Finance Minister Ronni Bar-On has presented, today, the proposals of the committee on green taxation to the government.
The proposal suggests a sliding-scale taxation model based upon how good the car is for the environment. A car will be given “green points” from 1-100 based upon how bad, or good, the car is for the environment. Based upon its “green points” the car will be taxed as little as 10% and can be taxed as much as 60%.
It’s a yearly ritual in Israel: we worry about rain. We worry when we don’t have rain in the winter, when it is supposed to fall; and we worry when we get rain if it’s the wrong time for the crops. This is not a new phenomenon: the Jewish religion is richly interwoven with customs regarding prayer for rain, and lack of rain is directly linked with divine retribution.
Recently, there have been dire predictions regarding rainfall in Israel; that because of global warming, we are seeing less and less rain. Noam Halfon of Haifa University has conducted a study of rainfall in Israel over the past 60 years, with surprising results.
Just in time for Tu B’shvat is a Sde Eliyahu organic gift package that you can pick up after an on-site bio tour. The kibbutz where’s yours truly spent almost a year, is home to Mario Levi, Israel’s grandfather of organic gardening.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uASd-doKOlk&rel=1[/youtube]We have never seen these “green police” in action, but we’d like to believe that they exist, if only in our dreams. This video is a cheesy commercial for Israel’s Environmental Protection Ministry police, and what they will do to you if you pollute. Watch out! It’s in Hebrew, which makes their Cops-esque slogan sound even scarier: “Those who pollute, will pay.”Rumor has it, that Israel has great laws for protecting the environment, but great difficulties in enforcing them. Budgetary contraints are the reason. A while back, we read that the Ministry was to be hiring private firms that would be collecting fines levied on polluters. It would be interesting to know if any progress has been made.
A great place for marketing your handmade goods is the online arts and crafts website, Etsy. While standing in the rain selling your wares at arts markets, like Nachalat Binyamin can be fun, it can also be extremely time-consuming and boring.
Take our word for it. We’ve been there. Enter Etsy:
The online trading fare, which resembles an Ebay for arts and crafts without the bidding element, has reached a critical mass, with over 100,000 virtual store-owners around the world.
Timna Valley north of Eilat in the Arava Desert, believed to be the ancient site of King Solomon’s mines, is under threat. The pristine valley is in danger of being turned into a Disney-land style hotel complex and spa, and convention hall.
Four hotels are planned for the site, Daniel reports in the Jerusalem Post. There is a “prestigious” spa hotel, a “luxurious” convention center-hotel, a family-style hotel and one especially suited for jeep tours, all linked by a winding waterway for boats and gondolas.
The blueprint also reportedly includes shops, restaurants, pubs, discotheques and a children’s water park attractions.
The hot environmental topic this season, seems to be about banning the bag – the plastic bag that is.Zalul ‘s blog Clear has reported on it this week and has provided a link (in Hebrew) where you can sign a petition to get the plastic bag banned in Israel.San Fran has done it, so has China.Can Israel let go of its bag habit?
It’s Friday, and hey we like videos. Here is a short movie on an Israeli green achievement: the dud shemesh. Israelis were quick to adopt the low-tech technology which uses heat from the sun to warm sink and bathwater.We are pretty sure that the invention was pioneered elsewhere.
But that doesn’t stop us from puffing out our green chests with pride, for how widespread the invention has become in these parts.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4Xz2fLlNpo&rel=1[/youtube] Some people call for Israel to be wiped off the map. We say, put us down on a Green Map. That’s just what a local NGO SPNI and students from Green Course in Jerusalem have done (see the above video). Green Maps is an international enterprise, that lets locals and visitors literally map out ecological and environmental sites of interest.Whether it is cloud-gazing in Alberta or the best vegan restaurant in New York City, Green Maps attempts to tell the story of a place, and let its visitors enjoy local treasures, that would normally take years to find. It is a global word-of-mouth database, that you can help grow.::Green Maps story and Jerusalem Green Maps (in English).
Andreas Weil, our friend from EcoOcean called us today excited about a new art event happening next Tuesday night in Dizengoff Mall. Apparently an Israeli architect/artist named Gal Gaon is opening an exhibit, complete with student works, called “Green In Me.”
The exhibit is going to cover 100 square meters in a pavillion at Dizengoff (probably in the basement or the eastern side of the mall). And the project, we are told, is advertising its happening on a blog, which we have yet to see.
So mallrats hanging out in the Dizengoff area next week, take note. We are told it’s to be an exciting and unusual environmental meet. It will last three days. Stay tuned for updates.
Update: here is the blog – Green In Me
Hot on the heels (or should that be, ‘wheels’) of the news that bicycle use is on the rise in Tel Aviv, the municipality in Israel’s second city has just announced that it is launching a ‘pay and ride’ bike rental system.Last week, Green Prophet reported that bike use in the city shot up by 300 per cent in the last decade, which is now set to climb even further with the scheme which aims to provide 1,500 to 2,000 eco-friendly two-wheelers at 100 different stations in the future.So both Tel Avivian commuters and visitors alike will be able to cruise the 74 kilometers of bike baths in the city (the municipality is paving another 26 kilometers to make it 100 in time for Tel Aviv’s centenary in 2009).
Traveling anywhere in Israel from the Holy City isn’t going to be easy on the day President Bush arrives, but it is a perfect day for experiencing the low carbon pleasure of train travel. For a start, Malcha station at 9 a.m is empty – it seems many commuters, tourists or day-trippers have left earlier, or stayed home for the State visit.
Once we get going, precisely at 9.41, the initial part of the journey takes in wonderful views of the Har Giora Nature Reserve, winding around the valley floor, and picking up the course of the Soreq river. Leaving the City this back way, around its rump as it were, gives the traveller the unexpected delight of seeing such fertility. We weave through Cypress groves and olive tree plantations.
Only train passengers and hikers and herders see this. It is an ecological niche; a basin of CO2 absorbing trees, with several types of lichens in abundance.
“You can trace the recent history of Tu B’shevat seders like branches on a tree.”
Nigel Savage, originally from Manchester, England, founded Hazon (Hebrew for “vision”) in 2000. Hazon works to create a healthier and more sustainable Jewish community — as a step towards a healthier and more sustainable world for all.
In 2000 Nigel led Hazon’s first major project, a 3000-mile Cross-USA Jewish Environmental Bike Ride, in which participants cycled from Seattle, WA to Washington, DC, teaching and speaking along the way. They ended at the White House where they received a national award from the EPA.
It was neat to see the billboards are off of Ilan Pivko’s tower, in Tel Aviv today. The Ayalon Highway is pretty much free from all of the billboard clutter. In light of Ilana’s post yesterday, we thought we’d post this little ditty that we wrote for Heeb Magazine this summer, before they canned their Israel issue (or maybe they were just being polite).
It’s about billboards, it’s about Israel, and it’s about advertising junk seeping into your subconscious.
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)
Those timely words written back somewhere between the sixth and eighth centuries pretty much sums up the basic party line for ecologists everywhere.
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