enjoyed great success all over the world, including New York and New Jersey thanks to Zipcar) has arrived in Tel Aviv.
So how does car sharing work and why is it green?
The Israel Union for Environmental Defense (IUED) reported that yesterday (September 14) the Israeli government approved plans to place fish cages in the Ashdod harbor. This marine agriculture initiative was removed from the Eilat harbor after a controversy over whether they were harming the coral reefs in the Bay of Eilat/Aqaba. Without getting into the discussion over the situation in Eilat, which was covered extensively in any possible forum, no-one is arguing that the cages will harm the water quality in Ashdod port.
Quite the opposite. Aside from the tremendous activity of large ships, which are a source of fuel and oil contamination, the harbor area includes a large industrial area with oil refineries, a power plant and Agan Chemicals, whose effluent reaches the harbor without passing through a treatment plant. These effluents include such hazardous chemicals as pesticides, methanol, fuel mixtures, ammonia, disinfectants and more, which have accumulated in the port waters over the years.
Although Palestinian environmental activism is clearly on the rise, Palestinians still face a myriad of environmental and social challenges.
These issues often have both ecological and political aspects; the current water shortage, for instance, is influenced both by global climate change and Israel’s policies in the West Bank.
This past year, a team of four British environmentalists came together to address these problems at all levels.
In February 2008, Steve Collings, Tom Fernley-Pearson, Alice Gray and Nick Marcroft established Bustan Qaraaqa, a revolutionary new educational permaculture farm and eco-guesthouse in the West Bank.
In June, the Bustan Qaraaqa team opened their facility in Beit Sahour, near Bethlehem. It consists of both an eco-guesthouse for both visitors and volunteers, and 12 dunams (4 acres) of farmland for teaching permaculture. Currently, the site boasts a greywater recycling system, composting bays, a composting toilet, a series of swales (irrigation ditches) across the valley floor and the beginnings of a rainwater-collecting cistern.
The team reports that they have hosted over 55 guests from all over the world.
Bustan Qaraaqa, which means “Tortoise Garden” in Arabic, represents these activists’ desire to build a grassroots environmental movement in the Palestinian Territories. The aim of the project is to
Shari Arison, Israel’s wealthiest citizen, took advantage of the International Water Congress in Vienna to formally announce Miya. The new company aims to make a profit on cutting back water losses.
Miya says one third of the world’s drinking water is lost through leaky pipes. CEO Booky Oren, a former chair of Israel’s national water utility Mekorot, said by patching even just half the leaks an additional 130 million people could have clean water.
Oren said 1.4 billion people already lack adequate drinking water and that with population growth and urbanization there will be a 40 percent increase in demand by 2025. He said “Miya is the first global company to offer an unparalleled range of solutions, based on innovative technological solutions.”
From September 20-27, a delegation of European environmental journalists, policy makers (ie World Bank and EU parliament), energy and climate change specialists, and activism leaders are coming to the Middle East to explore Israel’s environmental issues, policies, and clean technology.
The whirlwind tour will take these leaders to Hiria (Tel Aviv’s rehabilitating garbage dump); they will visit the renewable energy company Ormat, see solar technology in action, and will learn about Dead Sea issues at the Dead Sea. They will essentially experience different shades of “green” in Israel and discuss and debate with their Israeli counterparts along the way.
This trip, sponsored by the Washington-based Project Interchange gives leaders from international communities, an opportunity to understand Israel’s complicated reality through a “green” lens.
Many companies now offer to send a bill via email instead of it’s snail contemporary. Call your bank, phone company and others to see if you can make the switch. You’ll be surprised, some offer discounts and insentives to make the switch! In Israel, Orange now offers such benefits.
Looking to green your life? Find out more! Have a green-living tip to share?
For four days in November up to fifteen Israeli cleantech companies are to be given VIP access to top decision makers including potential partners, funders and clients in California.
The delegation is being billed as the first of its kind, and will bring the Israeli companies to meet with executives from cleantech leaders including General Electric (GE), Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E), Google, Applied Materials, California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), The Cleantech Group, Israel Cleantech Ventures, US Venture Partners, and Greylock Partners.
This prophet just made the flight from Tel Aviv to his childhood home of New Jersey. After a year of observing Israel and it’s eco-consciousness (and at times lack thereof), I was eager to see how the Garden State measured up to its nick name. I couldn’t help but compare my observations in New Jersey with the realities I’ve observed in Tel Aviv.
Transportation
As expected, the mini-vans and SUVs still dominate New Jersey roads despite the high gas prices. There are no scooters and very few small cars. A few hybrids can be spotted but they hardly enough to make a difference. Here Israel really has the advantage on New Jersey.
Recycling
Perhaps the greatest thrill of in New Jersey was the simple act of drinking Root Beer in a glass bottle and then ever so simply placing it in the recycling bin. This is nothing new in New Jersey but it speaks to a major deficiency in Israel’s green policies. Israel’s lack of recycling has always frustrated me to no end. It’s appalling. At my most motivated I’d collected hundreds of glass bottles and separated them into different sizes and varieties and walked them over to various supermarkets, sometimes being turned away and sometimes being forced to wait for upwards of half an hour. At my weakest moments I’ve…[gasp] actually thrown away foreign wine bottles that the supermarkets wouldn’t recycle. It felt awful. Then there’s the whole issue of plastic bottle recycling being controlled by the Mafia, which makes it hard to feel happy when placing one’s bottles in those yellow cages in Israel’s streets
An Israeli Real Estate mogul partners with Ormat and gene company Evogene to investigate castor oil crops in Africa.
L.L Biofuel Namibia of the Leviev Group and Evogene (announced yesterday) that together with Orfuel, a subsidiary of geothermal power giant Ormat, they will establish a new company focused on the growth of specialized castor plants for use as feedstock for biodiesel. The new company will be headquartered in Namibia, with operations in Namibia and possibly other locations in Africa.
According to the terms of the agreement, the new company will examine various castor varieties in field tests in Namibia, and following the selection of best performing varieties, the new company will work to commercialize and grow the selected varieties on a commercial scale in Namibia, and possibly in other locations in Africa.
Guest reviewer Jeremy Zauder relishes two views of ethical development in a special double review this week: part of our ongoing Green Prophet ‘Eco-Reads’ green book summer festival:
‘Spiritual Compass’ and ‘Free To Be Human’: Reading these two fine books in succession, I found that they could be companion texts: though different in style and focus, each appealed to a different part of my brain and stimulated lively discussions.
It was good to read “Spiritual Compass” [by Satish Kumar] first. The book is a pleasant, fast read, with nice hand-drawn illustrations. The preface (by Deepak Chopra), the foreword, and “An Invitation” may be too much as an introduction because the same principles are repeated throughout the book.
The framework of Kumar’s topic is the three qualities of life, or three gunas of the Vedic tradition: sattva is the shining moral example towards which we should strive; raja includes the transforming stimulating actions of pursuits for gain or display; and tamas is the inert, dark, destructive means and ends which we should strenuously avoid. For an in-depth comparison of these models, please see the chart I compiled while reading Three Gunas.
These three qualities can be applied to all aspects of life. Sattvic environmental solutions offer simple long-lasting benefits with minimum impact and maximum harmony between people and nature. Rajasic ideas are more complicated. They deal with symptoms, not causes, and are unnaturally forced upon the environment. The root of the word comes from “rajah”, or king. Governments may attempt to lead us towards good, but they usually fail because the goal is not achieved by worthy means. Too much rajas leads to tamas, an empty, depressing, harmful state of existence.
There are many types of environmental activists. Not only are there those concerned with one type of environmental issue rather than another (such as being more of an advocate for organic farming than for alternative energy), but there are those involved to a higher degree than others.
No matter their differences, however, the big picture and the overall goal remain the same and so it is important that environmental activists be able to collaborate instead of fight against each other.
Which is why the Sustainability Brothers (yes, they’re literally brothers – ask their mom) are so wonderful. Active in different realms of the environmental world, they nevertheless work together and are strengthened by their differences. And so even though these brothers are not active in the Middle East, we hope that their collaboration (despite their differences) can serve as a model for populations in this region that may not be inclined to work together on environmental issues.
So who are the Sustainability Brothers?
We’re now just over a week into Ramadan, and hopefully those of you that are fasting have settled into a comfortable routine. For any of you that may still be trying to find your way, though, we thought we’d do a bit of research into the best ways to keep your eating healthy and earth-friendly during the month:
If you don’t, perhaps you know someone who does? Save your old t-shirts. If cut & sewn into long strips connecting them into one big ball of “yarn” they can be crocheted or knitted into heavy afghans, blankets, bedspreads, lap covers, rugs, or clothing, such as hats, scarves, or shawls and ponchos. Guaranteed, that you’ll have the hippest, funkiest looking clothing that everyone will want a piece of!
Check out other funky clothing opportunities!
Looking to green your life? Find out more! Have a tip to share?
One of our favourite Green NGO’s in Israel, Bustan, are holding a special tree planting event tommorrow (Thursday the 11th of September) at Segev Shalom.
With the help of local Bedouin residents, Bustan are planting an orchard (bustan, Hebrew and Arabic) as the first event of their new ‘Tree’s For Life’ project, which aims to green the desert with Indigenous trees for Indigenous communities, both Bedouin and Jewish, and provide education about the local ecology.
At the event tomorrow, which starts at 8.30 am at the Segev Shalom municipality building, storytelling and information about the trees will be available: but everyone is expected to roll up their sleeves and plant!
How can you recycle your paper and plastic when there’s nowhere to put it in your neighbourhood? It’s not just recycling facilities that are in short supply in East Jerusalem, but also environmental consciousness in general, as I found out recently whilst researching environmentalism among the 200,000+ Palestinian residents of the Holy City. My lack of Arabic notwithstanding, looking for environmental activists in East Jerusalem (short-hand for Arab neighbourhoods situated in the north, south and east of the city) was like searching for a needle in a haystack.
But hours of phonecalls and combing the internet eventually brought me face-to-face with a handful of dedicated Palestinian activists, educators and NGOs working to raise ecological awareness among their community in Jerusalem, as well as nearby Bethlehem, Ramallah and elsewhere in the West Bank.
Without getting too sidetracked with politics here, many of the Palestinians that Green Prophet spoke to felt they have other matters on their plate instead of bothering with flora, fauna and global warming. Even so, dedicated activists and educators are working hard to raising awareness in their communities. One of those people trying to fill the green gap is Sami Backleh (pictured), based near the Old City’s Damascus Gate, who explained why his passion is educating young people in his community about the environment:
“It’s not an easy task, but it’s important and I have to work at it,” says the freelance environmental consultant who also works as a Middle East co-ordinator for the Quebec-Labrador Foundation. “I hope it will benefit them in the long-run. It is initiating ideas in the minds of students, they are fast learners and it is creating a leadership of the future.”
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